Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

<< morals, or laws; commanding kings, warriors, priests, and magistrates, in the name of nature, "to spare the blood of men; reproaching them, "in a strain of the most energetic severity, with "that which their policy or indifference prodigally "lavished on the scaffold, or in the field of battle; "in fine, adopting the words reason, toleration, "and humanity, as their signal and call to arms. "Such was the modern philosophy, so much de"tested by those numerous classes which exist only by the aid of prejudices. Its chiefs had the "art of escaping vengeance, while they exposed "themselves to hatred; of concealing themselves "from persecution, while they made themselves sufficiently conspicuous to lose nothing of their glory *.

[ocr errors]

་་

[ocr errors]

In order as it were that the meaning of this rhapsody may not possibly be mistaken, the same Condorcet plainly tells us, what effects this sort of truth, propagated by Voltaire, did produce. Celebrating the glories and benefits of the French revolution, he observes," that it would have been

[ocr errors]

impossible to shew in a clearer light the eternal "obligations which human nature has to Voltaire. "Circumstances were favourable. He did not "foresee all that he has done, but he has done all

*. Cited by Kett from Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, par Condorcet. For the original, see the Annual Register, p. 200; for the extract, Barruel's Mem. of Jacobinism, vol. ii. p. 133.

"that

[ocr errors]

"that we now see *. "9 In order moreover, that we may not too candidly fancy, that Voltaire's zeal was only directed against the abuses of Popery, while he respected genuine Christianity, he himself unequivocally informs us, that the very Gospel of the Messiah, whether embraced by protestants or papists, was the real object of his animosity†. "I am weary," says the pseudo-philosopher of Ferney, "of hearing people repeat, that twelve "men have been sufficient to establish Christianity: " and I will prove, that one may suffice to overthrow it-Strike, but conceal your hand-The mysteries of Mithras are not to be divulged: "the monster must fall pierced by a thousand in"visible hands: yes, let it fall beneath a thousand

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

repeated blows-I fear you are not sufficiently "zealous; you bury your talents; you seem only "to contemn, whilst you should abhor and destroy "the monster-Crush the wretch."

By the incessant labours of Voltaire, his diabolical principles, even before the foundation of Weishaupt's order of the illuminated, were protected by the sovereigns of Russia, Poland, and Prussia, and by an innumerable host of Landgraves, Margraves, Dukes, and Princes. They had

* Life of Voltaire, cited by Kett.

The reader will have observed, that, in one of the clauses of the foregoing declamation of Condorcet, religion is used as the synonym of religious absurdities; and government and reli gion are declared to be the two pests, which the new philosophy combats in their very principles.

penetrated.

penetrated into Bohemia, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy. They had many zealous advocates in England: they had thoroughly impregnated France: and, in short, had more or less pervaded the whole Roman earth, where the dragon had now taken his station after his expulsion from the symbolical heaven.

It is not however perfectly ascertained, that Voltaire wished for more than the overthrow of religion and royalty. Proud of his talents, he at first did not pretend to enlighten housemaids “and shoemakers, equally contemning the rabble, "whether for or against him:" but, after the German union, a yet more extensive plan of mischief was resolved upon. The infernal ingenuity of Weishaupt contrived a method of subverting not only religion and royalty, but all governments whatsoever: and Jacobinism, that consummation of united German and French villany, proposed to set mankind free from every restraint both of human and divine law, and to let them loose like wild beasts upon each other, an infuriated herd of anarchists and atheists.

In this manner it was, that the dragon, quitting heaven for earth, and "having great wrath because "he knoweth that he hath but a short time," prepared to vomit against the symbolical woman a noisome flood of mock philosophers, German and French, illuminated and masonic, "with all their "trumpery;" of philanthropic cut-throats, civic thieves, humane anarchists, and candid atheists; of

high-born Catalines, and low-born buffoons*; of enlightened prostitutes, and revolutionary politicians; of popish priests, and protestant ecclesiastics, united only by the common bonds of apostate profligacy; of Jews, Turks †, infidels, and heretics; of the catharmata of the prisons of Lyons and Paris, wretches who, escaping the just sentence of the law, commenced the reformers of the world; in short, of all the filth and offscouring of all the kennels of all the streets of the great mystical city Babylon. At the sounding of the third woe-trumpet, the flood was at its height; and threatened to carry away in wild indiscriminate confusion every thing sacred and venerable, every thing salutary and dignified, every thing wise, every thing lovely, every thing that adorns this life, every thing that fits us for a better life.

Short was the time that elapsed between the great earthquake and the blast of the seventh angel, when revolutionary France, in the frenzy of democratic enthusiasm, established atheism and

* During the French revolution, a comedian, dressed as a priest of the Illuminati, publicly appeared, personally at"tacking Almighty God, saying, No, thou dost not exist. I "thou hast power over the thunder-bolts, grasp them, aim them at "the man who dares set thee at defiance in the face of thy altars, « But no, I blaspheme thee, and I still live; no, thou dost not "exist" (Barruel's Mem. of Jacobinism, vol. iii. p. 217.). To the catalogue of low-born buffoons Mr. Thomas Paine may with much propriety be added.

See Hist. the Interp. vol. ii. p. 267.

anarchy

anarchy by law; held out the right hand of fellowship to the insurgents of every nation; commenced a tremendous massacre of her enslaved citizens; proclaimed the Son of God to be an impostor, and his Gospel a forgery; swore to exterminate Christianity and royalty from off the face of the earth, as she had blotted them both out of her own dominions; and madly unsheathed the sword against every regularly established government. But the Church of the Lord is founded upon a rock; and he hath promised, that "the gates of hell shall never prevail against " it.” Although" the heathen rage, and the people

[ocr errors]

imagine a lie;" although the destroyers of the earth" set themselves in array, and the rulers take "counsel together against Jehovah, and against "his anointed; Let us break their bands asunder, "and cast away their cords from us:" yet "he, "that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord "shall have them in derision." Congregated Europe, so God willed, met the infidels in arms. Long and bloody was the contest; for the whole "earth helped the woman." Yet, notwithstanding the various successes of the atheistical republic, when the general pacification took place in the year 1801, the earth had swallowed up the flood, which the dragon cast out of his mouth. A trial had been made of modern philosophy; and it had been most tremendously proved to be little adapted to promote the happiness of man. Its chief advocates sunk into contempt and oblivion. They

« PreviousContinue »