' i' v^i t-^^lHTns- ye 
 
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alio 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BL2740.C28 R4 
 
 Report of the proceedings of the Court o 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 088 651 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029088651 
 
THE 
 
 REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 > COURT OF fCIjVfG'S BENCH, 
 
 IN niE GUILDHALL, LONDON, ' :• 
 
 ON THE i2TH, 13TH, 14TH, AND'.ISTH DAYS OF OCTOBER; 
 
 .. BEIKG THE 
 
 MOCK TBI ALS 
 
 _^-- , OF 
 
 RICHARD CARLILE, 
 
 /for 
 
 ALLEDGED BLASPHEMOUS- LIBELS, :.. 
 
 IN PUBLISHING 
 
 THOMAS PAINE'S THEOLOGICAL WORKS 
 
 AND 
 
 0Ufiu Walvtiev'^ WvimipU^ of Mature; 
 
 BEFORE 
 
 LORD CHIEF" JUSTICE ABBOTT,, 
 
 AND SPECIAL JURIES. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. -CARLILE, 55,. FLEET 
 STREET. ' ' ■ 
 
 1822. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This report of the proceedings on these Mock Trials, will be read 
 with increasing' interest as the human mind proceeds to buret the 
 shackles of Priestcraft, and to expand over the boundless volume 
 of Nature. Whatever lack of ability or of education the attempted 
 Defence of tlit. Defendant displays^ still these pages are sufficient to 
 shew the deluders and the deluded, that their delusion could not 
 stand the examination he was prepared to make, and that brute force 
 was found to be the only resource of the interested supporters of su- 
 perstition, against free and fair discussion. Here the historian 
 will find a connecting link to display (he mischief and intolerijnce of 
 ^11 religion, by the sufferings of the various seceders from the re- 
 ligion of power from time to time. Let it be hoped that it will end 
 here. Certain it is, that the delusion of religion is losing its hold, 
 and that hypocrites and tyrants will not much longer make it an in- 
 strument of power to rob, or a rod of iron to rule the multitude. 
 
 It cannot fail of being interesting to the reader to find inserted 
 ,here a narrative of what occurred from the first publication of the 
 Theological Works of Thomas Paine, downto the commencement of 
 the Mock Trials. 
 
 In the month of November, 1818, a rumour was afloat in London 
 that the " Age of Reason" was on sale, or about to be published. 
 The Priests were instantly in arms, v^nd terror seemed to forbode 
 that their shops were falling or, being knocked down about their 
 ears. Threats were made of the immediate seizure of the edition on 
 its appearance {a circumstance which actually occurred in Pitt's time) 
 but the publisher, was not to be intimidated, he knew too well the 
 ground on which he stood, and how far he could go in the matter. 
 Discussion occured in the public papers as to the propriety or im- 
 proprie-ty of suppressing the publication, and it was evident to all 
 that the bigots were silenced. At length the publication was ready 
 on the 16th December, and in the evening of that day the walls of 
 the metropolis were well placarded with the notice of publication. 
 
 On the morning of the 17th, a messenger came from the Solicitor 
 of the Treasury to enquire the actual publication and the price, but 
 on finding they were sold at half a guinea the copy he retired, not 
 having been furnished with money enough to make bis purchase. 
 In a very few minutes he returned for three copies, and was advised 
 by the publisher to take half a dozen. The Publisher sent his com- 
 pliments to the Solicitor to the Treasury by the messenger, and re- 
 
IV 
 
 quested him not to obtain his warrant immediately, as he had an 
 engagement for Christmas-day. No arrest however took place, nor 
 was any bail required on the part of the Attorney General, who was 
 an honourable fellow, when compared with his successor Gilford. 
 
 The sale of the work went on very slow and the Publisher had 
 began to fear that it would not be prosecuted, as a month elapsed 
 without hearing of any thing of the kind. On the 16th January he 
 was agreeably disappointed, at the information, that, the Vice So- 
 ciety had submitted a bill to the Grand Jury which was found true, 
 and to prevent an arrest he took his bail to the Old Bailey the same 
 evening. This happened on the Saturday evening : the circumstance 
 was noticed in a few of the Sunday papers, and subsequently in all 
 the daily ones : the sale increased rapidly — the first edition of one 
 thousand copies was quickly sold, and an edition of 3000 more got 
 up with all expedition. 
 
 The indictment at the instance of the prosecutors was moved into 
 the Court of King's Bench, to which the Publisher imparled on the 
 first day of Hilary Term. At the same time he was called upon to 
 plead to an Information ex officio by the Attorney General for the 
 same publication; to this he also imparled, which circumstance, it. 
 appeared, subsequently produced one of the Six Acts to put a stop 
 to imparling ! 
 
 Enraged at the extensive circulation of the work, the Vice Society 
 sent their Solicitor to Chief Justice Abbott to obtain a warrant on 
 the ground that the sale of the work was continued, and that they in- 
 tended to prosecute a. second indictment. This piece of villainy 
 was acquiesced in by the Judge, and the Publisher was arrested on 
 the evening of the 11th February, so late as eight o'clock, aud on 
 going before Mr. Justice Holroyd at his Chambere in Sergeant's Inn, 
 he protested against the legality, or the necessity of the arrest, and 
 refused to give bail, upon which the agent of the Society moved -for 
 his committal to Newgate, and tht^liant old Judge acquiesced by 
 saying, that the sale of every book was a distinct offence and indict- 
 able. , He was answered, if such was the case, he would find enough 
 to do to try them all. That this arrest was a piece of villainy the 
 result proved, as there could be no possible means of stopping the 
 SEile of the books, and the trial of one indictment would be as well 
 as the trial of one hundred, or the whole 4000 copies which have 
 een actually sold, so as not to have a dozen copies left, and even 
 now, so great is the private demand for them, that it answers any 
 and every person's purpose to print them. The sale of them never 
 can be suppressed in this country, therefore all further prosecution 
 is vain, and mere personal malignity and annoyance. The publisher 
 will now through his agents print, and sell another edition before he 
 quits his Prison, and what proo^ is further necessary of the inutility 
 of all such prosecutions ? 
 
 He found himself within the walls of Newgate, soon after ten 
 o'clock, at an hour when lie could not even a find a prison-bed to 
 
lay on, and was obliged to sit up the whole night; but .was made 
 comfortable, as far as fire, and candle, and a decent room could be so. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING ARE THE COPIES OF THE WARRANT 
 AND COMMITTAL TO NEWGATE. 
 
 "COPY OF WARRANT. ' 
 "England, (to wit). — Whereas it appeareth unto me by the affidavit of- 
 George Prichard, and the affidavit of Thomas Fair, that an indictment Was 
 found by the Grand Jury for the city of London, against Richard Cai'lile, 
 late of London, bookseller, for selling a certain blasphemous libel, intitled 
 " Paine's Age of Reason,'' which indictment has been removed a/id filed 
 in his Majesty's Court of King's Bench, and to which the said Richard 
 Carlile appeared in the said Court, and gave recognizance to plead thereto 
 within the first eight days of the next Easter Term. And that since the 
 said Richard Carlile hath entered into the said recognizance, he hath sold 
 another copy of the said libel to the said Thomas Fair, for which said last 
 mentioned offence, the said George Prichard intends to prosecute the said 
 Richard Carlile in the said Court of King's Bench. These are therefore to 
 will and require, and in hi^ Majesty's name, strictly to charge and com- 
 mand you, and every of you on sight hereof, to apprehend and take the 
 body of the said Richard, and bring him before me or one other of the 
 said Judges of his Majesty's Court of King's Bench, if taken in or near the 
 cities of London and Middlesex, if elswhere, before some Justice of the 
 Peace near to the place where he shall be herewith taken. To the end 
 that he the said Richard Carlile may become bound to the King's Majesty 
 ill the sum of =£200, together with t%vo sufficient sureties in the sum of 
 ^100 each, for the appearance of the said Richard Carlile in his Majesty's 
 Court of King's Bench, on the first day of next Easter Term, to answer to all 
 and singular indictments against him for publishing the said libel, and to ap- 
 pear from day to day in the said Court, and not depart until discharged 
 by the said Court. Hereof fail not at your peril. Given under my hand 
 and seal the eleventh day of February, 1819. 
 
 (L. S. " C. ABBOTT." 
 
 " To Thomas Gibbons, gentleman, my 
 
 tipstaff, or any other tipstaff of his 
 
 Majesty's Court of King's Bench, 
 
 and to all chief and petty constables, 
 
 headboroughs, tything man, and all 
 
 others whom these may concern." 
 
 " COPY OF COMMITTAL. 
 ''The within named Richard Cai-lile having been brought before me this 
 day, by virtue of the within warrant, and not having sufficient sureties to 
 answer to the offence in the within riientioned warrant, is committed to the 
 custody of the Keeper of his Majesty's goal- of Newgate, being the common 
 gaol of the city of London, where the said Richard Carlile was apprehend- 
 ed upon the said warrant". 
 
 " Receive the body of the within named Richard 
 Carlile into your custody, and him safely 
 keep until he the said Richard Carlile shall be 
 discharged by due course of law. 
 " Dated the 11th of February, 1819. 
 
 : '• G. S. HOLROYD." 
 " To Mr. William Robert Heni:y Brown, Keeper 
 of his Majesty's gaol of Newgate." 
 
 1 
 
VI 
 
 This arrest and committal to Newgate gave a fresh stimulus to 
 the sale of the pnblication, and the Publisher baviiig tried the Gang 
 to see how far they would g-o, had nothing to do but to get out again, 
 which he did on the 15lh, and on being removed again to the Judge's 
 Ciiambers to give bail, an attempt was made to extort a promise to 
 sell no more of the same work. Mr. Jnstice Bailey the celebrated 
 political economist, who sees a vast benefit to the country from a 
 ruinous debt and taxation, and the no less celebrated theologian, who 
 allows every one to think as they like, but if ihey write, or speak, it 
 must be by some rule and standard to avoid fine and imprisonment, 
 was the Judge present. 
 
 Mr. Justice Bailey. — Will the Defendant give a promise not to sell 
 any more of the same work ? 
 
 Defendant. — No. I act under my own conception of right and 
 shall proceed. 
 
 His Judgeship then gave his politico-theologico-economico head 
 a Christian shake, but made no answer. The agent of the gang 
 moved for heavy bail, vfhich was refused, and common bail taken. 
 Whilst in Newgate the Publisher wrote the following letter to his 
 Persecutors, which, as it is out of print, is here reprinted being 
 strictly a part of this narrative. 
 
 « A LETTER TO THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION 
 OF VICE, 
 
 " On their malignant -Efforts toprevent a free Enquiry after Truth and Reason. 
 
 " Associated Persecutors, 
 
 " That envenomed and malign spirit which you have so prominently dis- 
 played, during the short time since you have turned your attentions towards 
 my publications, precludes the necessity of my offering any apology for ad- 
 dressing you in a public letter. 
 
 " Having immured me within the walls of a prison, methinks I see a de- 
 moniac smile glide over your several cheeks with the glowing expression of 
 " we havejow crushed him." — Be not too sanguine; feeble as my efforts 
 may be to propagate those principles, on which, (according to my humble 
 conceptions,) the basis of tine morality and virtue must be founded, npr the 
 fear of imprisonment, nor the fear of death shall deter me from a persever- 
 ance. What is the religion you profess, that you are, so much alarmed at ' 
 every attempt to investigate its merits? What is the basis of your pretend- 
 ed morality and virtue, when you betray a fear of being left naked as the 
 breeze leaves the stem of the wooly dandelion? What is that chimerical 
 faith in which you pretend to centre your future hopes, if you fear the re- 
 sult of your fello\y mortal's enquiry into it? On what ground must the 
 established arid dissenting codes of religion of which you boast, (and ex- 
 press; your determination to support, by imprisonments and punishments 
 of Such pL:.ionS"as shall atemptto inspect its foundation,) be rSiised, when 
 .asmal! volame of enquiry into its 6rigin .shakes its very centi'e, and threatens 
 ii total annihilation ? Pause! ye deluded and deluding hypocrites, and I 
 will compromise the matter with you. But how? Shall it be an instance 
 
VII 
 
 of that nature where many individuals whom you have laid under the 
 charge of vending, what both you and I consider obscene and objectionable 
 books and prints, have more than once satisfied your virtuous scruples by 
 a iee? Pray; would my paying all the expences you liave incurred in this 
 prosecution, satiate that appetite which feeds on virtue whilst it falsely 
 affects to destroy vice? Is your answer — ^yes? I disdain it. Nothing but 
 a fair exposition of both our views shall induce me to compromise this im- 
 portailt question ; rendered the more important, because a sycophantic 
 aud hypocritical society — a refined banditti attempts to crush it "in its bud. 
 No, the compromise I will make with you shall be, either, that you shall 
 renouce those persecutions you have instituted against me, or I will expose 
 your object in all its hideous features. Although, like the assassin, you en- 
 deavour to conceal both your names and iutentions, and make a hungry 
 Lawyer* your instrument, yet the community at large, who have been 
 more injured than amended by your false pretences, will assist me in de- 
 picting your banditti in its real colours. 
 
 " By evei-y exertion and enquiry that I could make, I have not been able 
 -to obtain a list of your names, and am given to miderstand that no such 
 thing has been pubUshed for many years past. It appears, that in the 
 earlier part of your institution, you regularly published your names, but 
 that the infamy which has, of late, been attached to your proceedings, has 
 deterred you from continuing it. As the best proof of virtue arises when 
 it is exposed to the fangs of vice, I challenge you to proceed in your perse- 
 cutions. But let us here examine how the question stands between' us. 
 I have published a book, the contents of which you charge to be impious, 
 blasphemous,' and profane, tending to bring into disrepute the Christian 
 Religion. I reply, that this book does not merit the charge instituted against 
 it, nor has it any other tendency than that of bringing into disrepute the 
 religions that are not supported by human reason or divine authority. 
 
 " Did any thing but vindictive malice, guide your councils, you would 
 have waited the time when I should have been placed before a jury of my 
 own countrymen, and there receive the reward, or punishment consequent 
 on their verdict. But no ! the Society for the Suppression of Vice cannot 
 suppress their appetite for rancorous punishment, but seize their victim, 
 tear him him from a fond agonized family, and within two hours lodge liim 
 within the walls of Newgate. For what? for doing that, which, whether 
 it 'is an offence or not, is but matter of opinion. The publication can in- 
 jure no one but those panders who prey on the vitals of their country. 
 The publication,Iadmit, may be offensive to some, but not to t^e virtuous 
 and well meaning part of the community; it is* offensive- to those persons, 
 only who are interested in supporting the corfuptions and abuses of the 
 system we live under. 
 
 !' You appear to be following the course which the Attorney General 
 (Shepherd) followed towards me in 1817, in regard to the Parodies f; that 
 is ydu have no hopes of being able to obtain thuB vej-dict of a jury against 
 
 ; ' ■ ^ ■ 1 ■ 
 
 * Prichard, of, Essex-street, in the Strand, whose clerks and inmates are used 
 as informers to this Society, 
 
 t The writer of this letter waa eighteen weeks' in the King's Bench Prison foi 
 rcrpublishing the Parodies, and was never brought to trial; it was he who chal- 
 lenged the Attorney General to bring tlie Parodies before a jury, which led to so 
 grand aikl noble a result. 
 
vrii 
 
 the work, and you are anxious to glut your vengeance with punishment 
 before trial. ' 
 
 "1 doubt whether any of you who have instigated these Prosecutions 
 have ever read the Theological Writings of Thomas Paine, for if you had 
 read therjj, and had possessed the least conception of vice and virtue, you 
 would have found nothing of a vicious tendency in them, you would have 
 found nothing that came within the province of your professions to pro- 
 secute. 
 
 " Have you no priests in your Society? Why do you not set them to write 
 a volume of the same size to refute the arguments and assertions of Paine? 
 I will pledge myself to sell it <vith the other. Is there not a Bishop 
 amongst you that "can again attempt to do what Watson has vainly attempt- 
 ed ? Tor shame ! do not attempt to destroy by the sword of perverted law 
 what so many bishops and priests are so well qualified to destroy by argu- 
 ment and reason. For what do they receive so many thousands of the 
 public money? For-what have we universities and colleges, and so many 
 thousand Priests who have to boast of collegiate education ? unless it is to 
 support by argument, intellectual reasoning, and controversial disputation, 
 the several doctrines and dogmas which they profess to" teach, and wish 
 us to believe. For .shame! I say again, spur them on, and do not let their 
 professions be set at nought by a few untutored minds. They must 
 either do this, or raise again the blood-stained standard of the cross, and 
 again enforce their doctrines by the sword. 
 
 " Christianity, like the material world, has had its rise, its progress, and 
 is now experiencing its decay, but differs in this point, that there is no 
 hope of its regenerating or revivifying. And vain will be the attempt to 
 oppose it to human reason. The press, that dreadful park of artillery, will 
 continue to open its destructive fire on superstition, bigotry, and religious 
 and civil despotism ; and what shall check its career? 
 
 " Hear, ye promoters of theological dissensions, and tremble,'whilst I tell 
 you, that you possess 'the same dispositions as your ancestors, who kindled 
 the flames in Smithfield. Would public opinion tolerate it, you would 
 pursue me to the stake with the same satisfaction you have pursued me 
 to a prison. Reserving for a better opportunity any further opinions and 
 observations on your character, conduct, and views as a Society, I would 
 beg leave to call your attention to a work lately published in London, en- 
 titled the "Principles of Nature,'' byElihu Palmer, the first chapter of which 
 I will here insert as a specimen, which is strictly applicable to our relative 
 situations, with the exception of a few of the first sentences. 
 
 \^As this work was subsequently prosecuted and as the chapter forms part of 
 the Report oftliese Proceedings it is omitted fe^e.] 
 
 " I presume, Gentlemen; since you have attempted to suppress certain 
 creeds as well as vice, that each of you are in duty bound, to peruse this 
 work, of which this is a part and specimen, it is a work which I hold in es- 
 timation, and consequently requires your attention. 
 
 " I hope I shall have the pleasure of selling a few copies of this work to 
 your Honourable Society, whether for the purpose of a prosecution or not, 
 I am quite indifferent, as I hold Paine's opinion to be good, that under a 
 bad government it is well fo have a good work prosecuted. 
 
 , "I am, Gentlemen, your firni opponent, 
 
 " Newgate, Feb. 13th, 1819." " R. CARLILE." 
 
IX 
 
 Oil the 22iid February,, Mr. Waitliiiiaii presented the following 
 Petition to the House of Commons, and in so doing, appeared anxious 
 to be considered by the House, as unconnected with the Peti- 
 tioner. ' » 
 
 " TO THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRI- 
 TAIN AND IRELAND, IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED. 
 
 " Tlie Petition of Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street, in the 
 City of Iiondon, Bookseller. 
 
 " Humbly Sheweth, 
 " That your Petitioner in consequence of a Bill brought into your Honour- 
 able House ' by his Majesty's then Attorney-General, Sir Vicary Gibbs, 
 entitled, " An Act to enable his Majesty to hold to bail in cases of 
 Libel," has repeatedly been exposed to frivolous and vexatious arrests. 
 
 " That your Petitioner, on or about the fourteenth day of August, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen, was arrested 
 on the authority of three warrants issued by Mr. Justice Ilolroyd on the 
 oath of one Griffin Swanson, a common informer, who deposed that your 
 Petitioner had published three several impiousand profane Libels. That pur- 
 suant to that arrest, your Petitioner was coramitted to the Kings Bench pri- 
 son, by Mr. Justice Holroyd, in default of bail requued on the three several 
 warrants. ' That your Petitioner was confined in the aforesaid prison until 
 the twentieth day of December, of the year aforesaid, when he was liber- 
 ated on his own recognizances, without an opportunity of justifying his con- 
 duct before a jury of his countrymen, or rescuing his pnaracter from the 
 reproach which had wantonly been'heaped upon it. 
 
 " That your Petitioner, on the sixteenth day of January in the present 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, was informed 
 that a Bill of Indictmentliad been found against him by the Grand Jury 
 then sitting at the Old Bailey Sessions, on the oath of one Charles Jones, 
 a common informer, who deposed also that your Petitioner had published 
 a certain impious and profane Libel, entitled " The Theological Works of 
 Thomas Paine," and that your Petitioner to prevent an arrest, did put in 
 bail to appear and answer to such charge. That on'the ninetetoth day of 
 January in the year aforesaid, your Petitioner found that a writ of Certio- 
 rari had been obtained to remove the said indictment into the the Court of 
 King's Bench, your Petitioner caused a notice to be served on the proper 
 parties that your Petitioner would appear in the Couit of King's Bench on' 
 the first day of the following (Hilary) term, aud then and there answer to 
 such indictment or any other indictments or informations that might then 
 and there be preferred against him, and put in such bail as the Court may 
 require. That your Petitioner did accordingly put in bail to appear and 
 answer to the said indictmeut, and also to an. inlbrmation which had been 
 filed ex Oj^ioy against the said pubUcation by his IVfajesty's Attorney-Ge- 
 neral, Sir Samuel Shepherd, Knight, and your Petitioner left the court vrith 
 an idea that he had fully satisfied the prosecuting parties of his appearance 
 to defend his intentions in publishing the said alleged Libel. 
 
 " And further sheweth, that your Petitioner, conscious of the rectitude 
 of his intentions, did continue the sale of the said alleged Libel, thinking 
 that the oath of a common informer was not sufficient authority to induce 
 your Petitioner to put the construction of an impious and profane Libel on 
 
X ' 
 
 the said publication, and intended to have continued the sale of the said 
 publication until your Petitioner should have had an opportunity of sub- 
 mitting the Said publication and his intentions in publishing it, to a jury of 
 his fellow-citizens. 
 
 " That your Petitioner, to his great surprize and injury, was again arrested 
 on the eleventh day of February in the present year aforesaid, on a warrant 
 issued by the Lord Chief Justice Abbott, which warrant amongst other 
 things sets forth " on the affidavit of George Pricliard and Thomas Fair," 
 that your Petitioner had ben proceeded against by an indictment for the 
 said publication, and that your Petitioner had entered into recognizances to 
 plead to the said indictment, but that since your Petitioner had entered 
 into the said recognizances, your Petitioner " had sold another copy of 
 the said Libel, for which last mentioned offence the said George Prichard 
 intends to prosecute." That your Petitioner was brought before Mr. Jus- 
 tice Holroyd, at his chambers in Serjeant's Inn, Chancery Lane, and by 
 him committed on the said eleventh day of February, to his Majesty's goal 
 of Newgate. 
 
 " And your Petitioner further prayeth, that your Honourable House will 
 of its wisdom take into consideration the necessity of repealing the said 
 grievous and, oppressive law, which by its provisions, enables the common 
 informer or peijured villain, with the aid of a partial judge, to haiTass and 
 injure his Majesty's unoffending subjects. 
 
 " And as in duty bound, your Petitioner will ever pray, &c. 
 
 "RICHARD CARLILE." 
 
 On the 23d February the Publisher addressed the following Let- 
 ter and Petition' trf the Attorney-General and received the following 
 Answer. 
 
 Sir, - Fleet Street, February ^3rd, 1819- 
 
 I EEC leave to lay before you a Petition, to the Honourable the House 
 
 of Commons, with a request that you will be pleased to present it. 
 
 It has occurred to me, that no other Member of the Honourable House 
 
 is so well qualified to judge of and support its prayer, as his Majesty's 
 
 Attorney-General. 
 
 Your condescension to the above request will oblige. 
 
 Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 R. CAJILILE. 
 " To Sir Samuel Shepherd, Knight, 
 His Majesty's Attorney-General." , 
 
 "TO THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS, OF GREAT BRI- 
 TAIN AND IRELAND, IN PARLIAMENT -ASSEMBLED. 
 
 " The P.ETITION of Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street, in the 
 City of London, Bookseller, 
 
 Humbly Sheweth, 
 , " That' youv Petitioner Ipeing anxious to see restored to its original- purity , 
 that invaluable right and privilpge, the Trial by Jury; as well for his pwn 
 personal safety, as for the honour of his country; humbly prayeth th^ at- 
 
XI 
 
 tention of your Honourable House, to that part of the Jury Lift belonging 
 to the City of London, whence the Jurors denominated Special Jurors are 
 chosen. 
 
 " That it appears to your Petitioner, who presumes, it could also be 
 made apparent to your Honourable House, that iaste^ad of the Merchants 
 of the City of London being called on, to serve as Special Jurors, accord- 
 ing to the statute in that case made and provided, many persons, who 
 are not bona fide Merchants of the City of London, but who, by some undue 
 influence, have got their names inserted on the Jury List as merchants of 
 the City of London, have, for a considerable time, to the great scandal of 
 our Courts of Justice, made a traffic of serving as Jurors, for the conside- 
 ration of the sum of one guinea, which is paid to a Special Juror for each 
 case on which He is called to decide. 
 
 " That, it appears to your Petitioner, according to a report laid before 
 the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonality of the City of London, in 
 Common Council assembled, on the eleventh day of December, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen, that one 
 person decided no less than fifty-five pases, out of one hundred and four- 
 teen, which were decided in the City of London, during the sittings 
 . after the several Terms of Hilary, Easter, and Trinity of the year afore- ' 
 said. 
 
 " That it appears to your Petitioner, that although a new List of JurorSj 
 has of of late been presented to the Master of the Crown Office by the 
 Sheriff or Deputy of the City of London, it is not a full, and proper list of 
 the merchants of the City ofLondon, a gi'eat portion of their names bearing 
 only the initial of the Christian name, which renders any attempt to sum- 
 mon such persons abortive. 
 
 " That It appears to your Petitioner, that the intent of the statute, 
 which provides, that, all cases of Libel and other difficult cases may be 
 decided by a Special Jury, (meaning thereby, from the situation in life, of^ 
 such persons as are qualified for Special Jurors) that, such Juries would 
 be more likely to combine the necessary information and talent required to 
 decide on difficult or abstruse questions, and the true meaning of such sta- 
 tute could be no otherwise, than, that such Juries should be considered' to 
 jjtfsses Special abilities, applicable to such questions as they may sevei'ally 
 bfe called on to decide. ' 
 
 " And your Petitioner, further prayeth, that when your Honourable 
 House shall have taken the above premises into, consideration ; your Ho- 
 nourable House will in its wisdom think fit to order the returns of the 
 names and residences, in full, of all the -merchants in the City of London, 
 qualified to serve as Special Jurors, according to the statute, in that case 
 made and provided ; and, also, to order such lists as have of late been 
 used for the nomination of Special Jurors, to be laid before your Honourable 
 House, that your Honourable House may become acquainted with the gross, 
 perversion of the statute in that case made and provided. 
 ■ " And further prayeth', that your Honourable House will in its wisdom, 
 take such steps, as shall in future rescue our Courts of Justice from this 
 disgrace, and secure to the subject the beiiefit of the Trial by Jury in its 
 original purity, ., 
 
 "And as in duty bound, your Petitioner will ever pray, &c. 
 
 " R. CARLILE." 
 
XII 
 
 " Sir, Spring Gardens, Rbruary 24, 1819. 
 
 " I HAVE received your note dated the 25tli, Tebruary, 1819 accompanied 
 by a Petition addressed to the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, 'signed R. Carlile, and I beg to in- 
 form you that I decline presenting the Petition to the House, and have 
 therefore returned it to you. 
 
 "I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 "S. SHEPHEED." 
 "Mr. CarlUe." 
 
 The Petition was then presented to Mr. Alderman Waithuian, 
 with copies of the forgoing letters, requestingTiim to present it; but 
 he made an excuse, by saying, that, it had better not be presented, 
 as the subject matter was before the Common Council of the City of 
 London and that.it would be shortly decided. That short time does 
 not appear to have arrived yet although three years have nearly 
 elapsed, andnear five from the time of Mr. Pearson's introducing the 
 matter and'getting it referred to aCommitttee! Quere. Are these 
 Committees paid for their particular business.' 
 
