Neither True nor Divine: Elihu Palmer's Opposition to Christianity

By Terry Jonathan Moore

The purpose of the dissertation was to analyze Elihu Palmer's critical responses to Christianity as an historical witness to what Christianity was in his lifetime (1764-1806). Palmer's life story, following the memoir by John Fellows primarily, was interwoven chronologically with analyses of his publications.

The first chapter traced Palmer's eventful first thirty-one years. Born and reared on a farm in Connecticut, Palmer graduated from Dartmouth College in 1787. After supplying the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church, Newtown (Queens), New York, he moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he studied law and lectured on deism. For his denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ, he was fired from a Philadelphia church belonging to the Society of Universal Baptists. He advertised in Philip Freneau's National Gazette and the General Advertiser (later the Aurora) that he would lecture against Christ's divinity. However, Episcopal Bishop William White intimidated landlords to prevent Palmer and John Fitch from renting a public hall for the lecture. Palmer completed his legal studies in western Pennsylvania and returned to Philadelphia in 1793 to open his law practice. He then was blinded in a Yellow Fever epidemic and resumed preaching deism.

The second chapter included analysis of Palmer's publications during his first five years in New York City. His perceptions of Christian doctrines and their social impact were discussed. The last section traced Palmer's tour through Philadelphia and Baltimore as reported in Dennis Driscol's newspaper, the Temple of Reason, and John Hargrove's short-lived Temple of Truth.

The third chapter contrasted the deist movement's potential during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson with its rapid decline after the return of Thomas Paine to America. Palmer's bitterness toward Christianity and his failure to articulate a positive message in competition with revivalists were considered. His belabored critique of the Bible in his magazine, Prospect, was interpreted as a cause of the American deist movement's decline.

The conclusion suggested that Palmer's antithetical relationship to Christianity contributed to the rise of Christian social reform, the further separation of church and state, and biblical criticism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 1, 1998
• ISBN: 9781984562869

Terry Jonathan Moore

Terry Jonathan Moore currently serves as a part-time minister to Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church, Laurel/Ellisville, MS and Gulf Coast Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Diamondhead/Long Beach. Access a home page at ourhome.supernews.com

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NEITHER TRUE NOR DIVINE:

Elihu Palmer’s Opposition to Christianity

Terry Jonathan Moore

Copyright © 1994 by Terry Jonathan Moore.

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               Softcover     978-0-7388-0961-8

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A Dissertation

Submitted to the Faculty

of the

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Division of Theological and Historical Studies

The circumstance that the author was once a public speaker in the cause of Christianity, which is here opposed, so far from forming a reasonable objection against the perusal of this work, ought to become an additional motive of attention; for it was by a candid and attentive investigation into the character of revealed religion, that he became convinced that it was neither true nor divine.

Elihu Palmer, Principles of Nature

It is always good to read heresies for the counterpoint they give orthodoxy, allowing us to hear the full music in any religion or philosophy.

Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

The Problem and Its Setting

The Review of the Related Literature

The Data, Their Treatment, and Their Interpretation

CHAPTER 1: STRUGGLING AGAINST BLINDERS, 1764-95

Youth in Rural Connecticut, 1764-85

Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 1785-87

Confined Pulpits, Massachusetts and New York, 1788-89

Candid Orations, Connecticut and Georgia, 1789-91

Public Losses, Philadelphia, 1792

Federal Point Oration, Philadelphia, 4 July 1793

Private Losses, Philadelphia, Fall 1793

CHAPTER 2: GAINING A HEARING, 1796-1801

Christmas Discourse, 25 December 1796

Enquiry Oration, 4 July 1797

Political Happiness of Nations Oration, 4 July 1800

Principles of Nature, First Edition, 1801

The Circuit-Riding Deist, 1801

CHAPTER 3: SOURING A SENSATION, 1802-6

Principles of the Deistical Society of New York, January 1802

Principles of Nature, Second Edition, Spring 1802

Prospect, 1803-5

Final Marks, 1806

CONCLUSION

Religious Setting

Religious Perceptions

Religious Proposals

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Palmer’s Works Arranged Chronologically

Other Primary Sources

Secondary Studies

ENDNOTES

TO DEBBIE

ABSTRACT

NEITHER TRUE NOR DIVINE: ELIHU PALMER’S OPPOSITION TO CHRISTIANITY

Terry Jonathan Moore, Ph.D.

