book is brought down to 1056 years before Christ ; that

AGE OF REASON. lOI
is, till the death of Saul, which was not till four years after the death of Samuel.
The second book of Samuel begins with an account of things that did not" happen till four years after Samuel was dead ; for it begins with the reign of David, who succeeded Saul, and it goes on to the end of David's reign, which was forty-three years after the death of Samuel ; and, therefore, the books are in themselves positive evidence that they were not written by Samuel.
I have now gone through all the books in the first part of the Bible to which the names of persons are affixed, as being the authors of those books, and which the Church, styling itself the Christian Church, have imposed upon the world as the writings of Moses, Joshua and Samuel, and I have detected and proved the falsehood of this im- position. And now, ye priests of every description, who have preached and written against the former part of the Age of Reason^ what have ye to say ? Will ye, with all this mass of evidence against you, and staring you in the face, still have the assurance to march into your pulpits and continue to impose these books on your congregations as the works of inspired penme^i^ and the word of God, when it is as evident as demonstration can make truth appear, that the persons who ye say are the authors, are not the authors, and that ye know not who the authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now to produce for continuing the blasphemous fraud ? What have ye still to offer against the pure and moral religion of Deism, in support of your system of falsehood, idola- try, and pretended revelation ? Had the cruel and mur- derous orders with which the Bible is filled, and the numberless torturing executions of men, women and children, in consequence of those orders, been ascribed to some friend whose memory you revered, you would have glowed with satisfaction at detecting the falsehood of the charge, and gloried in defending his injured fame.
I02 AGE OF REASON.
Is it because ye are sunk iu the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference? The evidence I have produced, and shall produce in the course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without authority, will, while is wounds the stubbornness of a priest, relieve and tranquilize the minds of millions ; it will free them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which priestcraft and the Bible had infused into their minds, and which stood in ever- lasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral justice and benevolence.
I come now to the two books of Kings, and the two books of Chronicles. Those books are altogether his- torical, and are chiefly confined to the lives and actions of the Jewish kings, who in general were a parcel of rascals ; but these are matters with which we have no more concern than we have with the Roman emperors or Homer's account of the Trojan war. Besides which, as those works are anonymous, and as we know nothing of the writer, or of his character, it is impossible for us to know what degree of credit to give to the matters related therein. Like all other ancient histories, they appear to be a jumble of fable and of fact, and of probable and of improbable things ; but which distance of time and place, and change of circumstances in the world, have rendered obsolete and uninteresting.
The chief use I shall make of those books will be that of comparing them with each other, and with other parts of the Bible, to show the confusion, contradiction, and cruelty in this pretended word of God.
The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solo- mon, which, according to the Bible chronology, was 1015 years before Christ ; and the second book ends 588 years before Christ, being a little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jerusalem and con-
AGE OF REASON. IO3
qtiering the Jews, carried captive to Babylon. The two books include a space of 427 years.
The two books of Chronicles are a history of the same times, and in general of the same persons, by another author ; for it would be absurd to suppose that the same author wrote the history twice over. The first book of Chronicles (after giving the genealogy from Adam to Saul, which takes up the first nine chapters), begins with the reign of David ; and the last book ends as in the last book of Kings, soon after the reign of Zedekiah, about 588 years before Christ. The two last verses of the last chapter bring the history forward 52 years more, that is, to 536. But these verses do not belong to the book, as I shall show when I come to speak of the book of Ezra.
The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, David and Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of the lives of 17 kings and one queen, who are styled kings of Judah, and of 19, who are styled kings of Israel ; for the Jewish nation, immediately on the death of Solomon, split into two parties, who chose separate kings, and who carried on most rancorous wars against each other.
These two books are little more than a history of assas- sinations, treachery^ and wars. The cruelties that the Jews had accustomed themselves to practise on the Canaan- ites, whose country they had savagely invaded under a pretended gift from God, they afterward practised as furiously on each other. Scarcely half their kings died a natural death, and in some instances whole families were destroyed to secure possession to the successor ; who, after a few years, and sometimes only a few months or less, shared the same fate. In the tenth chapter of the second book of Kings, an account is given of two baskets full of children's heads, seventy in number, being ex- posed at the entrance of the city ; they were the children of Ahab, and were murdered by the order of Jehu, whom Blisha, the pretended man of God, had anointed
I04 AGE OF REASON.
to be king over Israel, on purpose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate his predecessor. And in the ac- count of the reign of Menahem, one of the kings of Is- rael who had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one month, it is said, II. Kings, chap. xv. , ver. i6, that Menahem smote the city of Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, a7id all the zvomcn therein that were with child he ripped tip.
Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Al- mighty would distinguish any nation of people by the name oi His chosen people^ we must suppose that people to have been an example to all the rest of the world of the purest piety and humanity, and not such a nation of ruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were ; a peo- ple who, corrupted by and copying after such monsters and impostors as Moses and Aaron, Joshua, Samuel and David, had distinguished themselves above all others on the face of the known earth for barbarity and wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut our eyes and steel our hearts, it is impossible not to see, in spite of all that long- established superstition imposes upon the mind, that the flattering appellation oi His chosen people is no other than a lie which the priests and leaders of the Jews had in- vented to cover the baseness of their own characters, and which Christian priests, sometimes as corrupt and often as cruel, have professed to believe.
