chapter v. verse 2, is speaking of some person, without

mentioning his name, from whom some great achieve- ments were expected ; but the description he gives of this person at the 5th verse proves evidently that it is not Jesus Christ, for he says at the 5th verse, "And this ma?i shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land : and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we rais.e against him (that is, against the Assyrian) seven shepherds, and eight principal men. Ver. 6, And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he (the person spoken of at the head of the second verse) deliver us from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders. ' '
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This is SO evidently descriptive of a military chief, that it cannot be applied to Christ without out- raging the character they pretend to give us of him. Besides, which, the circumstances of the times here spoken of, and those of the times in which Christ is said to have lived, are in contradiction to each other. It was the Romans and not the Assyrians, that had conquered and were in the /and of Judea.^ and trod in their palaces when Christ was born, and when he died ; and so far from his driving them out, it was they who signed the warrant for his execution, and he suffered under it.
Having thus shown that this is no prophecy of Jesus Christ, I pass on to the third passage quoted from the Old Testament by the New as a prophecy of him.
This, like the first I have spoken of, is introduced by a dream. Joseph dreameth another dream, and dreameth that he seeth another angel. The account begins at the 13th verse of 2nd chap, of Matthew.
' ' The angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt : and was there until the death of Herod : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son."
This passage is in the book of Hosea, chap. xi. ver. i. The words are, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them : they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images."
This passage, falsely called a prophecy of Christ, refers to the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of Pharaoh, and to the idolatry they committed afterwards. To make it apply to Jesus Christ, he then must be the
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person who "sacrificed unto Baalim and burnt incense to graven images ;" for the person called out of Egypt by the collective name Israel, and the persons committing this idolatry, are the same persons, or the descendants of them. This then can be no prophecy of Jesus Christ unless they are willing to make an idolator of him. I pass on to the fourth passage called a prophecy by the writer of the book of Matthew.
This is introduced by a story told by nobody but him- self, and scarcely believed by any body, of the slaughter of all the children under two years old, by the command of Herod : a thing which it is not probable could be done by Herod, as he only held an office under the Roman government, to which appeals could always be had, as we see in the case of Paul.
Matthew, however, having made or told this story, says, chap. ii. ver. 17, "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard^ lamentation^ and weepings and great mournings Rachel weeping for her children^ and would 7iot be comforted^ because they are not.
This passage is in Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15; and this verse, when separated from the verses before and after it, and which explain its application, might with equal propriety be applied to every case of wars, sieges, and other violences, such as the Christians themselves have often done to the Jews, where mothers have lamented the loss of their children. There is nothing in the verse taken singly that designates or points out any particular application of it, otherwise than that it points to some circumstances which, at the time of writing it, had already happened, and not to a thing yet to happen, for the verse is in the preter or past tense. I go to explain the case, and show the application of the verse.
Jeremiah lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar be- sieged, took, plundered, and destroyed Jerusalem, and
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led the Jews captive to Babylon. He carried his violence against the Jews to every extreme. He slew the sons of king Zedekiah before his face ; he then put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and kept him in prison till the day of his death.
It is of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jeremiah is speaking. Their temple was destroyed, their land desolated, their nation and government entirely broken up, and themselves, men, women, and children, carried into captivity. They had too many sorrows of their own immediately before their eyes, to permit them, or any of their chiefs, to be employing themselves on things that might, or might not, happen in the world seven hundred years afterwards.
It is, as already observed, of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jeremiah is speaking in the verse in question. In the two next verses, the 16th and 17th, he endeavors to console the sufferers by giving them hopes, and, according to the fashion of speaking in those days, assurances from the I^ord that their sufferings should have an end, and that their children should return again to their own land. But I leave the verses to speak for themselves, and the Old Testament to testify against the New.
Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15. — " Thus said the lyord, A voice was heard in Ramah, (it is in the preter tense) lamentation and bitter weeping : Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.
Verse 16. — "Thus said the I^ord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the lyord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
Verse 17. — " And there is hope in thine end, saith the lyord, and\)oLy children shall come again to their own border. ' ''
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By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the children of which Jeremiah speaks (meaning the people of the Jewish nation, scripturally called children of Israel, and not mere infants under two years old), and who were to return again from the land of the enemy, and come again into their own borders, can mean the children that Matthew makes Herod to slaughter? Could those return again from the land of the enemy, or how can the land of the enemy be applied to them? Could they come to their own borders? Good Heavens ! how has the world been imposed upon by Testament-makers, priestcraft and pre- tended prophecies ! I pass on to the fifth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
This, like two of the former, is introduced by a dream. Joseph dreamed another dream, and dreameth of another angel. And Matthew is again the historian of the dream and the dreamer. If it were asked how Matthew could know what Joseph dreamed, neither the Bishop nor all the Church could answer the question. Perhaps it was Matthew that dreamed and not Joseph ; that is, Joseph dreamed by proxy, in Matthew's brain, as they tell us Daniel dreamed for Nebuchadnezzar. But be this as it may, I go on with my subject.
The account of this dream is in Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 19 to 23. "But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel ; for they are dead which sought the young child's life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither : notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, (here is another dream,) he turned aside into the parts of Galilee : and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled which
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was Spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."
Here is good circumstancial evidence that Matthew dreamed, for there is no such passage in all the Old Testament ; and I invite the Bishop and all the priests in Christendom, including those of America, to produce it. I pass on to the sixth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
This, as Swift says on another occasion, is lugged in head and shoulders : it needs only to be seen in order to be hooted as a forced and far-fetched piece of imposition.
Matthew, chap. iv. ver. 12. — "Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulun and Nephtalim : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying. The land of Zabulun and the land of Nephtalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles : the people which sat in darkness saw great light ; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up."
I wonder Matthew has not made the cris- cros-ro w, or the Christ- cross-now (I know not how the priests spell it) into a prophecy. He might as well have done this as cut oiit these unconnected and undescriptive sentences from the place they stand in, and dubbed them with that title.
The words, however, are in Isaiah, chap. ix. ver. 1, 2, as follows :
^ ' Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and after- wards did more grievously afflict her by the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations."
All this relates to two circumstances that had already happened at the time these words in Isiaah were written.
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The one, where the land of Zebulnn and the land or Naphtali had been lightly afflicted, and afterwards more grievously, by the way of the sea.
But observe, reader, how Matthew has falsified the text. He begins his quotations at a part of the verse where there is not so much as a comma, and thereby cuts off every thing that relates to the first affliction. He then leaves out all that relates to the second affliction, and by this means leaves out every thing that makes the verse intelligible, and reduces it to a senseless skeleton of names of towns.
To bring this imposition of Matthew clearly and im- mediately before the eye of the reader, I will repeat the verse, and put between crutches [ ] the words he has left out, and put in Italics those he has preserved.
[Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation when at the first he lightly afflicted] the land of Zebulun and the larid of Naphtali^ [and did after- wards more grievously afflict her] by the way of the sea beyond fordan in Galilee of the nations.
What gross imposition is it to gut, as the phrase is, a verse in this manner, render it perfectly senseless, and then puff it off on a credulous world as a prophecy ! I proceed to the next verse.
Verse 2. — "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light ; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." All this is historical and not in the least prophetical. The whole is in the preter tense ; it speaks of things that had been accomplished 2i\. the time the words were written, and not of things to be accomplished afterwards.
As then the passage is in no possible sense prophetical, nor intended to be so, and that to attempt to make it so, is not only to falsify the original, but to commit a crim- inal imposition ; it is a matter of no concern to us, other- wise than as curiosity, to know who the people were 01
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which the passage speaks, that sat in darkness, and what the light was that had shined in upon them.
If we look into the preceding chapter, the 8th, of which the 9th is only a continuation, we shall find the writer speaking, at the 19th verse, of witches and wizards who peep about and 7nutter^ and of people who made appli- cation to them ; and he preaches and exhorts them against this darksome practice. It is of this people, and of this darksome practice, or walking in darkness^ that he is speaking at the second verse of the 9th chapter ; and with respect to the light that had shined in upon them^ it refers entirely to his own ministry, and to the boldness of it, which opposed itself to that of the witches and wizards who peeped about and muttered.
Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild, disorderly writer, preserving in general no clear chain of perception in the arrangement of his ideas, and consequently producing no defined conclusions from them. It is the wildness of his style, the confusion of his ideas, and the ranting metaphors he employs, that have afforded so many opportunities to priestcraft in some cases, and to super- stition in others, to impose those defects upon the world as prophecies of Jesus Christ. Finding no direct meaning in them, and not knowing what to make of them, and supposing at the same time they were intended to have a meaning, they supplied the defect by inventing a mean- ing of their own, and called it his. I have, however, in this place done Isaiah the justice to rescue him from the claws of Matthew, who has torn him unmercifully to pieces, and from the imposition or ignorance of priests and commentators, by letting Isaiah speak for himself.
If the words walki^ig in darkness and light breakiitg in could in any case be applied prophetically, which they cannot be, they would better apply to the times we now live in than to any other. The world has walked in darkness for eighteen hundred years, both as to religion
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and government, and it is only since the American Revolntion began that light has broken in. The belief oi one God^ whose attributes are revealed to us in the book or scripture of the creation which no human hand can counterfeit or falsify, and not in the written or printed book which, as Matthew has shown, can be altered or falsified by ignorance or design, is- now making its way among us : and as to government, the light is already g07te forth; and whilst men ought to be careful not to be blinded by the excess of it, as at a certain time in France, when every thing was Robesperrean violence, they ought to reverence, and even to adore it, with all the firmness and perseverance that true wisdom can inspire.
I pass on to the seventh passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap. viii. ver. i6. — "When the evening was come, they brought unto him (Jesus) many that were possessed of devils : and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sick- nesses. ' '
This affair of people being possessed by devils, and of casting them out, was the fable of the day when the books of the New Testament were written. It had not existence at any other time. The books of the Old Testajnent mention no such thing ; the people of the present day know of no such thing ; nor does the history of any people or country speak of such a thing. It starts upon us all at once in the book of Matthew, and is alto- gether an invention of the New Testament makers and the Christian church. The book of Matthew is the first book where the word devil is mentioned as being in the singular number. * We read in some of the books of the
* The word devil is a personification of the word evil.