 On the 28th April, being the first day of Easter Term, the Pub- 
 lisher appeared and pleaded to the Information and Indictment to 
 which he had imparled in the former term, and found anotber infor- 
 mation, on the No. 6, vol 4, of Sherwin's Political Register, which 
 hadbeeukeptout of sight until this time; although it was purchased 
 for prosecution prior to the first publication of Paine's Theological 
 Works. There was also a second Indictment on the part of the Vice 
 Society, against the "Thelogical Works of Thomas Paine," and a 
 third against Elihu P.almer's " Principles, of Nature," to which 
 the Publisher's Letter to the Hypocrites called attention. To the 
 three last, the Publisher again imparled. On leaving the Court no 
 further bail having been moved for, which, it appeared, arose from 
 the neglect of Mr. Marriot, the Junior Counsel to the Essex Street 
 Gang, and^a man who on the score of hypocrisy seems well adapted 
 for them, Messrs. Prichard and Jones the Agents for the Gang ran 
 out after the Publisher, and begged him to give notice of bail, that 
 it might be taken at the Judge's Chambers. This was donff accord- 
 ingly, and a circumstance which occurred at the Chambers is worthy 
 of record Mr. Justice Best was sitting, and a similar xittempt was 
 made on the part of the Prosecutors to demand heavy bail, as was 
 made before Judge Bailey, but resisted by the Judg'e in a similar 
 manner. The recognizances having been taken, Mr. Jones the 
 Clerk in the Crown Office, demanded of the Publisher half a guinea 
 as a fee; he was answered, good humoiiredly, that he must look to 
 the Society for whom he acted, for all his fees. To this he angrily 
 replied, that the fee was not his, but the Judge's Clerk's, and that if 
 it was not paid the recognizances would not be valid. The Publisher 
 not being dupe enough for this pick-pocket, told him that he had 
 no money for any such purpose. The Judge's Clerk was appealed 
 
XUI 
 
 to, who insisted. on payment, in tliesame authoritative manner, and 
 was answered with the same indifference. "Well then," says he^ "we 
 will lay the matter before Mr. Justice Best, and have his authority 
 for it." "I wiH wait for you," says the Publisher, "but you will have 
 none of ray money for any such purpose." In they went to the ad- 
 joining Chamber, where the Judge was sitting and after a conference 
 of fifteen or twenty minutes, came out quite mild and very civilly in- 
 formed the Publisher that Mr. Justice Best said if Mr. Carlile had no 
 money he could not pay the fee : which was just the same as saying ; 
 the fee is an imposition and robbery, and none but easy dupes would 
 pay it : although it is well known to be a compounded matter between 
 the Judge and his Clerk, and that all these offices from the Lord 
 Chancellor and Chief Justices down to the lowest of their Clerks 
 are farmed out at a rent just like a house or estate; only in these 
 cases the suitors at law have to pay the exactions. If you employ 
 a Lawyer he makes it a point of honour to pay all these fees, and a 
 pretty list of them he will exhibit to you in his bill. It is a robbery, 
 and the writer of this will never pay another fee in any case where 
 he is the defendant. He has successfully resisted them all, and has 
 paid none save in a few instances where he employed an Attorney, 
 who made it a point of honour to pay them, and of course out of the 
 jiocket of his client. Beware of Lawyers. They are quite unne- 
 cessary in cases of Libel- for the Defendant. Murray and Sharpe 
 for the Bridge Stieet Gang pay all the fees both for the pioseculors, 
 and defendants. They are very liberal with the funds of their As- 
 sociation in that way. 
 
 Trinity Term came, when the Publisher appeared in Court and at- 
 tempted further to postpone his;plea upon the three last prosecutions, 
 upon the strength of three affidavits, which set forth that the Vice 
 Society's prosecutions were multiplied for the malignant purpose of 
 iembarrassing him in his defence. 
 
 Mr. Justice Best called this very rash swearing, to say the least 
 of it. Gurney the Counsel got up and nodded assent, and said it 
 was merely making the Court a medium to defame this very respect- 
 able society. Defendant told him to sit down, arid asked him what 
 business it was of his, when it came out that he was to be the 
 Counsel for the Society. This very man who had promised to de- 
 fend the third part of the " Age of Reason" gratuitously, if ever it 
 should be prosecuted, even before it was printed in this country ! 
 This man who rose at the bar entirely from defending the publications 
 of Daniel Isaac Eaton, who may be said to have been the predeces- 
 sor of the present Publisher of Paine's Works. The Publisher knows 
 nothing of the private character of Gurney, but if personal represen- 
 tations and anonymous letters were of any weight, he could write a 
 pretty history or memoir of him. This is known, he is a great hy- 
 pocrite as a public character, and from a late trial at the Surrey 
 Assizes, ,it appears, to be a family complaint, which breaks through 
 
XIV 
 
 the surplice and cassock as well as through the gown and wig. A 
 Family that will say, preach, or swear any thing for gain. 
 
 The Defendant's attempt to iniparle further was resisted by the 
 Court, and he pleaded Not Guilty to all, being now three Indict- 
 ments and two Informatiohs, besides four other Informations, which 
 were hanging over his head, and which altogether, at the time of the 
 Mock Trials, yrere understood to have been increased to more than 
 a dozen. When the enemy is defeated they shall be all gathered 
 into a volume. 
 
 The Attorney-General Shepherd was evidently reluctant to bring 
 his Information to a trial, as it might have been done in the sittings 
 after Easter Term. However, he delayed it until he could shift the 
 odium upon Gifford by getting a start in office, which was done in 
 August. The Defendant stood ready for trial as soon as he had 
 pleaded to the first Information and Indictment and took the precau- 
 tion to subpoena the Archbishop of Canterb\iry at an early period. 
 The Archbishop was so far surprized at the subpoena as not to notice 
 that a guinea was left with it, but politely returned it the follow- 
 ing day, by his Secretary, saying, that its being left was overlooked 
 for the moment, a^d that it was not a necessary accompaniment with 
 the subpoena in this case. 
 
 In September the note of preparation for the trials was heard on 
 the part of the Persecutors, and the following Correspondence took 
 place. "' 
 
 " Sir, Lincoln's Inn, September 2, 1819. 
 
 " We are directed by His Grace the 4^rchbishop of Canterbury, to ac- 
 quaint you, that His Grace will be iu Nottinghamshire in the month of 
 October, and that if you should require his .attendance upon your trial ac- 
 cording to the subpoena with which he has been served, you must take the 
 trouble to enquire at Lambeth Palace, about a week previous to the day 
 appointed, where you will obtain His Grace's exact address; and upon 
 notice being then sent his Grace, and suitable arrangements made, His 
 Grace will not fail to attend. 
 
 " His Grace concludes that you will be aware of the great inconvenience 
 be must be subjected to by such a joui-ney, and that you will not require 
 his attendance unless it be very material. 
 
 " We are, Sir, your obedient Servants, 
 
 " FORSTER, COOKE, and FRERE. 
 
 " Mr. Carlile. 
 
 " My LonD, Fleet Street, September 4, 181P. 
 
 '^'1 FEEL it my duty to express the warm approbation I felt on receiving 
 the candid information from Messrs. Forster, Cooke, and Frere, where 
 your Grace may be found in the month of Octobei', should the presence of 
 your Grace be required on my trial. 
 
XV 
 
 " I beg to assure your Grace, that my motive in serving you with a sub- 
 poena was neither idle nor frivolous, and shall deem the presence of your 
 Grace to be of the highest importance, not only to my interest as an indi-- 
 vidual, but to the interest of Truth and Justice, and, consequently, tlie in- 
 terest of mankind in general. 
 
 " In conjunction with your Grace, it is my intention to serve with a ■ 
 -subpoena, the persons in this country most eminent in theology, astronomy, 
 and Oriental literature. 
 
 " I further beg leave to assure your Grace, that such questions for such 
 evidence as I may find necessary to elicit, shall be put by me with a due 
 impression of the importance and rank of those to whom I shall be address- 
 ing myself. 
 
 " I beg leave to subscribe myself, 
 
 " Your, Grace's most obliged and obedient Servant, 
 
 "RICHARD CARLILE." 
 " To his Grace 
 The Archbishop of Canterbui-y.' ' 
 
 "SiK, - Fleet Street, September 6, 1819. 
 
 " As the adjourned sittings in the Court of King's Bench are near at hand, 
 I beg leave to inquire, whether it is your intention, as His Majesty's At- 
 torney-General, to prosecute in the ensuing sittings in the month of October, 
 those Informations filed against me by His Majesty's late Attorney-General, 
 Sir Samuel Shepherd, and should it be your intention to proceed, which of 
 them you will be pleased to take first. . , , , „,, , , ,,. 
 
 " nattering myself that I shall find in you. Sir, agenerous opponent, I would 
 entreat the earliest notice of trial that might possible be given, .asTit is my 
 intention to serve with subpoenas several persons of rank and distinction, 
 erninent in the theological, scientific, and literary world, for whose jconve- 
 nience and accomodation I am solicitous to obtain the earliest notice, as 
 many of them are resident in distant parts of the country, and would wish, 
 at least, a week's notice for attendance. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your most obliged and obedient Servant, 
 
 " RICHARD CARLILE." 
 " Sir Robert Gifford, Knt. 
 His Majesty's Attorney- General. " 
 
 " Sir, 
 " In answer to your inquiry, I have to state, that it is certainly my inten- 
 tion that the Informations against you which stand for trial at the adjourn- 
 e^ sittings in October should be tried at those sittings ; and that the In- 
 formation against you for publishing a blasphemous libel, which stands 
 prior in order to others on the list of cases, will first come on for trial. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 " R. GIFFORD.'' 
 "Lincoln'^ Inn, 
 September 7, 1819." 
 
XVI 
 
 ♦ 
 
 " SiE, - Lincoln's Inn, October 4, 1819. 
 
 " I BEG leave to acquaiiit you, that Tuesday, the 12th inst, has been ap- 
 pointed for the trial of the Informations filed against you by His Majesty's 
 Attorney General, and that it is proposed to commence with the Informa- 
 tion for Paine's " Age of Reason." 
 
 " I am, Sir, your obedient humble Servant, 
 
 " GEO. MAULE." 
 " Mr. Carlile, 
 55, Fleet Street." 
 
 " My Lord, Lo-idon, October 5, 1819. _ 
 
 '■ I BKG leave to inform your Grace, that Tuesday, the 12th October, is 
 fixed for the trial of the Information on which your Grace has received a 
 ■ subpoena. 
 
 " I shall take the earliest opportunity of moving the Court to make some 
 arrangement for the accommodation of your Grace, and other personages, 
 whom I shall subpoena, so as to prevent any unnecessary delay or atten- 
 dance, as my defence will occupy many days. 
 
 " I am, my Lord your Grace's humble Servant, 
 
 " RICHARD CARLILE." 
 " To His Grace 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury." 
 
 " My Lord, London, October 5th, 1819. 
 
 " I BEG leave most respectfully to tender your Grace a subpcena, requir- 
 ing the presence of your Grace on my approatehing trial. 
 
 " I am sensible that to enclos^ a subpoena in a letter is not a legal ser- 
 vice, but have done it under the idea, that it would be more agreeable to 
 your Grace than a personal intrusion. ' . 
 
 " I rely on the honour of your Grace for your presence agreeable to the 
 subpoena. 
 
 " I am, ray Lord your Grace's humble Servant, 
 
 " RICHAUD CARLILE." 
 ' " To His Grace 
 The Archbishop of York." 
 
 " Sir, • , London, October 5th, 1819'. 
 
 " I BEG leave to tender you a subpoena, requiring your* presence on my 
 trial, about to commence on the 12th inst., but not likely to terminate 
 within 10 days. 
 
 " I am aware that this is not a legal service, but I rely on your honour, if 
 possible for you to be in London in time. 
 
 '' 1 flatter myself that the interest of humanity and mankind, which you 
 display so much ardour to promote, are closely connected with the result 
 of my trial, your answer to this will'obhge, 
 
 " Sir, your humble Servant, 
 
 " RICHARD CARLILE." 
 " Robert Owen Esq., > 
 
 New Lanark." 
 
xyii 
 
 " Sir, New Lanark, October &, 1819. 
 
 " I THIS inorning i-ecei\ ed your letter of the 5tli inst., inclosing a subpoena 
 to attend your trial on the 14th of this month. Unknown to you and un- 
 acquainted as I am with a single fact respecting your case, it does nota p- 
 pear to me that ray attendance can be of the least use on the trial. 
 
 " Notwithstanding these impressions I would obey th^ call of any fellow 
 creature who imagined that my attendance would aid the cause of justice, 
 or in any degree tend to join freedom of thought and expression to mankind, 
 because both these are necessary to make men good, wise, and happy ; but 
 I could not at present leave this place without causing an essential injury 
 to the great object in which I am deeply engaged, for whidi the existence 
 and vfeW being of millions depend. For a short time I must still continue 
 to neglect the few for the many, that all may derive permanent benefit. 
 
 " Under these circjumstances, I trust my attendance may be excused. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 " R. OWEN." 
 
 In addition, subpoenas were served on Mr, Pond the Astronomer 
 Royal, Mr. Solomon Iterschel the High Priest of the Jews, and some 
 of the leading men in different sects of Christians, who cavil most 
 about doctrines and tenets, all of whom attended in the most hand- 
 some manner, and the Chief Justice, best knows why he was afraid 
 to have them examined and brought together. However, the Pub- 
 lisher can do no less than here publicly return these Gentlemen his 
 thanks for their attendance in Court, and congratulates them upon 
 the tolerant disposition they uniformly expressed to the Defendant, 
 and their abhorrence of his persecution. 
 
 The only exception, and that an infamous one, was the conduct of 
 Mr John Bellamy, the new translator of the Bible, by a perfectly 
 new species' of translating the Hebrew Language in which obscenity 
 is changed into morality, vice into virtue, and the most consummate 
 villainy into an uprightness and meekness of manners. Mr. John 
 Bellamy personally promised the Defendant, and some of his friends, 
 that whenever the trial took place, he woiild come into Court and be 
 examined upon the contents of the Bible, and admit that upon the 
 present authorized translation the objections of the Deists were 
 valid, and that it was not a proper translation of the original Hebrew. 
 But when the time of trial drew near, Mr. B> was denied to all en- 
 quiry, and it was said that he had retired into the country, if so, 
 undoubtedly for the purpose of evading a subpoena. Let him re-^ 
 concile his performance with his promise if he can. He has given 
 the writer of this a pretty good proof that his pretended sincerity 
 about the Bible is a mere piece of trading hypocrisy, a mere money 
 speculation upon the production of a novelty. How ever he deserves 
 (banks for his iVnti-Deist, as far as the Publisher and his principles 
 are concerned, as its contemptibility threw a splendour upon the work 
 it reviewed, and, doubtless, much increased its sale : every adver- 
 
XVIII 
 
 tisement of Ihe former, forming a joint advertisement for the latter, 
 as no purchaser of the one could be content without the other, and 
 instead of refuting it strengthened. 
 
 The contrast between Mr. Bellamy and Dr; George Soraers Clarke, 
 Vicar of Walthara, in Essex, is great. The latter, a celebrated 
 Hebrew Scholar, and a deep student in polemical theology, came 
 forward as a volunteer, to shew from the original Hebrew and Greek, 
 as well as from the translation, that not one argument of Paine'.s 
 upon the Old and New Testament could be controverted. He was 
 present in Court with his parchment rolls, his Arabic, his Hebrew, 
 and his Greek volumes, and was well known to Chief Justice Abbott, 
 having instructed him at College, and who asserts, that the Chief 
 Justice was peculiarly attached to Atheistical subjects, and to the 
 translating and imitating of Lucretius. 
 
 This completes a narrative of what occurred up to the time of the 
 Mock Trials, and a few observations on the Proceedings will fall in 
 better at the close of the Report, than in this Introduction. 
 
 The Publisher presents it to the public, with a conviction, that it 
 contains nothing that tlirows the least disgrace upon him, but much 
 that disgraces others. In the last year of the present period allotted 
 him for imprisonment, he feels a pride in his whole career, and is 
 bent on a perseverance in a similar course. If his enemies dare to 
 prosecute again for the same thing, he has not the least fear again 
 -to tread the boards of the Court of King's Bench. He is now in 
 just the same disposition as when he first published the "Theological 
 Works of Thomas Paine," and, as then, he will again persevere in 
 publishing. He knows that they will ultimately triumph over all 
 opposition and nothing shall be wanting on his part to accelerate 
 ithat triumph. The potence of the British Legislature is not equal 
 to keeping the. works of Thomas Paine from the examination of an 
 intelligent and enquiring people. 
 
 Dorchester Goal, December Z7th, 1821. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Since writing the foregoing the Publisher feels bound to 
 'jiotice here, the repeated robbery that has been practised 
 upon him under the pretence of securing his fines of £1600. 
 On the day of receiving the sentence of the Court of King's 
 Bench, his premises in Fleet Street were eniered, and their 
 contents taken in requisition to nreet the fines levied upon 
 him: after keeping the shop shut up six weeks, the Robbers 
 moved away all they could, and all that was not bought of 
 them, to let it rot in some cellar. The number of publica- 
 tions of all prices, from half-a-guinea downward, that were 
 taken away amounted very near to seventy thousand, and 
 if they had been sold upon the premises would have covered 
 the whole amount of both fines. The Robbers spared 
 nothing, not even waste paper and aa old sofa bedstead, 
 that could be only got out of the house through the window, 
 they left nothing behind them but dirt, and a never dying 
 hatred of Monarchical and Christian Robbers. 
 
 After repeated threats to enter again and finally stop the 
 business, it was put in execution on the 6th February 1822, 
 giving the whole people of this Island a convincing proof 
 that nothing but violence and plunder can support the 
 Christian Religion and Monarchical Despotism. 
 
 The Publisher is assured that the loss to him by such 
 robberies and interruptions of his business is estimated at a 
 low rate in five thousand pounds. He would have paid his 
 fines without a murmur if he had been left to pay them in 
 the usual way, at the expiration of his imprisonment, and 
 without the aid of a subscription. The worst part of the 
 business is, that the property so taken from him accounts 
 for nothing, and is not exposed for sale : evincing, that the 
 object ip not only plunder, but a destruction of what to him 
 would be a property as good as specie. 
 
XX ' 
 
 He has now no alternative but to look to the public for 
 the payments of his fines, or to friends for loans for that ob- 
 ject. It is a public cause. As an individual he has no wants, 
 and in the cause nearest his heart he will do all that ever 
 lays in his power to do. Those who approve his conduct 
 and career, may enable him to do as much more as they 
 please. 
 
 The amount of Subscriptions received to the end of March 
 1822, is within five hundred pounds, and very near that 
 sura. 
 
 Marc/( 20, 1822. 
 
 \ A 'rt! ■ ■- ■ 
 
THE 
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE MOCK TRIAL, 
 
 fo. Src. 
 
 FIRST DAY.— October 12th. 
 
 The first of the several informations which have stood irt 
 the paper for nearly a twelvemonth against the defendant, 
 came on for trial this day. Soon after nine o'clock, Mr. 
 Carlile, accompanied by several friends, entered the Court 
 by the side door, and placed upon the table several books, 
 from which he intended to make extracts as necessary to 
 his defence. 
 
 Mr. Carlile immediately addressed Mr. Sheriff Parkins, 
 and said that several of his friends, who carried with them 
 books necessary to his defence, were excluded. Mr. Par- 
 kins requested a list of their names, and upon receiving it, 
 desired that they should be admitted: — 
 
 At twenty-five minutes after nine, the Attorney-General, 
 the Solicitor General, Mr. Gumey, Mr. Littledale, and Mr. 
 Campbell, the Counsel for the Crown, arrived, and took 
 their seats. 
 
 Mr. Carlik made another appeal to Mr. Sheriff Parkins, 
 and stated' that his friends were not admitted. 
 
 Mr. Sheriff Parkins addressed Mr., CoUinridge, and de- 
 sired that his orders should be attended to. 
 
 Mr. CQlUnridge. — Mr. Carlile has already five friends in 
 Court. 
 
 Mr. Sheriff Par^iws. — I suppose, Mr. Carlile, those per- 
 sons are necessary to your defence? 
 
 Mr. CarlHe.-r^Thej are laden with books, to which I 
 shall have occasion to refer. 
 
 Mr. Sheriff Parkins. — They must be admitted. 
 
 The names of four persons were then given in, and they 
 g. 
 
^ere ordered to be admitted. At half past nine, the Chief 
 Justi* took his seat. The cause of " The King againsi 
 Carlile," was then called on. 
 
 Mr. CaWtfe.— I wish an order from your Lordship that 
 several persons who are laden with my books be admitted, 
 before 1 can proceed. 
 
 Tbe Chief Justice, — I can make no arrangement with 
 regard to them. If you wish your books should be brought 
 in, a few friends, and your solicitor, will also be allowed, 
 but if your object be to be surrounded by a number of 
 friends, it is inadmissible, your books might be handed in 
 by any officer present. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — It is impossible, my Lord, that I can allow 
 them to get into the hands of an indifferent person. I am 
 not anxious that my friends should surround me, but that 
 they should be admitted with the books. — The books were 
 then brought in with the exception of ^;Vv'o parcels, which 
 were missing until the afternoon. 
 
 The list of Special Jurymen was now called over, and as 
 Mr. Charles Wood, Abchurch-lane, answered to his name, 
 
 Mr. CarKZe said, Before the Jury are sworn, I beg leave 
 to submit that this Court is not competent to try the charge 
 against me. 
 
 The Chief Justice. — The Court is competent to try any 
 criminal information filed by the Attorney-General. 
 
 Mr. Carlile, — I submit thefe is no law which applies to 
 this case. 
 
 The Chief Justice.^-li there is no such law, you will be 
 acquitted^ 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — J protest against the proceedings. 
 
 The Chief Justice. — You protest. Very well. 
 
 The following names were then called over, and the par-^ 
 ties answered to thfeir names. 
 
 Charles Wood, Abchurch-lane. 
 
 Robert Hutchinson, Clements-lane. 
 
 John Hanson, Crooked-lane. 
 
 George Harvey, Laurence-lane. 
 
 Arthur Chichester Allen, Ironmonger-lane^ 
 
 John Wilson, Queen-street. 
 
 Richard Chambers, Dove-court. 
 
 William Parker, John- street. 
 
 The Attorney-General prayed a tales. 
 Mr. Carlile. — I have had no copy of the talesmen, I 
 should wish for one. 
 
 Mr. Ctillihridgel^^l believe I have one, and you shall 
 
3 
 
 have it, <A list was handed to Mr. Cfvrlile.) Mr. Bellamy 
 then took out the names from the box in which they were 
 placed, and Mr. Carlile -begged of him to shake them up. 
 
 The Chief Justice. — Sir, the usual order will be attended 
 to, but at least shake them well, if that be necessary.— Mr. 
 Bellamy having first taken out the name of Mr. Kobert 
 Plant, haberdasher, said he might withdraw, and then 
 shook up the names of the talesmen. 
 
 'I'he Attorney- GeneraL — No; let Mr. Plant be sworn. 
 
 The following I alesmen were' then called.^ 
 Robert Plant, Haberdasher, Portsuken Ward. 
 George Coutts, Baker, Farringdon Ward Within. 
 John Trigj^ey, Chuir-maker, Farringdon Ward Within. 
 Matthew HollyeY, Glazier, of Farringdon Ward Within. 
 
 They having answered to their names, and the whole 
 being sworn, Mr. Campbell stated the pleadings. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I request that the information be read at 
 the proper time. 
 
 The Chi^' Justice, — You must not interrupt the proceed- 
 ings of the Court. This case shall be tried iu a similar 
 manner with all others. 
 
 Air. Carlile. — I only requested that the information might 
 be read, in order that the Jury might understand the ques- 
 tion which they were about to try; it is essential it should 
 be read at length. 
 
 The Chief Justice. — The information rfiall be read at the 
 proper season. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — That is all I desire. 
 
 The Attorney-General now rose and spoke to the follow- 
 ing effect: — 
 
 My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury — I feel considera- 
 ble satisfaction in the reflection that on this occasion, I shall 
 not have to encounter those prejudices which are sometimss 
 very naturally excited in the minds of Englishmen, from a 
 jealousy of all interference with the liberty of the Press, or 
 freedom of discussion, especially on proceedings similar to 
 the present. Gentlemen, I am confident if you are not 
 already apprized of the charge, (as possibly some of you may 
 not be) from the short manner in which it has been the 
 -duty of my Learned Friend to introduce it to you, I am 
 sure when I shall shortly and plainly state it, accompanied 
 with a few observations which my duty calls upon me to 
 make ; and, Gentlemen, when these are made, when these 
 are heard by you, I am satisfied the warmest friend to 
 the liberty of the press, the most stranuous advocates for 
 
4 
 
 the widest teiitude of disousaon that could be enjoyed m 
 this free country, even the most unreasonable man in the 
 community, will not find this prosecution has aiiy intention 
 to restrict that liberty. But, Gentlemen, I should have been 
 guilty of a dereliction of my duty, if I had abstained from 
 bringing this before your notice and that of the country. If the 
 Defendant wishes to enlarge upon it, he will have the right, 
 but I shall not detain you with any recital beyond that 
 Which is necessary to enable you fo comprehend the charge. 
 I shall also offer to you evidence of the publicatioii of the 
 Defendant, and you will no doubt come to a fair and un- 
 biassed decision. It has long been the boast of the people 
 of this country, (and I trust it will ever be) that they have 
 lived under a religion, which having for its origin the Deity, 
 who has heaped his favours on mankind, is at once the most 
 benign aud good which can bless the human race. The 
 Christian religion so long established in the country, is a 
 part of the law of the land, and when the present defendant 
 contends that the charge against him is founded on no law, 
 he labours under as great a mistake as has ever befallen 
 man. Fortunate it would be for him that no such law ex- 
 isted, for in that case only might he hope for an acquittal ; 
 this must be his only reliance, for in no other case can he 
 hope the verdict of a Jury will be favourable to him. But 
 1 fearlessly state to the Jury, confident that my statement 
 will be confirmed by that authority to which all must bow, 
 the learned Judge before whom the question is to be tried — 
 that there is not the glightest ground for the assertion of the 
 Defendant, that the present charge is fbunded in no law. 
 Similar proceedings have often before been instituted, nor is 
 there the smallest pretension for saying, that they w^ere not 
 supported on the clearest principles of law. It would be idle 
 for me, after the oaths you have taken, to declaim on the 
 excellency and benignity of that religion which we profess, 
 and which forms a part of the constitution of this country. 
 It would be idle for me to address men, who have sworn on 
 that book, and thereby pledged themselves to the sanctity 
 of that religion on which alOne these proceedings can rest. 
 You, by your o(5,ths, have pledged yourselves, to believe in 
 its sanctity, to its being the revealed word of God, and from 
 that belief I must expect your verdict in this cause. Indeed, 
 I should give up in effect the Christian religion altogether, 
 and give it up as not forming a part of the constitution of 
 the country, if I allowed its merits to be discussed. I shall 
 therefore abstain in the outset from offering any such re- 
 
marks, and I shall leave it to your own breastfi, ae Chris- 
 tians, citizens, fathers, and husbands, to determine whether 
 that holy religion be only a fable and an imposture, that re- 
 ligion, on which all our civil and religious institutions have 
 teen founded. 
 
 Christianity is, undoubtedly, a part of the common law 
 of the land, and therefore a part of the constitution of the 
 country ; that it is so, cannot be disproved, and it has al- 
 ways been considered as a crime to revile that religion, on 
 which the proper administration of public justice depends, 
 and only under the sanction of which, you are this day as- 
 sembled to decide the question to be brought before you. 
 If you did not believe in this, why did you come here ? 
 If you are not satisfied of this, why pledge yourselves by 
 taking the oath tendered to you — by your hopes of happi- 
 ness here and hereafter, to give an impartial verdict? Un- 
 less the defendant can wipe away such a. part of the Chris- 
 tian religion as that which forms your oath^— unless, I may 
 almost say, he can persuade you to be purged from that so- 
 lemn obligation — unless he can make you perjure your- 
 selves — unless he is able to effect all this, it is impossible for 
 him to be acquitted. If it is, then, an offence to revile 
 the Christian religion, the religion of the State, as it has 
 been held to be through many succeeding ages, when I shall 
 come to those disgusting passages in the publication of the 
 defendant, which it will shortly be my duty to read to you. 
 Gentlemen of the Jury, I am iure I may sit down content 
 alone with their bare perusal — and satisfied, that no man, 
 whether a Christian or not, whatever may be his religious 
 tenets, whatever hi* political creed — thit no man, while 
 Christianity continues a part of the law of the land, will be 
 permitted to defame and to revile it as the Defendant has 
 done ; and that no man will be found to say he has not vio- 
 lated the law in the publication now charged against him. 
 Gentlemen, you are npt to take the law from me, but in 
 what I say 1 am sure of being confirmed by his Lordship, 
 wheii he comes to address you at the proper season — ^^that to 
 revile, With a view to bring into contesipt the Christian re- 
 ligion, is contrary to the common law of the land. I say, 
 also, that it' is a statutable offence, if it is necessary to refer 
 to them on the present occasion. Now, I shall find no more 
 difficulty in shewing that to be the case, than that the pub- 
 lication now charged against the Defendant is a criminal 
 offerice, for whicH the party committing it is liable to be 
 punislied. The first case to wtiich I shall call the attention ef 
 
6 
 
 the Court occutred bo long ago em the time of King Charfes 1 1. 
 It was tried before a Judge, who, as long as British law shall 
 endure, will be held in the highest estimation as a lawyer 
 and as a man. I mean Sir Matthew Hale. It was an infor- 
 mation against a person of the name of Taylor, for merely 
 uttering blasphemous expressions. I will not disgust the Jury 
 by repeating the whole of the words he uttered, as they 
 are horrible to hear, though not worse than those which it 
 will be my duty to prove have been published by the pre- 
 sent Defendant. Taylor, it was proved, had called religion 
 a cheat, and declared that he feared neither God nor Devil. 
 Being on his trial, he owned the words, but endeavoured to 
 shew that part of them had been uttered with a meaning 
 different from that which had been supposed to attach to 
 them. The Judge, however, decided, that to say religion 
 was a cheat, was not only an offence against religion, but a 
 ."Subversion of all law, as it went to dissolve all those obliga- 
 tions which held society together, i'his was the decision of 
 Sir Matthew Hale ; yet now we are told by the present 
 Defendgjit, that the charge brought against him has no 
 foundation in law. I may now say, in the language of the 
 learned Judge I have just mentioned, that to revile the 
 Christian religion " was not only an offence against God, 
 but also against the law of the State, and the Government 
 of the realm." Christianity is part and parcel of the law. 
 Taylor was convicted, an^ a very severe sentence was given 
 against him. But the precedents that might be adduced did 
 not stop at the period to which I have gone back. At thp 
 commencement of the reign of George II. a person of the 
 name of Woolaton was convicted on four information?. 
 He attempted to justify himself, by impugning, as he had 
 previously done, the miracles of our Saviour, and the belief 
 which all Chrigtians profess. But this mode of defence tbe 
 Court would not suffer him to proceed with, and without 
 wishing to interfere with the discussions of learned men on 
 particular points, they held it was forbidden to make a 
 general attack on the Christian religioH, while to ca,ll 
 religion a ch^t was an offence cognfzable by a, civil 
 Court. In this case also conviction took place, aijd a sentence 
 commensurate with his crime was given against the defen- 
 dant. I may refer to what has been done at a later period, 
 when Williams had the temerity to send forth the same infa- 
 • mous and blasphemous publication which is the subject of 
 the present prosecution. On that occasion, the defendant 
 was proseciited by an advocate \\ ho had ever been distin- 
 
^ojshed among the frieiwjs of free dieoiissipn and the liberty 
 of the press — the present Lord Erskine. He, though he ad^ 
 bered to all he had ever uttered in defence of those inestima- 
 ble blessings, had contended that pnnishment was called for 
 in a case w^here it was attempted to undermine those religious 
 principles on which the present comfort of mankind, ^nd their 
 hopes of eternal happiness were founded : not to undermine 
 them in the minds of thinking men, but in the minds qi those 
 who have perhaps neither capacity nor leisure to enter into 
 an investigation of their origin and effects, but for whose es- 
 pecial comfort and welfare; religious principles are so neces- 
 sary, I mean the lower orders of the people. On that occa- 
 sion, the defendant was convicted, after an attempt to do 
 that which I hope will not be attempted this day, to defend 
 the publication. In 1812, a person of the name of Eaton 
 jsent forth the very same book. He was tried before the prer 
 decessor of the present Chief J ustice ; but was it held by the 
 learned persons engaged on that occasion, that to revile the 
 Christian religion was not contrary to the law of the land ? 
 No such a doctrine has ever obtained there ; and three suc- 
 cessive juries and successive courts, have found successive 
 defendants guilty of a serious offence against the laws of 
 their country, and this was so decided at a period when 
 every thing connected wjth the liberty of the press and free- 
 dom of discussion was most likely to be fully inquired into, 
 and sifted to the bottom. Having stated this, I am content 
 to leave it to tjie Court and Jury to say, whether or npt 
 such conduct at the present day ought not to be viewed a,s 
 qn infraction of tjie law of the land. If it be admitted that 
 the Christian religion is a part of the law of the land, it re- 
 mains to be shewn, whether or not the defendant has violated 
 that law, by publishing one of the most aboipinable, disgust- 
 ing, and wicked attacks on religion and its author, that has 
 ever appeared in the world. The first. attack is made on the 
 Old Testament, as the writer knew that throwing discredit 
 on that, was the readiest way to bring the I^ew Tfs,tamen,t 
 into discredit. 
 
