The following is taken from a letter of Lemuel Haynes to his friend and first biographer, Timothy Mather Cooley.
With respect to religion in these parts, although the year past some towns have been remarkably visited with divine influence, yet it is in general a very ignorant time. I think I never knew infidelity more prevalent. As you observe, Paine has advocates. I have attended to his writings on theology and can find little but invective and the lowest kind of burlesque. . . . We may rest satisfied that the Lord omnipotent reigneth.
—Lemuel Haynes, May We Meet in the Heavenly World: The Piety of Lemuel Haynes, ed. Thabiti Anyabwile (Reformation Heritage Books, 2007), 57.
Haines refers here to the deist Thomas Paine, whose book The Age of Reason was a diatribe against Christianity. Notice, though, that rather than panicking and calling Christians to campaigns and protests and boycotts, he simply says, “We may rest satisfied that the Lord omnipotent reigneth.” If only American fundamentalists believed that!
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Posted in: Church History · May We Meet in the Heavenly World: The Piety of Lemuel Haynes · Thabiti Anyabwile
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