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Old Testament of things called familar spirits, the sup- posed companions of people called witches and wizards. It was no other than the trick of pretended conjurors to obtain money from credulous and ignorant people, or the fabricated charge of superstitious malignancy against unfortunate and decrepid old age.
But the idea of a familar spirit, if we can affix any idea to the term, is exceedingly different to that of being possessed by a devil. In the one case, the supposed familar spirit is a dexterous agent, that comes and goes, and does as he is bidden : in the other, he is a turbulent roaring monster, that tears and tortures the body into convulsions. Reader, whoever thou art, put thy trust in thy creator, make use of the reason he endowed thee with, and cast from thee all such fables.
The passage alluded to by Matthew, (for as a quotation it is false,) is in Isaiah, chap. liii. ver. 4, which is as follows :
"Surely he (the person of whom Isaiah is speaking) hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. " It is in the preter tense.
Here is nothing about casting out devils, nor curing of sicknesses. The passage, therefore, so far from being a prophecy of Christ, is not even applicable as a circum- stance.
Isaiah, or at least the writer of the book that bears his name, employs the whole of this chapter, the 53d, in lamenting the sufferings of some deceased person, of whom he speaks very pathetically. It is a monody on the death of a friend : but he mentions not the name of the person, nor gives any circumstance of him by which he can be personally known ; and it is this silence, which is evidence of nothing, that Matthew has laid hold of to put the name of Christ to it ; as if the chiefs of the Jews, whose sorrows were then great, and tlie times they lived in big with danger, were never thinking about their own
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affairs, nor the fate of their own friends, but were contin- ually running a wild-goose chase into futurity.
To make a monody into a prophecy is an absurdity. The characters and circumstances of men, even in different ages of the world, are so much alike, that what is said of one may with propriety be said of many ; but this fitness does not make the passage into a proph- ecy : and none but an impostor or a bigot would call it so.
Isaiah in deploring the hard fate and loss of his friend, mentions nothing of him but what the human lot of man is subject to. All the cases he states of him — his per- secutions, his imprisonment, his patience in suffering, and his perseverance in principle, are all within the line of nature ; they belong exclusively to none, and may with justness be said of many. But if Jesus Christ was the person the church represents him to be, that which would exclusively apply to him must be something that could not apply to any other person ; something beyond the line of nature ; something beyond the lot of mortal man ; and there are no such expressions in this chapter, nor any other chapter in the Old Testament.
It is not exclusive description to say of a person, as it is said of the person Isaiah is lamenting in this chapter, He was oppressed^ and he was afflicted^ yet he opened not his mouth ; he is bi^oiight as a Lamb to the slaughter^ and as a sheep before his shearers is diunb^ so he opened not his mouth. This may be said of thousands of persons, who have suffered oppressions and unjust death with patience, silence, and perfect resignation.
Grotius, whom the bishop esteems a most learned man, and who certainly was so, supposes that the person of whom Isaiah is speaking is Jeremiah. Grotius is led into this opinion, from the agreement there is between the description given by Isaiah, and the case of Jeremiah, as stated in the book that bears his name. If Jeremiah
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was an innocent man, and not a traitor in the interests of Nebuchadnezzar, when Jerusalem was besieged, his case was hard ; he was accused by his countrymen, was persecuted, oppressed, and imprisoned ; and he says of himself, (see Jeremiah, chap. xi. ver. 19), "But as for me, I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter."
I should be inclined to the same opinion with Grotius, had Isaiah lived at the time when Jeremiah underwent the cruelties of which he speaks ; but Isaiah died about fifty years before : and it is of a person of his own time, whose case Isaiah is lamenting in the chapter in question, and which imposition and bigotry, more than seven hundred years afterwards, perverted into a prophecy of a person they call Jesus Christ.
I pass on to the eighth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap. xii. ver. 14. — "Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence ; and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all ; and charged them that they should not make him known : — That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying,
' ' Behold my servant, whom I have chosen ; my be- loved, in whom my soul is well pleased : I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust."
In the first place, this passage hath not the least relation to the purpose for which it is quoted.
Matthew says, that the Pharisees held a council against Jesus to destroy him — that Jesus withdrew himself —
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that great numbers followed him — that he healed them — and that he charged them not to make him known.
But the passage Matthew has quoted as being fulfilled by these circumstances, does not so much as apply to any one of them. It has nothing to do with the Pharisees holding a council to destroy Jesus — with his withdraw- ing himself — with great numbers following him — with his healing them — nor with his charging them not to make him known.
The purpose for which the passage is quoted, and the passage itself, are as remote from each other as nothing from something. But the case is, that people have been in the habit of reading the books called the Bible and Testament^ with their eyes shut and their senses locked up, that the most stupid inconsistencies have passed on them for truth, and imposition for prophecy. The all- wise Creator hath been dishonored by being made the author of fable, and the human mind degraded by believing it.
In this passage, as in that last mentioned, the name of the person of whom the passage speaks is not given, and we are left in the dark respecting him. It is this defect in the history that bigotry and imposition have laid hold of to call it prophecy.
Had Isaiah lived in the time of Cyrus, the passage would descriptively apply to him. As king of Persia, his authority was great among the Gentiles, and it is of such a character the passage speaks ; and his friendship to the Jews, whom he liberated from captivity, and who might then be compared to d, bruised reed^ was extensive. But this description does not apply to Jesus Christ, who had no authority among the Gentiles ; and as to his own countrymen, figuratively described by the bruised reed, it was they who crucified him. Neither can it be said of him that he did not cry, and that his voice was not heard in the street. As a preacher it was his business to be
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heard, and we are told that he travelled about the country for that purpose. Matthew has given a long sermon, which (if his authority is good, but which is much to be doubted, since he imposes so much,) Jesus preached to a multitude upon a mountain ; and it would be a quibble to say that a mountain is not a street, since it is a place equally as public.
The last verse in the passage (the 4th) as it stands in Isaiah, and which Matthew has not quoted, says, ''He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law." This also applies to Cyrus. He was not discouraged, he did not fail, he conquered all Babylon, liberated the Jews and established laws. But this cannot be said of Jesus Christ, who, in the passage before us, according to Matthew, withdrew himself for fear of the Pharisees, and charged the people that followed him not to make it known where he was ; and who, according to other parts of the Testament was continually moving from place to place to avoid being apprehended. *
*In the second part of the Age of Reason, I have shown that the book ascribed to Isaiah is not only miscellaneous as to matter, but as to authorship ; that there are parts in it which could not be written by Isaiah, because they speak of thmgs one hundred and fifty years after he was dead. The instance I have given of this, in that work, corresponds with the subject I am upon, at least a little better than Matthew's introduction and his quotation.
Isaiah lived, the latter part of his life, in the time of Hezekiah, and it was about one hundred and fifty years from the death of Hezekiah to the first year of the reign of Cyrus, when Cyrus published a proclamation which is given in the first chapter of the book of Ezra, for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. It cannot be doubted, at least it ought not to be doubted, that the Jews would feel an affectionate gratitude for this act of benevolent justice ; and it is natural they would express that gratitude in the customary style, bombastical and hyperbolical as it was, which they used on extra- ordinary occasions, and which was, and still is, in practice with all the eastern nations.
The instance to which I refer, and which is given in the second part of the Age of Reason, is the last verse of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the 45th — in these words: That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple. Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his annointed, 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.
This complimentary address is in the present tense, which shows that the things of which Isaiah speaks were in existence at the time of writing it ; and, consequently, that the author must have been at least one hundred and fifty years later than Isaiah,
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But it is immaterial to us, at this distance of time, to know who the person was : it is sufficient to the purpose I am upon, that of detecting fraud and falsehood, to know who it was not, and to show it was not the person called Jesus Christ.
I pass on to the ninth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap. xxi. ver. i, "And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them. Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her : loose them^ and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them ; and straightway he will send them.
"All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying. Tell ye the daughter of Sion^ Behold^ thy king cometh unto thee^ meek^ and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass^
Poor ass ! let it be some consolation amidst all thy sufferings, that if the heathen world erected a bear into a constellation, the Christian world has elevated thee into a prophecy.
This passage is in Zechariah, chap. ix. ver. 9, and is one of the whims of friend Zechariah to congratulate his countrymen, who were then returning from their captiv- ity in Babylon, and himself with them, to Jerusalem. It has no concern with any other subject. It is strange
and that the book which bears his name is a compilation. The Proverbs called Solomon's, and the Psalms called David's, are of the same kind. The two last verses of the second book of Chronicles, and three first verses of the first chapter of Ezra, are word for word the same; which show that the compilers of the Bible mixed the writnigs of different authors together, and put them under some common head.
As we have here an instance, in the 44th and 45th chapters, of the introduction of the name of Cyrus into a book to which it cannot belong, it affords good ground to con- clude, that the passage in the 42d chapter, iti which the character of Cyrus is given without his name, has been introduced in like manner, and that the person there spoken of is Cyrus.
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that apostles, priests, and commentators, never permit, or never suppose the Jews to be speaking- of their own affairs. Every thing in the Jewish books is perverted and distorted into meanings never intended by the writers. Even the poor ass must not be a Jew-ass, but a Christian-ass. I wonder they did not make an apostle of him, or a bishop, or at least make him speak and prophecy. He could have lifted up his voice as loud as any of them.
Zechariah, in the first chapter of his book, indulges himself in several whims on the joy of getting back to Jerusalem. He says at the 8th verse, ' ' I saw by night, (Zechariah was a sharp-sighted seer) and behold a man riding on a red horse^ (yes, reader, a red horse) and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom ; and behind him were there red horses^ speckled and whitey He says nothing about green horses, nor blue horses, perhaps because it is difficult to distinguish green from blue by night, but a Christian can have no doubt they were there, because ' ^ faith is the evidence of things not seen. ' '
Zechariah then introduces an angel among his horses, but he does not tell us what color the angel was of, whether black or white ; whether he came to buy horses, or only to look at them as curiosities, for certainly they were of that kind. Be this, however, as it may, he enters into conversation with this angel, on the joyful affair of getting back to Jerusalem, and he saith at the i6th verse — "Therefore, thus saith the Ivord : I AM RETURNED to Jerusalem with mercies ; my house shall be built in it, saith the Eord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. ' ' An expression signifying the rebuilding the city.
All this, whimsical and imaginary as it is, sufficiently proves that it was the entry of the Jews into Jerusalem from captivity, and not the entry of Jesus Christ seven
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hundred years afterwards, that is the subject upon which Zechariah is always speaking.
