Why is Jesus's birth celebrated on Dec 25th?

[Victoria]

You don't get door-to-door atheists, or soap-box atheists in the town square.

Ah, but you get them on the internet, in newsgroups, in forums, in academia, many places.

Now, I'm not talking about you. From what I can see, though passionate, you are rational, Pug (as condenscending as that sounds, for which I apologise -- unfortunately, even when observing something positive about another human, one has to be careful not to offend).

Having seen your jolly Christmas tree, I realised immediately you are not completely immune to the cultural pull of religion around you. I have met many many Atheists who shun those who accept a modicum of religiosity around them.

Ironically, this absolutism, this derisive attitude reminds one of the most extreme of religious people.

...well, the thread is coming to a close I fancy. It reminded me of the Teddy Bear thread, and I learnt much from the many opinions here. Let's see what "tomorrow" brings, but I think I am outties.

Thanks TeeJay, Demon, Pug, Raijor and all of you! It ain't easy talking of religion. I think RWG did well again.

[TeeJay]

Beliefs? You don't get atheism. It's not a faith.

I as a person who intellectually understands there is no God can accept, in a spiritual way, that there may be something out there. I just won't apply the same rules to it. I know there is no God.

As an Atheist, I'm not trying to convert anyone, but when presented with someone trying to wedge religion into everyday life, I will get defensive. Most religion states that you have to convert people around you. You don't get door-to-door atheists, or soap-box atheists in the town square.

But how do you know that?

He might not have spoken to you yet, but He will, when the time is right. As someone who lived their life until recently as an Athiest, I know how hard that can be to accept, but that's just the way it is. God works in mysterious ways...

[cool-arrow]

I was lost when Zeitgeist was represented as a mocumentary. I thought it was a three part documentary made to enlighten ignorant people, who are blind to the world around them from there limited education.

[Guest TTK]

Revealed religions.......manna for the masses.....money for the masters......!

Before we can talk about the Bible we must consider another question, a deeper and a far more important question.

First we must consider God.

Throughout history mankind has sought God. Sought to find some proof, some indication, some hope, that God is; or might be.

That search goes on today.

Wisdom seeks to find a trace of God in the vastness of eternal space, seeks some indication throughout the far reaches of the cosmos--within the very heart of nature itself--that there is, or might be, some guiding intelligence--however remote--that would, perhaps, be God. Wisdom seeks, and continues to seek, a trace of God, but has not yet found that trace.

Upon this tiny, remote, speck that we call earth and home, and across the endless reaches of space, wisdom and science finds only nature and the workings of nature. Nothing more!

And yet, while wisdom seeks and searches in vain for a trace of God, ignorance found God. Or, at least, believes it has found God, Ignorance not only found God, but has direct information as to what God said and did, what God wants, what God thinks, what God likes, and what God hates.

The ignorance that found God has nothing to do with religious believers today. God, or the illusion of God, was found long ago; in the childhood of the human race. Ignorance found God long before mankind found science; even before the wheel was invented, or fire was captured and made a friend of man. In that barren, cold, dangerous world stood our remote ancestors. Humanity was in its infancy, struggling to understand the forces of nature, to escape its enemies, to feed itself, and to reproduce its kind. The human mind was emerging from the darkness of animal instincts into the beginnings of reason. Its only thought: Survival! It was a dangerous world with enemies, everywhere and always.

"How great and powerful was our leader who was killed last season" they would think. "If only his might was with us now, we would easily destroy this enemy."

"Oh great leader help us in this time of our greatest need!"

And so ignorance created faith in the face of necessity.

And God was born!

This God that ignorance found, or formed, looks a great deal like a man. They tell us it has a face, hands, bowels, a foot (maybe two). They tell us it has nostrils and likes to smell the burnt offerings upon the primitive altar.

[NOTES: Face: Ex. 33:11,20,23; Num. 14:15. Hands: Ps. 28:5. Bowels: Jer. 31:20. Foot: Is. 37:25. Maybe two feet: Ps. 18:9. Nostrils: 2 Sam. 22:9,16. Smell burnt offerings: Gen. 8:2]

This God, that ignorance found or formed, also has remarkably human desires and emotions. It hates, it loves, it feels anger and it feels compassion. It has favorite individuals, and a chosen people. This God is definitely of the male sex, and has definite male tendencies. It is often angry, easily enraged, swears, destroys things, pouts, shouts, deceives, and often rests.

Any wife would recognize God.

[NOTES: Hates: Mal. 1-2,3, Rom. 9:11-13. Love: Deut. 7:13. Anger: Ex. 4:14. Compassion: Ps. 111:4. Favorite: Ex. 3:21. Chosen people: Is. 44:2. Angry: Deut. 9:20, 1 Kin. 11:9, etc. Enraged: 1 Sam. 6:19. Swears: Gen. 12:3. Destroys things: Gen. 6:17. Pouts: Ex. 32:9-10. Shouts: Ps. 47:5. Deceives: Jer. 20:7. Rests: Gen. 2:2]

This God that was found by a primitive and ignorant people some thousands of years ago, just happened to have the same world outlook, and the same beliefs about nature as the people who found him. This God thought the sun revolved around the earth, and that a day could be made longer by simply stopping the sun for a while. It is truly amazing, the number of similarities there are between the beliefs of God, and the beliefs of the people who discovered God.

[NOTE: Stopping the sun: Josh. 10:12]

Those people, though primitive, possessed skills, and so did the God they found. This God gave instructions for building a boat, he designed clothes for the priests, gave the formula for a perfume, was a tailor and made coats of skins. This God also made many simple, often foolish, laws that are called "Commandments." And God did many other things very human, and very peculiar to the time and people who first discovered God.

[NOTES: Boat: Gen. 6:14-18. Designed clothes for the priests: Ex. 28:39. Formula for perfume: Ex. 30:34-35. Made coats of skin: Gen. 3:21]

But of all the human-like things that God is said to have done, the most important thing of all, we are told, was to write books, or to guide the hand and mind of those who wrote. It is the books that God is said to have written, or caused to be written, that are to be considered tonight.

The story I have told about the discovery of God is not unique. Anthropologists agree it has happened many times, and in many different places. Whenever primitive people needed a God they have always found a God, tailor made. It was their own God, and always resembled them a great deal. The God always had the same enemies and the same morals, as the people who found him, and many of those Gods were authors; They wrote books.

I would have no trouble, if I were in a Moslem part of the world, convincing the people there that the Christian Bible is not "the word of God." If I were addressing Buddhist, Hindus, or people of any other religion I would have no trouble proving, to their satisfaction, that the Christian Bible is not the inspired word of God.

But I am in a Christian dominated part of the world. And being in a Christian part of the world, I feel that I would have no trouble convincing most of you that the Moslem holy books are false, that those books are not the true word of God. You would tend to agree that all those other people, who have other Gods and other religious books, are mistaken. You might agree that they have been misinformed, or even deceived. It would seem that people in other parts of the world are so easily made to believe whatever is accepted in their part of the world. They so easily believe in false idols. Only we, who happen to be born in the Christian part of the world, have the "true truth." Well, most of us do. There are, of course, the Jews, and those terrible old Atheists, and many others who refuse to accept the "truth" of the Christian Bible .... but they don't count.

Let us ignore the non-Christians among us and assume the Christian religion--and Bible, is totally accepted in this part of the world. The point is simply this: is truth geographical? Should not the same things that are true in Iran be also true in India, Japan, Africa, Canada, and in the rest of the world? It would seem so, doesn't it? Scientific truths are universal, why are religious truths not universal? Is it reasonable to assume that we alone are right and all the rest of the world wrong? That we are the ones, the only ones, who have the true God and the true "word of God" book?

Can the simple God of the Christian Bible, that is so like a man, that is so like the people who first found God, can that God be the God that wisdom seeks? Wisdom is well aware of the God that the primitive mind has found. Wisdom is aware of the Bible, and of all the other God books, and is aware of the religions built upon those books and those Gods; and yet wisdom and reason continue to seek God, or even a trace of God.

Once the God idea was established in a tribe it was passed along from generation to generation, the children were taught to believe as the parents believed, and the children's children were in turn taught to believe. Just as we were taught to believe what our parents believed. Children have always been taught to believe, but never to question.

And so God became a self perpetuating assumption.

In our part of the world the Christian Bible dominates. In these countries there are many people who believe the Bible is "the inspired word of God." They have been taught to believe that book is the foundation of our laws, the essence of justice, the source of our liberty and even of our civilization. They believe it promises to defeat death and gives hope of another world where happiness will be theirs for all eternity.

I wish it were true.

Those people have not read the Bible, or they have read it with a closed mind. They have failed to see the ignorance, the injustice, the hatred of liberty, the religious intolerance, the persecutions, and the gross immorality that is in the Bible.

They remember the heaven, but they forget the hell.

It is not lightly that I take the task of proving the Bible cannot be the word of God. If the promises, though false, were helpful to mankind, I would pass over them in silence. But they are not beneficial! "Holy books" have never been a help to humanity, and can never be. In fact they are becoming more dangerous every day. The honest historian knows that religious books are, and have always been, a great burden to mankind. And in spite of all our modern knowledge those old books continue to cause hatred and wars today.

So we must examine the Christian Bible, not because it is greatly different from other religious books, of other nations and of other Gods, but because it is the one book that is made to dominate our society by indoctrination. We are taught to believe it in childhood, and forbidden to question it in adulthood. It endangers our modern world, it prevents intellectual maturity and limits the scope of our thoughts to primitive legends.

Is the Christian Bible "The inspired word of God"? Let us think carefully what that claim must mean. With that claim comes the obvious conclusion that the Bible must be "God perfect." That is to say the Bible must be far more perfect than any mere human minds could possibly have made it. Any mistake in that book, any error or contradiction, in fact or form, would prove that book could not be "God's inspired word."

Not only would the Bible be perfect in itself, but it would be equally plain and understandable to every human mind, and every person would understand it exactly the same.

Perhaps you feel that I demand too much of a mere book. That a God who could create the human understanding, could not be expected to produce a book that would agree with that creation.

Personally, I believe it is asking too much of us to believe that God would write, or inspire, a book that mankind could not agree upon. A book that has caused endless wars, persecutions, torture, bigotry and hatred. A book that is so unintelligible that not only do "non-believers" reject it, but those who believe it to be the true word of God cannot agree upon its interpretation. There are hundreds of different Christian sects in the United States alone, and that does not include the countless thousands of private individuals who have their own, personal, interpretations of the Bible.

The very fact of this debate, or any debate about the Bible, is irrefutable proof that the Bible cannot be "the word of God."

It is often claimed by theologians that the original scriptures were perfect, but that the Bible has lost is perfection through copy errors and by being translated through several languages. Impossible! There could not be an imperfect copy or translation of a perfect book that was perfectly understood by the translator. God would not permit it!

If there is a God.

There are many versions of the Christian Bible and there are many conflicting interpretations of each version. Not only by the ordinary Christian believers and clergymen, but by those scholars who have spent their entire lives studying the scriptures. Such confusion is not the work of God.

From the evil and confusion the Bible has caused, and continues to cause, and from the primitive, foolish and contradictory nature of that book, it is self-evident that the Bible cannot represent the word of God. I will quote a few passages, from one of the many versions of the Bible to show why I reject the Bible. I will quote the King James version, as I read and understand it. I am not foolish enough to believe what I understand the Bible to say, is what the Bible says. Considering the numerous versions and interpretations of the Bible, I am amazed that there is any person on earth foolish enough to believe his, or her, interpretation of the Bible is the correct one; that he or she alone, somehow, has stumbled upon the true meaning of the Bible, while all the other believers, non-believers, ministers, priests, scholars and infidels have misinterpreted, and misunderstood, the Bible.

Some people say there are over two thousand self- contradictions in the Bible, some other people say they cannot find even one. All I can do at this time, is to point out a few, of the many, that seem contradictory to me.

I will begin with the first commandment that God gave to man; the one that no fundamentalist Christian has ever broken.

Genesis 2: verses 16-17 reads: "And the Lord God, commanded the man, saying "of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: (17) But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

According to the Bible, the man, Adam, did not die in the day that he ate from the forbidden tree. For the Bible says that Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and; Genesis 5: verse 5 reads: "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died."

But, as I understand the Bible, there is yet another contradiction to Genesis 2: verse 16-17.

In Genesis 3: verse 22-23 God seems to be talking to some other Gods and I read it to say: (22) "And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil--lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; (23) therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken."

In Genesis 2:16-17, God said "of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat but of the tree of knowledge." Now, in Genesis 3:22-23 we find that there is yet another tree in the garden that was forbidden; the tree of life.

As I read the Bible, it does appear that God's word cannot be relied upon as in this, apparent, contradiction:

Exodus 33: verse 20, God is said to have said: "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live."

Exodus 33: verse 11 reads: "And the Lord spoke unto Moses face to face, as a man speakest unto his friend."

That seems like a self-contradiction to me, but as I have said, the Bible is obviously incomprehensible, and you may not see anything strange about the two statements at all. I could spend the rest of the evening giving contradictions that are to be found in the Old Testament, so I must skip over the rest.

How about the New Testament, are there contradictions in that too? Well, some say there obviously are many contradictions in the New Testament, and there are others who say there are none at all. I can only tell you what that book says to me.

As I read the New Testament I find the first contradiction in the very first verse, of the very first chapter, of the very first book of the New Testament.

In Matthew 1: verse 1, I read.--"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." And after that verse comes a long line of "begats" until we come to verse 16, that reads: "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."

Now if Joseph was not the natural father of Jesus, but only the husband of Mary, as Matthew 1:16 says, then Matthew 1, 1 to 16, is not, cannot be, "the origin of Jesus Christ," as is stated in the first chapter, first verse of Matthew.

But if Joseph is the natural father of Jesus, as is implied in other verses of the Bible, then the story of Jesus being born of a virgin is the contradiction. That legend is in Matthew 1:18 and reads: "Now the origin of Christ was in this wise. When Mary his mother had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit."

Also, and most important, if Jesus were born of a virgin and was not the descendant of David, then the words of Peter in Acts 2:29-30 are false. In Acts 2:29-30 Peter says: "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. (30) therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;"

Now we have a pretty kettle of fish. If Jesus is the son of God through the "Holy Spirit," as is stated in Matthew 1:18-20, then either he is not the Christ, or God has "sworn with an oath" a lie to David. Or else, Jesus is the son of Joseph, son of David, son of Abraham, and thus might be the "Christ"; but then he cannot be the son of God by the Holy Spirit, and could not have been born of a virgin.

Again I could spend the entire evening going through the apparent contradictions in the New Testament. But as we are speaking of a book that is said to be the word of God, we need only one contradiction, anywhere in the Bible to prove it is not the word and work of God.

If there is a God.

The Bible cannot be true as it constantly contradicts itself. Yet it might be an inspiration to good morals and proper conduct. So let us see what the Bible says about goodness, justice, kindness, morality and respect for family, friend and neighbor.

Let us look at some of the sexual morals that are in the Bible. I will begin with Genesis 19. As I read the story, two "angels" are guests in Lot's house when "the men of the city" come to the house and Genesis 19:5-8 reads: "And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them. (6) and Lot went out the door unto them and shut the door after him: (7) and said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. ( Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known men; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing, for therefore they came under the shadow of my roof."

Naturally, I cannot know what that says to anyone else, but to me it seems to say: "Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known men; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes;"

What kind of father would offer his children to a mob to be used as they see fit? I will be honest with you, if you were a guest in my house, I would protect you with all my might, but if it came to the point of it being either you or my children, it would be you. And I would expect the same, if it were your choice between your children or me. If it were God himself, if there is a God, he would go before my children. I am not a Christian. I am very pro- family, my innocent children come first.

But that is not the end of the story, it goes on and gets worse. In Genesis 19:31-32, Lot's daughters are talking: "And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our Father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come unto us after the manner of all the earth: (32) come let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."

And this seedy story goes on until Genesis 19:36 reads: "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father."

Now I know that is not what the Bible says to you who believe it to be "the word of God." But to me, it seems to say: "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." To me that story is pure filth, but others say there is no filth, and no immorality, in the Bible, so I do not know what that story says to others, but to me it is pure filth. And, to me, filth cannot be a part of "the word of God."

There are many stories in the Christian Bible that I believe are immoral, pure filth. but that one will serve as an example for the rest. After all, we are considering the Bible as "the word of God," we need only one "bad" story, only one contradiction, only one untruth or injustice, to prove the Bible is not "the word of God."

Let us consider God's justice as recorded in the Bible.

King David obtained one of his many wives through kidnap, rape and murder. The story is in the second book of Samuel, chapter 11, and verse 4 reads: "And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him and he lay with her . . ." I hope you will forgive me for repeating such filthy stories, but that is what the Bible says. The story goes on and Bathsheba is pregnant. David has her husband, Uriah, killed and in verse 26 and 27 we read: "And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. (27) And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."

Good! Now we will have a chance to see God's justice in action. How did God punish David for those most awful crimes? How do you think such a terrible man should be punished? Well, God's punishment for David's crimes can be read in the second book of Samuel, chapter 11: verse 15, it reads: "And the Lord struck the child, that Unah's wife bore unto David, and it was very sick." and verse 18 reads: "And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died." Believe it or not; God's idea of justice for the murder of Bathsheba's husband, was for God himself to murder Bathsheba's innocent baby. That is God's justice according to the Christian Bible.

I don't know what that story says to a believing Christian, but if what I understand the Bible to say, is what it says, it would take a very deprived mind to believe the Bible is "the word of God."

Let us consider the Commandments of God, according to the Bible. There are not just ten Commandments, as many people seem to believe, but hundreds. There are no less than 73 chapters filled with the Commandments of God. And a God being what a God is, every Commandment must receive the same obedience as every other Commandment. Now, let us see what God hath Commanded.

Exodus 22:18 reads: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." When Christianity had power these eight words caused hundreds of thousands of innocent people to be tortured and burned alive. That Commandment is of the same group as one version of the, so called, Ten Commandments.

God's Commandment in Exodus 21:2 reads "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go free for nothing." Exodus 21:4 reads "If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself." Remember, these are God's Commandments, and God's justice, according to the Bible. Exodus 21:5-6 reads "And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children: I will not go out free: (6) Then the master shall bring him unto the judges . . . and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."

The Bible always upholds slavery, and has always been the greatest obstacle to justice and human progress in the world.

Another of God's Commandments is Deuteronomy 13:6-8, it reads: "If thy brother, the son of thy mother. Or thy son, or thy daughter, or thy wife of thy bosom. Or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, let us go and serve other Gods which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; (7) namely, of the Gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth unto the other end of the earth ( thou shalt not consent unto him, nor harken unto him; neither shalt thou conceal him (9) but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. (10) and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."

Who said God was pro-life?

I have often pointed out to Christians that Christianity has caused untold suffering in the world. That history is so filled with Christian wars, persecutions, torture, burning and hate that no gentle and kind person would call himself a Christian if they knew the truth of Christian history.

The answer is always the same: "How can I, or any Christian today, be held responsible for what people, who called themselves Christians, have done in the past?" And yet, according to the second Commandment God holds the children responsible for the mistakes, or crimes of their parents, "even unto the third and fourth generation." In fact the entire concept of Christianity is based upon "original sin," the ultimate in unjust hereditary guilt. I do not believe in hereditary guilt. The very idea that we, the human race are born in sin because of some small misdeed that Adam was said to have done is foolish. No! It is more than foolish, it is insane. Such insanity is not of God.

The very idea that God would have to be born to a virgin, or anything else, and then have to be murdered by mankind, in order to forgive mankind, is very insane. I believe a God would do just as you would do if your child had been naughty, and you had became angry for a while. You would not say to that child: Bringeth thou me a hammer and hitteth thou me upon thine hand, hard, that I mayeth forgive thee thy naughtiness that thou hath done."

No! You would go to the child, and you would take that child into your arms, and you would tell your child that you love him/her with all your heart, and that you could never really be angry with him. That he/she means more to you than your own life. That is what you would do, or should do: That is what I would do, and any book that says God would do any less simply cannot be the word of God.

We must not be a slave to a primitive superstition. We must not be afraid to think, to question and to investigate. We must set our minds free: Get up off your knees and stand upon your own two feet, raise your head, open your eyes and start to use your mind. The use of the human mind has risen us above all the other animals and has made mankind master of the entire earth. The human mind--reason--is the only hope we have of surviving in our modern, atomic, world. We must learn to use our minds.

There is good news tonight: Spread the good news!

Our minds are now free to reason;

We are, without doubt, one of the most indoctrinated and deceived nations on earth; at least, at very least, in the area of religion. Today there is no greater threat to our nation, and to our liberty than Christianity. No other force could have silenced and changed American history as Christianity has done. And no other force could have so completely deceived the American public as Christianity has done.

The Christian aggression against America, against the rights of non-Christians, is based on the delusion that the Bible is "the word of God." Let us look at the terrible history of that delusion.

If you know any history at all, you know Christianity and the Bible has not only failed to maintain peace, you know they have been entirely responsible for the most bloody and unnecessary wars of history. You know all the Crusades were pure Christian aggressions. You know the crusaders, in spite of their devout faith in the Bible, in prayer, in Christianity, and in their God, failed again and again to recapture the "Holy land." And true to their Bible the Crusaders slaughtered men, women and children whenever they captured a city.

And yet Christians call the Bible "the word of God," and themselves "moral"!!

If you know any history at all you know the Dark Ages was a time of the absolute establishment of the Christian Bible and the Christian religion. You know it was a time of the greatest poverty, ignorance, oppression and superstition, and you know there was never a more evil and immoral age. You know the torture and burning of heretics was justified by the Bible. You know the Bible was the excuse for the Holy Inquisition, for the torture and burning of witches, for robbing orphans and widows. You know the Bible has caused more hate and persecution than any other book; more suffering than any other disease. And you know the Bible has always been the greatest enemy of human progress, of science, of culture and learning; the greatest enemy of morality, liberty, and justice in the world.

If you know any history at all you know America was a refuge for those who were persecuted by the Bible, and the established church in Europe. You know Bible-believing Christians have never had any concept of freedom. They have always thought freedom was their right to force their belief upon others. And you know the first concern of the Founding Fathers was to separate religion from government, and to establish a free nation, and a free people. And you know also that most of the Founding Fathers were Deists, not Christians.

If you know any history at all you know when the Bible was established, and Christianity had power, Christians tortured and murdered those who doubted or disagreed with their Bible.

And whenever Christians lose the power to persecute, they slander and call "immoral" those they can no longer persecute.

And yet Christians call the Bible "the word of God," and themselves "moral"!!

Today Christianity has gained its dangerous power in America by teaching Bible, instead of nation; by confusing piety with patriotism; by calling good Americans "Communists," good patriots "traitors." They teach hate and distrust against those who uphold the great American ideals of separation of state and church and hate against the American courts that dare to uphold our nation's Constitution.

Christianity has suppressed and changed American history, has hidden quotes, facts and evidence which prove that Christianity and the Bible was recognized as the enemy of freedom by those who founded this nation. Christians have hidden the fact that the Founding Fathers struggled to insure freedom of conscience; struggled to put Christianity in its rightful place--the equal of every other religious opinion; struggled to put the Bible in its rightful place--the equal of every other book.

Today Christian history tells us one truth: Those who have murdered will also lie!

Unless you are a dedicated scholar of American history, you do not know that Deism was the direct rejection, and refutation, of the Christian Bible, the Christian religion, and the Christian God; You do not know that George Washington "was the leading statesman who advocated total separation of state and church and who saw to it that no reference to Christianity or even Deity was made in the Constitution" (The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 2). You do not know that the first freedom the Constitution was meant to establish is the freedom from religion. That Admin Jefferson was a Deist and advised his young nephew to "question with boldness even the existence of a god" (Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787, "Deism in the United States," pp. 222-34.) You do not know that the outspoken Deist Admin Paine, did more to make the United States of America a free and separate nation than any other American. And you do not know a thousand other facts of American history that disprove Christian claims; facts that would keep America free.

You do not need to be a scholar to know that fundamentalist Christianity, and the forces of Bible superstition are attacking the very roots of our nation's freedom today.

And yet Christians call the Bible "the word of God," and themselves "moral."

History has proved again and again that personal morality cannot survive where people believe in divine forgiveness, believe in the Bible delusion that some "higher power" can remove the guilt from the guilty, without removing the wrong from the victim.

Religion always claims that immorality springs from a lack of religion, but the facts prove just the opposite. Christianity has never been stronger in the United States than it is today. Christians have churches in every community, they monopolize radio and television time with religious propaganda. They have forced their religion into our government, into our laws and into our lives. They have silenced all opposing facts and opinions. They are constantly acquiring more and more power, more and more property and more and more wealth. Yet they have not the basic morality to pay their honest taxes.

At the same time that Christianity has been growing every richer and ever more powerful, taxes have risen higher and higher, poverty and hunger have increased, the crime rate has been climbing ever higher and ever faster, the aged are afraid to leave their homes; narcotics have become a national plague, and our nation has been involved in more wars and international conflicts than at any time in its history.

How do Christians gain power again and again after failing constantly to establish peace, progress, prosperity and morality?

Their technique is very simple. They call their Bible "the word of God" and themselves "moral."

We must not allow organized ignorance to destroy this great nation of ours. The American people must be made aware of one simple fact:

The Bible is not, AND CANNOT BE, "the word of God."

In the Bible, the book of Numbers, chapter 31, verse 15 reads: "And Moses said unto them, "have you saved all the women alive?"

And verses 17 and 18 reads: "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. (18) But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

I know the Bible is not the word of God because it tells us God is a murderer; that God killed, or caused to be killed, millions of innocent people. That God ordered, or approved of, the murder of civilians, of little children, of helpless old people, defenseless women, prisoners of war, and even livestock. It tells us that God approved the instructions to soldiers to keep the virgins for yourselves. I detest and deny such a book, and I reject and call blasphemous any book that says such is the nature of God. The Bible slanders God, and therefore the Bible cannot be the word of God.

If there is a God, the Bible is a blasphemy. If there is no God, the Bible is a myth. Either way, the Bible is not the word of God.

In Exodus 29:45-46, God is said to have said (45): "And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. (46) and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God."

The Bible says most clearly that the God of the Old Testament (Jehovah) is "THE LORD GOD OF THE HEBREWS," the God of "the children of Israel," the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. The Old Testament is the story of a private tribal god, whose first and only concern is for his "chosen people." It is a god created by the priests of that tribe, to justify the atrocities that tribe committed. It is the story of a simple tribal god, and like all the other tribal gods in the world at that time, the god always reflected the people who created him. If the tribe was a warlike tribe, their god was a warlike god.

The Bible tells us the Hebrew tribes were an aggressive, hostile people, and so their God reflected their heartless ferocity. That God, and the books of the Old Testament, literally drip with innocent blood, with conquered people murdered, with raped virgins--mere children, with inhuman cruelties and unspeakable crimes--All approved by the Old Testament God! We do not need such a God in our modern world.

WE ARE INDEED LUCKY THAT THE BIBLE IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD!

The Bible tells us that God is small, that the Bible God is not the God of the endless Cosmos. He is not even the God of the entire Earth--small as that is; but is the God of some remote and primitive tribe, of some obscure area of our little Earth, during a limited period of time, long after the evolution of man. Such a concept of God is an insult, and is absolutely false! I might believe in a God that is incomprehensibly great, but I could never believe in a God that is disgustingly small.

It is certain that the true God of the endless Universe could not be small. The Bible describes a God too insignificant for intelligent belief.

When I was a Christian the very thought that there could be a lie in the Bible was repulsive to me, just as it would be to any believing Christian. I had been taught that the Bible was the word of God. I had been taught to believe--to believe blindly and to worship without question.

Being the word of God, I knew there could not be one single lie in the Bible, I knew deep within me that God did not lie. I still believe that! If there is a God that God would not lie. It never occurred to me that the Bible was not the word of God, that it might be a forgery, the product of human deception.

There came a time when I determined to read the Bible again, this time just as I would read the books of some strange and foreign religion, to see it with the eyes of a thinking infidel. Would the infidel see our Bible as reasonable, as moral, and as a force for human good? It was then that I found the lie, and looking further I found another lie, then other lies and still more. To me it was a revelation; it was as if a bandage had been taken from my eyes and I was seeing the truth for the first time. We all know that a book containing lies cannot be the word of God. We all know that, regardless of what concept we have of God.

The Bible is not the word of God because the Bible contains lies.

The Bible says in Exodus 10, verse 27, "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go." Then in verse 29; we read "And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle."

That is a lie!

The God of the endless Universe would not murder innocent children. It is a lie that God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" so God would have an excuse to murder little babies. That is a lie and a blasphemy!

In the Bible (Deut. 28, verse 16) God is made to say: "But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."

That is a lie!

The God of the endless cosmos never told savages to slaughter defenseless, defeated people, "to save alive nothing that breatheth." It is the lie of savages to justify their robbing and murdering their neighbors.

The Bible is not the word of God.

In the Bible (Josh. 10, verse 12-13) "Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and said in the sight of Israel, sun, stand thou still upon Gideon; and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. (13) and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies."

That is a lie!

The God of our endless universe never stopped the sun (That is to say, stopped the turning of the Earth) so one bunch of savages could slaughter another bunch of savages.

It is a lie!

In the Bible (1 Samuel 6, verse 19) "And He smote the men of Bethsemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with great slaughter."

That is a lie!

The God of the endless universe would not slaughter the men of one savage tribe because they peeped at the superstitious paraphernalia of another savage tribe.

We could go on and on quoting these primitive lies from the Bible, all of which prove but one thing: The Bible is not the word of God.

All I ask is that you read the Bible. Read it with an open mind, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, believed the Bible was the word of God.

Even some believers have seen the bad that is in the Old Testament. I know they have sworn not to think about the Bible, not to judge--but only to believe. Yet they have moved, some of them, a little, ever so little, away from the Old Testament. They won't admit it but some Christian believers wish the Old Testament had not been written. They are ashamed of it; they are ashamed of the old God--and the slaughter.

There they were, on their knees, eyes closed tight, hands clasped, head bowed, brain off. But, with innocent blood rushing by, the screams of women being murdered, of little children being raped, something slipped. They thought, just a little, but they thought. Evolution and natural morality had built an over-ride switch into their brain and, in spite of themselves, in spite of their religion, they thought.

Somehow they knew there was something wrong about the Old Testament! They didn't know just what, but there seemed to be something that was not just right. And so they moved. In spite of themselves, they moved--they created a new God: Jesus!

A-Men, there is yet hope for mankind!

We now come to the New Testament, and although the New Testament has Jesus say, in Matthew 5, verse 17-18; "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. (18) For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." In spite of such claims, the New Testament is the religious philosopher's attempt to create a new God idea, and to escape the evil bloody God Tyrant of the Old Testament.

What kind of God is this new God? We know the oldest gospel in the New Testament was written after 78 A.D., and the other gospels are even more recent. So we know that the quotes of the new God, Jesus, were only legends for at least one generation, and in most cases for several generations.

Let us see 'what it is said' this new God said according to the New Testament.

Jesus is said to have said: (Luke 14:26) "If any man come to me and hate not his father, his mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

That cannot be the words of God!

Jesus is said to have said: (Matthew 10:34-37) "Think not that I am come to send peace to earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword. (35) For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in- law against her mother-in-law. (36) And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. (37) He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

That cannot be the words of God!

How can we ever find peace with gods like that running around in people's minds? Jesus is said to have said: (Matthew 19:29 and Mark 10:29) "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters; or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."

These are not the words of God!

Jesus is said to have said: (Mark 9:43-48) "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: (44) Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (45) And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: (46) Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (47) And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: (48) Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

Those are not the words of God: Those are words of insanity!

Jesus is said to have said: (Luke 12:5) "But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; I say unto you, fear him." Christianity is founded upon fear--and is perpetuated by fear. That would not be the way of the true God, the great God of this endless universe.

In the New Testament, as in the Old Testament, we could go on and on quoting cruel, foolish, un-Godlike sayings from the new God. Sayings that we know are the words of men--of cruel, mean, heartless, small minded men. Words of hate and vengeance! words to frighten and oppress! They are words to give power to the priest, the church and the religion. They are words to destroy reason and to make the human mind a slave.

We now know that the Jesus myth of the New Testament was taken from the story of the founder of the Essene cult. The founder of the Essenes was named Jesus, he was crucified in 88 B.C.E. and everything good that Jesus of Nazareth is said to have said was written almost a hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth is said to have lived.

From the Essenian cult of the old Jewish religion, has evolved a new God, a new myth, a new religion and a New Testament.

But the good work of the religious philosophers who created the New Testament God has been corrupted by organized religion. The Jesus myth of the New Testament no longer resembles the kind and just leader of the Essenes who lived, suffered and died just a little over two thousand years ago.

In the New Testament we find a God that evolved during the first few hundred years of the Christian era. Christianity developed through religious hate. The weak were called heretics and their teachings were brutally suppressed, and so the Christianity that survived is the orthodoxy of the strong and the ruthless. Orthodoxy destroyed the meek and filled Christianity with hate, fire and fury.