The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same crimes, but the history is broken in several places by the author leaving out the reign of some of their ■ kings ; and in this, as well as in that of Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings of Judah to kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of Judah, that the narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same book the history sometimes contradicts itself; for example, in the second book of Kings, chap, i., ver. 17, we are told, but in rather ambiguous terms, that after the death of
AGE OF REASON. IO5
Ahaziah, king of Israel, Jehoram, or Joram (who was of the house of Ahab), reigned in his stead, in the second j^-^ar of Jehoram, or Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah ; and in chap, viii., ver. 16, of the same book, it is said, and in \\\^ fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, began to reign ; that is, one chapter says Joram of Judah began to reign in the second year oi'^oxd.xw of Israel ; and the other chapter says, that Joram of Israel began to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Judah.
Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one history, as having happened during the reign of such and such of their kings, are not to be found in the other, in relating the reign of the same king ; for example, the tw^o first rival kings, after the death of Solomon, were Rehoboam and Jeroboam ; and in I. Kings, chap, xii and xiii, an account is given of Jeroboam making an of- fering of burnt incense, and that a man, who was there called a man of God, cried out against the altar, chap, xiii., ver. 2 : "O altar, altar ! thus saith the Lord; Be- hold, a child shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name ; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee." Verse 4 : "And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on hmi. And his hand which he put out against him dried up^ so that he could not pull it in again to him. ' '
One would think that such an extraordinary case as this (which is spoken of as a judgment), happening to the chief of one of the parties, and that at the first moment of the separation of the Israelites into two nations, would, if it had been true, have been recorded in both histories. But though men in latter times have believed all that the prophets have said unto them^ it does
Io6 AGE OF REASON.
not appear that these prophets or historians believed each other ; they knew each other too well.
A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runs through several chapters, and concludes with telling, II. Kings, chap. ii. , ver . 1 1, " And it came to pass, c.s they (Elijah and Elisha) still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses offire^ and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven^ Hum ! this the author of Chronicles, miraculous as the story is, makes no men- tion of, though he mentions Elijah by name ; neither does he say anything of the story related in the second chapter of the same book of Kings, of a parcel of child- ren calling Elisha bald head^ bald head ; and that this man of God^ verse 24, "Turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord; and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tore forty-and-two children of them. ' ' He also passes over in silence the story told, II. Kings, chap, xiii., that when they were burying a man in the sepulchre where Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, as they were letting him down, (ver. 21), touched the bones of Elisha, and he (the dead man) revived^ and stood upon his feet.^'' The story does not tell us whether they buried the man, notwithstanding he revived and stood upon his feet, or drew him up again. Upon all these stories the writer of Chronicles is as silent as any writer of the present day who did not choose to be accused of lyings or at least of romancing, would be about stories of the same kind.
But, however these two historians may differ from each other with respect to the tales related by either, they are silent alike with respect to those men styled prophets, whose writings fill up the latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of Hezekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these historians are speaking of that reign ; but, except in one or two in-
AGE OF REASON.
107
stances at most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so much as spoken of, or even their existence hinted at ; although, according to the Bible chronology, they lived within the time those histories were written; some of them long before. If those prophets, as they are called, were men of such importance in their day as the compilers of the Bible and priests and commentators have since represented them to be, how can it be accounted for that not one of these histories should say anything about them?
The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought forward, as I have already said, to the year 588 before Christ ; it will, therefore, be proper to examine which of these prophets lived before that period.
Here follows a table of all the prophets, with the times in which they lived before Christ, according to the chro- nology affi xed to the first chapter of each of the books of the prophets ; and also of the number of years they lived before the books of Kings and Chronicles were written. Table of the Prophets.
Names.
Isaiah
Jeremiah .
Ezekiel . . Daniel . . Hosea . . Joel . . . Amos . . Obadiah Jonah . . Micah . , Nahum . . Habakkuk. ZephanJah .
"^'1^'^i , 1 after the Zachanah > q^
Malachi j yea'- 588
Years before Christ.
760 629
595 607 785 800
789 789 862
750 713 620 630
Years before Kiiigfs and Chronicles
172 41
7
19
97
212
199
199
274
162
125
38
42
Observations.
mentioned.
J mentioned only in the ( last chap, of Chron. not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned, see the note.* not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned, not mentioned.
* In n. Kings, chap, xiv., verse 25. the name of Jonah is mentioned on account of the restoration ofa tract of land by Jeroboam; but nothina: further is said of him nor is anv allusion made to the book ofjonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounter with the whale.
Io8 AGE OP REASON.
This table is either not very honorable for he Bible historians, or not very honorable for the Bible piophets ; and I leave to priests and commentators, who aie very learned in little things, to settle the point of eti- quette between the two, and to assign a reason why the authors of Kings and Chronicles have treated those prophets whom, in the former part of the Age of Reason^ I have considered as poets, with as much degrading silence as any historian of the present day would treat Peter Pindar.
I have one observation more to make on the book of Chronicles, after which I shall pass on to review the re- maining books of the Bible.
In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a passage from the 36th chapter, verse 31, which evidently refers to a time after kings began to reign over the children of Israel ; and I have shown that as this verse is verbatim the same as in Chronicles, chap, i, verse 43, where it stands consistently with the order of history, which in Genesis it does not, that the verse in Genesis, and a great part of the 36th chapter, have been taken from Chronicles ; and that the book of Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible, and ascribed to Moses, has been manufactured by some unknown person after the book of Chronicles was written, which was not until at least eight hundred and sixty years after the time of Moses.