As to the expression of riding upon an ass, which com- mentators represent as a sign of humility in Jesus Christ, the case is, he never was so well mounted before. The asses of those countries are large and well proportioned, and were anciently the chief of riding animals. Their beasts of burden, and which served also for the convey- ance of the poor, were camels and dromedaries. We read in Judges, chap. x. ver. 4, that "Jair (one of the judges of Israel) had thirty sons that rode on thirty-ass colts ^ and they had thirty cities." But commentators distort every thing.
There is besides very reasonable grounds to conclude, that this story of Jesus riding publicly into Jerusalem, accompanied, as it is said in Matthew, chap. xxi. , 8th and 9th verses, by a great multitude, shouting and re- joicing, and spreading their garments by the way, is altogether a story destitute of truth.
In the last passage called a prophecy that I examined, Jesus is represented as withdrawing, that is, running away, and concealing himself for fear of being appre- hended, and charging the people that were with him not to make him known. No new circumstances had arisen in the interim to change his condition for the better ; yet here he is represented as making his public entry into the same city from which he had fled for safety. The two cases contradict each other so much, that if both are not false, one of them at least can scarcely be true. For my own part, I do not believe there is one word of historical truth in the whole book. I look upon it at best to be a romance ; the principal personage of which is an imaginary or allegorical character, founded upon some tale, and in which the moral is in many parts good and the narrative part very badly and blunderingly written.
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I pass on to the tenth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 51, "And behold, one of them which were with Jesus (meaning Peter) stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes. Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat. daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled."
This loose and general manner of speaking admits neither of detection nor of proof Here is no quotation given, nor the name of any Bible author mentioned, to which reference can be had.
There are, however, some high improbabilities against the truth of the account.
First. It is not probable that the Jews, who were then a conquered people, and under subjection to the Romans, should be permitted to wear swords.
Secondly. If Peter had attacked the servant of the high-priest and cut off his ear, he would have been im- mediately taken up by the guard that took up his master, and sent to prison with him.
Thirdly. What sort of disciples and preaching apostles must those of Christ have been that w^ore swords?
Fourthly. This scene is represented to have taken place the same evening of what is called the Lord's Supper, which makes, according to the ceremony of it, the inconsistency of wearing swords the greater.
2l8 AGE OF REASON.
I pass on to the eleventh passage called a prophecy of Jesns Christ.
Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 3, "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said. It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood unto this day. Then was ful- filled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value ; and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. ' '
This is a most bare-faced piece of imposition. The passage in Jeremiah which speaks of the purchase of a field, has no more to do with the case to which Matthew applies it, than it has to do with the purchase of lands in America. I will recite the whole passage :
Jeremiah, chap, xxxii. ver. 6, "And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Behold, Hanameel the son of Shall um thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hana- meel mine uncle's son came to me in the court of the prison, according to the word of the Lord, and said unto me. Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin ; for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine : buy it for thyself Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. And
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I bought the field of Hanameel mine uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I subscribed the evi- dence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open ; and I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanameel mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison — and I charged Baruch before them saying, Thus said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; take those evidences, this evidence of the purchase, both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open ; and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days — for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; houses and fields and vine- yards shall be possessed again in this land."
I forbear making any remark on this abominable im- position of Matthew. The thing glaringly speaks for itself. It is priests and commentators that I rather ought to censure, for having preached falsehood so long, and kept people in darkness with respect to those impositions. I am not contending with these men upon points of doctrine, for I know that sophistry has always a city of refuge. I am speaking of facts : for wherever the thing called a fact is a falsehood, the faith founded upon it is delusion, and the doctrine raised upon it not true. Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy Creator, and thou wilt be safe ; but if thou trustest to the book called the Scriptures, thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood. But I return to my subject.
There is, among the whims and reveries of Zechariah, mention made of thirty pieces of silver given to a potter. They can hardly have been so stupid as to mistake a
220 AGE OF REASON.
potter for a field ; and if they had, the passage in Zecha- riah has no more to do with Jesus, Judas, and the field to bury strangers in, than that already quoted. I will recite the passage.
Zechariah, chap. xi. ver. 7, "And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves ; the one I called Beauty^ and the other I called Bands^ and I fed the flock. Three shep- herds also I cut off" in one month ; and my soul loathed them, and their souls also abhorred me. Then said I, I will not feed you, that that dieth, let it die ; and that that is to be cut off", let it be cut off"; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. And I took my staff even Beauty^ and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day ; and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord.
"And I said unto them, if ye think good give me my price ; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter : a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
"Then I cut asunder mine other staff", even Bands^ that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel."*
* Whiston, in his Essay on the Old Testament, says, that the passage of Zechariah of which I have spoken, was, in the copies of the Bible of the first century, in the book of Jeremiah, from whence, says he, it was taken and inserted, without coherence, in that of Zecliariah Well, let it be so, it does not make the case a whit the better for the New Testament ; but it makes the case a great deal the worse for the Old. Because it shows, as I have mentioned respecting some passages in a book ascribed to Isaiah, that the works of different authors have been so mixed and confounded together, they cannot now be discriminated, except where they are historical, chronological, or biographical, as is the interpolation in Isaiah. It is the name of Cyrus, inserted where it could not be inserted, as he was not in existence till 150 years after the time of Isaiah, that detects the interpolation and the blunder with it.
Whiston was a man of great literary learning, and, what is of much higher degree, of deep scientific learning. He was one of the best and most celebrated mathemati- cians of his time, for which he was made Professor of Mathematics of the University of Cambridge. He wrote so much in defence of the Old Testament, and of what he calls
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There is no making either head or tail of this inco- herent gibberish. His two staves, one called Beauty and the other Bands^ is so much like a fairy tale, that I doubt if it had any other origin. There is, however, no part that has the least relation to the case stated in Matthew ; on the contrary, it is the reverse of it. Here the thirty pieces of silver, whatever it was for, is called a goodly price ; it was as much as the thing was worth, and, according to the language of the day, was approved of by the Lord, and the money given to the potter in the house of the Lord. In the case of Jesus and Judas as stated in Matthew, the thirty pieces of silver were the price of blood ; the transaction was condemned by the Lord, and the money, when refunded, was refused ad- mittance into the treasury. Every thing in the two cases is the reverse of each other.
Besides this, a very different and direct contrary account to that of Matthew, is given of the affair of Judas, in the book called the Acts of the Apostles: according to that book the case is, that so far from Judas repenting and returning the money, and the high-priest buying a field with it to bury strangers in, Judas kept the money and bought a field with it for himself; and instead of hanging himself as Matthew says, that he fell headlong and burst asunder.
Some commentators endeavor to get over one part of the contradiction by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged himself first and the rope broke.
prophecies of Jesus Christ, that at least he began to suspect the truth of the Scriptures and wrote against them ; for it is only those who examine them, that see the imposi- tion. Those who believe them most are those who know least about them.
Whiston, after writing so much in defence of the Scriptures, was at last prosecuted for writing against them. It was this that gave occasion to Swift in his ludicrous epigram on Ditton and Whiston, each of which set up to find out the longitude, to call the one good master Ditton, and the other wicked Will Whiston. But as Swift was a great associate with the Freethinkers of those days, such as Bolinbroke, Pope, and others, who did not believe the books called the Scriptures, there is no certainty whether he wittily called him wicked for defending the Scriptures, or for writing against them. The known character of Swift decides for the former.
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Acts, chap. I. ver. i6, "Men and brethren, this Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before con- cerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. (David says not a word about Judas) ver. 17, for he (Judas) was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.
Ver. 18, "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and his bowels gushed out." Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion^ when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities?
I pass on to the twelfth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap, xxvii., ver. 35, "And they crucified hrm, and parted his garments, casting lots ; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them^ and upon my vesture did they cast lotsy This expression is in the 22nd Psalm, ver. 18. The writer of that Psalm (who- ever he was, for the Psalms are a collection, and not the work of one man) is speaking of himself and of his own case, and not that of another. He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Testament writers as- cribed to Jesus Christ — "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — words which might be uttered by a complaining man without any great impropriety, but very improperly from the mouth of a reputed God.
The picture which the writer draws of his own situa- tion in this Psalm is gloomy enough. He is not prophecy ing but complaining of his own hard case. He represents himself as surrounded by enemies and beset by persecutions of every kind ; and by way of showing the inveteracy of his persecutors, he says, at the i8th
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verse, They parted 7ny garme7its among thetn^ and cast lots upon 7ny vesture.
The expression is in the present tense ; and is the the same as to say, They pursue me even to the clothes upon my back, and dispute how they shall divide them. Besides, the word vesture does not always mean clothing of any kind, but property^ or rather the admitting a man to or investing\\\v^ with property ; and as it is used in this Psalm distinct from the w^ord garment, it appears to be used in this sense. But Jesus had no property ; for they make him say of himself, The foxes have holes^ and the birds of the air have nests^ but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
But be this as it may, if we permit ourselves to sup- pose the Almighty would condescend to tell, by what is called the spirit of prophecy, what could come to pass in some future age of the world, it is an injury to our own faculties, and to our ideas of his greatness, to imagine it would be about an old coat, or an old pair of breeches, or about any thing which the common accidents of life, or the quarrels that attend it, exhibit every day.
That which is within the power of man to do, or in his will not to do, is not a subject for prophecy even if there were such a thing, because it cannot carry with it any evidence of divine power or divine interposition. The ways of God are not the ways of men. That which an Almighty Power performs or wills, is not within the circle of human power to do or to control. But any executioner and his assistants might quarrel about dividing the garments of a sufferer, or divide them with- out quarrelling, and by that means fulfill the thing called a prophecy, or set it aside.
In the passages before examined, I have exposed the falsehood of them. In this I exhibit its degrading meanness, as an insult to the Creator, and an injury to human reason.
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Here end the passages called prophecies by Mat- thew.
Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ expired on the cross, the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the bodies of many of the saints arose ; and Mark says, there was darkness over the land from the sixth hour until the ninth. They produce no prophecy for this ; but had these things been facts, they would have been a proper subject for prophecy, because none but an Almighty Power could have inspired a fore- knowledge of them, and afterwards fulfilled them. Since, then, there is no such prophecy, but a pretended prophecy of an old coat, the proper deduction is, there were no such things, and that the book of Matthew is fable and falsehood.
