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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48

We Attack Their Creed

We Attack Their Creed.

We accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful, and I am going to do what I can against them. We believe that the frightful text—"He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. You might as well say all that have red hair shall be damned. It has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty, and murder. It has caused the religious wars, bound hundreds of thousands to the stake, founded Inquisitions, filled dungeons, invented instruments of torture, taught the mother to hate her child, imprisoned the mind, filled the world with ignorance, persecuted the lovers of wisdom, built the monasteries and convents, made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning, misdirected the energies of the world, filled all countries with want, housed the people in hovels, fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave infidels it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.

The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine, because