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Principle of Nature
One of the most difficult things for a person to do is to admit they are wrong. Elihu Palmer, the author of Principles of Nature, had the strength of character and love of honesty to not only admit he was wrong by embracing and promoting Christianity, he also did all he could to correct the problem of Christianity and "revealed" religion with God-given reason and Deism. This is especially admirable since Elihu Palmer was a sincere Christian clergyman who evolved into a Deist! This book offers the reader enlightenment and peace of mind through the freedom of Deism. A new profound appreciation of your God-given reason will be stirred along with a desire to learn all you can about the natural and reason friendly religious philosophy of Deism. Thomas Paine, a Deist leader and American Founding Father, wrote the following to his friend and fellow Deist Elihu Palmer regarding Principles of Nature: "I see you have thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your thoughts in a strong and clear style. The hinting and intimating manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think."
212 pages, Paperback
First published July 4, 2009
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June 3, 2024
A MAJOR WORK OF AMERICAN DEISM AND FREETHOUGHT
Elihu Palmer (1764-1806) was an American Deist and author. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 96-page edition.]
He explains in the Preface, “The circumstance that the author was once a public speaker in the cause of Christianity, which is here opposed, so far from forming a reasonable objection against the perusal of this work, ought to become an additional motive of attention; for it was by a candid and attentive investigation into the character of revealed religion, that he became convinced that it was neither true nor divine. It was, therefore, a duty which he owed to the integrity of his own mind… to abandon that system, and assume a higher and better ground---that of nature, and the immutability of her laws… The principal design of the author… has been to give to moral principle a basis as durable as time, and as immortal as the specific succession of human existence; and to render the sentiment of virtue… independent of all the theological reveries of antiquity.” (Pg. 3)
He states, “The purest ideas of the Divinity are necessary for the correct operation of the moral powers of man; there cannot remain a shadow of doubt, when recourse is made to the history of the Jews and Christians, that the god or gods whom they have adored produced an unfavorable effect upon their more temperament and habits. The Jewish god is denominated a god of vengeance, wrath, and fury. He gives commands for the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children, declaring that not a soul should be left alive. The God of the Jews is inherited by the Christians with additional specimens of injustice and immorality. An infinite and eternal Son, equal to himself, becomes the object of his wrath, and on him with unrelenting severity he wreaks his terrible vengeance… When man makes to himself gods of such a character, it were far better that he had been destitute of all theological opinions… The principle of morality is founded in the nature of man… this principle cannot be augmented… by a reference to barbarous phantoms … which the theology of Jews and Christians… has presented to view.” (Pg. 6-7)
He points out, “If the scriptures be given by divine inspiration, their contents must be communicated to certain individuals by supernatural power. These individuals had no such power to transfer to other individuals with the same force of authority, the celestial information which they had received. If it were binding on the first persons who received it, it could not be equally so upon the second… The first power that communicated was divine, the second was human; the first was incapable of error, the second deceptive and fallacious... The idea of transferring celestial information received by supernatural means, is absurd and impossible; it is as impossible as that man could become a God, and exercise the attributes of the Divinity… [To] keep up the chain of divine connection, it is not only necessary that the first prophets and apostles should have been inspired, but that all the translators, transcribers, printers, and printers’ boys, should have been inspired also.” (Pg. 11)
He argues, “Was [Jesus’] atonement infinite? Alas! No, for although Jesus Christ, who suffered, was equal to God himself, yet all of them acknowledge that it was the human, not the divine nature that partook of this suffering. If, therefore, it was the human nature only that suffered, this suffering could only make a finite atonement, and if the sin was infinite, this atonement could not reach its nature or destroy its effects; for to have done this, the atonement must have been commensurate with the evil to be destroyed.” (Pg. 17)
Of the morality of the Sermon on the Mount, he comments, “it is said, ‘If any man will sue thee… and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also…’ …to comply with the spirit of this morality, we must invert the order of nature, and bestow on crimes and continued abuse, the most endearing affections of our heart. Where is the believer who puts this morality into practice?... Are you willing to surrender your natural dignity, to sink your nature to the level of a spaniel in order to become a true Christian?” (Pg. 21)
He states, “To work a miracle… would answer no very valuable purpose, and is derogatory to the attributes of God, by which it is supposed to be wrought. To establish a system of religion by evidence drawn from miracles, is to establish it upon the ruin of all principle and confidence… Either God did things in the first place as they ought to be done, or he did not; if he did them as they ought to be done, there could have been no need of alteration, and consequently there could have been no such thing as a miracle.” (Pg. 31)
He continues, “A few men who lived many ages ago, declared… that they had been witnesses to several astonishing facts of this kind. If we give credit to those men, we give the lie to all the world beside; if we repose confidence in the testimony of our own senses, and the general experience of all mankind, we shall have reason to believe, that those few men, who relate prodigies and miracles, were either deceived themselves, or that they had a design to deceive others.” (Pg. 33)