I pass on to the book called the Gospel according to St. Mark.
THE BOOK OF MARK.
THERE are but few passages in Mark called prophe- cies ; and but few in Luke and John. Such as there are I shall examine, and also such other passages as interfere with those cited by Matthew.
Mark begins his book by a passage which he puts in the shape of a prophecy. Mark, chap, i., ver. i, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; as it is written in the prophets. Behold^ I se7id my mes- senger before thy/ace^ which shall prepare thy way before thee.^^ [Malachi, chap, iii., ver. i.] The passage in the original is in the first person. Mark makes this passage to be a prophecy of John the Baptist, said by the Church to be a forerunner of Jesus Christ. But if we attend to the verses that follow this expression, as it
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stands in Malachi, and to the first and fifth verses of the next chapter, we shall see that this application of it is erroneous and false.
Malachi having said at the first verse, " Behold, I will send iny messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me," says at the second verse, " But who may abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he ap- peareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. ' '
This description can have no reference to the birth of Jesus Christ, and consequently none to John the Baptist. It is a scene of fear and terror that is here described, and the birth of Christ is always spoken of as a time of joy and glad tidings.
Malachi, continuing to speak on the same subject, explains in the next chapter what the scene is of which he speaks in the verses above quoted, and who the person is whom he calls the messenger.
''Behold," says he, chap, iv., ver. i, "the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble ; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."
Ver. 5, "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Ivord."
By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance Mark has made Elijah into John the Baptist, and Malachi' s description of the day of judgment into the birth-day of Christ, I leave to the bishop to settle.
Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chap- ter, confounds two passages together, taken from differ- ent books of the Old Testameiit. The second verse, ' ' Behold I send my messenger before thy face^ which shall prepare thy way before thee^^"* is taken, as I have said before, from Malachi. The third verse, which
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says, ' ' The voice of one crying in the wilderness^ Pre- pare ye the way of the Lord^ make his paths straight ^'*^ is not in Malaclii, but in Isaiah, chap, xl., ver. 3. Whiston says, that both these verses were originally in Isaiah. If so, it is another instance of the disordered state of the Bible, and corroborates what I have said with respect to the name and description of Cyrus being in the book of Isaiah, to which it cannot chronologically belong.
The words in Isaiah, chap, xi , ver. 3, " The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness^ Prepare ye the way of the Lord^ make his path straight^ are in the present tense, and consequently not predictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures which the Old Testament authors frequently used. That it is merely rhetorical and met- aphorical, may be seen at the 6th verse : " And the voice said. Cry, and he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh is grassy This is evidently nothing but a figure; for flesh is not grass, otherwise than a figure or metaphor, where one thing is put for another. Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose.
I pass on to the eleventh chapter.
In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he does not make it the ac- complishment of a prophecy, as Matthew has done ; for he says nothing about a prophecy. Instead of which, he goes on the other tack, and in order to add new hon- ors to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle ; for he says, ver. 2, it was a colt whereon never man sat ; signifying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he conse- quently was inspired into good manners^ for we do not hear that he kicked Jesus Christ off. There is not a word about his kicking in all the four Evangelists.
I pass on from these feats of horsemanship performed upon a jack-ass, to the 15th chapter.
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At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks oi part- ing Christ' s garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no prophecy to it as Matthew does. He rather speaks of it as a thing then in practice with executioners, as it is at this day.
At the 28th verse of the same chapter, Mark speaks of Christ being crucified between two thieves ; that, says he, the Scriptures might be fulfilled which saith^ And he was numbered with the transgressors. The same thing might be said of the thieves.
This expression is in Isaiah, chap, liii., ver. 12. Grotius applies it to Jeremiah. But the case has hap- pened so often in the world, where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and is still contin- ually happening, that it is absurdity to call it a prophecy of any particular person. All those whom the church calls martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of Robespierre, were numbered with trans- gressors ; and if himself had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his own hand-writing, had be- fallen me ; yet I suppose the bishop will not allow that Isaiah was prophecying of Thomas Paine.
These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference to prophecie::..
Mark concludes his book by making Jesus to say to his disciples, chap, xvi., ver. 15, *'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned (fine Popish stuff this). And these signs shall follow them that believe ; In my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Now the bishop, in order to know if he has all this
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saving and wonder-working faith, should try those things upon himself. He should take a good dose of arsenic, and, if he please, I will send him a rattlesnake from America ! As for myself, as I believe in God, and not at all in Jesus Christ, nor in the books called the Scrip- tures, the experiment does not concern me. I pass on to the book of Luke.
THE BOOK OF LUKE.
THERE are no passages in Luke called prophecies, expecting those which relate to the passages I have already examined.
Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes no references to the passages in Isaiah, as Matthew does. He speaks also of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he says nothing about a prophecy. He speaks of John the Baptist, and refers to the passage in Isaiah of which I have already spoken.
At the 13th chapter, ver. 31, he says. The same day there came certain of the Pharisees^ saying unto him^ {Jesus^) Get thee out^ and depart hence ^ for Herod wile kill thee. — And he said unto them^ Go ye^ and tell that fox^ Behold^ I cast out devils^ and I do cures to-day a7ta to-morrow and the third day I shall be perfected.
Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in Egypt, and makes Joseph to return with the child on the news of Herod's death, who had sought to kill him. Luke makes Herod to be living and to seek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of age ; for he says, chap, iii., ver. 23, "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph."
The obscurity in which the historical part of the New
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Testament is involved with respect to Herod, may aflford to priests and commentators a plea, which to some may appear plausible, but to none satisfactory, that the Herod of which Matthew speaks, and the Herod of which Luke speaks, were different persons. Matthew calls Herod a king; and Luke, chap, iii., ver. i calls Herod tetrarch (that is, governor) of Galilee. But there could be no such person as a King Herod^ because the Jews and their country were then under the dominion of the Roman emperors, who governed them by tetrarchs or governors.
Luke, chap, ii., makes Jesus to be born when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, to which government Judea was annexed ; and according to this, Jesus was not born in the time of Herod. Luke says nothing about Herod seeking the life of Jesus when he was born ; nor of his destroying the children under two years old : nor of Joseph fleeing with Jesus into Eg>'pt ; nor of his returning from thence. On the contrary, the book of Luke speaks as if the person it calls Christ had never been out of Judea, and that Herod sought his life after he commenced preaching, as is before stated. I have already shown that Luke, in the book called the Acts of the Apostles, (which commentators ascribe to Luke,) contradicts the account in Matthew, with respect to Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, that Judas returned the money, and that the high-priests bought with it a field to bury strangers in. Luke says, that Judas kept the money, and bought a field with it for himself.
As it is impossible the wisdom of God should err, so it is impossible those books could have been written by divine inspiration. Our belief in God and his unerring wisdom forbids us to believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously happy in the total disbelief of it.
There are no other passages called prophecies in Luke than those I have spoken of. I pass on to the book of John.
230 AGE OF REASON.
THE BOOK OF JOHN.
JOHN, like Mark and Luke, is not much of a proph- ecy-monger. He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus' clothes, and some other trifles, of which I have already spoken.
John makes Jesus to say, chap. v. , ver. 46, ' ' For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." The book of the Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, chap, iii., ver. 22, "For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you."
This passage is in Deuteronomy, chap, xviii., ver. 15. They apply it as a prophecy of Jesus. What impositions ! The person spoken of in Deuteronomy, and also in Numbers where the same person is spoken of, is Joshua^ the minister of Moses, and his immediate successor, and just such another Robespierrean character as Moses is represented to have been. The case, as related in those books, is as follows : —
Moses was grown old and near to his end ; and in order to prevent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had no settled system of government, it was thought best to nominate a successor to Moses while he was yet living. This was done, as we are told, in the following manner :
Numbers, chap, xxvii., ver. 12, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. — And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered." Ver. 15, "And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, — which may go out
AGK OF RKASON. 23I
before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them ont, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the I^ord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. — And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him ; — and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation ; and give him a charge in their sight. — And thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him, that all the congrega- tion of the children of Israel may be obedient. ' ' Ver. 22, "And Moses did as the Lord commanded him ; and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation : — And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses."
I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth, or the conjuration here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses like unto himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is Joshua, and that it is an imposition in John to make the case into a prophecy of Jesus. But the prophecy-mongers were so inspired with falsehood, that they never speak truth. *
* Newton, Bishop of Bristol in England, published a work in three volumes, entitled, " Dissertations on the Prophecies.'" Tlie work is tediously written and tiresome to read. He strains hard to make every passage into a prophecy that suits his purpose. Among others, he makes this expression of Moses. " The Lord shall raise thee up a prophet like unto me," into a prophecy of Christ, who was not born, according to the Bible chronologies, till fifteen hundred and fifty-lwo years after the time of Moses, whereas it was an immediate successor to Moses, who was then near his end, that is spoken of in the passage above quoted.
This bishop, the better to impose this passage on the world as a prophecy of Christ, has entirely omitted the account in the book of Numbers which I have given at length, word for word, and which shows, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the person spoken of by Moses is Joshua, and no other person.
Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hearsay, and inserts them without either examination or reflection, and the more extraordinary and incredible they are the better he likes them.
In speaking of the walls of Babylon, (volume the first, page 263,) he makes a quota- tion from a traveller of the name of Tavernier, whom he calls (by way of giving credit to what he says) a celebrated traveller, that those walls were made of burnt brick, ten feet square and three feet thick.— \i Newton had only thought of calculating the weight of such a brick, he would have seen the impossibility of tlieir being used or even made. A brick ten feet square, and three feet thick, contains 300 cubic feet; and allowing a
232 AGE OF RKASON.
I pass on to the last passage in these fables of the Evangelists called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
John having spoken of Jesus expiring on the cross between two thieves, says, chap, xix., ver. 32. "Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first (meaning one of the thieves) and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs — (ver. 36,) for these things were done that the scriptures should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.''^
The passage here referred to is m Exodus, and has no more to do with Jesus than with the ass he rode upon to
cubic foot of brick to be only one hundred pounds, each of the bishop's bricks would weigh thirty thousand pounds ; and it would take about thirty cart loads of clay (one- horse carts) to make one brick.
But his account of the stones used in the building of Solomon's temple (volume ii. page 211.) far exceeds his bricks often feet square in the walls of Babylon ; these are but brick-bats compared to them.