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994

Faculty Advisor: Daniel H. Holcomb, Professor of Church History

The purpose of the dissertation was to analyze Elihu Palmer’s critical responses to Christianity as an historical witness to what Christianity was in his lifetime (1764-1806). Palmer’s life story, following the memoir by John Fellows primarily, was interwoven chronologically with analyses of his publications.

The first chapter traced Palmer’s eventful first thirty-one years. Born and reared on a farm in Connecticut, Palmer graduated from Dartmouth College in 1787. After supplying the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church, Newtown (Queens), New York, he moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he studied law and lectured on deism. For his denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ, he was fired from a Philadelphia church belonging to the Society of Universal Baptists. He advertised in Philip Freneau’s National Gazette and the General Advertiser (later the Aurora) that he would lecture against Christ’s divinity. However, Episcopal Bishop William White intimidated landlords to prevent Palmer and John Fitch from renting a public hall for the lecture. Palmer completed his legal studies in western Pennsylvania and returned to Philadelphia in 1793 to open his law practice. He then was blinded in a Yellow Fever epidemic and resumed preaching deism.

The second chapter included analysis of Palmer’s publications during his first five years in New York City. His perceptions of Christian doctrines and their social impact were discussed. The last section traced Palmer’s tour through Philadelphia and Baltimore as reported in Dennis Driscol’s newspaper, the Temple of Reason, and John Hargrove’s short-lived Temple of Truth.

The third chapter contrasted the deist movement’s potential during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson with its rapid decline after the return of Thomas Paine to America. Palmer’s bitterness toward Christianity and his failure to articulate a positive message in competition with revivalists were considered. His belabored critique of the Bible in his magazine, Prospect, was interpreted as a cause of the American deist movement’s decline.

The conclusion suggested that Palmer’s antithetical relationship to Christianity contributed to the rise of Christian social reform, the further separation of church and state, and biblical criticism.

INTRODUCTION

The fullest examination is invited.

Elihu Palmer, Principles of Nature

Elihu Palmer opposed Christianity after he had become one of its ministers. The Christianity he absorbed in New England as a child during the American Revolution held such an obsession for him that it was reflected in every record of his considerable verbal skills. As a blinded apostate, he gave more serious meditation to the Bible, theology, and the church than many who considered themselves Christian devotees. Palmer’s studied, though unfavorable, witness deserves the attention of all who would learn the history of religion in America.

The Problem and Its Setting

The purpose of the dissertation was to analyze Elihu Palmer’s critical responses to Christianity as an historical witness to what Christianity was in his lifetime (1764-1806). The first subproblem was to determine Palmer’s personal, religious setting. The second subproblem was to analyze Palmer’s perceptions of Christianity. The third subproblem was to analyze Palmer’s proposals for the future of religion. The first hypothesis was that Palmer’s setting was that of a Presbyterian-turned-Universalist-turned-deist minister influenced by both Calvinist training and Enlightenment thought. The second hypothesis was that Palmer perceived Christianity as harmful in every way. The third hypothesis was that Palmer’s proposals had no place for Christianity but stressed deism as superior.

The study was delimited from a refutation of Palmer’s specific perceptions. Being restricted to Palmer’s thought and experience, the development of deism before or after his contribution was not explored thoroughly.

By Christianity was meant both the European Roman Catholicism and the predominantly English Protestantism that characterized most churches during his lifetime. This broad meaning was necessary, as opposed to a restriction to New England Calvinism, because Palmer rejected doctrines common to major branches of Western Christianity such as the divinity of Christ, the authority of the Bible, miracles, a personal devil, and humanity’s need for atonement.