The evidence I proceed by to substantiate this is regu- lar and has in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated that the passage in Genesis refers itself for time to Chronicles ; secondly, that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, was not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixty years after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to look into the thirteenth verse of the third chapter of the first book of Chronicles, where the writer, in giving the gene-
AGE OF REASON. 109
alogy of the descendants of David, mentions Zedekiah ; and it was in the time of Zedekiah that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, 588 years before Christ, and conse- quently more than 860 years after Moses. Those who have superstitiously boasted of the antiquity of the Bible, and particularly of the books ascribed to Moses, have done it without examination, and without any authority than that of one credulous man telling it to another ; for so far as historical and chronological evidence applies, the very first book in the Bible is not so ancient as the book of Homer by more than three hundred years, and is about the same age with ^sop" s Fables.
I am not contending for the morality of Homer ; on the contrary, I think it a book of false glory, tending to in- spire immoral and. mischievous notions of honor ; and with respect to ^sop, though the moral is in general just, the fable is often cruel ; and the cruelty of the fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a child, than the moral does good to the judgment.
Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to the next in course, the book of Ezra.
As one proof, among others I shall produce, to show the disorder in which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together, and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we have only to look at the three first verses in Ezra, and the last two in Chronicles ; for by what kind of cutting and shuflSing has it been that the three first verses in Ezra should be the two last verses in Chronicles, or that the two last in Chronicles should be the three first in Ezra ? Either the authors did not know their own works, or the compilers did not know the authors.
The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the middle of the phrase with the word up^ with- out signifying to what place. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses in different books.
no
AGE OF REASON.
show, as I have already said, the disorder and ignorance in which the Bible has been put together, and that the compilers of it had no authority for what they were doing, nor we any authority for believing what they have done. *
Three Jirst verses of Ezra.
Ver. I. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord, by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying.
2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, ivhich is ifi yudah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, {he is the God) which is i?i Jerusalem.
The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the book of Ezra, is the time in which it was written, which was immediately after the return of the Jews from
* I observed, as I passed along, several broken and senseless passages in the Bible, without thinking them of consequence enough to be introduced in the body of the work ; such as that, I. Samuel, chap. xiii. ver. i, where it is said, '• Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose him three thousand mfen," &c. The first part of the verse, that Saul reigned one year, has no sense since it does not tell us what Saul did, nor say anything of what happened at the end of that one year ; and it is, besides, mere absurdity to say he reigned one year, when the very next phrase says he had reigned two; for if he had reigned two, it was impossible not to have reigned one.
Another instance occurs in Joshua, chap, v, where the writer tells us a story of an atjgel (for such the table of contents at the head of the chapter calL= him) appearing unto Joshua ; and the story ends abruptly, and without any conclusion. The story is as
Two last verses of Ghronicles.
Ver. 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be ac- complished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Per- sia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
23. Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me : and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.
AGE OF REASON. Ill
the Babylonian captivity, about 536 years before Christ. Ezra (who, according to the Jewish commentators, is the same person as is called Esdras in the Apocrypha), was one of the persons who returned, and who, it is probable, wrote the account of that affair. Nehemiah, whose book follows next to Ezra, was another of the returned per- sons ; and who, it is also probable, wrote the account of the same affair in the book that bears his name. But these accounts are nothing to us, nor to any other per- sons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part of the history of their nation ; and there is just as much of the word of God in those books as there is in any of the histories of France, or Rapin's History of E^igland^ or the history of any other country.
But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writers are to be depended upon. In the second chapter of Ezra, the writer gives a list of the tribes and families, and of the precise number of souls of each, that returned from Babylon to Jerusalem : and this enrol- ment of the persons so returned appears to have been one of the principal objects for writing the book ; but
follows : Verse 13, " And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" Verse 14. "And he said, Nay ; but as captain of the hosts of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant ? " Verse 15, " And the cap- tain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standeth is holy. And Joshua did so." And what then? nothing, for here the story ends, and the chapter too.
Either the story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told by some Jewish humorist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from God ; and the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the story, have told it as a serious matter. As a story of humor and ridicule it has a great deal of point, for it pompously introduces an angel in the figure of a man, with a drawn sword in his hand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth and worships (which is contrary to their second command- ment) ; and then this most important embassy from heaven ends in telling Joshua to pull off his shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches.
It is certain however, that the Jews did not credit everything their leaders told them, as appears from the cavalier manner in which they speak of Moses, when he was gone into the mount. " As for this Moses," say they, "we wot not what is become of him." Exod. chap xxxii, ver. i.
112
AGE OF REASON.
in this there is an error that destroys the intention of the undertaking.
The writer begins his enrohnent in the following man- ner, chap, ii., ver. 3: "The children of Parosh, two thousand a hundred seventy and two.'- Ver. 4, "The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two. ' ' And in this manner he proceeds through all the families , and in the 64th verse, he makes a total, and says, " The whole congregation together wasyOr/y and two thousand three hundred and threescore. ' '
But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several particulars will find that the total is but 29,818 ; so that the error is 12,542.* What certainty, then, can there be in the Bible for anything?
Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned families, and of the number of each family. He begins, as in Ezra, by saying, chap, vii., ver. 8, "The children of Parosh, two thousand a hundred seventy and two ; and so on through all the families. The list differs in several of the particulars from that of Ezra. In the 66th verse, Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as Ezra had said, ' ' The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore. " But the particulars of this list makes a total of but 31,089, so that the error here is ii^^Jt^ These writers may do well enough for Bible- m^ktcers, but not for anything where truth and exactness H necessary.
* Particulars of the Families from the second Chapter of Ezra.
Chap ii.
Bro't for.
12.243
Bro't for.
''fi
Bro't for.
24,144
Verse 3
2172
Verse 14
2056
Verse 25
Verse 36
973
4
372
15
454
26
621
37
1052
5
775
16
98
27
122
38
1247
6
2812
'Z
323
28
223
39
■ 1017
7
1254
18
112
29
52
40
74
8
945
19
223
30
156
41
128
9
760
20
95
31
1254
42
139
10
642
21
123
32
320
53
392
11
623
22
56
33
725
60
652
12
1222
23
128
34
345
13
666
24
42
35
3630
12.243
15.953
2,4144
__ _TotaI^
29.818
AGE OF REASON. II3
The next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madame Esther thought it any honor to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasuerus, or as a rival to Queen Vashti, who had refused to come to a drunken king in the midst of a drunken company, to be made a show of, (for the account says they had been drinking seven days and were merry), let Esther and Mordecai look to that ; it is no business of ours ; at least, it is none of mine ; be- sides which the story has a great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also anonymous. I pass on to the book of Job.
The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of this book ; it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with the vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and struggling against the pressure. It is a highly-wrought composition, be- tween willing submission and involuntary discontent, and shows man, as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable of being. Patience has but a small share in the character of the person of whom the book treats ; on the contrary, his grief is often impetu- ous, but he still endeavors to keep a guard upon it, and seems determined in the midst of accumulating ills, to impose upon himself the hard duty of contentment.
I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job in the former part of the Age of Reason, but without knowing at that time what I have learned since, which is, that from all the evidence that can be collected the book of Job does not belong to the Bible.
I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, Abenezra and Spinoza, upon this subject. They both say that the book of Job carries no internal evidence of being a Hebrew book ; that the genius of the composition and the drama of the piece are not Hebrew ; that it has been translated from another language into Hebrew, and that
114 AGK OF REASON.
the author of the book was a Gentile ; that the character represented under the name of Satan (which is the first and only time this name is mentioned in the Bible) does not correspond to any Hebrew idea, and that the two con- vocations which the Deity is supposed to have made of those whom the poem calls sons of God, and the famil- iarity which this supposed Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the same case.
It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be the production of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so far from being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to objects of natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of a different cast to any- thing in the books known to be Hebrew. The astro- nomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek and not Hebrew names, and it does not appear from any- thing that is to be found in the Bible, that the Jews knew anything of astronomy or that they studied it ; they had no translation of those names into their own language, but adopted the names as they found them in the poem.
That the Jews did translate the literary productions of the Gentile nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their own, is not a matter of doubt ; the thirty- first chapter of Proverbs is an evidence of this ; it is there said, V. I : " The zvords of King Lemuel^ the prophecy that his mother taught him. ' ' This verse stands as a preface to the Proverbs that follow, and which are not the proverbs of Solomon, but of lycmuel ; and this Lemuel was not one of the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of some other country, and consequently a Gentile. The Jews, how- ever, have adopted his proverbs, and as they cannot give any account who the author of the book of Job was, nor how they came by the book, and as it differs in character from the Hebrew writings, and stands totally unconnected with every other book and chapter in the Bible, before
AGE OF REASON. II5
it and after it, it has all the circumstantial evidence of being originally a book of the Gentiles. *
The Bible-makers and those regulators of time, the chronologists, appear to have been at a loss where to place and how to dispose of the book of Job ; for it con- tains no one historical circumstance, nor allusion to any, that might determine its place in the Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose of these men to have informed the world of their ignorance, and there- fore, they have affixed it to the era of 1520 years before Christ, which is during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and for which they have just as much authority and no more than I should have for saying it was a thousand years before that period. The probability, how- ever, is that it is older than any book in the Bible ; and it is the only one that can be read without indignation or disgust.
We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is called) was before the time of the Jews, whose practise has been to calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations ; and it is from the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them heathens. But, as far as we know to the contrary, they were a just and moral people, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and revenge, but of whose profession of faith we are unac- quainted. It appears to have been their custom to per-
*The prayer known by the name o^ Agur's prayer, in the 30th chapter of Proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel, and which is the only sensible, well- conceived and well-expressed prayer in the Bible, has much the appearance of beinsi a prayer taken from the Gentiles. The name of Agur occurs on no other occasion than this ; and he is introduced, together with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same man- ner, and nearly in the same words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced in the chapter that follows. The first verse of the 30th chapter says, " The words of Agur, the son ofjakeh. even the prophecy " Here the word prophecy is used in the same application it has in the following chapter of Lemuel unconnected with any thing of prediction The prayer of Agur is in the 8th and 9th verses. " Remove far from me vanity and lies ; give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with food convenient for me ; lest I be full and deny thee, and say. Who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." This has not any of the marks of being a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance and riches.