The Christian layman and the unscholarly T.V. preachers, who have so much influence and emotional appeal today, are unaware of the deterioration that occurred in Christianity during its formation. The good in the original story was pushed aside and the bad took hold. The idea of eternal torment, as well as the idea of easy forgiveness of sins became established and soon fossilized into dogma and doctrine.

In the New Testament there evolved a God much worse than the Old Testament God. As much worse in fact, as endless torture is worse than endless sleep, as much worse as eternal burning is worse than simple annihilation.

Unlike the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament was not happy when his victims lay dead and broken before him. The Son of God has not only carried on the family tradition, but has exceeded the wildest expectations of the father.

If we are heartless enough to believe the Bible, we must believe the God of the New Testament pursues the dead into death. This God, we are told, has found a way to torture even those who have paid "the final penalty."

The New Testament God has set up his torture chamber where there can be no escape, where death cannot be a welcome release. Everlasting torture, eternal burning; this terrible belief, this evil everlasting injustice, has become the heart and foundation of the Christian religion. People believe, NOT through reason, NOT through any desire to goodness or piety, NOT through any hope of making the world better, or mankind better, or themselves better, but through FEAR--simple, devastating, mind-numbing FEAR. They believe because they are afraid to think, afraid to question. They keep their minds as little children--afraid to be adult men and women. They believe simply because they are afraid not to believe!

Those who believe in hell can never know truth, for they are blinded by fear. The idea of hell was invented to establish a religious dictatorship and those who believe live under a tyranny far greater than any human tyrant could ever establish. They believe they are always under the eye of the tyrant! They believe their every word is recorded, their every action noted, even their innermost thoughts are known and judged by their cruel master of endless, unmerciful punishment. To such believers every act and thought is the result of fear. They are to be pitied.

That terrible dogma of hell has destroyed the very foundations of morality. The basic force of morality is "the power of sympathy"; feeling the hurt of others--and caring. The dogma of hell has destroyed that foundation. The mother, it is believed, could sit joyfully in heaven for all eternity and watch her wayward son or daughter burning and suffering in hell.

I detest a belief that can make people so heartless. I could never be a Christian! I could never be happy in a heaven knowing there are people suffering in a hell. I have great sympathy for people, their pain, their suffering, their feelings, their losses, and their hopes.

I deny that hell exists! I deny that a vengeful God exists! And I deny that any book that tells the lie that such a gross, everlasting injustice as hell exists could be the word of God!

About the turn of this century there were over a hundred studies made, and published, which questioned the historicalness of Jesus. Was Jesus a real historic person or was he a myth? One of the most famous books on the subject was Albert Schweitzer's "The Quest of the Historical Jesus." The book was first published in 1906. Schweitzer concluded that, "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence." (p. 398).

History and scholarship tell us that Jesus was not a god but a myth; a Jesus of Nazareth did not live at the time that Jesus is said to have lived, and no one at that time did the things that Jesus is said to have done. We now know where the myth of Jesus came from and how it originated.

The discovery of the truth about the New Testament is one of the greatest miracles of the modern world. It is as if there were a God and that God had said: "Enough of this myth that has caused so much hate and trouble, so much war and persecution, so much torture and suffering in the world! I will put a stop to it before it destroys the entire earth."

What were the "miracles" that revealed the truth about the origin of the myth of Jesus, of Christianity and of the New Testament?

In December, 1945, there was discovered in upper Egypt a group of 52 Gnostic scrolls that dated from about 148 A.D. These first scrolls tell about the conflicting doctrines and the uncertainty in early Christianity.

In 1947 there was another unbelievable discovery. In Qumran, on the shore of the Dead Sea about 15 miles from Jerusalem, another great number of ancient scrolls were discovered. These scrolls are known as "the Dead Sea Scrolls." The impression given the public was that there were only a few scrolls found, just those found in the first cave. But there have been discovered hundreds of scrolls, these scrolls are about a thousand years older than any previously known copy of the Bible, and they contain all of the books of the Old Testament except Esther. There are also other scrolls that date almost a hundred years before Jesus of Nazareth is said to have lived. They contain almost every myth in the New Testament; they contain "The sermon on the Mount," and other bits of goodness and wisdom attributed to Jesus. They do not contain the evil sayings of Jesus. Those have been added later.

These old scrolls simply destroy the credibility of the historical foundations of Christianity by proving the New Testament evolved from the uninspired, historical, writings of man.

These scrolls have not been honestly presented to the public. It is strange that what God seeks so forcefully to reveal, the men of God are so determined to conceal!

Religion is big business, and those who hold positions of profit and prestige in that business will not allow mere truth to become a threat to religion.

What kind of a God do you think there would be if there were a God? A God would be just, kind, good, helpful, intelligent and wise. In short, God would be all the things the Bible God is not.

A true God would be better than the best of us, not worse than the worst of us.

If there were a God there would not be war, there would not be evil, there would not be starvation, overpopulation, pollution, misery, religion, plague and disease; there would not be dogmas and doctrines and creeds. There would be no need to believe foolishness and there would be no fear of thinking. Why even science, philosophy and reason would be respectable--if there were a God.

Honestly now! Who could worship a God like the God of the Bible? Not a thinking person! Certainly not a kind and gentle person, not a just person nor a loving person. It would have to be a frightened person. A person so afraid that he doesn't think, he just falls down and grovels before a tyrant. Only a coward could blindly worship the murderous, bloody, vengeful tyrant that the Bible describes as "God."

I will NOT worship such a God!

I cannot and will not believe in such a God. It is a lie. It is a blasphemy and a slander against the very idea of God.

The Bible is not the word of God!

With a God like the God in the Bible we don't need a Devil. When we look at the Bible we must seriously question if we have not been misled into worshiping the evil elements of nature instead of the good. We must seriously question if belief is not the wrong end, and doubt the right end, of religion. After all, it has always been the kindest, the gentlest, the most moral and the most respectable people who have eaten deeply of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil--the very tree the Bible demands that we avoid.

Or, has the world advanced so far that what seemed good to those who wrote the Bible is seen as evil now? Let's think about that! If the Bible is not the word of God, and of course it is not, then let us consider who did write the Bible and why.

The Bible was written by primitive priests, but those primitive priests were the learned men of that day. They were the thinkers and the law-givers. They derived their authority by claiming to speak for God. Primitive people are easily fooled, and often the old priests fooled themselves--just as honest ministers fool themselves today.

The priests who wrote the Bible stood upon their tippy-toes and reaching just as high as they could reach, they drove their spike. That spike is the Bible. It represents their best knowledge, their best morals, their most advanced understanding and world view. It was as high as they could think! And they thought it was as high as anyone would ever be able to think. So they drove the spike of their knowledge just as high as they could reach and they called it "The word of God."

That spike, that was as high as those old priests could reach, is less than knee high to modern man. Humanity has advanced during the thousands of years since the Bible was written and our modern knowledge and higher moral understanding, tells us that the spike, the Bible, is not "the word of God."

Today we desperately need a new God--a God that is NOT an insult to our intelligence--a God that is as great as the endless cosmos. We need a just God that does not have chosen galaxies and a preferred life form--a life form that is told to slaughter other life forms. We desperately need a God that commands that we think, instead of believe and worship. We need a God to civilize us, not one that makes us savages.

But we must not be as foolish as the old Bible priests. We must not drive another spike, create another Bible, and say "believe." How soon would future generations find our highest morality brutish, our best intellect childish, and our world view primitive? How soon would our children's children again be divided, with future orthodox preachers insisting that our book is "the word of God," and some future heretic saying; "it is the ravings of ignorance."

We must not hold back future generations at our level. Let us stand upon our tippy-toes and make our mark, but beside that mark write "Question and Grow." Our best knowledge today is NOT the word of God, and the best wisdom of people who lived and thought thousands of years ago is not "the word of God."

There is one fact which wise men and heretics have always known, which philosophers and scholars have known for generations, a fact that even theologians know today, a fact that frees the mind and drives away the awful fear. The time has come for the victims to know that fact also:

The Bible is not the word of God!

For two thousand years Christianity and the Bible has failed to bring peace and harmony to our world. The Bible has, in fact, been responsible for some of the most diabolical massacres and persecutions known to man. Today those historic facts are kept out of our history books.

Humanity now stands between the past and the future as it has never done before. We all know there is a great possibility that humanity will not have a future; that we will destroy ourselves.

If we are to survive this atomic age we must find a new way of thinking, we can no longer believe blindly, and hate those who believe differently. Instead we must find ways to unite mankind, ways to remove unnecessary boundaries and barriers. We must find ways to remove the causes of hate.

Much of our hate and trouble in the world is founded upon the delusion that the Bible is "the word of God." There has never been a greater source of hate than the assumption that we are doing God's work, that we have the "word of God" to guide us and that our task is to destroy some "center of evil" in the world. Throughout history that delusion has been responsible for the most terrible wars and atrocities. That delusion may destroy our world!

There is not a conflict in the world today that does not have at its roots a different of religious opinion. The Jews, Christians and Moslems are murdering each other in Lebanon, Catholics and Protestants murder each other in Ireland. And how much of our hatred for Russia, and Communism, springs from the fact that they have chosen to establish Atheism.

When we read that Moslem terrorists will drive a truck load of explosives into a building and die to kill others in their "holy war," we recognize that as a form of insanity.

When we hear a Christian fundamentalist preaching "no coexistence with Godless Communism" we should know that is equally insane in our atomic age.

When we read that a powerful Christian leader has reaffirmed the medieval dogma that birth control and contraceptives are immoral and against Bible teachings; we should realize that too is insanity in our overpopulated world.

Such teachings are of the past, a past full of hate, war and persecution; a past full of blind faith and religious delusions.

Today we are playing for keeps.

Today we must find a new way of thinking.

We can no longer stick our heads into the sands of superstition and hope "God" will protect us; that hope has failed too often. Those who study the facts of history know that. Those who knew the Bible was not "the word of God" brought about the Renaissance and saved humanity from the Dark Ages;

Those who knew the Bible was not "the word of God" had the wisdom to establish America as a free nation;

Those who knew the Bible is not "the word of God" have given us every great advance in science and reason;

And those who know the Bible is not "the word of God" are the only ones who can lead mankind to peace and human survival.

The Bible and all the other so-called "holy books" are of the past. If humanity cannot outgrow these barbaric relics that divide us and cause so much hate, we cannot hope to have a future. We cannot hope to survive another generation!

If mankind survives, future generations will know this age as "the age of propaganda," the age of hate for opinion's sake. Future generations will marvel that our age, with its modern technology and great wealth of solid scientific learning, could remain rooted in the primitive fables of past ages; they will marvel that we could not see the evil and danger of worshipping an historic failure.

If mankind survives this religious age, future generations will look upon our instruments of war and doubt our sanity, just as we look upon the torture instruments of a past religious age and doubt their sanity.

Already the delusion that the Bible is "the word of God" has dangerously corrupted America's rightful purpose in the world.

The overabundance of religious propaganda in America today would lead us to believe that the primary purpose of this nation is the preservation and expansion of the Christian religion. But that is not true.

Our nation is not, and must not become, the battleship of the Christian religion. Our struggle in the world is in defense of LIBERTY. To preserve our own, and, if possible, to help others gain and keep theirs.

This nation is not fighting "Godless Atheism" nor "Atheistic Communism," nor any other group or nation that has had Christian hate terms applied to them.

We, as a nation, are opposed to Communism because Communism, like Christianity, is an ideological force that is destructive to human rights and freedom. It is, in fact, none of our business whether another nation, or another individual, believes in a God or not. Our only concern is that every individual must have the liberty to decide just what he, or she, can and will believe. And that they have the freedom to express, publish and pursue those beliefs in perfect safety.

In short, our only concern in the world is exactly those ideals that this great nation of ours was originally founded upon.

Such a statement is in no way a concession to Communism. It is a statement of our determination to be, and to remain, a free people. Those who have tasted real freedom can never return to the mental slavery of an oppressive belief. It is entirely correct to say:

"I would rather be dead than Christian or red."

When George Washington was president in 1796 he wrote "a treaty of peace and friendship" with Tripoli. That treaty reads "As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; it has, in itself, no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of the Musselmen (Muslims) ... no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

That treaty, signed into law by President John Adams, proves the Founding Fathers recognized religion to be the source of hate and war. It also proves the United States was not, is not, and must not become, a Christian nation.

Why can we not write a treaty today that has the great wisdom that was put into the treaty with Tripoli? Why can we not say to Russia: "As the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; it has, in itself, no character of enmity against the Laws, Religion, or Tranquillity of the Communists (Atheists) ... no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Such a treaty today would remove the main source of hate and we could get on with the business of understanding each other and establishing a hope for peace and human survival.

The greatest obstacle to our peace and survival is the foolish, irrational, delusion that the Bible is "the word of God."

If we are to save our children and our world we must accept the fact that the Bible is not the word of God.

Edited February 29, 2008 by TTK

[TeeJay]

There's not a rating adequate to cover that, so I'll just say awesome post, incredibly indepth, and very insightfull

[DemonSlayer]

^^^^ AGREED

[Guest TTK]

The greatest gift that God gave to mankind was the ability to reason....ALL 'revealed religons' are merely societal control mechanisms.!

Admin Paine one of the founding fathers( and a Deist like many of the founders....Washington...Jefferson etc etc..)......wrote The Age of Reason......it is IMO compulsory reading for anyone seeking the truth.......remember.....a blind man cannot tell if he is in the dark.....or the light...unfortunately there seems nowadays to be a dearth of original thinkers.....and an over abundance of those who seek to repress any original thought if there is dissension from faith.....especially blind faith.... !

THE AGE OF REASON

by Admin Paine

TO MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains myopinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that Ihave always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his ownopinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He whodenies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to hispresent opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changingit. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason.I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen, Admin PAINE Luxembourg, 8th Pluvoise, Second Year of the French Republic, one and indivisible. January 27, O. S. 1794.PART FIRST IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish mythoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the difficulties thatattend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it toa more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the lastoffering I should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, andthat at a time when the purity of the motive that induced me to it,could not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprovethe work. The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the totalabolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of everythingappertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and compulsivearticles of faith, has not only precipitated my intention, butrendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest in thegeneral wreck of superstition, of false systems of government, andfalse theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of thetheology that is true. As several of my colleagues and others of my fellow-citizens ofFrance have given me the example of making their voluntary andindividual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do thiswith all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of mancommunicates 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 religiousduties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to makeour fellow-creatures happy. But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many otherthings in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work,declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for notbelieving them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, bythe Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by theProtestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind

is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christianor Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up toterrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believeotherwise; 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 mentallyfaithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or indisbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does notbelieve. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may soexpress it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a manhas so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as tosubscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, hehas 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, inAmerica, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in thesystem of government would be followed by a revolution in the systemof religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, whereverit had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had soeffectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion uponestablished creeds, and upon first principles of religion, thatuntil 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 bypretending some special mission from God, communicated to certainindividuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their JesusChrist, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, asif the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches show certain books, which they callrevelation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of Godwas given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say, thattheir word of God came by divine inspiration: and the Turks say,that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel fromHeaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and formy own part, I disbelieve them all. As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before Iproceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on theword revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something

communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make sucha communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case,that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed

to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells

it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth,and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It isrevelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, andconsequently they are not obliged to believe it. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything arevelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or inwriting. Revelation is necessarily limited to the firstcommunication- after this, it is only an account of something whichthat person says was a revelation made to him; and though he mayfind himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me tobelieve it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me,and I have only his word for it that it was made to him. When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the twotables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were notobliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for itthan his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it thansome historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internalevidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral

precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator,

could produce himself, without having recourse to supernaturalintervention.* *It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which saysthat God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it iscontrary to every principle of moral justice. When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought

to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind ofhearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. I did notsee the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believeit. When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said,or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with aman, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel toldhim so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstancerequired a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; butwe have not even this- for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any suchmatter themselves; it is only reported by others that they saidso- it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my beliefupon such evidence. It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that wasgiven to the story of Jesus Christ being the son of God. He was bornwhen the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in theworld, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief ofsuch a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under theheathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods.It was not a new thing, at that time, to believe a man to have beencelestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then amatter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to theiraccounts, had cohabited with hundreds: the story, therefore, hadnothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable tothe opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles,or Mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. TheJews who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more,and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never creditedthe story. It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called theChristian church sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. Adirect incorporation took place in the first instance, by making thereputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods thatthen followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality,which was about twenty or thirty thousand: the statue of Marysucceeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus; the deification of heroeschanged into the canonization of saints; the Mythologists had gods foreverything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything;the church became as crowded with one, as the Pantheon had been

with the other, and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory

is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists,accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yetremains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud. Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distantdisrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuousand an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practised

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; by the Quakers since; and

by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any. Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage,or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New Testament isof his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of otherpeople; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension,it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. Hishistorians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner,were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the firstpart of the story must have fallen to the ground. The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is toldexceeds every thing that went before it. The first part, that of themiraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; andtherefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage,that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected.They could not be expected to prove it, because it was not one ofthose things that admitted of proof, and it was impossible that theperson of whom it was told could prove it himself. But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and hisascension through the air, is a thing very different as to theevidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in thewomb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have takenplace, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of theascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon-day, to all Jerusalem atleast. A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires thatthe proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal;and as the public visibility of this last related act was the onlyevidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole ofit falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Insteadof this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, areintroduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and allthe rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appearsthat Admin did not believe the resurrection, and, as they say,would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstrationhimself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good forme, and for every other person, as for Admin. It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter.The story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has everymark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who

were the authors of it is as impossible for us now to know, as it is for usto be assured that the books in which the account is related werewritten by the persons whose names they bear; the best survivingevidence we now have respecting that affair is the Jews. They areregularly descended from the people who lived in the times thisresurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say,it is not true. It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistencyto cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is justthe same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what Ihave told you by producing the people who say it is false. That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he wascrucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are historicalrelations strictly within the limits of probability. He preachedmost excellent morality and the equality of man; but he preachedalso against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, andthis brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order ofpriesthood. The accusation which those priests brought against him was

that of sedition and conspiracy against the Roman government, to which

the Jews were then subject and tributary; and it is not improbable that

the Roman government might have some secret apprehensions of the

effects of his doctrine, as well as the Jewish priests; neither is it

improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the

Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the two,

however, this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life. It is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with anothercase I am going to mention, that the Christian Mythologists, callingthemselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which,for absurdity and extravagance, is not exceeded by anything that is tobe found in the mythology of the ancients. The ancient Mythologists tell us that the race of Giants madewar against Jupiter, and that one of them threw a hundred rocksagainst him at one throw; that Jupiter defeated him with thunder,and confined him afterward under Mount Etna, and that every time theGiant turns himself Mount Etna belches fire. It is here easy to see that the circumstance of the mountain, thatof its being a volcano, suggested the idea of the fable; and thatthe fable is made to fit and wind itself up with that circumstance. The Christian Mythologists tell us that their Satan made waragainst the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him afterward,not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see that thefirst fable suggested the idea of the second; for the fable of Jupiterand the Giants was told many hundred years before that of Satan. Thus far the ancient and the Christian Mythologists differ verylittle from each other. But the latter have contrived to carry thematter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabulouspart of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating fromMount Etna; and in order to make all the parts of the story tietogether, they have taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews; forthe Christian mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythologyand partly from the Jewish traditions. The Christian Mythologists, after having confined Satan in apit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the sequel of thefable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden, in the shapeof a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiarconversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a snake talk;and the issue of this tete-a-tete is that he persuades her to eat anapple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind. After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one wouldhave supposed that the Church Mythologists would have been kind enough

to send him back again to the pit; or, if they had not done this, that they

would have put a mountain upon him (for they say that their faith can

remove a mountain), or have put him under a mountain, as the former

mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among the women

and doing more mischief. But instead of this they leave him at large,

without even obliging him to give his parole- the secret of which is,

that they could not do without him; and after being at the trouble of

making him, they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews,

ALL the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and

Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who candoubt the bountifulness of the Christian Mythology? Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in Heaven, inwhich none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded- putSatan into the pit- let him out again- giving him a triumph over thewhole creation- damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, theseChristian Mythologists bring the two ends of their fable together.They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be atonce both God and Man, and also the Son of God, celestiallybegotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve inher longing had eaten an apple. Putting aside everything that might excite laughter by itsabsurdity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confiningourselves merely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible toconceive a story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistentwith his wisdom, more contradictory to his power, than this story is. In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventorswere under the necessity of giving to the being whom they callSatan, a power equally as great, if not greater than they attribute tothe Almighty. They have not only given him the power of liberatinghimself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they havemade that power increase afterward to infinity. Before this fallthey represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as theyrepresent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account,omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He

occupies the whole immensity of space. Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent himas defeating, by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation,all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as having

compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either ofsurrendering the whole of the creation to the government andsovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption bycoming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in theshape of a man. Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way, that is,had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to exhibithimself on a cross, in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for hisnew transgression, the story would have been less absurd- lesscontradictory. But instead of this, they make the transgressortriumph, and the Almighty fall. That many good men have believed this strange fable, and livedvery good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime), iswhat I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated tobelieve it, and they would have believed anything else in the samemanner. There are also many who have been so enthusiasticallyenraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God toman, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of theidea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the

absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything

is, the more it is capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration.

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, dothey not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see afair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born- a worldfurnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light upthe sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with abundance?Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe stillgoes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate infuture, nothing to us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no othersubjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of manbecome so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrificeof the Creator? I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but itwould be paying too great a compliment to their credulity to forbearit on their account; the times and the subject demand it to be done.The suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian Churchis fabulous is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it willbe a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, anddoubting what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the objectfreely investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of thebooks called the Old and New Testament. These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation(which, by the by, is a book of riddles that requires a revelationto explain it), are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore,proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know what creditto give to the report. The answer to this question is, that nobody cantell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however,historically appears to be as follows: When the Church Mythologists established their system, theycollected all the writings they could find, and managed them as theypleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether suchof the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and NewTestament are in the same state in which those collectors say theyfound them, or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressedthem up. Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books outof the collection they had made should be the WORD OF GOD, and

which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be

doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books

which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God.

Had they voted otherwise, all the people, since calling themselves

Christians, had believed otherwise- for the belief of the one comes

from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, we

know nothing of; they called themselves by the general name of the

Church, and this is all we know of the matter. As we have no other external evidence or authority for believingthese books to be the word of God than what I have mentioned,

which is no evidence or authority at all, I come, in the next place,

to examine the internal evidence contained in the books themselves. In the former part of this Essay, I have spoken of revelation; Inow proceed further with that subject, for the purpose of applyingit to the books in question. Revelation is a communication of something which the person towhom that thing is revealed did not know before. For if I have donea thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I havedone it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it. Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done uponearth, of which man himself is the actor or the witness; andconsequently all the historical and anecdotal parts of the Bible,which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compassof the word revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of God. When Samson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever did so(and whether he did or not is nothing to us), or when he visited hisDelilah, or caught his foxes, or did any thing else, what hasrevelation to do with these things? If they were facts, he couldtell them himself, or his secretary, if he kept one, could write them,if they were worth either telling or writing; and if they werefictions, revelation could not make them true; and whether true ornot, we are neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. When

we contemplate the immensity of that Being who directs and governs

the incomprehensible WHOLE, of which the utmost ken of human sight

can discover but a part, we ought to feel shame at calling such paltrystories the word of God. As to the account of the Creation, with which the Book ofGenesis opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition whichthe Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and aftertheir departure from that country they put it at the head of theirhistory, without telling (as it is most probable) that they did notknow how they came by it. The manner in which the account opensshows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly; it is nobody thatspeaks; it is nobody that hears; it is addressed to nobody; it hasneither first, second, nor third person; it has every criterion ofbeing a tradition; it has no voucher. Moses does not take it uponhimself by introducing it with the formality that he uses on otheroccasions, such as that of saying, "The Lord spake unto Moses,saying." Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the Creation, I am ata loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of suchsubjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated

among The Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science,

and particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day; and the

silence and caution that Moses observes in not authenticating the

account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it nor

believed it The case is, that every nation of people has been

world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up the

trade of world-making as any of the rest; and as Moses was not an

Israelite, he might not choose to contradict the tradition. The account,

however, is harmless; and this is more than can be said of many other

parts of the Bible. Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,

the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with

which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that

we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history

of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and,

for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but whatdeserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to themiscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, thePsalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, wefind a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of thepower and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higherrank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as wellbefore that time as since. The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though mostprobably a collection (because they discover a knowledge of life whichhis situation excluded him from knowing), are an instructive tableof ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of theSpaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American

Franklin. All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by thename of the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets anditinerant preachers, who mixed poetry,* anecdote, and devotiontogether- and those works still retain the air and style of poetry,though in translation. *As there are many readers who do not see that a composition ispoetry unless it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I addthis note. Poetry consists principally in two things- imagery andcomposition. The composition of poetry differs from that of prose inthe manner of mixing long and short syllables together. Take a longsyllable out of a line of poetry, and put a short one in the room ofit, or put a long syllable where a short one should be, and that linewill lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect upon the linelike that of misplacing a note in a song. The imagery in these books,called the Prophets, appertains altogether to poetry. It isfictitious, and oft en extravagant, and not admissible in any otherkind of writing than poetry. To show that these writings are composedin poetical numbers, I will take ten syllables, as they stand in thebook, and make a line of the same number of syllables, (heroicmeasure) that shall rhyme with the last word. It will then be seenthat the composition of these books is poetical measure. The instanceI shall produce is from Isaiah: "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth!" 'Tis God himself that calls attention forth. Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, towhich I shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out thefigure, and showing the intention the poet: "O! that mine head were waters and mine eyes" Were fountains flowing like the liquid skies; Then would I give the mighty flood release, And weep a deluge for the human race. There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any wordthat describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word thatdescribes what we call poetry. The case is, that the word prophet,to which latter times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible wordfor poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making poetry.It also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon anyinstrument of music. We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns- ofprophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and withevery other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now tospeak of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, theexpression would have no meaning or would appear ridiculous, and tosome people contemptuous, because we have changed the meaning

of the word. We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also that heprophesied; but we are not told what they prophesied, nor what heprophesied. The case is, there was nothing to tell; for these prophetswere a company of musicians and poets, and Saul joined in the concert,

and this was called prophesying. The account given of this affair in the book called Samuel is,that Saul met a company of prophets; a whole company of them! coming

down with a psaltery, a tabret, a pipe and a harp, and that they

prophesied, and that he prophesied with them. But it appearsafterward, that Saul prophesied badly; that is, he performed hispart badly; for it is said, that an "evil spirit from God"* cameupon Saul, and he prophesied. *As those men who call themselves divines and commentators, arevery fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the

meaning of the first part of the phrase, that of an evil spirit from God.

I keep to my text- I keep to the meaning of the word prophesy. Now, were there no other passage in the book called the Bible thanthis, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the original meaning ofthe word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in its place,this alone would be sufficient; for it is impossible to use andapply the word prophesy, in the place it is here used and applied,if we give to it the sense which latter times have affixed to it.The manner in which it is here used strips it of all religiousmeaning, and shows that a man might then be a prophet, or he mightprophesy, as he may now be a poet or a musician, without any regard

to the morality or immorality of his character. The word was originally

a term of science, promiscuously applied to poetry and to music, and

not restricted to any subject upon which poetry and music might beexercised. Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because theypredicted anything, but because they composed the poem or song thatbears their name, in celebration of an act already done. David isranked among the prophets, for he was a musician, and was also

reputed to be (though perhaps very erroneously) the author of the

Psalms. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not called prophets; it

does not appear from any accounts we have that they could either

sing, play music, or make poetry. We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They mightas well tell us of the greater and the lesser God; for there cannot bedegrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. But thereare degrees in poetry, and therefore the phrase is reconcilable to thecase, when we understand by it the greater and the lesser poets. It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer anyobservations upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. Theaxe goes at once to the root, by showing that the original meaningof the word has been mistaken and consequently all the inferences that

have been drawn from those books, the devotional respect that has been

paid to them, and the labored commentaries that have been written upon

them, under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about. In

many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better

fate than that of being bound up, as they now are with the trash that

accompanies them, under the abused name of the word of God. If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, wemust necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, butof the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means oraccident whatever, in that which we would honor with the name of theword of God; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written

or human language. The continually progressive change to which the meaning of wordsis subject, the want of a universal language which renders translationnecessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, themistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility ofwillful alteration, are of themselves evidences that the humanlanguage, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle ofthe word of God. The word of God exists in something else. Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of ideas andexpression all the books that are now extant in the world, I would nottake it for my rule of faith, as being the word of God, because thepossibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. Butwhen I see throughout the greater part of this book scarcelyanything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of themost paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator bycalling it by his name. Thus much for the Bible; I now go on to the book called the NewTestament. The New Testament! that is, the new will, as if there couldbe two wills of the Creator. Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ toestablish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system

himself, or procured it to be written in his life-time. But there is no

publication extant authenticated with his name. All the bookscalled the New Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew

by birth and by profession; and he was the son of God in like manner

that every other person is- for the Creator is the Father of All. The first four books, called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, do notgive a history of the life of Jesus Christ, but only detachedanecdotes of him. It appears from these books that the whole time ofhis being a preacher was not more than eighteen months; and it wasonly during this short time that these men became acquainted with him.

They make mention of him at the age of twelve years, sitting, they say,

among the Jewish doctors, asking and answering them questions. As this

was several years before their acquaintance with him began, it is most

probable they had this anecdote from his parents. From this time there

is no account of him for about sixteen years. Where he lived, or how he

employed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably he was

working at his father's trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not

appear that he had any school education, and the probability is, that he

could not write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their

not being able to pay for a bed when he was born. It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names arethe most universally recorded, were of very obscure parentage. Moseswas a foundling; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet wasa mule driver. The first and last of these men were founders ofdifferent systems of religion; but Jesus Christ founded no new system.He called men to the practice of moral virtues and the belief of oneGod. The great trait in his character is philanthropy. The manner in which he was apprehended shows that he was notmuch known at that time; and it shows also, that the meetings hethen held with his followers were in secret; and that he had givenover or suspended preaching publicly. Judas could not otherwise betray

him than by giving information where he was, and pointing him out to

the officers that went to arrest him; and the reason for employing and

paying Judas to do this could arise only from the cause already mentioned,

that of his not being much known and living concealed. The idea of his concealment not only agrees very ill with hisreputed divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity;and his being betrayed, or in other words, his being apprehended, onthe information of one of his followers, shows that he did notintend to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend tobe crucified. The Christian Mythologists tell us, that Christ died for thesins of the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would it notthen have been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small-pox,of old age, or of anything else? The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon Adam,in case he eat of the apple, was not, that thou shall surely becrucified, but thou shalt surely die- the sentence of death, and notthe manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any other particularmanner of dying, made no part of the sentence that Adam was to suffer,

and consequently, even upon their own tactics, it could make no part of

the sentence that Christ was to suffer in the room of Adam. A fever

would have done as well as a cross, if there was any occasion for either. The sentence of death, which they tell us was thus passed uponAdam must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to live,or have meant what these Mythologists call damnation; and,consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must,according to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other ofthese two things happening to Adam and to us. That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die;and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die faster since thecrucifixion than before; and with respect to the second explanation(including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitutefor the eternal death or damnation of all mankind), it isimpertinently representing the Creator as coming off, or revokingthe sentence, by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. Thatmanufacturer of quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bearhis name, has helped this quibble on by making another quibble uponthe word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams; the one who sins infact, and suffers by proxy; the other who sins by proxy, and suffersin fact. A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and punhas a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of thesearts. They acquire the habit without being aware of the cause. If Jesus Christ was the being which those Mythologists tell ushe was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a wordthey sometimes use instead of to die, the only real suffering he couldhave endured, would have been to live. His existence here was astate of exilement or transportation from Heaven, and the way backto his original country was to die. In fine, everything in thisstrange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is thereverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into itsinconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion ofit, in order to proceed to something better. How much or what parts of the books called the New Testament,

were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we

can know nothing of; neither are we certain in what language they wereoriginally written. The matters they now contain may be classedunder two beads- anecdote and epistolary correspondence. The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had takenplace. They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others didand said to him; and in several instances they relate the same eventdifferently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question withrespect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of thewriters, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating offacts by the person who saw them done, nor to the relating orrecording of any discourse or conversation by those who beard it.The book called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work) belongsalso to the anecdotal part. All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book ofenigmas called the Revelations, are a collection of letters underthe name of epistles; and the forgery of letters has been such acommon practice in the world, that the probability is at leastequal, whether they are genuine or forged. One thing, however,

is much less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters contained

in those books, together with the assistance of some old stories,

the Church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to

the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a

religion of pomp and revenue, in pretended imitation of a person

whose life was humility and poverty. The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of soulstherefrom by prayers bought of the church with money; the selling ofpardons, dispensations, and indulgences, are revenue laws, withoutbearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the casenevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from theparoxysm of the crucifixion and the theory deduced therefrom, whichwas that one person could stand in the place of another, and couldperform meritorious service for him. The probability, therefore, isthat the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption(which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one person inthe room of another) was originally fabricated on purpose to bringforward and build all those secondary and pecuniary redemptionsupon; and that the passages in the books, upon which the idea ortheory of redemption is built, have been manufactured and fabricatedfor that purpose. Why are we to give this Church credit when she tellsus that those books are genuine in every part, any more than we giveher credit for everything else she has told us, or for the miraclesshe says she had performed? That she could fabricate writings iscertain, because she could write; and the composition of thewritings in question is of that kind that anybody might do it; andthat she did fabricate them is not more inconsistent withprobability than that she could tell us, as she has done, that shecould and did work miracles. Since, then no external evidence can, at this long distance oftime, be produced to prove whether the Church fabricated the

doctrines called redemption or not (for such evidence, whether

for or against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being

fabricated), the case can only be referred to the internal evidence

which the thing carries within itself; and this affords a very strong

presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is

that the theory or doctrine of redemption bas for its base an idea

of pecuniary Justice, and not that of moral Justice. If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens toput me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, andpay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstanceof the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for theguilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice todo this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is thething itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminaterevenge. This single reflection will show, that the doctrine ofredemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to thatof a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary ideacorresponds again with the system of second redemption, obtainedthrough the means of money given to the Church for pardons, theprobability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and theother of those theories; and that, in truth there is no such thingas redemption- that it is fabulous, and that man stands in the samerelative condition with his Maker as he ever did stand since manexisted, and that it is his greatest consolation to think so. Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently andmorally than by any other system; it is by his being taught tocontemplate himself as an outlaw, as an outcast, as a beggar, as amumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a dunghill at an immensedistance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches bycreeping and cringing to intermediate beings, that he conceives eithera contemptuous disregard for everything under the name of religion,

or becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the lattercase, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it; hisprayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude; he callshimself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all theblessings of life by the thankless name of vanities; he despises thechoicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having

endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against

which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as

if man could give reason to himself. Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and thiscontempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldestpresumptions; he finds fault with everything; his selfishness is neversatisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himselfto direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of theuniverse; he prays dictatorially; when it is sunshine, he prays forrain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine; he follows thesame idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount ofall his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind,and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thouknowest not so well as I. But some, perhaps, will say: Are we to have no word of God- norevelation? I answer, Yes; there is a word of God; there is arevelation. THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD and it is in thisword, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that Godspeaketh universally to man. Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapableof being used as the means of unchangeable and universalinformation. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as theysay, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth to theother, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who knew nothingof the extent of the world, and who believed, as thoseworld-saviours believed, and continued to believe for severalcenturies (and that in contradiction to the discoveries ofphilosophers and the experience of navigators), that the earth wasflat like a trencher, and that man might walk to the end of it. But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations?