The Enlightenment was the widespread adoption among eighteenth-century Westerners of negative attitudes towards pessimistic tradition. It was the coming of age for a long humanist tradition in the West as classical attitudes favoring optimistic, original investigation had been undergoing a revival since the Crusades and the European Renaissance. As this ideology for living came of age, it rivaled its sibling, Christianity, which had been established for over a millennium as the favored child of Western civilizers. The growing number of the Enlightened considered themselves better equipped to perceive truth than the ancients who had developed inherited, sacred traditions.

Deists were minimalist theists, reacting, like atheists, against Christians’ abuses but still avowing perception in nature of a Creator deserving adoration. Their widespread, self-conscious movement died out after the death of Palmer and Paine, contemporaneously with the rise of American revivalism.

The first assumption was that Christianity proposes empirically unverifiable descriptions of a supernatural realm. The second assumption was that serious attention to its claims can lead individuals to become either supporters or opponents of Christianity. The third assumption was that those who give serious attention to Christianity’s claims and choose to oppose it are as respectable human beings and as deserving of a hearing as those who give equally serious attention to Christianity’s claims and choose to support it.

The primary historiographical rationale for the study was the impact of Palmer’s ideas in shaping American Christianity, albeit from the outside. Immediately, Palmer was one catalyst in the rise of home missionary societies in the eastern United States and the rise of revivalism in the West. An understanding of his ideas and the obstacles they held for the triumph of a disestablished Christianity can only enrich the understanding of the context for the phenomenal growth of Christianity in nineteenth-century America.

In the larger picture, Palmer can be seen as an early model of the social reformers so active in changing nineteenth-century America. He dared to attack the church with its traditional support for the oppression of citizens, slaves, and women. As one who sought to propagate aggressively his criticisms of Christianity, he disseminated serious ideas among the masses to which Christian leaders had to respond. Palmer’s publishing of the church’s abuses provided an impetus for both liberal and conservative Christians towards militancy. Despite this importance, a review of dissertation abstracts revealed that a study of Palmer had not been done.

The practical rationale for the study included the continuing existential struggle with the Enlightenment that today’s Christians share with Palmer. Although now they might have historical insight that Palmer lacked regarding the Enlightenment’s own weaknesses, Christians continue to face the dilemma of reconciling ancient expressions of faith with modern and post-modern experience. This study should offer valuable perspective to pilgrims today as a case study in the impact of Enlightenment thought upon an early American Christian.

The Review of the Related Literature

The literature even acknowledging Palmer revealed that his fate [was] always to be one in a list.¹ Secular historians have included passing references to his life with brief generalizations regarding his attacks upon Christian orthodoxy.² He has been listed as second to Thomas Paine as a deist propagandist despite his greater devotion to the cause.³ Unlike the Church of England’s latitudinarians, America’s mainline denominational writers have virtually ignored the eighteenth-century deists. No denominational history can consistently show a view of institutions from the perspective of those crushed. A few church historians might have chronicled the outlines of Palmer’s activities, but none have given his writings serious analysis, which was the purpose of this study in church history.⁴

Determining Palmer’s Personal Religious Setting

That secular scholars have sometimes misunderstood Palmer, outside his religious context, was apparent from their lack of appreciation for Palmer’s strenuous labors for disestablishment. Both Koch and Walters portrayed Palmer as beating a dead horse on the issue of disestablishment, thinking the first amendment settled the issue; quite to the contrary, the battle over New England state churches raged not only during but well beyond Palmer’s life- time.⁵

The dominant interpretations of deism have centered on the social strata of its constituency. Most have explained the republican-deist movement’s failure by suggesting that the lower classes Palmer brought into the movement ran the upper-class deists out.⁶ These older students of early republic deism, writing during the growth of American labor unions, assumed Palmer to be an organizer, stressing the social dimension of his efforts as a promoter of deism for the lower class. Koch argued that the deist movement’s failure lay in its lack of rich contributors. The primary sources refute Koch’s contention. Deists bragged about their financial independence from the clergy, having no use for the American ministers’ power over public opinion as a means to hurt their incomes.

