{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38377/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38377","id":"gutenberg_38377","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38377","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Priesthood -- Controversial literature","Priests -- Controversial literature"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHARACTER OF A PRIEST\n\nBy Philanthropos\n\nLondon:\n\nPrinted And Published By R. Carlile, 55, Fleet-Street\n\n1821.\n\nPrice Twopence\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHARACTER OF A PRIEST\n\nNature pregnant with equality, with justice, and generosity, has given\nall men the same organization, the same functions, the same powers; she\nhas neither created higher nor lower, superior nor inferior, master\nnor slave; inequality would imply monopoly; monopoly, partiality; and\npartiality, divine injustice; all the operations of Nature are simple,\njust, equitable, and invariable: nothing is done at random, nothing\nis effected by chance, nothing is the result of uncertain laws. The\noperations of Nature, the physical laws of men and of morality are\nas uniform as the revolutions of the solar system; every action\nis consistent with the essence of the acting body; nothing can act\ninconsistently with its elements. All Nature acts in conformity with\nuniversal laws; man forms an integral part of Nature, and must act in\nunison with his elements; the laws of Nature are beyond human controul,\nthey are independent of man, unchangeable by any power less than\nthe contriver; the laws of Nature are neither arrested, interrupted,\nbiassed, or controverted by venal, bigoted, fanatical Priests.\n\nA Priest has the same essence, is composed of the same elements, endowed\nwith the same organization as other men; he has no more natural command,\nno greater power, no greater right; Priests do not come into the world\nwith crosiers, or with, mitres, or with rosaries; the revolutions\nof matter create and destroy them; they are decomposed as a cow or\na cabbage. It is not Nature, but the folly of man that has given\nconsequence to the Priest; all the wealth, all the advancement, all\nthe power the Priests enjoy, are acquired by hypocrisy, by perjury,\nby extortion, and by swindling: the trade is founded in fraud, in\nblasphemy, and impiety; matured by cupidity, by venality, and by masked\nvillainy. The impostor pretends to have exclusive access to exclusive\nfavour from the Deity.\n\nIt is by inflexible truth, by the invariable laws of Nature, that the\nimpostor will be analyzed; bring him to the shrine of reason, denude him\nof his robes, of his mask, of his hypocrisy, he is not more than man\nby Nature, but worse by morality, inasmuch as he is covered by infamous\noffences; however intention may operate, however simplicity may\nbe deluded, there cannot be one honest, one independent, and one\nintelligent man among the whole body of Priests; bigots by education,\ndishonest by trade, ignorant of the first principles of science, they\nmust necessarily be superstitious, cruel, and vindictive; whatever\npurity, whatever humility, whatever candour, the Priest may profess, is\nresolvable into individual interest; he has no parent but avarice,\nno God but money. Although the Evangelists, the Priests, the sacred\nimpostors, are similar by nature, similarly educated in chicane and\nhypocrisy, they do not agree in any one religious profession: the\nBonzes, the Muftis, and the Priests, have different churches, different\nGods, different creeds. Religious impostors uniformly coincide in\nplundering the people; there is no other symptom of similarity, no\natom of cohesion, but rapine, among Priests: God is made something and\nnothing, every where and no where; he is one thing at Ispahan, another\nat Constantinople, and a third at Rome; what is religion at one place,\nis blasphemy at another.\n\nIf truth was as mutable, as liable to change, as subject to variation,\nas the dogmas of Priests, conflicting opinions would act to mutual\ndestruction. God, acting always through Nature, always by universal\nand self-evident laws, would not permit a thousand sects of ignorant,\nprofane, impious, blaspheming Priests, to mislead, impoverish, and\nbarbarize the people. If God manifested himself through the medium\nof Priests, of churches, and of creeds, it would be by means as\nself-evident as universal, and as candid and invariable as the rotations\nof the solar system; it would not be by starvation at one hour, and\ngluttony at another; or kneeling, tenths, pilgrimages, exorcisms,\nsprinklings, crosses, sacraments, ablutions, circumcision, and\ngibberish.