He asserts, “for when they were impelled to the abominable crimes of unrelenting murder and universal pillage, they charge it upon God… In the 20th chapter of Deuteronomy… bloody and exterminating commands are given, and these commands are attributed to God himself… To charge the Creator of the world with such a violation of all justice, with such a dereliction of every human sentiment, is to deprive him of all his moral perfections, and to make him equal to… any of the eminent murderers whose names have been recorded in the bloody history of the human race.” (Pg. 41-42)
He notes, “If plagues, malignant fevers, or national calamities of any kind be considered as the scourges of divine vengeance for the punishment of sin, why do they fall indiscriminately upon the virtuous and the vicious, upon the young and the old… in fact, upon every class of intelligent being, whatever may be their character, their circumstances, and condition in life? Why does not divine justice apportion these punishments to the actual degree of criminality in each individual that is made the object of its displeasure?... The child of God, and the child of the devil, are often involved in the same calamity… This proves that the even has bene produced by the uniform operations of the laws of nature, and not by any special judgment from God.” (Pg. 57-58)
He says, “For many hundred years past the Christian religion, and its powerful advocates, the clergy, have combined to restrain a wicked world from acts of degrading and destructive criminality… they have represented hell with all its horrors, the Devin in all his malignity… notwithstanding all this, these pious men are continually crying out that the world is growing worse and worse; that infidelity is increasing… If such be the fact, these boasted restraints have not answered the purpose… If the machinery of that Christian religion could have answered the purpose of moral restraint, a fair opportunity has been given among many Christian nations… the fact is, that the most religious countries have been the most immoral.” (Pg. 62-63)
He observes, “two-thirds of mankind, and perhaps three-fourths of them, are destitute of any knowledge of the Christian religion… The application of these facts … will operate essentially against the benevolence of that being, who is said to be the author and promulgator of this religion. It will be necessary… for the advocates of revelation to abandon the idea of its universal necessity… [or] to acknowledge that the God they worship is a partial, cruel, and vindictive parent… It is a maxim of this celestial religion, that he that believeth not shall be damned; but how is a man to believe a proposition of which he has no knowledge?... Whence then this unjust discrimination, this partial arrangement in the moral concerns of man?” (Pg. 69)
He summarizes, “some portion of society has once more obtained a true idea of the religion of nature or of that which may be denominated as pure and simple Deism… Deism declares to intelligent man the existence of one perfect God, Creator and Preserver of the Universe… Deism also declares, that the practice of a pure, natural, and uncorrupted virtue, is the essential duty, and constitutes the essential dignity of man… [Deism] will triumphant diffuse happiness among the nations of the earth, for ages after the Christian superstition and fanaticism have ceased to spread desolation and carnage through the fair creation of God.”
This book is a true “classic” of Deism and Freethought, and will be “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the history and development of those subjects.
Elihu Palmer (1764-1806) was an American Deist and author. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 96-page edition.]
He explains in the Preface, “The circumstance that the author was once a public speaker in the cause of Christianity, which is here opposed, so far from forming a reasonable objection against the perusal of this work, ought to become an additional motive of attention; for it was by a candid and attentive investigation into the character of revealed religion, that he became convinced that it was neither true nor divine. It was, therefore, a duty which he owed to the integrity of his own mind… to abandon that system, and assume a higher and better ground---that of nature, and the immutability of her laws… The principal design of the author… has been to give to moral principle a basis as durable as time, and as immortal as the specific succession of human existence; and to render the sentiment of virtue… independent of all the theological reveries of antiquity.” (Pg. 3)
He states, “The purest ideas of the Divinity are necessary for the correct operation of the moral powers of man; there cannot remain a shadow of doubt, when recourse is made to the history of the Jews and Christians, that the god or gods whom they have adored produced an unfavorable effect upon their more temperament and habits. The Jewish god is denominated a god of vengeance, wrath, and fury. He gives commands for the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children, declaring that not a soul should be left alive. The God of the Jews is inherited by the Christians with additional specimens of injustice and immorality. An infinite and eternal Son, equal to himself, becomes the object of his wrath, and on him with unrelenting severity he wreaks his terrible vengeance… When man makes to himself gods of such a character, it were far better that he had been destitute of all theological opinions… The principle of morality is founded in the nature of man… this principle cannot be augmented… by a reference to barbarous phantoms … which the theology of Jews and Christians… has presented to view.” (Pg. 6-7)
He points out, “If the scriptures be given by divine inspiration, their contents must be communicated to certain individuals by supernatural power. These individuals had no such power to transfer to other individuals with the same force of authority, the celestial information which they had received. If it were binding on the first persons who received it, it could not be equally so upon the second… The first power that communicated was divine, the second was human; the first was incapable of error, the second deceptive and fallacious... The idea of transferring celestial information received by supernatural means, is absurd and impossible; it is as impossible as that man could become a God, and exercise the attributes of the Divinity… [To] keep up the chain of divine connection, it is not only necessary that the first prophets and apostles should have been inspired, but that all the translators, transcribers, printers, and printers’ boys, should have been inspired also.” (Pg. 11)