 Gentlemen, I must read to you several passages from this 
 abominable production, however shocking to our feelings it 
 may be to do so. I feel myself under the painful necessity 
 of offending you and the Court and every njoral man who 
 hears me, by a recital of those disgusting passages, on the 
 tendency of which, it will shortly become your duty to de- 
 cide. Gentlemen, this writer commences his attack upon 
 fjie foundation pf our holy religion, va,inly imagining if he 
 
8 
 
 lUGoeeded in bis obgeot, that the superstructure built upon it 
 would fall. Gentlemen, the first passage to which I mvite 
 your attention is this : — 
 
 " Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debau- 
 cherifs, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vin- 
 dictiveness, with which more than one half the Bible is tillea, it 
 would he more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, 
 than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served 
 to corrupt and brutalize mankind." 
 
 I wish to put it to you, Gentlemen of the Jury, as fathers 
 of families, anxious to teach your children to fear God, and 
 hope for that eternal happiness so gloriously displayed by 
 our holy religion, what your feelings would be, if you found 
 such a paper had been put into the hands of your offspring 
 and domestics? But if you wanted a key to the mind of the 
 author, you will find it in the following passage : — 
 
 " Did the book called the Bible (for such is the contemptuoiis 
 manner in which the author speaks of that sacred work) excel in 
 purity of ideas and expression, all the books that are now extant 
 in the world, I would not take it for my rule of faith as being the" 
 word of God, because — (because what ?) — the possibility would, 
 nevertheless, exist, of my being imposed upon ; but when I see, 
 throughout the greatest part of tbis book, scarcely any thing but 
 a history of the e;rossest vices, and a collection of tbe most paltry 
 and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonour my Creator by calling 
 it by his name." 
 
 So that the writer would reject the purest system of reli- 
 gion, because there might be a possibility of being imposed 
 upon. The publication goes on to say :— 
 
 " To charge the commission of arts upon the Almighty, which, 
 in their own nature, and bv every rule of moral justice, are crimes, 
 as all assassination is, and more especially the assassination of in- 
 fants, is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us that those 
 assassinations were done by the express command of God — ^to be- 
 lieve, therefore, the Bible to be true, we mustunbelieve all our be- 
 lief in the moral justice of God; for wherein could crying or smil- 
 ing infants offend ? And to read the Bible without horror, we 
 must undo every thing that is tender, sympathizing, and benevo- 
 lent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other 
 evidence that the Bible is fabulous than the sacrifice 1 must make 
 to believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine 
 my choice." 
 
 Gentlemen, there are many other passages relating to the 
 Old Testament, the essence of which may be summed up la 
 a single line, in which the author declares : — 
 
 " It i« a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy." 
 
Such is the conolusion, Gentlemea of the Jury, to which 
 the author of these paragraphs hasarrived. All this must be 
 shocking to you, and I know you feel it. 1 cannot but anti- 
 cipate its effect upon you, and I wish consistently with my 
 duty, that I could close these disgusting extracts, and ab- 
 stain from the still more shocking blasphemies which the 
 work contains against the New Testament and the name of 
 our divine and b'esSed Saviour, Indeed, Gentlemen, I can 
 assure you without the least affectation, that I feel the ut- 
 most pain in proceeding to this part of my painful duty. It 
 
 , is painful in the extreme, to me and to you. The indecent 
 and blasphemous levity, yfith. which the author treats the 
 subject, shocks and must ^hock every man of feeling, or of 
 religious habits ; but still I am compelled to call your atten- 
 tion to the following passage : — 
 
 " As it ii nothing extraordinary that a woman should be with 
 child before she was married, and that the son she might bring 
 forth should be executed, even unjustly, 1 see no reason for not 
 believing that such a woman as Mary, and such men as Joseph and 
 Jesus existed; their mere existence is a matter of indifference, 
 about which there is no ground either to believe or disbelieve, and 
 which comes under the common head of. It may be so, and what 
 then ? The probability, however, is, that there were such per- 
 sons, or at least such as' resembled them in part of the circum- 
 stances, because almost all romantic stories have been suggested 
 by some actual circumstances, as the adventures of Robinson Cru- 
 soe, not a word of which is true, were suggested .by the case of 
 Alexander Selkirk. It is not then the existence or non-existence 
 of the persons that I trouble myself about. It it the fable of Je- 
 sus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and vision- 
 ary doctrine raised thereon, against which 1 contend. The story, 
 taken it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene; it gives an account 
 of a young -woman engaged to be married, and while under this 
 engagement she is, to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost, 
 under the impious pretence (Luke, chap. i. ver. 35,) that ' the 
 Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
 
 ■Overshadow thee.' " 
 
 Are we living in a Christian age ? Do we profess a reli- 
 gion at all ? Surely it might have been expected that the 
 most sceptical person, that the greatest infidel, would pause 
 before he wrote such a paragraph. " If it were possible," 
 he says — why then he admits it to be possible — I will use 
 his own argument against him. The defendant and the wri- 
 ter of these passages ought to have paused. When those 
 shall occur to him ,in his last moments — and reflection will 
 Jhen come — I will ask, with what feelings will he reJBect on 
 
10 
 
 the bare possibility that that wbioh he has so arri^aed may- 
 be founded in truth? I believe in my conscience, that Paine 
 himself and the present defendant, in their calmer moments, 
 could not but have some little doubt on the subject. What, 
 then, must be the feelings of the defendant at the close of 
 his life, when he remembers that he has been the means of 
 putting such publications into the hands of the young and 
 the inexperienced, to dishonour that Deity whom we all pro- 
 -fessto worship, and to whom we owe the manifold blessings 
 we enjoy ? 
 
 The next passage to which I beg your attention, is not 
 less blasphemous than those I have already quoted— it is 
 thus : — 
 
 " I have now gone through the examination of the four books 
 ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; and wheu it is 
 considered that the whole, space of time, from the crncitixionto 
 what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently not 
 more than three or four, and that all the circumstances are re- 
 ported to have happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem, 
 it is, I believe, impossible to find in any story upon record, so 
 many and such glaring; absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods, 
 as are in those books. But the case is, that people have been so 
 long in the habit of reading the books called the Bible and Testa- 
 ment with their eyes shut, and their senses locked up, that the 
 most stupid inconsistencies have passed on them for truth, and 
 imposition for prophesy. The all-wise Creator hath been disho- 
 noured by being made the author of fable, and the human mind 
 degraded by believing it. I forbear (continues the author) making 
 any remark on this abominable imposition of Matthew, the thing 
 glaringly speaks for itself; it is priests and commentators that I 
 rather ought to censure for having; preached falsehoods so long, and 
 kept people in darkness, with respect to those impositions. I am 
 not contending with these men upon points of doctrine, for 1 know 
 that sophistry his always a city of refuge ; I am speaking of facts ; 
 for wherever the thing called a fact is a falsehood, the faith found- 
 ed upon it is delusion, and the doctrine raised upon it not tru?. 
 Ah ! reader, put thy trust in thy Creator, and thou wilt be safe, 
 but if thou irustest to the book called the Scripture, thou trustest 
 to the rotten staif of fable and falsehood. 1 have now, reader, 
 gone through and examined all the passages which the four books 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, quote from the Old Testa- 
 ment, and call them prophecies of Jesus Christ. When first I sat 
 down to this examination, I expected to find cau>e for some cen- 
 sure, but little did I expect to find them so utterly destitute of 
 truth and of all pretensions to it, as I have shewn 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 
 
11 
 
 of the Old TeetainiBiit ai^d ooll H a pr.opbecy of that cose. B»t 
 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." 
 
 One would suppose that some little decorum, some little 
 decency would be observed in the discussion of so sacred a 
 subject — but no, the whole is treated asan imposture, a lie, 
 and a fable. I do not think there is a man existing who will 
 riot say that this is a direct attack, couched in the coarsest 
 terms, on the Holy Scriptures and the religion which is pro- 
 fessed in this country. The libel goes on thus : — 
 
 " These repeated forgeries and falsifications createa well-fonnd- 
 ed suspicion, that all the cases spoken of concerning the person 
 called Jesus Christ, are made cases 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 imaglTiary 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 false- 
 hoods, falsifications, contradictions, and absurdities which are to 
 be met with in almost every page of the Old and New Testament, 
 all the priests of the present daj', who supposed themselves capa- 
 ble, would triumphantly shew their skill in criticism, and cry it 
 down as a most glaring imposition ; but since the books in ques- 
 tion belong to their own trade and profession, they, or at least 
 many of them, seek to stifle eveiy enquiry into them, and abuse 
 those who have the honesty and the courage to doit. They tell 
 us, that Jesus arose 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 bo, these would have been the only circumstances 
 respecting him that would have differed from the common lot of 
 man, and consequently the only case that would apply exclusively 
 to him as prophecj-, would be some passage in the Old Testament, 
 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 arise from the dead and ascend into 
 Heaven. Our prophecy-mongers supply the silence, by telling us 
 of passages they call prophecies, and that falsely so, about Jo- 
 seph's dreams, old clothes, broken bones, and such like trifling 
 stuff." 
 
 I now entreat the Jury to mark the manner in which the 
 opinions of the author are summed up : — 
 
 " Now (says he) had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ he^n 
 inscribed on the-face of the sun and ^he moon, in characters that all 
 
12 
 
 nations would hare nnderstood, the wnole eai'th bad kaowu it \m 
 twenty-four hours, and all nations would hare believed it. Where- 
 as, though itis now almost 2,000 years since,' as tbey 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 fell the passages 
 called prophecies of Jesus Christ, and shewn there is no such thing. 
 I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared the 
 several circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Middle- 
 ton wisely says, ' God has made to us of his power and wisdom in 
 the structure of the universe, and by which every thipg ascribed to 
 him is to be tried.* The result is, that the story of Christ has not 
 one trait, either iu its character or in the means employed, 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, uncertain, and inadequate to the accom(>lish- 
 inent of the end proposed, and therefore the whole is a fabulous in- 
 vention and undeserving of credit. The priests of the present day 
 profess to believe it, they gain their living by it, and they exclaim 
 against something they call infidelity. 1 will define what itis : he 
 that believes in tha story of Christ is an infidel to God." 
 
 I have now, Gentlemen, gone through the counts of the 
 indictment against the defendant, and have I not read enough? 
 Have I not proved, taking Christianity to be the law of the 
 land, and that which is not to be reviled by word or writ- 
 ing, that the defendant has offended against the law ? Has 
 he or has he not reviled the Christian Religion.? Gentle- 
 men, if you can put your hands to your hearts and say he 
 has not, he will be entitled to his acquittal : but if you should 
 be of a contrary opinion, as I think you must be, then you 
 wiU only be discharging your duty to God and your coun- 
 try, by convicting him. I have seen it and heard it said, 
 that this prosecution has been instituted for other purposes ; 
 but. Gentlemen, it has not, and such assertions are without 
 foundation. This prosecution has not originated in any 
 disposition to interfere with opinions which may be enter- 
 tained upon disputed topics. No, praise be to Him who 
 sent it! notwithstanding the various differences of opinion 
 existing between the various sects and classes of the earth, 
 the Christian religion has endured for ages, because it is 
 built upon a rock, which all the infidels of other times have 
 in vain endeavoured to assail. To use the words of Mr. 
 Locke, " The religion of this country has God for its au- 
 thor, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture 
 of error, for its subject and its matter." Such a religion 
 cannot be affected by the works of Paine, or those of 
 
13 
 
 greafef taen. But protection must be afforded to the peo- 
 ple agaJDst such impious missiles as -are there iiung out 
 against their happiness and peace. Prosecutions for such 
 calumnies against religion are necessary for the public good, 
 although the religion itself has no need of support from the 
 arm of man, for in my conscience I believe that persecution 
 alone' can injure it. But this prosecution has not been insti- 
 tuted for the purpose of oppressing any individual. No, it 
 has been only instituted for the purpose of protecting the 
 lower and illiterate classfes from having their faith sapped 
 and their minds divested from those principles of morality, 
 which are so powerfully inculcated by the Christian religion. 
 The gospel is preached particularly for the poor. It is cal- 
 culated to shew them the vanity of all earthly things : it 
 enaoles them to bear up against the pressure of misery and 
 misfortune, arid teaches them to rely upon those rewards 
 which they shall earn by leading a life of honesty, sobriety, 
 arid deference to the laws of God, and of their country. 
 But when stich terrible productions as those now under con- 
 sideration are put into their hands, into the hands of those 
 v*^ho unlike the rich, the informed, and the powerful, are 
 unable to draw distinctions between ingenious though mis- 
 chievous arguments, and divine truths — the consequences 
 ■are too frightful to be contemplated. It is said of vice that 
 it becomes familiar by being known, and it will be so in the 
 sarrie manner with infidelity. I repeat again, there is no 
 intention of prosecuting any man for his religious opinions, 
 provided they be not promulgated in such a manner as 
 to produce positive mischief to the community. It is 
 not for me, Gentlemen, to dictate to you the line of con- 
 duct you are to pursue. I am addressing twelve gentle- 
 men of education, and consideration in life ; I have stated 
 to you what I apprehend to be clearly the law on this 
 subject, namely, that to ridicWe' Christianity is an offence 
 at common law. That offence is imputed to the Defen- 
 dant on the present indictment. The eyes of the country, 
 Gentlemen, are upon your proceedings ; and your deli- 
 berations and determination are looked to with a pain- 
 ful anxiety. Much do I lament that, although a great 
 length of time has elapsed since the publication of this libel, 
 the subject has not before been brought under your consi- 
 deration. Unavoidable circumstances have prevented this 
 «tep. But no time, however, has unnecessarily been lost, 
 and whatever delays have taken place, are solely to be attri- 
 buted to the forms of law, and to other occurreaces which 
 
14 
 
 were not wittin my controul. The Defendant exercised 
 the right of traversing, which produced a certain delay. It 
 was impossible, from certain circumstances, that it could 
 have been tried in April — and this is the first opportunity at 
 which it could have been brought forward. I repeat it, 
 Gentlemen, that the eyes of the country are upon you — all" 
 the religious — all the moral — all the thinking part of man- 
 kind are waiting anxiously the de'dsiou of this case. It is 
 to be decided by you, Gentlemen of the Jury, whether 
 Christianity is a fabulous imposture, and whether we are to 
 continue under that religions part of the system of our con- 
 stitution, to which we have heretofore looked with confi- 
 dence and veneration. If the Defendant has committed an 
 offence, and that he has, in my estimation, no man alive can 
 entertain a doubt, after hearing the passages -which I have 
 read — I am sure I need not call upon you to be firm in the 
 conscientious discharge of your duty. If you believe that 
 the Defendant has offended against the laws of God and the 
 country, you will, without the slightest hesitation, give a 
 verdict to that effect. It only remains for me to prove the 
 case which 1 have stated, and this I shall do very shortly, 
 by proving the sale of the book by the Defendant ; and un- 
 less you have made up your minds to treat as nothing, the 
 solemn obligation of the oath which you have taken, and 
 to consider Christianity as a fable, and as a gross imposi- 
 tion, 1 am satisfied, upon the facts, that the only verdict 
 which you can return on this occasion will be that of 
 Guilty. 
 
 Solicitor GeneraL--CaX\ GrifBn Swanson. — Witness being 
 sworn. 
 
 Solicitor General. — Are you in the employ of the Solici- 
 tors to the Treasury ? 
 
 Witness. — I am a clerJt and messenger in their employ. 
 
 Solicitor General. — Did you on the 19th December last 
 go to the shop of the Defendant? 
 
 Witness (^examining a book'). — It was on the 17th of 
 December. 
 
 Solicitor General — Where is that shop situated? 
 
 Witness. — On the right hand side of Fleet Street. 
 
 Solicitor General. — Do you mean the Tight hand side 
 going from, or towards, Temple Bab ? 
 
 Witness. — I mean the right hand side going towards 
 Temple Bar. 
 
 Solicitor General. — Did you purchase any thing at that 
 time? 
 
15 
 
 Witness. — Yes; P'aine's " Age of Reason." 
 
 Solicitor General (^handing him a book'). — Is that the 
 copy? 
 
 Witness. —It is. 
 
 Solicitor General, — What price did you pay for it? 
 
 (fitness. — Half a guinea. 
 
 Solicitor General. — Who served you? 
 
 Witness. — The Defendant himself, 
 
 Solicitor General. — Did any conversation take place at 
 the time? 
 
 Witness. — Mr. Carlile knew me to belong to the office of 
 the Solicitors to the Treasury, and sent his compliments to 
 Mr. Maule, adding, that if he would allow him to eat his 
 Christmas dinner at home, he should be prepared to meet 
 him. 
 
 Cross-examined by Mr. Carlile.— Was there any hesita- 
 tion on my part to serve you ? 
 
 Witness. — 'None at all. You did it rather cheerfully. 
 You asked me if I did not want half a dozen copies. 
 
 attorney General. — '1 his closes the case on the part of 
 the Crown. 
 
 Chief Justice. As the Defendant wishes the information to 
 be read, the counts, and the passages in the book to which 
 they referred, had better now be read to the Jury. 
 
 Solicitor General (to the officer, Mr. Bellamy') read the 
 Counts of the Information in succession, and the particular 
 passages charged as libellous, from the book. Mr. Bellamy 
 proceeded to read the first Count. — 
 
 "London, (to wit). Be it remembered, that Sir Samuel Shepherd, 
 Knight, Attorney-General of om Lord the now King, who prosecutes 
 for our said Lord the King in his behalf in his proper person, cometh 
 here into the court of our said Lord the King, iefore the King him- 
 self at Westminster, on Saturday next after the octave of Saint Hilary, 
 in this same term, and for our said Lord the King giveth the court 
 here to understand and be informed, that Richard Carlile, late of 
 London, bookseller, being a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed per- 
 son, and having no regard for the laws and religion of this realm, 
 but most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising 
 and intending to asperse, vilify, and ridicule that part of the Holy 
 Bible which is called the Old Testament ; on the seventeenth day of 
 December, in the fifty-ninth year of the reign of our said present so- 
 vereign Lord George the Third, by the grace of God, of the United 
 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, at 
 London aforesaid, in the parish of St. Mary le Bow, in the ward of 
 Cheap, did print and publish, and cause to be printed and published, 
 a certain scandalous, impious, and blasphemous lib«l, of and con- 
 
16 
 
 •erning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testa- 
 ment, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous, 
 impious, and blasphemous matters, of and concerning that part of 
 the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the 
 tenor and effect following, (that is to say) « Whenever we read the 
 obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous 
 executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than halt 
 the Bible" (meaning that part ot the Holy Bible which is called the 
 Old Testament) " is filled, it Would be more consistent that we called 
 it" (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Tes- 
 tament,) " the 'word of a demon, than the word of God. It" (mean- 
 ing that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) 
 " is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize 
 mankind:" — , 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I wish the remaining part of the Count to 
 be read, that the Jury may be apprised of the whole of the 
 charge. 
 
 Mr. Bellamy then read the remainder as follows: — 
 
 " — 16 the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great 
 scandal, infamy, and contempt of the said part of the Holy Bible 
 which is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, 
 and against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and 
 dignity." ' 
 
 Solicitor General (to Mr. Carlile). — Do you wish the 
 passages in the work to be read .? 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — Most certainly, the whole of them. 
 
 Solicitor General. — la order to avoid reading the pas- 
 sages twice, perhaps the Defendant would read the passages 
 charged as libellous from thef bookj while the officer reads 
 them from the information; 
 
 Chief Justice.— ^Do you wish to compare the passages 
 just read, with those in the work itself ? 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I admit; my Lord, the passages cited to be 
 a true copy^ they may as well be read from the information 
 to save time. 
 
 " Second Count. — And the said Attorney-General of our said Lord 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the court hereto 
 understa,nd and be informed, that the said Richard Carlile, being a 
 wicked, impious, and ill-disposed person, and having no regard for 
 the laws and religion of this realm, but most wickedly, blasphemously, 
 impiously, and profanely devising and intending to asperse, vilify, 
 scandalize, and ridicule that part of the Holy Bible which is called 
 the Old Testament, on the day and year aforesaid, at London afore- 
 said, in the parish and ward aforesaid, did print and publish) *nd 
 cause to be printed and published, a certain other scandalous, im- 
 pious, and blasphemous hhel, of and concerning that part of the 
 
17 
 
 Holy 'Bib'l6 which iscfUled' the Ofd testalheiit, eoiitainiiig tlieiein 
 amongst other things, divert scahdajo'ii^,. impious, and blas])liemoii^ 
 matters; of and concerning thdt part of the iloly, Bible which is called 
 the 01d"Testam'etif-', according' to fhpteilor and effect foUowirig, (that 
 is'to say) " Did^the book ciilldd the Bible" (meaiiing that pail of the 
 Holy Bible wWcti is Calledthe Old' Testament) " excel iii purity of. 
 ideas and expulsion,' all the books that are n6w extant iii the world, 
 I wouldi(ot <a'ke it fot niy riile'of faith '4?' being the word of God,'be- 
 cansie the possibility Xvoiild; lifevertheless, exist of my being (impose^; 
 BpOti ; but When I see (hroVighodt'iKe greatest part of this book'," 
 (meaning that jiar't of flie H% Bible whi'chis called the Old Testa- 
 ment) " Scarcely iifty tliing'but' almtory of 'the grossest vices, .and a 
 collection of, the.tiiost'palti-y-and' contemptible tales, I canript'disho- 
 nour ftiy Ci-eator by Calling it'by his name," (meaning and interid- 
 ing thereby, that throughout' the greatest part of that pait of the 
 Holy ' iSMe which is called thfe' Old Testament, there' is scarcely a-ny' 
 thing but a history of the grossest vices, and a coUectioii,' of pa,ltry' 
 an* contemptible tales) — to the great displeasure of Alm^ighly' CWd, 
 to the great sc^ndaly infamy, and contempt oPthe Holy Bible, to' t^ti' 
 evil example of all others, dnd against the'peiade of our said Lord the 
 King, his crown and dignity. ' ^, ''. 'V'. 
 
 ^hird Count. A.x^^ th,^sajd: Attorney-General of pur s?>id Loid 
 the Jiing, foij our said Lord, the King, further give^ the, court liere to! 
 understand and be informed, that the said Richard Ca.rlile, being.a, 
 wicked, impious, .and ill-disposed, person, and having no regard for,, 
 the laws or religion olj,th,i§ realm, but wickedly, blasphenipusly, im- 
 piously^ and profanely ide.yising and intending to asperse, scandalize,, 
 vilify, and ridicule the Holy Bible and the Chiistian .Religion, on the' 
 day aird year aforesaid, at London aforesaid, in the parish anjd ward, 
 aforesaid, did 'print and publish, and caus^ to be printed and pub- 
 lished, a certain other scandalous, ipjpipvis, aiifiblasphempus libel,, 
 of and coricerning the Hply Bible ^.nd the Christian religipn, cpu- 
 taining therein, amongst other things, divers, scandalous, impious, 
 and blasphemous .ina,tter^, qf and concerning th,e Iloly Bible, a.nd the 
 Christian religion, in one part thereof, according to. the tenor ^nd 
 effect ; following, (that is. to say) " To cljjirge the commission of acts, 
 upon the Altriighty, which, in their own- nature, and by every rule 
 of moral justice, are crimes, as all assassination is, and more especi- 
 ally the assa^sina,tion of infants, is matter of serious concerp. I'he 
 Bible tells us that those assassinations were done by tlie exptess 
 command of God— to believe, therefore, the Bible to , be true, we 
 ihiist unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of God, for wherein 
 could crying or smiling infan,t? offend ? And to read the Bible witji- 
 out horror, w^ mu^t undo every thing that is lender, sympathizing, , 
 and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I",; 
 (meaning the writer pf the aforesaid libel) " had np other evidence that . 
 the Bible is fabulous than the sacrifice L" (meaning the writer pf.the j 
 said libel) '," must make to believe it to be true, that, alone woijl^ be 
 sufficiept to determine my Chpiee." And in another part thereof 
 
18 
 
 according to the tenor and effect following, (that is to say) «'I have 
 now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed to 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," (meaning the four Holy Gospels, in 
 that part of the Holy Bible which is called the New Testament,) " and 
 when it is considered that the whole space of time from the crucifixion ' 
 (meaning the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus 
 Christ) "to what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently 
 not more than three or four, and that all circumstances are reported to 
 have happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem, it is, I believe, 
 impossible to find in any story upon record, so many and such glar- 
 ing absurdities, contradictions, and falsehoods as are in those books :' ' 
 (meaning thereby that there are glaring absurdities, contradictions, 
 and falsehoods in those books) — to the great displeasure of Almighty 
 God, to the great scandal, infamy, contempt, and ridicule of the 
 Holy Bible and the Christian religion, to the evil example of all 
 others, and against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown 
 and dignity. 
 
 Chief Justice. — Do you admit all the passages, for I did 
 not understand you to admit them so generally? 
 Mr. Carlile.—My Lord, I admit them all. 
 Chief Justice. — Very well. 
 
 Fourth Count. — And the said Attorney-General of our said Lord 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the Court here to 
 understand and be informed, that the said Richard Carlile, being a 
 wicked, impious, and evil disposed person, and having no regard for 
 the laws or religion of this realm, but wickedly, blasphemously, im- 
 piously, and profanely devising and intending to asperse, vilify, and 
 ridicule that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testa- 
 ment, on the day and year aforesaid, at London aforesaid, in the parish 
 and ward aforesaid, did print and publish, and cause to be printed 
 and published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous 
 libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called 
 the Old Testament, containing therein^ amongst other things, divers 
 , scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters, of and concerning that 
 part of the Bible which is called the Old Testament, accoi-ding to the 
 tenor and effect following, (that is to say) " It" (meaning that part 
 of the Bible which is called the Old Testament) " is a Book of lies, 
 wickedness, and blasphemy :" — to the great displeasure of Almighty 
 God, to the great scandal and infamy of the said part of the Holy 
 Bible which is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all 
 othei-s, and against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown 
 and dignity. 
 