He could speak but one language which was Hebrew, and there are in

the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak

the same language, or understand each other; and as to translations,

every man who knows anything of languages knows that it is impossible

to translate from one language to another, not only without losing a

great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and

besides all this, the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ

lived. It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish anyend be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot beaccomplished. It is in this that the difference between finite andinfinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails inaccomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of the power to thepurpose, and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply powerproperly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to failas man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to the end; buthuman language, more especially as there is not an universal language,

is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchangeable and

uniform information, and therefore it is not the means that God useth

in manifesting himself universally to man. It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of aword of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language,independently of human speech or human language, multiplied andvarious as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which everyman can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; itcannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It doesnot depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published ornot; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. Itpreaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of Godreveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God. Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity

of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it

in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is

governed! Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the

abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his

mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the

unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the

book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, but the

Scripture called the Creation. The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of afirst cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible anddifficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, hearrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty ofdisbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive thatspace can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. Itis difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal durationof what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a timewhen there shall be no time. In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries initself the internal evidence that it did not make itself Every manis an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neithercould his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of hisrace; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and itis the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as itwere, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternallyexisting, of a nature totally different to any material existence weknow of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this firstcause man calls God. It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understandinganything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to readeven the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How, then, isit that those people pretend to reject reason? Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible that conveyto us any idea of God, are some chapters in Job and the 19th Psalm;I recollect no other. Those parts are true deistical compositions, forthey treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book ofCreation as the word of God, they refer to no other book, and allthe inferences they make are drawn from that volume. I insert in this place the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into Englishverse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I write thisI have not the opportunity of seeing it. "The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great original proclaim. The unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creator's power display; And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand. "Soon as the evening shades prevail, The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the list'ning earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets, in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole. "What though in solemn silence all Move round this dark terrestrial ball? What though no real voice, or sound, Amidst their radiant orbs be found? In reason's ear they all rejoice And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing, as they shine, THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE." What more does man want to know than that the hand or power

that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe thiswith the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits his reasonto act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course. The allusions in Job have, all of them, the same tendency withthis Psalm; that of deducing or proving a truth that would beotherwise unknown, from truths already known. I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert themcorrectly; but there is one occurs to me that is applicable to thesubject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out God?Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for Ikeep no Bible; but it contains two distinct questions that admit ofdistinct answers. First,- Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes because, in thefirst place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence;and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no otherthing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist;therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting fromthis search, that there is a power superior to all those things, andthat power is God. Secondly,- Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No;not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in thestructure of the Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible, butbecause even this manifestation, great as it is, is probably but asmall display of that immensity of power and wisdom by whichmillions of other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, werecreated and continue to exist. It is evident that both these questions were put to the reasonof the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed;

and it is only by admitting the first question to be answeredaffirmatively, that the second could follow. It would have beenunnecessary and even absurd, to have put a second question, moredifficult than the first, if the first question had been answerednegatively. The two questions have different objects; the first refersto the existence of God, the second to his attributes; reason candiscover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering thewhole of the other. I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed tothe men called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Thosewritings are chiefly controversial; and the subjects they dwellupon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to thegloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible theywere written, than to any man breathing the open air of theCreation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any referenceto the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can beknown, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ as a remedyagainst distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toilnot, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to theallusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, andthe modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of the man. As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a speciesof Atheism- a sort of religious denial of God. It professes tobelieve in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made upchiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheismas twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker anopaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces heropaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by thismeans a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put thewhole orbit of reason into shade. The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everythingupside down, and representing it in reverse, and among the revolutions

it has thus magically produced, it has made a revolution in theology. That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the wholecircle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is thestudy of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in hisworks, and is the true theology. As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is thestudy of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is

not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in theworks or writings that man has made; and it is not among the leastof the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, thatit has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like abeautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hagof superstition. The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admitsto be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand inthe book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to theoriginal system of theology. The internal evidence of those orationsproves to a demonstration that the study and contemplation of theworks of creation, and of the power and wisdom of God, revealed andmanifested in those works, made a great part in the religious devotionof the times in which they were written; and it was this devotionalstudy and contemplation that led to the discovery of the principlesupon which what are now called sciences are established; and it isto the discovery of these principles that almost all the arts thatcontribute to the convenience of human life owe their existence. Everyprincipal art has some science for its parent, though the person whomechanically performs the work does not always, and but very seldom,

perceive the connection. It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences humaninvention; it is only the application of them that is human. Everyscience has for its basis a system of principles as fixed andunalterable as those by which the universe is regulated andgoverned. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them. For example: Every person who looks at an almanac sees anaccount when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that itnever fails to take place according to the account there given. Thisshows that man is acquainted with the laws by which the heavenlybodies move. But it would be something worse than ignorance, wereany Church on earth to say that those laws are a human invention. Itwould also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that thescientific principles by the aid of which man is enabled tocalculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are a humaninvention. Man cannot invent a thing that is eternal and immutable;and the scientific principles he employs for this purpose must be, andare of necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which theheavenly bodies move, or they could not be used as they are toascertain the time when, and the manner how, an eclipse will takeplace. The scientific principles that man employs to obtain theforeknowledge of an eclipse, or of anything else relating to themotion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part ofscience which is called trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle,which, when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is calledastronomy; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the ocean,it is called navigation; when applied to the construction of figuresdrawn by rule and compass, it is called geometry; when applied tothe construction of plans or edifices, it is called architecture; whenapplied to the measurement of any portion of the surface of the earth,it is called land surveying. In fine, it is the soul of science; it isan eternal truth; it contains the mathematical demonstration ofwhich man speaks, and the extent of its uses is unknown. It may be said that man can make or draw a triangle, and thereforea triangle is a human invention. But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of theprinciple; it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to themind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. Thetriangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle takeninto a room that was dark makes the chairs and tables that before were

invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure,

and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of byman. Man had no more to do in the formation of these properties orprinciples, than he had to do in making the laws by which the heavenlybodies move; and therefore the one must have the same Divine origin

as the other. In the same manner, as it may be said, that man can make atriangle, so also, may it be said, he can make the mechanicalinstrument called a lever; but the principle by which the lever actsis a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if theinstrument did not; it attaches itself to the instrument after it ismade; the instrument, therefore, cannot act otherwise than it doesact; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it actotherwise- that which, in all such cases, man calls the effect is noother than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the senses. Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain

a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only tothings on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immenselydistant from him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask,could he gain that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology? It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledgeto man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of everyprinciple upon which every part of mathematical science is founded.The offspring of this science is mechanics; for mechanics is noother than the principles of science applied practically. The manwho proportions the several parts of a mill, uses the samescientific principles as if he had the power of constructing auniverse; but as he cannot give to matter that invisible agency bywhich all the component parts of the immense machine of the universehave influence upon each other, and act in motional unison together,without any apparent contact, and to which man has given the name

of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place ofthat agency by the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the partsof man's microcosm must visibly touch; but could he gain a knowledgeof that agency, so as to be able to apply it in practice, we mightthen say that another canonical book of the Word of God had beendiscovered. If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could healter the properties of the triangle, for a lever (taking that sort oflever which is called a steelyard, for the sake of explanation) forms,when in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from (one point ofthat line being in the fulcrum), the line it descends to, and the cordof the arc which the end of the lever describes in the air, are thethree sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever describes also atriangle; and the corresponding sides of those two triangles,calculated scientifically, or measured geometrically, and also thesines, tangents, and secants generated from the angles, andgeometrically measured, have the same proportions to each other, asthe different weights have that will balance each other on thelever, leaving the weight of the lever out of the case. It may also be said, that man can make a wheel and axis; that hecan put wheels of different magnitudes together, and produce a mill.Still the case comes back to the same point, which is, that he did notmake the principle that gives the wheels those powers. Thatprinciple is as unalterable as in the former case, or rather it is thesame principle under a different appearance to the eye. The power that two wheels of different magnitudes have upon eachother, is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter of the twowheels were joined together and made into that kind of lever I havedescribed, suspended at the part where the semi-diameters join; forthe two wheels, scientifically considered, are no other than the twocircles generated by the motion of the compound lever. It is from the study of the true theology that all out knowledgeof science is derived, and it is from that knowledge that all the artshave originated. The Almighty Lecturer, by displaying the principles of sciencein the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and toimitation. It is as if He had said to the inhabitants of this globe,that we call ours, "I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, andI have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science andthe arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN

FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER." Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that hiseye is endowed with the power of beholding to an incomprehensibledistance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Orof what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man?What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, withthe star he calls the North Star, with the moving orbs he has namedSaturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to followfrom their being visible? A less power of vision would have beensufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were givenonly to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of spaceglittering with shows. It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, asthe book and school of science, that he discovers any use in theirbeing visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immensity ofvision. But when he contemplates the subject in this light he seesan additional motive for saying, that nothing was made in vain; for invain would be this power of vision if it taught man nothing. As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution intheology, so also has it made a revolution in the state of learning.That which is now called learning, was not learning originally.Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, inthe knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to whichlanguage gives names. The Greeks were a learned people, but learning with them did notconsist in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speakingLatin, or a Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's speakingEnglish. From what we know of the Greeks, it does not appear that

they knew or studied any language but their own, and this was one

cause of their becoming so learned: it afforded them more time to

apply themselves to better studies. The schools of the Greeks were

schools of science and philosophy, and not of languages; and it is in

the knowledge of the things that science and philosophy teach, thatlearning consists. Almost all the scientific learning that now exists came to us fromthe Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. It, therefore,

became necessary for the people of other nations who spoke a different

language that some among them should learn the Greek language, in order

that the learning the Greeks had, might be made known in those nations,

by translating the Greek books of science and philosophy into the mother

tongue of each nation. The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the samemanner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of alinguist; and the language thus obtained, was no other than the means,

as it were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the Greeks had. It

made no part of the learning itself, and was so distinctfrom it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the persons who hadstudied Greek sufficiently to translate those works, such, forinstance, as Euclid's Elements, did not understand any of the learningthe works contained. As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead languages,

all the useful books being already translated, the languages are become

useless, and the time expended in teaching and learning them is wasted.

So far as the study of languages may contribute to the progress and

communication of knowledge, (for it has nothing to do with the creation

of knowledge), it is only in the living languages that new knowledge

is to be found; and certain it is that, in general,a youth will learn more of a living language in one year, than of adead language in seven, and it is but seldom that the teacher knowsmuch of it himself. The difficulty of learning the dead languages doesnot arise from any superior abstruseness in the languagesthemselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirelylost. It would be the same thing with any other language when itbecomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does notunderstand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecianmilkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman ormilkmaid of the Romans; it would therefore be advantageous to thestate of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and tomake learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge. The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to teach thedead languages is, that they are taught at a time when a child isnot capable of exerting any other mental faculty than that ofmemory; but that is altogether erroneous. The human mind has a

natural disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the thingsconnected with it. The first and favorite amusement of a child,

even before it begins to play, is that of imitating the works of

man. It builds houses with cards or sticks; it navigates the little

ocean of a bowl of water with a paper boat, or dams the stream

of a gutter and contrives something which it calls a mill; and it

interests itself in the fate of its works with a care that resembles

affection. It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed

by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is

lost in the linguist. But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach thedead languages, could not be the cause, at first, of cutting downlearning to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry; the cause,therefore, must be sought for elsewhere. In all researches of thiskind, the best evidence that can be produced, is the internal evidencethe thing carries with itself, and the evidence of circumstancesthat unite with it; both of which, in this case, are not difficultto be discovered. Putting then aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, theoutrage offered to the moral justice of God by supposing him to makethe innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose morality andlow contrivance of supposing him to change himself into the shape of aman, in order to make an excuse to himself for not executing hissupposed sentence upon Adam- putting, I say, those things aside asmatter of distinct consideration, it is certain that what is calledthe Christian system of faith, including in it the whimsical accountof the creation- the strange story of Eve- the snake and the apple-the ambiguous idea of a man-god- the corporeal idea of the death of agod- the mythological idea of a family of gods, and the Christiansystem of arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three, are allirreconcilable, not only to the divine gift of reason that God hathgiven to man, but to the knowledge that man gains of the power andwisdom of God, by the aid of the sciences and by studying thestructure of the universe that God has made. The setters-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christiansystem of faith could not but foresee that the continually progressiveknowledge that man would gain, by the aid of science, of the power

and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe and inall the works of Creation, would militate against, and call intoquestion, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore itbecame necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a sizeless dangerous to their project, and this they effected by restrictingthe idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages. They not only rejected the study of science out of the Christianschools, but they persecuted it, and it is only within about thelast two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 1610,Galileo, a Florentine, discovered and introduced the use oftelescopes, and by applying them to observe the motions andappearances of the heavenly bodies, afforded additional means forascertaining the true structure of the universe. Instead of beingesteemed for those discoveries, he was sentenced to renounce them,or the opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. And,prior to that time, Vigilius was condemned to be burned forasserting the antipodes, or in other words that the earth was a globe,and habitable in every part where there was land; yet the truth ofthis is now too well known even to be told. If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, itwould make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove

them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat like atrencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing that itwas round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in believingthat the Creator made no other world than this, any more than therewas moral virtue in believing that he made millions, and that theinfinity of space is filled with worlds. But when a system of religionis made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is not true,and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost inseparabletherefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground. It is thenthat errors not morally bad become fraught with the same mischiefsas if they were. It is then that the truth, though otherwiseindifferent itself, becomes an essential by becoming the criterionthat either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies bycontradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In thisview of the case, it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possibleevidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part ofcreation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, thesupporters or partisans of the Christian system, as if dreading theresult, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, butpersecuted the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or

four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they did, it is

most probable they would not have lived to finish them; and had

Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it would

have been at the hazard of expiring for it in the flames. Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals;but, however unwilling the partisans of the Christian system may be tobelieve or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true that the ageof ignorance commenced with the Christian system. There was moreknowledge in the world before that period than for many centuriesafterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, asalready said was only another species of mythology, and themythology to which it succeeded was a corruption of an ancientsystem of theism.* *It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathenmythology began; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that itcarries, that it did not begin in the same state or condition in whichit ended. All the gods of that mythology, except Saturn, were ofmodern invention. The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that

which is called the heathen mythology, and was so far a species

of theism, that it admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is

supposed to have abdicated the government in favor of his three

sons and one daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno; after

this, thousands of other Gods and demi-gods were imaginarily

created, and the calendar of gods increased as fast as the

calendar of saints and the calendars of courts have increased since. All the corruptions that have taken place in theology and inreligion, have been produced by admitting of what man calls revealedreligion. The Mythologists pretended to more revealed religion thanthe Christians do. They had their oracles and their priests, whowere supposed to receive and deliver the word of God verbally, onalmost all occasions. Since, then, all corruptions, down from Moloch to modernpredestinarianism, and the human sacrifices of the heathens to theChristian sacrifice of the Creator, have been produced by admitting ofwhat is called revealed religion, the most effectual means toprevent all such evils and impositions is not to admit of any otherrevelation than that which is manifested in the book of creation,and to contemplate the creation as the only true and real word ofGod that ever did or ever will exist; and that everything else, calledthe word of God, is fable and imposition. It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no othercause, that we have now to look through a vast chasm of many

hundred years to the respectable characters we call the ancients.

Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with that

stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up

with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and

those ancients we now so much admire would have appeared

respectably in the background of the scene. But the Christian

system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the

beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that

long chasm to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy

desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept thevision to the fertile hills beyond. It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, thatanything should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it tobe irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of theuniverse that God has made. But the fact is too well established to bedenied. The event that served more than any other to break the firstlink in this long chain of despotic ignorance is that known by thename of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it doesnot appear to have made any part of the intention of Luther, or ofthose who are called reformers, the sciences began to revive, andliberality, their natural associate, began to appear. This was theonly public good the Reformation did; for with respect to religiousgood, it might as well not have taken place. The mythology stillcontinued the same, and a multiplicity of National Popes grew out ofthe downfall of the Pope of Christendom. Having thus shown from the internal evidence of things the causethat produced a change in the state of learning, and the motive forsubstituting the study of the dead languages in the place of thesciences, I proceed, in addition to several observations alreadymade in the former part of this work, to compare, or rather toconfront, the evidence that the structure of the universe affords withthe Christian system of religion; but, as I cannot begin this partbetter than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at anearly part of life, and which I doubt not have occurred in some degreeto almost every person at one time or other, I shall state whatthose ideas were, and add thereto such other matter as shall arise outof the subject, giving to the whole, by way of preface, a shortintroduction. My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good fortuneto have an exceedingly good moral education, and a tolerable stockof useful learning. Though I went to the grammar school,* I did notlearn Latin, not only because I had no inclination to learn languages,but because of the objection the Quakers have against the books inwhich the language is taught. But this did not prevent me from beingacquainted with the subject of all the Latin books used in the school. *The same school, Thetford In Norfolk that the presentCounsellor Mingay went to and under the same master. The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some turn, and Ibelieve some talent, for poetry; but this I rather repressed thanencouraged, as leading too much into the field of imagination. As soonas I was able I purchased a pair of globes, and attended thephilosophical lectures of Martin and Ferguson, and became afterwardacquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the society called the Royal Society,then living in the Temple, and an excellent astronomer. I had no disposition for what is called politics. It presentedto my mind no other idea than as contained in the word Jockeyship.When therefore I turned my thoughts toward matter of government,

I had to form a system for myself that accorded with the moral andphilosophic principles in which I have been educated. I saw, or atleast I thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in theaffairs of America, and it appeared to me that unless the Americanschanged the plan they were pursuing with respect to the governmentof England, and declared themselves independent, they would not onlyinvolve themselves in a multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut outthe prospect that was then offering itself to mankind through theirmeans. It was from these motives that I published the work known bythe name of Common Sense, which was the first work I ever did publish;

and so far as I can judge of myself, I believe I should never have been

known in the world as an author, on any subject whatever, had it not

been for the affairs of America. I wrote Common Sense thelatter end of the year 1775, and published it the first of January,1776. Independence was declared the fourth of July following. Any person who has made observations on the state and progressof the human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have observed

that there are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts - thosethat we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking,and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have alwaysmade it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, takingcare to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worthentertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all theknowledge that I have. As to the learning that any person gains fromschool education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put himin a way of beginning learning for himself afterward. Every personof learning is finally his own teacher, the reason of which is thatprinciples, being a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot beimpressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is theunderstanding and they are never so lasting as when they begin byconception. Thus much for the introductory part. From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea and actingupon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christiansystem or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew whichit 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 devoteeof the Church, upon the subject of what is called redemption by thedeath of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into thegarden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectlyrecollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I hadheard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty actlike a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revengehimself 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 preachedsuch sermons. This was not one of that kind of thoughts that hadanything in it of childish levity; it was to me a seriousreflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to dosuch an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity ofdoing it. I believe in the same manner at this moment; and Imoreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything init that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system. It seems as if parents of the Christian profession were ashamed totell their children anything about the principles of their religion.They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of thegoodness of what they call Providence, for the Christian mythology hasfive deities- there is God the Father, God the Son, God the HolyGhost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the Christianstory of God the Father putting his son to death, or employing peopleto do it (for that is the plain language of the story) cannot be toldby a parent to a child; and to tell him that it was done to makemankind happier and better is making the story still worse- as ifmankind could be improved by the example of murder; and to tell himthat all this is a mystery is only making an excuse for theincredibility of it. How different is this to the pure and simple profession ofDeism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consistsin contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity inhis works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral,scientifical, and mechanical. The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to trueDeism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed bythe Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much, byleaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reverence theirphilanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that if thetaste of a Quaker could have been consulted at the creation, what asilent and drab-colored creation it would have been! Not a flowerwould have blossomed its gayeties, nor a bird been permitted to sing. Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After Ihad made myself master of the use of the globes and of the orrery,*and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and the eternaldivisibility of matter, and obtained at least a general knowledge ofwhat is called natural philosophy, I began to compare, or, as I havebefore said, to confront the eternal evidence those things afford withthe Christian system of faith. *As this book may fall into the hands of persons who do not knowwhat an orrery is, it is for their information I add this note, as thename gives no idea of the uses of thing. The orrery has its namefrom the person who invented it. It is a machinery of clock-work,representing the universe in miniature, and in which the revolution ofthe earth round itself and round the sun, the revolution of the moonround the earth, the revolution of the planets round the sun, theirrelative distances from the sun, as the centre of the whole system,their relative distances from each other, and their differentmagnitudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call theheavens. Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system, thatthis world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable creation, yetit is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic accountof the Creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the counterpartof that story, the death of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise,that is, to believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at leastas numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system offaith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters it in the mindlike feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be held together inthe same mind, and he who thinks that he believes both, has thoughtbut little of either. Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to theancients, it’s only within the last three centuries that the extentand dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained.Several vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailedentirely round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and comeround by the contrary side of the circle to the spot he set outfrom. The circular dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as aman would measure the widest round of an apple or ball, is onlytwenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning sixty-ninemiles and a half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed round inthe space of about three years.* *Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three miles in an hour,she would sail entirely round the world in less than one year, ifshe could sail in a direct circle; but she is obliged to follow thecourse of the ocean. A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to begreat; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which it issuspended, like a bubble or balloon in the air, it is infinitelyless in proportion than the smallest grain of sand is to the size ofthe world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole ocean, and istherefore but small; and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of asystem of worlds of which the universal creation is composed. It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity ofspace in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if wefollow a progression of ideas. When we think of the size or dimensionsof a room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and there theystop; but when our eye or our imagination darts into space, that is,when it looks upward into what we call the open air, we cannotconceive any walls or boundaries it can have, and if for the sake ofresting our ideas, we suppose a boundary, the question immediatelyrenews itself, and asks, what is beyond that boundary? and in the

same manner, what is beyond the next boundary? and so on till thefatigued imagination returns and says, There is no end. Certainly,then, the Creator was not pent for room when he made this world nolarger than it is, and we have to seek the reason in something else. If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, ofwhich the Creator has given us the use as our portion in the immensesystem of creation, we find every part of it- the earth, the waters,and the air that surrounds it- filled and, as it were, crowded withlife, down from the largest animals that we know of to the smallestinsects the naked eye can behold, and from thence to others stillsmaller, and totally invisible without the assistance of themicroscope. Every tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only asa habitation but as a world to some numerous race, till animalexistence becomes so exceedingly refined that the effluvia of ablade of grass would be food for thousands. Since, then, no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it tobe supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying ineternal waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large or largerthan ours, and each of them millions of miles apart from each other. Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only onethought further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at least avery good reason, for our happiness, why the Creator, instead ofmaking one immense world extending over an immense quantity ofspace, has preferred dividing that quantity of matter into severaldistinct and separate worlds, which we call planets, of which ourearth is one. But before I explain my ideas upon this subject, it isnecessary (not for the sake of those who already know, but for thosewho do not) to show what the system of the universe is. That part of the universe that is called the solar system (meaningthe system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which Sol,or in English language, the Sun, is the centre) consists, besidesthe Sun, of six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, besides thesecondary called the satellites or moons, of which our earth has onethat attends her in her annual revolution around the Sun, in likemanner as the other satellites or moons attend the planets or worldsto which they severally belong, as may be seen by the assistance ofthe telescope. The Sun is the centre, round which those six worlds or planetsrevolve at different distances therefrom, and in circles concentrateto each other. Each world keeps constantly in nearly the same trackround the Sun, and continues, at the same time, turning round itselfin nearly an upright position, as a top turns round itself when itis spinning on the ground, and leans a little sideways. It is this leaning of the earth (23.5 degrees) that occasionssummer and winter, and the different length of days and nights.

If the earth turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the

plane or level of the circle it moves in around the Sun, as a top turnsround when it stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would

be always of the same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours

night, and the seasons would be uniformly the same throughout the year. Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns rounditself, it makes what we call day and night; and every time it goesentirely round the Sun it makes what we call a year; consequentlyour world turns three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, ingoing once round the Sun.* *Those who supposed that the sun went round the earth every 24hours made the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in fact,

that should make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat

turning round itself toward the fire. The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and whichare still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, this worldthat we call ours, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They appear larger tothe eye than the stars, being many million miles nearer to our earththan any of the stars are. The planet Venus is that which is calledthe evening star, and sometimes the morning star, as she happens toset after or rise before the Sun, which in either case is never morethan three hours. The Sun, as before said, being the centre, the planet or worldnearest the Sun is Mercury; his distance from the Sun is thirty-fourmillion miles, and he moves round in a circle always at thatdistance from the Sun, as a top may be supposed to spin round in thetrack in which a horse goes in a mill. The second world is Venus;she is fifty-seven million miles distant from the Sun, andconsequently moves round in a circle much greater than that ofMercury. The third world is this that we inhabit, and which iseighty-eight million miles distant from the Sun, and consequentlymoves round in a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth worldis Mars; he is distant from the Sun one hundred and thirty-fourmillion miles, and consequently moves round in a circle greater thanthat of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter; he is distant from the Sunfive hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and consequently movesround in a circle greater than that of Mars. The sixth world isSaturn; he is distant from the Sun seven hundred and sixty-threemillion miles, and consequently moves round in a circle that surroundsthe circles, or orbits, of all the other worlds or planets. The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space,that our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform theirrevolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a straight line ofthe whole diameter of the orbit or circle, in which Saturn moves roundthe Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fifteenhundred and twenty-six million miles and its circular extent is nearlyfive thousand million, and its globular contents is almost threethousand five hundred million times three thousand five hundredmillion square miles.* *If it should be asked, how can man know these things? I haveone plain answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate aneclipse, and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the planetVenus, in making her revolutions around the sun will come in astraight line between our earth and the sun, and will appear to usabout the size of a large pea passing across the face of the sun. Thishappens but twice in about a hundred years, at the distance of abouteight years from each other, and has happened twice in our time,both of which were foreknown by calculation. It can also be known when

they will happen again for a thousand years to come, or to any other

portion of time. As, therefore, man could not be able to do thesethings if he did not understand the solar system, and the manner inwhich the revolutions of the several planets or worlds areperformed, the fact of calculating an eclipse, or a transit ofVenus, is a proof in point that the knowledge exists; and as to afew thousand, or even a few million miles, more or less, it makesscarcely any sensible difference in such immense distances. But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Beyondthis, at a vast distance into space, far beyond all power ofcalculation, are the stars called the fixed stars. They are calledfixed, because they have no revolutionary motion, as the six worlds orplanets have that I have been describing. Those fixed stars continuealways at the same distance from each other, and always in the sameplace, as the Sun does in the centre of our system. The probability,therefore, is, that each of these fixed stars is also a Sun, roundwhich another system of worlds or planets, though too remote for

us to discover, performs its revolutions, as our system of worlds does

round our central Sun. By this easy progression of ideas, the immensity of space willappear to us to be filled with systems of worlds, and that no partof space lies at waste, any more than any part of the globe of earthand water is left unoccupied. Having thus endeavored to convey, in a familiar and easy manner,some idea of the structure of the universe, I return to explain whatI before alluded to, namely, the great benefits arising to man inconsequence of the Creator having made a plurality of worlds, suchas our system is, consisting of a central Sun and six worlds,besides satellites, in preference to that of creating one world onlyof a vast extent. It is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our knowledgeof science is derived from the revolutions (exhibited to our eye andfrom thence to our understanding) which those several planets orworlds of which our system is composed make in their circuit round

the Sun. Had, then, the quantity of matter which these six worlds containbeen blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us would

have been, that either no revolutionary motion would have existed,

or not a sufficiency of it to give to us the idea and the knowledge of

science we now have; and it is from the sciences that all the

mechanical arts that contribute so much to our earthly felicity and

comfort are derived. As, therefore, the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must itbe believed that he organized the structure of the universe in themost advantageous manner for the benefit of man; and as we see,

and from experience feel, the benefits we derive from the structure

of the universe formed as it is, which benefits we should not have had

the opportunity of enjoying, if the structure, so far as relates to oursystem, had been a solitary globe- we can discover at least one reasonwhy a plurality of worlds has been made, and that reason calls forththe devotional gratitude of man, as well as his admiration. But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that thebenefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. Theinhabitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composedenjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do. They behold therevolutionary motions of our earth, as we behold theirs. All theplanets revolve in sight of each other, and, therefore, the sameuniversal school of science presents itself to all. Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of worlds next tous exhibits, in its revolutions, the same principles and school ofscience to the inhabitants of their system, as our system does tous, and in like manner throughout the immensity of space. Our ideas, not only of the almightiness of the Creator, but of hiswisdom and his beneficence, become enlarged in proportion as wecontemplate the extent and the structure of the universe. The solitaryidea of a solitary world, rolling or at rest in the immense ocean ofspace, gives place to the cheerful idea of a society of worlds, sohappily contrived as to administer, even by their motion,instruction to man. We see our own earth filled with abundance, but

we forget to consider how much of that abundance is owing to thescientific knowledge the vast machinery of the universe has unfolded. But, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to think ofthe Christian system of faith, that forms itself upon the idea of onlyone world, and that of no greater extent, as is before shown, thantwenty-five thousand miles? An extent which a man walking at therate of three miles an hour, for twelve hours in the day, could hekeep on in a circular direction, would walk entirely round in lessthan two years. Alas! what is this to the mighty ocean of space, andthe almighty power of the Creator? From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceitthat the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on hisprotection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die inour world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten anapple? And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world inthe boundless creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and aredeemer? In this case, the person who is irreverently called theSon of God, and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to

do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession ofdeaths, with scarcely a momentary interval of life. It has been by rejecting the evidence that the word or works ofGod in the creation afford to our senses, and the action of our reasonupon that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical systems of faithand of religion have been fabricated and set up. There may be manysystems of religion that, so far from being morally bad, are in manyrespects morally good; but there can be but ONE that is true; and thatone necessarily must, as it ever will, be in all things consistentwith the ever-existing word of God that we behold in his works. Butsuch is the strange construction of the Christian system of faith thatevery evidence the Heavens afford to man either directly contradictsit or renders it absurd. It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure inencouraging myself to believe it, that there have been men in theworld who persuade themselves that what is called a pious fraud might,

at least under particular circumstances, be productive of some good.

