: Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary Containing Remarks upon his Review of the Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing the New Testament to the Old by English George Bethune - Rationalism

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Posting Date: March 25, 2012 First Posted: February 13, 2008

A Letter To the Reverend Mr. Channing Relative to His Two Sermons On Infidelity

LETTER, &c.

Rev. Sir,

Your eloquent and interesting Sermons on Infidelity, I have read with the interest arising from the nature of the subject you have discussed, and the impressive manner in which you have treated it.

As it is understood that the appearance of those Sermons was owing to a Book lately published by me, I request your pardon for a liberty I am about to take, which in any other circumstances I should blush to presume upon-it is sir, with deference, and great respect, to express my sentiments with regard to some of the arguments contained in them, where the reasoning does not appear to me so unexceptionable as the language in which it is enveloped, is eloquent and affecting. There are also some opinions of yours relative to matters of fact, in those discourses, to which I would respectfully solicit your attention.

It afforded me much pleasure, though it caused me no surprise, to perceive you to say in your introductory remarks, that these Sermons were designed to procure for the arguments for Christianity "a serious, and respectful attention" and, that if you should "be so happy as to awaken candid and patient enquiry," your "principal object will be accomplished" you wish, "that Christianity should be thoroughly examined," you do "not wish to screen it from enquiry." It would cease, you observe to be your support were you not "persuaded that it is able to sustain the most deliberate investigation."

In considering Christianity as a fair subject for discussion, you do justice to the cause you so eloquently defend for Christianity itself honestly, and openly professes to offer itself, to the belief of all mankind solely on account of the reasons which support it; and since its learned, and liberal advocates always announce, and recommend it from the Pulpit as reasonable in itself and confirmed by unanswerable arguments; no one who believes them sincere can doubt, that they are perfectly willing to have its claims openly discussed and think themselves amply able to give valid reasons, "for the faith that is in them," and which they so earnestly invite all men to receive.

You observe, p. 13, that the writings of Infidels, "have been injurious not so much by the strength of their arguments, as by the positive, and contemptuous manner In which they speak of Revelation, they abound in sarcasm, abuse, and sneer, and supply the place of reasoning, by wit and satire." If so sir, it is all in favor of the cause you defend; for the tiny weapons of wit, and ridicule, will assuredly fly to shivers under a few blows from the solid, and massy club of sound logic. The man who attacks any system of Religion merely with wit, and ridicule, can never, I conceive, be a very formidable antagonist.

The mental imbecility of the man who could touch such a subject as religion in any shape with no other arms, would render him a harmless adversary, and the intrinsic weakness of such shining but slender weapons, when encountered with something more solid, would eventually render him a contemptible one, I therefore cannot help doubting, that wit and ridicule alone, and unsupported by reasoning, and good reasoning too, could ever have been very successfully wielded against such a thing as the Christian Religion, by its opposers.

No man it appears to me of common understanding will ever resign his religion on account of a few jokes, and bon mots. The adherence of such men as are weak enough to be subverted by such trifles can do as little honor to Christianity, as their abandoning it for such reasons, can affect it with disgrace. The belief of such men could never have been more than habit, and their Infidelity nothing else than a freak of folly, which is reproachful only to themselves. But after all, this vehement objection to wit and ridicule, appears to me a little imprudent; for a sarcastic opponent might reply, that sceptics, have been not unfrequently attacked with irony most severe, and sometimes sorely wounded by vollies of wit shot from the pulpit, a place too where it can be done without fear of reprisals. You know sir, that the famous Warburton, for instance, used to amuse himself with not only cutting down every unlucky sceptic that came in his way, but he absolutely cut them to pieces with the edge of ridicule, most bitterly envenomed too with something else. It seems therefore a little unreasonable, that what is fair for one party, should not be so for the other too. Besides, the advocates of a cause, which is said not only not to fear examination, but to challenge it, should not, it appears to me, when taken at their words shrink, and draw back, on account of such trifles as wit, and ridicule; because the style of an investigation cannot certainly conceal the immutable distinction between a good argument and a bad one, from such learned and penetrating adversaries as the Clergy; and moreover does it appear clear that an advocate after asserting a proposition, and defying refutation, has any right to insist, that his opponent should put his arguments in just such a form as would be most convenient to him? What would a penetrating Lawyer think of the cause of his opponent, on finding him to insist upon his arranging his objections, and expressing his arguments just so that it might be most easy to him to reply to them?

For my own part, I have no claims to wit, and if I have been sometimes sarcastic it was more than I meant to be, it was the premeditated consequence of bitter feelings arising from considering myself as having been betrayed by my credulity into taking a situation in society, which I had discovered I must quit at no less a hazard than that the destruction of all my plans and prospects for life. At any rate I am satisfied, that no ridicule of mine has been intentionally adduced by me in order to corroborate a false position, or a weak argument; I believe that it seldom appears except in the rear of something more respectable and efficient.

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