Il6 AGE OF REASON.
sonify both virtue and vice by statues and images, as is done nowadays both by statuary and by painting ; but it does not follow from this that they worshiped them, any more than we do.
I pass on to the book of Psalms^ of which it is not necessary to make much observation. Some of them are moral, and others are very revengeful ; and the greater part relates to certain local circumstances of jthe Jewish nation at the time they were written, with !which we have nothing to do. It is, however, an /error or an imposition to call them the Psalms of I David. They are a collection, as song-books are nowa- days, from different song-writers, who lived at different times. Ths 137th Psalm could not have been written till more than 400 years after the time of David, because it was written in commemoration of an event, the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, which did not happen till that distance of time. ' ' By the rivers of Babylon we sat dow7i ; yea^ we wept^ when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows^ in the midst thereof ; for there they that carried us away captive required of us a song^ sayings Sing us one of the songs of Zion ^ As a man would say to an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, ''Sing us one of your American songs, or of your French songs, or ofyour English songs." This remark, with respect to the time this Psalm was written, is of no other use than to show (among others already mentioned) the general imposition the world has been under in respect to the authors of the Bible. No re- gard has been paid to time, place and circumstance, and the names of persons have been affixed to the several books, which it was as impossible they should write as that a man should walk in procession at his own funeral. The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collection, and that from authors belonging to other na- tions than those of the Jewish nation, as I have shown in
AGE OF REASON. II7
the observations upon the book of Job ; besides which some of the proverbs ascribed to Solomon did not appear till two hundred and fifty years after the death of Solo- mon ; for it is said in the ist verse of the 25th chapter, *' These are also proverbs of Solomon^ which the men of Hezekiah^ king ofjudah^ copied out^ It was two hun- dred and fifty years from the time of Solomon to the time of Hezekiah. When a man is famous and his name is abroad, he is made the putative father of things he never said or did, and this, most probably, has been the case with Solomon. It appears to have been the fashion of that day to make proverbs, as it is now to make jest- books and father them upon those who never saw them.
The book of Ecclesiastes^ or the Preacher^ is also as- cribed to Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is written as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as Solomon was, who, looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy, cries out, ^^ All is vanity!''^ A great deal of the metaphor and of the sentiment is obscure, most probably by translation ; but enough is left to show they were strongly pointed in the original. * From what is transmitted to us of the char- acter of Solomon, he was witty, ostentatious, dissoJute, and at last melancholy. He lived fast, and died, tired of the world, at the age of fifty-eight years.
Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines are worse than none, and, however it may carry with it the appearance of heightened enjoyment, it defeats all the felicity of affection by leaving it no point to fix upon. Divided love is never happy. This was the case with Solomon, and if he could not, with all his pretentions to wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, the mortification he afterward endured. In this point of view, his preaching is unnecessary, because, to know the
* Those that look out of the window shall be darkened, is an obscure figure in trans- lation for loss of sight.
Il8 AGK OF REASON.
consequences, it is only necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines would have stood in place of the whole book. It was needless, after this, to say that all was vanity and vexa- tion of spirit ; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of hap- piness.
To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we ac- custom ourselves to objects that can accompany the mind all the way through life, and that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age, and the mere drudge in business is but little better ; whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure, and in spite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study of these things is the true theology ; it teaches man to know and to admire the Creator, for the principles of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable and of divine origin.
Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was ever young, his temper ever serene ; science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.
Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but which wrinkled fanaticism has called divine. The com- pilers of the Bible have placed these songs after the book of Ecclesiastes, and the chronologists have affixed to them the era of 1 014 years before Christ, at which time Solomon, according to the same chronology, was nine- teen years of age, and was then forming his seraglio of wives and concubines. The Bible-makers and the chronologists should have managed this matter a little better, and either have said nothing about the time, or chosen a time less inconsistent with the supposed divinity
AGE OF REASON. II9
of those songs ; for Solomon was then in the honeymoon of one thousand debaucheries.
It should also have occurred to them that, as he wrote, if he did write, the book of Ecclesiastes long after these songs, and in which he exclaims, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit, that he included those songs in that description. This is the more probable, because he says, or somebody for him^ Ecclesiastes, chap. ii. ver. 8, "/ gat me men singers ajid women singers (most probably to sing those songs), as musical instriim.ents and that of all sorts ; and behold, (ver. 11), all was vanity and vexation of spirit. " The compilers, however, have done their work but by halves, for as they have given us the songs, they should have given us the tunes, that we might sing them.
The books called the Books of the Prophets fill up all the remaining parts of the Bible ; they are sixteen in number, beginning with Isaiah, and ending with Mala- chi, of which I have given you a list in my observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen prophets, all of whom, except the three last, lived within the time the books of Kings and Chronicles were writen, two only, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are mentioned in the history of those books. I shall begin with those two, reserving what I have to . say on the general character of the men called prophets to another part of the work.
Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book as- cribed to Isaiah will find it one of the most wild and dis- orderly compositions ever put together ; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end ; and, except a short histori- cal part and a few sketches of history in two or three of the first chapters, is one continued, incoherent, bombas- tical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without appli- cation, and destitute of meaning ; a school-boy would scarcely have been excusable for writing such stuff ; it is (at least in the translation) that kind of composi- tion and false taste that is properly called prose run mad.
