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“CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONTRAST ‘Between the Death of a Deist and of a Christian,’ contained in the Panoplist of November last,” The Ordeal (28 January 1809), pp. 63–4.
Anonymous
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WE have proposed to notice some of the inferences which the Rev. Doctor Mason has unwarrantably drawn from the circumstances attending the respective deaths of Mr. Hume and Dr. Finley.
There is no object more distressing than a zealous bigot; who strives to wrest all observations from their natural direction, in order to make them accord with his views, or array them in feeble opposition, that he may more easily overturn them. The reverend author we have just mentioned, affirms in the first place, that the letter of Dr. Adam Smith, concerning the death of Mr. Hume, is a proof of an infidel attempt to set off the intrepidity or composure of a sceptical brother, and shew him to the greatest advantage at the time of dissolution. We undertake to say, on the contrary, that the letter in question is exceedingly unguarded; what need would there have been (if Doctor Smith wished Mr. Hume’s reputation extended) to introduce Charon and his boat, and Lucian’s dialogues of the dead? The tendency of these passages, so far from setting Mr. Hume off to advantage, in the eyes of the world, has a directly contrary effect. If so, the whole ground work of Dr. Mason’s intolerant comparison is overturned. Let any one read the letter of Dr. Smith, and then let him declare whether there is, apparently, any attempt to distort or conceal circumstances, in order to make a more favourable impression of Mr. Hume’s moral character. What need, if that were the intention, of mentioning the game of whist; why not conceal it? The death of Mr. Finley, to which Dr. Mason turns with rapture, was the death of a superstitious enthusiast, and the death of Mr. Hume, that of a man who did not believe in the doctrine of the christian religion to be sure, but which can have no bearing upon the validity of those doctrines. Religion must rest upon its own basis: the breath of infidelity can no more overturn the fabrick, than the weak props of superstition can support it.
It was not expected of Mr. Hume, that he should express a belief of the christian religion; he died consistently with his previous character. And we maintain that Dr. Mason has no right to infer any thing in favour of christianity, because Mr. Hume said nothing about a God, a providence, or an hereafter. If the composure of that great writer, at his death, intrinsically considered, has any bearing on the christian system, it is not in favour of it. But Dr. Mason, by begging the question in the first instance, rushes on afterwards in a stream of superstitious eloquence, against those passages in Dr. Smith’s letter, which merely described the consistency of Mr. Hume’s character. How does he prove the benefits resulting to christianity, from the death of Mr. Hume? why truly, by shewing him perfectly serene and composed in his disbelief. This is a novel mode of conviction to be sure; but he proceeds to argue from his dying without mentioning the subject, that religion was therefore triumphant. The death of Mr. Hume was corespondent to his character; but whether the death of a christian is not more honourable than that of an infidel, is a distinct subject of enquiry, and certainly very easy of solution.
Dr. Mason takes for granted as much of the account given of the death of Mr. Hume, as suits his purpose, and rejects, or distorts the rest, to gratify his pleasure or convenience. When Dr. Black describes Mr. Hume as saying, “I am dying as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire;” that “when he became very weak, it cost him an effort to speak, and that he died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could exceed it,” Dr. Mason undertakes to disbelieve it. He declares all this “composure,” “cheerfulness,” [”]complacency,” “resignation,” “happiness,” to be affectation. “It is a mockery,” says he, “of every human feeling, and every throbbing of the heart convicts it of a lie.” Why is Dr. Mason thus violent in his rage? If the circumstances make in favour of Christianity, this effervescence of zeal is superfluous; but if the contrary, why then he should shew the superiority of Christian gentleness to infidel composure, and not denominate a gentleman a liar, in unqualified terms. The truth is, he thinks the argument makes against him, and he rages. He might, with equal propriety, have declared, the disbelief of certain tenets, expressed in the writings of Mr. Hume, to be a mockery and a lie; but would that assertion be a reply to the arguments this writer has made use of? If all those circumstances, in the life and death of an infidel, which are variant from the Christian doctrines, are proofs of the truth of those doctrines, then a man may prove, by a similar process, any contradiction in nature.
Dr. Mason says this resignation and complacency could not be, because it could not be; be opposes his inference to the assertion of Dr. Black, and there he leaves the argument.
Dr. Mason expatiates upon the nonsense of Mr. Finley, with most extravagant and enthusiastick fervour; but we hope infidelity can be more easily refuted than by the ebullitions of such zeal, and Christianity be better supported, than by deviating from truth and candour, and in truth, by departing from the very rules of Christianity.
The Christian religion derives support from its own intrinsick excellence; the light of revelation, and the tests of experience. The beams which are shed upon it, to shew the beauty of its structure, proceed directly from the source of light, and irradiate its inmost recess. Do not let us attempt to build up these adventitious supports, for the consequences, without overthrowing infidelity, may be detrimental to Christianity itself.