The stones, (says he,) employed in the foundation, were in magnitude forty cubits, that is, above sixty feet, a cubit, says he, being somewhat more than one foot and a half, (a cubit is one foot nine inches) and the superstructure, (says this bishop,) was worthy of such foundations. There were some stones, says he, of the whitest marble forty-five cubits long, five cubits high, and six cubits broad. These are the dimensions this bishop has given, which in measure of twelve inches to a foot, is 78 feet 9 inches long, 10 feet 6 inches broad, and 8 feet 3 inches thick, and contains 7,234 cubic feet. I now go to demonstrate the imposition of this bishop.
A cubic foot of water weighs sixty-two pounds and a half— the specific gravity of of marble to water is as 2^ is to one. The weight therefore of a cubic foot of marble is 156 lbs, which, multiplied by 7,234, the number of cubic feet in oneof those stones, makes the weigfht of it to be i 128.504 pounds, which is 503 tons. Allowing then ahorse to draw about half a ton, it will require a thousand horses to draw one such stone on the ground ; how then were they to be lifted intotlie building by human hands?
The bishop may talk of faith removing mountains, but all the faith of all the bishops that ever lived could not remove one of those stones, and their bodily strength given in.
This bishop also tells o^ ^reat guns used by the Turks at the taking of Constantinople, one of which he says was drawn by seventy yoke of oxen, and by two thousand men. Volume iii. page 117.
The weight of a cannon that carries a ball of 48 pounds, which is the largest cannon that are cast, weighs 8,000 pounds, about three tons and a half, and maybe drawn b> three yoke of oxen. Any body may now calculate what the weight of the bishop's great gun must be, that required seventy yoke of oxen to draw it. This bishop beats Gulliver.
When men give up the use of the divine gift of reason in writing on any subject, be it religious or anything else, there are no bounds to their extravagance — no limit to their absurdities.
The three volumes which this bishop has written on what he calls the prophecies, contain about 1,200 pages, and he says in vol. iii. page 117 " I have studied brevity.'''' This is as marvellous as the bishop's great gun.
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Jerusalem ; nor yet so much, if a roasted jackass, like a roasted he-goat, might be eaten at a Jewish Passover. It might be some consolation to an ass to know, that though his bones might be picked, they would not be broken. I go to state the case.
The book of Exodus, in instituting the Jewish passover, in which they were to eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, says, chap, xii., ver. 5, "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year ; ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats.
The book, after stating some ceremonies to be used in killing and dressing it (for it must be roasted, not boiled) says, ver. 43, "And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover : there shall no stranger eat thereof; but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof In one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house, neither shall ye break a bone thereof. "
We here see that the case as it stands in Exodus is a ceremony and not a prophecy, and totally unconnected with Jesus' bones, or any part of him.
John having thus filled up the measure of apostolic fable, concludes his book with something that beats all fable ; for he says at the last verse, ' ' And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, / suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. ' '
This is what in vulgar life is called a thumper\ that is, not only a lie, but a lie beyond the line of possibility ; besides which, it is an absurdity, for if they should be written in the world, the world would contain them.
Here ends the examination of the passages called prophecies.
234 AGE OF REASON.
I have now, reader, gone through and examined all the passages which the four books of Matthew, Mark, Ivuke, and John, quote from the Old Testameiit^ and call them prophecies of Jesus Christ. When I first sat down to this examination, I expected to find cause for some censure, but little did I expect to find them so utterly destitute of truth, and of all pretensions to it, as I have shown them to be.
The practice which the writers of those books employ is not more false than it is absurd. They state some trifling case of the person they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out a sentence from some passage of the Old Testa- ment and call it a prophecy of that case. But when the words thus cut out are restored to the place they are taken from, and read with the words before and after them, they give the lie to the New Testament. A short instance or two of this will suffice for the whole.
They make Joseph to dream of an angel, who informs him that Herod is dead, and tells him to come with the child out of Egypt. They then cut out a sentence from the book of Hosea, Out of Egypt have I called my Son^ and apply it as a prophecy in that case.
The words. And called my Son out of Egypt ^ are in the Bible : but what of that? They are only part of a passage, and not a whole passage, and stand immediately connected with other words, which show they refer to the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of Pharaoh, and to the idolatr}^ they committed afterwards.
Again, they tell us that when the soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified persons, they found Jesus was already dead, and therefore did not break his. They then, with some alteration of the original, cut out a sentence from Exodus, A bojte of him shall not be broken^ and apply it as a prophecy of that case.
The words. Neither shall ye break a bone thereof (for they have altered the text) are in the Bible — but what of
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that? They are, as in the former case, only part of a passage, and not a whole passage ; and, when read with the words they are immediately joined to, show it is the bones of a he-lamb or a he-goat of which the passage speaks.
These repeated forgeries and falsifications create a well- founded suspicion, that all the cases spoken of concerning the person called Jesus Christ are made pases^ on purpose to lug in, and that very clumsily, some broken sentences from the Old Testament^ and apply them as prophecies of those cases ; and that so far from his being the Son of God, he did not exist even as a man — that he is merely an imaginary or allegorical character, as Apollo, Hercules, Jupiter, and all the deities of antiquity were. There is no history written at the time Jesus Christ is said to have lived that speaks of the existence of such a person, even as a man.
Did we find in any other book pretending to give a system of religion, the falsehoods, falsifications, contra- dictions, and absurdities, which are to be met with in almost every page of the Old and New Testament^ all the priests of the present day who supposed themselves capable, would triumphantly show their skill in criticism, and cry it down as a most glaring imposition. But since the books in question belong to their own trade and profession, they, or at least many of them, seek to stifle every inquiry into them, and abuse those who have the honesty and the courage to do it.
When a book, as is the case with the Old and New Testament^ is ushered into the world under the title of being the Word of God^ it ought to be examined with the utmost strictness, in order to know if it has a well-founded claim to that title or not, and whether we are, or are not, imposed upon ; for as no poison is so dangerous as that which poisons the physic, so no falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.
236 AGE OF REASON.
This examination becomes more necessary, because when the New Testament was written, I might say invented, the art of printing was not known, and there were no other copies of the Old Testament than written copies. A written copy of that book would cost about as much as 600 common printed Bibles now cost. Conse- quently the book was in the hands of but very few persons, and these chiefly of the church. This gave an opportunity to the writers of the New Testa^nent to make quotations from the Old Testament as they pleased, and call them prophecies, with very little danger of being detected. Besides which, the terrors and inquisitorial fury of the church, like what they tell us of the flaming sword that turned every way, stood sentry over the New Testament ; and time, which brings every thing else to light, has served to thicken the darkness that guards it from detection.
Were the Ne7£j Testament now to appear for the first time, every priest of the present day w^ould examine it line by line, and compare the detached sentences it calls prophecies with the whole passages in the Old Testament from whence they are taken. Why then do they not make the same examination at this time, as they would make had the New Testa^nent newer appeared before? If it be proper and right to make it in one case, it is equally proper and right to do it in the other case. I^ength of time can make no difference in the right to do it at any time. But instead of doing this, they go on as their predecessors went on before them, to tell the people there are prophecies of Jesus Christ, when the truth is, there are none.
They tell us that Jesus rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. It is very easy to say so ; a great lie is as easily told as a little one. But if he had done so, those would have been the only circumstances respecting him that would have differed from the common lot of man ;
AGE OF REASON. 237
and consequently the only case that would apply exclu- sively to him, as a prophecy, would be some passage in the Old Testame7it that foretold such things of him. But there is not a passage in the Old Testament that speaks of a person who, after being crucified, dead, and buried, should rise from the dead and ascend into heaven.
Our prophecy-mongers supply the silence the Old Testament guards upon such things, by telling us of passages they call prophecies, and that falsely so, about Joseph's dream, old clothes, broken bones, and such-like trifling stuff.
In writing upon this, as upon every other subject, I speak a language full and intelligible. I deal not in hints and intimations. I have several reasons for this.
First^ that I may be clearly understood.
Secondly^ that it may be seen I am in earnest, and
Thirdly^ because it is an affront to truth to treat false- hood with complaisance.
I will close this treatise with a subject I have already touched upon in the First Part of the Age of Reason.
The world has been amused with the term revealed religion^ and the generality of priests apply this term to the books called the Old and New Testament. The Mahometans apply the same term to the Koran. There is no man that believes in revealed religion stronger than I do ; but it is not the reveries of the Old and New Testament^ nor of the Koran, that I dignify with that sacred title. That which is revelation to me exists in something which no human mind can invent, no human hand can counterfeit or alter.
The word of God \s> the Creation we behold ; and this word of God revealeth to man all that is necessary for man to know of his Creator.
Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of his creation.
Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in
238 AGE OF RKASON.
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 un- thankful.
Do we want to contemplate his will, so far as it respects man? The goodness he shows to all is a lesson for our conduct to each other.
In fine, Do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might make, or any impostor invent ; but the Scripture called the Creation.
When, in the First Part of the Age of Reason, I called the Creation the true revelation of God to man, I did not know that any other person had expressed the same idea. But I lately met with the writings of Doctor Conyers Middleton, published the beginning of last century, in which he expresses himself in the same manner, with respect to the Creation, as I have done in the Age of Reason,
He was principal librarian of the University of Cam- bridge in England, which furnished him with extensive opportunities of reading and necessarily required he should be well acquainted with the dead as well as the living languages. He was a man of strong original mind ; had the courage to think for himself, and the honesty to speak his thoughts.
He made a journey to Rome, from whence he wrote letters to show that the forms and ceremonies of the Romish Christian church were taken from the degenerate state of the heathen mythology, as it stood in the latter times of the Greeks and Romans. He attacked without ceremony the miracles which the church pretended to perform ; and in one of his treatises he calls the Creation
AGE OF REASON. 239
a revelation. The priests of England of that day, in order to defend their citadel by first defending its out- works, attacked him for attacking the Romish cere- monies ; and one of them censures him for calling the Creation a revelatioji. He thus replies to him.
