That is, Junius was a Christian who, upon moral principles, did not say his prayers, and who thought that forms were no part of religion. In other words, if the highest morality was Christianity, he claimed to be a Christian, and would not stoop "to reconcile the sanctimonious forms of religion with the utter destruction of morality."
This, too, was Mr. Paine's Christianity. In a national and moral sense he uses the term with approbation, but when in a theological sense he disowns it. He says, in Crisis, ii: "This ingratitude may suit a tory, or the _unchristian_ peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else." In Crisis, i, he says: "I wish, with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of whig and tory may never more be mentioned." To the Quakers he says: "Call not coldness of soul religion, nor put the _bigot_ in the place of the _Christian_." In Common Sense he says: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness." And again: "This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.... In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friendship on a larger scale; _we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment_."
The above are a few of the many passages in which he indorses Christianity. But Christian here means only its moral phase or principles, and these principles exalted by the feeling of universal brotherhood. But in a theological sense he uses the term very differently, and by keeping this fact in view, he is readily understood, and there is only the contradiction which the use of the word by common consent carries with it. In the Age of Reason, Conclusion, he says: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity."
They both had the same views of Jesus. Mr. Paine says in the Age of Reason, part i: "Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius and by some of the Greek philosophers many years before, and by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.... He preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of the priesthood." And between the Romans and the Jews "this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life."