 Fifth Count. — And the said Attorney-General of our said Loi'd 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the court here 
 to understand and be informed, that the said Richard Carlile being a 
 wicked, impious, and evil disposed person, and ha\'ing no regard for 
 the laws or religion of this realm, but wickedly, impiously, and blas- 
 phemously devising and intending to asptirse, vihfy, discredit, and 
 
19 
 
 fidicule the Christian religion, on the day and year aforesaid, at 
 London aforesaid, in the parish ahd ward aforesaid, did Wickedly, 
 impiously, and profanely publish, and cause to be published, a cer- 
 tain other scandalous, impious, profane, and blasphemous libel, of 
 and concerning the Christian religion, containing therein, amongst 
 other things, divers scandalous, impious, profane, and blasphemous 
 matters, of and concerning the Christian religion, according to the 
 tenor and effect following, (that is to say) "As it is nothing extraor- 
 dinary that a woman should be with child before she was married, 
 and that the son she might bring forth should be executed even un- 
 justly, I see no reasen for not believing that such a woman as Mary," 
 (ineaning the Blessed Virgin Mary) " and such a Man as Joseph 
 and Jesus," (meaning our Saviour Jesus Christ) "existed; their 
 mere existence is a matter of indifference, about which there is no 
 ground either to believe or to disbelieve, and which comes under the 
 common head of. It may be so, and what then ? The probability, how- 
 ever, is, that there were such persons, or at least such as resembled 
 them in part of the circumstances, because almost all romantic 
 stories have been suggested hy some actual circumstances, as the 
 adventures of Robinson Crusoe, not a word of which is true, were 
 suggested by the case of Alexander Selkirk. It is not then the exist- 
 ence or non-existence of the persons that I trouble myself about. It 
 is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the !New Testament, and the 
 wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. 
 The story, taking it as it is told, is blasphemously obscene ; it gives 
 an account of a young woman engaged to be married, and while 
 under this engagement she is, to speak plain language, debauched 
 by a ghost, under the impious pretence (Luke, chap. i. ver 35) that 
 the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
 shall overshadow thee :" to the great displeasure of Almighty God, 
 to the great scandal and infamy of the Christian religion, to the evil 
 example of all others, and against the peace of our said Lord the 
 King, his crown and dignity. 
 
 Sixth Count. — And the said Attorney -General of our said Lord 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the Court here 
 to understand and be informed, that the said Richard Carlile, being 
 a wicked, impious, and evjl-disposed person, and haying no regard 
 for the laws or religion of this realm, but wickedly, impiously, and 
 blasphemously devising and intending to asperse,) vilify, and ridi- 
 cule the Christian religion, on the day and year aforesaid, at Lon- 
 don aforesaid, in the parish and ward aforesaid, did wickedly, im- ' 
 piously, and profanely, publish, and cause to be published, a cer- 
 tain other scandalous, impious, profane, and blasphemous libel, of 
 and concerning the Christian religion, containing therein, amongst 
 other things, divers scandalous, impious, profane, and blas- 
 phemous matters, of and<;oncerning the Christian religion, accord- 
 ing to the tenor and effect following, (that is to say) " What is it 
 the Testament" (pieanit^g that part of t,he Holy Bible which is 
 called the New Testament) " teaehes us? to b«li«ve that the Al- 
 
20 
 
 (nighty comniitted debaucheiy \Vith ,a woman engaged io' be mnr- 
 ried I'aild the belief of this debauchery is called f^Kh':"— to the 
 great displ.^a^urs of Ahnighty God, to tHe' great scptidal; infamy, 
 and cc(nteinpt of the Christian religiorl, : to the evd example of 'all 
 others, and against; the peace 61* our said Lord'thfe King, his crown 
 &'pd di'gnity; ' • ' * ' ' ' ''" ' ' ' ' '*' 
 
 'Seventh Count. — And the said Attorney-General' of bur said 
 Lord tile King, for tiifrsaid Lord the King, ftifther gives thfe cbirrV 
 here touh.dersfaiid and bg iiifonnfed, that the "sUid RichatdCaiJife 
 being aii ^vil'dii^posed and wicked person, and' dis'regai^dfhg'. the 
 laws and religion of this realm, and wickedly 'arid profanely in- 
 tending to bring the Holy Scriptures" and' the Christian rdigion 
 into disbelief and con'ternpt, among all th6 lifege subject of olVr 
 said Lord the King, did heretofore, to w it, on th0 ' same day and 
 year aforesaid, at London aforesaid,'in the parish and wal-d afore- 
 said, unlawfully and wickedly print and publish, aiid'tatise to' be 
 printed and published, a certain other sciindalbus, irhjaious, blAs- 
 phembus, and profane libel,' of and cbricerning'the'Hofy Scripiurfes 
 and the Christian religion, cbntairiing thereiti, among other thi-ngfe; 
 divers scandalous, impious, .blasphemou^^ and profane matters,' of 
 dfid 'concernirig the. Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion frt 
 'bne part thereof, according to the teilor and efFett foU'pwiiig, (thitis 
 to say) "'^Utthe case is, that people have beeh so long in the habit 
 of reading'the' t)ooks called th^ Bible'* (tfie^ning" that part'bf the 
 H'oly Bible called the Old Testament) ''and Testament" (meaning 
 that part of the Holy Bible called the New Testament,) "with 
 their eyes shut,' and their senses locked up, that the mrfst'stu'fiifl 
 inconsistencies have passed on them for truth,' and hn^ofeition ' fbr 
 prophecy. The all-^wise Creator hath been dishonoured ' by being 
 made the author of a fable, and the hViman mind degraded by'-be- 
 lievirig it,''' And in another part thereof, according to the tefntor 
 arid effect following, (that isio say) "1 forbear making any remark 
 on this abominable imposition of Matthew," (meaning the holy 
 'Ev'sbgelist Saint Matthew,) "the thing glaringly speaks for itself j 
 it is priests and comnjentatoprs that I rather ought to censure for 
 having preached falsehood BO Jong, and kept people in darktjes^, 
 With respect to thbse impositions. I arn not' contendiilg with these 
 men.upbn points of doctrine, for I kfibw that sophistry has always 
 a ci,ty' of refuge; Lam Spfiaking'of facts; for wherever the thi'rig 
 called.a fact is«0 falsehood, the faith founded upon it is del'usibri, 
 and thi doctrine raised' upon it not true. 'Ah! 'reader, put tb^ 
 frustiri thy Creator, >nd. thou; wilt be safe, but if thou trustest' to 
 the book called the Scriptures," (iheanJbg the Hbly Scriptuyes,) 
 "thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood.'' ' jflnd 
 in another pai-f thereof, according to the tenor atid effect following, 
 (that is tp say) " I have now, reader, gone tlirough' and examined 
 all, the passages which the ft)ur books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
 and John," (meaning the four' holy Gospels,) "quote from tile Old 
 Tesiament, arid call them prophecies of JeSus Christ.' When first 
 
21 
 
 \ set down to- this fjxaminatiot), I expected, to ii.nd, cause for some, 
 censure, liutlitlle did 1 expect to find them ,so u.tlerly destitute 
 of truth, and of all pretensions to it, as I have shewn them to be';' 
 the practice which the writei^s of 'those books emplo'y is not itior^ 
 false tiian it is absurd ; the}' state some trifling case of tlie picrson 
 they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out a'sentence from. some pas- 
 sage of the Old Testament and call it a prophecy' of that case. 
 But when the words thus cut; oiit 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." And in another pari thereof, accord- 
 ing to the tenor' and effect following, (thjjt is to say). "These re- 
 peated forgeries and falsifications create a v\'ell founded suspicion, 
 that a!ll the cases, spoken of concerning the person' called Jes^S 
 Christ are madecas^s on purpose to lug in, and tltatvery clumsily^ 
 some broken seiltences from the Old Testament, and apply them 
 as, prophecies of those cases, and that 4b' 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, .llercules, Jupiter, 
 and all the deities of antiquity were. There is no history written 
 at the time Jesus Chi-ist is said to have lived that sjJeaka of the 
 existence of such a person, even as' a msn. Did wefind in any other 
 book, pretending to give a system of religion, the falsehoods,: fal- 
 sifications, contradictions, arid' absurdities which are to be met 
 with in almost every page of the Old and New TestaiiTient, 'all the 
 priests of *he present day, who supposfed themselves capable, 
 would triumphantly shew their skill in criticism, and cry it down 
 as. a riiost glaring imposition; but since the books in qiiestiqh be- 
 long to their own trade arid profession, they, or at least, many of 
 them, seek to stifle every inquiry into them, and aljuse those who 
 have the .honesty and the courage to do it." And in anafher piirt 
 thereof, according to the tenor and effect following, [that is 'to say) 
 '' 'fhey tell us, that Jesus rose frpm the dead and ascended int6 
 Heaven; it is very easy to say so ; a great lie is as easily tdld as a 
 little one ; but if he had done so, the^e would have been the only 
 circumstances respecting him that'would have differedf'from thfe 
 common lot of man, and consequently the only ease that would 
 ,apply exclusively to. him as. prophecy, would' be sortie passage in 
 the Old Testament, that foretold such things of him ; but thei-e 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 si- 
 lence the Old Testament guards upon such things, by telling us 
 "of passages they call prophecies, aiid that falsely, so about Joseph's 
 .dreams, old clothes, broken bones, and such like trifling stuff." 
 And irilanother part thereof, according to the tenoFand effect fol- 
 lowing, (that is to. say) " Now had the news of salyation by Jesus 
 Christ been insciibed oh the face of the Sun <tnd thfe nioori, in' cha- 
 racters that all natiqA^|V>cftild have understood,' the \vhole ekrth had 
 
22 
 
 known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed 
 it. Whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, 
 as they tell ws, Christ came upon iearth, 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. 1 have now, reader, gone 
 through all the passages called prophecies of Jesus Christ, and 
 shewn there is no such thing. I have examined the stoiy told_ of 
 Jesus Christ and compared the several circumstances of it with 
 that revelation, 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 employed, 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, uncertain, and 
 inadequate to the accomplishment of the end proposed, and there- 
 fore 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, and they exclaim against something they call infide- 
 lity. I will define what it is — he that believes in the story of 
 Christ, is an infidel to God :" to the high displeasure of Almighty 
 God, to the great scandal of the Christian religion, to the evil ex- 
 ample of all others, and against the peace of our said Lord the 
 King, his crown and dignity, 
 
 Eighthri>ount. And the said Attorney-General of our said 
 Lord the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the 
 Court here to understand and be informed, that the said Richard 
 Carlile, further impiously and profanely devising and intending 
 as last aforesaid, did afterwards (to wit) on the same day and year 
 aforesaid, at London aforesaid, in the parish and ward aforesaid, 
 unlawfully and wickedly publish and cause to be published, a 
 certain other scandalous, impious, blasphemous, and profane 
 libel, of and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian 
 religion, containing therein, amongst other things, certain scan- 
 dalous, ipipious, blasphemous, and profane matters and things, of 
 and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian rehgion, to 
 the tenor and effect following (that is to say) " Thtse repeated for- 
 geries and falsifications create a well founded suspicion that all 
 the cases spoken of concerning the person called Jesus Christ, are 
 made cases on purpose to lug in, and thi\t very cUinisil)', some 
 broken sentences from the Old Testament, and apply them as pro- 
 phecies 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 imagi- 
 nary or allegorical cliaracter, as Apollo, Hercules, Jupiter, and 
 all the deities of antiquity were. There is no history written at 
 thetime Jesus Christ is said to have lived that speaks of the ex- 
 istence of such a person, even as a man. Did we find in any 
 other book, pretending to give a system of religion, the false- 
 heods, Msification«, contradictions, and absurdities which are to 
 
23 
 
 be met with in almost every page of the Old and New Testament, 
 all the priests of the present d^y who supposed themselves <;apa>- 
 ble, would triumphantly shew their skill m criticism, and ci:y it 
 down as amost g'liii'iiig imposition; but sinoe the books in ques- 
 tion belong to their own trade aiid profession, they, or at least 
 many of them, seek to stifle every enquiry into them, and abuse 
 those who have tlie honesty and the courage to do it:" — to the 
 high displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal of the 
 Christian religion, to the evil example of all others, and against 
 the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and dignity. 
 
 Ninth Count, And the said Attorney-General of our said Lord 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further gives the Court 
 here to understand and be informed, that the said Richard Gar- 
 ble, further impiously and wickedly devising and intending to 
 bring the Christian religion into contempt and disbelief among 
 the liege subjects of our said Lord the King, afterwards (to wit) 
 on the same day and year last aforesaid, at London aforesaid, in 
 the parish and ward aforesaid, did unlawfully and wickedly pub- 
 lish, and cause to be published, a certuin other scandalous, im- 
 pious, blasphemous, and profane libel, of and .concerning the 
 history of our Saviour Jesus Christ, containing therein, among 
 other things, certain scandalous, impious, bUsphemous, and pro- 
 fane matters, of and concerning the history of our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, to the tenor and effect following, (that is to say) " 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 twenty-four hours, 
 and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now 
 almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon 
 earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth knew any 
 thing of it, and among those who do, the wiser partdo not believe 
 it. 1 have now, Teader, gone through all the passages called pro- 
 phecies of Jesus Christ, and shewn there is no such thing. I have 
 examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared the several 
 circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Middletou 
 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 employed, that 
 bears the least reseiiiblance to the power and wisdom o'f God as de- 
 monstrated in the creation of the universe. AH the means are hu- 
 man means, slow, uncertain, and inadequate to the accomplish- 
 ment of the end proposed, and therefore the whole is a fabulous 
 invention andi undeserving of credit. The priests of the present 
 day profess to believe it, they gain their living by it, and they 
 exclaim against something they call infidelity. I will define what 
 it is : he that believes in the story of Christ is an infidel to God :" 
 _to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal 
 
 of. thereligion of this realm as by law estublished, to the evil ex- 
 
24 
 
 ample of jill others, ajicl against .tl(e (je;ace of. our said Loj:d the 
 King, Ins CTovvii and digiiity. ' ■ .1. 
 
 Tevth Count. And the said Attorney-General of pur said.Lord 
 the King, for our said Lord the King, further giveth the Court 
 Tiere to ' understand and be informed, that the said Richard; Car-, 
 lile, further "im piously and profanely devising and intending to 
 bring that part, of the Holy Scriptures called , the. rfew,,T,estiuile.nt, 
 andfilsothe Christian religion into disbelief and contempt among 
 the liege subjects of our said' Lord the King, did afterwards [to, 
 wit) on the same day aiid year last aforesaid, at London aforesaid, 
 in the parish and ward aforesaid, unlawfully and wickedly pub- 
 lish, and cause to be published, a ceitain other scandalous, utit 
 pipuij, blasphemous, and profane libel, of and concerning the 
 said part of the Holy Scriptures called the New Testament, and the 
 'Christian religion, containing therein, amongst other things, cer- 
 tain scandalous, impious, blasphemous, and profane rnattfers 
 and things, of and concerning the said part of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures called the New Testament, and the Christian religion, to the 
 tenor and effect following, (that is to say) " For my ow,u part, I 
 do' not' believe there is one word of historical truth in the whole 
 book," (meatiiiig t^at part of the, Holy Scriptures called the New 
 Test.iment.) 1 look upon it at best .tp be a romance, the prlncijial 
 personage of which is an imaginary or allegorical character jfpiind- 
 ed upon some tale,, and iii which the moral is iu many parts good, 
 and the narrative part very badly and blunderingly written:"— r 
 to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to the^ great scatidal of 
 the Christian religion, to the evil example of all other persons, and 
 against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and 
 
 d'g"'ty- ,,:, '. ■. ' ■ --. . . 
 
 Elevent}), Count. And the said Attorpey-Gener^l ,of ourisaid 
 Lord the King, for our Said Lord the King, further gives the 
 Court hiere to understand and be informed, that the said Richard 
 Carlile further imiliously and vyickedly devising and intending to 
 bring the Holy Scriptures into disbelief aijid, contempt Etmoiig the 
 'liege subjects of oui- said Lord the King, afterwards (to wit) on the 
 same day and year last aforesaid, at London aforesaid, in the parish 
 and ward aforesaid, did unla\yfuUy ancf wickedly publish. and cause 
 to be published, of ai].d .concerning fjie Holy Scriptures, a certain 
 other scandalous, impious, blasphemousj and profane ljbe,l, con- 
 taiiiing therein (nmongst other things) (fivers ijcandalous, impious, 
 blasphemous, and profane matters, of and concerning the Holy 
 Scriptures;, 'iri ^ oiie part thereof ^ccor^iug tp the tenpr , and effect 
 followiijg,"(thatis to say) '' JJut the ca^e is,'that people have been 
 io long iii ffie habit of reading the tooks called the Bible, and Tes- 
 tament with' their eyes shut, "and their senses locked up, that the 
 most stupid inconsistencies have passed 6u them |pv.truth, andim- 
 ;|iposition JPpr' prophecy^ The all-wise Creator hath laeen dishonoured 
 by being made this authpi; of fable, and the hujnan nimd degraded 
 by'^elicviiig' it." , And in another part thereof, according tp the 
 
^5 
 
 teiiorand effec^ fpjiovviiig (tijat is |.o say) " As.to the New Testa- 
 ment," (meiiniriCT that paif of the Holy Sciiptuies called the 'New 
 Testament) :" if it be, brought and tried by that slaridai-d, which, 
 as Middleton wisely sia;^'s, God has jevi^aled to oni' senses of his 
 almighty |)oW-ei' and wisdom in the creation and government of' the 
 visible universe, it will'be found e(j(ually as false, p'altry, and ab- 
 surd as the Old," (meaning that part of the Holy Sep ptures called 
 the Old Testament) ^to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to 
 the great scandal of the Christian religion, to the evil example df 
 a,H others, , and agajnst the.peaeje of our said Lord the.King, .his 
 croiyn amd dignity, ^hereupon, the said Attorney-General of our 
 said, |,ord jthe. Kingj, wjio for our said Lord the King jr this behalf 
 progecuteth for our. said Lord the. King, prayeth the consideiration 
 of the Court here iri the premises, aind that due process of law 
 may be awarded against him the said Richard Carlile in l!his'behalf, 
 to rriake him answer to out said Lord the King^ touching and' con- 
 cerning the' premise^ aforesaid, , ) : 
 
 The. Couuts being now read, 
 
 .IS/lr. Carlile observed, I will dispense, my Lord, with the 
 fijr.thef, reading 'of the piasgages charged as libellous. 
 ,^ ^The Chief J^isfoVe nodded, assent; and after, a short 
 
 pause, '.......■',. 
 
 (' Mr. CarZi^e rpge, and spoke to the following efifect: . . 
 
 /,Qejitlemeu.,of {he Jury, ,, : ,. 
 
 I rise in my'oyvn defence, and I .s.tan(i before you 
 with', a deep impression of the impprtance. of^the question 
 .nojvv" upder your consideration ; that question is of no lesis 
 iihpoirtance, than'i whether t"he doctrines, or creeds of any 
 man or . sect of. persons shall be deenjed. lnfaiij,hle and 
 screened from investigation, or; whether we shall in this 
 country, where toleration and the liberty of the press are so 
 much boasted of, be placed under the continiial fear of 
 being harassed with prosecution and ruinous expense, sijiiilar 
 ,to this. under vvhich lam pow struggling, for a fair, candid, 
 honest, calm, and 'arguraentatiye enquiry into .the origin of the 
 religious establishments of this apd ptlieit countries, i It is a 
 question of the, first magnitude ; it is. a question that requires 
 the most extensive research .and examination ; It is a question 
 that requires open and unrestrained discussion ; it is a, ques- 
 tion, that, on your part, requires the most mature deliliejra-- 
 tion. I feer,an imperative necessityin examining it in all its 
 bearings; and the justification of defending not only my. in- 
 tentions as a publisher o|, it|ie. Age pf Reason, but the in.tenr 
 tions of its. author also, presuming that we werOjactuated By 
 siniilar mjjt^yes,; whic|i motives, Gentlemen pf the Jury, I 
 shall make' appear (o you ,\y,ere good, and not yvicked an*} 
 
£6 
 
 blasphemous as the Information falsely sets forth : I have 
 therefore, Gentlemen of the Jury, to entreat your patience to 
 a full investigation of the real merits of this publication, and 
 that you will not think the time (howeyer long) mis-spent, 
 ■when the eyes of the whole country are anxiously turned to- 
 wards you, with a hope that you will not hesitate to give a 
 verdict according to your consciences and the evidence ad- 
 duced before you. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Jury, I have said the eyes of the whole 
 country are turned towards you ; it is a question in which all 
 feel interested, for amongst the immense number of commu- 
 nications i have. received from various parts of the country, 
 some with congratulations and some for condolence, on the 
 subject of the prosecutions, 1 have found many avowing their 
 belief in the Christian doctrines and the validity of the books 
 called the Old and New Testament, and yet deprecating the 
 prosecution of any person for enquiring into them. I am satis- 
 fied that all the reasonable and unprejudiced part of the com- 
 munity will sympathize with me, and hail with pleasure the 
 verdict of Not Guilty. But they who would call for a verdict 
 of guilty are persons of like dispositions to those who for- 
 merly kindled the flames in Smithfield, and have sanctioned 
 all the massacre and torture that have been predominant since 
 the origin of Christianity: 1 have no hesitation in saying, 
 that where the disposition has been intolerant, depraved, and 
 oppressive, Christianity has had no restraint on if, but has 
 been a cloak for its vices. 
 
 Before I go further into the argument, I will make some 
 few observations on what has fallen from Mr. Attorney-Ge- 
 neral. 
 
 The Learned Gentleman has opened his speech with the 
 usual cant, yes, cant I may call it, which all Attornies- 
 General and prosecutors have used for many years, about 
 the liberty of the press and the importance of free discus- 
 sion. But I do not think he has evinced much of the spirit 
 of either in the observations he has just addressed to you. 
 He calls upon you to stop both in their progress, and his 
 whole charge amounts to no more than has often been made 
 before, and made in very nearly the same terms. His whole 
 speech is no more than a parody on the speeches of former 
 1\ttornies-General. He talks of the liberty and the licen- 
 tiousness of the Press, but how has he attempted V define 
 it? There is no novelty in the arguments he has used,, nor 
 no difficulty in refuting them. He -states, Gentlemen, that 
 the eyes of the country are upon you, and 1 say so too 
 
27 
 
 and I hope to make it appear to you, i,hat I am not the 
 person described by that Learned Gentleman. He has 
 said, that the Christian religion proceeds from God, that 
 the Christian religion teaches mildness and forbearances- 
 then why does he bring me here ? Because his ideas differ 
 from mine as regards the Deity — that Deity who does 
 not need the Attorney-General to protect him. The Learn- 
 ed Gentleman says, there is a law applicable to t1iis case, 
 but he went no further than asserting it. And if there 
 really be a law applicable to the caSe, I am sure he will 
 have no hesitation to admit that the thirty-nine Articles are 
 part and parcel of the law. Now, the first of these articles, 
 entitled, " Of Faith in the Holy Trinity," sets out, that 
 
 " There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without 
 body, parts, or passions ; of infinite power, wisdom, and good- 
 ness ; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and in- 
 visible. And in unitj' of this Godhead there be three Persons, of 
 fine substance, power, and eternity ; the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 The doctrine of the Trinity cannot therefore be denied by 
 the Attorney-General"— or if it be denied, he does not admit 
 the divinity of what is called Christianity. The Learned 
 Gentleman has quoted, with others, the case of Eaton, 
 which was the last case of the kind, with the exception pf 
 Mr. Hone's case, where the charge was the samCj although 
 the charged was different; but subsequent to that cas^ an 
 Act of Parliament was passed for the especial relief of 
 those who impugned the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, 
 how will he be able to reconcile this? The first, of the 
 thirty-nine Articles sajs one thing, and the Act of Parlia- 
 ment says another — they contradict each other, in point of 
 fact, and yet such are the things represented by the Learned 
 Gentleman as part and parcel of the law of the land. 1 
 hold in my hand. Gentlemen, the Act of the 53d of the 
 King, which I shall read to you, an Act expressly passed 
 for the relief of the Unitarians, and all other persons who 
 disbelieve the doctrine of the Trinity: — 
 
 An Act to relieve persons tvho impugn the doctrine of the Holy 
 Trinity from certain penalties. 2i«f July, 1813. 
 " Whereas, in the nineteenth year of his present Majesty an act 
 was passed, intituled an act for the further relief of Protestant 
 Dissenting ministers and schoolmasters; and it is expedient to 
 tnact as hereinafter provided : Be it therefore enacted by the King's 
 most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the 
 Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present Par- 
 
28 
 
 liament assembled, and by the authority, of ^the, same, .That ,sp 
 much of an act passed in the first year c)^ the reign of King Wil- 
 liam and Queen Mary, intituled an act jfvr exempting his Majesly's 
 Protestant subjects dissenting /rom the Church of England, from 
 ■ the' penalties of certain laws, as pr»v'tdes that th&t act or any thing 
 therein coutained should not extend or be constriied to 'extend to 
 •'give any ease, benefit, or advantage to persons denying the 'TV-mffy 
 as therein mentioned, be and the same is hereby repealed. 
 
 "II, And beit further enacted. That the provisions of another act 
 passed fin the ninth and tenth ypars of the reign of King William, 
 intituled an act for the more effectual suppressing blasphemy and 
 profimeness, so far as the same relate, to, pe.isons denying as therein 
 mentioned, respecting the Holy Trinity, be and the same are 
 hereby repealed. . . . , , 
 
 " III. Aiid whereas it is expedient to repeal an act, passed in the 
 Parliament df Scotland iri the first Parliament of King Charles the 
 Second, intituled an act against the crime of blasphemy-, and 
 another act, passed irt-the Parliament of Scotland in the first Par- 
 liaipent of King William, intituled act against blasphemy ; which 
 -acts respectively ordain the punishment of death ;■ be it therefore 
 enacted. That the said acts and each of them shall be, and the 
 same are and is hereby repealed." : 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, I have no hesitation in assertingi that 
 this- act is a repeal of all former acts upon the subject of 
 holding doctrines differing from those of the Trinity ; it is, 
 in' short, arepeW of the first arrticle ofthose thirty-nine, which 
 are held to be divine 'by the great majority of those who 
 call themselves Christians, and without a belief in which 
 they cannot be considered what they profess themselves 
 to be. The latter aTct, I should imagine, ought to have the 
 first operation ; and where two acts are made upon one sub- 
 ject, such, as the 9tb and 10th of William and Mary, and 
 the 63d of the King; but the latter repealing the former, 1 
 should take the latest as the existing law upon the subject. 
 ' And if that be the case, w'hich cannot be denied, Deism is 
 also a part and parcel of the law of the land.' For myself, 
 I believe the Deity to be single and without any appen- 
 dages. ' As such I worship and revere him, and cannot 
 •imagine why the open avowal of my belief should call for 
 the interference of this or any otber court. The act before 
 me tolerates the impugning of the Trinity-^it relieves those 
 who so impugn it, from all the penalties enforced or con- 
 tained' in all former acts upon the. subject, and therefore 
 iriost decidedly iadmits Deism, and should, to deal out -jus- 
 tice, protect its professors from all punishment. I know of 
 no law, or of any court of law that can properly take 
 
cognizance of a ch^tge of, blasphemy, which consisting lii 
 speaking iil or irrevereijtiy of the Deity, is a matter betVeea 
 the person offending. and the Deity offended. It is for, him 
 along to deal as he thinks proper with a blasphemer. But 
 this act which I have read, allows persons to disbelieve the , 
 Trinity, an,d so far to, blaspheme or impugn that dqctrine, 
 on' which Christianity rests for jts support. It is difficult, 
 how^ver,j,to .de'fi'ne, the meaning, of the word blasphemy. 
 
 The .Attorney-Greneral says,; ' the information ^gaiiist ' me 
 is founded on the commoii law; but I think resort slibuld^ 
 never be had to the common law iii' preference to the staitute 
 law, and' under the statute I have cited to you, I felt my- 
 self justified in publishing- the 4g-e ofR'eason by Mr. Paine. 
 I am aware there is a^t£^tute called the ^th arid 10th of Wil-. 
 liarii.' and Mary, , entitled "' An Act for , the inore effectiial 
 suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness." / " 
 
 ",Wliei,-easiraany persons. have of, late j'^ears openly avovyed apd 
 published mariyblasphemous and impious opinions, contrary to. the 
 doctrines and principles of the Christian religion, greatly tendirig" 
 to the dishonour of Almiglity God, and 'may prove destructive tt)* 
 the peace!^ and welfare of this kingdom : Wherefore, fen- the xiiDre' 
 efFectiial Suppreesingof the said detestable crimes, be it enacted 
 by the King's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and. 
 consent of the Lords spiritual anid' temporal, and the Commonsj in 
 this ■ present Parliament assembled, and by. the authority of thci 
 same, 'That if any person or persons, having been. educated tin, or 
 at any time having ma.de profession of the Chris^an religion within- 
 this realm, shall by writing, printing, teaching, or advised spea.k~ 
 ing, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, 
 or^shall assert or maintain there are more Gods than one, or shfiU 
 deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testariient to be of Divine authority, and shall 
 upon indictment or jnformatioii in any of his Majesty's courts at 
 Westmiiisfer, or at the assizes, be thereof lawfully convicted by the 
 oath of two or more credible witnesses ; such person or persons for- 
 the first offence shflll be adjudged incapable and disabled in law, 
 to all intents and purposes vi^hatsoever, to have or enjoy any oflBce 
 or oflSceSj employment or employments, ecclesiastical, ;civil;Or mili- 
 tary,! or any, part in them, or any profit and advantage appertaining 
 to them, or any of, them : And if any person or persons ¥0 con- 
 victed as aforesaid, shall at the time of his or their conviction, 
 enjoy or possess any office, place or employment, such office, place 
 or employment shall be void,, and is hereby declared void : Arid if 
 such person or persons shall be a second time .lawfully convicted 
 as aforesaid, of all or ariy the aforesaid crime or crimes, that tben 
 he or they shall from thenceforth be disabled , to' su^, prosecute, 
 plead or use any action or information in any court of law or 
 
50 
 
 equity, or to be guardian of any child, or executor or administra-' 
 tor of any person, or capable of ahy legacy or deed of gift, or to 
 bear ,aiiy office, civil or military, or benefice ecclesiastical for ever 
 within this realm, and shall also suffer imprisonment for the space 
 of three years, without bail or mainprize, from the time of such 
 conviction." 
 