"One of them," says he, "appears to be scandalized by the title of revelation^ which I have given to that discovery which God made of himself in the visible works of his Creation. Yet it is no other than what the wise in all ages have given to it, who consider it as the most authentic and indisputable revelation which God has ever given of himself, from the beginning of the world to this day. It was this by which the first notice of him was revealed to the inhabitants of the earth, and by which alone it has been kept up ever since among the several nations of it. From this the reason of man was enabled to trace out his nature and attributes, and, by a gradual deduction of consequences, to learn his own nature also, with all the duties belonging to it which relate either to God or to his fellow-creatures. This con- stitution of things was ordained by God as an universal law or rule of conduct to man — the source of all his knowledge — the test of all truth, by which all subsequent revelations which are supposed to have been given by God in any other manner must be tried, and cannot be received as divine any further than as they are found to tally and coincide with this original standard.
"It was this divine law which I referred to in the passage above recited, (meaning the passage on which they had attacked him,) being desirous to excite the reader's attention to it, as it would enable him to judge more freely of the argument I was handling. For by contemplating this law, he would discover the genuine way which God himself has marked out to us for the acquisition of true knowledge : not from the authority or reports of our fellow-creatures, but from the information
240 AGE OF REASON.
of the facts and material objects which, in liis provi- dential distribution of worldly things, he hath presented to the perpetual observation of our senses. For as it was from these that his existence and nature, the most important articles of all knowledge, were first discovered to man, so that grand discovery furnished new light towards tracing out the rest, and made all the inferior subjects of human knowledge more easily discoverable to us by the same method.
"I had another view likewise in the same passages, and applicable to the same end, of giving the reader a more enlarged notion on the question in dispute, who, by turning his thoughts, to reflect on the works of the Creator, as they are manifested to us in this fabric of the world, could not fail to observe, that they are all of them great, noble, and suitable to the majesty of his nature, carrying with them the proofs of their origin, and show- ing themselves to be the production of an all-wise and almighty Being ; and by accustoming his mind to these sublime reflections, he will be prepared to determine whether those miraculous interpositions so confidently affirmed to us by the primitive Fathers, can reasonably be thought to make a part in the grand scheme of the divine administration, or whether it be agreeable that God, who created all things by his will, and can give what turn to them he pleases by the same will, should, for the particular purposes of his government and the services of the Church, descend to the expedieitt of visions and revelatio7is granted sometimes to boys for the instruction of the elders, and sometimes to women to settle the fashion and length of their veils, and some- times to pastors of the Church to enjoin them to ordain one man a lecturer, another a priest ; — or that he should scatter a profusion of miracles around the stake of a martyr, yet all of them vain and insignificant, and with- out any sensible effect, either of preserving the life or
AGE OK REASON. 24I
easing the sufferings of the saint ; or even of mortifying his persecutors, who were always left to enjoy the full triumph of their cruelty, and the poor martyr to expire in a miserable death. When these things, -I say, are brought to the original test, and compared with the genuine and indisputable works of the Creator, how minute, how trifling, how contemptible must they be ! and how incredible must it be thought, that for the instruction of his church God should employ ministers so precarious, unsatisfactory, and inadequate, as the ecstacies of women and boys, and the visions of inter- ested priests, which were derided at the very time by men of sense to whom they were proposed !
"That this universal law (continues Middleton, meaning the law revealed in the works of the Creation) was actually revealed to the heathen world long before the gospel was known, we learn from all the principal sages of antiquity, who made it the capital subject of their studies and writings.
"Cicero (says Middleton) has given us a short abstract of it in a fragment still remaining from one of his books on government, which (says Middleton) I shall here transcribe in his own words, as they will illustrate my sense also in the passages that appear so dark and dan- gerous to my antagonist.
"'The true law (it is Cicero who speaks) is right reason conformable to the nature of things, constant, eternal, diffused through all, which calls us to duty by commanding, deters us from sin by forbidding ; which never loses its influence with the good, nor ever pre- serves it with the wicked. This law cannot be overruled by any other, nor abrogated in whole or in part ; nor can we be absolved from it either by the senate or by the people ; nor are we to seek any other comment or inter- preter of it but itself; nor can there be one law at Rome, and another at Athens — one now and another hereafter ;
242 AGE OF REASON.
but the same eternal, iinmutable law comprehends all nations, at all times, under one common master and governor of all — God. He is the inventor, propounder,j enactor of this law ; and whoever will not obey it must first renounce himself and throw off the nature of man; by doing which, he will suffer the greatest punishments, though he should escape all the other torments which are commonly believed to be prepared for the wicked.'" Here ends the quotation from Cicero.
"Our doctors (continues Middleton) perhaps will look on this as rank deism ; but, let them call it what they will, I shall ever avow and defend it as the fundamental, essential, and vital part of all true religion. " Here ends the quotation from Middleton.
I have here given the reader two sublime extracts from men who lived in ages of time far remote from each other, but who thought alike. Cicero lived before the time in which they tell us Christ was born. Middleton may be called a man of our own time, as he lived within the same century with ourselves.
In Cicero we see that vast superiority of mind, that sublimity of right reasoning and justness of ideas which man acquires, not by studying Bibles and Testaments^ and the theology of schools built thereon, but by study- ing the Creator in the immensity and unchangeable order of his Creation, and the immutability of his law. There cannot^ says Cicero, be one law now^ and another here- after; but the same eternal^ immutable law com,prehends all natio7is at all times^ under one common master and governor of all — God. But according to the doctrine of schools which priests have set up, we see one law, called the Old Testament^ given in one age of the world, and another law, called the New Testament^ given in an- other age of the world. As all this is contradictory to the eternal, immutable nature, and the unerring and unchangeable wisdom of God, we must be compelled to
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hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and the new law, called the Old a.nd the New Testament^ to be im- positions, fables, and forgeries.
In Middleton we see the manly eloquence of an enlarged mind, and the genuine sentiments of a true believer in his Creator. Instead of reposing his faith on books, by whatever name they may be called, whether Old Testament or Neii\ he fixes the Creation as the great original standard by which every other thing called the word or work of God is to be tried. In this we have an in- disputable scale whereby to measure every word or work imputed to him. If the thing so imputed carries not in itself the evidence of the same almightiness of power, of the same unerring truth and wisdom, and the same un- changeable order in all its parts, as are visibly demon- strated to our senses, and comprehensible by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the universe, that word or that work is not of God. Let then the two books called the Old and New Testament be tried by this rule, and the result will be, that the authors of them, whoever they were, will be convicted of forgery.
The invariable principles and unchangeable order which regulate the movements of all the parts that com- pose the universe, demonstrate both to our senses and our reason that its creator is a God of unerring truth. But the Old Testament^ beside the numberless absurd and bagatelle stories it tells of God, represents him as a God of deceit, a God not to be confided in. Ezekiel makes God to say, chap, xiv., ver. 9, "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, / the Lord have deceived that prophet^ And at the 20th chap., verse 25, he makes God, in speaking of the children of Israel, to say. Wherefore I gave them statutes that were not good^ and judgments whereby they should not live.
This, so far from being the word of God, is horrid bias-
244 AG^ C)F REASON.
pheniy against him. Reader, put thy confidence in thy God, and put no trust in the Bible.
The same Old Testament^ after telling us that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, makes the same almighty power and eternal wisdom employ itself in giving directions how a priest's garments should be cut, and what sort of stuff they should be made of, and what their offerings should be — gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, &c. , chap. xxv. , ver. 3 ; and in one of the pretend- ed prophecies I have just examined, God is made to give directions how they should kill, cook, and eat a he-lamb or a he-goat. And Ezekiel, chap, iv., to fill up the measure of abominable absurdity, makes God to order him to take wheats and barley^ and beans^ and lentiles^ and millet^ and fitches^ and make thee bread thereof^ and bake it with huma^i dung^ and eat it; but as Ezekiel complained that this mess was too strong for his stomach, the matter was compromised from man's dung to cow dung, Ezekiel, chap. iv.
Compare all this ribaldry, blasphemously called the word of God, with the almighty Power that created the universe, and whose eternal wisdom directs and governs all its mighty movements, and we shall be at a loss to find a name sufficiently contempti- ble for it.
In the promises which the Old Testament pretends that God made to his people, the same derogatory ideas of him prevail. It makes God to promise to Abraham, that his seed should be like the stars in heaven and the sand on the sea-shore for multitude, and that he would give them the land of Canaan as their inheritance for ever. But observe, reader, how the performance of this promise was to begin, and then ask thine own reason, if the wisdom of God, whose power is equal to his will.
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could, consistently with that power and that wisdom, make such a promise.
The performance of the promise was to begin, accord- ing to that book, by 400 years of bondage and affliction. Genesis, chap, xv., ver. 13 Aiid God said unto Abraham^ Know of a surety^ that thy seed shall be a stranger m a land that is not theirs^ and shall serve them^ arid they shall afflict them ^00 years. This promise then to Abraham and his seed for ever, to inherit the land of Canaan, had it been a fact instead of a fable, was to operate in the commencement of it, as a curse upon all the people and their children, and their children's children, for 400 years.
But the case is, the book of Genesis was written after the bondage in Egypt had taken place ; and in order to get rid of the disgrace of the Lord's chosen people, as they called themselves, being in bondage to the Gentiles, they make God to be the author of it, and annex it as a condition to a pretended promise ; as if God, in making that promise, had exceeded his power in performing it, and consequently his wisdom in making it, and was obliged to compromise with them for one-half, and with the Egyptians, to whom they were to be in bondage, for the other half.
Without degrading my own reason by bringing those wretched and contemptible tales into a comparative view with the almighty power and eternal wisdom which the Creator hath demonstrated to our senses in the creation of the universe, I will confine myself to say, that if we compare them with the divine and forcible sentiments of Cicero, the result will be that the human mind has de- generated by believing them. Man, in a state of grovelling superstition, from which he has not courage to rise, loses the energy of his mental powers.
I will not tire the reader with more observations on the Old Testament,
246 AGE OF REASON.
As to the New Testament^ if it be brought and tried by that standard, which, as Middleton wisely says, God has revealed to our senses of his almighty power and wisdom in the creation and government of the visible universe, it will be found equally as false, paltry, and absurd as the Old.
Without entering, in this place, into any other argu- ment, that the story of Christ is of human invention and not of divine origin, I will confine myself to show that it is derogatory to God, by the contrivance of it ; because the means it supposes God to use are not adequate to the end to be obtained ; and therefore are derogatory to the almightiness of his power and the eternity of his wisdom.
