Paine's Prophetic Dream

An amazing dream! Check it out!

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Like everything else socialist, today’s schools and history books deny at every turn the religious nature of America’s Founding Father’s and the inspiration these great men felt for the cause of liberty.

Sadly, many of us have come to accept as fact the fallacy that the Founders and our precious liberties are products of the European Enlightenment (a secular movement).

Yet at every turn, the real record, the hidden record, tells a different story—a story of men of faith, men driven not simply by their intellects, but by their hearts, not just by political principle, but by deeply held religious conviction.

Thomas Paine’s inspirational dream, perhaps, vision, predicting the War for Independence and its happy outcome, a dream he published in June of 1775, under the title, “The Dream Interpreted,” in the Pennsylvania Magazine, is but one example among many, of this untold story of faith in America.

He wrote:
The Dream Interpreted

“Parched with thirst and wearied with a fatiguing journey to Virginia, I turned out of the road to shelter myself among the shades; in a little time I had the good fortune to light on a spring, and the refreshing draught went sweetly down. How little of luxury does nature want! This cooling stream administered more relief than all the wins of Oporto: I drank and was satisfied; my fatigue abated, my wasted spirits were reinforced, and 'tis no wonder after such a delicious repast that I sunk insensibly into slumber…[and dreamed].

“[I]n the dream I am about to relate I was only a spectator, and had not other business to do than to remember.

“To what scene or country my ideas had conveyed themselves, or whether they had created a region on purpose to explore, I know not, but I saw before me me one of of the most pleasing landscapes I have ever beheld. I gazed at it, till my mind partaking of the prospect became incorporated therewith, and felt all the tranquility of the place. In this state of ideal happiness I sat down on the side of a mountain, totally forgetful of the world I had left behind me. The most delicious fruits presented themselves to my hands, and one of the clearest rivers that ever watered the earth rolled along at the foot of the mountain, and invited me to drink. The distant hills were blue with the tincture of the skies, and seemed as if they were the threshold of the celestial region. But while I gazed the whole scene began t change, by an almost insensible gradation. The sun, instead of administering life and health, consumed everything with an intolerable heat. The verdure withered. The hills appeared burnt and black. The fountains dried away; and the atmosphere became a motionless lake of air, loaded with pestilence and death. After several days of wretched suffocation, the sky grew darkened with clouds from every quarter, till one extended storm excluded the face of heaven. A dismal silence took place, as if the earth, struck with a general panic, was listening like a criminal to the sentence of death. The glimmering light with which the sun feebly penetrated the clouds began to fail, till Egyptian darkness added to the horror. The beginning of the tempest was announced by a confusion of distant thunders, till at length a general discharge of the whole artillery of heaven was poured down upon the earth. Trembling I shrunk into the side of a cave, and dreaded the event. The mountain shook, and threatened me with instant destruction. The rapid lightning at every blaze exhibit the landscape of a world on fire, while the accumulating torrent, no in rain, but floods of water, resembled another deluge.

“At length the fury of the storm abated, and nature, fatigued with fear and watching, sank into rest. But when the morning rose, and the universal lamp of heaven emerged from the deep, how was I struck with astonishment! I expected to have seen a world in ruins, which nothing but a new creation could have restored. Instead of which, the prospect was lovely and inviting, and had all the promising appearance of exceeding its former glory. the air, purged of it poisonous vapours, was fresh and healthy. The dried
fountains were replenished, the waters sweet and wholesome. the sickly earth, recovered to new life, abounded with vegetation. The groves were musical with innumerable songsters, and the long-deserted fields echoed with the joyous sound of the husband man. All, all was felicity' and what I had dreaded as an evil, became a blessing. At this happy reflection I awoke: and have refreshed myself with draught from the friendly spring, pursued my journey.