 But, Gentlemen, you mast peVceive that the act of 53d 
 of the King goes to repeal the act of William and Mary, as 
 far as it relates to persons denying or impugning the Holy 
 Trinity. As to the charge of blasphemy, there are parts of 
 the act of William and Mary, under which 1 might be pro- 
 secuted ; and I believe it is the only statute which we have 
 as applicable to a charge of that nature. There is, as I 
 have said, an unrepealed part qf the old act, under which 
 I might be prosecuted, namely, that which incapacitates 
 persons denying " the Holy Scripture of the Old and New 
 Testament to be of Divine authority," from holding any 
 office or employment, civil, ecclesiastical, or military. But 
 the present information is not founded upon this statute, and. 
 Gentlemen, I will tell you the reason, because in case of 
 conviction, the punishment would not be equal to what the 
 Learned Gentleman's disposition aims at. Ha says he has 
 grounded the information on the common law, in preference 
 to that of the statute law, but I do not know what the 
 common law is. The lawyers say, the decisions of judges 
 are the common law, that it resides in their breasts; but 
 I am not satisfied the law should rest upon the dictum of 
 the Judge. All laws should be plain and simple, in order 
 to be easily understood— that we might know what to do, 
 and what to avoid. It should be reduced to a written code, 
 in order that the people might know what they had to ex- 
 pect. But this is not the case in the present instance. There 
 is, in fact, no law by which I can be now properly brought be- 
 fore you ; there is no Court of justice competent to try a ques- 
 tion of honest difference of opinion on religious matters. 
 I challenge the Attorney-General to produce any such law 
 if he can. I know he cannot, but he relies on the Court to 
 make out that case, which he is not capable of doing him- 
 -self. He says it would be waste of time, it would be quite 
 idle for him, to defend the doctrines of Christianity; but if' 
 he could do so, I do not thinly it would be such an idle waste 
 of time, as the Learned Gentleman has thought proper to say 
 it would be. If he does not defend it, you will know why 
 he does not ; but that is a matter which I do not at this mo- 
 ment mean to press on your attention. He goes ou to state 
 
31 
 
 in the usual way, ia the way always adopted by all At- 
 tornies-General, when bringing a charge of blasphemy 
 against any individual, that you are bound by your oaths 
 to return a verdict of guilty. Then why do any more than 
 swear you ? For it would spare a considerable time, 
 if you pronouuced your verdict immediately upon entering 
 that box. He says you are pledged by your oaths, and 
 under the sanction of your holy religion you cannot do 
 otherwise than find me guilty : but this I deny. You are 
 merely sworn to try the question at issue between me and 
 the Attorn ey-Generali You are sworn to ascertain if I ^ad 
 any malicious intention in publishing the works of Paine ; 
 and if I had not such intention, I am entitled to a verdict of 
 acquittal. 1 published the works of Paine for a good and 
 useful purpose, and I trust I shall shew you. Gentlemen, 
 there is nothing in them of an iminoral tendency 
 
 Thei Attorney-General, frequently repeated that there were 
 laws, under which; t: might be prosecuted for the alledged 
 crime of blasphemy, but he contented himself with repeating 
 it merely, and never attempted to , state definitively what 
 the law was. But there is a law ! Yes, no doubt, but with 
 the repetition of '' tih^er'^ is such a law," the [>earned Gentle- 
 man seemed satisfied. ; Yet after all this repetition, I hope, 
 Gentlemen of the Jury, I iiave already satisfied you, that 
 there is no such law. ,.. 
 
 Prior to the act of 1813, there was a statute in existence on 
 this subject, but it has beeii since repealed, which is of itself an 
 admission that the former law was unjust. Blasphemy cannot 
 be defined ; for what one man may consider blasphemy, an- 
 other may look upon in a contrary light. The first case cited 
 by the Attorney-General was that of Taylor, who, he said, 
 used blasphemous expressions of so horrid a natwre that he 
 could not read them to the Jury. They were not worse, how- 
 ever, he observed, than those contained in the Age of Reason. 
 But, notwithstanding all this statement, he read copious ex- 
 tracts from the vvork. What the expressions were he could 
 not tell; but it appeared that Sir Matthew Hale would not 
 let the man justify them. Now, it is worthy of observation, 
 that Sir Matthew Hale sat on the Bench, fmd condemned 
 two women to be burned at the stake for witchcraft. And 
 if he had such an opinion with respect to witchcraft, he 
 might also be fallible on the subject of blasphemy. Sir 
 Matthew Hale might have,.been a very moral man, and yet 
 believe in witchcraft or other equa,lly ridiculous absurdities. 
 The Attorney- General says it isjan offence to say religion is 
 
32 
 
 a cheat, but h6 made no olDServationpti their varieties, where 
 Jews calTed Christiani'tya cbeal;; where Christians called 
 the! religion of the Jews a cheat, the Bramiiife felled that of 
 the Mbbammedaiis'a cheat, theMoliammedans' tliat of the- 
 Bramins a cheat, and so on ad infinitum. All religions 
 call those that differ from them ch^ktsj- or as often as one' 
 dbtained the ascendancy it neVef failed to crush 'and to tevile 
 thfe others. The Attorney-General' next qabted the case of 
 Wodllsfon. ■ •At ' the time of that ' 'pros-ecutibrf ttitere was a 
 very, prevalent tendency towards frfee-thihking. ' Vyooll- 
 ston, >Vhen apprehraded for publishing His book, insisted there 
 was no Judge or Jury oap'^ble of trying'him, oh accprrptof 
 his op^ihibii. He Wk'sia mah bf most extensive e;-tidjtion arid 
 research Jjvell acquainted with the'H'ebfew arid otbef lan- 
 gMg^fe, afad insisted on it, that fM'm tlje'ignSf.ahce''of the 
 Judge and Jury ifl tho^e'Ia'p^iiatg^'^ffey V^re'-riot eomt'etent 
 to try hirii. I know'th^' bbjectiotf was over-rulj^diaad- be"*-as 
 convicted, and. Sent to the King's Berii^h' f riSori. B^i Vfli.af 
 was the consequ'erice P' So'conscibriSvVa'Shebf the rectitude of 
 his coriduct, that h'esold'Ms book'fti 'theyPris'bn; and -Was 
 aSsisted'ahd supported ty, many fi'eP^Ji^ called' devoiit' and 
 learnecj divines. 'rhtjAttorriey-GenferaJ^litewise quoted the 
 case of Williarns,' who 'oWginMy'fhiblished the first and'se- 
 corid parts of the " 'A|e' of Reason." ''Brit.'h^^'was a man 
 who did not venture to defend himself.,"." Heieft;liis defence 
 in- the hands of Mr. Kyd,' tvho came into' Court determined 
 to defend him; but, being! a barrister, he suffered hifaself to' 
 be put down and silenced by Lord Kenyon. He wished 
 to justify Paine's expressions by reading part of the Bible, 
 but Lord Kenyba prevented him. ■ 
 
 ' Chi^ Justice: 1 do iiot believe the circum'stances attfend- 
 ing that case are stated 'e5:'actly' as they occurred. ' 
 
 Mr. Carlile. My Lord, Mr. Kyd wished to justify 
 Paine's assertions by reading extracts from the Bible, but he 
 was prevented from doing so by the Judge.^ ■ ■: 
 
 Chief Justice. Lord Kenyon allowed Mr. Kyd not 
 only to read several passages, but also to continent upon' 
 th'em.' He was consideredy however, to ha'^e proceeded'-too 
 far. And my Lord Kenyon, vv^hetf subsequently delivering 
 the judgment of the cbart, expressed his tegret' at having 
 allowedJi^r. Kyd to proceed as he had done. 
 
 Mr. Cm-lile. Well, my Lord. The case of Eaton', Gen- 
 tlemen of the Jury, was, next quoted^by th^ Attorney-Gene- 
 ra,! ; it was an indictment by some society ot other for a blas- 
 phfemous publication. But' tha<, part published by Eaton was 
 
33 
 
 not the same as that on which Williams was prosecuted. 
 Eaton did not entrust his cause to a barrister, he attempted 
 to defend himself, but not on the same ground that had been 
 taken by Mr. Kyd. He was, at the time, a man far advan- 
 ced in years, and did not possess physical power sufficient to 
 go into his defence. He was, besides, frequently interrupted 
 by Lord Ellenborough, and as often persisted in his mode 
 of defence, until Lord Ellenborough, wearied with inter- 
 rupting him, told him to go on as long as he pleased, and to 
 begin it again, if he liked. In the end he was convicted ; but 
 it should be recollected, that there was then a law applicable 
 to his case, which, since that time, has been repealed ; but 
 now there is no law under which any court can take cogni- 
 ,zance of blasphemy. The face of the record exhibits a charge 
 of blasphemy against -me, and exhibits nothing else. 
 The Attorney-General has said, in the course of his observa- 
 tions, that this publication could have no effect on the morals 
 of learned and intelligent men, but that it is calculated to 
 corrupt the principles of the lower classes of society. And I 
 would ask the Learned Gentleman, whether, in the present 
 state of the country, any of the lower orders could lay dowa 
 their half-guinea for the book ? Three thousand copies have 
 been sold since December last, and let the Attorney-General 
 shew a single instance, if he can, in which the work has 
 been productive of an evil tendency. It was circulated 
 amongst that class of society which was capable of spending 
 half-a-guinea — and I do not believe a solitary instance could 
 be adduced of its having corrupted the mind of any per- 
 son. The Learned Gentleman said, he was disgusted 
 with the work, and that the duty of reading it was a 
 most painful one. But however painful it might be, the 
 question was brought into court by his predecessor in office, 
 and he has himself thought fit to lay it before the Jury. 
 The Learned Gentleman has made an appeal to the feelings 
 of the Jury, whom he sought to influence by a reference to 
 their duties as fathers of families. He did not, however, 
 refer to the book itself, in which there is not an immoral 
 sentence. In the work it is .'aid that the Bible contains 
 " obscene stories, voluptuous debaucheries, cruel and tortu- 
 rous executions, and unrelenting viudictiveness." If this 
 is not the case, the assertion must fall to the ground — but 
 if it can be justified, then that which the Jury will 
 avoid placing i6 the hands of their children, is the work 
 which contains those voluptuous stories. The Attorney- 
 General said, he felt it to l>e his duty to inv€stigate this 
 4. 
 
34 
 
 question thoroughly. He has not, however, done so. But 
 1 ■'mill go through the book, paragraph by paragraph, 
 and^ shew that there is not 'a single iui moral expression 
 in it. Gentlemen, the'^ Attoraey-Ueneral's speiech is full 
 of repetitions. He said more than once that the Jury 
 were bound to find me guilty, upon their oaths ; of course, 
 if he were right, all inquiry and investigation are imneces- 
 sary. ahd the Jury, by the oath they have taken — and merely 
 for having taken such oath: — are bound to bring in a verdict 
 of -guilty. Gentlemen, the Attorney-General read the mat- 
 ter in the third and fourth counts of the information, with- 
 out making any observation whatever upon them; sometimes, 
 indeed, be made gestures,and at other times he favoured you 
 with smiles, but he said nothing in the. way of refutation'. 
 Gentlemen, the Attorney-General said that he could not read 
 the observations on the New ^Testament, contained in this 
 book, without the utmost pain. He first, indeed, said, he 
 could not bring himself to read them at all, but this you 
 must see was mere declamation and sophistry ; he did read 
 those observations. Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has 
 next attacked Mr. Paine's opinion of the miraculous con- 
 ception, but we all know that. the Unitarians treat this part 
 of the story with the same contempt, and that they have 
 actually published a New Testament, omitting that part of 
 it as a falsehood. He- calls the work a coarse attack on the 
 religious profession of the country. For myself,, I do not 
 know what religious profession he means — I know not what 
 particular profession he is of now, but if I have been rightly 
 informed, he Was educated an Unitarian: his whole family, 
 his father, his brothers, and nearest relations, have been, and 
 still are Unitarians — are of that very body, for whose pro- 
 tection the act of parliament 1 have cited has been passed ; 
 but whether the Learned Gentleman changed his religion since 
 he has been promoted in his profession, it is not for me to 
 say, but I have been told that he was one of those who 
 held up his-i hand for the passing of this statute law. 
 Gentlemen, the Attorney-General says, he hoped for my 
 reformation, as well as the author of this work; he said 
 that in his calmer moments Mr. Paine,, and the Defendant 
 hiinself must have felt the truths of the Christian religion. 
 Gentlemen, for myself I am free to declare, that,! have 
 strong doubts of the truth of thg-t religion, and as to Mr. 
 Paine, who has gone to his account, he expressed himself 
 on this subject in terms sufficiently strong not to have his 
 sentiments mistakeni- The Attorney-General declared that 
 
35 
 
 this prosecution was not instituted for purposes of perse* 
 cutioa; but, Gentlemen, I hope to make it clear to you, 
 that it is for persecuting purposes the prosecution is insti* 
 tuted c for the purpose of persecution on a mere difference of 
 opinion. Gentlemen, th? Attorney-General has told yoti, 
 .th9.t Christianity did not stand in need of the assistance of the 
 secular arm. And, if Christianity does'not stand iti need of 
 his interference, is itnotgro=^spresuiBplion inhim to come into 
 this Courtto protect it? If he believes it to-beofdivineorigin, 
 is it not extremely presumptuous in him to defend it ? I'his 
 conduct. Gentlemen, furnishes a strong proof that the present 
 .Attorney-General, like many of the law officers of the 
 crown before him, feels it necessary to hold up the terrors 
 of prosecution against iree enquiry on this most impprtant 
 of all subjects. Gentlemen, the Attorney- General has sta- 
 ted to you, that it is an offence against the common law of 
 the land to revile Christianity. Gentlemen, what is Christi- 
 anity? The articles of the Christian church expressly- 
 state, that the Christian God is composed of three persons ; 
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; the doctrine of the Trinity 
 is the first, the most essential, and the most indispensible 
 doctrine of Christians ; yet those who do not believe in that 
 doctrine, thojse who have openly disavowed it, those who 
 have, in the words of the Attorney-General, reviled this re- 
 ligion, have not only woi been punished, but are protected 
 by the statute law of the land. Gentlemen, the Attorney- 
 General has told you, that toy trial has been delayed, and 
 he has put the causes of this (Jelay on my shoulders : but he 
 is not justifiable in doing so. Why was not this trial brought 
 on after the Easter sittings? It might have been brought on 
 thep vyith as little inconvenience as now ; it is true, that other 
 causes were fixed for trial before it, but it is equally true that 
 it is now put out of its order, and takes precedence of one 
 hundred previous causes; it might have been brought before 
 you. Gentlemen, at all events, in the beginning of last June. 
 But the Attorney-General' has said, that I took advantage of 
 the forms of law, and that I traversed., I did. Gentlemen, 
 traverse for one short term, by which, the hearing of the case 
 was postponed from January to April, but the Crown has 
 ever since lain by. Gentlemen of the Jury, the Attorney- 
 General has confidently called for your verdict of guilty, 
 because he says, it is manifest 1 have offended God. If this 
 Vvere the mere charge against me — if he could only hope to 
 snatch a verdict of guilty, by saying to impartial men that in the 
 publication of this work I have offended my God, I should 
 
36 
 
 have n.othing to fear— I could not doubt of the protecting 
 verdict of honest men. How can he prove — why should 
 i^e say, that in this act I have offended my God ? Why should 
 ite thus presumptuously come between me and my Creator? 
 He <3annot, in this instance, make guilt apparent — for here 
 guilt exists in the mind alone, and that mind tells me that I 
 have not given offence to God, by giving publicity to what 
 I. consider a moral and a useful work, by extending the field 
 of fair enquiry, into which every man might enter. Gentle- 
 men, the Attorney-General again told you, that by the obli- 
 gation of your oath you were bound to find me guilty. 
 What is this but to shut up the avenues of justice, and to 
 confound my defence ? This, Gentlemen, is not candid. 
 He also said that he did not mean to excite prejudice against 
 Bie ; but what was his address but an endeavour, from be- 
 ginning to end, to stir latent prejudices, which must necessa- 
 rily, if excited, militate against my defence? Gentlemen, I 
 shall, I trust, be able to shew you, that there is "not one im- 
 moral expression in the entire *of this publication, unless 
 they are quotations from that book which it labours to 
 refute. Here, Gentlemen, are twelve copies of the pub- 
 lication, which, if it be your wish, I shall send up to your 
 .box. You will read it with candour, and I have not a 
 doubt, that when every word it contains is freely and fairly 
 considered, ample justice -will be done. 
 
 I wish every word I state to be deliberately examined, I 
 do nothing under-hand, I wish every thing to be open, and 
 for this purpose have copies of the Age of Reason ready to 
 hand up to you. My Lord (addressing the Bench) I pre- 
 sume there can b6 no objection to my doing so? 
 
 Chief Justice. — The copy produced in evidence will be 
 laid before the Jury if they desire it. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I can gain nothing, my Lord, by placing 
 improper books in the hands of the Jury. I wish each of 
 the Jury to have one, in order that they may be thoroughly 
 acquainted with the nature of the work. 
 
 Chief Justice. — I have no desire to prevent your proceed- 
 ing in that line which you may think best calculated for 
 your defence. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I wish, my Lord, that each Juror should 
 be; satisfied. 
 
 Chief Justice. — So do L Bat I cannot allow books to 
 be thus put in without consent. The publication proved in 
 evideuce shall be sent to the Jury. I must not suffer any 
 thing to be done here on this occasion, which may hereafter 
 
37 
 
 be drawn into a dangerous or improper precedent. I ani 
 willing to allow you any thing which i can legally allow 
 you for the purpose of assisting your defence, but nothing 
 beyond that. 
 
 Mr.'Carlifc. — Then, my Lord, I understandyou to give 
 me leave to hand a few copies to the Jury. They are ex- 
 actly the same as that proved in evidence. 
 
 Chief Justice. — Yes, if the Jury wish rt ; but it is an 
 irregular thing. 
 
 Mr^ Carlile. — My Lord, the whole charge against me is 
 foiiaded on a diiference of opinion, aud I wish the Jury to 
 examine deliberately with me, as they go along. 
 
 Chief Justice. — Nothing can properly be submitted to 
 the Jury in this way, without their particular desire; It 
 would not be correct so to do. As, however, that may be 
 alldWed, they can be so allowed only at the desir'e of the 
 parties. ' 
 
 (The Jury hesitated to' have the work, though some copies 
 of it were ready to be handed up to them.) 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — Gentlemen, the bocik which 1 now hold in 
 my hand, and which forms the subject of this prosecution, is 
 entitled, " The Theological Works of Thomas Painel" I 
 have already stated my motives for publishing it, which 
 were of the best and purest description, namely to promote 
 morality and free discussion on every subject In a short 
 preface, to the work, 1 have stated: my reasons for its publi- 
 pation, and I shall read it, in order that they may not be 
 mistaken. 
 
 •« lu presenting to, the public th6 Theological Works of Tuomas 
 Paine, against which so senseless a clamour has hitherto been 
 raised, the Publisher is actuated by but one simple motive, namely, 
 an enquiry after truth. The very'numerous enquiries for the Age 
 OF Reason since the re-appearance of the' Political Works, have 
 been to the Publisher an irresistible;jnducement to bviiig- forth the 
 present edition. From the applications which have been made to 
 him, he is completely convinced, that the minds of his fellow^citi- 
 ze'iis are fully and adequately prepared to discuss the merits and 
 demerits of the system of religion which forms bo prpminent a fea- 
 ture ill the estabUshiherits of the country. He fully anticipates 
 the senseless and unraearfing charges of " impieti/" and " hlas- 
 phemi/," that will be exhibited against him by the ignorant' and 
 the interested ; by the bigot and the hypocrite: to these, however, 
 lie is perfectly indiff'ereiftt, satisfied as he is that his object is to 
 arrive at the truth, and to promote tthe interests of fair and honest 
 discus.sion. !,. '.,.■■ ... ' •- 
 
 • '" The publislier flatters himself that the preseuti collection will 
 
38 
 
 be republished from time to time, so as to defeat the hopes' and 
 wishes of those wbose objecPit has been to suppress them. He cori- 
 fidentjly anticipates, that when free discussion on all subjects, ^yhe- 
 ther political or theological, litefary or scientific, shall be toleruted, 
 that then, and then only, will' the human mind, by , progressive 
 improvement, arrive at that state, which may be deservedly termed 
 the Age of Reason." 
 
 Gentlemen, mj only reason for pubMshing the works of 
 Mr. Paine lias been an anxious and sincere desire .to pro- 
 mote the cause of truth and free digcussion. I am convinced 
 in my own mind, that they are calculated to im^prove morality 
 by promoting inquiry; that they tend to, exalt our notions .of 
 the Deity; and lead us to ajbelief of his excellence and idve 
 for man. These were my motives far republishing his 
 works, and these are motives which produce a satisfaction 
 "within me, that no prosecution,, that nQ,{)ersecution,'will be 
 able to destroy. I consider the publication as essential to 
 the interests and welfare, of the country, and haviog acted 
 under that impression, I stand.acquitted of all the nialidous 
 intention imputed to me by my. persecutors. Gentlemen, I 
 now proceed to call your attention to the, work, which is 
 divided into Three Parts, and is called " I he Age .of Rea- 
 son, Part the First, being an [nvestigation of True „»5^d 
 Pabulous Theology, by Thomas Paine." — It commences 
 thus: . 
 
 " It has been my intentioD, for several years past,; to ptiblish iny 
 thoughts upon religion; lam wellawareof the difficulties that attend 
 the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a Jimre 
 advanced period of life. Iinten4ed it to be the last offering I ^ould 
 make to nly fellow citizens of all nations, and that at, <> time wly;ji,t,hj! 
 purity of the motive that induced we to it, could flot ad mif of a.ques- 
 tion, even by those who might disapprove the vsjoj-k.". 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Paine was nearly 60 years of age v^hen 
 he wrote the paragraph I have just read to you. Hfe was 
 theii in France, it was at the period of the French revolu- 
 tion, when he could not be sure of his existence for a single 
 day;' and when, having wrilten under such circumstances, 
 he miist certainly be entitled to the praise of sincerity, and 
 of a thorough conviction of the rectitude of his intentions. 
 
 " The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the total 
 abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of every 
 thing appertaining to compulsive syslciis of religion, and compulsive 
 • articles of faith, has not only preciiiitaled my intention, but rendered 
 a work of this kind exceedingly nectssary; lest, in the general wrecik 
 of supers titioHj or false systeins of government, and felse thiology. 
 
39 
 
 we lose sight of morality, i)f humanity, ami of the Ihetjlogy that is 
 true. . ,.', ■ •;'■!■•■,■ 1 
 
 " As several of my colleagues, and others of my fellow-citizensof 
 France, have given nir the example uf making their voluntary and 
 individual |>rofessiii» (•>( l;\ilb, 1 also will make mine; and,! do this 
 with all that sincerity uiid frankness with which the mind Of man 
 communicates with itself." . 
 
 Gentlemen, the author noSvi'proceeds to g'ive. you Bis 
 creed, a creed that must completely refute all'the loose and 
 i^idecent charges which have been so often made against, tlie 
 character of Mr. Paine.. This is his creed:— 
 
 *', I beli«ve in one God, and no more; andl hope'foi- happiness be- 
 yond' this life, , , , . • , ,1 
 
 " 1 believe the equality of man ; and: 1 believe that religious duties 
 consist in doing justipej loving merqy, and endeavouring to make ouv 
 fellow creatures happy. :„ ;> < , .1 
 
 " But, lest it should be supposed that I Jbielieve many otheriUiings in 
 addition to these, 1 shall, in the progress of this; work, declare the 
 things 1 do n,Qt believe, and my reason? for not believing them. 
 
 ^' 1 do not believe in the creed profe.ssed by the Jewish church, by 
 the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the, Turkish' church, by 
 lhe_Protestant churchj nor by any cliMiJh.diast I know of. JMy own 
 uiiiid is my own chua-ch- ... 
 
 " AU national ins,tituitioins of churches, whethea- Jewish, Christian, 
 or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up^ to 
 terrify and enslave mankind, and.inonopolize power and pj-ofit.'.' 
 
 Gentlefaien,. my sentiments are in unison with those' • of 
 Mr'. Paiae, and £ have honesty 'and boldness enough, even 
 in times like' the present, to dfeelaris th«y are so. 
 
 . ; "I do not mean by.this declaration to condemn those who beliere 
 qtherwise ; they h*>v,e thi.same. right to their belief as Ihyave tominei 
 But it is necessary to .tli,^; happiness of man, tha^,he. be mentally 
 faithful to himsj&lf. Infidelity doe?, not consist in believing, or in'dis- 
 believing ; it consists in professing t(0,.belipve what h.e does not be- 
 lieve. , ,' ■ I, : 1. -i;;.-:: •;::•.': I ■ 
 
 " It is impossible tqcalculatethemoial mischief, if Imay so express 
 it, that'jnental .lying has produced in society. "Irt'hen a, man has so far 
 coirupted -and prostituted the chastity pf his mind, as tosubscribe his 
 jprofessiOnal belief to things .he does not btlieve, hehas pi;epai-ed him- 
 self for the commission of every other crime, ye takes up the trad« 
 of a piitst fqr th,e sakg of gain, ion^i, in order to qualify himself 'for 
 that trade, Ji,e begins with ^perjury. Can we conceive ,aoy thing 
 nioredestructiye,tQ:HiQi-ality than .this..' ,, . i, 
 
 " Soon aftei- 1, hfidpublished the pamphlet, " Comjion SEf«sEj"in 
 America, I, p^W 1,h,0.exceeiding probabili,ty jbhat.a revnlutipn in.tbe ^ysi 
 ieiW of government would !^e fgllowed .by a revolution in t|jq system 
 
40 
 
 of . religion. The adidterous coiuiection of church and state, where- 
 ever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had 
 so eiFectually prohibited by pains and penalties every discussion upon 
 established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the 
 system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be 
 brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this 
 should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow, 
 human inventions and priestcraft would be detected ; and man would 
 return to the pure, unmixed, aiid unadulterated belief of one God, and 
 no more. 
 
 "Every national church or religion has established itself by pretend- 
 ing some special mission from God, communicated to certain indivi- 
 duals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, 
 their apostles, and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the 
 way to God was not open to every man alike, -i- 
 
 "Each of those churches shew certain books^ which they call reve- 
 lation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God 
 was given by God to Moses, face to face ; the Christians say, that 
 their word of God came by divine inspiration ; and the Turks say, 
 that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from 
 Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief ; and, 
 for my own part, I disbelieve them all. 
 
 "As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words,I will, before I pro- 
 ceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the 
 word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means some- 
 thing communicated immediately from God to man. 
 
 " No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make 
 such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of 
 a case, that something has be^n revealed to a certain person, and not 
 revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. 
 When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a 
 fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It 
 is revelation to the first person only, arid Aearsa^' to every other, and, 
 consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. 
 
 " It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call any thing a reve- 
 lation that comes to us at secoiid-hatid, either verbally or in writing. 
 Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication — after 
 this, it is only an account of something which that psi-son says was a. 
 revelation made to him ; and though he mdy find himself obliged to 
 believe it, it cimnot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same man- 
 ner ; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word 
 for it that it was made to him. 
 
 " When Bloses told the children of Israel that he received the two ta- 
 bles of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not 
 obliged to believe him, because they had no other' authority for it than 
 his teUing them so; arid 1 have no other authority for it than some 
 historian telling me so. The commandments tari-y no internal evi- 
 dence of divinity with them ; they contain some good moral precepts. 
 
41 
 
 s«eh 36 any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could pro- 
 duce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention *. 
 
 " When lam told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought 
 to Mahoaiet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind 
 of hearsay evidence -and second-hand authority as the former. I did 
 not see the angel myself, and, therefore, 1 have a right not to believe 
 it. 
 
 " When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, 
 or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a 
 man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said, that an angel 
 told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circum- 
 stance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it ; 
 but we have not even this — for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any 
 such matter themselves ; it is only reported by others that ihey said 
 so — it is hearsay upon hearsay, and 1 do not choose to rest my belief 
 upon such evidence. 
 
 " It is, howeveri not diflicultto account for the credit that was given 
 to the story of Jesus Christ being the son of God. He was born when 
 the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the 
 world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of 
 such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the 
 heathen mythology were reputed to be sons of some of their gods. It 
 was not a new thing, at that lime, to believe a man to have been ce- 
 lestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a 
 matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, 
 had cohabited with hundreds; the story, therefore, had nothing in it 
 either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opi- 
 nions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or My- 
 thologists, and it- was those people only that believed it. The Jews, 
 who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who 
 had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story, 
 
 "It is curious to observe how the theory- of what is called the Chris- 
 tian church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology, A di- 
 rect incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the re- 
 puted founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then 
 followed, was no other than a reduction of the foj-mer plurality, which 
 was about twenty or thirty thousand ; the statue of Mary succeeded 
 the statue of Diana of Ephesus ;• the deification of heroes changed 
 into the canonization of saints ; the Mythologists had gods for every 
 thing; the Christian Mythologists had saints for every thing; the 
 church became as crowded wilji the one, as the pantheon had been 
 with the other ; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian 
 theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, ac- 
 commodated to the purposes of power and revenue ; and it yet remains 
 to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud. 
 
 * " It is, however, necessary fo except the declaration which says that God vieits 
 the slmafthe fathers upon the chiUrin; it is contrary to every principle of moral 
 justice." 
 