Deists were diverse. Not only did they include rich and poor, but their independent ideologies also stretched their own tolerance of each other. Koch might better have stressed the deist movement’s downfall as opening a new front, with atheists, than a class warfare.⁷ The tone of the deist paper begun in Philadelphia with the exultation of independently wealthy supporters and the bright future of deism changed to a resentment of unpaying atheist subscribers and the keep-the-faith survival spirit of a minority.⁸ This provided a challenging setting for reinventing religion for the Enlightened that needed further exploration.

There was some confusion in the literature about Palmer’s identification with Baptists. Walters categorically rejected Koch’s assertion that Palmer was briefly a Baptist in the early 1790s. Some clarification was needed regarding the Society of Universal Baptists, the group Palmer joined as they shifted from typically Baptist to increasingly Universalist beliefs.⁹

Analyzing Palmer’s Perceptions of Christianity

The majority of Palmer’s writings were attacks on Christianity. Philosopher Walters has written brief analyses of the critique of Christianity in Palmer’s book, Principles of Nature. In a chapter on Palmer, he discussed Palmer’s case against orthodox Christianity and summarized it thus: It promoted immorality, ignorance and injustice, insulted the Deity, and stunted humanity.¹⁰ Walters and French agreed in their analyses that Palmer’s originality lay in his attacks on Jesus himself and in his rejection of immortality.

In his thirty-page analysis of the book’s contents, Walters argued for dismissing Palmer’s criticism of Christianity as merely the prolegomena for Palmer’s discussion of foundational positive ethical principles such as reciprocal justice and universal benevolence.¹¹ While there was support for this in some statements in the primary sources, the overwhelming proportion of Palmer’s writings given to his opposition of Christianity supports the view that he was more intent on his preliminary destructive than his ultimately constructive course. It was striking that in each of his treatments of Palmer, Walters discussed Palmer’s positive ethical contributions to a greater degree than did Palmer himself.

Practically nothing had been done with Palmer’s articles in the deist weekly, Prospect: View of the Moral World. Koch and Morais focused on the more easily read allusions to events and the announcements in its predecessor, the Temple of Reason, to the neglect of the more abstract religious arguments. Palmer’s articles in the deist periodical he edited, Prospect, have not been studied intensively at all. As perusal of the below bibliography would readily reveal, the articles are replete with comments on Scripture and Christian teaching.

No student of Palmer’s life had dealt with indications of the problems American Christianity experienced when conservatism held a monopoly. In his time, he was too radical for not only the Presbyterians but also the nascent Universalists. Palmer prematurely personified the liberalism that later American Christianity tried to accommodate. He thereby contributed to the rise of Christian liberalism, a point on which only Walters touched briefly.

Analyzing Palmer’s Proposals for Religion

Koch and Morais, being students of the wider deist movement, misappreciated Palmer as primarily an organizer. French and Walters have challenged the interpretation of Palmer as an organizer, emphasizing Palmer’s contributions as a thinker. This student follows this more recent interpretation.

In the section most concerned with Palmer’s religious thought, Koch made few original statements between lengthy quotations of Palmer.¹² In fact, Koch’s original statements regarding Palmer’s religious views average less than two complete sentences per page.¹³ Koch’s reliance on multiple, lengthy quotes throughout his book resulted in little more than an uncritical compilation; however, Koch’s book gained notoriety as a classic on deism due to the century-long neglect of his sources. Walters mixed philosophical analysis with his many quotations, which he explicitly defended in his preface.¹⁴

Though his important Principles of the Deistical Society of New York included calls for giving adoration to God, much of the discussion of Palmer’s thought has stressed naturalistic, humanistic ethics as the sum of his religious proposals. Palmer’s training was in religion, albeit during a time when theology and philosophy were intermingled. While Walters accentuated the positive, Palmer did not. Exegesis demands that a study of Palmer emphasize what Palmer emphasized.

Thus, little attention had been given in the last two hundred years to Palmer’s books. After nearly two hundred years, Palmer’s invitation for his works to be given the fullest examination remained ignored.¹⁵ Palmer had not been appreciated for his religious thought. A thorough evaluation of Palmer’s thought was therefore needed.