But the fraud being once established, could not afterward beexplained, for it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, itbegets a calamitous necessity of going on. The persons who first preached the Christian system of faith,and in some measure combined it with the morality preached by JesusChrist, might persuade themselves that it was better than theheathen mythology that then prevailed. From the first preachers thefraud went on to the second, and to the third, till the idea of itsbeing a pious fraud became lost in the belief of its being true; andthat belief became again encouraged by the interests of those who

made a livelihood by preaching it. But though such a belief might by such means be rendered almostgeneral among the laity, it is next to impossible to account for thecontinual persecution carried on by the Church, for several hundredyears, against the sciences and against the professors of science,if the Church had not some record or tradition that it wasoriginally no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee that itcould not be maintained against the evidence that the structure of theuniverse afforded. Having thus shown the irreconcilable inconsistencies between thereal word of God existing in the universe, and that which is calledthe Word of God, as shown to us in a printed book that any man mightmake, I proceed to speak of the three principal means that have beenemployed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries, to impose uponmankind. Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy. The twofirst are incompatible with true religion, and the third oughtalways to be suspected. With respect to mystery, everything we behold is, in one sense,a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery; the whole vegetableworld is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that an acorn, whenput into the ground, is made to develop itself, and become an oak.We know not how it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multipliesitself, and returns to us such an abundant interest for so small acapital. The fact, however, as distinct from the operating cause, is nota mystery, because we see it, and we know also the means we are touse, which is no other than putting the seed into the ground. We know,

therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know; and that part of the

operation that we do not know, and which, if we did, we couldnot perform, the Creator takes upon himself and performs it for us. Weare, therefore, better off than if we had been let into the secret,and left to do it for ourselves. But though every created thing is, in this sense, a mystery, theword mystery cannot be applied to moral truth, any more than obscurity

can be applied to light. The God in whom we believe is a God of moral

truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mystery is theantagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, that obscurestruth, and represents it in distortion. Truth never envelops itself inmystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is thework of its antagonist, and never of itself. Religion, therefore, being the belief of a God and the practice ofmoral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief of a God,so far from having anything of mystery in it, is of all beliefs themost easy, because it arises to us, as is before observed, out ofnecessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in other words, apractical imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no other than ouracting toward each other as he acts benignly toward all. We cannotserve God in the manner we serve those who cannot do without suchservice; and, therefore, the only idea we can have of serving God,is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation thatGod has made. This cannot be done by retiring ourselves from thesociety of the world and spending a recluse life in selfish devotion. The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it,prove even to demonstration that it must be free from everything ofmystery, and unencumbered with everything that is mysterious.Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living soulalike, and, therefore, must be on a level with the understanding andcomprehension of all. Man does not learn religion as he learns thesecrets and mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory of religionby reflection. It arises out of the action of his own mind upon thethings which he sees, or upon what he may happen to hear or to read,and the practice joins itself thereto. When men, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems ofreligion incompatible with the word or works of God in the creation,and not only above, but repugnant to human comprehension, they

were under the necessity of inventing or adopting a word that shouldserve as a bar to all questions, inquiries and speculation. The wordmystery answered this purpose, and thus it has happened that religion,

which is in itself without mystery, has been corrupted into a fog

of mysteries. As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed as anoccasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, thelatter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other thelegerdemain. But before going further into this subject, it will be proper toinquire what is to be understood by a miracle. In the same sense that everything may be said to be a mystery,so also may it be said that everything is a miracle, and that no onething is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, thoughlarger, is not a greater miracle than a mite, nor a mountain a greatermiracle than an atom. To an almighty power, it is no more difficult tomake the one than the other, and no more difficult to make millions ofworlds than to make one. Everything, therefore, is a miracle, in onesense, whilst in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle.It is a miracle when compared to our power and to our comprehension,

if not a miracle compared to the power that performs it; but as nothing

in this description conveys the idea that is affixed to the word miracle,

it is necessary to carry the inquiry further. Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws, by which whatthey call nature is supposed to act; and that miracle is somethingcontrary to the operation and effect of those laws; but unless we knowthe whole extent of those laws, and of what are commonly called thepowers of nature, we are not able to judge whether anything that mayappear to us wonderful or miraculous be within, or be beyond, or becontrary to, her natural power of acting. The ascension of a man several miles high in the air would haveeverything in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it werenot known that a species of air can be generated, several timeslighter than the common atmospheric air, and yet possess elasticityenough to prevent the balloon in which that light air is enclosed frombeing compressed into as many times less bulk by the common air that

surrounds it. In like manner, extracting flames or sparks of fire from the

human body, as visible as from a steel struck with a flint, andcausing iron or steel to move without any visible agent, would alsogive the idea of a miracle, if we were not acquainted with electricityand magnetism. So also would many other experiments in naturalphilosophy, to those who are not acquainted with the subject. Therestoring persons to life who are to appearance dead, as ispractised upon drowned persons, would also be a miracle, if it werenot known that animation is capable of being suspended without beingextinct. Besides these, there are performances by sleight-of-hand, and bypersons acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, whichwhen known are thought nothing of. And besides these, there aremechanical and optical deceptions. There is now an exhibition in Parisof ghosts or spectres, which, though it is not imposed upon thespectators as a fact, has an astonishing appearance. As, therefore, weknow not the extent to which either nature or art can go, there isno positive criterion to determine what a miracle is, and mankind,in giving credit to appearances, under the idea of there beingmiracles, are subject to be continually imposed upon. Since, then, appearances are so capable of deceiving, and thingsnot real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing canbe more inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would makeuse of means such as are called miracles, that would subject theperson who performed them to the suspicion of being an impostor, andthe person who related them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrineintended to be supported thereby to be suspected as a fabulousinvention. Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtainbelief to any system or opinion to which the name of religion has beengiven, that of miracle, however successful the imposition may havebeen, is the most inconsistent. For, in the first place, wheneverrecourse is had to show, for the purpose of procuring that belief,(for a miracle, under any idea of the word, is a show), it implies alameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached. And, in thesecond place, it is degrading the Almighty into the character of ashowman, playing tricks to amuse and make the people stare and

wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of evidence that can be

set up; for the belief is not to depend upon the thing called a miracle,

but upon the credit of the reporter who says that he saw it; and,therefore, the thing, were it true, would have no better chance ofbeing believed than if it were a lie. Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book,a hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen, and wrote everyword that is herein written; would anybody believe me? Certainlythey would not. Would they believe me a whit the more if the thing had

been a fact? Certainly they would not. Since, then, a real miracle,were it to happen, would be subject to the same fate as the falsehood,the inconsistency becomes the greater of supposing the Almightywould make use of means that would not answer the purpose for

which they were intended, even if they were real. If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely outof the course of what is called nature, that she must go out of thatcourse to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such miracleby the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mindvery easily decided, which is, is it more probable that natureshould go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? Wehave never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have

good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in thesame time; it is therefore, at least millions to one, that thereporter of a miracle tells a lie. The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale is largeenough to do it, borders greatly on the marvelous; but it would haveapproached nearer to the idea of a miracle, if Jonah had swallowed thewhale. In this, which may serve for all cases of miracles, thematter would decide itself, as before stated, namely, is it morethat a man should have swallowed a whale or told a lie? But suppose that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, and gonewith it in his belly to Nineveh, and, to convince the people that itwas true, had cast it up in their sight, of the full length and sizeof a whale, would they not have believed him to be the devil,instead of a prophet? Or, if the whale had carried Jonah to Ninevah,and cast him up in the same public manner, would they not havebelieved the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one of his imps? The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles,related in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away withJesus Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain, and tothe top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and showing him andpromising to him all the kingdoms of the World. How happened it thathe did not discover America, or is it only with kingdoms that hissooty highness has any interest? I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ tobelieve that he told this whale of a miracle himself; neither is iteasy to account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, unlessit were to impose upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthingsand collectors of relics and antiquities; or to render the belief ofmiracles ridiculous, by outdoing miracles, as Don Quixote outdidchivalry; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by making itdoubtful by what power, whether of God or of the devil, anythingcalled a miracle was performed. It requires, however, a great dealof faith in the devil to believe this miracle. In every point of view in which those things called miracles canbe placed and considered, the reality of them is improbable andtheir existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed,answer any useful purpose, even if they were true; for it is moredifficult to obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidentlymoral without any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally foritself. Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but bya few; after this it requires a transfer of faith from God to man tobelieve a miracle upon man's report. Instead, therefore, ofadmitting the recitals of miracles as evidence of any system ofreligion being true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of itsbeing fabulous. It is necessary to the full and upright character oftruth that it rejects the crutch, and it is consistent with thecharacter of fable to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much formystery and miracle. As mystery and miracle took charge of the past and the present,prophecy took charge of the future and rounded the tenses of faith. Itwas not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would be done.

The supposed prophet was the supposed historian of times to come; and

if he happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand years, to

strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of posterity

could make it point-blank; and if he happened to be directlywrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh,that God had repented himself and changed his mind. What a fool dofabulous systems make of man! It has been shown, in a former part of this work, that theoriginal meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has beenchanged, and that a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used,is a creature of modern invention; and it is owing to this change inthe meaning of the words, that the flights and metaphors of the Jewishpoets, and phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by our notbeing acquainted with the local circumstances to which they applied atthe time they were used, have been erected into prophecies, and made

to bend to explanations at the will and whimsical conceits ofsectaries, expounders, and commentators. Everything unintelligible

was prophetical, and everything insignificant was typical. A blunder

would have served for a prophecy, and a dish-clout for a type. If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the Almightycommunicated some event that would take place in future, eitherthere were such men or there were not. If there were, it is consistentto believe that the event so communicated would be told in termsthat could be understood, and not related in such a loose andobscure manner as to be out of the comprehension of those that heardit, and so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that may happenafterward. It is conceiving very irreverently of the Almighty, tosuppose that he would deal in this jesting manner with mankind, yetall the things called prophecies in the book called the Bible comeunder this description. But it is with prophecy as it is with miracle; it could not answerthe purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should betold, could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied, or whether ithad been revealed to him, or whether he conceited it; and if the thingthat he prophesied, or intended to prophesy, should happen, orsomething like it, among the multitude of things that are dailyhappening, nobody could again know whether he foreknew it, orguessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A prophet, therefore,is a character useless and unnecessary; and the safe side of thecase is to guard against being imposed upon by not giving credit tosuch relations. Upon the whole, mystery, miracle, and prophecy are appendages

that belong to fabulous and not to true religion. They are the means

by which so many Lo, heres! and Lo, theres! have been spread about

the world, and religion been made into a trade. The success of oneimposter gave encouragement to another, and the quieting salvo ofdoing some good by keeping up a pious fraud protected them fromremorse. Having now extended the subject to a greater length than I firstintended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary fromthe whole. First- That the idea or belief of a word of God existing inprint, or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself forreasons already assigned. These reasons, among many others, are thewant of a universal language; the mutability of language; the errorsto which translations are subject: the possibility of totallysuppressing such a word; the probability of altering it, or offabricating the whole, and imposing it upon the world. Secondly- That the Creation we behold is the real andever-existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. Itproclaims his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests hisgoodness and beneficence. Thirdly- That the moral duty of man consists in imitating themoral goodness and beneficence of God, manifested in the creationtoward all his creatures. That seeing, as we daily do, the goodnessof God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practicethe same toward each other; and, consequently, that everything ofpersecution and revenge between man and man, and everything ofcruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty. I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. Icontent myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that thePower that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form andmanner he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appearsmore probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter, thanthat I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existencebegan. It is certain that, in one point, all the nations of the earth andall religions agree- all believe in a God; the things in which theydisagree, are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and, therefore,if ever a universal religion should prevail, it will not be bybelieving anything new, but in getting rid of redundancies, andbelieving as man believed at first. Adam, if ever there were such aman, was created a Deist; but in the meantime, let every man follow,as he has a right to do, the religion and the worship he prefers. END OF THE FIRST PART. Thus far I had written on the 28th of December, 1793. In theevening I went to the Hotel Philadelphia (formerly White's Hotel),Passage des Petis Peres, where I lodged when I came to Paris, inconsequence of being elected a member of the Convention, but leftthe lodging about nine months, and taken lodgings in the Rue Fauxbourg

St. Denis, for the sake of being more retired than I could be in the middle

of the town. Meeting with a company of Americans at the Hotel Philadelphia, Iagreed to spend the evening with them; and, as my lodging wasdistant about a mile and a half, I bespoke a bed at the hotel. Thecompany broke up about twelve o'clock, and I went directly to bed.About four in the morning I was awakened by a rapping at my chamber

door; when I opened it, I saw a guard, and the master of the hotel with

them. The guard told me they came to put me under arrestation, and to

demand the key of my papers. I desired them to walk in, and I would

dress myself and go with them immediately. It happened that Achilles Audibert, of Calais, was then in thehotel; and I desired to be conducted into his room. When we camethere, I told the guard that I had only lodged at the hotel for thenight; that I was printing a work, and that part of that work was atthe Maison Bretagne, Rue Jacob; and desired they would take me there

first, which they did. The printing-office at which the work was printing was near to theMaison Bretagne, where Colonel Blackden and Joel Barlow, of the United

States of America, lodged; and I had desired Joel Barlow to compare the

proof-sheets with the copy as they came from the press. The remainder

of the manuscript, from page 32 to 76, was at my lodging. But besides

the necessity of my collecting all the parts of the work together that

the publication might not be interrupted by my imprisonment, or by any

event that might happen to me, it was highly proper that I should have

a fellow-citizen of America with me during the examination of my papers,

as I had letters of correspondence in my possession of the President

of Congress General Washington; the Minister of Foreign Affairs to

Congress Mr. Jefferson; and the late Benjamin Franklin; and it might be

necessary for me to make a proces-verbal to send to Congress. It happened that Joel Barlow had received only one proof-sheetof the work, which he had compared with the copy and sent it back tothe printing-office. We then went, in company with Joel Barlow, to my lodging; andthe guard, or commissaires, took with them the interpreter to theCommittee of Surety-General. It was satisfactory to me, that they

went through the examination of my papers with the strictness they

did; and it is but justice that I say, they did it not only with civility,but with tokens of respect to my character. I showed them the remainder of the manuscript of the foregoingwork. The interpreter examined it and returned it to me, saying, "Itis an interesting work; it will do much good." I also showed himanother manuscript, which I had intended for the Committee of PublicSafety. It is entitled, "Observations on the Commerce between theUnited States of America and France." After the examination of my papers was finished, the guardconducted me to the prison of the Luxembourg, where they left me asthey would a man whose undeserved fate they regretted. I offered towrite under the proces-verbal they had made that they had executedtheir orders with civility, but they declined it. Admin PAINE.THE AGE OF REASON Part Second Preface to Part II I HAVE mentioned in the former part of the Age of Reason that ithad long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon religion; butthat I had originally reserved it to a later period in lifeintending it to be the last work I should undertake. Thecircumstances, however, which existed in France in the latter end ofthe year 1793, determined me to delay it no longer. The just andhumane principles of the revolution, which philosophy had firstdiffused, had been departed from. The idea, always dangerous tosociety, as it is derogatory to the Almighty, that priests couldforgive sins, though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted thefeelings of humanity, and prepared men for the commission of allmanner of crimes. The intolerant spirit of Church persecutions hadtransferred itself into politics; the tribunal styled revolutionary,supplied the place of an inquisition; and the guillotine and the stakeoutdid the fire and fagot of the Church. I saw many of my mostintimate friends destroyed, others daily carried to prison, and Ihad reason to believe, and had also intimations given me, that thesame danger was approaching myself. Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the Age ofReason; I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament to refer to,though I was writing against both; nor could I procure any:notwithstanding which, I have produced a work that no Biblebeliever, though writing at his ease, and with a library of Churchbooks about him, can refute. Toward the latter end of December of that year, a motion wasmade and carried, to exclude foreigners from the convention. Therewere but two in it, Anacharsis Cloots and myself; and I saw I wasparticularly pointed at by Bourdon de l'Oise, in his speech on thatmotion. Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, Isat down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible;and I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it hassince appeared, before a guard came there, about three in the

morning, with an order signed by the two Committees of public

Safety and Surety General for putting me in arrestation as a

foreigner, and conveyed me to the prison of the Luxembourg.

I contrived, on my way there, to call on Joel Barlow, and I put

the manuscript of the work into his hands: as more safe than in

my possession in prison; and not knowing what might be the

fate in France either of the writer or the work, I addressed it to

the protection of the citizens of the United States. It is with justice that I say that the guard who executed thisorder, and the interpreter of the Committee of General Surety whoaccompanied them to examine my papers, treated me not only withcivility, but with respect. The keeper of the Luxembourg, Bennoit, aman of a good heart, showed to me every friendship in his power, asdid also all his family, while he continued in that station. He wasremoved from it, put into arrestation, and carried before the tribunalupon a malignant accusation, but acquitted. After I had been in the Luxembourg about three weeks, theAmericans then in Paris went in a body to the convention to reclaim

me as their countryman and friend; but were answered by the

President, Vadier, who was also President of the Committee of

Surety-General, and had signed the order for my arrestation, that

I was born in England. I heard no more, after this, from any person

out of the walls of the prison till the fall of Robespierre, on the 9th

of Thermidor- July 27, 1794. About two months before this event I was seized with a fever, thatin its progress had every symptom of becoming mortal, and from theeffects of which I am not recovered. It was then that I rememberedwith renewed satisfaction, and congratulated myself most sincerely, onhaving written the former part of the Age of Reason. I had then butlittle expectation of surviving, and those about me had less. Iknow, therefore, by experience, the conscientious trial of my ownprinciples. I was then with three chamber comrades, Joseph Vanhuele, ofBruges; Charles Bastini, and Michael Rubyns, of Louvain. The

unceasing and anxious attention of these three friends to me,

by night and by day, I remember with gratitude and mention with

pleasure. It happened that a physician (Dr. Graham) and a surgeon

(Mr. Bond), part of the suite of General O'Hara, were then in the

Luxembourg. I ask not myself whether it be convenient to them, as

men under the English government, that I express to them my

thanks, but should reproach myself if I did not; and also to the

physician of the Luxembourg, Dr. Markoski. I have some reason to believe, because I cannot discover any othercause, that this illness preserved me in existence. Among the papersof Robespierre that were examined and reported upon to theConvention by a Committee of Deputies, is a note in the hand-writingof Robespierre, in the following words: "Demander que Admin Paine soit decrete d'accusation, pourl'interet de l'Amerique autant que de la France." To demand that a decree of accusation be passed against ThomasPaine, for the interest of America, as well as of France. From what cause it was that the intention was not put in executionI know not, and cannot inform myself, and therefore I ascribe it toimpossibility, on account of that illness. The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power theinjustice I had sustained, invited me publicly and unanimously toreturn into the Convention, and which I accepted, to show I could bearan injury without permitting it to injure my principles or mydisposition. It is not because right principles have been violatedthat they are to be abandoned. I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publicationswritten, some in America and some in England, as answers to the former

part of "The Age of Reason." If the authors of these can amusethemselves by so doing, I shall not interrupt them. They may writeagainst the work, and against me, as much as they please; they do memore service than they intend, and I can have no objection that theywrite on. They will find, however, by this second part, without itsbeing written as an answer to them, that they must return to theirwork, and spin their cobweb over again. The first is brushed away byaccident. They will now find that I have furnished myself with a Bible andTestament; and I can say also that I have found them to be muchworse books than I had conceived. If I have erred in anything in theformer part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better ofsome parts of those books than they have deserved. I observe that all my opponents resort, more or less, to what theycall Scripture evidence and Bible authority to help them out. They areso little masters of the subject, as to confound a dispute aboutauthenticity with a dispute about doctrines; I will, however, put themright, that if they should be disposed to write any more, they mayknow how to begin. Admin PAINE. October, 1795CHAPTER IAs to the Old Testament IT has often been said, that anything may be proved from theBible, but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, theBible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be nottrue, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, andcannot be admitted as proof of anything. It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on theBible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bibleon the world as a mass of truth and as the word of God; they havedisputed and wrangled, and anathematized each other about the

supposed meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has

said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing; another

that it meant directly the contrary; and a third, that it meant neither

one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they callunderstanding the Bible. It has happened that all the answers which I have seen to theformer part of the Age of Reason have been written by priests; andthese pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, andpretend to understand the Bible; each understands it differently,but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but intelling their readers that Admin Paine understands it not. Now, instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves infractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible,these men ought to know, and if they do not, it is civility toinform them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether thereis sufficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God,or whether there is not. There are matters in that book, said to be done by the expresscommand of God, that are as shocking to humanity and to every ideawe have of moral justice as anything done by Robespierre, byCarrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in theEast Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we read

in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (theIsraelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, ashistory itself shows, had given them no offence; that they put allthose nations to the sword; that they spared neither age norinfancy; that they utterly destroyed men, women, and children; thatthey left not a soul to breathe- expressions that are repeated overand over again in those books, and that, too, with exulting ferocity-are we sure these things are facts? are we sure that the Creator ofman commissioned these things to be done? and are we sure that thebooks that tell us so were written by his authority? It is not the antiquity of a tale that is any evidence of itstruth; on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for themore ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has theresemblance of a fable. The origin of every nation is buried infabulous tradition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected asany other. To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty,which, in their own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, arecrimes, as all assassination is, and more especially the assassinationof infants, is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, thatthose assassinations were done by the express command of God. Tobelieve, therefore, the Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all ourbelief in the moral justice of God; for wherein could crying orsmiling infants offend? And to read the Bible without horror, wemust undo everything that is tender, sympathizing, and benevolent inthe heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence thatthe Bible is fabulous than the sacrifice I must make to believe itto be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice. But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, Iwill in the progress of this work produce such other evidence aseven a priest cannot deny, and show, from that evidence, that theBible is not entitled to credit as being the word of God. But, before I proceed to this examination, I will show wherein theBible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to thenature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity; andthis is the more proper to be done, because the advocates of theBible, in their answers to the former part of the Age of Reason,undertake to say, and they put some stress thereon, that theauthenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of anyother ancient book; as if our belief of the one could become anyrule for our belief of the other. I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritativelychallenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's Elementsof Geometry;* and the reason is, because it is a book ofself-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and ofeverything relating to time, place, and circumstance. The matterscontained in that book would have the same authority they now have,had they been written by any other person, or had the work beenanonymous, or had the author never been known; for the identicalcertainty of who was the author, makes no part of our belief of thematters contained in the book. But it is quite otherwise withrespect to the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, etc.;those are books of testimony, and they testify of things naturallyincredible; and therefore, the whole of our belief as to theauthenticity of those books rests, in the first place, upon thecertainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel;secondly upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may believethe first, that is, we may believe the certainty of the authorship,and yet not the testimony; in the same manner that we may believe

that a certain person gave evidence upon a case and yet not believe

the evidence that he gave. But if it should be found that the booksascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses,Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity ofthose books is gone at once; for there can be no such thing asforged or invented testimony; neither can there be anonymoustestimony, more especially as to things naturally incredible, suchas that of talking with God face to face, or that of the sun andmoon standing still at the command of a man. The greatest part ofthe other ancient books are works of genius; of which kind are thoseascribed to Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, toCicero, etc. Here, again, the author is not essential in the credit wegive to any of those works, for, as works of genius, they would havethe same merit they have now, were they anonymous. Nobody

believes the Trojan story, as related by Homer, to be true- for it is

the poet only that is admired, and the merit of the poet will remain,

though the story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related

by the Bible authors, (Moses for instance), as we disbelieve the thingsrelated by Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estimation,but an impostor. As to the ancient historians, from Herodotus toTacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable andcredible, and no farther; for if we do, we must believe the twomiracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that ofcuring a lame man and a blind man, in just the same manner as the

same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. We must alsobelieve the miracle cited by Josephus, that of the sea of Pamphiliaopening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is related of the RedSea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as well authenticated as theBible miracles, and yet we do not believe them; consequently thedegree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of thingsnaturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is fargreater than that which obtains our belief to natural and probablethings; and therefore the advocates for the Bible have no claim to ourbelief of the Bible, because that we believe things stated in otherancient writings; since we believe the things stated in these writingsno further than they are probable and credible, or because they areself-evident, like Euclid; or admire them because they are elegant,like Homer; or approve of them because they are sedate, like Platoor judicious, like Aristotle. *Euclid, according to chronological history, lived three hundredyears before Christ, and about one hundred before Archimedes; he

was of the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. Having premised these things, I proceed to examine theauthenticity of the Bible, and I begin with what are called the fivebooks of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, andDeuteronomy. My intention is to show that those books are spurious,and that Moses is not the author of them; and still further, that theywere not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hundredyears afterward; that they are no other than an attempted history ofthe life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to have lived,and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very ignorant andstupid pretenders to authorship, several hundred years after the deathof Moses, as men now write histories of things that happened, or aresupposed to have happened, several hundred or several thousand

years ago. The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from the booksthemselves, and I shall confine myself to this evidence only. Were Ito refer for proof to any of the, ancient authors whom the advocatesof the Bible call profane authors, they would controvert thatauthority, as I controvert theirs; I will therefore meet them on theirown ground, and oppose them with their own weapon, the Bible. In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses isthe author of those books; and that he is the author, is an altogetherunfounded opinion, got abroad nobody knows how. The style and

manner in which those books were written give no room to believe,

or even to suppose, they were written by Moses, for it is altogether

the style and manner of another person speaking of Moses. In

Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (for everything in Genesis is prior

to the time of Moses, and not the least allusion is made to him

therein), the whole, I say, of these books is in the third person; it

is always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord,

or Moses said unto the people, or the people said unto Moses;

and this is the style and manner that historians use in speaking

of the persons whose lives and actions they are writing. It may be

said that a man may speak of himself in the third person, and

therefore it may be supposed that Moses did; but supposition

proves nothing; and if the advocates for the belief that Moseswrote these books himself have nothing better to advance than

supposition, they may as well be silent. But granting the grammatical right that Moses might speak ofhimself in the third person, because any man might speak of himself inthat manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books that it isMoses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and

absurd. For example, Numbers, chap. xii. ver. 3. Now the man Moses

was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the

earth. If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of

men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant of coxcombs; and the

advocates for those books may now take which side they please, for

both sides are against them; if Moses was not the author, the books

are without authority; and if he was the author, the author is without

credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and

is a lie in sentiment. In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks moreevidently than in the former books that Moses is not the writer. Themanner here used is dramatical; the writer opens the subject by ashort introductory discourse, and then introduces Moses in the actof speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his harangue, he (thewriter) resumes his own part, and speaks till he brings Mosesforward again, and at last closes the scene with an account of thedeath, funeral, and character of Moses. This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book;from the first verse of the first chapter to the end of the fifthverse, it is the writer who speaks; he then introduces Moses as in theact of making his harangue, and this continues to the end of the40th verse of the fourth chapter; here the writer drops Moses, andspeaks historically of what was done in consequence of what Moses,when living, is supposed to have said, and which the writer hasdramatically rehearsed. The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifthchapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called the peopleof Israel together; he then introduces Moses as before, andcontinues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26thchapter. He does the same thing, at the beginning of the 27th chapter;and continues Moses, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 28thchapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks again through the whole

of the first verse and the first line of the second verse, where heintroduces Moses for the last time, and continues him, as in the actof speaking, to the end of the 33rd chapter. The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of Moses,comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last chapter; hebegins by telling the reader that Moses went to the top of Pisgah;that he saw from thence the land which (the writer says) had beenpromised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that he, Moses, died there,in the land of Moab, but that no man knoweth of his sepulchre untothis day; that is, unto the time in which the writer lived who wrotethe book of Deuteronomy. The writer then tells us, that Moses was120 years of age when he died- that his eye was not dim, nor hisnatural force abated; and he concludes by saying that there arosenot a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom, says thisanonymous writer, the Lord knew face to face. Having thus shown, as far as grammatical evidence applies, thatMoses was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a fewobservations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book ofDeuteronomy, proceed to show from the historical and chronologicalevidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because hecould not be, the writer of them, and consequently that there is noauthority for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men,women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as those

books say they were, at the command of God. It is a duty incumbent

on every true Deist, that he vindicate the moral justice of God againstthe calumnies of the Bible. The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, (for itis not an anonymous work), is obscure, and also in contradictionwith himself, in the account he has given of Moses. After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and it doesnot appear from any account that he ever came down again), he

tells us that Moses died there in the land of Moab, and that he

buried him in a valley in the land of Moab; but as there is no

antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was

that did bury him. If the writer meant that he (God) buried him,

how should he (the writer) know it? or why should we

(the readers) believe him? since we know not who the writer was

that tells us so, for certainly Moses could not himself tell where

he was buried. The writer also tells us, that no man knoweth where thesepulchre of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in which thiswriter lived; how then should he know that Moses was buried in avalley in the land of Moab? for as the writer lived long after thetime of Moses, as is evident from his using the expression of untothis day, meaning a great length of time after the death of Moses,he certainly was not at his funeral; and on the other hand, it isimpossible that Moses himself could say that no man knoweth wherethe sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the speaker, would

be an improvement on the play of a child that hides himself and cries

nobody can find me; nobody can find Moses! This writer has nowhere told us how he came by the speecheswhich he has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore wehave a right to conclude, that he either composed them himself, orwrote them from oral tradition. One or the other of these is themore probable, since he has given in the fifth chapter a table ofcommandments, in which that called the fourth commandment is

different from the fourth commandment in the twentieth chapter

of Exodus. In that of Exodus, the reason given for keeping the

seventh day is, "because (says the commandment) God made the

heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh;" but in

that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is that it was the day on

which the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and therefore, says

this commandment, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the

sabbath day. This makes no mention of the creation, nor that of the

coming out of Egypt. There are also many things given as laws of

Moses in this book that are not to be found in any of the other books;

among which is that inhuman and brutal law, chapter xxi., verses 18,

19, 20 and 21, which authorizes parents, the father and the mother,

to bring their own children to have them stoned to death for what it

is pleased to call stubbornness. But priests have always been fond of

preaching up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes; and

it is from this book, chap. xxv., ver. 4, that they have taken the

phrase, and applied it to tithing, that thou shall not muzzle the ox

when he treadeth out the corn; and that this might not escape

observation, they have noted it in the table of contents at the head

of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines.

Oh, priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox, for the

sake of tithes. Though it is impossible for us to know identically who

the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to discover himprofessionally, that he was some Jewish priest, who lived, as Ishall show in the course of this work, at least three hundred andfifty years after the time of Moses. I come now to speak of the historical and chronologicalevidence. The chronology that I shall use is the Bible chronology, forI mean not to go out of the Bible for evidence of anything, but tomake the Bible itself prove, historically and chronologically, thatMoses is not the author of the books ascribed to him. It is,therefore, proper that I inform the reader (such a one at least as maynot have the opportunity of knowing it), that in the larger Bibles,and also in some smaller ones, there is a series of chronology printedin the margin of every page, for the purpose of showing how long thehistorical matters stated in each page happened, or are supposed tohave happened, before Christ, and, consequently, the distance oftime between one historical circumstance and another. I begin with the book of Genesis. In the 14th chapter ofGenesis, the writer gives an account of Lot being taken prisoner ina battle between the four kings against five, and carried off; andthat when the account of Lot being taken, came to Abraham, he armedall his household and marched to rescue Lot from the captors, and thathe pursued them unto Dan (ver. 14). To show in what manner this expression pursuing them unto Danapplies to the case in question, I will refer to two circumstances,the one in America, the other in France. The city now called New York,in America, was originally New Amsterdam; and the town in France,lately called Havre Marat, was before called Havre de Grace. NewAmsterdam was changed to New York in the year 1664; Havre de

Grace to Havre Marat in 1793. Should, therefore, any writing be found,though without date, in which the name of New York should bementioned, it would be certain evidence that such a uniting couldnot have been written before, but must have been written after NewAmsterdam was changed to New York, and consequently, not till afterthe year 1664, or at least during the course of that year. And, inlike manner, any dateless writing with the name of Havre Marat wouldbe certain evidence that such a writing must have been written afterHavre de Grace became Havre Marat, and consequently not till after

the year 1793, or at least during the course of that year. I now come to the application of those cases, and to show thatthere was no such place as Dan, till many years after the death ofMoses, and consequently, that Moses could not be the writer of thebook of Genesis, where this account of pursuing them unto Dan isgiven. The place that is called Dan in the Bible was originally a townof the Gentiles called Laish; and when the tribe of Dan seized uponthis town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration of Dan,who was the father of that tribe, and the great grandson of Abraham. To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis,to the 18th chapter of the book called the Book of Judges. It is theresaid (ver. 27) that they (the Danites) came unto Laish to a peoplethat were quiet and secure, and they smote them with the edge of thesword (the Bible is filled with murder), and burned the city withfire; and they built a city (ver. 28), and dwelt therein, and theycalled the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan, theirfather, howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first. This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish andchanging it to Dan, is placed in the Book of Judges immediatelyafter the death of Sampson. The death of Sampson is said to havehappened 1120 years before Christ, and that of Moses 1451 beforeChrist; and, therefore, according to the historical arrangement, theplace was not called Dan till 331 years after the death of Moses. There is a striking confusion between the historical and thechronological arrangement in the book of Judges. The five lastchapters, as they stand in the book, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, are putchronologically before all the preceding chapters; they are made to be28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before the 15th, 245 beforethe 13th, 195 before the 9th, 90 before the 4th, and 15 years beforethe 1st chapter. This shows the uncertain and fabulous state of theBible. According to the chronological arrangement, the taking of Laishand giving it the name of Dan is made to be 20 years after the deathof Joshua, who was the successor of Moses; and by the historical orderas it stands in the book, it is made to be 306 years after the deathof Joshua, and 331 after that of Moses; but they both exclude Mosesfrom being the writer of Genesis, because, according to either ofthe statements, no such place as Dan existed in the time of Moses;

and therefore the writer of Genesis must have been some person who

lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan; and who that person

was nobody knows, and consequently the book of Genesis is anonymous

and without authority. I proceed now to state another point of historical andchronological evidence, and to show therefrom, as in the precedingcase, that Moses is not the author of the book of Genesis. In the 36th chapter of Genesis there is given a genealogy of thesons and descendants of Esau, who are called Edomites, and also alist, by name, of the kings of Edom, in enumerating of which, it issaid, (verse 31), And these are the kings that reigned in Edom, beforethere reigned any king over the children of Israel. Now, were any dateless writings to be found in which, speakingof any past events, the writer should say, These things happenedbefore there was any Congress in America, or before there was anyConvention in France, it would be evidence that such writing could nothave been written before, and could only be written after there wasa Congress in America, or a Convention in France, as the case mightbe; and, consequently, that it could not be written by any personwho died before there was a Congress in the one country or aConvention in the other. Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conversation,than to refer to a fact in the room of a date; it is most natural soto do, first, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better thana date; secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves toexcite two ideas at once; and this manner of speaking by

circumstances implies as positively that the fact alluded to is past as

if it were so expressed. When a person speaking upon any matter,

says, it was before I was married, or before my son was born, or

before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is absolutely

understood, and intended to be understood, that he had been married,

that he has had a son, that he has been in America, or been in France.