4£ 
 
 -i ^', Nothing that is here said, can apply, even with the nios;t distant 
 disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtu- 
 ous and an amiable man. The moraility that he preached and prac- 
 tised was of the in«st benevolent kind ; and though similar systems 
 of; morality had been preached by Cenfucins, and by some of the 
 Greek philosopheis,. many years before ; by the Ciuake^rs since ; and 
 by many good men in all ages, it has not beeh exceeded by any. 
 ' '.'Jesns Christ wrote no account of himself, of hisiHirthj pavintage, ' 
 oriany thing else ; not, a line of what is called the New Testament is 
 bf his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of 
 other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ais- 
 cension, it, was the hecessaiy counterpart to the stoiy of- his birth. 
 His historians, having broaght him into the world in a supernatural 
 inanner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or 
 the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground. 
 
 " The wretched contrivance with which Ibis latterpartis told, ex- 
 ceeds every thing that went befbre it. • 'fhe first part, that of the 
 miraculous conception, was not a thing that adirsitled 'of .publicity ; 
 and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage, 
 that though they.might not be credited, they could not be detected. 
 They could not be expected to prove it, because it was not one of 
 those things that admitted of proof, and it was impossible that the 
 person of , whom it was told could prove ithiiuself." 
 
 ■ Gentlemen,, the language of Mr. Paine speaks for itself. 
 It 'has no immoral tendency whatsoever, or when it may 
 appear to have, it is otily when he either cites, or reftttes", 
 something written by other authors. 
 
 " But the i-esurrection, of^ a dead person from the grave, anjl his as- 
 cension, ttvough thejair, is a thing very different. as to tlie evidence 
 it admits of, to the invisible , conception of a child in the wou;h. 
 The resurrection af^d ascension, supposing them to have takeH place, 
 adinitteil.of public apd; ocular demonstration, like that of the ascen- 
 sipn of a balloon, orthe^sun^^t. noon day, to all .Jerusalem at le.ast. 
 'fi thing wliith ie.ypry ^o,dy is'required to believe, requires that the 
 proof and evidence of it:sliould be equfll to all, and universal ; and 
 as ){»e public, visibility hi t{)i's last rijlated.actwas fhie only evidence 
 that' could give' sanction to the former part, the whole of it , falls to 
 the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, 
 ^,;Si»all numbev of persons, not more than eight or nine, are inlrg^ 
 taxed as proxies for tfie whole world, to say they saw it, and all the 
 'j:est of the world are called upon to believe if. , But it appears thai 
 Thomiis did not believe the resurrection;: and, as tiiey say, wou,ldi 
 Bot believe without having ocular and manual demonstration hiinself. 
 iso veil tier will I, and the reas^jn is equally .as good for me, aiid for 
 tvtry other peifson, as forThomasl 
 
 '^.It is in vain to atteiiipt to palliate or disguise this matter. The 
 story, SQ far as relates to the supeinaliual part, has every maik of 
 Iraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were ih^ 
 
43 
 
 authors of itis as impossible for us now to know, as it is for us to be 
 assured, that the books in whiph the account i:i related were written 
 by the persoas whose names they bear; the best surviving evidence 
 we now tmve respecting this affair is the Jews. They are regularly 
 descended from the people who lived in the times this resurrecliou 
 and ascension is said to have happened, and they say, it is not true. 
 It has long appeared to me a Strange inconsistency to cite the Jews 
 as a proof of the truth of the- story. It is just the same as if a man 
 were to say, 1 will prove the truth of what I have told you, by pro- 
 ducing the people who say it is false. 
 
 "That such a person as Jesus'"Christ existed, and that he was cru- 
 cified, which was the mode of execution at tliwt day, are historical 
 relations strictly within the limits of probability. He preached 
 most excellent mojality, and the equality of man; but he preached 
 also against the corruptions and avArice of the Jewish priests:, and 
 this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole oider 
 of priesthood. The accusation which those priests brought against 
 him, was that of sedition and- conspiracy against the Roman go- 
 vernment, to which the Jews were then subject and tributary; and 
 it is not improbable that the Roman governuient might have some 
 secret apprehension of the effects of his doctrine as well as the Jewish 
 priests; neither is it improbab'e that Jesus Christ had in contem- 
 plation the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the 
 Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and re- 
 volutionist lost his life. ' . ■> 
 - " Itisupon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case 
 I am going to mention, that the Christian Mythologists, calhng theirr- 
 selves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which; for 
 absurdity and extravagance is riot exceeded by any thing that is to 
 be found in the mythology- of the ancients. . ' ' 
 
 ^' The ancientMytholog-ists tell us that the raceof Giants made war 
 against Jupiter, and that one of them threw an hundred rocksagainst 
 him at one throw; tlwt Jupiter defeated him with thunder, and 
 confined hiiu afterwards under Mount Etna, and that every time' the 
 Giant turns himself. Mount Etna belches fire. It is here easy to see 
 that the fircuiiistance of the nrountain,-that of its being a volcano, 
 suggested the idea of the fable; and that l:he fable is made to fit 
 and wind itself up with that circumstance. 
 
 "The Christian Mythologists tell'us, that their Satan made ^^•ar 
 against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him after- 
 wards, not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy^to see 
 that the first fable, suggested the idea of the second ; for the fable 
 of Jupiter and the Giants was told many hundred yeais before that 
 of Satan. , > 
 
 " Thus far the ancient and the Christian Mythologists differ very 
 little from each other. But the latter have contrived to cany the 
 matter much farther. ■■. They have contrived to connect the fabulous 
 part of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating from 
 Mount Etna ; and, in order to make all the parts of the story tie 
 
44 
 
 together, they hare taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews ; for 
 the Christian mythology is made up' partly from the ancient mytho- 
 logy, and partly from the Jewish traditions. 
 
 " The Christian IVIythologists, after having confined Satan in a pit^ 
 were obliged to let him out again, to bring on the sequel of the 
 fable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden in the shape 
 of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into familiar 
 conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a snake 
 talk ; and the issue <)f this tete-i-tete is, that he persuades her to eat 
 an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all mankind. 
 
 " After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one would 
 have supposed that-the church Mythologists would have been kind 
 enough to send him back again to the pit ; or, if they had not done 
 this, that they would ha-ve put a mountain upon him (for they say 
 that their faith can remove a mountain) or have put him under a 
 mountain, as the former Mythologists had done, to prevent his getting 
 again among the women, and doing more mischief. But instead of 
 this, they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give bis 
 pai'ole — the secret of which is, that they could not do without him ; 
 and after being at the trouble of making him, they bribed him to 
 stay. They promised him ai,l the Jews, all the Turks by antici- 
 pation, nine-tenths of the world beside, and Mahomet into the bar- 
 gain. After this, who can doubt the bountifuluess of the Christian 
 mythology i 
 
 " Having thns made an insurrection and a battle in Heaven, in 
 which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded — 
 put Satan into the pit — ^let him out again — given him a triumph 
 over the whole creation — damned all mankind by the eating of an 
 apple, these Christian Mythologists bring the two ends of their fable 
 together. They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesns 
 Christ, to be at once both God and Man, and also the Son of God, 
 celestially begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say 
 that Eve in her longing had eaten an apple. 
 
 "Putting aside every thing that might excite laughter by its absur- 
 dity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confining ourselves 
 meiely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible to conceive a 
 story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with his 
 wisdom, more contratfictory to his power, than this story is. 
 
 " In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, flie inventors 
 were under the necessity of giving to the being, whorii they! call 
 Satan, a power equally as great, if not greater, than they attribute to 
 the Almighty. They have not only given him the power of liberat- 
 ing himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they have 
 wade that power increase afterwards to infinity. Before this fah they 
 represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as they repre- 
 sent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account, omni- 
 present. He exists everywhere, and at the same time, lie occupies 
 the whole immensity of space. 
 
 "Not content with Uie deilicalion of Satan, they represent him as 
 
45 
 
 defeating, by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation^ 
 all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent hirn ass 
 having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of 
 surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and sove- 
 reignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by com- 
 ing down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross ia the 
 shape of a man. 
 
 '* Had the inventors of this story tnid it the contrary way, that is, 
 had they represented the Almighty as coiiipelling Saian to exhibit 
 himself' on a cross, in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for his 
 new transgression, the story would have been less absurd — ^less con- 
 tradictory. But instead of this, they make the transgressor tri- 
 umph, and the Almighty fall, 
 
 " That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived 
 very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what 
 I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to be- 
 lieve it, and they would have believed any thing else in the same 
 manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically en- 
 raptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to 
 man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea 
 has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity 
 and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural any thing is, 
 the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admira- 
 tion. 
 
 " But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do 
 they not present themselves every hour to our eyes .' Do we not 
 see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born— 
 a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing ? Is it we that 
 light up the sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with 
 abundance ? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the 
 universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessitigs they in- 
 dicate in future, nothing to us ? Can our gross feelings be excited 
 by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide i Or is the gloomy 
 pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a 
 sacrifice of the Creator ? 
 
 ■' I know that (his bold investigation will alarm many, but it would 
 be paying too great a compliment ft) their credulity to forbear it 
 upon that account; the times and the subject demand it to be done. 
 The suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian church 
 is fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it will 
 be a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubt- 
 ing what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely 
 investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the books, 
 called tlie Old and New Testament.. 
 
 "These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation, 
 (which, by the bye," is a book of riddles that requires a revelation to 
 explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It is, therefore, pro- 
 per for us to know who told us so, that we may know what credit to 
 give to thu report. The answer to this question is, that nobody cart , 
 
46 
 
 tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however, histori- 
 cally appears to be as follows : — 
 
 " When the church Mythologists estabUshed their system, they col- 
 lected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they ■ 
 pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such 
 of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New 
 Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they 
 found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed 
 them up. 
 
 " Be this as it may, they decided by vole which of the books out of 
 the collection they had made, should be the word of god, and 
 which should not. They rejected several ; they voted others to be 
 doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha ; and those books 
 which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. 
 Had they voted oth(ywise, all the people, since calling themselves 
 Christians, had believed otherwise — for the belief of the one comes 
 from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, 
 we know nothing- of, they called themselves by the general name of 
 the Church ; and this, is all we know of the matter. 
 
 " As we have no other external evidence or authority for believing 
 those books to be the woid of (lod, than what 1 have mentioned, 
 which is no evidence or authority at all, 1 come, in the next place, to 
 examine the internal evidence contained in the books themselves. 
 
 " In the former part of this Essay 1 havespokeii of revelation. I 
 now proceed further with that subject, for the purpose of applying it 
 to the books in question. 
 
 . " Hevelation is a communication of something, which the person 
 to whom that thing is revealed, did not know before. For if 1 have 
 done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me 1 have 
 done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it. 
 
 "Hevelation, therefore, cannot be applied to any thing done upon 
 earth, of which man is himself the actor or the witness ; and con- 
 sequently all the historical and anecdotal part of the Bible, which is 
 almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compass of the 
 word revelation, and therefore is not the word of (j'od. 
 
 " When Sampson ran off with the gale-posts of Gaza, if he ever 
 did so (and whether he did or not is nothing to us) or when he visit- 
 ed his Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did any thing else, what has 
 revelation to do with these things ? if they were facts, he could tell 
 them himself; or his secretary, if he kept one, could write them, if 
 they were worth either tellinff or writing ; and if they were fictions, 
 revelation could not make them true; and whether true or not, we 
 are neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. When we 
 contemplate the innnensity of that Being, who directs and governs 
 the incomprehensible vvhoi.e, of which the ntmost ken of human 
 sight can discover but a part, we ought ta feel shame at calling such 
 paltry stpries the word of God. r 
 
 , " As to the account of the Creation, with which the book of Gene- 
 sis opens, it has all the appearance of being a tradition which the 
 
47 
 
 Israelites had nmong them before they cameiiitoEffy.pt; and after 
 tbeii- depaituie fiom that , country, they put it pt the head of their 
 history, without telling (as it is most, probable) that they did not 
 know how they canxe by it. The manner in which the account 
 opens, shews it to be tiaditioriaVy. It begins abruptly: it is. no- 
 body that speaks ; it is nobody that lieais ;,it is addressed to nobody j 
 it has nt'itlier firSt, second, di' third person; it has every criterion of 
 being a tradition ; it has no voucher. Blokes, does not take it upon 
 himself by introducing it with the formality that he uses on other 
 Occasions, such as that of saying, " T/ie Lord spake unto Moses, 
 sai/itvr." 
 
 " VVhy It has.been called the Mosaic account of the Creation, I am 
 at a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of 
 such subjects to put his narne to that account. He had been edu- 
 cated among' the Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in 
 science, and particularly in astronomy, as any peopfe of their day ; 
 arid the .silence and canlion that Moses observes, in not authenti- 
 cating, the account, is ii good negative evidence that he neither told 
 it nor believed it. The case is, that e\ery nation of people has 
 been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right to set up 
 the trade of world-making as' any of the rest ; ,and as Moses was 
 not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict the tradition. 
 'I'he account, however, is harmless ; and tliis is more than can be 
 said for many other parts of the Bible. 
 
 " Whenever yve read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debauche- 
 ries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictive- 
 hess, -with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more 
 consistent that we called it the won! of a Demon, than the word of 
 God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and 
 brutalize mankind ; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it us 
 I detest every thing tliat is cruel." 
 
 As Mr. Carlile had concluded this paragraph, which was 
 one of those cited by the Attorney-General, several of the 
 Jury expressed a wish for copies of the work, which were 
 jm mediately handed nplo thsm. , Mr. Carlile read the ex- 
 tract again, and said, Now, Gentlemen, I beg to ask you,' — 1 
 appeal to you as conscientious men to say, if it was fair to 
 have omitted the last member of the sentence, ,ou a part of 
 which so great a stress has been laid by the Attorney-Gene- 
 ral? Geatlemen, was, it fair in him to have given the begin- 
 ning, without also giving the conclusion of the paragraph? 
 The conclusion of the paragraph is most important in its 
 nature, for it s&ys,' and, /or mij own part, I most sincerely 
 detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel. Why then 
 should that conclusion have been left out, if it were not' in- 
 tended to have excited any possible prejudice against me? 
 Gen'lemcri, you wil', however, bear the circumstance ia 
 
48 
 
 your recollection, and you will also perceive that there is 
 not a single sentiment of Mr. Paine's which can be charged 
 with having an immoral tendency. 
 
 " We scarcely meet with any thing, a few phrases excepted, but 
 what deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to 
 the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publica- 
 tions, the Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the lat- 
 ter, we find a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially express- 
 ed of the power and benignity of the Almighty ; but they stand on 
 no higher rank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as 
 well before that time as since. 
 
 " The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most pro- 
 bably a collection, (because they discover a knowledge of life, which 
 his situation excluded him from knowing) are an instructive table of 
 ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the Spa- 
 niards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American 
 Franklin. 
 
 " All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by the 
 name of the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets and itine- 
 rant preachers, who mixed poetry, anecdote, and devotion together ; 
 and those works still retain the air and style of poetry, though in 
 translation.* 
 
 " There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any 
 word that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that de- 
 scribes what we call poetry. The case is, that the word prophet, to 
 which latter times have affixed a new idea, was the Bible word for 
 poet, and the word prophesying meant the art of making poetry. 
 It also meant the art of playing poetry to a tune upon any instru- 
 ment of music. 
 
 " We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns — of pro- 
 phesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and with every 
 other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now to speak 
 of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the expres- 
 sion would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous, and to 
 some people contemptuous, because we have changed the meanino- of 
 the word. 
 
 " We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also that he 
 prophesied ; but we are not told what they prophesied nor what he 
 
 * As there are many readers wlio do not see that a composition is poetry, un- 
 less it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add this note. 
 
 Poetry consists principally in two things — imagery and composition. The 
 composition of poetry differs from that of prose in the manner of mixing long 
 and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of a line of poetry, and 
 put a short one in the room of it, or put a long syllable where a short one y'lotild 
 be, and that line will lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect upon the 
 line like that of misplacing a note in a song. 
 
 The imagery in those books, called the prophets, appertains altogether to poetry. 
 It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not admissible iu any otlier kind of 
 writing than poetry 
 
49 
 
 prophesied. The case is, there was nothing' to tell ; for these pro- 
 phets were a company of musicians and poets, and Saul joiijed in 
 the concert, and this was called prophesying. 
 
 " The account given of this affair, in the book called Samuel, is, 
 that Saul met a compawy of prophets ; a whole company of them! 
 coming down with a psaltery, a tabrel, a pipe, and a harp, and that 
 they prophesied, and that he prophesied with them. But it appears 
 afterwards, that Saul prophesied badly, that is, he performed his 
 part badly ; for it is said, that an " evil spirit from God"* came 
 upon Saul, and he prophesied. 
 
 " Now, were there no other passage in the book, called the Bible, 
 than this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the original mean- 
 ing of the word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in its 
 place, this alone would be sufficient ; for it is impossible to use and 
 apply the Word prophesy, in the place it is here used and applied, if- 
 we give to it the sense which latter times have affixed to it. The 
 manner in which it is here used strips it of all religious meaning, 
 and shews that a man might then be a prophet, or might prophesy, 
 as he may now be a poet or a musician, without any regard to the 
 morality or the immorahty of his character. The word was origi- 
 nally a teim of science, promiscuously applied to poetry and to mu- 
 sic, and not restricted to any subject upon which poetry and music 
 might be exercised. 
 
 " Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they pre- 
 dicted any thing, but because they coinposed the poem or song that 
 bears their name, in celebration of an act already done. David is 
 ranked among the prophets, for he was a musician, and was also re- 
 puted to be (thougli perhaps very erroneously) the author of the 
 Psalms. But Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not called prophets ; 
 it does not appear from any accounts we have that they could either 
 sing, play masic, or make poetry. 
 
 " We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They might 
 as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God ; for there cannot be 
 degrees in prophesying, consistently with its modem sense. But 
 there are degrees in poetry, and therefore the phrase is reconcileable 
 to the case, when we understand by it the greater and the lesser 
 poets. 
 
 " It is altogether unnecessaiy, after this, to offer any observations 
 upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The axe goes 
 at once to the root, by shewing that the original meaning of the word 
 has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences that have 
 been drawn from those books, the devotional respect that has been 
 paid to them, and the laboured commentaries that have been written 
 upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing 
 
 * " As those men who call themselves divines and commentators, are very fond 
 of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the first part of 
 th& phrase, that of on e%»l spirit of God. I keep to mj text — ^1 keep to the mean- 
 ing of the word prophecy. 
 5. 
 
50 
 
 about. — In many things, hovfever, the writings of the Jewish poets 
 desei-ve a better fate than that of being bound up, as they now are, 
 with the trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the 
 Word of God. 
 
 " If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas ofthings, we must 
 necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the 
 utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or 
 accident whatever, in that which-yye would honour with the name of 
 the word of God ; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any 
 written or human language. 
 
 " The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words 
 is subject, the want of an universal language which renders trans- 
 lation necessary, the errors to which .translations are again subject, 
 the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility 
 of wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human lan- 
 guage, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the 
 word of God. — The word of God e:^sts in something- else. 
 
 " Did the book, called the Bible, excel in purity of ideas and ex- 
 pression all the books that are now extant in the world, 1 would not 
 take it for ray rule of faith, as being the word of God, because the 
 possibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But 
 when I see, throughout the greatest part of this book, scarcely any 
 thing but a history of the grossest vices, and a collection of the 
 most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonpur my Creator 
 by calling it by hu name." - 
 
 This passage, Gentlemen, is also inserted- in the charge 
 against me, and the Attorney-General has laid great stress, 
 indeed, upon it; as if Mr. Paine had totally denied the ex- 
 istence of any thing like morality in the Bible. Mr. Paine, 
 however, did no such thing. He said, there were, amongst 
 many bad things, some excellent things also scattered up 
 and down; but, that being composed of such a mixture, it 
 was for him to believe, or disbelieve it, as he thought 
 proper. 
 
 " Thus much for the Bible ; I now go on to the book tailed the 
 New Testament. " The New Testament ! that is, the new will, as if 
 there could be two wills of the Creator. 
 
 " Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to establish 
 a new religion, he would imdoubtedly have written the system him- 
 self, or procured it to he written in his life time. But there is no 
 publication extant authenticated with his name. All the books 
 called'the New Testament were written after his death. He was a 
 Jew by birth and by profession ; and he was the Son of God in like 
 manner that every other person is — for the Creator is the Father of 
 All. 
 
 " The first four books, called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, do 
 not give a history of the life of Jesus tlhrist, but only detached anec- 
 dotes of him. ll appears from these books, that the whole time of 
 
51 
 
 his being a preacher was not more than eighteen monthg ; and it was 
 only during this short time that those men became acquainted witli 
 him. They make" mention of him at the age of twelve years, sitting^, 
 they say, among the Jewish doctors, asking and answering them 
 ffuestioiis. As this was several years before their acquaintance with 
 him began, it is most probable they had this anecdote from his pa- 
 lents. From this time there is no account of him • for about sixteen 
 years. Where he lived, or how he employed himself, during this in- 
 terval, is not known. Most probably he was working at his father's 
 trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear that he 
 had any school education, and the probability is, that he could not 
 write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their not 
 being able to pay for a bed when he was born. 
 
 " It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are the 
 most universally recorded, were of very obscure parentage. Moses 
 was a foundling ; Jesus Christ was born in a stable ; and Mahomet 
 was a mule driver. The first gnd the last of these men were foun- 
 ders of different systems of religion ; but Jesus Christ founded no 
 new system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues, and 
 the belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 " The manner in which he was apprehended, shews that he was not 
 much known at that time ; and it shews also, that the meetings he 
 then held with his followers were in secret ; and that he had given 
 over or suspended preaching publicly. Judas could no otherwise be- 
 tray him than by giving information where he was, and pointing 
 him out to the officers that went to arrest him ; and the reason for 
 employing and paying Judas to do this could arise only from the 
 causes already mentioned, that of his not being much known, and 
 living concealed. 
 
 " The idea of his concealment, not only agrees very ill with his re- 
 puted divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity ; 
 and his being betrayed, or, in other words, his being apprehtnded, 
 on the information of one of his followers, shews that, he did not 
 intend to be apprehended, and, consequently, that he did not intend to 
 be crucified. 
 
 " The Christian Mythologists tell us, that Christ died for the sins of 
 the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would it not then 
 have been the same if he had died of a fever or of the small-pox, 
 of old age, or of anything else.' 
 
 " The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon Adam,' 
 in case he eat of the apple, was not, that thou shalt surely be cru- 
 cified, hut thou shalt surely die — the sentence of death, and not 
 the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any other particu- 
 lar manner-of dying, made no part of the sentence that Adam was 
 to suffer, and, consequently, even upon their own tactics, it could 
 make no part of the sentence that Christ was to suffer in the room 
 of Adam. A fever would have d^ll^as well as a cross, if there was 
 any occasion for either. 
 
52 
 
 " This sentence of death, which they tell us, was thus passed upon": 
 Adam, must either have meant dying naturally, that is, ceasing to 
 live, or have meant what these Mytholugists call damnation ; and, 
 consequently, the act of dying on the part of Jesus Christ, must, ac- 
 cording to their system, apply as a prevention to one or other of 
 these two things happening to Adam and to us. 
 
 " That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we all die; 
 and if tlieir accounts of longevity be true, nien die faster since the 
 crucihxion than before; and with respect to the second explanation, 
 (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ as a substitute 
 for the eternal death or damnation of all mankind) it is impertinent- 
 ly representing the Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence, 
 by a pun or a quibble upon the word death. That manufacturer of 
 quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, has 
 helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon the word 
 Adam. He makes there to be two Adams ; the one who sins in fact, 
 and suffers by proxy | the other who sins by proxy, and suffers in 
 fact. ■ A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and pun, 
 has a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of these arts. 
 They acquire the habit without being aware of the causes. 
 
 " If Jesus Christ was tlTe being which those Mythologists tell us he 
 was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word they 
 sometimes use. instead of lo die, the only real suffering he could 
 have endured, would have been to live. His existence here was a 
 State of exilement or transportation from Heaven, and the' way back 
 to his original country was to die. — In line, every thing in this 
 strange system is the reverse of what it^pretends to be. It is the re- 
 verse of truth, and I become so tired with examining into its incoij- 
 sistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the c^nciusion of it, in 
 order to proceed to something better. 
 
 " How much, or what parts of the books called the New Testament, 
 were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can 
 know nothing of, neither are_ we certain in what language they were 
 originally written. The matters they now contain may be classed 
 under two heads — anecdote and epistolary correspondence, 
 
 " The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
 John, are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had 
 taken place. They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what 
 others did and said to him ; and in several instances they relate the 
 same event differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question 
 with respect to those books ; not only because of the disagreement 
 of the writei-s, but because revelation cannot be applied to the re- 
 lating of facts by the pej"sons who saw them done, nor to the relating 
 or recording of any discouree or (Conversation by those who heard it. 
 The book called the Act.5 of the Apostles (ap anonymous work) be- 
 longs alsd to the .ahecdotal pai;t. 
 
 " All the 6ther parts of the New Testament, except the book of 
 enigmas, called the Revelations, %re a collection of letters under the 
 name of epistles ; and the forgery of letters has been siwh a com- 
 
53 
 
 mon practice in the world, that the probability is at least equal, 
 whether they are genuine or forged. One thing, however, is much 
 less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters^ contained in those 
 books, together with the assistance of some old stories, the church 
 has set upasysrem of religion very contradictory to the character of 
 the person whose name it bears. !t has set up a religion of pomp 
 and of re\enue, in pretended imitation of a person vshflse life was 
 humility and poverty. 
 
 " The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of souls there- 
 from, by prayers, bought of the church with money ; the selling 
 of pardon^, dispensations, and indulgencies, are revenue laws, with- 
 out bearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the case 
 nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the pa- 
 roxysms of the crucifixion and the theory deduced therefrom, wjiich 
 was, that one person could stand in the place of another, and could 
 perform meritorious services for him. The probability, therefore, 
 is, that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption 
 (which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one person in 
 the room of another) was originally fabricated on purpose to bring 
 forward and build all those secondary and pecuniary redemptions 
 upon ; and that the passages in the books upon which the idea of 
 theory of redemption is built, have been manufactured and fabri- 
 cated for that purpose. Why are we to give this church credit, when 
 she tells us that those books are genuine in every part, any more 
 than we give her credit for every thing else she has told us ; or for 
 the miracles she says she has performed .'' That she could fabricate 
 writings is certain, because she could write ; and the composition of 
 the writings in question, is of that kind that any body might do it; 
 and that she did fabricate them is not more inconsistent with proba- 
 bility, than that she should tell us, as she has done, that she could 
 and did work miracles. 
 
 " Since then no external evidence can, at this long distance of time, 
 be produced to prove whether the church fabricated the doctrines 
 called redemption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or against, 
 would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated) the case 
 can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries 
 of itself ; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a 
 fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doc- 
 trine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary j ustice, and 
 not that of moral justice. 
 
 " If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to 
 put main prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and 
 pay it for me; but if 1 have committed a crime, every circumstance 
 of the case is changed, moral justice cannot take the inpocent for the 
 guilty, even if the innocent would pffer itself. To suppose justice to 
 do this, is to destroy t'he principle of its* existence, which is the thing' 
 itself; it is then no longer justice it is indiscriminate revenge. 
 
 " This single reflection will sh?w Ihafthe doctrine of redemption is 
 
54 ~ 
 
 foauded on a mere pecuniary idw, which another person might pay ; 
 and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of se- 
 cond redemptions, Obtained through the means of money given to the 
 church for pardons, the probabiUty is, that the same persons fabri- 
 cated both the one and the other of those theories ; and that, in truth, 
 there is no such thing as redemption ; that it is falaulous, and that man 
 stands in the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did 
 stand, since man existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to 
 think so. 
 
 " Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and mo- 
 rally thaa by any other system ; it is by his being taught to contem- 
 plate himself as an out-law, as an out-cast, as a beggar, as a mumper, 
 as one thrown, a"s it were, on a dunghill, at an immense distance 
 from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by creeping and 
 cringing to inlennediate beings, that he conceives either a contemp- 
 tuous disregard for every thing under ihe name of religion, or be- 
 comes indifferent, or turns, what he calls, devout. In the latter case, 
 he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it ; his prayers are 
 reproaches ; Ills humility is ingratitude; he calls himself a worm, and 
 the fertile earth ji dunghill; arid all the blessings of life, by the thank- 
 less name of vanities ; he despises the choicest gift of God to man, 
 the f.iFT OF iiiiASON ; and having endeavoured to force upon him- 
 self the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungrate- 
 fully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself. 
 " Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this con- 
 tempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions ; 
 he finds fault with every thing ; his selfishness is never satisfied , his 
 ingratitude isneverat an end. lie takes on himself to directthe Al- 
 mighty what to do, even in the government of the universe ; he prays 
 dictatorially ; when it is sun-shine, hp prays for rain, and when it is 
 rain, he prays for sun-shine; he follows the same idea in everything 
 that he prays for ; for what is the amount of all his prayers, but an 
 uttempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise 
 than he does } It is as if he were to say — thou knowest jiot so well 
 as I.' 
 
 " But some perhaps will say. Are we to have no word of God — No 
 revelation .'' I answer. Yes : there is a word of God ; there is a reve- 
 lation. 
 
 "Tub word of God, is tub ciieation we behold: And it is 
 In this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that 
 Godspeaketh universally to man. 
 
 " Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore inca- 
 j)able of being used as the means of unchangeable and univereal in- 
 formation. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they 
 say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of fhe earth to the 
 other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who knew no- 
 thing of the extent of the world, and wjio believed, as those world- 
 Kiiviours believed, and continued to bdieve, for several centuries. 
 