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The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, and is continued to the end of the 39th chapter. It relates to some matters that are said to have passed during- the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah ; at which time Isaiah lived. This fragment of history begins and ends abruptly ; it has not the least connection with the chapter that pre- cedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book. It is probable that Isaiah wrote this fragment himself, because he was an actor in the circum- stances it treats of; but, except this part, there are scarcely two chapters that have any connection with each other ; one is entitled, at the beginning of the first verse, "The burden of Babylon;" another, " The burden of Moab ; ' ' another ' ' The burden of Damascus ; ' ' another, "The burden of Egypt ; " another, " The burden of the desert of the sea ; ' ' another, ' ' The burden of the valley of vision " * — as you would say, ' ' The story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain," "The story of Cin- derella," or "The Children in the Wood," etc., etc.
I have already shown, in the instance of the two last verses of Chronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the compilers of the Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with each other, which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to destroy the authenticity of any compilation, because it is more than presumptive evidence that the compilers were ignorant who the authors were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the book ascribed to Isaiah ; the latter part of the 44th chapter and the beginning of the 45th, so far from having been written by Isaiah, could only have been written by some person who lived at least a hundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead.
These chapters are a compliment to Cyrus, who per- mitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem from the Baby- lonian captivity, to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, as
*See beginning of chapters xiii, xv, xvii, xix, xxi and xxii,
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is stated in Ezra. The last verse of the 44th chapter and the beginning of the 45th, are in the following words : " That saith of Cyrus ; He is my shepherd^ and shall perform all my pleasure ; even saying to ferusalem^ Thou shall be built^ and to the temple^ Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed^ to Cyrus ^ whose right hand I have holden^ to subdue nations before him ; and I will loose the loins of kings ^ to open be- fore hhn the two-leaved gates^ and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee^'*'' etc.
What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to impose this book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaiah, according to their own chronology, died soon after the death of Hezekiah, which was 693 years before Christ, and the decree of Cyrus, in favor of the Jews returning to lerusalem, was, according to the same chronology, 536 years before Christ, which is a distance of time between the two of 162 years. I do not suppose that the compilers of the Bible made these books, but rather that they picked up some loose anony- mous essays, and put them together under the names of such authors as best suited their purpose. They have ^ irouraged the imposition, which is next to inventing it, lor it was impossible but they must have observed it.
When we see the studied craftof the Scripture-makers, in making e'very part of this romantic book of school- boy's eloquence bend to the monstrous idea of a Son of God begoiten by a ghost on the body of a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified in suspecting them of. Kvery phrase and circumstance is marked with the barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it was impospible they could have. The head of every chapter and the top of every page are blazoned with the names of Christ and the Church, that the unwary reader might suck in the error before he began to read.
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' ' Behold a virgin shall conceive^ and bear a son^ ' ' Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 14, has been interpreted to mean the per- son called Jesus Christ, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed through Christendom for more than a thou- sand years ; and such has been the rage of this opinion that scarcely a spot in it but has been stained with blood, and marked with desolation in consequence of it. Though it is not my intention to enter into controversy on sub- jects of this kind, but to confine myself to show that the Bible is spurious, and thus, by taking away the founda- tion, to overthrow at once the whole structure of super- stition raised thereon, I will, however, stop a moment to expose the fallacious application of this passage.
Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, to whom this passage is spoken, is no business of mine ; I mean only to show the misapplication of the pas- sage, and that it has no more reference to Christ and his mother than it has to me and my mother. The story is simply this : The king of Syria and the king of Israel, (I have already mentioned that the Jews were split into two nations, one of which was called Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, and the other Israel), made war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched their armies toward Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became alarmed, and the account says, verse 2, ^^And his heart was moved^ and the heart of his people^ as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.^^
In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, and assures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all the prophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him ; and to satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a sign. This, the ac- count says, Ahaz declined doing, giving as a reason that he would not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah, who is the speaker, says, ver. 14, ' ' Therefore the Lord him- self shall give you a sign, Behold^ a virgin shall conceive
AGE OF REASON. I23
and bear a son ;'*'' and the i6th verse says, ^'^ For before this child shall know to refuse the evil^ a7td choose the good^ the land that thou abhorrest, (or dreadest, mean- ing Syria and the kingdom of Israel) shall be forsaken of both her kings. ' ' Here then was the sign, and the time limited for the completion of the assurance or promise, namely, before this child should know to re- fuse the evil and choose the good.
Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became ^5 necessar>^ to him, in order to avoid the imputation of being a false prophet and the consequence thereof, to take measures to make this sign appear. It certainly was not a difficult thing, in any time of the world, to find a girl with child, or to make her so, and perhaps Isaiah knew of one beforehand ; for I do not suppose that the prophets of that day were any more to be trusted than the priests of this. Be that, however, as it may, he says S in the next chapter, ver. 2, "And I took unto me faith- ful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, and / went u?tto the prophetess^ and she conceived and bare a son. ' '
Here, then, is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child and this virgin ; and it is upon the barefaced per- version of this story, that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interests of priests in later times, have founded a theory which they call the Gospel ; and have applied this stor>' to signify the person they call Jesus Christ, begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in marriage, and afterward married, whom they call a virgin, 700 years after this foolish stor}^' was told ; a theory which, speaking for myself, I hesitate not to disbelieve, and to say, is as fabulous and as false as God is true. *
*In the 14th verse of the 7th chapter, it is said that the child should be called Ira- manuel ; but this name was not given to either of the children otherwise than as a character which the word signifies. That of the prophetess was called Maher-shalal- hash-baz, and that of Mary wa? called Jesus.