Language does not admit of using this mode of expression in any other

sense; and whenever such an expression is found anywhere, it can

only be understood in the sense in which it only could have been used. The passage, therefore, that I have quoted- "that these are thekings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over thechildren of Israel"- could only have been written after the firstking began to reign over them; and, consequently, that the book ofGenesis, so far from having been written by Moses, could not have

been written till the time of Saul at least. This is the positive senseof the passage; but the expression, any king, implies more kingsthan one, at least it implies two, and this will carry it to thetime of David; and if taken in a general sense, it carries itthrough all the time of the Jewish monarchy. Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that professedto have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it wouldhave been impossible not to have seen the application of it. Ithappens then that this is the case; the two books of Chronicles, whichgave a history of all the kings, of Israel, are professedly, as wellas in fact, written after the Jewish monarchy began; and this versethat I have quoted, and all the remaining verses of the 36th chapterof Genesis, are word for word in the first chapter of Chronicles,beginning at the 43d verse It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles couldsay, as he has said, 1st Chron., chap. i., ver. 43, These are thekings that reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned overthe children of Israel, because he was going to give, and has given, alist of the kings that had reigned in Israel; but as it isimpossible that the same expression could have been used before thatperiod, it is as certain as anything that can be proved fromhistorical language that this part of Genesis is taken from Chroniclesand that Genesis is not so old as Chronicles, and probably not soold as the book of Homer, or as Aesop's Fables, admitting Homer tohave been, as the tables of Chronology state, contemporary withDavid or Solomon, and Aesop to have lived about the end of theJewish monarchy. Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, onwhich only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood,and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of

stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of

downright lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his

ark, drops to a level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of beingentertaining; and the account of men living to eight and ninehundred years becomes as fabulous immortality of the giants of theMythology. Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is themost horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he wasthe wretch that first began and carried on wars on the score or on thepretence of religion; and under that mask, or that infatuation,committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be found in thehistory of any nation, of which I will state only one instance. When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering andmurdering excursions, the account goes on as follows: Numbers, chap.xxxi., ver. 13: "And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of thecongregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moseswas wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains overthousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle;

and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold,

these caused the children of Israel, through the council of Balaam, to

commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was

a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill

every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known

a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not

known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world havedisgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater thanMoses, if this account be true. Here is an order to butcher theboys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. Let any mother put herself in the situation of those mothers;one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself inthe hands of an executioner; let any daughter put herself in thesituation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers of amother and a brother, and what will be their feelings? It is in vainthat we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will have hercourse, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is afalse religion. After this detestable order, follows an account of the plundertaken, and the manner of dividing it; and here it is that theprofaneness of priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes.Ver. 37 to 40, "And the lord's tribute of sheep was six hundred andthree score and fifteen; and the beeves were thirty and sixthousand, of which the Lord's tribute was three score and twelve;and the asses were thirty thousand and five hundred, of which theLord's tribute was three score and one; and the persons were sixteenthousand, of which the Lord's tribute was thirty and two persons."In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as in manyother parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity to read or fordecency to hear, for it appears, from the 35th verse of thischapter, that the number of women-children consigned to debaucheryby the order of Moses was thirty-two thousand. People in general do not know what wickedness there is in thispretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they takeit for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good; theypermit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas theyform of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which they havebeen taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens!it is quite another thing; it is a book of lies, wickedness, andblasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe thewickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty? But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses is not theauthor of the books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is spurious.The two instances I have already given would be sufficient without anyadditional evidence, to invalidate the authenticity of any book thatpretended to be four or five hundred years more ancient than thematters it speaks of, or refers to, as facts; for in the case ofpursuing them unto Dan, and of the kings that reigned over thechildren of Israel, not even the flimsy pretence of prophecy can bepleaded. The expressions are in the preter tense, and it would bedownright idiotism to say that a man could prophecy in the pretertense. But there are many other passages scattered throughout those

books that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in Exodus,(another of the books ascribed to Moses), chap. xvi. verse 34, "Andthe children of Israel did eat manna forty years until they came toa land inhabited; they did eat manna until they came unto theborders of the land of Canaan. Whether the children of Israel ate manna or not, or what mannawas, or whether it was anything more than a kind of fungus or smallmushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that part of thecountry, makes nothing to my argument; all that I mean to show is,that it is not Moses that could write this account, because theaccount extends itself beyond the life and time of Moses. Moses,according to the Bible, (but it is such a book of lies andcontradictions there is no knowing which part to believe, or whetherany), died in the wilderness and never came upon the borders of theland of Cannan; and consequently it could not be he that said what thechildren of Israel did, or what they ate when they came there. Thisaccount of eating manna, which they tell us was written by Moses,extends itself to the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses; asappears by the account given in the book of Joshua, after the childrenof Israel had passed the river Jordan, and came unto the borders ofthe land of Canaan. Joshua, chap. v., verse 12. "And the mannaceased on the morrow, after they had eaten of the old corn of theland; neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but theydid eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." But a more remarkable instance than this occurs in Deuteronomy,which, while it shows that Moses could not be the writer of that book,shows also the fabulous notions that prevailed at that time aboutgiants. In the third chapter of Deuteronomy, among the conquestssaid to be made by Moses, is an account of the taking of Og, king ofBashan, v. II. "For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnantof giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not inRabbath of the children of Ammom? Nine cubits was the lengththereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of aman." A cubit is 1 foot 9 888-1000ths inches; the length, therefore,of the bed was 16 feet 4 inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches; thusmuch for this giant's bed. Now for the historical part, which,though the evidence is not so direct and positive as in the formercases, it is nevertheless very presumable and corroboratingevidence, and is better that the best evidence on the contrary side. The writer, by way of proving the existence of this giant,refers to his bed as an ancient relic, and says, Is it not inRabbath (or Rabbah) of the children of Ammon? meaning that it is;for such is frequently the Bible method of affirming a thing. But itcould not be Moses that said this, because Moses could know nothingabout Rabbah, nor of what was in it. Rabbah was not a city belongingto this giant king, nor was it one of the cities that Moses took.The knowledge, therefore, that this bed was at Rabbah, and of theparticulars of its dimensions, must be referred to the time whenRabbah was taken, and this was not till four hundred years after thedeath of Moses; for which see 2 Sam. chap. xii., ver. 26. "And Joab(David's general) fought against Rabbah of the children of Ammon,and took the royal city." As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions intime, place, and circumstance that abound in the books ascribed toMoses, and which prove to a demonstration that those books could nothave been written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses, I proceed to thebook of Joshua, and to show that Joshua is not the author of thatbook, and that it is anonymous and without authority. The evidence Ishall produce is contained in the book itself; I will not go out ofthe Bible for proof against the supposed authenticity of the Bible.False testimony is always good against itself. Joshua, according to the first chapter of Joshua, was theimmediate successor of Moses; he was, moreover, a military man,which Moses was not, and he continued as chief of the people of Israel25 years, that is, from the time that Moses died, which, accordingto the Bible chronology, was 1451 years before Christ, until 1426years before Christ, when, according to the same chronology, Joshuadied. If, therefore, we find in this book, said to have been writtenby Joshua, reference to facts done after the death of Joshua, it isevidence that Joshua could not be the author; and also that the bookcould not have been written till after the time of the latest factwhich it records. As to the character of the book, it is horrid; it isa military history of rapine and murder, as savage and brutal as thoserecorded of his predecessor in villainy and hypocrisy, Moses; andthe blasphemy consists, as in the former books, in ascribing thosedeeds to the orders of the Almighty. In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in thepreceding books, is written in the third person; it is the historianof Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vain-gloriousthat Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the last verseof the sixth chapter, that "his fame was noised throughout all thecountry." I now come more immediately to the proof. In the 24th chapter, ver. 31, it is said, "And Israel served theLord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders thatoverlived Joshua." Now, in the name of common sense, can it beJoshua that relates what people had done after he was dead? Thisaccount must not only have been written by some historian that livedafter Joshua, but that lived also after the elders that outlivedJoshua. There are several passages of a general meaning with respect totime scattered throughout the book of Joshua, that carries the time inwhich the book was written to a distance from the time of Joshua,but without marking by exclusion any particular time, as in thepassage above quoted. In that passage, the time that intervenedbetween the death of Joshua and the death of the elders is excludeddescriptively and absolutely, and the evidence substantiates thatthe book could not have been written till after the death of the last. But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going toquote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they imply atime far more distant from the days of Joshua than is containedbetween the death of Joshua and the death of the elders. Such is thepassage, chap. x., ver. 14, where, after giving an account that thesun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon,at the command of Joshua (a tale only fit to amuse children), thepassage says, "And there was no day like that, before it, or after it,that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man." This tale of the sun standing still upon mount Gibeon, and themoon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detectsitself. Such a circumstance could not have happened without beingknown all over the world. One half would have wondered why the

sun did not rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition

of it would be universal, whereas there is not a nation in the world

that knows anything about it. But why must the moon stand still?

What occasion could there be for moonlight in the daytime, and that

too while the sun shone? As a poetical figure, the whole is well

enough; it is akin to that in the song of Deborah and Barak, The

stars in their courses fought against Sisera; but it is inferior to thefigurative declaration of Mahomet to the persons who came toexpostulate with him on his goings on: "Wert thou," said he, "tocome to me with the sun in thy right hand and the moon in thy left,

itshould not alter my career." For Joshua to have exceeded

Mahomet, he should have put the sun and moon one in each pocket,

and carried them as Guy Fawkes carried his dark lantern, and taken

them out to shine as he might happen to want them. The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that itis difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublimemakes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes thesublime again; the account, however, abstracted from the poeticalfancy, shows the ignorance of Joshua, for he should have

commanded the earth to have stood still. The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after thatday, being put in comparison with all the time that passed beforeit, must, in order to give any expressive signification to thepassage, mean a great length of time: for example, it would havebeen ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or thenext month, or the next year; to give, therefore, meaning to thepassage, comparative with the wonder it relates and the prior timeit alludes to, it must mean centuries of years; less, however, thanone would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admissible. A distant but general time is also expressed in the 8th chapter,where, after giving an account of the taking of the city of Ai, itis said, ver. 28, "And Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap forever,even a desolation unto this day;" and again, ver. 29, where,speaking of the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried atthe entering of the gate, it is said, "And he raised thereon a greatheap of stones, which remaineth unto this day," that is, unto theday or time in which the writer of the book of Joshua lived. Andagain, in the 10th chapter, where, after speaking of the five kingswhom Joshua had hanged on five trees, and then thrown in a cave,

it is said, "And he laid great stones on the cave's mouth, which remain

unto this very day." In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of thetribes, and of the places which they conquered or attempted, it issaid, chap. xv., ver. 63: "As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants ofJerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but theJebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.The question upon this passage is, at what time did the Jebusitesand the children of Judah dwell together at Jerusalem? As thismatter occurs again in the first chapter of Judges, I shall reserve myobservations until I come to that part. Having thus shown from the book of Joshua itself without anyauxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author of thatbook, and that it is anonymous, and consequently without authority,I proceed as before mentioned, to the book of Judges. The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it; and, therefore,even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God; it has not somuch as a nominal voucher; it is altogether fatherless. This book begins with the same expression as the book of Joshua.That of Joshua begins, chap. i., verse 1, "Now after the death ofMoses," etc., and this of the Judges begins, "Now after the death ofJoshua," etc. This, and the similarity of style between the two books,indicate that they are the work of the same author, but who he wasis altogether unknown; the only point that the book proves, is thatthe author lived long after the time of Joshua; for though it beginsas if it followed immediately after his death, the second chapter isan epitome or abstract of the whole book, which, according to theBible chronology, extends its history through a space of 306 years;that is, from the death of Joshua, 1426 years before Christ, to thedeath of Samson, 1120 years before Christ, and only 25 years beforeSaul went to seek his father's asses, and was made king. But thereis good reason to believe, that it was not written till the time ofDavid, at least, and that the book of Joshua was not written beforethe same time. In the first chapter of Judges, the writer, after announcing thedeath of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the childrenof Judah and the native inhabitants of the land of Canaan. In thisstatement, the writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusalem in the7th verse, says immediately after, in the 8th verse, by way ofexplanation, "Now the children of Judah had fought againstJerusalem, and had taken it;" consequently this book could not havebeen written before Jerusalem had been taken. The reader willrecollect the quotation I have just before made from the 15thchapter of Joshua, ver. 63, where it is said that the Jebusitesdwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day, meaningthe time when the book of Joshua was written. The evidence I have already produced to prove that the books Ihave hitherto treated of were not written by the persons to whomthey are ascribed, nor till many years after their death, if suchpersons ever lived, is already so abundant that I can afford toadmit this passage with less weight than I am entitled to draw fromit. For the case is, that so far as the Bible can be credited as ahistory, the city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David;and consequently that the books of Joshua and of Judges were notwritten till after the commencement of the reign of David, which was370 years after the death of Joshua. The name of the city that was afterward called Jerusalem wasoriginally Jebus, or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites. Theaccount of David's taking this city is given in II. Samuel, chap.v., ver. 4, etc.; also in I. Chron. chap. xiv., ver. 4, etc. Thereis no mention in any part of the Bible that it was ever takenbefore, nor any account that favors such an opinion. It is not said,either in Samuel or in Chronicles, that they utterly destroyed men,women and children; that they left not a soul to breathe, as is saidof their other conquests; and the silence here observed implies thatit was taken by capitulation, and that the Jebusites, the nativeinhabitants, continued to live in the place after it was taken. Theaccount therefore, given in Joshua, that the Jebusites dwell withthe children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day corresponds to noother time than after the taking of the city by David. Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from Genesis toJudges, is without authenticity, I come to the book of Ruth, anidle, bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about astrolling country-girl creeping slyly to bed with her cousin Boaz.Pretty stuff indeed to be called the word of God! It is, however,one of the best books in the Bible, for it is free from murder andrapine. I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to show that thosebooks were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of timeafter the death of Samuel; and that they are, like all the formerbooks, anonymous and without authority. To be convinced that these books have been written much later

than the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, it is onlynecessary to read the account which the writer gives of Saul goingto seek his father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, ofwhom Saul went to inquire about those lost asses, as foolish peoplenowadays go to a conjuror to inquire after lost things. The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel and theasses, does not tell it as a thing that has just then happened, but asan ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in thelanguage or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which obligesthe writer to explain the story in the terms or language used in thetime the writer lived. Samuel, in the account given of him, in the first of thosebooks, chap ix., is called the seer; and it is by this term thatSaul inquires after him, ver. II, "And as they (Saul and hisservant) went up the hill to the city, they found young maidensgoing out to draw water; and they said unto them, Is the seer here?"Saul then went according to the direction of these maidens, and metSamuel without knowing him, and said unto him, ver. 18, "Tell me, Ipray thee, where the seer's house is? and Samuel answered Saul, andsaid, I am the seer." As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions andanswers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time theyare said to have been spoken, and as that manner of speaking was outof use when this author wrote, he found it necessary, in order to makethe story understood, to explain the terms in which these questionsand answers are spoken; and he does this in the 9th verse, when hesays "Before-time, in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God,thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer; for he that is nowcalled a Prophet, was before-time called a Seer." This proves, as Ihave before said, that this story of Saul, Samuel and the asses, wasan ancient story at the time the book of Samuel was written, andconsequently that Samuel did not write it, and that that book iswithout authenticity. But if we go further into those books the evidence is still morepositive that Samuel is not the writer of them; for they relate thingsthat did not happen till several years after the death of Samuel.Samuel died before Saul; for the 1st Samuel, chap. xxviii., tells thatSaul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead;yet the history of the matters contained in those books is extendedthrough the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter end ofthe life of David, who succeeded Saul. The account of the death andburial of Samuel (a thing which he could not write himself) is relatedin the 25th chapter of the first book of Samuel, and the chronologyaffixed to this chapter makes this to be 1060 years before Christ; yetthe history of this first book is brought down to 1056 years beforeChrist; that is, till the death of Saul, which was not till four yearsafter the death of Samuel. The second book of Samuel begins with an account of things thatdid not happen till four years after Samuel was dead; for it beginswith the reign of David, who succeeded Saul, and it goes on to the endof David's reign, which was forty-three years after the death ofSamuel; and, therefore, the books are in themselves positiveevidence that they were not written by Samuel. I have now gone through all the books in the first part of theBible to which the names of persons are affixed, as being theauthors of those books, and which the Church, styling itself theChristian Church, have imposed upon the world as the writings ofMoses, Joshua and Samuel, and I have detected and proved the

falsehood of this imposition. And now, ye priests of every

description, who have preached and written against the former

part of "The Age of Reason," what have ye to say? Will ye, with all

this mass of evidence against you, and staring you in the face, still

have the assurance to march into your pulpits and continue to

impose these books on your congregations as the works of inspired

penmen, and the word of God, when it is as evident as demonstration

can make truth appear, that the persons who ye say are the authors,

are not the authors, and that ye know not who the authors are.

What shadow of pretence have ye now to produce for continuing the

blasphemous fraud? What have ye still to offer against the pure and

moral religion of Deism, in support of your system of falsehood,

idolatry, and pretended revelation? Had the cruel and murderous

orders with which the Bible is filled, and the numberless torturing

executions of men, women and children, inconsequence of those orders,

been ascribed to some friend whose memory you revered, you would

have glowed with satisfaction at detecting the falsehood of the charge,

and gloried in defending his injured fame. Is it because ye are sunk in

the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your

Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them

with callous indifference? The evidence I have produced, and shall

produce in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without

authority, will, while it wounds the stubbornness of a priest, relieve

and tranquilize the minds of millions; it will free them from all those

hard thoughts of the Almighty which priestcraft and the Bible had

infused into their minds, and which stood in everlasting opposition

to all their ideas of his moral justice and benevolence. I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books ofChronicles. Those books are altogether historical, and are chieflyconfined to the lives and actions of the Jewish kings, who ingeneral were a parcel of rascals; but these are matters with whichwe have no more concern than we have with the Roman emperors orHomer's account of the Trojan war. Besides which, as those works areanonymous, and as we know nothing of the writer, or of hischaracter, it is impossible for us to know what degree of credit togive to the matters related therein. Like all other ancient histories,they appear to be a jumble of fable and of fact, and of probable andof improbable things; but which distance of time and place, and change

of circumstances in the world, have rendered obsolete and uninteresting. The chief use I shall make of those books will be that ofcomparing them with each other, and with other parts of the Bible,to show the confusion, contradiction, and cruelty in this pretendedword of God. The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solomon, which,according to the Bible chronology, was 1015 years before Christ; andthe second book ends 588 years before Christ, being a little after thereign of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jerusalem andconquering the Jews, carried captive to Babylon. The two books include

a space of 427 years. The two books of Chronicles are a history of the same times, andin general of the same persons, by another author; for it would beabsurd to suppose that the same author wrote the history twice over.The first book of Chronicles (after giving the genealogy from Adamto Saul, which takes up the first nine chapters), begins with thereign of David; and the last book ends as in the last book of Kings,soon after the reign of Zedekiah, about 588 years before Christ. Thetwo last verses of the last chapter bring the history forward 52 yearsmore, that is, to 536. But these verses do not belong to the book,as I shall show when I come to speak of the book of Ezra. The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, David andSolomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of the livesof 17 kings and one queen, who are styled kings of Judah, and of 19,who are styled kings of Israel; for the Jewish nation, immediatelyon the death of Solomon, split into two parties, who chose separatekings, and who carried on most rancorous wars against each other. These two books are little more than a history ofassassinations, treachery and wars. The cruelties that the Jews hadaccustomed themselves to practise on the Canaanites, whose countrythey had savagely invaded under a pretended gift from God, theyafterward practised as furiously on each other. Scarcely half theirkings died a natural death, and in some instances whole familieswere destroyed to secure possession to the successor; who, after a

few years, and sometimes only a few months or less, shared the samefate. In the tenth chapter of the second book of Kings, an accountis given of two baskets full of children's heads, seventy in number,being exposed at the entrance of the city; they were the children ofAhab, and were murdered by the order of Jehu, whom Elisha, thepretended man of God, had anointed to be king over Israel, onpurpose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate his predecessor.And in the account of the reign of Menahem, one of the kings of Israelwho had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one month, it is said, II. Kings,

chap. xv., ver. 16, that Menahem smote the city of Tiphsah, because they

opened not the city to him, and all the women therein that were with child he

ripped up. Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty woulddistinguish any nation of people by the name of His chosen people,we must suppose that people to have been an example to all the rest of

the world of the purest piety and humanity, and not such a nation ofruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were; a people who,corrupted by and copying after such monsters and impostors as Mosesand Aaron, Joshua, Samuel and David, had distinguished themselvesabove all others on the face of the known earth for barbarity andwickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut our eyes and steel ourhearts, it is impossible not to see, in spite of all thatlong-established superstition imposes upon the mind, that theflattering appellation of His chosen people is no other than a liewhich the priests and leaders of the Jews had invented to cover thebaseness of their own characters, and which Christian priests,sometimes as corrupt and often as cruel, have professed to believe. The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same crimes,but the history is broken in several places by the author leavingout the reign of some of their kings; and in this, as well as inthat of Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings of Judahto kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of Judah, thatthe narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same book thehistory sometimes contradicts itself; for example, in the secondbook of Kings, chap, i., ver. 17, we are told, but in rather ambiguousterms, that after the death of Ahaziah, king of Israel, Jehoram, orJoram (who was of the house of Ahab), reigned in his stead, in thesecond year of Jehoram or Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah;and in chap. viii., ver. 16, of the same book, it is said, and inthe fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel,Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, began to reign; that is, onechapter says Joram of Judah began to reign in the second year of

Joram of Israel; and the other chapter says, that Joram of Israel

began to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Judah. Several of the most extraordinary matters related in onehistory, as having happened during the reign of such and such of theirkings, are not to be found in the other, in relating the reign ofthe same king; for example, the two first rival kings, after the deathof Solomon, were Rehoboam and Jeroboam; and in I. Kings, chap. xii

and xiii, an account is given of Jeroboam making an offering of burntincense, and that a man, who was there called a man of God, criedout against the altar, chap. xiii., ver. 2: "O altar, altar! thussaith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born to the house of David,Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the highplaces that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burntupon thee." Verse 4: "And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heardthe saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar inBethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold onhim. And his hand which he put out against him dried up, so that hecould not pull it in again to him." One would think that such an extraordinary case as this (whichis spoken of as a judgment), happening to the chief of one of theparties, and that at the first moment of the separation of theIsraelites into two nations, would, if it had been true, have beenrecorded in both histories. But though men in latter times havebelieved all that the prophets have said unto him, it does notappear that these prophets or historians believed each other; theyknew each other too well. A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runsthrough several chapters, and concludes with telling, Il. Kings, chap.ii., ver. II, "And it came to pass, as they (Elijah and Elisha)still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot offire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah wentup by a whirlwind into heaven." Hum! this the author of Chronicles,miraculous as the story is, makes no mention of, though he mentionsElijah by name; neither does he say anything of the story related inthe second chapter of the same book of Kings, of a parcel ofchildren calling Elisha bald head, bald head; and that this man ofGod, verse 24, "Turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them inthe name of the Lord; and there came forth two she-bears out of thewood, and tore forty-and-two children of them." He also passes over insilence the story told, II. Kings, chap. xiii., that when they wereburying a man in the sepulchre where Elisha had been buried, ithappened that the dead man, as they were letting him down, (ver.21), touched the bones of Elisha, and he (the dead man) revived, andstood upon his feet." The story does not tell us whether they buriedthe man, notwithstanding he revived and stood upon his feet, or drewhim up again. Upon all these stories the writer of Chronicles is assilent as any writer of the present day who did not choose to beaccused of lying, or at least of romancing, would be about storiesof the same kind. But, however these two historians may differ from each otherwith respect to the tales related by either, they are silent alikewith respect to those men styled prophets, whose writings fill upthe latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time ofHezekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when thesehistorians are speaking of that reign; but, except in one or twoinstances at most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are somuch as spoken of, or even their existence hinted at; although,according to the Bible chronology, they lived within the time thosehistories were written; some of their long before. If thoseprophets, as they are called, were men of such importance in their dayas the compilers of the Bible and priests and commentators havesince represented them to be, how can it be accounted for that not

one of these histories should say anything about them? The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is broughtforward, as I have already said, to the year 588 before Christ; itwill, therefore, be proper to examine which of these prophets livedbefore that period. Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times inwhich they lived before Christ, according to the chronology affixed tothe first chapter of each of the books of the prophets; and also ofthe number of years they lived before the books of Kings andChronicles were written. TABLE OF THE PROPHETS. Names. Years Years before Observations. before Kings and Christ. Chronicles Isaiah 760 172 mentioned. Jeremiah 629 41 mentioned only in the last chap. of Chron. Ezekiel 595 7 not mentioned. Daniel 607 19 not mentioned. Hosea 785 97 not mentioned. Joel 800 212 not mentioned. Amos 789 199 not mentioned. Obadiah 789 199 not mentioned. Jonah 862 274 see the note.* Micah 750 162 not mentioned. Nahum 713 125 not mentioned. Habakkuk 620 38 not mentioned. Zephaniah 630 42 not mentioned. Haggai - after the year 588 Zachariah- after the year 588 Malachi - after the year 588 *In II. Kings, chap. xiv., verse 25, the name of Jonah is mentionedon account of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam; butnothing further is said of him, nor is any allusion made to the bookof Jonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounterwith the whale. This table is either not very honorable for the Biblehistorians, or not very honorable for the Bible prophets; and Ileave to priests and commentators, who are very learned in littlethings, to settle the point of etiquette between the two, and toassign a reason why the authors of Kings and Chronicles have treatedthose prophets whom, in the former part of the Age of Reason, I haveconsidered as poets, with as much degrading silence as any historianof the present day would treat Peter Pindar. I have one observation more to make on the book of Chronicles,after which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of theBible. In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a passage

from the 36th chapter, verse 31, which evidently refers to a time after

kings began to reign over the children of Israel; and I haveshown that as this verse is verbatim the same as in Chronicles,chap. i, verse 43, where it stands consistently with the order ofhistory, which in Genesis it does not, that the verse in Genesis,and a great part of the 36th chapter, have been taken from Chronicles;

and that the book of Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible, and

ascribed to Moses, has been manufactured by some unknown person after

the book of Chronicles was written, which was not until at least eight

hundred and sixty years after the time of Moses. The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this is regular andhas in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated that thepassage in Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles; secondly,that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself,was not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixtyyears after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to lookinto the thirteenth verse of the third chapter of the first book ofChronicles, where the writer, in giving the genealogy of thedescendants of David, mentions Zedekiah; and it was in the time ofZedekiah that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, 588 years beforeChrist and consequently more then 860 years after Moses. Those whohave superstitiously boasted of the antiquity of the Bible, andparticularly of the books ascribed to Moses, have done it withoutexamination, and without any authority than that of one credulousman telling it to another; for so far as historical andchronological evidence applies, the very first book in the Bible isnot so ancient as the book of Homer by more then three hundredyears, and is about the same age with Aesop's Fables. I am not contending for the morality of Homer; on the contrary,I think it a book of false glory, tending to inspire immoral andmischievous notions of honor; and with respect to Aesop, though themoral is in general just, the fable is often cruel; and the cruelty ofthe fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a child, thanthe moral does good to the judgment. Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next incourse, the book of Ezra. As one proof, among others I shall produce, to show the disorderin which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together,and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we have only to look atthe three first verses in Ezra, and the last two in Chronicles; for bywhat kind of cutting and shuffling has it been that the three firstverses in Ezra should be the two last verses in Chronicles, or thatthe two last in Chronicles should be the three first in Ezra? Hitherthe authors did not know their own works, or the compilers did notknow the authors. The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and end in themiddle of the phrase with the word up, without signifying to whatplace. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses indifferent books, show, as I have already said, the disorder andignorance in which the Bible has been put together, and that thecompilers of it had no authority for what they were doing, nor weany authority for believing what they have done.* Two last verses of Chronicles. Ver. 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, thatthe word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, might beaccomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia,that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put italso in writing, saying, 23. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, All the kingdoms of theearth hath the Lord God of heaven given me: and he hath charged meto build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is thereamong you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let himgo up. Three first verses of Ezra. Ver. 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that theword of the Lord, by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be fulfilled, theLord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made aproclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing,saying, 2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hathgiven me all the kingdoms of earth; and he hath charged me to buildhim an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be withhim, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and buildthe house of the Lord God of Israel (he is the God,) which is inJerusalem. *I observed, as I passed along, several broken and senselesspassages in the Bible, without thinking them of consequence enoughto be introduced in the body of the work; such as that, I. Samuel,chap. xiii. ver. 1, where it is said, "Saul reigned one year; and whenhe had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose him three thousandmen," &c. The first part of verse, that Saul reigned one year, hasno sense, since it does not tell us what Saul did, nor say anything ofwhat happened at the end of that one year; and it is, besides, mereabsurdity to say he reigned one year, when the very next phrase sayshe had reigned two; for if he had reigned two, it was impossible notto have reigned one. Another instance occurs in Joshua, chap. v, where the writer tellsus a story of an angel (for such the table of contents at the headof the chapter calls him) appearing unto Joshua; and the story endsabruptly, and without any conclusion. The story is as follows: Verse13, "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he liftedup his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over againsthim with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto him andsaid unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" Verse 14, "Andhe said, Nay; but as captain of the hosts of the Lord am I now come.And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and saidunto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" Verse 15, "And thecaptain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from offthy foot: for the place whereon thou standeth is holy. And Joshuadid so." And what then? nothing, for here the story ends, and thechapter too. Either the story is broken off in the middle, or it is a storytold by some Jewish humorist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretendedmission from God; and the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving thedesign of the story, have told it as a serious matter. As a story ofhumor and ridicule it has a great deal of point, for it pompouslyintroduces an angel in the figure of a man, with a drawn sword inhis hand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth andworships (which is contrary to their second commandment); and thenthis most important embassy from heaven ends in telling Joshua to

pull off his shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches. It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit everythingtheir leaders told them, as appears from the cavalier manner inwhich they speak of Moses, when he was gone into the mount. "As forthis Moses" say they, "we wot not what is become of him." Exod.chap. xxxii, ver. I. The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the book ofEzra, is the time in which it was written, which was immediately afterthe return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about 536years before Christ. Ezra (who, according to the Jewishcommentators, is the same person as is called Esdras in theApocrypha), was one of the persons who returned, and who, it isprobable, wrote the account of that affair. Nehemiah, whose bookfollows next to Ezra, was another of the returned persons; and who, itis also probable, wrote the account of the same affair in the bookthat bears his name. But these accounts are nothing to us, nor toany other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part of thehistory of their nation; and there is just as much of the word ofGod in those books as there is in any of the histories of France, orRapin's History of England, or the history of any other country. But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writersare to be depended upon. In the second chapter of Ezra, the writergives a list of the tribes and families, and of the precise numberof souls of each, that returned from Babylon to Jerusalem: and thisenrolment of the persons so returned appears to have been one of theprincipal objects for writing the book; but in this there is anerror that destroys the intention of the undertaking. The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner, chap.ii., ver. 3: "The children of Parosh, two thousand a hundred seventyand two." Ver. 4, "The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventyand two." And in this manner he proceeds through all the families; andin the 64th verse, he makes a total, and says, "The whole congregation