55 
 
 (ui>d that ill contrailiction to the discoveries of philoso[jIiejs,, and the 
 experience of navigators) that the earth was flat like a trencher, and 
 that a man might walk to the end of it. 
 
 " But how was Jesus Christ to make any thing known to all nations ? 
 He could speak but one language, which was Hebrew ; and there 
 Are in the world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two na- 
 tions speak the same language, or understand each other: and as to 
 tra'hslations, every man who knows any thing of languages, knows 
 that it is impossible to translate from one language to another, not 
 only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mis- 
 taking the sense ; and besides all this, the art of printing was wliolly 
 unknown at the time Christ lived. 
 
 ' " It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any 
 end, be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end <annot be 
 accomplished. It is in this, that the difference between finite and in- 
 finite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in ac- 
 complishing- his ends, from a natural inability of the power to, the 
 purpose ; and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power 
 properly. But it is impossible for infinite power and wisdom to fail 
 as man faileth. The means it useth are always equal to this end ; but 
 human language, more especially as there is not an universal lan- 
 guage, is incapable of being used as an universal means of unchange- 
 able and uniform information, and therefore it is not the means that 
 God useth in manifesting himself universally to man. 
 
 ", It is only in thecaEATioN that all our ideas and conceptions of a 
 word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal lali- 
 guage, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied 
 and various as they be. It is an ever-existing original, which every 
 man can read. It cannot be forged ; it cannot be counterfeited ; it 
 cannot be lost ; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It 
 does not depend upon the will of man whether itshall be published or 
 not ; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It 
 preaches to all nations and to all worlds ; and this word of God re- 
 ■ veals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God. 
 
 " Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the immen- 
 sity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom ? We 
 see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole 
 is governed* Do we want to contemplate his munificence ? We see 
 it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to 
 contemplate hismercy ? We see it in his not withholding that abun- 
 dance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what 
 God is ? Search not the book called the Scripture, which any 
 human hand might make, bat the Scripture called the Creation." 
 
 Why has not the Attorney-General prosecuted me for 
 publishing this? Does this refute his charges against me and 
 Mr. Paine? Gentlemen of the Jury, you will perceive from 
 this, and other passages as I proceed to read the Age of 
 
56 
 
 Reason, that it does not contain those offensive sentiments, 
 on which the Attorney-General has so much dilated. 
 
 " The only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that of a first 
 coMie, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and difficult 
 as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the 
 helief of it. from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It 
 is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no 
 end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. it is difficult beyond 
 the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call 
 time ; hut it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall 
 be no time. In like manner of reasoning, every thing we behold 
 carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself. 
 Every man is an evidence to himself, that he did not make himself; 
 neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any 
 of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself ; 
 and it is the conviction arising from this evidence, that carries us on, 
 as it were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally ex- 
 isting, of a nature totally different to any material existence we 
 know of, and by the power of which all things exist ; and this first 
 cause man calls God. 
 
 " It is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover God. 
 Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding 
 any thing ; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read 
 even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How then is 
 it that those people pretend to reject reason ? 
 
 " Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey us 
 to any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and the liJth Psalm ; 
 I recollect no other. Those parts are true deistieal compositions ;" 
 for ihey treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book 
 of Creation as the word of God, they refer to no other book, and all 
 the inferences they make are drawn from that volume. 
 
 " I insert, in this place, the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into Eng» 
 lish verse by Addison. I recollect iMt the prose, and where J write 
 this I have not the opportunity of seeing it. 
 
 " The spacious firmament on high, 
 
 WiUi all the blue ethereal sky. 
 
 And spangled heavens, a shining frame. 
 
 Their great original proclaim. 
 
 The unwearied sun, from day to day. 
 
 Does his Creator's power displa}-. 
 
 And publishes to every land. 
 
 This work of an Almighty hand. 
 
 ■ Soon iis tlie' evening shades prevail. 
 The moon takes up tlie wondrous tale. 
 And nightly to tlie list'ning earth 
 Kepeats the story of her birth ; 
 Whilst all Hie stars thalt'ronnd her bum, 
 And.all tlie planats in their turn, 
 Confirm the tidings as they rofti 
 And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
 
57 
 
 What Uiongh m solemn silence all 
 Move round this dark terrestrial ball ; 
 What though no real voice, nor sound. 
 Amidst their radiant orbs be found. 
 In Reason's ear they all rejoice, 
 And utter forth a glorious voice, 
 For ever singing as they shine, ' 
 
 The hand that made us is divine." 
 
 " What more doe» man want to know than that the hand, of 
 power, that made these things is divine, is omnipotent .' Let him 
 believe this witli the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits 
 his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course, 
 
 " The allusions in Job have all of them the same tendency 
 with this Psalm : that of deducing or proving a truth, that would 
 be otherwise unknown, from truths already known. 
 
 " 1 recollect not enough of the passages in Job, to insert them 
 correctly : but there is one occurs to me that is applicable to the 
 subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by scare hinjr find out 
 '* God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection .'"' 
 
 " I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I 
 keep no Bible; but it contains two distinct questions, that admit 
 of distinct answers. 
 
 " First — Canst thou by searching find oul God? Yes : because 
 in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet 1 have 
 existence ; and by searching into the nature of other things, I find 
 that no other thing could make itself ; and yet millions of other 
 things exist ; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion 
 resulting from this search', that there is a power superior to all 
 those things, and that power is God. 
 
 " Secondly — Canst Ihou find out the Almighty to perfection ? 
 No; not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in 
 the structure of the Creation that I behold, is to me incompre- 
 hensible, but because even this manifestntioii, gn-at as it is, is pro^ 
 bably but a small display of that, irameusity of' power and wisdom, 
 by which millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their dis- 
 tance, were created and continue to exist. 
 
 " It is evident, that both these questions were put to the reason 
 of the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed; 
 and it is only by admitting the first question to be answered affir- 
 matively, that the second could follow. It would have been un- 
 necessary, and even absurd, to have put a second question, more 
 difficult than the first, if the first question had been answered 
 negatively. The two questions have different olqects; the first 
 refers to the existence of God, the second to his attributes ; reason 
 can discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering the 
 whole of the other. 
 
 " I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the 
 men called apostles, that cqpvey any i"dea of what God is. Those 
 writings are chiefly coutrbversial ; and the subject they dwell 
 upon,' that of a maQ dying in agony on a crogs, is 'better suited to 
 
58 
 
 tlie gloomy geniufi of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not imposai- 
 bl« they weije written, than to any man breathin'j; the open air of 
 the Creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any 
 reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wis- 
 dom can be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Chiist, 
 as a remedy against distrustful care. " Behold the lilies of the 
 field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far 
 ' inferior to the allusions in Job, and in the 19lh Psalm ; but it is 
 similar in idea, and tire modesty of the imagery is correspondent 
 to the modesty of the man. 
 
 " As to the Christian system of faith, itappears tome as aspecies 
 of atheism — a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to be- 
 lieve in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up 
 chiefly of manism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism 
 as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his 
 Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon 
 introduces her opaque self between the earth and sun, and it pro- 
 duces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. 
 It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade. 
 
 " The etfect of this obscurity has been that of turning every thing 
 upside down, and representing it in reverse ; and among the revo- 
 lutions it hai thus magically produced, it has made a^ revolution 
 in Theology. 
 
 " That whioh is now called natural philosophy, embracing the 
 whole circle of scienc?, of which Astronomy occupies the, chief 
 place, is the study of the works of God, and of the pdwer and 
 wisdom of God in his works, an4 is the true theology. 
 
 " As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study 
 of human opinions, and of human fancies concerning' God. It is 
 not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but 
 in the works or writings that man has made ; and it is not amono- 
 the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the 
 world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of 
 theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, ta 
 make room for the hag of superstition. 
 
 ""The book of Job, and the 19th Psalm, which even the church 
 admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which 
 they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations 
 conformable to the original system of theology. The internal evi- 
 dence of those orations proves to a demonstration that the study 
 and contemplation of the works of Creation, and of the power and 
 wisdom of God, revealed and manifested in those works, made a 
 great part of the religious devotion of the times in which they 
 were written; and it was this devotional study and contemplation 
 that led to the discovery of the principles upon which, what are 
 now called Sciences, are established ; and it is to the discovery of 
 these principles that almost all the Arts that contribute to the con- 
 venience of human life, owe their existence. Every principal art 
 has some science for its patent, though the person wlio mechani- 
 
cally performs the work does not always, and but very seldom, 
 perceive the connexion. 
 
 " It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences hu- 
 ?nau invention ; it is only the application of them tliat is human. 
 Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and 
 unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and go- 
 verned. Man cannot make principles ; he can only discover them : 
 
 " For example — Every person who looks at an Almanack sees 
 an aqcouiU when an eclipse will take plate, and he sees also that 
 it never fails to take place according to the account there given. 
 This shews that man is acquainted with the laws by which the 
 heavenly bodies tqove. But it would be something worse than ig- 
 norance, were any church on earth to say, that those laws are an 
 human invention. It would also be ignorance, or something worse, 
 to say that the scientific principles, by the aid of which man is ena- 
 bled to calculate and foVeknow when an eclipse will take place, are 
 an human invention. Man cannot invent any thing thiit is eternal 
 andimmutable; andthe scientific principles he employs for this pur- 
 pose must, and are, of necessity, as eternal and immutable as the 
 laws by which the heavenly bodies move, or they could not be used 
 as they are to ascertain the time when, and the manner how, an 
 eclipse will take place. 
 
 " The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the fore- 
 knowlege of an eclipse, or of any thing else, relating to the motion 
 of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that pert of science 
 which is called Trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle, 
 which when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called 
 Astronomy; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the 
 ocean, it is called Navigation ; when applied to the constructioa 
 of figures drawn by rule and compass, it is called Geometry ; when 
 applied to the construction of plans of edifices, it is called Archi- 
 tecture; when applied to the measurement of any portion of the 
 surface of the earth, it is called Land-surveying. In fine, it is the 
 soul of science ; it is an eternal truth ; it contains the mathemati- 
 cal demonstration of which man speaks, and the extent of its uses 
 is unknown. 
 
 " It may be said, that man can iliake or draw a triangle, and 
 therefore a triangle is an human invention. ' 
 
 " But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of 
 the principle; it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to 
 the mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. 
 The triangle does not make the principle, any more than a candle 
 tuken into a room that was dark, makes the chairs and tables that 
 before were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist inde- 
 pendently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn 
 or thought of by man, Man had no more to do in the formation 
 of those properties or principles, than he had to do in making the 
 laws b}*- which the heavenly bodies move ; and therefore the one 
 umst have the same divine origin as the other. 
 
60 
 
 " In the same manner as it may be said, that man can make a 
 triangle, so also it may be said, he can make the mechanical in- 
 strument called a lever; but the principle, by which the lever 
 acts, is a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if 
 the instrument did not : it attaches itself to the instrument after 
 it is made ; the instrument, therefore, can act no otherwise than it 
 does act ; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it 
 act otherwise'. That which, in all such cases, man calls the effect, 
 is no other than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the 
 senses. 
 
 " Since then man cannot make principles, from whence did he 
 gain a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not 
 only to things on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so 
 immensely distant from him as all the he.ivenly bodies are ? From 
 whence, 1 ask, could he gain that knowledge, but from the study 
 of the true theology ? 
 
 " It is the structure of the universe that has taught this know- 
 ledge to man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of 
 every principle upon which every part of mathematical science is 
 founded. The offspring of this science is mechanics ; for mecha- 
 nics is no other than the principles of science applied pmctically. 
 The man who proportions the several parts of a mill, uses the same 
 scientific principles, as if he had the power of constructing an uni- 
 verse; but as he ciinnot give to matter that invisible agency, by 
 -■which all the component parts of the immense machine of the, nni- 
 yerse have influence upon each other, and act in motional unison 
 together, without any apparent contact, and to which man has 
 given the name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he sup- 
 plies the place of that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and 
 cogs. All the parts of man's microcosm must visibly touch ; but 
 could he gain a knowledge of that agency, so as to be able to ap- 
 ply it in practice; we might then say, that another canonical book 
 of the word of God had been discovered. 
 
 " If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could 
 he alter the properties of the triangle; for a lever (taking that sort 
 of lever which is culled a steel-yard, for the sake of explanation) 
 forms, when in motion, a triangle. The line it descends from, 
 (one point of that line being in the fulcrum) the line it descends 
 to, and the cord of the arc, which the end of the lever describes in 
 the air, are the three sides of a triangle. The other arm of the 
 lever describes also a triangle j and the corresponding sides of 
 those two triangles, calculated scientifically, or measured georae- 
 trit;ally ; and also the sines, tangents, and secants generated from 
 the^angles, and geometrically measured, have the same proportions 
 to each other, as the different weights hav.e that balance each other 
 on the lever, leaving the weight of the fever out of the case. 
 
 " It may also be said, that mun can m^^ce a wheel and axis ; 
 that he can put whee^ls of different magnitudes together, and pro- 
 duce a mill. Still the case comes back to the same point, which 
 
61 
 
 is, that he did not make the principle that gives the wheels those 
 powers. That principle is as unalterable a« in the former cases, or 
 rather it is the 'same principle under a different appearance to the 
 eye. 
 
 " The power that two wheels, of different magnitudes, hai'e 
 upon each other, is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter 
 «f thetwo wheels were joined together and made into that kind of 
 lever 1 have described, suspended at the part where thesemi-dia- 
 meters join ; for the two wheels, scientifically considered, are no 
 other than the two circles generated by the motion of the com- 
 pound lever. 
 
 " It is from the study of the true theology that all our know- 
 ledge of science is derived, and it is from that knowledge that ail 
 the arts have originated. 
 
 " The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of sci- 
 ence in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and 
 lO imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe, 
 that we call ours, * I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, 
 and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science 
 and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, anb 
 
 LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACffl 
 ■OTHF.R.' 
 
 " Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that 
 his e3-e is endowed with the power of beholding, to an incompre- 
 hensible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of 
 space ? Or of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is 
 risible to man ? What has man to do with the Pleiades, witb 
 Orion, with Sirius, with the star he calls the north star, with the 
 moving orbs he has named Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, andMer- 
 curj', if no uses are to follow from their being visible ? A less 
 power of vision would have been sufficient for man,, if the immen- 
 sity he now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were, oa 
 an immense desert of space glittering with shows. 
 
 " It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, 
 as the book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their 
 being visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immen- 
 jfity of vision. But when he eontemplates the subject in this 
 light, he sees an additional motive for saying, that nothing was 
 made in vain ; for in vain would be this power of vision if it taught 
 man nothing. 
 
 •' As tlie Christian system of faith has made a revolution iu 
 theology, so also has it made a revolution in the stg^te of learning. 
 That which is now called learning was not learning originally. 
 Learning doesnot consist, as the schools now make it consist, in 
 the knowledge of langijages, but in the knowledge of tbings to 
 which language gives nanfes.; 
 
 « The Greeks w£i'«ia learned people, but learning with them did 
 not consist in speaking Greek, any more than in a Roman's speak- 
 ing Latin, or a Frenchman's Speaking French, or an Englishman's 
 
62 
 
 speiik'injT English. From what we know of the Greeks, it does not 
 appear that ihey knew or stadied any language but their own, and 
 thia wai one cause of their becoming so learned; it afforded them 
 more time to apply themselves to better studies. TIjc schools of 
 the Greeks were schools of science and philosophy, an^ notof 
 languages; and it is in the knowledge of the things that science 
 and philosophy teach, that learning consists. 
 
 " Almost all the scientific learning that now exists, came to us 
 from thfi Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek language. It, 
 therefore, became necessary for the people of otlier nations, who 
 spoke a different language, that some among them should learn 
 the Greek language, in order that the learning the Greeks had, 
 might be made known in those nations, by translating the Greek 
 books of science and philosophy into the mother tongue of each 
 nation. 
 
 " The study therefore of the Greek language (and in the same 
 manner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery business of 
 a linguist ; alid the langiiage thus obtained, was no other than the 
 means, as it were the tools, employed to obtain the learning the 
 Greeks had. It made no part of the learning itself ; and was so 
 distinct frotn it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the per- 
 sons who had studied Greek sufKciently to translate those works, 
 such, for instance, as Euclid's Elements, did not understand any 
 of the learning the works contained. 
 
 " As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead lan- 
 guages, all the useful books being already translated, the lan- 
 guages are become useless, and the time expended \n teaching and 
 in learning them is wasted. So far as the study of languages may 
 contribute to the progress and- communication of knowledge, (for 
 it has nothing to do with the creation of knowledge) it is only in the 
 living languages that new knowledge is to be found ; and certain it 
 is, that, in general, a youth will learn more of a living language in 
 one year, than of a dead language in seven ; and it is but seldom 
 that the teacher knows much of it himself. The difficulty of 
 learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior ab- 
 struseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, 
 and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing 
 with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek 
 linguist that now exists, does not understand Greek so well as a 
 Grecian ploughman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and' the same for 
 the Latin, compared with a ploughman or milkmaid of the Romans ; 
 and with respect to the pronunciation and idiom, not so well as 
 the cows that she milked. It would therefore be advantageous to 
 the state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, 
 and to make learning consisit, as it originally did, in scientific 
 knowledge. , 
 
 " Theapology that is sometiiiies made for continuing to teach the 
 dead languages is, that they are taught at a time when a child i* 
 not capable of exerting anyother mental faculty than that of me- 
 
63 
 
 mory ; but that is altogether erroneous. The human mind has a 
 natural disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the things con- 
 nected with it. The first and -favourite amusement of a child, 
 even before it begins to play, is tliat of imitating the works of man. 
 It builds houses with cards or sticks ; it navigates the little ocean 
 of a bowl of water with a paper boat, or dams the stream of a gut- 
 ter, and contrives something which it calls a mill : and it interests 
 itself in the fate of its works with a care that resembles affection. 
 It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed by the 
 barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost in 
 the linguist. 
 
 " But the apology tliat is now made for continuing to teach 
 the dead languages, could not be the cause, at first, of cutting 
 down learning to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry ; the 
 cause, therefore, must be sought for elsewhere. In all researches 
 of this kind, the best evidence that can be produced, is the inter- 
 nal evidence the thing carries with itself, and the evidence of cir- 
 cumstances that unites with it : both of which, in this case, are 
 not difficult to be discovered. 
 
 " Putting then aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, the out- 
 rage offered to the moral justice of God, by supposing him to 
 make the innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose morality 
 and low con|;rivance of supposing him to change himself in|o the 
 shape of a man, in order to make an excuse to himself for not exe- 
 cuting bfs supposed sentence upon Adam; putting, I say, those 
 things aside, as matter of distinct consideration, it is certain that 
 what is called the Christian system of faith, including in it the 
 whimsical account of the Creation — the strange story of Eve — the 
 snake and the apple — the ambiguous idea of a man-god — the 
 corporeal idea of the death of a god — the mythological idea of a 
 family of gods, and the Christian system of arithmetic, that three 
 are one, and one is three, are all irreconcileable, not only to the 
 divine gift of reason, that God hath given to Man, bilt to the know- 
 ledge that man gains of the power and wisdom of God, by the aid 
 of the sciences, and by studying the structure of the universe that 
 God has ma<]e. 
 
 " The setter-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Chlistian 
 system. of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progres- 
 sive knowledge that man nould gain, by the aid of science, of the 
 power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the uni- 
 verse, and in all the works of Creation, would militate against, and 
 call into question, the truth of their system of faith ; and therefore 
 it became necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a size 
 less dangerous to their project, and this they effected bj' restrict- 
 ing the idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages. 
 
 " They not only rejected the study of science out of the Chris- 
 tian schools, but they persecuted it ; and it is only within about 
 ihe last two centuries that the study has been revived. So late as 
 010, Galileo, a Florentine, discovered aiid introduced the use of 
 
64 
 
 telescopes, and by applying them to observe the motions and ap- 
 pearances of the heavenly bodies afforded additional means for 
 ascertaining- the true structure of the universe. Instead of being 
 esteemed for those discoveries, he was sentenced to renourice them, 
 or the opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. And 
 prior to that time Vigiiius was condemned to be burned for assert- 
 ing the anti podes, or in other words, that the earth was a globe, 
 and habitable in every part where there was land ; yet the truth of 
 this is now too well known even to be told. 
 
 " If the belief of errors not morallj' bad did no mischief, it ~ 
 would make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and re- 
 move them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat 
 like a trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing 
 it vras round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in be- 
 lieVmg that the Creator made ho other world than this, any more 
 than there was moral virtae in believing that he made millions, 
 and that the infinity of space is filled with worlds. But when a 
 system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of 
 creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner 
 almost insepaiabletherefrom, the case assumes an entirely different 
 ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, "become fraught 
 with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, 
 though otherwise indiffe'rcnt itself, becomes an essential, by be- 
 coming the criterion, that either ronfiiims by corresponding evi- 
 dence, or denies b}' contradictory evidence, the reality of the reli- 
 gion itself. In this view of the case, it is the moral duty of man 
 to obtain every possible evidence that the structure of the heavens, 
 or any other part of creation affords, w ith respect to s\ stems of 
 religion; But this, the supporters or partizans of the Christian 
 system, as if dreading the result, incessantly opposed, and not 
 only rejected the sciences, but persecuted the professors. Had 
 Newton or Descartes lived three or four hundred years ago, and 
 pursued their studies as they did, it is most probable they would 
 not have lived to finish them ; and had Franklin drawn lightning 
 from the clouds at the same time, it would have been at the hazard 
 of expiring for it in flames." 
 
 » 
 
 If Dr. Franklin had lived in the time of Sir Matthew- 
 Hale, Gentlemen of the Jury, he would certainly have been 
 equally punished for being a witch. 
 
 " " Lat:ter times have laid all the blame" upon the Goths and 
 Vandals ; but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian 
 system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless 
 true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian sys- 
 tem. There was more knowledge in the world before that period, 
 than for many centuries afterwards ; and as to religious know- 
 ledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another spe- 
 
6.5 
 
 cies of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was 
 a corruption of an smcient system of theism.* 
 
 " It is owing- to this long interregnum of science, and to no 
 other cause, that we have now to look through a vast chasm of 
 many hundred years to the respectable characters we call the an- 
 cients. Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionahly 
 with the stock that before existed, that cb^sm would have been 
 filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each 
 other; and those sincients we now so much aditiire, would have 
 appeared respectably in the back-ground of the scene. 13ut the 
 Christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that 
 long chasm, to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy de- 
 sart, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the 
 fertile hills beyond. 
 
 " It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that any 
 thing should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be 
 irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe 
 that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be de- 
 nied. The event that served more than any other to break the 
 first link in this long chain of despotic ignorance, is, that known 
 by the name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, 
 though it does not appear to have made any part of. the intention 
 ■of Luther, or of those who are called reformers, the sciences began 
 to revive, and liberality, their natural associate, began to appear. 
 This was the only public good the Reformation did ; for, with re- 
 spect to religious good, it might as well not have taken place. 
 The mythology still continued the same; and a multiplicity of 
 National Popes grew out of the downfal of the Pope of Christendom.. 
 
 • " It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heatlien mytliology 
 began ; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it carries, that it did not 
 begin in the same stite or condition in which it endnd. All tlie gods of that 
 mythology, except Saturn, were of modern invention. The supposed reign of 
 Saturn was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and was so far a 
 species of theism, that it admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is sup- 
 posed to have abdicated the gover'iment in fayour of his three sons and one 
 daughter, Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune, and Juno ; after this, thousands of other gods 
 and demi-gods were imaginarily created, and the calendar of gods increased as 
 fast as the calendar of saints, and the calendars of courts have increased since. 
 ' " All the corruptions that have taken place in theology and in religion, have been 
 produced by admitting of what man calls revealed religion. The Mythologists pre- 
 tended to more revealed religion than the Christians do. They had their oracles 
 and their priests, who were supposed to seceive and deliver the word of God ver- 
 bally, on almost all occasions. 
 
 '* Since then all corruptions drawn from Moloch to modern predestinarianism, and 
 the human sacrifices of the heathens to the Christian sacrifice of the Creator, have 
 been produced by admitting of what is called repealed religion, the most effectual 
 means to prevent all such evils and impositions is, not to admit of any other reve- 
 -lation than that which is manifested in the book of creation, and to contemplate 
 the creation as the only true and real word of God that ever did, or ever will 
 exist; and that every thing else, called the -word of God, is fable and imposition." 
 
 0, 
 
66 
 
 " IIavti% tluis sliewn from the iht«*-nal evi<]enre of lliiiigSi' fiie 
 cause that proiliiced a change in the state of learning, an<i tlie 
 motive for substituting the study of the dead languages in the 
 place of the sciences, 1 proceed, in addition to the several observa- 
 tions already made in the former part of this worki to compare or 
 rather to confront the evidence tliat the structure of the universe 
 affords, witli tlie Christian system of religion ; but, as I cannot be- 
 gin this part betteiv than by referring to the ideas that occurred to 
 nie at an early part of life, and which I doubt not haveorcnrred 
 in some degree to almost every other person at one time or other, I 
 shall state what those ideas were, and add thereto such other mat- 
 ter as shall arise out of the subjtct, giving to the whole, by vay of 
 preface, a short introduction. 
 
 " My father- being of the Quaker profession, it was my good: 
 fortune to have an exceeding good moral education, and a tolerable 
 stock of useful learning. Though I went to the gvanimar school, 
 1 did not learn Latin, not oivly because 1 had no inclination to 
 ~ learn languages, but because of the objection the Quakers have 
 against the books in which the language is taught. But this did 
 not .prevent me from being acquainted with the'subjects^of all the 
 Latin books used in the school. ' 
 
 " The natural bent of my mind -wps to science. L had some 
 turn, and I believe some talent for poetry; but this 1 rather re- 
 pressed than encouraged, as leading too much - into the field of 
 iniagination. As soon'as I was able,' I purchased a pair of globes, 
 and attended the philosophical lectures of Marthi and Ferguson, 
 and became afterwards acquainted with Dr. Bevis, of the 'society 
 called the Royal Society, then living in the Temple, and an excel- 
 lent astronomer. J 
 
 " 1 had no disposition for what is called politics. It presented 
 to my mind no other idea than is contained in the word Jockeyship. 
 When, therefore, I turned my thougiits towards matters of gbvern- 
 fiient, 1 had to iorm a system tor myself, that accorded with the 
 moral and philosophic principles in which 1 had been educated. I 
 saw, or at least 1 thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the 
 world in the affairs of America ; and it appeared to me, that un- 
 less the Americans changed the pl^n'thiey we-retben pursuing, with 
 respect to the gpvernjnent of England, and declared themselves in- 
 dependent, they would jiot only involve tln'mselves in a multipli- 
 city of new difficulties, but shutout the prospect that was' then 
 offering itself to mankind through their ineans. It was from these 
 motives that I published the work' known by the name of " Com- 
 mon Sense," which is the fifst work I ever did publish ; and so far 
 as I can judge of myself, I believe 1 never should have (been 
 known in the world as an author, ori any subject whatever, had it 
 not been for the affairs of America.^ I wrote " Cdramon Sense" 
 the latter end of the year. 1775, and published it the Ist of 
 . Janua,ry, 1770. Independence was declared the 4th- of July 
 following. 
 
67 
 
 " Any person, who has made observations on the frtate and pro- 
 gress of the human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have 
 observed, that there are two distinct classes of what are called 
 Thoughts ; those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and 
 the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own 
 accord. ][,have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary 
 visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, 
 if they were worth entertaining ; and it is from them I have ac- 
 quired almost all the knowledge that I have. As to the learning 
 that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a 
 small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for 
 himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own 
 teacher, the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinbt 
 quality to ciicumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; 
 their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are 
 never so lasting as when they begin by conception. Thus much 
 for the introductory part. . 
 
 " From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting 
 upon it by reflection, I eith'^T doubted the truth of the Christian 
 system, or thought it to be a strange affair; 1 scarcely knew which 
 it was : but 1 well remember, when about seven or eight years of 
 , age, hearinga sermon j;edd by a relation of mine, who was a great 
 devotee of the church, upon the subject of what is called redemp- 
 tion by the death of the Son of God. After the sermoa was ended, 
 I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps 
 (for I perfectly recollectthe spot) I revolted at the recollection of 
 what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God 
 Al might}- act like a passionate man that killed his son, when he 
 could not revenge himself any other way ; and as I was sure a 
 man would be hanged, that did such a thing, I could not see for 
 what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of 
 those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of childish levity ; 
 it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea i had, that 
 God was too good to do such an action; and also too almighty to 
 be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner 
 to this moment ; and! moreover believe, that any system of religion, 
 that has any thing in, it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot 
 be a true system.. 
 
 " It seems as if parents of the Christian .profession were ashamed 
 tq tell their ichild»ftn any thing about the principles of their reli- 
 gion, They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them 
 of the goodness of what they call Providence ; for the Christian 
 mythology has five deities— rthere is pod the Father, God the Son, 
 God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess 
 Nature. But the Christian story of God the Father putting his 
 son to death, or employing people to do it (for that is the plain 
 language of the story) cannot be told by a parent' to a child ; and 
 to tell him that it was done to. make mankind happier and better, 
 is making the story still worse, as if mankiiid could be improved' 
 
68 
 
 by the example of murder and to tell him that all this is a mj's- 
 tery, is only making an exi use for the incredibility of it, . 
 