He argues, “Was [Jesus’] atonement infinite? Alas! No, for although Jesus Christ, who suffered, was equal to God himself, yet all of them acknowledge that it was the human, not the divine nature that partook of this suffering. If, therefore, it was the human nature only that suffered, this suffering could only make a finite atonement, and if the sin was infinite, this atonement could not reach its nature or destroy its effects; for to have done this, the atonement must have been commensurate with the evil to be destroyed.” (Pg. 17)
Of the morality of the Sermon on the Mount, he comments, “it is said, ‘If any man will sue thee… and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also…’ …to comply with the spirit of this morality, we must invert the order of nature, and bestow on crimes and continued abuse, the most endearing affections of our heart. Where is the believer who puts this morality into practice?... Are you willing to surrender your natural dignity, to sink your nature to the level of a spaniel in order to become a true Christian?” (Pg. 21)
He states, “To work a miracle… would answer no very valuable purpose, and is derogatory to the attributes of God, by which it is supposed to be wrought. To establish a system of religion by evidence drawn from miracles, is to establish it upon the ruin of all principle and confidence… Either God did things in the first place as they ought to be done, or he did not; if he did them as they ought to be done, there could have been no need of alteration, and consequently there could have been no such thing as a miracle.” (Pg. 31)
He continues, “A few men who lived many ages ago, declared… that they had been witnesses to several astonishing facts of this kind. If we give credit to those men, we give the lie to all the world beside; if we repose confidence in the testimony of our own senses, and the general experience of all mankind, we shall have reason to believe, that those few men, who relate prodigies and miracles, were either deceived themselves, or that they had a design to deceive others.” (Pg. 33)
He asserts, “for when they were impelled to the abominable crimes of unrelenting murder and universal pillage, they charge it upon God… In the 20th chapter of Deuteronomy… bloody and exterminating commands are given, and these commands are attributed to God himself… To charge the Creator of the world with such a violation of all justice, with such a dereliction of every human sentiment, is to deprive him of all his moral perfections, and to make him equal to… any of the eminent murderers whose names have been recorded in the bloody history of the human race.” (Pg. 41-42)
He notes, “If plagues, malignant fevers, or national calamities of any kind be considered as the scourges of divine vengeance for the punishment of sin, why do they fall indiscriminately upon the virtuous and the vicious, upon the young and the old… in fact, upon every class of intelligent being, whatever may be their character, their circumstances, and condition in life? Why does not divine justice apportion these punishments to the actual degree of criminality in each individual that is made the object of its displeasure?... The child of God, and the child of the devil, are often involved in the same calamity… This proves that the even has bene produced by the uniform operations of the laws of nature, and not by any special judgment from God.” (Pg. 57-58)
He says, “For many hundred years past the Christian religion, and its powerful advocates, the clergy, have combined to restrain a wicked world from acts of degrading and destructive criminality… they have represented hell with all its horrors, the Devin in all his malignity… notwithstanding all this, these pious men are continually crying out that the world is growing worse and worse; that infidelity is increasing… If such be the fact, these boasted restraints have not answered the purpose… If the machinery of that Christian religion could have answered the purpose of moral restraint, a fair opportunity has been given among many Christian nations… the fact is, that the most religious countries have been the most immoral.” (Pg. 62-63)
He observes, “two-thirds of mankind, and perhaps three-fourths of them, are destitute of any knowledge of the Christian religion… The application of these facts … will operate essentially against the benevolence of that being, who is said to be the author and promulgator of this religion. It will be necessary… for the advocates of revelation to abandon the idea of its universal necessity… [or] to acknowledge that the God they worship is a partial, cruel, and vindictive parent… It is a maxim of this celestial religion, that he that believeth not shall be damned; but how is a man to believe a proposition of which he has no knowledge?... Whence then this unjust discrimination, this partial arrangement in the moral concerns of man?” (Pg. 69)
He summarizes, “some portion of society has once more obtained a true idea of the religion of nature or of that which may be denominated as pure and simple Deism… Deism declares to intelligent man the existence of one perfect God, Creator and Preserver of the Universe… Deism also declares, that the practice of a pure, natural, and uncorrupted virtue, is the essential duty, and constitutes the essential dignity of man… [Deism] will triumphant diffuse happiness among the nations of the earth, for ages after the Christian superstition and fanaticism have ceased to spread desolation and carnage through the fair creation of God.”
This book is a true “classic” of Deism and Freethought, and will be “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the history and development of those subjects.
March 17, 2024
An excellent book on the American Enlightenment.
March 6, 2015
I feel Palmer goes over the top in his condemnation of Christ, but otherwise felt that he was spot on about flaws in the philosophy of scripture and the fruit this bears among those who think it divinely inspired. This is a powerful work.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews