Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.Robison, John
History
Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe: carried on in the secret meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and reading societies.
Robison, John
Freemasonry -- Early works to 1800; Illuminati -- Early works to 1800
April 1793, the most wretched and loathsome victim of unbridled
sensuality. The account of his case is written by a friend, a Dr.
Jung, who professes to defend his memory and his principles. The
medical description melted my heart, and I am certain would make his
bitterest enemy weep. Jung repeatedly says, that the case was not
venereal--calls it the vineyard disease--the quicksilver disease,
(he was dying of an unconquerable salivation,) and yet, through the
whole of his narration, relates symptoms and sufferings, which, as
a medical man, he could not possibly mean to be taken in any other
sense than as effects of pox. He meant to please the enemies of poor
Bahrdt, knowing that such a man could have no friends, and being
himself ignorant of what friendship or goodness is. The fate of this
poor creature affected me more than any thing I have read of a great
while. All his open enemies put together have not said so much ill
of him as his trusted friend Pott, and another confident, whose name
I cannot recollect, who published in his lifetime an anonymous book
called _Bahrdt with the Iron Brow_--and this fellow Jung, under the
absurd mask of friendship, exhibited the loathsome carcase for a
florin, like a malefactor's at Surgeon's Hall. Such were the fruits
of the German Union, of that Illumination that was to refine the
heart of man, and bring to maturity the seeds of native virtue,
which are choaked in the hearts of other men by superstition and
despotism. We see nothing but mutual treachery and base desertion.
I do not concern myself with the gradual perversion of Dr. Bahrdt's
moral and religious opinions. But he affected to be the enlightener
and reformer of mankind; and affirmed that all the mischiefs in
life originated from despotism supported by superstition. "In
vain," says he, "do we complain of the inefficacy of religion. All
positive religion is founded on injustice. No Prince has a right
to prescribe or sanction any such system. Nor would he do it, were
not the priests the firmest pillars of his tyranny, and superstition
the strongest fetters for his subjects. He dares not show Religion
as she is--pure and undefiled----She would charm the eyes and the
hearts of mankind, would immediately produce true morality, would
open the eyes of freeborn man, would teach him what are his rights,
and who are his oppressors, and Princes would vanish from the face
of the earth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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