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But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah, we have only to attend to the sequel of this story, which, though it is passed over in silence in the book of Isaiah, is related in the 28th chapter of the second Chronicles, and which is, that instead of these two kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to foretell in the name of the Lord, they succeeded ; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed, a hundred and twenty thousand of his people were slaughtered, Jerusalem was plundered, and two hundred thousand women, and sons and daughters, carried into captivity. Thus much for this lying prophet and impostor, Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that bears his name.
I pass on to the book of Jeremiah. This prophet, as he is called, lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar be- sieged Jerusalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah ; and the suspicion was strong against him that he was a traitor in the interests of Nebuchadnezzar. Everything relating to Jeremiah shows him to have been a man of an equivocal character ; in his metaphor of the potter and the clay, chap, xviii., he guards his prognos- tications in such a crafty manner as always to leave him- self a door to escape by, in case the event should be con- trary to what he had predicted.
In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter he makes the Almighty to say, "At what instant I shall speak con- cerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and destroy it. If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will re- pent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Here was a proviso against one side of the case ; now for the other side.
Verses 9 and 10, "And at what instant I shall speak con- cerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice ; then I shall repent of the good wherewith
AGK OF REASON. 1 25
I said I would benefit them." Here is a proviso against the other side ; and, according to this plan of prophesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the Almighty might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible.
As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to read it, in order to decide positively that, though some passages recorded therein may have been spoken by Jere- miah, he is not the author of the book. The historical parts, if they can be called by that name, are in the most confused condition ; the same events are several times repeated, and that in a manner different, and sometimes in contradiction to each other ; and this disorder runs even to the last chapter, where the history upon which the greater part of the book has been employed begins anew, and ends abruptly. The book has all the appearance of being a medley of unconnected anecdotes respecting per- sons and things of that time, collected together in the same rude manner as if the various and contradictory ac- counts that are to be found in a bundle of newspapers respecting persons and things of the present day, were put together without date, order, or explanation. I will give two or three examples of this kind.
It appears, from the account of the 37th chapter, that the army of Nebuchadnezzar, which is called the army of the Chaldeans, had besieged Jerusalem some time, and on their hearing that the army of Pharaoh, of Egypt, was marching against them they raised the siege and retreated for a time. It may here be proper to mention, in order to understand this confused history, that Nebuchad- nezzar had besieged and taken Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim, the predecessor of Zedekiah ; and that it was Nebuchadnezzar who had made Zedekiah king, or rather viceroy ; and that this second siege, of
126 AGE OF REASON.
which the book of Jeremiah treats, was in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against Nebuchadnezzar. This will in some measure account for the suspicion that affixes to Jeremiah of being a traitor and in the interest of Nebuchadnezzar ; whom Jeremiah calls, in the 43d chapter, ver. 10, the servant of God.
The nth verse of this chapter (the 37th), says, " And it came to pass, that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem, for fear of Pharoah's army, that Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem, to go (as this account states) into the land of Benjamin, to sep- arate himself thence in the midst of the people, and when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is false ; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. ' ' Jeremiah being thus stopped and accused, was, after being examined, committed to prison on sus- picion of being a traitor, where he remained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter.
But the next chapter gives an account of the imprison- ment of Jeremiah which has no connection with this ac- count, but ascribes his imprisonment to another circum- stance, and for which we must go back to the 21st chapter. It is there stated, ver. i, that Zedekiah sent Pashur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maaseiah the priest, to Jeremiah to inquire of him concerning Nebu- chadnezzar, whose army was then before Jerusalem ; and Jeremiah said unto them, ver. 8 and 9, "Thus saith the Lord, Behold I set before you the way of life, and the way of death ; he that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence ; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey. ' '
AGE OF REASON. 137
This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the end of the loth verse of the 21st chapter ; and such is the disorder of this book that we have to pass over six- teen chapters, upon various subjects, in order to come at the continuation and event of this conference, and this brings us to the first verse of the 38th chapter, as I have just mentioned.
The 38th chapter opens with saying, "Then Shepa- tiah, the son of Mattan ; Gedaliah, the son of Pashur ; and Jucal, the son of Shelemiah ; and Pashur, the son of Malchiah (here are more persons mentioned than in the 2ist chapter), heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people, saying. Thus saith the Lord^ He that remaineth in this city^ shall die by the sword^ by the famine^ and by the pestilence ; but he that goeth forth to the Chal- deans shall live^ for he shall have his life for a prey ^ and shall live ;^^ (which are the words of the conference), therefore, (they say to Zedekiah), "We beseech thee, let us put this man to death, for thus he zveakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this city^ and the hands of all the people in speaking such words unto them ; for this 7nan seeketh not the welfare of the people^ but the hurt. ' ' And at the 6th verse it is said, ' ' Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah."
These two accounts are different and contradictory. The one ascribes his imprisonment to his attempt to es- cape out of the city : the other to his preaching and prophesying in the city ; the one to his being seized by the guard at the gate ; the other to his being accused be- fore Zedekiah, by the conferees.*
*I observed two chapters, i6th and 17th, in the first book of Samuel, that contradict each other with respect to David, and the manner he became acquainted with Saul ; as the 37th and 38th chapters of the book of Jeremiah contradict each other with respect io the cause of Jeremiah's imprisonment.