together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore." But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the severalparticulars will find that the total is but 29,818; so that theerror is 12,542.* What certainty, then, can there be in the Biblefor anything? *Particulars of the Families from the second Chapter of Ezra.Chap. ii Brought forward: 12,243 15,953 24,144Verse 3 2172 Verse 14 2056 Verse 25 743 Verse 36 973 4 372 15 454 26 621 37 1052 5 775 16 98 27 122 38 1247 6 2812 17 323 28 223 39 1017 7 1254 18 112 29 52 40 74 8 945 19 223 30 156 41 128 9 760 20 95 31 1254 42 139 10 642 21 123 32 320 53 392 11 623 22 56 33 725 60 652 12 1222 23 128 34 345 13 666 24 42 35 3630- ------ ------ ------ ----- 12,243 15,953 24,144 Total 29,818 Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families,and of the number of each family. He begins, as in Ezra, by saying,chap. vii., ver. 8, "The children of Parosh, two thousand a hundredseven and two; and so on through all the families. The list differs inseveral of the particulars from that of Ezra. In the 66th verse,Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as Ezra had said, "The wholecongregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred andthreescore." But the particulars of this list makes a total of but31,089, so that the error here is 11,271. These writers may do wellenough for Bible-makers, but not for anything where truth andexactness is necessary. The next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madame Estherthought it any honor to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasuerus,or as a rival to Queen Vashti, who had refused to come to a drunkenking in the midst of a drunken company, to be made a show of, (for

the account says they had been drinking seven days and were merry),

let Esther and Mordecai look to that; it is no business of ours; atleast it is none of mine; besides which the story has a great deal theappearance of being fabulous, and is also anonymous. I pass on tothe book of Job. The book of Job differs in character from all the books we havehitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of thisbook; it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with thevicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and strugglingagainst the pressure. It is a highly-wrought composition, betweenwilling submission and involuntary discontent, and shows man, as hesometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable ofbeing. Patience has but a small share in the character of the personof whom the book treats; on the contrary, his grief is oftenimpetuous, but he still endeavors to keep a guard upon it, and seemsdetermined in the midst of accumulating ills, to impose upon himselfthe hard duty of contentment. I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in theformer part of the Age of Reason, but without knowing at that timewhat I have learned since, which is, that from all the evidence thatcan be collected the book of Job does not belong to the Bible. I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abenezra

and Spinoza, upon this subject. They both say that the book of Job

carries no internal evidence of being a Hebrew book; that the genius

of the composition and the drama of the piece are not Hebrew; that

it has been translated from another language into Hebrew, and that

the author of the book was a Gentile; that the character represented

under the name of Satan (which is the first and only time this name is

mentioned in the Bible) does not correspond to any Hebrew idea, and

that the two convocations which the Deity is supposed to have made

of those whom the poem calls sons of God, and the familiarity which

this supposed Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the same

case. It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be theproduction of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so farfrom being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to objectsof natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of adifferent cast to anything in the books known to be Hebrew. Theastronomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek and notHebrew names, and it does not appear from anything that is to be found

in the Bible, that the Jews knew anything of astronomy or that they

studied it; they had no translation of those names into their ownlanguage, but adopted the names as they found them in the poem. That the Jews did translate the literary productions of theGentile nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their own,

is not a matter of doubt; the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs is anevidence of this; it is there said, v. i: "The words of King Lemuel,the prophecy that his mother taught him." This verse stands as apreface to the Proverbs that follow, and which are not the proverbs ofSolomon, but of Lemuel; and this Lemuel was not one of the kings ofIsrael, nor of Judah, but of some other country, and consequently aGentile. The Jews, however, have adopted his proverbs, and as theycannot give any account who the author of the book of Job was, nor

how they came by the book, and as it differs in character from theHebrew writings, and stands totally unconnected with every otherbook and chapter in the Bible, before it and after it, it has allthe circumstantial evidence of being originally a book of theGentiles.* *The prayer known by the name of Agur's prayer, in the 30thchapter of Proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel,

and which is the only sensible, well-conceived and well-expressed

prayer in the Bible, has much the appearance of being a prayer

taken from the Gentiles. The name of Agur occurs on no other

occasion than this; and he is introduced, together with the prayer

ascribed to him, in the same manner, and nearly in the same words,

that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced in the chapter that

follows. The first verse of the 30th chapter says, "The words of

Agur, the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy." Here the word prophecy

is used in the same application it has in the following chapter of

Lemuel, unconnected with any thing of prediction. The prayer of

Agur is in the 8th and 9th verses, "Remove far from me vanity

and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food

convenient for me; lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is

the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God

in vain." This has not any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for

the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for

anything but victory, vengeance and riches. The Bible-makers and those regulators of time, thechronologists, appear to have been at a loss where to place and

how to dispose of the book of Job; for it contains no one historicalcircumstance, nor allusion to any, that might determine its place inthe Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose of these mento have informed the world of their ignorance, and therefore, theyhave affixed it to the era of 1520 years before Christ, which isduring the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and for which theyhave just as much authority and no more than I should have forsaying it was a thousand years before that period. The probability,however, is that it is older than any book in the Bible; and it is theonly one that can be read without indignation or disgust. We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it iscalled) was before the time of the Jews, whose practise has been tocalumniate and blacken the character of all other nations; and it isfrom the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them heathens.But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just and moralpeople, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and revenge, butof whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It appears to havebeen their custom to personify both virtue and vice by statues andimages, as is done nowadays both by statuary and by painting; but itdoes not follow from this that they worshiped them, any more than wedo. I pass on to the book of Psalms, of which it is not necessary tomake much observation. Some of them are moral, and others are veryrevengeful; and the greater part relates to certain localcircumstances of the Jewish nation at the time they were written, withwhich we have nothing to do. It is, however, an error or an impositionto call them the Psalms of David. They are a collection, as song-booksare nowadays, from different song-writers, who lived at differenttimes. The 137th Psalm could not have been written till more than400 years after the time of David, because it was written incommemoration of an event, the captivity of the Jews in Babylon,

which did not happen till that distance of time. "By the rivers of

Babylon we sat down; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof; for

there they that carried us away captive required of us a song,

saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion." As a man would say to

an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, "Sing us one

of your American songs, or of your French songs, or of your English

songs." This remark,with respect to the time this Psalm was written,

is of no other use than to show (among others already mentioned)

the general imposition the world has been under in respect to the

authors of the Bible. No regard has been paid to time, place and

circumstance, and the names of persons have been affixed to the

several books, which it was as impossible they should write as that

a man should walk in procession at his own funeral. The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collection,and that from authors belonging to other nations than those of theJewish nation, as I have shown in the observations upon the book ofJob; besides which some of the proverbs ascribed to Solomon did notappear till two hundred and fifty years after the death of Solomon;for it is said in the 1st verse of the 25th chapter, "These are alsoproverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah,copied out." It was two hundred and fifty years from the time ofSolomon to the time of Hezekiah. When a man is famous and his nameis abroad, he is made the putative father of things he never said ordid, and this, most probably, has been the case with Solomon. Itappears to have been the fashion of that day to make proverbs, as itis now to make jest-books and father them upon those who never sawthem. The book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed toSolomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is writtenas the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as Solomonwas, who, looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, cries out,"All is vanity!" A great deal of the metaphor and of the sentimentis obscure, most probably by translation; but enough is left to showthey were strongly pointed in the original.* From what istransmitted to us of the character of Solomon, he was witty,ostentatious, dissolute, and at last melancholy. He lived fast, anddied, tired of the world, at the age of fifty-eight years. *Those that look out of the window shall be darkened, is anobscure figure in translation for loss of sight. Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines are worse thannone, and, however it may carry with it the appearance of heightenedenjoyment, it defeats all the felicity of affection by leaving it nopoint to fix upon. Divided love is never happy. This was the case withSolomon, and if he could not, with all his pretentions to wisdom,discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, the mortification heafterward endured. In this point of view, his preaching isunnecessary, because, to know the consequences, it is only necessaryto know the cause. Seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines

would have stood in place of the whole book. It was needless, after this,

to say that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; for it is impossible to

derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of

happiness. To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we accustom ourselvesto objects that can accompany the mind all the way through life, andthat we take the rest as good in their day. The mere man of pleasureis miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but littlebetter; whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanicalscience, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spiteof the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study ofthese things is the true theology; it teaches man to know and toadmire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation,and are unchangeable and of divine origin. Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mindwas ever young, his temper ever serene; science, that never growsgray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, forwhen we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in ahospital waiting for death. Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but which wrinkled

fanaticism has called divine. The compilers of the Bible have placed these

songs after the book of Ecclesiastes, and the chronologists have affixed

to them the era of 1014 years before Christ, at which time Solomon,

according to the same chronology, was nineteen years of age, and was

then forming his seraglio of wives and concubines. The Bible-makers and

the chronologists should have managed this matter a little better, and

either have said nothing about the time, or chosen a time less inconsistent

with the supposed divinity of those songs; for Solomon was then in the

honeymoon of one thousand debaucheries. It should also have occurred to them that, as he wrote, if hedid write, the book of Ecclesiastes long after these songs, and inwhich he exclaims, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, thathe included those songs in that description. This is the moreprobable, because he says, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes, chap.ii. ver. 8, "I gat me men singers and women singers (most probablyto sing those songs), as musical instruments and that of all sorts;and behold, (ver. II), all was vanity and vexation of spirit." Thecompilers, however, have done their work but by halves, for as theyhave given us the songs, they should have given us the tunes, thatwe might sing them. The books called the Books of the Prophets fill up all theremaining parts of the Bible; they are sixteen in number, beginningwith Isaiah, and ending with Malachi, of which I have given you a listin my observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen prophets, allof whom, except the three last, lived within the time the books ofKings and Chronicles were written, two only, Isaiah and Jeremiah,are mentioned in the history of those books. I shall begin withthose two, reserving what I have to say on the general character ofthe men called prophets to another part of the work. Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed toIsaiah will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositionsever put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and,except a short historical part and a few sketches of history in two orthree of the first chapters, is one continued, incoherent, bombasticalrant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destituteof meaning; a school-boy would scarcely have been excusable forwriting such stuff; it is (at least in the translation) that kind ofcomposition and false taste that is properly called prose run mad. The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, and is continuedto the end of the 39th chapter. It relates to some matters that aresaid to have passed during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah; atwhich time Isaiah lived. This fragment of history begins and endsabruptly; it has not the least connection with the chapter thatprecedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with any other in thebook. It is probable that Isaiah wrote this fragment himself,because he was an actor in the circumstances it treats of; but, exceptthis part, there are scarcely two chapters that have any connectionwith each other; one is entitled, at the beginning of the first verse,"The burden of Babylon;" another, "The burden of Moab;" another

"The burden of Damascus;" another, "The burden of Egypt;" another,

"The burden of the desert of the sea;" another, "The burden of the

valley of vision"*- as you would say, "The story of the Knight of theBurning Mountain," "The story of Cinderella," or "The Children inthe Wood," etc., etc. *See beginning of chapters xiii, xv, xvii, xix, xxi and xxii. I have already shown, in the instance of the two last verses ofChronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the compilers of theBible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with eachother, which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient todestroy the authenticity of any compilation, because it is more thanpresumptive evidence that the compilers were ignorant who theauthors were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the bookascribed to Isaiah; the latter part of the 44th chapter and thebeginning of the 45th, so far from having been written by Isaiah,could only have been written by some person who lived at least ahundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. These chapters are a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the Jewsto return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, to rebuildJerusalem and the temple, as is stated in Ezra. The last verse ofthe 44th chapter and the beginning of the 45th, are in the followingwords: "That saith of Cyrus; He is my shepherd and shall perform allmy pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shall be built, and to thetemple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to hisannointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations

before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the

two-leaved gates and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before

thee," etc. What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to imposethis book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaiah,according to their own chronology, died soon after the death ofHezekiah, which was 693 years before Christ, and the decree ofCyrus, in favor of the Jews returning to Jerusalem, was, accordingto the same chronology, 536 years before Christ, which is a distanceof time between the two of 162 years. I do not suppose that thecompilers of the Bible made these books, but rather that they pickedup some loose anonymous essays, and put them together under thenames of such authors as best suited their purpose. They haveencouraged the imposition, which is next to inventing it, for it wasimpossible but they must have observed it. When we see the studied craft of the Scripture-makers, in makingevery part of this romantic book of schoolboy's eloquence bend tothe monstrous idea of a Son of God begotten by a ghost on the bodyof a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified in suspectingthem of. Every phrase and circumstance is marked with the barbaroushand of superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it wasimpossible they could have. The head of every chapter and the top ofevery page are blazoned with the names of Christ and the Church,that the unwary reader might suck in the error before he began toread. "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son," Isaiah, chap.vii. ver. 14, has been interpreted to mean the person called JesusChrist, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed through

Christendom for more than a thousand years; and such has been

the rage of this opinion that scarcely a spot in it but has been

stained with blood, and marked with desolation in consequence of it.

Though it is not my intention to enter into controversy on subjects

of this kind, but to confine myself to show that the Bible is spurious,

and thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at once the

whole structure of superstition raised thereon, I will, however, stop

a moment to expose the fallacious application of this passage. Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, towhom this passage is spoken, is no business of mine; I mean only toshow the misapplication of the passage, and that it has no morereference to Christ and his mother than it has to me and my mother.The story is simply this: The king of Syria and the king of Israel, (Ihave already mentioned that the Jews were split into two nations,one of which was called Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem,

and the other Israel), made war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah,

and marched their armies toward Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people

became alarmed, and the account says, verse 2, "And his heart was

moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are

moved with the wind." In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, andassures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all theprophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him; andto satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a sign.This, the account says, Ahaz declined doing, giving as a reason thathe would not tempt the Lord upon which Isaiah, who is the speaker,says, ver. 14, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign,Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son;" and the 16th versesays, "For before this child shall know to refuse the evil, and choosethe good, the land that thou abhorrest, (or dreadest, meaning Syriaand the kingdom of Israel) shall be forsaken of both her kings."Here then was the sign, and the time limited for the completion of theassurance or promise, namely, before this child should know torefuse the evil and choose the good. Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became necessary tohim, in order to avoid the imputation of being a false prophet and theconsequence thereof, to take measures to make this sign appear. Itcertainly was not a difficult thing, in any time of the world, to finda girl with child, or to make her so, and perhaps Isaiah knew of onebeforehand; for I do not suppose that the prophets of that day wereany more to be trusted than the priests of this. Be that, however,as it may, he says in the next chapter, ver. 2, "And I took unto mefaithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah theson of Jeberechiah, and I went unto the prophetess, and sheconceived and bare a son." Here, then, is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this childand this virgin; and it is upon the barefaced perversion of thisstory, that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordidinterests of priests in later times, have founded a theory whichthey call the Gospel; and have applied this story to signify theperson they call Jesus Christ, begotten, they say, by a ghost, whomthey call holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in marriage, andafterward married, whom they call a virgin, 700 years after thisfoolish story was told; a theory which, speaking for myself, Ihesitate not to disbelieve, and to say, is as fabulous and as false asGod is true.* *In the 14th verse of the 7th chapter, it is said that the childshould be called Immanuel; but this name was not given to either ofthe children otherwise than as a character which the word signifies.That of the prophetess was called Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and that ofMary was called Jesus. But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah, we have onlyto attend to the sequel of this story, which, though it is passed overin silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in the 28th chapter ofthe second Chronicles, and which is, that instead of these two kingsfailing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah hadpretended to foretell in the name of the Lord, they succeeded; Ahazwas defeated and destroyed, a hundred and twenty thousand of hispeople were slaughtered, Jerusalem was plundered, and two hundredthousand women, and sons and daughters, carried into captivity. Thusmuch for this lying prophet and impostor, Isaiah, and the book offalsehoods that bears his name. I pass on to the book of Jeremiah. This prophet, as he iscalled, lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, inthe reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah; and the suspicion wasstrong against him that he was a traitor in the interests ofNebuchadnezzar. Everything relating to Jeremiah shows him to have

been a man of an equivocal character; in his metaphor of the potter

and the clay, chap. xviii., he guards his prognostications in such a

crafty manner as always to leave himself a door to escape by, in

case the event should be contrary to what he had predicted. In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter he makes the Almighty tosay, "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, andconcerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and destroy it.If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from theirevil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them."Here was a proviso against one side of the case; now for the otherside. Verses 9 and 10, "And at what instant I shall speak concerning anation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it doevil in my sight, that it obey not my voice; then I shall repent ofthe good wherewith I said I would benefit them." Here is a provisoagainst the other side; and, according to this plan of prophesying,a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the Almighty

might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner of

speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent

with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to readit, in order to decide positively that, though some passagesrecorded therein may have been spoken by Jeremiah, he is not theauthor of the book. The historical parts, if they can be called bythat name, are in the most confused condition; the same events areseveral times repeated, and that in a manner different, andsometimes in contradiction to each other; and this disorder runseven to the last chapter, where the history upon which the greaterpart of the book has been employed begins anew, and ends abruptly.

The book has all the appearance of being a medley of unconnected

anecdotes respecting persons and things of that time, collected

together in the same rude manner as if the various and contradictory

accounts that are to be found in a bundle of newspapers respecting

persons and things of the present day, were put together without

date, order, or explanation. I will give two or three examples of this

kind. It appears, from the account of the 37th chapter, that the army ofNebuchadnezzar, which is called the army of the Chaldeans, hadbesieged Jerusalem some time, and on their hearing that the army ofPharaoh, of Egypt, was marching against them they raised the siege

and retreated for a time. It may here be proper to mention, in order tounderstand this confused history, that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged

and taken Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim, the predecessor ofZedekiah; and that it was Nebuchadnezzar who had made Zedekiah king,

or rather viceroy; and that this second siege, of which the book ofJeremiah treats, was in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiahagainst Nebuchadnezzar. This will in some measure account for thesuspicion that affixes to Jeremiah of being a traitor and in theinterest of Nebuchadnezzar; whom Jeremiah calls, in the 43d chapter,ver. 10, the servant of God. The 11th verse of this chapter (the 37th), says, "And it came topass, that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up fromJerusalem, for fear of Pharoah's army, that Jeremiah went forth out ofJerusalem, to go (as this account states) into the land of Benjamin,to separate himself thence in the midst of the people, and when he

was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose

name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, and he

took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.

Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans." Jeremiah

being thus stopped and accused, was, after being examined, committed

to prison on suspicion of being a traitor, where he remained, as is stated

in the last verse of this chapter. But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment ofJeremiah which has no connection with this account, but ascribes hisimprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must go back

to the 21st chapter. It is there stated, ver. 1, that Zedekiah sentPashur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah thepriest, to Jeremiah to inquire of him concerning Nebuchadnezzar, whose

army was then before Jerusalem; and Jeremiah said unto them, ver.

8 and 9, "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I set before you the way oflife, and the way of death; he that abideth in this city shall dieby the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he thatgoeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shalllive, and his life shall be unto him for a prey." This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the end ofthe 10th verse of the 21st chapter; and such is the disorder of thisbook that we have to pass over sixteen chapters, upon varioussubjects, in order to come at the continuation and event of thisconference, and this brings us to the first verse of the 38th chapter,as I have just mentioned. The 38th chapter opens with saying, "Then Shepatiah, the son ofMattan; Gedaliah, the son of Pashur; and Jucal, the son ofShelemiah; and Pashur, the son of Malchiah (here are more personsmentioned than in the 21st chapter), heard the words that Jeremiah

had spoken unto all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He thatremaineth in this city, shall die by the sword, by the famine, andby the pestilence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shalllive, for he shall have his life for prey, and shall live;" (which arethe words of the conference), therefore, (they say to Zedekiah), "Webeseech thee, let us put this man to death, for thus he weakeneththe hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands ofall the people in speaking such words unto them; for this manseeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt." And at the 6thverse it is said, "Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into thedungeon of Malchiah." These two accounts are different and contradictory. The oneascribes his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out of the city:the other to his preaching and prophesying in the city; the one to hisbeing seized by the guard at the gate; the other to his beingaccused before Zedekiah, by the conferees.* *I observed two chapters, 16th and 17th, in the first book ofSamuel, that contradict each other with respect to David, and themanner he became acquainted with Saul; as the 37th and 38th

chapters of the book of Jeremiah contradict each other with respect

to the cause of Jeremiah's imprisonment. In the 16th chapter of Samuel, it is said, that an evil spiritof God troubled Saul, and that his servants advised him (as aremedy) "to seek out a man who was a cunning player upon the harp."And Saul said, [verse 17,] Provide me now a man that can play well,and bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants, and said,Behold I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning inplaying, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent inmatters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him. Wherefore

Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, "Send me David thy son."

And [verse 21,] David came to Saul, and stood before him, and he

loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And when the evil

spirit from God was upon Saul [ver. 23] that David took an harp, and

played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well." But the next chapter [17] gives an account, all different to this,of the manner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it isascribed to David's encounter with Goliah, when David was sent byhis father to carry provision to his brethren in the camp. In the 55thverse of this chapter it is said, "And when Saul saw David go forthagainst the Philistine [Goliah], he said unto Abner, the captain ofthe host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thysoul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Enquire thouwhose son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughterof the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul withthe head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, Whoseson art thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thyservant Jesse the Bethlehemite." These two accounts belie eachother, because each of them supposes Saul and David not to haveknown each other before. This book, the Bible is too ridiculous evenfor criticism. In the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance of thedisordered state of this book; for notwithstanding the siege of thecity by Nebuchadnezzar has been the subject of several of thepreceding chapters, particularly the 37th and 38, the 39th chapterbegins as if not a word had been said upon the subject; and as ifthe reader was to be informed of every particular concerning it, forit begins with saying, verse it, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah,king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar, king ofBabylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and they besieged it,"etc. But the instance in the last chapter (the 52d) is still moreglaring, for though the story has been told over and over again,this chapter still supposes the reader not to know anything of it, forit begins by saying, ver. 1, "Zedekiah was one and twenty years oldwhen he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem,and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of

Libnah. (Ver. 4,) And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign,

in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar,king of Babylon, came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, andpitched against it, and built forts against it," etc. It is not possible that any one man, and more particularlyJeremiah, could have been the writer of this book. The errors are suchas could not have been committed by any person sitting down to compose

a work. Were I, or any other man, to write in such a disordered manner,

nobody would read what was written; and everybody would suppose that

the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way, therefore, to account for

this disorder is, that the book is a medley of detached, unauthenticated

anecdotes, put together by some stupid book-maker, under the name of

Jeremiah, because many of them refer to him and to the circumstances

of the times he lived in. Of the duplicity, and of the false prediction of Jeremiah, I shallmention two instances, and then proceed to review the remainder of the Bible. It appears from the 38th chapter, that when Jeremiah was inprison, Zedekiah sent for him, and at this interview, which wasprivate, Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender himselfto the enemy. "If," says he (ver. 17,) "thou wilt assuredly go forthunto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live," etc.Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this conference shouldbe known, and he said to Jeremiah (ver. 25), "If the princes[meaning those of Judah] hear that I have talked with thee, and theycome unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thouhast said unto the king; hide it not from us, and we will not put theeto death; and also what the king said unto thee; then thou shalt sayunto them, I presented my supplication before the king, that hewould not cause me to return to Jonathan's house to die there. Thencame all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told themaccording to all the words the king had commanded." Thus, this manof God, as he is called, could tell a lie or very stronglyprevaricate, when he supposed it would answer his purpose; forcertainly he did not go to Zedekiah to make his supplication,neither did he make it; he went because he was sent for, and heemployed that opportunity to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself toNebuchadnezzar. In the 34th chapter is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah, inthese words (ver. 2), "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give thiscity into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn itwith fire; and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surelybe taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold theeyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth tomouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord,O Zedekiah, king of Judah, Thus saith the Lord, of thee, Thou shaltnot die by the sword, but thou shalt die in peace; and with theburnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, soshall they burn odors for thee, and they will lament thee, saying, Ah,lord; for I have pronounced the word, saith the Lord." Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king ofBabylon, and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and dying in peace,

and with the burning of odors, as at the funeral of his fathers, (asJeremiah had declared the Lord himself had pronounced), the reverse,according to the 52nd chapter, was the case; it is there said (ver.10), "And the king of Babylon slew the son of Zedekiah before hiseyes; Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and the king of Babylonbound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prisontill the day of his death." What, then, can we say of theseprophets, but that they were impostors and liars? As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He wastaken into favor by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to thecaptain of the guard (chap. xxxix. ver. 12), "Take him (said he) andlook well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall

say unto thee." Jeremiah joined himself afterward to Nebuchadnezzar,

and went about prophesying for him against the Egyptians, who had

marched to the relief of Jerusalem while it was besieged. Thus much

for another of the lying prophets, and the book that bears his name. I have been the more particular in treating of the booksascribed to Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of inthe books of Kings and Chronicles, which the others are not. Theremainder of the books ascribed to the men called prophets I shall nottrouble myself much about, but take them collectively into theobservations I shall offer on the character of the men styledprophets. In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have said that the wordprophet was the Bible word for poet, and that the flights andmetaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into what arenow called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this opinion,not only because the books called the prophecies are written inpoetical language, but because there is no word in the Bible, exceptit be the word prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. Ihave also said, that the word signifies a performer upon musicalinstruments, of which I have given some instances, such as that of acompany of prophets prophesying with psalteries, with tabrets, withpipes, with harps, etc., and that Saul prophesied with them, I.Sam., chap x., ver. 5. It appears from this passage, and from otherparts in the book of Samuel, that the word prophet was confined tosignify poetry and music; for the person who was supposed to have avisionary insight into concealed things, was not a prophet but a seer*(I. Sam., chap. ix., ver. 9); and it was not till after the wordseer went out of use (which most probably was when Saul banished

those he called wizards) that the profession of the seer, or the art ofseeing, became incorporated into the word prophet. *I know not what is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the wordseer in English; but I observe it is translated into French by lavoyant, from the verb voir, to see; and which means the person whosees, or the seer. According to the modern meaning of the word prophet andprophesying, it signifies foretelling events to a great distance oftime, and it became necessary to the inventors of the Gospel to giveit this latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what theycall the prophecies of the Old Testament to the times of the New;but according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, andafterward of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word seerincorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to things of thetime then passing, or very closely connected with it, such as theevent of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey, or ofany enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any circumstancethen pending, or of any difficulty they were then in; all of which hadimmediate reference to themselves (as in the case already mentioned

of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the expression, "Behold a virgin

shall conceive and bear a son,") and not to any distant future time. Itwas that kind of prophesying that corresponds to what we callfortune-telling, such as casting nativities, predicting riches,fortunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for lost goods, etc.;and it is the fraud of the Christian Church, not that of the Jews, andthe ignorance and the superstition of modern, not that of ancienttimes, that elevated those poetical, musical, conjuring, dreaming,strolling gentry into the rank they have since had. But, besides this general character of all the prophets, theyhad also a particular character. They were in parties, and theyprophesied for or against, according to the party they were with, asthe poetical and political writers of the present day write in defenceof the party they associate with against the other. After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah andthat of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused and accusedeach other of being false prophets, lying prophets, impostors, etc. The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the prophetsof the party of Israel; and those of the party of Israel against thoseof Judah. This party prophesying showed itself immediately on theseparation under the first two rival kings, Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

The prophet that cursed or prophesied against the altar that Jeroboamhad built in Bethel, was of the party of Judah, where Rehoboam wasking; and he was waylaid on his return home, by a prophet of the party

of Israel, who said unto him (I. Kings, chap. xiii.), "Art thou theman of God that came from Judah? and he said, I am." Then theprophet of the party of Israel said to him, "I am a prophet also, asthou art (signifying of Judah), and an angel spake unto me by the

word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house,

that he may eat bread and drink water: but (says the 18th verse) he

lied unto him." This event, however, according to the story, is that theprophet of Judah never got back to Judah, for he was found dead on

the road, by the contrivance of the prophet of Israel, who, no doubt,was called a true prophet by his own party, and the prophet of Judah alying prophet. In the third chapter of the second of Kings, a story is related ofprophesying or conjuring that shows, in several particulars, thecharacter of a prophet. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and Jehoram,king of Israel, had for a while ceased their party animosity, andentered into an alliance; and these two, together with the king ofEdom, engaged in a war against the king of Moab. After uniting andmarching their armies, the story says, they were in great distress forwater; upon which Jehoshaphat said, "Is there not here a prophet ofthe Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord by him? and one of theservants of the king of Israel said, Here is Elisha." [Elisha wasone of the party of Judah]. "And Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, said,The word of the Lord is with him." The story then says, that thesethree kings went down to Elisha (who, as I have said, was aJudahmite prophet) saw the king of Israel, he said unto him, "Whathave I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and tothe prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay,for the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver theminto the hands of Moab." [Meaning because of the distress they were infor water.] Upon which Elisha said, "As the Lord of hosts liveth,before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence ofJehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor seethee." Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. We havenow to see the performance, or manner of prophesying. Ver. 15. "Bring me, (said Elisha,) a minstrel: And it came topass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came uponhim." Here is the farce of the conjurer. Now for the prophecy: "AndElisha said, [singing most probably to the tune he was playing,]Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches;" which was justtelling them what every countryman could have told them, withouteither fiddle or farce, that the way to get water was to dig for it. But as every conjurer is not famous alike for the same thing, soneither were those prophets; for though all of them, at least thoseI have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them excelled incursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief in thisbranch of prophesying; it was he that cursed the forty-two children inthe name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devoured.