\n\nReligion is a matter of imagination, of fiction, an hypothesis, and\nnot of fact: the multifarious dogmas of sectarians, demonstrate the\nmultiplicity of vapours and conjectures; while men reason from false\nprinciples, religions will multiply to infinity. Philosophers have only\none God--the God of Nature; but roguish Priests, old women and fools\nhave an endless number; every arch-impostor has profanely made a God of\nhis own; Priestly genius, pregnant with extortion, and cogitating more\neffectually to pick pockets, with his own new trap, than with the stale\ntool of other men, has given rise to a multitude of diurnal Deities,\nif we witnessed as many variations in the laws of Nature as in the\nPriest-trade, the Priests might insist that some attention should be\ngiven to the business of fraud and cant. Every Priest differs from every\nother Priest, and all differ from the truth; the Deity does not operate\nby stealth, he does not work clandestinely in holes and corners, as\nthe miracle-mongers attest, but generally, openly, in the face of day,\nbefore all the world, in his works: he does not skulk in mosques, in\nchurches, or in wildernesses, but is equally every where; he knows\nno more of the cross, the crescent, or the crosier, than he does of a\ntobacco-pipe, a mile-post, or a broom-stick. If there is one man\nmore wicked than another it is the impostor, and the lying, cheating\nPriest--the misleader of innocent, inoffensive, unsuspecting men; the\nmore the Priests profess to believe, the greater is the iniquity,\nand impiety, and hypocrisy--the more religion they believe, the less\nmorality they practice. The people should believe the Priests when they\nprofess principles consistent with Nature, and scorn them: when they\nclaim belief in inconceivable and false enigmas; attention is to be\ngiven when assertion is demonstrable by collateral facts and not to\nmatters of faith, mystery and superstition; the Priests are more likely\nto tell lies, swindle and deceive the people, than the Deity is to be\ncruel, inconsistent, impotent, and enigmatical; believe nothing out of\nthe order of Nature; the assertion of even one thousand honest fanatics\nwould be inadequate to induce any sensible man to believe that the\ncourse of Nature was changed for one moment.\n\nThe Priests knew it would be useless to spend their time in declamation,\nin anathemas, in denunciation, against such as would not from mercenary\nmotives, or good sense, pay tithes, and feed the idol of superstition;\nto enforce their doctrines, to support their extortion, to effect their\nunholy rapine, they fallaciously promulgated posthumous torture; they\ninvented a Hell, to agonize, to rack, to torment such as would not help\nto support the imposition. The Priests know their Hell is not a place\nof actual existence, but a bugbear, and the Devil, the head master, is\ninvented, is used as an emptying-pocket tool; such as do not believe\nthis pick-pocket machinery, such as do not suffer themselves to be\nduped, misled, and plundered, by hypocrites, swindlers, rogues, and\nextortioners, are reproached as criminals, as sinners, as blasphemers,\nas infidels, and as lunatics, and doomed to suffer everlasting torture.\nIs it likely that a just, wise, and benevolent Deity would thus\nunmercifully punish innocent men for refusing to contribute to the\nlasciviousness, licentiousness, and drunkenness, of a vagabond,\nblaspheming Priesthood? there is no greater impiety than attributing\nsuch enormity to a wise and parental God! The profanity of Priests\ncannot be sufficiently deprecated for alledging such monstrous\ninjustice to the Deity, and asserting that he has more horrible powers,\nprinciples, and actions than the Devil; the latter is generous, brave,\nand forbearing, compared with their God, to whom they attribute malice,\nrevenge, cruelty, fallacy, and persecution to a whole race of people\nbecause a poor, ignorant, exhausted woman happened to rob an apple-tree,\nas he permits school-boys to do with impunity daily: even the Priests\nmust allow he does not think so much of his apples as formerly.