The Data, Their Treatment, and Their Interpretation

The primary data were Palmer’s publications. His attributed writings were read with the deist apologies printed in Prospect, the newspaper he edited. Some primary data related to Palmer’s context also were used. The secondary data included works that briefly interpreted Palmer’s writings. Data acquired from the study of subproblem one also were utilized. All works attributed to Palmer were analyzed. After his attributed works were studied, some anonymous works others attributed to Palmer were examined and conclusions drawn regarding their authenticity.

In Palmer’s deist weekly, Prospect, or View of the Moral World, the articles on the beginning pages consistently omitted attribution. The only attributed pieces, usually on the final pages, were from the books of other authors, such as Gibbon, Rousseau, and Paine. It was common for editors of that time, especially editors of financially struggling papers, to write many unsigned articles for their papers.¹⁶ In addition to this most plausible identification of the unsigned articles, there was the appearance of Palmer’s name in the masthead of nearly half of the issues, indicating that he was responsible for the entire paper’s content.¹⁷ Study of the internal evidence of the articles has shown them to be ideologically consistent with Palmer’s other works.¹⁸ The aggressive nature of his attributed works made obvious his agenda against Christianity and the tone of these criticisms was echoed in all the articles in his deist periodical. The careful, methodical discussion of Scripture and of church history featured in many issues reflected Palmer’s formal training as a Christian minister. Therefore, unsigned articles featured in the periodicals were considered as Palmer’s works since evidence to the contrary was not found.

The primary research methodology was historical. Each argument was analyzed to suggest aspects Palmer saw in the American Christianity of his time and how he thought it should have been. All three subproblems were deduced from the analysis of Palmer’s writings. The data were read thoroughly for indications of Palmer’s critique of Christianity or his proposals for religion. His critiques were taken as indicative of the crisis in American Christianity during the early republic in which a minority, including Palmer, turned to rationalistic religion while the majority turned to revivalism. The data were interpreted to show the sitz im leben of American Christianity before the growth of liberalism, on the one hand, and the Second Great Awakening, on the other.

The student used Papyrus version 7, a bibliographic software program, on a notebook computer to computerize the writing and sorting of notes from hundreds of sources in various libraries. Keeping the entirety of the dissertation in digital storage streamlined the research process from note-taking to final draft. The software allowed repeated sorting of the electronic notes by increasingly refined key words until the most frequently occurring themes in each of Palmer’s published works appeared. The discussion in the text was focused accordingly.

Access to the data at times proved to be a problem in itself. Through the secondary studies found in the John T. Christian Library of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, this student began studying Palmer in the fall of 1992 while researching a paper for the seminar Religion in Colonial America led by Dr. Claude L. Howe, Jr. Some primary sources were accessed through the seminary’s interlibrary loan services and its consortium with other academic libraries in the New Orleans area. Other sources required use of neglected microform equipment. The microcard series of the American Antiquarian Society’s Early American Imprints and reel forty-two of University Microfilm’s American Periodical Series were accessed at the University of New Orleans. Early Philadelphia newspapers and other rare materials were found in the microforms and newspapers division at Tulane University, with its collection of the Greater New Orleans Microfilm Consortium. Additional secondary sources were found at Loyola University.

The student obtained helpful information through the mail from the archives of Dartmouth University, the New York Public Library, and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation at Monticello in Virginia. Letters to other institutions were not answered. The student benefited from a personal conversation with Lucia C. Stanton, director of research at Monticello, after she made a presentation for the Historic New Orleans Collection. The student also sought to initiate a relationship with Kerry Walters, philosophy professor at Gettysburg College, who had written briefly on Palmer.

For other rare library materials unavailable via interlibrary loan, the student travelled to the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia City Archives, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Presbyterian Historical Society. He also benefited from the holdings of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He benefited from the rare book collection at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He also found somewhat helpful the library of Rice University in Houston.

Because of the rarity of the public domain materials used, the student included extensive quotes in the notes to aid future researchers. The most confusing original spelling was corrected. To contribute toward a biographical understanding, the events of Palmer’s life were interwoven chronologically with the analyses of his publications’ most prominent themes.