We are to suppose that those children were of the party of Israel; but

as those who will curse will lie, there is just as much credit to begiven to this story of Elisha's two she-bears as there is to that ofthe Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said: "Poor children three devoured he, That could not with him grapple; And at one sup he ate them up, As a man would eat an apple." There was another description of men called prophets, thatamused themselves with dreams and visions; but whether by night orby day we know not. These, if they were not quite harmless, were butlittle mischievous. Of this class are: Ezekiel and Daniel; and the first question upon those books, asupon all the others, is, are they genuine? that is, were theywritten by Ezekiel and Daniel? Of this there is no proof, but so far as my own opinion goes, I ammore inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. Myreasons for this opinion are as follows: First, Because those books donot contain internal evidence to prove they were not written byEzekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel,etc., prove they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, etc. Secondly, Because they were not written till after theBabylonian captivity began, and there is good reason to believe thatnot any book in the Bible was written before that period; at leastit is proveable, from the books themselves, as I have already shown,that they were not written till after the commencement of the Jewishmonarchy. Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to Ezekieland Daniel are written agrees with the condition these men were inat the time of writing them. Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolishlyemployed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and unriddlethose books, been carried into captivity, as Ezekiel and Danielwere, it would have greatly improved their intellects in comprehendingthe reason for this mode of writing, and have saved them the troubleof racking their invention, as they have done, to no purpose; for theywould have found that themselves would be obliged to write whateverthey had to write respecting their own affairs or those of theirfriends or of their country, in a concealed manner, as those menhave done. These two books differ from all the rest for it is only these thatare filled with accounts of dreams and visions; and this differencearose from the situation the writers were in as prisoners of war, orprisoners of state, in a foreign country, which obliged them to conveyeven the most trifling information to each other, and all theirpolitical projects or opinions, in obscure and metaphorical terms. Thepretend to have dreamed dreams and seen visions, because it was

unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We ought, however

to suppose that the persons to whom they wrote understood what theymeant, and that it was not intended anybody else should. But thesebusy commentators and priests have been puzzling their wits to findout what it was not intended they should know, and with which theyhave nothing to do. Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon under thefirst captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine years before thesecond captivity in the time of Zedekiah. The Jews were then still numerous, and had considerable force atJerusalem; and as it is natural to suppose that men in the situationof Ezekiel and Daniel would be meditating the recovery of theircountry and their own deliverance, it is reasonable to suppose thatthe accounts of dreams and visions with which those books are filled,are no other than a disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitatethose objects- it served them as a cipher or secret alphabet. Ifthey are not thus, they are tales, reveries, and nonsense; or, atleast, a fanciful way of wearing off the wearisomeness of captivity;but the presumption is they were the former. Ezekiel begins his books by speaking of a vision of cherubimsand of a wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by the riverChebar, in the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to suppose,that by the cherubims he meant the temple at Jerusalem, where

they had figures of cherubims? and by a wheel within a wheel (which,

as a figure, has always been understood to signify political contrivance)the project or means of recovering Jerusalem? In the latter part ofthis book, he supposes himself transported to Jerusalem and into thetemple; and he refers back to the vision on the river Chebar, and says(chapter xliii, verse 3), that this last vision was like the vision onthe river Chebar; which indicates that those pretended dreams andvisions had for their object the recovery of Jerusalem, and nothingfurther. As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as thedreams and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators

and priests have made of those books, that of converting them intothings which they call prophecies, and making them bend to times andcircumstances as far remote even as the present day, it shows thefraud or the extreme folly to which credulity or priestcraft can go. Scarcely anything can be more absurd than to suppose that mensituated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was overrun andin the possession of the enemy, all their friends and relations incaptivity abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in continualdanger of it; scarcely anything, I say, can be more absurd, than tosuppose that such men should find nothing to do but that ofemploying their time and their thoughts about what was to happen toother nations a thousand or two thousand years after they were dead;at the same time, nothing is more natural than that they shouldmeditate the recovery of Jerusalem, and their own deliverance and

that this was the sole object of all the obscure and apparently franticwritings contained in those books. In this sense, the mode of writing used in those two books,being forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is notirrational; but, if we are to use the books as prophecies, they arefalse. In the 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speaking of Egypt, it issaid, (ver. II), "No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot ofbeast shall pass through it; neither shall it be inhabited for fortyyears." This is what never came to pass, and consequently it is false,as all the books I have already reviewed are. I here close this partof the subject. In the former part of the Age of Reason I have spoken of Jonah,and of the story of him and the whale. A fit story for ridicule, if itwas written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended totry what credulity could swallow; for if it could swallow Jonah andthe whale, it could swallow anything. But, as is already shown in the observations on the book of Joband of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in theBible are originally Hebrew, or only translations from the books ofthe Gentiles into Hebrew; and as the book of Jonah, so far fromtreating of the affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject,but treats altogether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that itis a book of the Gentiles than of the Jews, and that it has beenwritten as a fable, to expose the nonsense and satirize the viciousand malignant character of a Bible prophet, or a predicting priest. Jonah is represented, first, as a disobedient prophet, runningaway from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of theGentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish; as if he ignorantlysupposed, by some paltry contrivance, he could hide himself whereGod could not find him. The vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea, andthe mariners, all of whom are Gentiles, believing it to be a judgment,on account of some one on board who had committed a crime, agreed

to cast lots to discover the offender, and the lot fell upon Jonah.But, before this, they had cast all their wares and merchandiseoverboard to lighten the vessel, while Jonah, like a stupid fellow,was fast asleep in the hold. After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, theyquestioned him to know who and what he was? and he told them he

was a Hebrew; and the story implies that he confessed himself to beguilty. But these Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once,without pity or mercy, as a company of Bible prophets or priests wouldhave done by a Gentile in the same case, and as it is related Samuelhad done by Agag and Moses by the women and children, theyendeavored to save him, though at the risk of their own lives, for theaccount says, "Nevertheless (that is, though Jonah was a Jew and aforeigner, and the cause of all their misfortunes and the loss oftheir cargo,) the men rowed hard to bring it (the boat) to land, butthey could not for the sea wrought and was tempestuous againstthem." Still, they were unwilling to put the fate of the lot intoexecution, and they cried (says the account) unto the Lord, saying,(v. 14,) "We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee, let us notperish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood; forthou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." Meaning, thereby, thatthey did not presume to judge Jonah guilty, since that he might beinnocent; but that they considered the lot that had fallen to him as adecree of God, or as it pleased God. The address of this prayershows that the Gentiles worshipped one Supreme Being, and that theywere not idolaters, as the Jews represented them to be. But thestorm still continuing and the danger increasing, they put the fate ofthe lot into execution, and cast Jonah into the sea, where,according to the story, a great fish swallowed him up whole and alive. We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the storm inthe fish's belly. Here we are told that he prayed; but the prayer is amade-up prayer, taken from various parts of the Psalms, without anyconnection or consistency, and adapted to the distress, but not at allto the condition that Jonah was in. It is such a prayer as aGentile, who might know something of the Psalms, could copy out forhim. This circumstance alone, were there no other, is sufficient toindicate that the whole is a made-up story. The prayer, however, issupposed to have answered the purpose, and the story goes on (taking

up at the same time the cant language of a Bible prophet), saying:

(chap. ii, ver. 10,) "And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited

out Jonah upon the dry land." Jonah then received a second mission to Nineveh, with which hesets out; and we have now to consider him as a preacher. Thedistress he is represented to have suffered, the remembrance of hisown disobedience as the cause of it, and the miraculous escape he issupposed to have had, were sufficient, one would conceive, to haveimpressed him with sympathy and benevolence in the execution of hismission; but, instead of this, he enters the city with denunciationand malediction in his mouth, crying: (chap. iii. ver. 4,) "Yetforty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the last actof his mission; and here it is that the malevolent spirit of aBible-prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears in all thatblackness of character that men ascribe to the being they call thedevil. Having published his predictions, he withdrew, says the story,to the east side of the city. But for what? not to contemplate, inretirement, the mercy of his Creator to himself or to others, but towait, with malignant impatience, the destruction of Nineveh. It cameto pass, however, as the story relates that the Ninevites reformed,and that God, according to the Bible phrase, repented him of theevil he had said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, saiththe first verse of the last chapter, "displeased Jonah exceedingly,and he was very angry." His obdurate heart would rather that allNineveh should be destroyed, and every soul, young and old, perishin its ruins, than that his prediction should not be fulfilled. Toexpose the character of a prophet still more, a gourd is made togrow up in the night, that promised him an agreeable shelter fromthe heat of the sun, in the place to which he had retired, and thenext morning it dies. Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is ready todestroy himself. "It is better, said he, for me to die than tolive." This brings on a supposed expostulation between the Almightyand the prophet, in which the former says, "Doest thou well to beangry for the gourd? And Jonah said, I do well to be angry even untodeath; Then, said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for whichthou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in anight, and perished in a night; and should not I spare Nineveh, thatgreat city, in which are more than sixscore thousand persons thatcannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" Here is both the winding up of the satire and the moral of thefable. As a satire, it strikes against the character of all theBible prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgments upon men,

women, and children, with which this lying book, the Bible, iscrowded; such as Noah's flood, the destruction of the cities ofSodom and Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to thesucking infants, and women with child, because the same reflection,that there are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot

discern between their right hand and their left hand, meaning youngchildren, applies to all their cases. It satirizes also the supposedpartiality of the Creator for one nation more than for another. As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit ofprediction; for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomesinclined to wish it. The pride of having his judgment right hardenshis heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees withdisappointment, the accomplishment or the failure of hispredictions. This book ends with the same kind of strong andwell-directed point against prophets, prophecies, and indiscriminatejudgment, as the chapter that Benjamin Franklin made for the Bible,about Abraham and the stranger, ends against the intolerant spiritof religious persecution. Thus much for the book of Jonah. Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies,I have spoken in the former part of the Age of Reason, and alreadyin this, where I have said that the word prophet is the Bible word forpoet, and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of

which have become obscure by the lapse of time and the change ofcircumstances, have been ridiculously erected into things calledprophecies, and applied to purposes the writers never thought of.

When a priest quotes any of those passages, he unriddles it agreeably

to his own views, and imposes that explanation upon his congregation

as the meaning of the writer. The [censored] of Babylon has been the

common [censored] of all the priests, and each has accused the other of

keeping the strumpet; so well do they agree in their explanations. There now remain only a few books, which they call books of thelesser prophets, and as I have already shown that the greater areimpostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the littleones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, thepriests, and both be forgotten together. I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through awood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; andthe priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stickthem in the ground, but they will never make them grow. I pass on tothe books of the New Testament. CHAPTER IITurning to the New Testament The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies ofthe Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation. As it is nothing extraordinary that a woman should be with childbefore she was married, and that the son she might bring forthshould be executed, even unjustly, I see no reason for not believingthat such a woman as Mary, and such a man as Joseph, and Jesusexisted; their mere existence is a matter of indifference aboutwhich there is no ground either to believe or to disbelieve, and whichcomes under the common head of, It may be so; and what then? Theprobability, however, is that there were such persons, or at leastsuch as resembled them in part of the circumstances, because almostall romantic stories have been suggested by some actualcircumstance; as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, not a word ofwhich is true, were suggested by the case of Alexander Selkirk. It is not the existence, or non-existence, of the persons that Itrouble myself about; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told inthe New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised

thereon, against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told,

is blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman

engaged to be married, and while under this engagement she is,

to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious

pretence (Luke, chap. i., ver. 35), that "the Holy Ghost shall come

upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."

Notwithstanding which, Joseph afterward marries her, cohabits with

her as his wife, and in his turn rivals the ghost. This is putting the

story into intelligible language, and when told in this manner, there

is not a priest but must be ashamed to own it.* *Mary, the supposed virgin-mother of Jesus, had several otherchildren, sons and daughters. See Matthew, chap. xiii, verses 55, 56. Obscenity in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is always atoken of fable and imposture; for it is necessary to our seriousbelief in God that we do not connect it with stories that run, as thisdoes, into ludicrous interpretations. This story is upon the face ofit, the same kind of story as that of Jupiter and Leda, or Jupiter andEuropa, or any of the amorous adventures of Jupiter; and shows, asis already stated in the former part of the Age of Reason, that theChristian faith is built upon the heathen mythology. As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as concernsJesus Christ, are confined to a very short space of time, less thantwo years, and all within the same country, and nearly to the samespot, the discordance of time, place, and circumstance, whichdetects the fallacy of the books of the Old Testament, and proves themto be impositions, cannot be expected to be found here in the sameabundance. The New Testament compared with the Old, is like a farce

of one act, in which there is not room for very numerous violations ofthe unities. There are, however, some glaring contradictions, which,exclusive of the fallacy of the pretended prophecies, are sufficientto show the story of Jesus Christ to be false. I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted, first,that the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove thatstory to be true, because the parts may agree, and the whole may befalse; secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a storyproves the whole cannot be true. The agreement does not prove true,but the disagreement proves falsehood positively. The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four booksascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first chapter ofMatthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in thethird chapter of Luke, there is also given a genealogy of JesusChrist. Did those two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to betrue, because it might, nevertheless, be a fabrication; but as theycontradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehoodabsolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood, and ifLuke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood; and as there is noauthority for believing one more than the other, there is no authorityfor believing either; and if they cannot be believed even in thevery first thing they say and set out to prove, they are notentitled to be believed in any thing they say afterward. Truth is auniform thing; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we toadmit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either,then, the men called apostles are impostors, or the books ascribedto them has been written by other persons and fathered upon them,

as is the case with the Old Testament. The book of Matthew gives, chap. i., ver 6, a genealogy by namefrom David up through Joseph, the husband of Mary, to Christ; andmakes there to be twenty-eight generations. The book of Luke givesalso a genealogy by name from Christ, through Joseph, the husband ofMary, down to David, and makes there to be forty-three generations;besides which, there are only the two names of David and Joseph thatare alike in the two lists. I here insert both genealogical lists, andfor the sake of perspicuity and comparison, have placed them both inthe same direction, that is from Joseph down to David. Genealogy according to Matthew. Genealogy according to Luke. Christ 23 Josaphat Christ 23 Neri 2 Joseph 24 Asa 2 Joseph 24 Melchi 3 Jacob 25 Abia 3 Heli 25 Addi 4 Matthan 26 Roboam 4 Matthat 26 Cosam 5 Eleazar 27 Solomon 5 Levi 27 Elmodam 6 Eliud 28 David* 6 Melchi 28 Er 7 Achim 7 Janna 29 Jose 8 Sadoc 8 Joseph 30 Eliezer 9 Azor 9 Mattathias 31 Jorim 10 Eliakim 10 Amos 32 Matthat 11 Abiud 11 Naum 33 Levi 12 Zorobabel 12 Esli 34 Simeon 13 Salathiel 13 Nagge 35 Juda 14 Jechonias 14 Maath 36 Joseph 15 Josias 15 Mattathias 37 Jonan 16 Amon 16 Semei 38 Eliakim 17 Manasses 17 Joseph 39 Melea 18 Ezekias 18 Juda 40 Menan 19 Achaz 19 Joanna 41 Mattatha 20 Joatham 20 Rhesa 42 Nathan 21 Ozias 21 Zorobabel 43 David 22 Joram 22 Salathiel *From the birth of David to the birth of Christ is upwards of 1080years; and as the lifetime of Christ is not included, there are but 27full generations. To find therefore the average age of each personmentioned in the list, at the time his first son was born, it isonly necessary to divide 1080 years by 27, which gives 40 years foreach person. As the lifetime of man was then but the same extent it isnow, it is an absurdity to suppose that 27 following generationsshould all be old bachelors, before they married; and the more so,when we are told, that Solomon, the next in succession to David,

had a house full of wives and mistresses before he was twenty-one

years of age. So far from this genealogy being a solemn truth, it is

not even a reasonable lie. This list of Luke gives about twenty-six years

for the average age, and this is too much. Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehoodbetween them as these two accounts show they do) in the verycommencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of whom and of what

he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left forbelieving the strange things they tell us afterward? If they cannot bebelieved in their account of his natural genealogy, how are we tobelieve them when they tell us he was the son of God begotten by aghost, and that an angel announced this in secret to his mother? Ifthey lied in one genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other?If his natural genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, whyare we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufacturedalso, and that the whole is fabulous? Can any man of seriousreflection hazard his future happiness upon the belief of a storynaturally impossible, repugnant to every idea of decency, andrelated by persons already detected of falsehood? Is it not moresafe that we stop ourselves at the plain, pure, and unmixed beliefof one God, which is Deism, than that we commit ourselves on anocean of improbable, irrational, indecent and contradictory tales? The first question, however, upon the books of the NewTestament, as upon those of the Old, is, Are they genuine? Were theywritten by the persons to whom they are ascribed? for it is uponthis ground only that the strange things related therein have beencredited. Upon this point there is no direct proof for or against, andall that this state of a case proves is doubtfulness, and doubtfulnessis the opposite of belief. The state, therefore, that the books arein, proves against themselves as far as this kind of proof can go. But exclusive of this, the presumption is that the books calledthe Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, werenot written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and that they areimpositions. The disordered state of the history in those fourbooks, the silence of one book upon matters related in the other,and the disagreement that is to be found among them, implies that

they are the production of some unconnected individuals, many

years after the things they pretend to relate, each of whom made

his own legend; and not the writings of men living intimately

together, as the men called the apostles are supposed to have

done - in fine, that they have been manufactured, as the books of

the Old Testament have been, by other persons than those whose

names they bear. The story of the angel announcing what the church calls theimmaculate conception is not so much as mentioned in the booksascribed to Mark and John; and is differently related in Matthew andLuke. The former says the angel appeared to Joseph; the latter says itwas to Mary; but either Joseph or Mary was the worst evidence thatcould have been thought of, for it was others that should havetestified for them, and not they for themselves. Were any girl that isnow with child to say, and even to swear it, that she was gottenwith child by a ghost, and that an angel told her so, would she bebelieved? Certainly she would not. Why, then, are we to believe thesame thing of another girl, whom we never saw, told by nobody knowswho, nor when, nor where? How strange and inconsistent it is, that thesame circumstance that would weaken the belief even of a probablestory, should be given as a motive for believing this one, that hasupon the face of it every token of absolute impossibility andimposture! The story of Herod destroying all the children under two yearsold, belongs altogether to the book of Matthew; not one of the restmentions anything about it. Had such a circumstance been true, theuniversality of it must have made it known to all the writers, and thething would have been too striking to have been omitted by any. Thiswriter tells us, that Jesus escaped this slaughter because Josephand Mary were warned by an angel to flee with him unto Egypt; but heforgot to make any provision for John, who was then under two years

of age. John, however, who stayed behind, fared as well as Jesus, whofled; and, therefore, the story circumstantially belies itself. Not any two of these writers agree in reciting, exactly in thesame words, the written inscription, short as it is, which they tellus was put over Christ when he was crucified; and besides this, Marksays: He was crucified at the third hour (nine in the morning), andJohn says it was the sixth hour (twelve at noon).* *According to John, the sentence was not passed till about thesixth hour (noon), and, consequently, the execution could not betill the afternoon; but Mark says expressly, that he was crucifiedat the third hour (nine in the morning), chap. xv, verse 25. John,chap. xix, verse 14. The inscription is thus stated in these books: MATTHEW. This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. MARK.... The king of the Jews. LUKE.... This is the king of the Jews. JOHN.... Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. We may infer from these circumstances, trivial as they are, thatthose writers, whoever they were, and in whatever time they lived,were not present at the scene. The only one of the men called apostleswho appears to have been near the spot was Peter, and when he wasaccused of being one of Jesus' followers, it is said, (Matthew,chap. xxvi., ver. 74,) "Then he [Peter] began to curse and to swear,saying, I know not the man!" yet we are now called upon to believe

the same Peter, convicted, by their own account, of perjury. For whatreason, or on what authority, shall we do this? The accounts that are given of the circumstances that they tell usattended the crucifixion are differently related in these four books. The book ascribed to Matthew says, chap. xxvii, v. 45, "Now fromthe sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninthhour." Ver. 51, 52, 53, "And, behold, the veil of the temple wasrent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, andthe rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of thesaints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after hisresurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many."Such is the account which this dashing writer of the book of Matthewgives, but in which he is not supported by the writers of the otherbooks. The writer of the book ascribed to Mark, in detailing thecircumstances of the crucifixion, makes no mention of anyearthquake, nor of the rocks rending, nor of the graves opening, norof the dead men walking out. The writer of the book of Luke issilent also upon the same points. And as to the writer of the bookof John, though he details all the circumstances of the crucifixiondown to the burial of Christ, he says nothing about either thedarkness- the veil of the temple- the earthquake- the rocks- thegraves- nor the dead men. Now, if it had been true that those things had happened, and ifthe writers of those books had lived at the time they did happen,and had been the persons they are said to be, namely, the four mencalled apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it was not possible forthem, as true historians, even without the aid of inspiration, notto have recorded them. The things, supposing them to have beenfacts, were of too much notoriety not to have been known, and of toomuch importance not to have been told. All these supposed apostlesmust have been witnesses of the earthquake, if there had been any;

for it was not possible for them to have been absent from it; theopening of the graves and the resurrection of the dead men, andtheir walking about the city, is of greater importance than theearthquake. An earthquake is always possible and natural, and provesnothing but this opening of the graves is supernatural, and directlyin point to their doctrine, their cause, and their apostleship. Had itbeen true, it would have filled up whole chapters of those books,and been the chosen theme and general chorus of all the writers; butinstead of this, little and trivial things, and mere prattlingconversations of, he said this, and he said that, are oftentediously detailed, while this, most important of all, had it beentrue, is passed off in a slovenly manner by a single dash of thepen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted at bythe rest. It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult tosupport the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of Matthewshould have told us who the saints were that came to life again, andwent into the city, and what became of them afterward, and who itwas that saw them- for he is not hardy enough to say he saw themhimself; whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff,he-saints and she-saints; or whether they came full dressed, and

where they got their dresses; whether they went to their former

habitations, and reclaimed their wives, their husbands, and their

property, and how they were received; whether they entered

ejectments for the recovery of their possessions, or brought actions

of crim. con. against the rival interlopers; whether they remained on

earth, and followed their former occupation of preaching or working;

or whether they died again, or went back to their graves alive, and

buried themselves. Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, andnobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and thatnot a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these saints have

anything to tell us! Had it been the prophets who (as we are told) had

formerly prophesied of these things, they must have had a great deal to

say. They could have told us everything and we should have had

posthumous prophecies, with notes and commentaries upon the first,

a little better at least than we have now. Had it been Moses and Aaron

and Joshua and Samuel and David, not an unconverted Jew had remained

in all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time

then present, everybody would have known them, and they would have

out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. But, instead of this,

these saints were made to pop up, like Jonah's gourd in the night, for no

purpose at all but to wither in the morning. Thus much for this part of the

story. The tale of the resurrection follows that of the crucifixion,and in this as well as in that, the writers, whoever they were,disagree so much as to make it evident that none of them were there. The book of Matthew states that when Christ was put in thesepulchre, the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a guard to beplaced over the sepulchre, to prevent the body being stolen by thedisciples; and that, in consequence of this request, the sepulchre wasmade sure, sealing the stone that covered the mouth, and setting awatch. But the other books say nothing about this application, norabout the sealing, nor the guard, nor the watch; and according totheir accounts, there were none. Matthew, however, follows up thispart of the story of the guard or the watch with a second part, that Ishall notice in the conclusion, as it serves to detect the fallacyof these books. The book of Matthew continues its account, and says (chap.xxviii., ver. 1) that at the end of the Sabbath, as it began todawn, toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and theother Mary, to see the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising, andJohn says it was dark. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna,

and Mary, the mother of James, and other women, that came to thesepulchre; and John states that Mary Magdalene came alone. So welldo they agree about their first evidence! they all, however, appear tohave known most about Mary Magdalene; she was a woman of a largeacquaintance, and it was not an ill conjecture that she might beupon the stroll. The book of Matthew goes on to say (ver. 2), "And behold there

was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from

heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat

upon it." But the other books say nothing about any earthquake, nor

about the angel rolling back the stone and sitting upon it, and

according to their account, there was no angel sitting there. Mark says

the angel was within the sepulchre, sitting on the right side. Luke says

there were two, and they were both standing up; and John says they

were both sitting down, one at the head and the other at the feet. Matthew says that the angel that was sitting upon the stone on theoutside of the sepulchre told the two Marys that Christ was risen, andthat the women went away quickly. Mark says that the women, uponseeing the stone rolled away, and wondering at it, went into thesepulchre, and that it was the angel that was sitting within on theright side, that told them so. Luke says it was the two angels thatwere standing up; and John says it was Jesus Christ himself thattold it to Mary Magdalene, and that she did not go into the sepulchre,but only stooped down and looked in. Now, if the writer of those four books had gone into a court ofjustice to prove an alibi (for it is of the nature of an alibi that ishere attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body bysupernatural means), and had they given their evidence in the samecontradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been indanger of having their ears cropped for perjury, and would have justlydeserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books thathave been imposed upon the world, as being given by divineinspiration, and as the unchangeable word of God. The writer of the book of Matthew, after giving this accountrelates a story that is not to be found in any of the other books, andwhich is the same I have just before alluded to. "Now," says he (that is, after the conversation the women had withthe angel sitting upon the stone), "behold some of the watch[meaning the watch that he had said had been placed over thesepulchre] came into the city, showed unto the chief priests all thethings that were done; and when they were assembled with the eldersand had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,saying, Say ye His disciples came by night, and stole him away whilewe slept; and if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuadehim, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they weretaught; and this saying [that his disciples stole him away] iscommonly reported among the Jews until this day." The expression, until this day, is an evidence that the bookascribed to Matthew was not written by Matthew, and that it had beenmanufactured long after the time and things of which it pretends totreat; for the expression implies a great length of interveningtime. It would be inconsistent in us to speak in this manner ofanything happening in our own time. To give therefore, intelligiblemeaning to the expression, we must suppose a lapse of some

generations at least, for this manner of speaking carries the mind

back to ancient time. The absurdity also of the story is worth noticing; for it showsthe writer of the book of Matthew to have been an exceedingly weak

and foolish man. He tells a story that contradicts itself in point ofpossibility; for through the guard, if there were any, might be madeto say that the body was taken away while they were asleep, and togive that as a reason for their not having prevented it, that samesleep must also have prevented their knowing how and by whom it

was done, and yet they are made to say, that it was the disciples

who did it. Were a man to tender his evidence of something that heshould say was done, and of the manner of doing it, and of theperson who did it, while he was asleep, and could know nothing ofthe matter, such evidence could not be received; it will do wellenough for Testament evidence, but not for anything where truth isconcerned. I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, thatrespects the pretended appearance of Christ after this pretendedresurrection. The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that wassitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to the twoMarys, chap. xxviii., ver. 7, "Behold Christ has gone before youinto Galilee, there shall ye see him; lo, I have told you." And thesame writer at the next two verses (8, 9), makes Christ himself tospeak to the same purpose to these women immediately after the

angel had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell it to thedisciples; and at the 16th verse it is said, "Then the elevendisciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus hadappointed them; and when they saw him, they worshiped him." But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very differentto this; for he says, chap. xx., ver. 19, "Then the same day atevening, being the first day of the week [that is, the same day thatChrist is said to have risen,] when the doors were shut where thedisciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stoodin the midst of them." According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee to meetJesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very time when,according to John, they were assembled in another place, and thatnot by appointment, but in secret, for fear of the Jews. The writer of the book of Luke contradicts that of Matthew morepointedly than John does; for he says expressly that the meeting wasin Jerusalem the evening of the same day that he [Christ] rose, andthat the eleven were there. See Luke, chap. xxiv, ver. 13, 33. Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposeddisciples the right of willful lying, that the writer of those bookscould be any of the eleven persons called disciples; for if, accordingto Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountainby his own appointment on the same day that he is said to haverisen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven; yet the

writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the

meeting was that same day, in a house in Jerusalem; and, on the

other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled

in a house in Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of that eleven;

yet Matthew says the meeting was in a mountain in Galilee, and

consequently the evidence given in those books destroys each other. The writer of the book of Mark says nothing about any meeting inGalilee; but he says, chap. xvi, ver. 12, that Christ, after hisresurrection, appeared in another form to two of them as they walkedinto the country, and that these two told it to the residue, who wouldnot believe them. Luke also tells a story in which he keeps Christemployed the whole day of this pretended resurrection, until theevening, and which totally invalidates the account of going to themountain in Galilee. He says that two of them, without saying whichtwo, went that same day to a village call Emmaus, three score furlongs(seven miles and a half) from Jerusalem, and that Christ, in disguise,went with them, and stayed with them unto the evening, and supped

with them, and then vanished out of their sight, and re-appeared thatsame evening at the meeting of the eleven in Jerusalem. This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of thispretended re-appearance of Christ is stated; the only point in whichthe writers agree, is the skulking privacy of that re-appearance;for whether it was in the recess of a mountain in Galilee, or ashut-up house in Jerusalem, it was still skulking. To what cause,then, are we to assign this skulking? On the one hand it is directlyrepugnant to the supposed or pretended end- that of convincing theworld that Christ had risen; and on the other hand, to have assertedthe publicity of it would have exposed the writers of those books topublic detection, and, therefore, they have been under the necessityof making it a private affair. As to the account of Christ being seen by more than five hundredat once, it is Paul only who says it, and not the five hundred who sayit for themselves. It is, therefore, the testimony of but one man, andthat, too, of a man who did not, according to the same account,believe a word of the matter himself at the time it is said to havehappened. His evidence, supposing him to have been the writer of the15th chapter of Corinthians, where this account is given, is like thatof a man who comes into a court of Justice to swear that what he hadsworn before is false. A man may often see reason, and he has, too,always the right of changing his opinion; but this liberty does notextend to matters of fact. I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven.Here all fear of the Jews, and of everything else, must necessarilyhave been out of the question: it was that which, if true, was to sealthe whole, and upon which the reality of the future mission of thedisciples was to rest for proof. Words, whether declarations orpromises, that passed in private, either in the recess of a mountainin Galilee or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even supposing themto have been spoken, could not be evidence in public; it was thereforenecessary that this last scene should preclude the possibility ofdenial and dispute, and that it should be, as I have stated in theformer part of the Age of Reason, as public and as visible as thesun at noonday; at least it ought to have been as public as thecrucifixion is reported to have been. But to come to the point. In the first place, the writer of the book of Matthew does not saya syllable about it; neither does the writer of the book of John. Thisbeing the case, it is not possible to suppose that those writers,who effect to be even minute in other matters, would have beensilent upon this, had it been true? The writer of the book of Markpasses it off in a careless, slovenly manner, with a single dash ofthe pen, as if he was tired of romancing or ashamed of the story. Soalso does the writer of Luke. And even between these two, there is notan apparent agreement as to the place where his final parting issaid to have been. The book of Mark says that Christ appeared to the eleven as theysat at meat, alluding to the meeting of the eleven at Jerusalem; hethen states the conversation that he says passed at that meeting;and immediately after says (as a school-boy would finish a dull story)"So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up

into heaven and sat on the right hand of God." But the writer of Luke

says, that the ascension was from Bethany; that he [Christ] led them

out as far as Bethany, and was parted from them, and was carried up

into heaven. So also was Mahomet; and as to Moses, the apostle Jude

says, ver. 9 "that Michael and the devil disputed about his body." While

we believe such fables as these, or either of them, we believeunworthily of the Almighty. I have now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed

to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and when it is considered that the

whole space of time from the crucifixion to what is called theascension is but a few days, apparently not more than three or four,and that all the circumstances are said to have happened nearlyabout the same spot, Jerusalem, it is, I believe, impossible to findin any story upon record so many and such glaring absurdities,contradictions and falsehoods as are in those books. They are morenumerous and striking than I had any expectation of finding when Ibegan this examination, and far more so than I had any idea of whenI wrote the former part of the Age of Reason. I had then neither Biblenor Testament to refer to, nor could I procure any. My ownsituation, even as to existence, was becoming every day moreprecarious, and as I was willing to leave something behind me on thesubject, I was obliged to be quick and concise. The quotations Ithen made were from memory only, but they are correct; and theopinions I have advanced in that work are the effect of the most clearand long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament areimpositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of JesusChrist being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrathof God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulousinventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty;

that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and meannow, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character,or the practice of what are called moral virtues- and that it wasupon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested allmy hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now- and so help me God. But to return to the subject. Though it is impossible, at thisdistance of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the writers of thosefour books (and this alone is sufficient to hold them in doubt, andwhere we doubt we do not believe), it is not difficult to ascertainnegatively that they were not written by the persons to whom theyare ascribed. The contradictions in those books demonstrate twothings: First, that the writers could not have been eye-witnesses andear-witnesses of the matters they relate, or they would have relatedthem without those contradictions; and consequently, that the bookshave not been written by the persons called apostles, who are

supposed to have been witnesses of this kind. Secondly, that the writers, whoever they were, have not acted inconcerted imposition; but each writer separately and individuallyfor himself, and without the knowledge of the other. The same evidence that applies to prove the one, applies equallyto prove both cases; that is, that the books were not written by themen called apostles, and also that they are not a concertedimposition. As to inspiration, it is altogether out of the question;we may as well attempt to unite truth and falsehood, as inspirationand contradiction. If four men are eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses to a scene, theywill, without any concert between them, agree as to time and placewhen and where that scene happened. Their individual knowledge ofthe thing, each one knowing it for himself, renders concert totallyunnecessary; the one will not say it was in a mountain in the country,and the other at a house in town: the one will not say it was atsunrise, and the other that it was dark. For in whatever place it was,at whatever time it was, they know it equally alike. And, on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they willmake their separate relations of that story agree and corroborate witheach other to support the whole. That concert supplies the want offact in the one case, as the knowledge of the fact supersedes, inthe other case, the necessity of a concert. The same contradictions,therefore, that prove that there has been no concert, prove alsothat the reporters had no knowledge of the fact (or rather of thatwhich they relate as a fact), and detect also the falsehood of theirreports. Those books, therefore, have neither been written by themen called apostles, nor by impostors in concert. How then have theybeen written? I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is much ofthat which is called willful lying, or lying originally, except in thecase of men setting up to be prophets, as in the Old Testament; forprophesying is lying professionally. In almost all other cases, itis not difficult to discover the progress by which even simplesupposition, with the aid of credulity, will, in time, grow into alie, and at last be told as a fact; and whenever we can find acharitable reason for a thing of this kind, we ought not to indulgea severe one. The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the storyof an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create invision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told ofthe assassination of Julius Caesar, not many years before; and theygenerally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the executionof innocent persons. In cases of this kind, compassion lends its aidand benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a little and a littlefurther till it becomes a most certain truth. Once start a ghost andcredulity fills up the history of its life, and assigns the cause ofits appearance! one tells it one way, another another way, tillthere are as many stories about the ghost and about the proprietorof the ghost, as there are about Jesus Christ in these four books. The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with thatstrange mixture of the natural and impossible that distinguisheslegendary tale from fact. He is represented as suddenly coming inand going out when the doors were shut, and of vanishing out ofsight and appearing again, as one would conceive of an unsubstantialvision; then again he is hungry, sits down to meat, and eats hissupper. But as those who tell stories of this kind never provide forall the cases, so it is here; they have told us that when he arosehe left his grave clothes behind him; but they have forgotten toprovide other clothes for him to appear in afterward, or to tell uswhat he did with them when he ascended- whether he stripped all off,or went up clothes and all. In the case of Elijah, they have beencareful enough to make him throw down his mantle; how it happened

not to be burned in the chariot of fire they also have not told us. Butas imagination supplies all deficiencies of this kind, we maysuppose, if we please, that it was made of salamander's wool. Those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical historymay suppose that the book called the New Testament has existed eversince the time of Jesus Christ, as they suppose that the booksascribed to Moses have existed ever since the time of Moses. But thefact is historically otherwise. There was no such book as the NewTestament till more than three hundred years after the time thatChrist is said to have lived. At what time the books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and Johnbegan to appear is altogether a matter of uncertainty. There is notthe least shadow of evidence of who the persons were that wrotethem, nor at what time they were written; and they might as wellhave been called by the names of any of the other supposed apostles,as by the names they are now called. The originals are not in thepossession of any Christian Church existing, any more than the twotables of stone written on, they pretend, by the finger of God, uponMount Sinai, and given to Moses, are in the possession of the Jews.And even if they were, there is no possibility of proving thehandwriting in either case. At the time those books were written therewas no printing, and consequently there could be no publication,otherwise than by written copies, which any man might make or alter

at pleasure, and call them originals.* Can we suppose it is consistentwith the wisdom of the Almighty, to commit himself and his will to

man upon such precarious means as these, or that it is consistent weshould pin our faith upon such uncertainties? We cannot make, noralter, nor even imitate so much as one blade of grass that he hasmade, and yet we can make or alter words of God as easily as wordsof man. *The former part of the “The Age of Reason” has not been published

in two years, and there is already an expression in it that is not mine.