In the i6th chapter of Samuel, it is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled Saul, and that his servants advised him (as a remedy) "to seek out a man who was a cunning player upon the harp." "And Saul said, [verse 17,] Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold
128 AGE OF REASON.
In the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance of the disordered state of this book ; for notwithstanding the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar has been the subject of several of the preceding chapters, particularly the 37th and 38, the 39th chapter begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject ; and as if the reader was to be informed of every particular concerning it, for it begins with saying, verse i, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all his array, against Jerusalem, and they besieged it," etc.
But the instance in the last chapter (the 52d) is still more glaring, for though the story has been told over and over again, this chapter still supposes the reader not to know anything of it, for it begins by saying, ver. i, ' ' Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign^ and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem^ and his mother'^ s name was Hamutal^ the daughter of Jere- miah of Libnah. (Ver. 4,) And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign^ in the tenth Tnonth^ in the tenth day of the months that Nebuchadnezzar^ king of Babylon^ came^ he and all his army^ against Jerusalem^ and pitched against it^ and built forts against it^^'' etc.
I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, "Send me David thy son." " And [verse 21,] David came to Saul, and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And when the evil.spirit from God was upon Saul [ver. 23] that David took an harp, and played with his hand : so Saul was refreshed, and was well."
But the next chapter [17] gives an account, all different to this, of the manner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is ascribed to David's encounter with Goliah, when David was sent by his father to carry provision to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th verse of this chapter it is said, "And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine [Goliah], he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this vouth ? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth. O king. I cannot tell. And the king said, Enquire thou whose son the stripling is And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him. and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him. Whose son art thou. thou young man? And David answered, /am the son of thv servant Jesse the Beth- lehemite." These two accounts belie each other, because each of them supposes Saul and David not to have known each other before. This book, the Bible, is too ridicu- lous even for criticism.
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It is not possible that any one man, and more particu- larly Jeremiah, could have been the writer of this book. The errors are such as could not have been committed by any person sitting down to compose a work. Were I, or any other man, to write in such a disorded manner, no- body would read what was written ; and everybody would suppose that the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way, therefore, to account for this disorder is, that the book is a medley of detached, unauthenticated anec- dotes, put together by some stupid book-maker, under the name of Jeremiah, because many of them refer to him and to the circumstances of the times he lived in.
Of the duplicity, and of the false prediction of Jeremiah, I shall mention two instances, and then proceed to re- view the remainder of the Bible.
It appears from the 38th chapter, that when Jeremiah was in prison, Zedekiah sent for him, and at this inter- view, which was private, Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender himself to the enemy. "^" says he (ver. 17,) ^Hhou wilt ass7iredly go forth unto the king of Babylon'' s princes^ then thy soul shall live^''^ etc. Zede- kiah was apprehensive that what passed at this conference should be known, and he said to Jeremiah (ver. 25), "If the princes [meaning those of Judah] hear that I have talked with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now what thou hast said unto the king ; hide it not from us, and we will not put thee to death ; and also what the king said unto thee ; then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan's house to die there. Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all the words the king had commanded y Thus, this man of God, as he is called, could tell a lie or very strongly prevaricate, when he supposed it would answer his purpose ; for certainly he did not go to
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Zedekiah to make his supplication, neither did he make it ; he went because he was sent for, and he employed that opportunity to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to Nebuchadnezzar.
In the 34th chapter is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zede- kiah, in these words (ver. 2), ' 'Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire ; and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand ; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord^ O Zedekiah^ king of Judah^ Thus saith the Lord^ of thee ^ Thou shalt not die by the sword^ bict thou shalt die i7i peace ; and with the burnings of thy fathers^ the former kings which were before thee^ so shall they burn odors for thee^ and they will lament thee^ sayings Ah^ lord ; for I have pronounced the word^ saith the Lordy
Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king of Babylon, and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and dying in peace, and with the burning of odors, as at the funeral of his fathers, (as Jeremiah had declared the Lord himself had pronoimced), the reverse, according to the 52nd chapter, was the case ; it is there said (ver. 10), "And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes ; Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death." What, then, can we say of these prophets, but that they were impostors and liars?
As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was taken into favor by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to the captain of the guard (chap, xxxix. ver. 12), "Take him (said he) and look well to him, and do him no harm ; but do unto him even as he shall say
AGE OF REASON. I3I
unto thee." Jeremiah joined himself afterward to Nebuchadnezzar, and went about prophesying for him against the Egyptians, who had marched to the relief of Jerusalem while it was besieged. Thus much for another of the lying prophets, and the book that bears his name.
I have been the more particular in treating of the books ascribed to Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of in the books of Kings and Chronicles, which the others are not. The remainder of the books ascribed to the men called prophets I shall not trouble myself much about, but take them collectively into the observations I shall offer on the character of the men styled prophets.
In the former part of the Age of Reason^ I have said that the word prophet was the Bible word for poet, and that the flights and metaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into what are now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this opinion, not only because the books called the prophecies are written in poetical language, but because there is no word in the Bible, ex- cept it be the word prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. I have also said, that the word signifies a per- former upon musical instruments, of which I have given some instances, such as that of a company of prophets prophesying with psalteries, with tabrets, with pipes, with harps, etc., and that Saul prophesied with them,