A Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff & Origin of Freemasonry (Illustrated)

The book has an active table of contents for easy access to each volume and section of the following titles by Thomas Paine:

1. A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OFLLANDAFF

2. ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY

Thomas Paine was one of the founding fathers of the United States. He was also a political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary that is seen today in the row with the greatest thinkers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hobbes, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Their collected thoughts have had strong influence on building the foundation of the United States and its endeavor of open society.

Thomas Paine’s essays in this collection were published in 1818.  Expressing his own religious beliefs, Paine wrote the following in The Age of Reason:

“I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. 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.” At here, Thomas Paine challenged the institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible as "an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text".

Paine also promoted natural religion in his various writings and argued for the existence of a creator-God of Bible and wrote the following:

“The opinions I have advanced ... are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues – and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now – and so help me God.”

The collection is the source of Paine's religious views that all pointe to a natural religion based on the common good and individualism.

On September 23, 2015 , Chinese President Xi Jinping, the powerful leader of the last and largest communist country in the world, visited the United States and claimed to American people that he enjoyed reading the books by Thomas Paine. Interestingly, this reminded American people that in 1800 Paine had a meeting with Napoleon in Paris. Napoleon also claimed he slept with a copy of Rights of Man under his pillow and told Paine that "a statue of gold should be erected to you in every city in the universe." However, Paine’s response to Napoleon’s progress towards dictatorship was: "the completest charlatan that ever existed". Although Thomas Paine cannot directly respond to the president Xi Jinping’s praise of his books today, former secretary of the United States Hillary Clinton responded on September 27, 205 during Xi’s same U.S. trip to UN in the United States "Xi hosting a meeting on women's rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless". Hillary’s response to President Xi Jinping is almost repeating Paine’s response to Napoleon again.

Thomas Paine is forever remembered as a philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary through his extremely influential works. His influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and sciences.

This book is one of the most important ones about the thoughts natural religion, freedom, and human rights by Thomas Paine, one of the greatest thinkers of modern political philosophy on the planet.