The expression is, The book of Luke was carried by a majority of one voice

only. It may be true, but it is not I that have said it. Some person, who

might know of the circumstance, has added it in a note at the bottom of

the page of some of the editions, printed either in England or in America;

and the printers, after that, have placed it into the body of the work, and

made me the author of it. If this has happened within such a short space

of time, notwithstanding the aid of printing, which prevents the alteration

of copies individually, what may not have happened in a much greater

length of time, when there was no printing, and when any man who could

write could make a written copy, and call it an original by Matthew, Mark,

Luke, or John? About three hundred and fifty years after the time that Christis said to have lived, several writings of the kind I am speaking ofwere scattered in the hands of diverse individuals; and as thechurch had began to form itself into a hierarchy, or churchgovernment, with temporal powers, it set itself about collectingthem into a code, as we now see them, called The New Testament.

They decided by vote, as I have before said in the former part of

“The Age of Reason,” which of those writings, out of the collection

they had made, should be the word of God, and which should not.

The Rabbins of the Jews had decided, by vote, upon the books of

the Bible before. As the object of the church, as is the case in all nationalestablishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror themeans it used, it is consistent to suppose that the most miraculousand wonderful of the writings they had collected stood the best chanceof being voted. And as to the authenticity of the books, the votestands in the place of it, for it can be traced no higher. Disputes, however, ran high among the people then callingthemselves Christians; not only as to points of doctrine, but as tothe authenticity of the books. In the contest between the personscalled St. Augustine and Fauste, about the year 400, the lattersays: "The books called the Evangelists have been composed longafter the times of the apostles by some obscure men, who, fearing

that the world would not give credit to their relation of matters ofwhich they could not be informed, have published them under thenames of the apostles, and which are so full of sottishness anddiscordant relations, that there is neither agreement nor connectionbetween them." And in another place, addressing himself to the advocates of thosebooks, as being the word of God, he says, "It is thus that yourpredecessors have inserted in the scriptures of our Lord manythings, which, though they carry his name agrees not with hisdoctrines. This is not surprising, since that we have often provedthat these things have not been written by himself, nor by hisapostles, but that for the greater part they are founded upon tales,upon vague reports, and put together by I know not what, half-Jews,but with little agreement between them, and which they havenevertheless published under the names of the apostles of our Lord,and have thus attributed to them their own errors and their lies."* *I have these two extracts from Boulanger's Life of Paul,written in French. Boulanger has quoted them from the writings ofAugustine against Fauste, to which he refers. The reader will see by these extracts, that the authenticity ofthe books of the New Testament was denied, and the books treated astales, forgeries, and lies, at the time they were voted to be the wordof God.* But the interest of the church, with the assistance of thefagot, bore down the opposition, and at last suppressed allinvestigation. Miracles followed upon miracles, if we will believethem, and men were taught to say they believed whether they

believed or not. But (by way of throwing in a thought) the French

Revolution has excommunicated the church from the power of

working miracles; she has not been able, with the assistance of all

her saints, to work one miracle since the revolution began; and as

she never stood in greater need than now, we may, without the aid

of divination, conclude that all her former miracles were tricks and lies. *Boulanger, in his Life of Paul, has collected from theecclesiastical histories, and from the writings of fathers, as theyare called, several matters which show the opinions that prevailedamong the different sects of Christians at the time the Testament,as we now see it, was voted to be the word of God. The followingextracts are from the second chapter of that work. "The Marcionists, (a Christian sect,) assumed that the evangelistswere filled with falsities. The Manicheans, who formed a very numerous

sect at the commencement of Christianity, rejected as false all the

New Testament, and showed other writings quite different that they

gave for authentic. The Cerinthians, like the Marcionists, admittednot the Acts of the Apostles. The Encratites, and the Severians,adopted neither the Acts nor the Epistles of Paul. Chrysostom, in ahomily which he made upon the Acts of the Apostles, says that in histime, about the year 400, many people knew nothing either of theauthor or of the book. St. Irene, who lived before that time,reports that the Valentinians, like several other sects of Christians,accused the scriptures of being filled with imperfections, errors, andcontradictions. The Ebionites, or Nazarines, who were the firstChristians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul and regarded him as animpostor. They report, among other things, that he was originally apagan, that he came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time; and thathaving a mind to marry the daughter of the high priest, he causedhimself to be circumcised: but that not being able to obtain her, hequarreled with the Jews and wrote against circumcision, and againstthe observance of the sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances. When we consider the lapse of more than three hundred yearsintervening between the time that Christ is said to have lived and thetime the New Testament was formed into a book, we must see, evenwithout the assistance of historical evidence, the exceedinguncertainty there is of its authenticity. The authenticity of the bookof Homer, so far as regards the authorship, is much better establishedthan that of the New Testament, though Homer is a thousand years

the most ancient. It is only an exceedingly good poet that could havewritten the book of Homer, and therefore few men only could haveattempted it; and a man capable of doing it would not have thrown

away his own fame by giving it to another. In like manner, there were

but few that could have composed Euclid's Elements, because none but

an exceedingly good geometrician could have been the author of that work. But with respect to the books of the New Testament, particularlysuch parts as tell us of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, anyperson who could tell a story of an apparition, or of a man'swalking could have made such books; for the story is most wretchedlytold. The chance, therefore, of forgery in the Testament, ismillions to one greater than in the case of Homer or Euclid. Of thenumerous priests or parsons of the present day, bishops and all, everyone of them can make a sermon, or translate a scrap of Latin,especially if it had been translated a thousand times before; but isthere any among them that can write poetry like Homer, or science

like Euclid? The sum total of a person's learning, with very fewexceptions, is a b ab, and hic haec, hoc; and their knowledge ofscience is three times one is three; and this is more thansufficient to have enabled them, had they lived at the time, to havewritten all the books of the New Testament. As the opportunities of forgeries were greater, so also was theinducement. A man could gain no advantage by writing under the name

of Homer or Euclid; if he could write equal to them, it would be better

that he wrote under his own name; if inferior, he could not succeed.

Pride would prevent the former, and impossibility the latter. But with

respect to such books as compose the New Testament, all theinducements were on the side of forgery. The best imagined historythat could have been made, at the distance of two or three hundredyears after the time, could not have passed for an original underthe name of the real writer; the only chance of success lay inforgery, for the church wanted pretence for its new doctrine, andtruth and talents were out of the question. But as is not uncommon (as before observed) to relate stories ofpersons walking after they are dead, and of ghosts and apparitionsof such as have fallen by some violent or extraordinary means; andas the people of that day were in the habit of believing suchthings, and of the appearance of angels, and also of devils, and oftheir getting into people's insides and shaking them like a fit ofan ague, and of their being cast out again as if by an emetic- (MaryMagdalene, the book of Mark tells us, has brought up, or beenbrought to bed of seven devils)- it was nothing extraordinary thatsome story of this kind should get abroad of the person called JesusChrist, and become afterward the foundation of the four books

ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each writer told the tale

as he heard it, or thereabouts, and gave to his book the name of the

saint or the apostle whom tradition had given as the eye-witness. It

is only upon this ground that the contradiction in those books can beaccounted for; and if this be not the case, they are downrightimpositions, lies and forgeries, without even the apology ofcredulity. That they have been written by a sort of half Jews, as theforegoing quotations mention, is discernable enough. The frequentreferences made to that chief assassin and impostor, Moses, and to

the men called prophets, establish this point; and, on the other band,

the church has complemented the fraud by admitting the Bible and theTestament to reply to each other. Between the Christian Jew and theChristian Gentile, the thing called a prophecy and the thingprophesied, the type and the thing typified, the sign and the thingsignified, have been industriously rummaged up and fitted together,like old locks and pick-lock keys. The story foolishly enough toldof Eve and the serpent, and naturally enough as to the enmitybetween men and serpents (for the serpent always bites about the heel,

because it cannot reach higher; and the man always knocks theserpent about the head, as the most effectual way to prevent itsbiting*) this foolish story, I say, has been made into a prophecy, atype, and a promise to begin with; and the lying imposition ofIsaiah to Ahaz, That a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, as a signthat Ahaz should conquer, when the event was that he was defeated(as already noticed in the observations on the book of Isaiah), hasbeen perverted and made to serve as a winder up. *It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis,chap. iii, verse 15. Jonah and the whale are also made into a sign or a type. Jonahis Jesus, and the whale is the grave; for it is said (and they havemade Christ to say it of himself), Matt. chap. xii, ver. 40, "For asJonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shallthe Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of theearth." But it happens, awkwardly enough, that Christ, according totheir own account, was but one day and two nights in the grave;about 36 hours, instead of 72; that is, the Friday night, theSaturday, and the Saturday night; for they say he was up on the

Sunday morning by sunrise, or before. But as this fits quite as well

as the bite and the kick in Genesis, or the virgin and her son in Isaiah,it will pass in the lump of orthodox things. Thus much for thehistorical part of the Testament and its evidences. Epistles of Paul.- The epistles ascribed to Paul, being fourteenin number, almost fill up the remaining part of the Testament. Whether

those epistles were written by the person to whom they are ascribed is

a matter of no great importance, since the writer, whoever he was,

attempts to prove his doctrine by argument. He does not pretend to have

been witness to any of the scenes told of the resurrection and the

ascension, and he declares that he had not believed them. The story of his being struck to the ground as he was journeyingto Damascus has nothing in it miraculous or extraordinary; heescaped with life, and that is more than many others have done, whohave been struck with lightning; and that he should lose his sight forthree days, and be unable to eat or drink during that time, is nothingmore than is common in such conditions. His companions that werewith him appear not to have suffered in the same manner, for they were

well enough to lead him the remainder of the journey; neither did they

pretend to have seen any vision. The character of the person called Paul, according to the accountsgiven of him, has in it a great deal of violence and fanaticism; hehad persecuted with as much heat as he preached afterward; thestroke he had received had changed his thinking, without alteringhis constitution; and either as a Jew or a Christian, he was thesame zealot. Such men are never good moral evidences of any doctrine

they preach. They are always in extremes, as well of actions as of belief. The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument is theresurrection of the same body, and he advances this as an evidenceof immortality. But so much will men differ in their manner ofthinking, and in the conclusions they draw from the same premises,that this doctrine of the resurrection of the same body, so far frombeing an evidence of immortality, appears to me to furnish an evidence

against it; for if I have already died in this body, and am raised again in

the same body in which I have lived, it is a presumptive evidence that I

shall die again. That resurrection no more secures me against the

repetition of dying, than an ague-fit, when passed, secures me against

another. To believe, therefore, in immortality, I must have a more

elevated idea than is contained in the gloomy doctrine of the resurrection. Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had ratherhave a better body and a more convenient form than the present.Every animal in the creation excels us in something. The wingedinsects, without mentioning doves or eagles, can pass over morespace and with greater ease in a few minutes than man can in anhour. The glide of the smallest fish, in proportion to its bulk,exceeds us in motion almost beyond comparison, and withoutweariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend from the bottom of adungeon, where a man, by the want of that ability, would perish; and

a spider can launch itself from the top, as a playful amusement. Thepersonal powers of man are so limited, and his heavy frame so littleconstructed to extensive enjoyment, that there is nothing to induce usto wish the opinion of Paul to be true. It is too little for themagnitude of the scene- too mean for the sublimity of the subject. But all other arguments apart, the consciousness of existence isthe only conceivable idea we can have of another life, and thecontinuance of that consciousness is immortality. The consciousness ofexistence, or the knowing that we exist, is not necessarily confinedto the same form, nor to the same matter, even in this life. We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the samematter that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years ago; and yet

we are conscious of being the same persons. Even legs and arms,

which make up almost half the human frame, are not necessary to theconsciousness of existence. These may be lost or taken away, and thefull consciousness of existence remain; and were their placesupplied by wings, or other appendages, we cannot conceive that itwould alter our consciousness of existence. In short, we know nothow much, or rather how little, of our composition it is, and howexquisitely fine that little is, that creates in us this consciousnessof existence; and all beyond that is like the pulp of a peach,distinct and separate from the vegetative speck in the kernel. Who can say by what exceedingly fine action of fine matter it isthat a thought is produced in what we call the mind? and yet thatthought when produced, as I now produce the thought I am writing, iscapable of becoming immortal, and is the only production of man thathas that capacity. Statues of brass or marble will perish; and statues made inimitation of them are not the same statues, nor the sameworkmanship, any more than the copy of a picture is the samepicture. But print and reprint a thought a thousand times over, andthat with materials of any kind- carve it in wood or engrave it onstone, the thought is eternally and identically the same thought inevery case. It has a capacity of unimpaired existence, unaffected bychange of matter, and is essentially distinct and of a naturedifferent from every thing else that we know or can conceive. If,then, the thing produced has in itself a capacity of being immortal,it is more than a token that the power that produced it, which isthe self-same thing as consciousness of existence, can be immortalalso; and that as independently of the matter it was first connectedwith, as the thought is of the printing or writing it first appearedin. The one idea is not more difficult to believe than the other,and we can see that one is true. That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the sameform or the same matter is demonstrated to our senses in the worksof the creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving thatdemonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches

to us, far better that Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their littlelife resembles an earth and a heaven- a present and a future state,and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature. The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the wingedinsects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form andthat inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow andcreeping caterpillar-worm of to-day passes in a few days to a torpidfigure and a state resembling death; and in the next change comesforth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly.No resemblance of the former creature remains; everything ischanged; all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing.We cannot conceive that the consciousness of existence is not the

same in this state of the animal as before; why then must I believe

that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue to

me the consciousness of existence hereafter? In the former part of the Age of Reason I have called the creationthe only true and real word of God; and this instance, or this text,in the book of creation, not only shows to us that this thing may beso, but that it is so; and that the belief of a future state is arational belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation; for it isnot more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in abetter state and form than at present, than that a worm shouldbecome a butterfly, and quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if wedid not know it as a fact. As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in the 15th chapterof I. Corinthians, which makes part of the burial service of someChristian sectaries, it is as destitute of meaning as the tolling of abell at a funeral; it explains nothing to the understanding- itillustrates nothing to the imagination, but leaves the reader tofind any meaning if he can. "All flesh (says he) is not the sameflesh. There is one flesh of men; another of beast; another of fishes;and another of birds." And what then?- nothing. A cook could havesaid as much. "There are also (says he) bodies celestial, and bodiesterrestrial; the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of theterrestrial is another." And what then?- nothing. And what is thedifference? nothing that he has told. "There is (says he) one glory ofthe sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of thestars." And what then?- nothing; except that he says that one stardiffereth from another star in glory, instead of distance; and hemight as well have told us that the moon did not shine so bright asthe sun. All this is nothing better than the jargon of a conjuror, whopicks up phrases he does not understand, to confound the credulouspeople who have come to have their fortunes told. Priests andconjurors are of the same trade. Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist and to prove hissystem of resurrection from the principles of vegetation. "Thoufool, (says he), that which thou sowest is not quickened, except itdie." To which one might reply in his own language and say, "Thoufool, Paul, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it dienot; for the grain that dies in the ground never does, nor canvegetate. It is only the living grains that produce the next crop."But the metaphor, in any point of view, is no simile. It issuccession, and not resurrection. The progress of an animal from one state of being to another, asfrom a worm to a butterfly, applies to the case; but this of a graindoes not, and shows Paul to have been what he says of others, a fool. Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by himor not, is a matter of indifference; they are either argumentativeor dogmatical; and as the argument is defective and the dogmaticalpart is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them. And thesame may be said for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is notupon the epistles, but upon what is called the Gospel, contained inthe four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and uponthe pretended prophecies, that the theory of the church calling itselfthe Christian Church is founded. The epistles are dependent uponthose, and must follow their fate; for if the story of Jesus Christ befabulous, all reasoning founded upon it as a supposed truth mustfall with it. We know from history that one of the principal leaders of thischurch, Athanasius, lived at the time the New Testament was

formed;* and we know also, from the absurd jargon he left us under

the name of a creed, the character of the men who formed the New

Testament; and we know also from the same history that the

authenticity of the books of which it is composed was denied at the

time. It was upon the vote of such as Athanasius, that the Testament

was decreed to be the word of God; and nothing can present to us a

more strange idea than that of decreeing the word of God by vote.

Those who rest their faith upon such authority put man in the place of

God, and have no foundation for future happiness; credulity, however,

is not a crime, but it becomes criminal by resisting conviction. It is

strangling in the womb of the conscience the efforts it makes to ascertain

truth. We should never force belief upon ourselves in anything. *Athanasius died, according to the Church chronology, in theyear 371. I here close the subject of the Old Testament and the New. Theevidence I have produced to prove them forgeries is extracted from the

books themselves, and acts, like a two-edged sword, either way. If the

evidence be denied, the authenticity of the scriptures is deniedwith it; for it is scripture evidence; and if the evidence beadmitted, the authenticity of the books is disproved. Thecontradictory impossibilities contained in the Old Testament and theNew, put them in the case of a man who swears for and against.Either evidence convicts him of perjury, and equally destroysreputation. Should the Bible and the New Testament hereafter fall, it is not Ithat have been the occasion. I have done no more than extracted theevidence from the confused mass of matter with which it is mixed,and arranged that evidence in a point of light to be clearly seenand easily comprehended; and, having done this, I leave the readerto judge for himself, as I have judged for myself. CHAPTER III Conclusion In the former part of “The Age of Reason” I have spoken of the three

frauds, mystery, miracle, and prophecy; and as I have seen nothing in

any of the answers to that work that in the least affects what I have

there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber this Second Part

with additions that are not necessary. I have spoken also in the same work upon what is calledrevelation, and have shown the absurd misapplication of that term tothe books of the Old Testament and the New; for certainly revelationis out of the question in reciting anything of which man has beenthe actor or the witness. That which a man has done or seen, needsno revelation to tell him he had done it or seen it, for he knows italready; nor to enable him to tell it or to write it. It isignorance or imposition to apply the term revelation in such cases:yet the Bible and Testament are classed under this fraudulentdescription of being all revelation. Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God andman, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will toman; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a

communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things

are possible, yet the thing so revealed (if anything ever was revealed,

and which, bye the bye, it is impossible to prove), is revelation to the

person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another person is

not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the

man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been

deceived, or may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may

lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what

he tells, for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all

such cases the proper answer would be, "When it is revealed to me, I will

believe it to be a revelation; but it is not, and cannot be incumbent upon

me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that I should

take the word of a man as the word of God, and put man in the place of

God." This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former

part of "The Age of Reason;" and which, while it reverentially admitsrevelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to theAlmighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of oneman upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretendedrevelation. But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility ofrevelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever didcommunicate anything to man, by any mode of speech, in any

language, or by any kind of vision, or appearance, or by any

means which our senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than

by the universal display of himself in the works of the creation, and

by that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and the

disposition to do good ones. The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and thegreatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had theirorigin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It hasbeen the most dishonorable belief against the character of theDivinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happinessof man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It isbetter, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, athousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly thedoctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted onesuch impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bibleprophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, andhave credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations ofmen, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled, and thebloody persecutions and tortures unto death, and religious wars,that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes- whencerose they but from this impious thing called revealed religion, andthis monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of theBible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament ofthe other. Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not established bythe sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible

that twelve men could begin with the sword; they had not the power;

but no sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently powerful

to employ the sword, than they did so, and the stake and fagot, too;

and Mahomet could not do it sooner. By the same spirit that Peter cut

off the ear of the high priest's servant (if the story be true), he would

have cut off his head, and the head of his master, had he been able.

Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the Bible, and the

Bible was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use

of it- not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts; they

butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the Testament, and both are called

the word of God. The Christians read both books; the ministers preach

from both books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of both.

It is then false to say that Christianity was not established by the sword. The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers; and theonly reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deiststhan Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they

call the scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them by a worse name,

they had been nearer the truth. It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of theCreator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificialmiseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thickamong mankind, to expel all ideas of revealed religion, as a dangerousheresy and an impious fraud. What is that we have learned from thispretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful toman, and everything that is dishonorable to his maker. What is itthe Bible teaches us?- rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it theTestament teaches us?- to believe that the Almighty committeddebauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief ofthis debauchery is called faith. As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinlyscattered in these books, they make no part of this pretended thing,revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, andthe bonds by which society is held together, and without which itcannot exist, and are nearly the same in all religions and in allsocieties. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, andwhere it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. Thedoctrine of not retaliating injuries is much better expressed inProverbs, which is a collection as well from the Gentiles as the Jews,than it is in the Testament. It is there said, Proverbs xxv, ver.21, "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he bethirsty, give him water to drink;"* but when it is said, as in theTestament, "If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him theother also;" it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, andsinking man into a spaniel. *According to what is called Christ's sermon on the mount, inthe book of Matthew, where, among some other good things, a great

deal of this feigned morality is introduced, it is there expressly said,that the doctrine of forbearance, or of not retaliating injuries,was not any part of the doctrine of the Jews; but as this doctrineis found in Proverbs it must, according to that statement, have beencopied from the Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it. Thosemen, whom Jewish and Christian idolaters have abusively calledheathens, had much better and clearer ideas of justice and moralitythan are to be found in the Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish;or in the New. The answer of Solon on the question, Which is themost perfect popular government? has never been exceeded by any

one since his time, as containing a maxim of political morality. "That,"says he, "where the least injury done to the meanest individual, isconsidered as an insult on the whole constitution." Solon livedabout 500 years before Christ. Loving enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and hasbesides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that hedoes not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a politicalsense, for there is no end to retaliation, each retaliates on theother, and calls it justice; but to love in proportion to theinjury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for crime.Besides the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in amoral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like aproverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake andprejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes inpolitics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminalintention; and it is incumbent upon as, and it contributes also to ourown tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thingthat it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes nomotive for love on the other part; and to say that we can lovevoluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physicallyimpossible. Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the firstplace, are impossible to be performed; and, if they could be, would beproductive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. Themaxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include thisstrange doctrine of loving enemies: for no man expects to be lovedhimself for his crime or for his enmity. Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies are ingeneral the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by sodoing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural thathypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my ownpart I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulousmorality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecutedhim, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution,or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returnedevil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man to reward a bad actionwith a good one, or to return good for evil; and whenever it isdone, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty. It is also absurd tosuppose that such doctrine can make any part of a revealed religion.We imitate the moral character of the Creator by forbearing witheach other, for he forbears with all; but this doctrine would implythat he loved man, not in proportion as he was good, but as he wasbad. If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see thereis no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it wewant to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach

to us the existence of an Almighty Power that governs and regulates

the whole? And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to oursenses infinitely stronger than anything we can read in a book thatany impostor might make and call the word of God? As for morality,

the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience. Here we are. The existence of an Almighty Power is sufficientlydemonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impossiblewe should, the nature and manner of its existence. We cannotconceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact thatwe are here. We must know also that the power that called us intobeing, can, if he please, and when he pleases, call us to accountfor the manner in which we have lived here; and, therefore, withoutseeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believethat he will, for we know beforehand that he can. The probability oreven possibility of the thing is all that we ought to know; for ifwe knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves of terror; ourbelief would have no merit, and our best actions no virtue. Deism, then, teaches us, without the possibility of beingdeceived, all that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation isthe Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of theCreator himself, the certainty of his existence and the immutabilityof his power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to himforgeries. The probability that we may be called to accounthereafter will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief;for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake thefact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we shouldbe in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher,or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no God. But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with thestrange fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adventuresrelated in the Bible, and of the obscurity and obscene nonsense of theTestament, that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog. Viewing allthese things in a confused mass, he confounds fact with fable; andas he cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject all. Butthe belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other things, andought not to be confounded with any. The notion of a Trinity of Godshas enfeebled the belief of one God. A multiplication of beliefsacts as a division of belief; and in proportion as anything is dividedit is weakened. Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form, instead offact- of notion, instead of principles; morality is banished to makeroom for an imaginary thing called faith, and this faith has itsorigin in a supposed debauchery; a man is preached instead of God;an execution is an object for gratitude; the preachers daub themselveswith the blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire thebrilliancy it gives them; they preach a humdrum sermon on the meritsof the execution; then praise Jesus Christ for being executed, andcondemn the Jews for doing it. A man, by hearing all this nonsenselumped and preached together, confounds the God of the creation withthe imagined God of the Christians, and lives as if there were none. Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there isnone more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, morerepugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thingcalled Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible toconvince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the hearttorpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine ofpower it serves the purpose of despotism; and as a means of wealth,the avarice of priests; but so far as respects the good of man ingeneral, it leads to nothing here or hereafter. The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in itevery evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple Deism. Itmust have been the first, and will probably be the last, that manbelieves. But pure and simple Deism does not answer the purpose ofdespotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine,but by mixing it with human inventions, and making their own authority

a part; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but byincorporating themselves and their functions with it, and becoming,like the government, a party in the system. It is this that formsthe otherwise mysterious connection of church and state; the churchhumane, and the state tyrannic. Were man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be withthe belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force ofthat belief; he would stand in awe of God and of himself, and wouldnot do the thing that could not be concealed from either. To give thisbelief the full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it actsalone. This is Deism. But when, according to the Christian Trinitarianscheme, one part of God is represented by a dying man, and anotherpart called the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossiblethat belief can attach itself to such wild conceits.* *The book called the book of Matthew says, chap, iii, verse 16,that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as wellhave said a goose; the creatures are equally harmless, and the oneis as much of a nonsensical lie as the other. The second of Acts,verse, 2, 3, says that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in theshape of cloven tongues, perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd stuffis only fit for tales of witches and wizards. It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all theother invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of theCreator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of hisrights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, andare calculated for mutual support. The study of theology, as it standsin Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded onnothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities;it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of noconclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science, without ourbeing in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and asthis is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore thestudy of nothing. Instead then, of studying theology, as is now done, out of theBible and Testament, the meanings of which books are alwayscontroverted and the authenticity of which is disproved, it isnecessary that we refer to the Bible of the creation. The principleswe discover there are eternal and of divine origin; they are thefoundation of all the science that exists in the world, and must bethe foundation of theology. We can know God only through his works. We cannot have aconception of any one attribute but by following some principle thatleads to it. We have only a confused idea of his power, if we have notthe means of comprehending something of its immensity. We can haveno idea of his wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in which it

acts. The principles of science lead to this knowledge; for theCreator of man is the Creator of science; and it is through thatmedium that man can see God, as it were, face to face. Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed with the powerof vision, to behold at one view, and to contemplate deliberately, thestructure of the universe; to mark the movements of the severalplanets, the cause of their varying appearances, the unerring order inwhich they revolve, even to the remotest comet; their connection anddependence on each other, and to know the system of laws established

by the Creator, that governs and regulates the whole, he would then

conceive, far beyond what any church theology can teach him, the power,

the wisdom, the vastness, the munificence of the Creator; he would then

see, that all the knowledge man has of science, and that all the mechanical

arts by which he renders his situation comfortable here, are derived from

that source; his mind, exalted by the scene, and convinced by the fact,

would increase in gratitude as it increased in knowledge; his religion or his

worship would become united with his improvement as a man; any employment

he followed, that had any connection with the principles of the creation, as

everything of agriculture, of science and of the mechanical arts has, would

teach him more of God, and of the gratitude he owes to him, than any

theological Christian sermon he now hears. Great objects inspire great thoughts;

great munificence excites great gratitude; but the groveling tales and doctrines

of the Bible and the Testament are fit only to excite contempt. Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actualscene I have described, he can demonstrate it, because he has aknowledge of the principles upon which the creation is constructed.*We know that the works can be represented in model, and that theuniverse can be represented by the same means. The same principlesby which we measure an inch, or an acre of ground, will measure tomillions in extent. A circle of an inch diameter has the samegeometrical properties as a circle that would circumscribe theuniverse. The same properties of a triangle that will demonstrate uponpaper the course of a ship, will do it on the ocean; and whenapplied to what are called the heavenly bodies, will ascertain to aminute the time of an eclipse, though these bodies are millions ofmiles from us. This knowledge is of divine origin, and it is fromthe Bible of the creation that man has learned it, and not from thestupid Bible of the church, that teacheth man nothing. *The Bible-makers have undertaken to give us, in the first chapterof Genesis, an account of the creation; and in doing this, they havedemonstrated nothing but their ignorance. They make there to have

been three days and three nights, evenings and mornings, before there

was a sun; when it is the presence or absence of the sun that is the

cause of day and night, and what is called his rising and setting that

of morning and evening. Besides, it is a puerile and pitiful idea, tosuppose the Almighty to say, Let there be light. It is the imperative

manner of speaking that a conjuror uses when he says to his cups

and balls, Presto, begone, and most probably has been taken from it;

as Moses and his rod are a conjuror and his wand. Longinus calls this

expression the sublime; and by the same rule, the conjuror is sublime

too, for the manner of speaking is expressively and grammatically the

same. When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how

nearly it borders on the ridiculous. The sublime of the critics, like some

parts of Edmund Burke's Sublime and Beautiful, is like a windmill just

visible in a fog, which imagination might distort into a flying mountain,

or an archangel, or a flock of wild geese. All the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by theaid of which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth, andwithout which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appearance andcondition from a common animal, comes from the great machine andstructure of the universe. The constant and unwearied observationsof our ancestors upon the movements and revolutions of the heavenlybodies, in what are supposed to have been the early ages of the world,have brought this knowledge upon earth. It is not Moses and theprophets, nor Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, that have done it. TheAlmighty is the great mechanic of the creation; the firstphilosopher and original teacher of all science. Let us, then, learnto reverence our master, and let us not forget the labors of ourancestors. Had we, at this day, no knowledge of machinery, and were itpossible that man could have a view, as I have before described, ofthe structure and machinery of the universe, he would soon conceivethe idea of constructing some at least of the mechanical works wenow have; and the idea so conceived would progressively advance inpractice. Or could a model of the universe, such as is called anorrery, be presented before him and put in motion, his mind wouldarrive at the same idea. Such an object and such a subject would,while it improved him in knowledge useful to himself as a man and amember of society, as well as entertaining, afford far better matterfor impressing him with a knowledge of, and a belief in, theCreator, and of the reverence and gratitude that man owes to him,

than the stupid texts of the Bible and of the Testament from which, bethe talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons canbe preached. If man must preach, let him preach something that isedifying, and from texts that are known to be true. The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every part ofscience, whether connected with the geometry of the universe, with

the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the properties ofinanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for philosophy -for gratitude as for human improvement. It will perhaps be said, thatif such a revolution in the system of religion takes place, everypreacher ought to be a philosopher. Most certainly; and every house ofdevotion a school of science. It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science, andthe right use of reason, and setting up an invented thing calledrevealed religion, that so many wild and blasphemous conceits havebeen formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him the assassin ofthe human species to make room for the religion of the Jews. TheChristians have made him the murderer of himself and the founder ofa new religion, to supersede and expel the Jewish religion. And tofind pretence and admission for these things, they must havesupposed his power or his wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable;and the changeableness of the will is imperfection of the judgement.The philosopher knows that the laws of the Creator have neverchanged with respect either to the principles of science, or theproperties of matter. Why, then, is it supposed they have

changed with respect to man? I here close the subject. I have shown in all the foregoingparts of this work, that the Bible and Testament are impositions andforgeries; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it, tobe refuted, if any one can do it: and I leave the ideas that aresuggested in the conclusion of the work, to rest on the mind of thereader; certain as I am, that when opinions are free, either inmatters of government or religion, truth will finally and powerfullyprevail.

Edited February 29, 2008 by TTK

[By-Tor]

This thread is probably not all bad, but to quote our forum rules:

6] Anything discussions regarding politics and/or religion in anyway will be closed or deleted unless determined to be pertinent by admins/mods.

I guess everyone made their points clear already, so I think this is a good moment to close this thread.