“After traveling a few miles I fell in with a companion, and as we rode through a wood but little frequented by travellers, I began, for the sake of chatting away the tediousness of the journey, to relate my dream. I think, replied my friend, that I can interpret it; That beautiful country which you saw is America. The sickly state you beheld her in, has been coming on her for these ten years past. Her commerce has been drying up by repeated restrictions, till by one merciless edict the ruin of it is compleated. the pestilential atmosphere represents that ministerial corruption with surrounds and exercises its dominion over her, and which noting but a storm can purify. the tempest is the present contest and the event will be
the same. She will rise with new glories from the conflict, and her fame be established in every corner of the globe; while it will be remembered to her eternal honour, that she has not sought the quarrel, but has been driven into it. He who guides the natural tempest will regulate the political one, and bring good out of evil. In our petition to Britain we asked but for peace; but the prayer was rejected. The cause is now before a higher court, the court of Providence, before whom the arrogance of kings, the infidelity of ministers, the general corruption of government, and all the cobweb artifice of courts, will fall confounded and ashamed.”

Thomas Paine, like many of his fellow Founders, saw the hand of God in raising of a Standard of Liberty in the United States—and unlike the spineless crew of politicians and educators who take to the pen and the pulpit today, he wasn’t afraid to reveal this matter of faith in public.

This Independence Day, we can do likewise. We can remember and share with others this principle of faith: the moving power behind our blessed Independence and Freedom was and is God. As we do so, a retelling of Thomas Paine’s prophetic dream, might just be a great place to start.

Contact Steve at feedback@washingtondispatch.com

Washington Dispatch pundit Steve Farrell is the author of Dark Rose, an inspirational novel reviewers are calling “a modern classic.”

ping

Excellent! I would only disagree with the author on one point. I believe he was seeing the day we are living in, when the Earth is transformed into Christ's Kingdom after passing through "the great tribulation", which is at our doorstep.

From Thomas Paine's THE AGE OF REASON:

As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens of France have given me the example of making their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man communicates with itself.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

I thought that was Washington's dream?

The role of religion in forming the ideals which were to become the American Republic can be seen very early on. The preeminent Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritan theologian, John Cotton:

"Let all the world learn to give mortal men no greater power than they are content they shall use, for use it they will....it is most wholesome for magistrates and officers in church and commonwealth never to affect more liberty and authority than will do them good, and the people good, for whatever transcendent power is given will certainly overrun those that receive it...it is necessary, therefore, that all power that is on earth be limited, church power or state...It is counted a matter of danger to the state to limit prerogatives, but it is a further danger, not to have them limited."

Paine was an anomaly--more in line with the secular humanists of the French Revolution than the Christian faith of the founders. He, Ethan Allan and Edmund Randolph (who later became a Christian) are the only three I've found who called themselves deists. George Mason, who is usually cited as a deist (and might have been one), was, in spite of his possible rejection of Christianity, a vestryman of Truro parish in Fairfax County, Virginia.

bump

Beautiful.

"The sickly state you beheld her in, has been coming on her for these ten years past."

The Clinton years?

Time again for caring citizens to bring America back to her glory.

Paine was an anomaly--more in line with the secular humanists of the French Revolution than the Christian faith of the founders.

I believe he wrote The Age of Reason in the midst of the French Revolution, when atheism was gaining fashion, and his old allies in the US were appalled.

Though Paine, indeed stated what you say he stated in "The Age of Reason," one would do well to put it in the context it was intended, however; that is, he, like Jefferson, and many of the Founding Father's, rejected Christianity as it was presently constituted, as a fallen system from the original Christianity that Christ said up.

In some folks eyes, that makes the man not a Christian. I disagree.

And note, that he foresaw a revolution in the system of religion occurring in America, which again, was a belief shared by Jefferson, and which many will argue, happened indeed.

More especially, the context of Paine's remarks was the French Revolution, wherein his target audience was one where the state church system still existed. It was against such a false structure of religion that he directed his remarks.

America had no state Churches at the time of his writing of the Age of Reason. Christianity in America was a moral influence at the root of our laws, but certainly not the kind of influence that mandates a particular faith.

Jefferson, on the other hand, advised Paine that he had gone too far in the Age of Reason, and that he should never publish it. Paine scolded Jefferson, and published it anyway. But Jefferson was right. Paine came back to America in dishonor; and sadly, some have disregarded his earlier writings, filled with faith as they were.