The New Testament supposes that God sent his Son upon earth, to make a new covenant with man, which the church calls the covenant of grace^ and to instruct mankind in a new doctrine, which it calls faith., mean- ing thereby, not faith in God, for Cicero and all true Deists always had and always will have this — but faith in the person called Jesus Christ, and that whoever had not this faith should, to use the words of the New Testa- ment^ be damned.
Now, if this were a fact, it is consistent with that attribute of God called h.\s goodness^ that no time should be lost in letting poor unfortunate man know it ; and as that goodness was united to almighty power, and that power to almighty wisdom, all the means existed in the hand of the Creator to make it known immediately over the whole earth, in a manner suitable to the almighti- ness of his divine nature, and with evidence that would not leave man in doubt ; for it is always incumbent upon us, in all cases, to believe that the Almighty always acts, not by imperfect means, as imperfect man acts, but con- sistently with his almightiness. It is this only that can become the infallible criterion by which we can possibly distinguish the works of God from the works of man.
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Observe now, reader, how the comparison between this supposed mission of Christ, on the belief or disbelief of which they say man was to be saved or damned — observe, I say, how the comparison between this and the almighty power and wisdom of God, demonstrated to our senses in the visible creation, goes on.
The Old Testament tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, and everything therein, in six days. The term six days is ridiculous enough when applied to God ; but leaving out that absurdity, it contains the idea of almighty power acting unitedly with almighty wisdom to produce an immense work, that of the creation of the universe and every thing therein, in a short time.
Now as the eternal salvation of man is of much greater importance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, as the New Testament ioWs us, on man's know- ledge of and belief in the person called Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows from our belief in the goodness and justice of God, and our knowledge of his almighty power and wisdom, as demonstrated in the creation, that all THIS, if true, would be made known to all parts of the world, in as little time, at least, as was employed in making a world. To suppose the Almighty would pay greater regard and attention to the creation and organi- zation of inanimate matter, than he would to the salva- tion of innumerable millions of souls, which himself had created ^''as the image of himself^'' ^ is to offer an insult to his goodness and his justice.
Now, observe, reader, how the promulgation of this pretended salvation by a knowledge of and a belief in Jesus Christ went on, compared with the work of creation.
In the first place, it took longer time to make a child than to make the world, for nine months were passed away and totally lost in a state of pregnancy ; which is more than forty times longer time than God employed
248 AGE OF REASON.
in making the world, according to the Bible account. Secondly, several years of Christ's life were lost in a state of human infancy : but the universe was in maturity the moment it existed. Thirdly, Christ, as Luke asserts, was thirty years old before he began to preach what they call his mission : millions of souls died in the mean time without knowing it. Fourthly, it was above 300 years from that time before the book called the New Testament was compiled into a written copy, before which time there was no such book. Fifthly, it was above a thou- sand years after that, before it could be circulated, because neither Jesus nor his apostles had knowledge of, or were inspired with the art of printing ; and conse- quently, as the means for making it universally known did not exist, the means were not equal to the end, and therefore it is not the work of God.
I will here subjoin the 19th Psalm, which is truly Deistical, to show how universally and instantaneously the works of God make themselves known, compared with this pretended salvation by Jesus Christ.
Psalm 19th. "The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."
Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it ; whereas, though it is
AGE OF REASON. 249
now almost 2,000 years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know any thing of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
I have now, reader, gone through all the passages called prophecies of Jesus Christ, and shown there is no such thing.
I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared the several circumstances of it with that reve- lation which, as Middleton wisely says, God has made to us of his power and wisdom in the structure of the universe, and by which every thing ascribed to him is to be tried. The result is, that the story of Christ has not one trait, either in its character, or in the means employ- ed, that bears the least resemblance to the power and wisdom of God, as demonstrated in the creation of the universe. All the means are human means, slow, uncer- tain, and inadequate to the accomplishment of the end proposed ; and therefore the whole is a fabulous invention, and undeserving of credit.
The priests of the present day profess to believe it. They gain their living by it, chey exclaim against some- thing they call infidelity. I will define what it is. He THAT BEIvIEVES IN THE STORY OF CHRIST IS AN IN- FIDEL TO God.
CONTRADICTORY DOCTRINES
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
BETWEEN MATTHEW AND MARK.
IN the New Testament^ Mark, chap, xvi., ver. i6, it is said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned.'' This is making salvation, or, in other words, the happi- ness of man after this life, to depend entirely on believing, or on what Christians call faith.
But the 25th chapter of The Gospel according to Mat- theiv makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doc- trine to The Gospel according to Mark ; for it makes sal- vation, or the future happiness of man, to depend entirely on good works ; and those good works are not works done to God, for he needs them not, but good works done to man.
The passage referred to in Matthew is the account there given of what is called the last day, or the day of judg- ment, where the whole world is represented to be divided into two parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, met- aphorically called the sheep and the goats.
To the one part, called the righteous, or the sheep, it says,
"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
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" Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
'* And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto yoit^ Inasmitch as ye have do7te it unto one of the least of these my brethren^ ye have done it unto me.^^
Here is nothing about believing in Christ — nothing about that phantom of the imagination cSiW^di faith. The words here spoken of are works of humanity and benev- olence, or in other words, an endeavor to make God's creation happy. Here is nothing about preaching and making long prayers, as if God must be dictated to by man : nor about building churches and meetings, nor hiring priests to pray and preach in them. Here is noth- ing about predestination, that lust which some men have for damning one another. Here is nothing about baptism, whether by sprinkling or plunging ; nor about any of those ceremonies for which the Christian church has been fighting, persecuting, and burning each other, ever since the Christian church began.
If it be asked, Why do not priests preach the doctrine contained in this chapter? the answer is easy — they are not fond of practising it themselves. It does not answer for their trade. They had rather get than give. Char- ity with them begins and ends at home.
Had it been said, Come^ ye blessed: ye have been liberal in paying the preachers of the zvord^ ye have con- tributed largely toivards building churches and Tneeting houses^ there is not a hired priest in Christendom but would have thundered it continually in the ears of his congregation. But as it is altogether on good works done to men, the priests pass it over in silence, and they will abuse me for bringing it into notice.
THOMAS PAINK.
AN ESSAY ON DREAMS.
AS a great deal is said in the New Testament about dreams, it is first necessary to explain the nature of dreams, and to show by what operation of the mind a dream is produced during sleep. When this is understood we shall be better enabled to judge whether any reliance can be placed upon them ; and consequently, whether the several matters in the New Testament related of dreams deserve the credit which the writers of that book and priests and commentators ascribe to them.
In order to understand the nature of dreams, or of that which passes in ideal vision during a state of sleep, it is first necessary to understand the composition and decomposition of the human mind.
The three great faculties of the mind are imagina- tion, JUDGMENT, and memory. Every action of the mind comes under one or other of these faculties. In a state of wakefulness, as in the day-time, these three faculties are all active : but that is seldom the case in sleep, and never perfectly ; and this is the cause that our dreams are not so regular and rational as our waking thoughts.
The seat of that collection of powers or faculties that constitute what is called the mind, is in the brain.
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There is not, and cannot be, any visible demonstration of this anatomically, but accidents happening to living persons show it to be so. An injury done to the brain by a fracture of the skull will sometimes change a wise man into a childish idiot — a being without mind. But so careful has nature been of that sanctum sanctorum of man, the brain, that of all the external accidents to which humanity is subject, this happens the most seldom. But we often see it happening by long and habitual intemperance.
Whether those three faculties occupy distinct apart- ments of the brain, is known only to that Almighty powder that formed and organized it. We can see the external effects of muscular motion in all the members of the body, though its primum mobile^ or first moving cause, is unknowai to man. Our external motions are sometimes the effect of intention, and sometimes not. If we are sitting and intend to rise, or standing and intend to sit or to walk, the limbs obey that intention as if they heard the order given. But we make a thousand motions every day, and that as well waking as sleeping, that have no prior intention to direct them. Each member acts as if it had a will or mind of its own. Man governs the whole when he pleases to govern, but in the interims the several parts, like little suburbs, govern themselves without consulting the sovereign.
But all these motions, whatever be the generating cause, are external and visible. But with respect to the brain, no ocular observation can be made upon it. All is mystery, all is darkness in that womb of thought.
Whether the brain is a mass of matter in continual rest — whether it has a vibrating pulsative motion, or a heaving and falling motion, like matter in fermentation — whether different parts of the brain have different motions according to the faculty that is employed, be it the imagination, the judgment, or the memory, man
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knows nothing of it. He knows not the cause of his own wit : his own brain conceals it from him.
Comparing invisible by visible things, as metaphysical can sometimes be compared to physical things, the opera- tions of these distinct and several faculties have some resemblance to the mechanism of a watch. The main- spring, which puts all in motion, corresponds to the imagination ; the pendulum or balance, which corrects and regulates that motion, corresponds to the judgment ; and the hand and dial, like the memory, record the operations.
Now in proportion as these several faculties sleep, slumber, or keep awake, during the continuance of a dream, in that proportion will the dream be reasonable or frantic, remembered or forgotten.
If there is any faculty in mental man that never sleeps, it is that volatile thing, the imagination : the case is different with the judgment and memory. The sedate and sober constitution of the judgment easily disposes it to rest ; and as to the memory, it records in silence, and is active only when it is called upon.
That the judgment soon goes to sleep may be perceived by our sometimes beginning to dream before we are fully asleep ourselves. Some random thought runs in the mind, and we start, as it were, into recollection that we are dreaming between sleeping and waking.
If the judgment sleeps whilst the imagination keeps awake, the dream will be a riotous assemblage of mis- shapen images, and ranting ideas ; and the more active the imagination is, the wilder the dream will be. The most inconsistent and the most impossible things will appear right, because that faculty whose province it is to keep order is in a state of absence. The master of the school is gone out, and the boys are in an uproar.
If the memory sleeps, we shall have no other know- ledge of the dream than that we have dreamt, without
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knowing what it was about. In this case it is sensation, rather than recollection, that acts. The dream has given us some sense of pain or trouble, and we feel it as a hurt, rather than remember it as a vision.
If memory only slumbers, we shall have a faint remembrance of the dream, and after a few minutes it will sometimes happen that the principal passages of the dream will occur to us more fully. The cause of this is, that the memory will sometimes continue slumbering or sleeping after we are awake ourselves, and that so fully, that it may and sometimes does happen, that we do not immediately recollect where we are, nor what we have been about, or what we have to do. But when the memory starts into wakefulness, it brings the knowledge of these things back upon us like a flood of light, and sometimes the dream with it.