CHAPTER 1

STRUGGLING AGAINST BLINDERS, 1764-95

I presume, if I ever change, it will be to a greater degree of heresy.

Elihu Palmer to Jedidiah Morse, 1791

Palmer’s writings were devoid of autobiographical material. During his last nine years, though, he did orally reveal much of his story to his closest friend, John Fellows.¹⁹ Still, Palmer’s dramatic life remained obscure to the public until eighteen years after his death when a radical London publisher, Richard Carlile, sought to publish all that he could find written by or about Palmer. Knowing of only one book, Carlile asked William Carver, the treasurer of Palmer’s supporters, about more of Palmer’s writings, and Carver passed the inquiry on to Fellows.²⁰

Fellows still had an incomplete manuscript that Palmer’s widow had given him before she died. He forwarded it, assuring the publisher that there were no more of Palmer’s writings extant. As there was no written record of Palmer’s life and none of his relatives left in New York City, Fellows wrote a letter detailing what he remembered, though he modestly did wish that some more able hand were employed in the project.²¹

Fortunately for the record, Carlile published not only Palmer’s incomplete manuscript, but Fellows’s letter also as a preface, under the title, Memoir of Mr. Palmer, and it has served as the single, empathetic, primary source for students of Palmer’s life.²² Fellows well could have been assured that his hand was able enough for the task since research has verified most of his letter as essentially correct. The few inaccuracies in his letter were due to his unavoidable reliance upon his long-term memory for events occurring before he had met Palmer.

Youth in Rural Connecticut, 1764-85

Fellows’s depiction of the young Palmer afforded no clear source of his later liberalism. His unconventional beliefs seemed to be as rare in his family as they were in the country at large. The family name probably originated with the English crusaders who returned from the Holy Land with palm leaves.²³ His father was a farmer in eastern Connecticut and his mother’s ancestors purportedly included the Pilgrims John Robinson and Miles Standish.²⁴ He would epitomize the zeal for both religion and pioneering that characterized both these blood lines.

Born in 1764, he was reared a Congregationalist.²⁵ Nurtured in an atmosphere of politically revolutionary rhetoric, he must have been deeply affected by the War of Independence surrounding him from his eleventh to his nineteenth years. He could have been exposed to French skepticism during these teenage years by either first or second-hand contact with the allied French troops during the war.²⁶ His family of origin was poor. While most young men matriculated at college in their teen years, Palmer remained on the farm until he was twenty-one years old.²⁷ Still, Palmer’s loyalty to the plain work of farming also fit with his lifelong love of common people. One writer described him as a plain American.²⁸ He did, in fact, champion the cause of plain people everywhere. His farming background also was congruent with his deep-seated sense of duty for cultivating the best in the world. He probably internalized the farmer’s efficiency in maximizing a harvest’s return since he always expected the educated to use the best of their knowledge for the public’s good.²⁹

Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, 1785-87

When he was able to attend college, he chose one that had grown out of a New Light Congregationalist minister’s missionary tool for converting the Indians.³⁰ With the help of Evangelist George Whitefield, Eleazar Wheelock had gained the financial backing of the Earl of Dartmouth for this young school in the wilderness. Dartmouth College had grown considerably by the time of Wheelock’s death in 1779.

The man who would have been Palmer’s theology professor from 1785 to 1787, Sylvanus Ripley, was an heir of the zealous spirit of Whitefield and Wheelock. Ripley was among the college’s first graduates, a missionary to the Indians, and the president’s son-in-law. Wheelock mentioned him in his will as one of his three choices to assume the college presidency. When Wheelock’s son accepted the office, Ripley succeeded the founder as pastor of the college church. The trusted, orthodox professor of divinity was characterized by his conversational, evangelical preaching.³¹

Neither were that era’s other two Dartmouth professors radical liberals. Bezaleel Woodward, professor of mathematics and another of Wheelock’s sons-in-law, was the only non-Dartmouth graduate on the three-member faculty, having graduated from Yale when he was nineteen. He was the