\nThe Priests should build altars and offer apples to the Lord to act\nconsistently.\n\nThe Priests are famous mathematicians; they can demonstrate that one is\nequal to three, or that three equals one; three eternals is equal to one\neternal, and one holy equal to three holies!\n\nTo please the Deity is to act consistent with his ways; his desire, his\nintention, his object, is manifested in the organization of nature, and\nas independence and equality are the predominating features in nature,\nso those who most strenuously advocate those principles are the most\nreligious, the most patriotic, the most praiseworthy among men.\n\nThe contrary policy of Priests, destined solely to aggrandize their\ntrade, is debasing the Deity, degrading man, and trampling upon his\ncreation. Whatever the Deity values, Priests despise; with a vandal\nferocity they attack whatever does not tend to secure, enlarge, or\nmultiply the emoluments of the mosque and the church; it is not, in\nfact, about the church they bicker, nor about souls and religion, but\nabout tithes and offerings: the conduct of men is immaterial, they\nhave a licence to commit any crime, so long as they will pay money\nfor absolution and subscribe to the sanctity of tithes. There is no\ncompetition among Priests who shall do the utmost degree of good, but\nwho shall have the power of tithing and deceiving the people: if\nthe people had sufficient sense they would treat all Priests as\nthe different kinds of Priests treat each other--as hypocrites and\nimpostors; constant in jealousy, constant in acrimonious opposition and\nmutual abuse, every order, every genus, are contending for the spoil of\ncredulity.\n\nThe Priests are the enemies of liberty, the adversaries of free\ndiscussion, and the opposite of equality, constantly conspiring against\na people enjoying the blessings of freedom, constantly fettering,\ndebasing, and insulting the slave. While the Priest is too weak to be\nintolerant, he is flattering, deceitful, mean and servile; but when\nfraud has elevated him to power, he is arbitrary and domineering,\ninflated with despotism, with insolence, and with vanity.\n\nThe multitude of assassinations, of massacres and of wars--the avarice,\nthe villainy, the bigotry and bloody-mindedness of Priests have\noccasioned, exceeds the powers of calculation; the number of religious\nmurders is lost in figures; every field has groaned under an altar of\nimmolation; the vegetation of every country has been fertilized, and\nthe streets of every town deluged with blood shed by the machinations\nof Priests; look at that fact, for the benefit of your religion,\nyou followers of the cross and the crescent; cant no more about\nyour justice, your generosity, your forbearance, your humanity, your\nmeekness, or your candour. The Priests have been, for selfish purposes,\nthe orators and fomentors of most of the mischiefs that have disgraced,\nparalyzed, and disfigured the fair character of human nature: it is\ndisgraceful to any man to be seen in a dispute between Priests and\nkings; as hypocrites, as impostors, as common rogues, men of wisdom will\nnever participate, never be interested, never be duped by the quarrels,\nand the envious animosities of the swindling trades.\n\nAll the Priests--all that live by the trade of hypocrisy, all that live\nby sacred imposition, are blasphemers, are infidels, are perverters of\nthe truth, are the distorters of the will and object of the Deity;\nand such as most assiduously attempt to dispel the delusion, are most\nreligious in the eyes of God. Blasphemy is not an offence against truth,\nbut the offence of truth against Priestcraft.\n\nNotwithstanding the bickering, the animosity, and the jealousy the\nPriests entertain towards each other, they are consistent, they are\nunanimous, they are combined in prosecuting any man who has ability, who\nhas honesty, and who has independence to attack the fraud and hypocrisy\nby which they live; whoever attempts to analyze the farce, to unveil the\nimposition of revealed religion, is sure to be attacked by Bishops, by\nImans, by Bonzes, and by Muftis; truth acts upon these animals as light\ndoes upon the organization of bats and owls, and other reptiles, at\nmid-day.","title":"The Character of a Priest","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":2017}