But the most curious circumstance of the mind in a state of dream, is the power it has to become the agent of every person, character, and thing of which it dreams. It carries on conversation with several, asks questions, hears answers, gives and receives information, and it acts all these parts itself.
But however various and eccentric the imagination may be in the creation of images and ideas, it cannot supply the place of memory, with respect to things that are forgotten when we are awake. For example, if we have forgotten the name of a person, and dream of seeing him, and asking him his name, he cannot tell it ; for it is ourselves asking ourselves the question.
But though the imagination cannot supply the place of real memory, it has the wild faculty of counterfeiting memory. It dreams of persons it never knew, and talks with them as if it remembered them as old acquaintances. It relates circumstances that never happened, and tells them as if they had happened. It goes to places that never existed, and knows where all the streets and houses
256 AGE OF REASON.
are, as if it had been there before. The scenes it creates often appear as scenes remembered. It will sometimes act a dream within a dream, and in the delusion of dream- ing tell a dream it never dreamed, and tell it as if it was from memory. It may also be remarked, that the imagination in a dream has no idea of time as time. It counts only by circumstances ; and if a succession of circumstances pass in a dream that would require a great length of time to accomplish them, it will appear to the dreamer that a length of time equal thereto has passed also.
As this is the state of the mind in dream, it may rationally be said that every person is mad once in twenty-four hours ; for were he to act in the day as he dreams in the night, he would be confined for a lunatic. In a state of wakefulness, those three faculties being all active, and acting in unison, constitute the rational man. In dreams it is otherwise, and, therefore, that state which is called insanity appears to be no other than a disunion of those faculties and a cessation of the judgment during wakefulness, that we so often experience during sleep ; and idiocy^ into which some persons have fallen, is that cessation of all the faculties of which we can be sensible when we happen to wake before our memory.
In this view of the mind, how absurd is it to place reliance upon dreams, and how much more absurd to make them a foundation for religion ! yet the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, begotten by the Holy Ghost, a being never heard of before, stands on the story of an old man's dream. ''''And behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph^ in a dream^ sayings Joseph^ thoii son 0/ David ^ fear not thou to take unto thee Mary thy wife : for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. ' ' Matt. chap, i., ver. 20.
After this we have the childish stories of three or four other dreams ; about Joseph going into Egypt ; about his
AGE OF RKASON. 257
coming back again ; about this, and about that ; and this story of dreams has thrown Europe into a dream for more than a thousand years. All the efforts that nature, reason, and conscience, have made to awaken man from it, have been ascribed by priestcraft and superstition to the workings of the devil ; and had it not been for the American revolution, which, by establishing th&imwersa/ right of conscience^ first opened the way to free discussion, and for the French revolution which followed, this reli- gion of dreams had continued to be preached, and that after it had ceased to be believed. Those who preached it and did not believe it, still believed the delusion necessary. They were not bold enough to be honest, nor honest enough to be bold.
[Every new religion, like a new play, requires a new apparatus of dresses and machinery, to fit the new characters it creates. The story of Christ in the New Testament brings a new being upon the stage, which it calls the Holy Ghost ; and the story of Abraham the father of the Jews, in the Old Testament^ gives existence to a new order of beings it calls angels. There was no Holy Ghost before the time of Christ, nor angels before the time of Abraham. We hear nothing of these winged gentlemen, till more than two thousand years, according to the Bible chronology, from the time they say the heavens, the earth, and all therein were made. After this, they hop, about as thick as birds in a grove. The first we hear of pays his addresses to Hagar in the wilder- ness ; then three of them visit Sarah ; another wrestles a fall with Jacob ; and these birds of passage, having found their way to earth and back, are continually coming and going. They eat and drink, and up again to heaven. * * =iJ *
One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar absurdities as scripture religion is, could never have obtained credit ; yet we have seen what
258 AGE OF REASON.
priestcraft and fanaticism could do, and credulity believe.
From angels iu the Old Testament we get to prophets, to witches, to seers of visions, and dreamers of dreams, and sometimes we are told, as in i Sam., chap, ix., ver. 15, that God whispers in the ear. At other times we are not told how the impulse was given, or whether sleeping or waking. In 2 Sam., chap, xxiv., ver. i, it says, ^^A7id again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel^ and he moved David against them^ to say^ Go number Israel and Judahy — And in i Chron., chap, xxi., ver. i, when the same story is again related, it is said, ^^And Satan stood up against Israel^ and provoked David to number Israel. ' '
Whether this was done sleeping or waking we are not told, but it seems that David, whom they call "a man after God's own heart," did not know by what spirit he was moved ; and as to the men called inspired penmen, they agree so well about the matter, that in one book they say that it was God, and in the other that it was the devil.
Yet this is the trash the church imposes upon the world as the word of God ! this is the collection of tales and contradictions called the Holy Bible ! this is the rubbish called revealed religion !
The idea that writers of the Old Testa^nent had of a God was boisterous, contemptible, and vulgar. They make him the Mars of the Jews, the fighting God of Israel, the conjuring God of their priests and prophets. They tell as many fables of him as the Greeks told of Hercules. * * * *
They make their God to say exultingly, ^^I will get me honor upon Pharaoh^ and upon his host^ upon his chariots^ and upon his horse^neny And that he may keep his word, they make him set a trap in the Red Sea, in the dead of the night, for Pharaoh, his host, and his horses, and
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drown them as a rat-catcher would do so many rats. Great honor indeed ! The story of Jack the Giant-killer is better told !
They pit him against the Egyptian magicians to conjure with him ; and after bad conjuring on both sides, (for where there is no great contest, there is no great honor,) they bring him off victorious. The three first essays are a dead match ; each party turns his rod into a serpent, the rivers into blood, and creates frogs ; but upon the fourth, the God of the Israelites obtained the laurel — he covers them all over with lice ! The Egyptian magicians cannot do the same, and this lousy triumph proclaims the victory !
They make their God to rain fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and belch fire and smoke upon mount Sinai, as if he was the Pluto of the lower regions. They made him salt up Lot's wife like pickled pork ; they make him pass, like Shakspear's Queen Mab, into the brain of their priests, prophets and prophetesses, and tickle them into dreams ; and after making him play all kind of tricks, they confound him with Satan, and leave us at a loss to know what God they meant !
This is the descriptive God of the Old Testament ; and as to the Neu\ though the authors of it have varied the scene, they continued the vulgarity.
Is man ever to be the dupe of priestcraft, the slave of superstition? Is he never to have just ideas of his Creator? It is better not to believe there is a God than to believe of him falsely. When we behold the mighty universe that surrounds us, and dart our con- templation into the eternity of space, filled with innumerable orbs, revolving in eternal harmony, how paltry must the tales of the Old and New Testame7its^ profanely called the word of God, appear to thoughtful man ! The stupendous wisdom and unerring order that reign and govern throughout this wondrous whole, rnd
26o AGE OF REASON.
call US to reflection, put to shame the Bible f — T\i^ God of eternity and of all that is real is not the God of passing dreams and shadows of man's imagination ! The God of truth is not the God of fable ; the belief of a God begotten and a God crucified is a God blasphemed. It is making a profane use of reason. *]
I shall conclude this Essay on Dreams with the two first verses of the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, one of the books of the Apocr>'pha.
1 ''^ The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain a7id false! and dreams lift up fools.
2 ' ' Whoso regardeth dreams is like him thai catcheth at a shadow^ and follow eth after the wind. ' '
^The portion of this Essay enclosed in brackets does not appear in the edition published by Mr. Paine. It is copied from an edition of his works published by W. Carver, No. 8 Elm Street, New York, and R. Carlile, 34 Fleet Street, London, in 1824. In a note the editor states that "having obtained the original in the hand- writing of Mr. Paine, and deeming the remarks worthy of preservation," he had thought proper to restore the passage.
The Examination of the Prophecies was published by Mr. Paine in pamphlet form in New York in 1807, and was the last of his writings edited by himself. He declined publishing the entire works he had prepared, says the above named editor, observing that " an author might lose the credit he had acquired by writing too much." This unfortunate resolution has deprived the world of writings that can never be replaced.— E.
MY PRIVATE THOUGHTS
ON
A FUTURE STATE.
I HAVE said, in the first part of the Age of Reason^ that "I hope for happiness after this life." This hope is comfortable to me, and I presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with respect to a future state.
I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he will dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice and goodness. I leave all these matters to him as my Creator and friend, and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter.
I do not believe, because a man and a woman make a ^ child, that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal exist- ence hereafter. It is in his power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in our power to decide which he will do.
The book called the New Testament^ which I hold to be fabulous and have shown to be false, gives an account in the 25th chapter of Matthew, of what is there called the last day, or the day of judgment. The whole world, according to that account, is divided into two parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, figuratively called the sheep and the goats. They are then to receive their
A
262 AGE OF REASON.
sentence. To the one, figuratively called the sheep, it says, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." To the other, figuratively called the goats, it says, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels."
Now the case is, the world cannot be thus divided — the moral world, like the physical world, is composed of numerous degrees of character, running imperceptibly one into another, in such a manner that no fixed point of division can be found in either. That point is no- where or is everywhere. The whole world might be divided into two parts numerically, but not as to moral character ; and therefore the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be divided, whose difference is marked by their external figure, is absurd. All sheep are still sheep ; all goats are still goats : it is their physical nature to be so. But one part of the world are not all good alike, nor the other part all wicked alike. There are some exceedingly good : others exceedingly wicked. There is another description of men who cannot be ranked with either the one- or the other. They belong to neither the sheep nor the goats.
My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy — for this is the only way in which we can serve God — will be happy hereafter; and that the very wicked will meet with some punishment. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of God's justice, and with the reason that God has given me.
THOMAS PAINE.
AGE OF REASON,
CONTAINING
A LETTER TO THE Hon. THOMAS ERSKINE
ON THE PROSECUTION OF WILLIAMS FOR PL'BLISUING THE AGE OF REASON.
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED TO THE SOCIETY OP THEOPHILANTHROPISTS AT PARIS.
LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN OF FREE MASONRY.
EXTRACT or
A Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff,
AND OTHER ARTICLES,
THOMAS PAINE.