Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-07-17
New Publications.

| God, Religion, and Immortality: an Ora
| ton, delivered at the Paine Celebration, in
| Cincinnati, Sunday, January %, 1860. By
| Joseph Treat.
The foregoing is the title of a pamphlet Of
sixty-three pages, recently issued, and for
sale at 160 Vine and 21S Fifth-streets the
author of which, with some appearance OF
truth, processes to have gone as far beyond
Thomas Paine, as Thomas Paine did beyond
the evangelical theology of his day. The
creed of Mr.. Paine, as laid down at the be
ginning of his Age Of Reason, is 81 believe
in one God and no more; and hope for hap
piness beyond this life" God, Religion, and
an Eternal World, are presented by this
author as the three great fundamental errors
of that production.
1t is common with such as by profession
are supposed to be wise in the counsels of
Heaven, to visit upon the speculative atheist
| a much greater severity of denunciation than
is accorded to the merely practical one He
| who denies God with his mouth or with his
pen is holden to be a wretch, to be Stunned,
as beyond the pale of redemption, while he
who simply does it in his daily conduct, is by
comparison looked upon as in pretty hope
full condition. Whether this rule is Just, is
not for US to decide but if it should happen
to be so, the state of the author of the
pamphlet before us is, as all who read it will
admit, perilous.
Between that faith which accepts as infal.
lible all that the Church teaches for doctrine
| a tbof INT NJ xxyb, oh hoe IA
there is good orthodox authority for the
opinion that there is logically no tenable
ground. This is the view taken by the
elder of the Christian Churches-the one
claiming apostolic authority; and also the
one presented and enforced with great earn
estness aud learning by Mr.. Mansell, in his
Limits Of Religious 7HOught-a late work
which has attained a wide celebrity in Pro-
testant Christendom and which has been ac-
cepted by many able and pious divines as the
end of controversy.
If this is true, the pamphlet before us, al
though very bold and ungracious in its style
and language, is no more dangerous to re-
| ligion than many works professedly religious,
including the entire body of literature upon
what is called Natural Theology and Chris
tian Evidences. Nay, it may be much less
so, as open war is much better than covert
treason, or cowardly and temporising coun-
cils. Mankind in Christian countries, read
vast amount of skepticism, under the inn
preston that it is orthodoxy; and thereby
| their faith is insensibly undermined In the
work before us, such mistakes are not likely
to occur.
According to the current providential the
ories, Heaven should have punished this bold
blasphemer, by stopping his mouth while in
the utterance of his treasons but as it did
not see fit to do it, and on the contrary, per
mitted him to go on and spread the couta
gion still wider, by putting his words il
print, we choose to take the hint from it
forbearance, and refrain from denunciation
lest, peradventure, providence, having SOM
end in allowing such publications. of which
we have not been advised, should find us ar
rayed against its DEGREES, and make us pa,
dear for our unauthorized interference.