Nevertheless, the record of his better days stands. He was a convinced Christian in America. His writings are all full of Christianity and Christian reasoning, and it was by that tool that he persuaded the colonists, in Common Sense, to fight for Independence.

Paine did rely on the Bible to help buttress his arguments in COMMON SENSE, but judging by his comments in THE AGE OF REASON, it seems he relied on the Bible in COMMON SENSE for calculated - not deeply felt - reasons. Whether or not Paine changed his mind about the Bible by the time he wrote THE AGE OF REASON is beside the point. I don't see how Paine can be described as a Christian, except in the most nominal sense, if he didn't believe in the divinity of Christ.

Paine:
"From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christian system or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was, but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the Church, upon the subject of what is called redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way, and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of that kind of thoughts that had anything in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner at this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.

It seems as if parents of the Christian profession were ashamed to tell their children anything about the principles of their religion. They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the goodness of what they call Providence, for the Christian mythology has five deities- there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the Christian story of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing people to do it (for that is the plain language of the story) cannot be told by a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and better is making the story still worse- as if mankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell him that all this is a mystery is only making an excuse for the incredibility of it.

How different is this to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.
The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much, by leaving the works of God out of their system."

America had no state Churches at the time of his writing of the Age of Reason. Christianity in America was a moral influence at the root of our laws, but certainly not the kind of influence that mandates a particular faith.

Massachusetts had state supported churches until the mid 1830s.

The Constitution of Delaware (1776) required every elected and appointed state official to declare " I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."

The clause in the Maryland constitution which said ""No religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God" was only overturned by the Supreme Court in 1961.

Took until 1995 for South Carolina's ban on atheists holding state office--a prohibition dating from 1868--to be struck down.

BTTT

Last evening at church we had a "Celebrate America" service. It was quite inspiring - readings from some of America's greatest documents, the choir leading the congregation in the great patriotic songs of our nation.

I was taught these songs in kindergarten and the early years of elementary school. I'm talking about songs like "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Onward Christian Soldiers", "This land is your land", "My Country Tis of Thee", "America the Beautiful", and yes, "Dixie".

But I was shocked that they had to pass out the words. When they came to the second verse of the "Star Spangled Banner", "American the Beautiful", and "My Country Tis of Thee", there were a lot fewer people singing. The young adults and teenagers were talking about how they didn't know there were multiple verses to those songs!

I really can't imagine not know the poetry of ALL the verses of our great songs. No the last two words of the national anthem are NOT "Play Ball" - but without athletic events how often do we really sing that anymore? How often do we pledge allegiance to the flag? When I was in elemtnary school, we started every day with the Pledge, the national anthem, and a prayer. By the time I graduated we were doing none of them.

I realized that WE'RE not teaching the next generation. I remember sitting on the piano bench with my grandmother singing those songs. I haven't taught them to my kids - YET - but you can believe I started last night. (They can roll their eyes all they want to!)

When I was in school, we MEMORIZED the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, and the Preamble to the Constitution. My teenagers are HONOR STUDENTS and don't recognize these documents.

It's frightening. I suggest we need to wake up and realize that we are NOT doing all that we can to raise a new generation of AMERICANS - who love this country and what it stands for.

I've heard many people say the problems in this country started when God was taken out of the schools. We haven't just taken God out of the schools - we have taken everything that defines us as a nation out of our schools. No patriotic songs. No pledge of allegiance to the flag. God help us, we may offend someone.

Sorry for the rambling rant - I'm probably preaching to the choir here.

The words of President Lincoln are just as important today as they ever were: "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Not rambling at all, an excellent post. What the left has done to education and history is almost unbelievable. I am sure my parents generation never thought it could happen. There are millions of people today who have no idea how religious the founders of America were and who believe separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of our system of government.

Seperation of state was originally meant to mean that the govt would not DICTATE religious beliefs ( or lack therof ) to the people. We have transformed this to mean that religion is not ALLOWED in the govt. This has proven to be very bad, because passing laws requires a fundamental morality.