 "How different is this to the pure and simple profession of 
 Deism ! The true Deist has but one Deity ; and his religion con- 
 sists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity ot the 
 Deity in his works, and in endeavouring to imitate him in every 
 thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical. 
 
 " The religion that appmaches the nearest of all others to true 
 Deism, in the moral and binigu part thereof, is that professed by 
 the Quakers; but they have contracted themselves too much, by 
 leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I reve- 
 rence their philanthropy, 1 cannot help smiling at the conceit, that 
 if the taste of a Quaker could have been consalted at the creation, 
 what a silent and drab-( oloured creation it would have been! 
 Not a flower would have blossomed its gaities, nor a bird been per- 
 mitted to sing. 
 
 " Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. After 
 I had made, myself master of the use of the globes, and the or- 
 ix'ry, and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and the 
 eternal divisibility of matter, and, obtained, at least, a general 
 knowledge of what is called natural philosopy, I began to com- 
 pare, or, as i have before said, to confront the eternal evidence 
 those things afford with the Christian system ef faith. 
 
 " Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system, that 
 this world that we inhabit, is the whole of the habitable creation, 
 yet it is so worked up therewith, from what is called the Mosaic 
 account of the Creation, the story of Eve and the apple, and the 
 counterpart of that story, the death of the Son of God, that to 
 believe otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality 
 of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the 
 Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scat- 
 ters it in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot 
 be held together in the same mind ; and he who thinks that he be- 
 lieves both, has thought but little of either. 
 
 " Though the belief of h plurality of worlds was familiar to the 
 ancients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent 
 and dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained. 
 Several vessels following the tract of the ocean, have sailed entirely 
 round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come round 
 by the contrary side of th« circle to the spot he set out from. The 
 circular dimensions of our world, in the widest part, as a mau 
 would measure the widest round of an apple or a ball, is only 
 twenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning sixty- 
 nine miles and a half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed 
 round in the space of about three years, 
 
 " A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be 
 great ; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which 
 it is Suspended, like a bubble or balloon in the air, it is infinitely 
 less, in proportion, than the smallest grain of sand is to the size' of 
 
69 
 
 tlie world, or the finest particle of dew to the whole oceun, and is 
 therefore but small ; and, as will be hereafter shewn, is only 
 one of a system of worlds, of which the universal creatioh is 
 composed, 
 
 " It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of 
 space in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we 
 follow a progression of ideas. When we think of the size or di- 
 mensions of a room, our ideas limit themselves to the walls, and 
 there they stop ; but when our eye, or our imagination darts into 
 space, that is, when it looks upward into what we call the open 
 air, we cannot conceive any walls or boundaries it can have ; and 
 if, for the sake of resting our ideas, we suppose a boundary, the 
 question iijimediately renews itself, ami asks, what is beyond that 
 boundary ? and, in the same manner, what is beyond the next 
 boundary ? and so on, till the fatigued imagination returns and 
 says, there is no end. Certainlj"-, then, the Creator was not pent 
 for room, when he made this world n<> larger than it is ; and we 
 have to seek the reason in something else. 
 
 " If we take a survey of our own world, or rather of this, of 
 which the Creator has given us the use, as our portion in the im- 
 mense system of Creation, we find every part of it, the earth, the 
 waters, and the air that surrounds it, filled, and, as it weie, crouded 
 with life, down from the largest animals that we know of to 
 the smallest insects the naked eye can behold, and from thence 
 to others still smaller and totally invisible without the assistance of 
 the microscope. Eveiy tree, every j>lant, every leaf, serves not 
 only as an habitation, but as a world tii some numerous race, till 
 animal existence becohies so exceedingly refined, that the effluvia 
 of a blade of grass would be food' for thousands. 
 
 " Since then no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why is it 
 to be supposed that the immensity of space is a naked void, lying 
 in eternal waste? There is room for millions of worlds as large 
 or larger than ours, and each of them millions of milts apart from 
 each other. 
 
 " Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas only 
 one thought further, we shall see, perhaps, the true reason, at 
 least a very good reason, for our happiness: why the Creator, in- 
 s'ead of making one immense world, extending over an immense 
 quantity of space, has preferred dividing that quantity of matter, 
 into several disitintt and separate worlds, which we call planets, of 
 which our earth is one. But before I explain my ideas upon this 
 subject, it is necessary (not for the sake of those that already 
 know, but for those who do not) to shew what the system of the 
 universe is. 
 
 " That part of the universe that is railed the solar system (mean- 
 ing the System of worlds to which oui earth belongs, and of which 
 Sol, or in English language, the Sui , is the centre) cnnsists, be- 
 sides the Sun, of six distinct orb?, or planets, or worlds, besides 
 the secondary bodies, culled the satellites or moons, of which our 
 
70 
 
 earth has one tbatiattends her in her annual revolution round the 
 sun, in like manner as the other satellites or moons attend the pla- 
 nets or worlds to which they severally belong, as may be seen by 
 the assistance of the telescope. 
 
 " The Sun is the centre, round which those six worlds or pla- 
 nets revolve at different distances therefrom, and in circles con- 
 centrate to each other. Each world keeps constantly in licarly the 
 same track round the Sun, and continues at the same time, turn- 
 ing round itself, innearly an upright position, as a top turns round 
 jtself when it is spinning on the ground, and leans a little side- 
 ways. 
 
 «' It is this leaning of the earth {23J degrees) that occasions sum- 
 mer and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If 
 the earth turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane 
 or level of the circle it moves in around the Sun, as a top turns 
 round when it st-inds erect on the ground, ihe days and nights 
 would be always of the same length, twelve hours day and twelve 
 houxs night, and the seasons would be uniformly the same through- 
 out the year. 
 
 " Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns round 
 itself, it makes what we call day and night ; and every time it goes 
 entirely round the Sun, it makes what we call a year, consequently 
 our world turns three hundred and sixty-five times round itself, in 
 going once round the Sun.* 
 
 "The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and which 
 are still called by the same names, are Mercury, Venus, this wo^ld 
 that we call ours, Mars, Jupiter, aud Saturn. They appear larger 
 to the eye than the stars, being many million miles nearer to our 
 earth than any of the stars are. The planet Venus is that which 
 is called the evening stiir, and sometimes the morning star, as she 
 happens to set after, or rise before the Sun, which, in «ther case, 
 is never more than three hours. 
 
 "The Sun, as before said, beingthe centre, the planet, or world, 
 nearest the Sun, is Mercury ; his distance from the Sun is thirty- 
 four miUiou mil^s, and he moves round in a circle always at that 
 distance from the Sun, as a top may be supposed to spin round in 
 the tract in which, a horse goes in a mill. The second wo'»ld is 
 Venus ; she is fifty-seven millian miles distant from the Sun, and 
 consequently moves round in a circle much greater than that of 
 Mercury. The third world is this that we inhabit, and which is 
 jeighty-eight nr\illion miles distant from the Sun, and consequently 
 moves rouud in a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth 
 world is Mars, he is distant from the Sun one hundred and thirty- 
 four million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle 
 greater than that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter, he is distant 
 
 '" " TTiose who supposed that the Sun went round the earth every 24 hours niade 
 tiie same mistake in ,idesa that a cook would do in fact, that should make the fire 
 go round the meat, instead of the meat turning round itself towards the fire." 
 
71 
 
 fmrri the Sun five hundred p,nd fifty-seven raillioii miles, and con- 
 sequently moves louiicl in a circle greater than that of JMars. The 
 sixth world is Saturn, he is dietant from the Sun seven hundred 
 aiid sixty-three inillion miles, and conseqviently moves round in a 
 circle that surrounds the cirflesj or orbits of all the other worlds, 
 or planets, 
 
 ,*' The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space, 
 that our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform 
 their revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a strait line 
 of the whole diameter of the orbit or circle, in which Satu'-n moves 
 roimd the Sup, which being double hiq .distance from the Sun, is 
 fifteen hundred and twenty-six million miles : and its circular ex- 
 'tent is nearly five thousand millipn.; and; i,ts globical content is 
 alrhost three thousand five hundred niillion times three thousand 
 five hundred million squa,re mil^s, ; , . 
 
 " But this, immense as }t is, is only one system of worlds. Be- 
 ypiid this, at ^ vast distance into space, far beyond all povyer of 
 calculation, are the stars called the fi,xed stars. They are called 
 'fixed, because they have no r€yolutioi]ary nfiotion, as, the six wovlds 
 or JDianets have that L hi^ye been describing. Those fixed stars 
 continue always at the same .distance irpax each other, and always 
 in the same place, as theSun dotjs in the centre of our system. 
 Th,e probability, thereforej, is, that each of those fixed stars is also 
 a Sun, round which' another system of worlds or planets, though 
 too remote for us to discover, performs its vevolutions, as our sys- 
 tem- of worlds does round our- central Sun. 
 
 " By this easy progression of ideas, the immensity of space will 
 appear to us to be filled with systems of lyorlds; and that no part 
 o^ space lies at waste, any more than any part of the globe of earth 
 and water is left Imoccupied. 
 
 " Having thus endeavoured to convey^ ,in a fanjiliar and easy 
 manner, some idea qf the.^t/ucture of the universe, I return to ex- 
 plain what I before alluded to, namely, tpe great benefits arising 
 to man in consequence' of. the Creator-having nia.de a. pluraliiy of 
 jvorlds, sucTi as our system is, consisting of a central Sun and six 
 worlds, besides satellites, in preference to that of creating one world 
 only of a vast extent. 
 
 "It is an idea 1 have never Ipst sight of, that all our knowledge 
 of science is derived from the leyplutinns (exhibited to our eye, 
 and from thence to our understanding) which those several planets 
 or worlds, of which our system is composed, make in their cireuit 
 round the Siin, 
 
 "Had then the quantity of matter vyhich these six worlds contain 
 been blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us would 
 have been, that either no revolutionary motion would have existed, 
 or not a sufficiency of itto give us the idea and the knowledoe of 
 science we now baye ; and it is from the sciences that all the me- 
 chanical arts that contribute so much to our earthly felicity uud 
 comfort, are derived. 
 
72 
 
 " As, therefore, the Creator made nothing in vain, so also must 
 it be believed that he organized the structure of the universe in 
 the most advantageous manner for the benefit of man ; and a» we 
 see, and from experience feel, the benefits vce derive from the 
 structure of the universe, formed as it is, which benefits we should 
 not have had the opportunity of enjoying, if the structure, so far 
 as relates to our system, had been a solitary globe — we can disco- 
 ver at least one reason why a ;>/Hra/e7y of worlds has been made, 
 and that reason calls forth the devotional gratitude of man, as well 
 as his admiration. 
 
 " But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, oidy, that 
 benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The inha- 
 bitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composed, 
 enjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do. They be- 
 hold the revolutionary- motions of our earth, as we behold theirs. 
 All the planets revojve in sight of each other ; and, therefore, the 
 same universal school of science presents itself to all. 
 
 " Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of worlds 
 next to us exhibits, in its revolutions, the same principles and 
 school of science, to the inhabitants of their system, as our system 
 does to us, and in like manner throughout the immensity of space, 
 
 " Our ideas, not only of the almiglitiness of the Creator, but of 
 his wisdom and his beneficencfe, become enlarged in proportion as 
 we contemplate the extent and the struclui-e of the universe. The 
 solitary idea of a solitary world, rolling or at rest in the immense 
 ocean of space, giv'es place to' the cheerful idea, of a society of 
 worlds, so happily contrived as to administer, even by their riio- 
 tion, instruction to man. We see our own earth filled with abun- 
 dance ; but we forget to consider how much of that abundance 
 is owing to the scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the 
 universe has unfolded. 
 
 " But, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to think of 
 the Christian system of faith, that forms itself upon theideaof only 
 one world, and that of no greater extent, as is before shewn, than 
 twentj'-five thousand miles i An extent which a man, walking at 
 the rate of three miles an hour, for twelve hours in the day, could 
 he keep on in a circular direction, would walk entirely round in 
 less than two years. Alas ! what is this to the mighty ocean of 
 space, and the almighty power of the Creator ! ' • 
 
 " From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit, 
 that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent 
 on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to 
 to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman 
 had eaten an apple ! And, on the other hand, are we to suppose 
 that every world in the boundless creation, had an Eve, an apple, a 
 serpent, and a redeemer ? In this case, the person who is irreverentl}' 
 called the Sen of God, and sometimes God himself, would have no- 
 thing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless 
 succossiou of death, with scarcely a momentary interval of life. 
 
73 
 
 " It has been by rejecting the evidence, that the word or works 
 of God in the Creation affords to our senses, and the action of our 
 reason upon that evidence, that so many wild and whimsical sys- 
 tems of faith, and of religion, have been fabricated and set up. 
 There may be many systems of religion, that so far from being mo- 
 rally bad, are in many respects morally good : but there can be 
 but ONE that is true; and that one necessarily must, as it ever 
 will, be in all things consistent with the ever-existing word of 
 God that we behold in his works. But such is the strange con- 
 strnclion of the Christian system of faith, that every evidence the 
 Heavens afford to man, either directly contradicts it, or renders it 
 absurd. 
 
 " It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in encou- 
 raging myself to believe it, that there have been men in the world 
 who persuade themselves that, what, is called a pious fraud, might, 
 at least under particular circumstances, be productive of some 
 good. But the fraud being once established, could not afterwards 
 be explained: for it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, it 
 begets a calamitous necessity of going on. 
 
 ," The persons who first preached the Christian system of faith, 
 and in some measure combined it with the morality preached by 
 Jesus Clirist, might persuade themselves that it was btter than the 
 heatljen mythology th^t then prevailed. From the first preachers 
 the fraud went on to the second, .and to the third, till the idea of 
 its being a pious fraud becanje lost in the belief of its being true ; 
 and that belief became again encouraged by the interest of those 
 who made a livelihood by preaching it. 
 
 " But though sucli a belief might,'by such means, be rendered 
 almost general among the laijty, it is next to impossible to account 
 for the continual persecution carried on by' the church, for -several 
 hundred years, against the sciences, and against the professors of 
 sciences, if the church had not some recorder some tradition, that 
 it was originally no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee, 
 that it could not be maintained against the evidence that the struc- 
 ture of the universe afforded. 
 
 " Having thus shewn the irreconpileable inconsistencips between 
 the real word of God existing in the universe and that which is 
 called the word of God, as«hewn to us in a printed book that any 
 man might make, 1 proceed to speak of the three principal means 
 that have been employed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries, 
 to impose upon mankind. , 
 
 " Those. three means are Mystery,. Miracle, and Prophesy.. The" 
 two first are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought 
 always to Ipp suspected. 
 
 "With respect to mystery every thing we behold is, in one sense, 
 a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery; the whole vege- 
 table world is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that an 
 acorn, when put into the ground, is made to deyelope itself, and 
 become an oak. We know not how it is that the seed we sow un- 
 
74 
 
 folds and itivvltiplies itself, and returns to us such ah abundant in- 
 terest for so small a capital. 
 
 "The fact, however- as distinct fi-om the operating cause, is not a 
 myslevy, because we see it ; and we know also the means we are to 
 use, which is rio other than putting' the seed in the ground. We 
 know, therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know ; and that 
 part of the operation that we do not know, and which if we did we 
 Oould not pevf6riii, the Creator takes upon himself and perfoi-ms it 
 for us. We are, therefore, better off than if we had been let into 
 the secret, and left to do it for ourselves, 
 
 " But though every created thing isi in this sense, a mystery, the 
 word mystery caiinol be a|)plied to moral tnith, any more than ob- 
 scurity can be applied to light. The God in whom we believfe is a 
 God of moral truth, and not a God of mystery or obscurity. Mys- 
 tery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention, 
 that obscure&'truth, and represents it in "distortion. Truth never 
 envelopes itself in mystery ; and the mystery ia which it is. at any 
 time enveloped is the'work of its antagcJh'ist, andnever of itself. 
 
 " Religion, therefore, being the bdief of a Gbd, and the practice 
 of moral truth, cannot have connection vVitH lnyster5^ The bejief 
 of a God, so far from having any thing of mystery in it, iS of all 
 beliefs the most ea^', because it arises to us, as is before observed, 
 out of necessity. And the practices of moral truth, or, in other 
 words, a practical imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no 
 other than our acting towards each other as he acts benignly to- 
 wards all. We cannot serve God in the manner we serve those who 
 cannot do without such service ; and therefore the only idea we can 
 have of serving God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the 
 living creation- that God has made. This cannot be done by retir- 
 ing Ourselves from the society of the world, and spending a reclus'e 
 life in selfish devotion. '- ■ 
 
 "The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express it, 
 prove, even to demonstration, that it must be free from every thing 
 of mystery, and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterioitis. 
 Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent upon every living 
 soul alike, and, therefore, miist be on a level to the understanding 
 and comprehension of all. Man does not learn religiori as he f earns 
 the secrets and mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory of reli- 
 gion by reflection. It arisen out of the action .of his own mind upon 
 the things which he sees. Or npo'n ' what he niajr happen to hear oi^ to 
 read, and the practice joins itself thereto. 
 
 " When mew, whether from policy or pious fraud, set up systems 
 of religion incompatible with the wordor works of God in the crea- 
 tion, and not only above, but repugnant to human comprehension, 
 they were under the necessity of inventing or adopting a word 
 that should serve as a bar to all questions, inquiries, and specula- 
 tions. The word mystery answered this purpose ; and thus it has 
 happened that religion, which in itself is without mystery, has 
 been corrupted into a fog of mysteries. 
 
75 
 
 " As mystefi/ answered all' geherar purJDoses, ?)i?rac/e followed 
 as an occasional auxiliary. The former served' to beivilde'r the 
 mind, the latter to, puzzle the senses'. The one was the lingo, the 
 other the legerdemain. 
 
 '< But before going further into this subject, it wilt be proper 
 to inquire what is to be understood by a miracle. 
 
 " In the same sense that every thing may be said to be a inj-is- 
 tery, so also may it be said that feveiy thing is a miracle, dtid that 
 no one thing is a greater miracle than another. The elephant, 
 though largeif, is not a greater miracle than a mite : nor a moun- 
 tain a greater miraclie than an atom., To an Almighty po^Yer, it 
 is no more difficult to make the one than the other ; and no more 
 difficult to make a million of, worlds than to make one. Every 
 thing, therefore, is a,miracle, in one sense, whilst in the other sense, 
 there is no such thing as a miracle. It is a miracle when compared 
 to, our power, and to our comprehension ; it is not a miracle com- 
 pared to the power that performs it ; but as nothing in this descrip- 
 tion conveys the idea that is affixed to the word miracle, it is ne- 
 cessary to carry the inquiry further. 
 
 " Mankind have, conceived to themselves certain laws, by which 
 what they call naitiure is supposed' to a'ct;' and that a miracle is 
 something contrary fa the opeiation and efTect of those laws ; but 
 unless we know the whole extent of those laws', and' of what are 
 commonly called the powers of nature, we are not able to judge 
 whether any thing that may appear to us wciticlerful or miraculous, 
 be within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her natural power of 
 acting. 
 
 " The ascension of a man several miles high Injo the air, would 
 have every thing in it that constitutes the idea of a miracle, if it 
 weie not known that a species of air can be generated several 
 times lighter than the common latmbspheric air, and yet possess 
 elasticity enough to prevent the balloon, in which that light air is 
 inclosed, from being compressed irtt'o as many times less bulk, by 
 the common air that surrounds it. In like manner, extracting 
 flames or sparks of fire from the human body, as visible as from a 
 steel struck with a flint, and causing iron or steel to nrtove without 
 any visible agent, would also give the idea of a miracle, if we, were 
 not acquainted with electricity and inagnetism ; so also would 
 many other- experiments in natural philosophy, to those who are 
 not acquainted with tlie subject. The ' restoring persons to life, 
 who are to appearance dead, as is practised upon drowning persons, 
 would also be a miracle, if it were hot known that animation is ca- 
 pable of being suspended without being extinct. 
 
 " B.esides these, there are performances by slight of hand, and 
 Tjy' persons acting in concert, that have a miraculous appearance, 
 which when known, are thought nothing of. And, besides these, 
 there are mechanical and optical deceptigjjs. There is now an ex- 
 hibition in Paris of ghosts or spectres, Vhich, though it is not 
 imposed upon the spectators, as a fact, has an astonishing appear- 
 
76 
 
 ance. As, therefora, we know not the extent to which eithei- na- 
 ture or aft can go, there is no positive criterion to determine what 
 a. miracle is; and mankind, in giving credit to appearances, under 
 the idea of their being miracles, are subject to be continually im- 
 posed upon. 
 
 " Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things 
 not real have a strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can 
 be more inconsistent than to suppose that the Almighty would 
 make use of means, such as are called miracles, that would subject 
 the person who performed them to the suspicion of being an im- 
 postor, and the person who related them to be suspected of lying, 
 and the doctrine intended to be supported thereby to be suspected 
 as a fabulous invention. 
 
 " Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to obtain 
 belief to any system or opinion to which the name of religion has 
 been given, that of miracle, however successful the imposition may 
 have been, is the most inconsistent. For, in the first place, when- 
 ever recourse is had to show, for the purpose of procuring that 
 belief, (for a miracle, under any idea of the word, is a show) it im- 
 plies a lameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached. And, 
 in the second place, it is degrading ;the Almighty into the charac- 
 ter of a show-man, playing tricks to amuse and make the people 
 stare and «onder. It is also the most equivocal sort of evidence 
 that can be set up ; for the belief is not to depend upon the thing 
 called a miracle, but upon the credit of the reporter, who says that 
 he saw it ; and, therefore, the thing, were it true, would have no 
 better chance of being believed than if it were a lie. 
 
 " Suppose I were to say, that when I sat down to write this book 
 a hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen and wrote every 
 word that is herein written : would any body believe me ? Certainly 
 they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more if the 
 thing had been a fact? Certainly they would not. Since then a 
 real miracle, were it to happen, would be subject to the same fate 
 as the falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater, of suppo- 
 sing the Almighty would make use of means that would not an- 
 swer the purpose for which they were intended, even if they were 
 real. 
 
 " If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out 
 of the course of what is called nature, that she must go out of that 
 course to accomplish it, and we see an account given of such mi- 
 racle by the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the 
 mind very easily decided, which is, is it more probable that nature 
 should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie ? We 
 have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we 
 have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in 
 the same time ; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the re- 
 porter of a miracle tells a lie. 
 
 " But supposing that Jonah hail really swallowed the whale, and 
 had gone with it in his belly to Nineveh, and to convince the peo- 
 
77 
 
 pie that it was true, have caBt it up in their sight, of the full length 
 and size of a whale, would they not have believed him to have been 
 the devil, instead of a prophet? Or, if the whale had carried Jonah 
 to Nineveh, and cast him up in the same public manner, would they 
 not have believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one 
 of his imps ? 
 
 " The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related 
 in the New Testament, is that of the devil flying away with Jesus 
 Christ, and carrying him to the top of a high mountain ; and to 
 the top of the highest pinnacle of the temple, and shewing him 
 and promising to him alt fhe kingdoms of the world. How hap- 
 pened it that he did not discover America ; or is it only with king- 
 doms that his sooty highness has any interest ? 
 
 " I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ, to 
 believe that he told this whale of a miracle himself; i>either is it easy 
 to account for what purpose it could have been fabricated, unless 
 it were to impose upon the connoisseurs of miracles,' as is some- 
 times practised upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthings, 
 and collectors of relics and antiquities ; or to render the belief of 
 miracles ridiculous, by outdoing miracle, as Don Quixote outdid 
 chivalry ; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by making it 
 doubtful by what power, whether of God or of the Devil, any thing 
 called a miracle was perfojrmed. It requires, however, a great deal 
 of faith iti the devil to believe this miracle. 
 
 " In every point of view in which those things called miracles can 
 be placed and considered, the reality, of them is improbable, and 
 their-existence unnecessary. They would not, as before observed, 
 answer amy useful purpose, even if they were true ; for it is more 
 difficult to obtain belief to a miracle, than to a principle evidently 
 moral, wjthout any miracle. Moral principle speaks universally 
 for itself. Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen 
 but by a few ; after this it requires a transfer of faith from God to 
 man, to believe a miracle upon man's report. . Instead therefore of 
 admitting the recitals of miracles as evidence of any sj-stem of reli- 
 gion being true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its 
 being fabulous. It is necessary to the full and upright character 
 of truth, that it rejects the crutch ; and it is consistent with the 
 character of fable, to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much 
 for mystery and miracle. 
 
 " As mystery and miracle took charge of the past and the present, 
 prophesy took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of faith. 
 It was not sufficient to know what had been done, but what would 
 be done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian of 
 times to come ; and if he happened, in shooting with a long bow of 
 a thousand years, to strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the 
 ingenviity of posterity could make it point-blank ; and if he hap- 
 pened to be dire'ctly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of 
 Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented himself and changed 
 his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make of man ! 
 
78 
 
 "It bds beenshewn, in a former part of tliis work, that the original 
 meaning of the words ■prophet and prophesying h&i been changed, 
 and that a prophet, in the senseof the word as now used, is a crea- 
 ture of modern invention ; and it is owing to this change in the 
 meaning of the words, that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish, 
 poets and plirases, and expressions now rendered obscure, by our 
 liot being acquainted with the local circumstances to which they 
 applied^ at the time they were used, have been elected into prophe- 
 cies, and made to bend to explanations, and the will and whimsi- 
 cal conceits of sectaries, expounders, and commentators. Every 
 thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every thing insignificant 
 was typical. A blunder would have served for a prophecy ; and a 
 dish-clout for a type. 
 
 " If by a prophet we are to suppose a man, to whom the Almighty 
 communicated some event that would take place in future, either 
 there weresuch men, or there were Jiot. If there were, it is con- 
 sistent to believe that the event, so communicated, would be told 
 ia terms that could be understood; and not related in such a loose 
 and obscure manner as to be out of the comprehension of those that 
 heard it, and so eqiiivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that 
 might happen afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently of 
 the Almighty, to suppose' he would deal in this jesting manner 
 with mankind; yet all the things called prophecies ia the book 
 called the Bible, come under this description. 
 
 " But it is with prophecy as it is with miracle; it could not answer 
 the purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy should 
 be told, could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied, or whe- 
 ther it had been revealed to bim, or whether he conceited it; and 
 if the thing that he prophesied, or intended to prophecy, should 
 happen, or something like it, among the multitude of things that 
 ai'e daily happening, nobody could again know whether he fore- 
 knew it, or guessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A prophet 
 therefore is a character useless and unnecessaiy ; and the safe side 
 of the case is, to guard against being imposed upon by not giving 
 credit to such relations. 
 
 " Upon the whole, mystery, miracle, and prophecy, are appenda- 
 ges that belong to fabulous and not to true "religion. They are 
 _ the means by which so maeiy Lo heres ! and io theres ! have been 
 spread about the world, and religion been made into a trade. The 
 success of one impostor gave encouragement to another, and the 
 quieting salvo of doing some good by keeping up a pi-ms fraud, 
 protected them from remorse. 
 
 " Having now extended the subject to a greater length than I fii-st 
 intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary from 
 the whole. ^ 
 
 " First- — That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in print, 
 or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for reasons al- 
 ready assigned. These reasons, among many others, are the want 
 of an universal language; the mutability of language; the errors 
 
79 
 
 to which transUuioiisave Subject; the pbfesibi'lity of totally suppres- 
 sing such a word; the probability of dltc^iing it, or of fabricating 
 tlic wliole, and imposing it upoft the world. 
 
 " Secondly — That the Creation we behold is tliereal and ever ex- 
 isting word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. It proclaims 
 his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness 
 and beneficence. 
 
 " Thirdly — That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the 
 moi-al goodness and beneticence of God manifested in the Creation 
 towards all his creatures. That seeing as we daily do the good- 
 ness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to 
 practise the same towards each other ; and consequeiltly that every 
 thing of persecution and revenge between man and man, and every 
 thing of cruelty to animals, is-a violation of moral duty. 
 
 " I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I 
 content myself with believing, even tn positive Conviction, that the 
 power that gave me existence is able' to continue it, in any form 
 and manner he pleases, either with or without this body ; and it 
 appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist here- 
 after, than that I sh'oiild have had existence, as I now have, before 
 that existence began; 
 
 " It is certain that, in on^ point, all nations of the earth and all 
 religions agree ; all believe in a God ; the things in which they dis- 
 ikgree, are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and, therefore, 
 if ever an universal religion should prevail; it will riot be believing 
 any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as 
 man believed at first. Adarri, if evfei" there VaS such a man, was 
 created a Deist ; but in the nieaii titrie, let every man follow, as he 
 has a right to do, the religion and the worship he prefers." 
 
 This, Gentlemen, finishes the first part of the Age of 
 Reason, and I now ask you, or rather I leave you to judge 
 for yourselves, whether there is to be found in it ^ single 
 sentence hostile to the cause of justice, or morality, or tend- 
 ing to demoralize the mind of man ? No, Gentlemen, it does 
 not, but on the contrary it contains a finer system of ethics,. 
 and is more calculated to improve and exalt the human facul- 
 ties, than any thing which can be congregated, or fftrmed 
 froiri that Book which ifr so ably investigates'. Two extracts 
 only have been made frOm all that I haVi^. just read, and 
 inserted in the Indictnieilt which my persecutors h'ave so 
 zealously pUt together for the'purpbse of overwhelming me 
 —and these two passages I have already iioticed. I shall 
 iiow, Gentlemen, proceed to read theSecQn,d Part of Paine's 
 Age of Reason, being the continuation of an investigation 
 of True and Fabulous Theology. 
 
 "I HAVE mentioned in the former part of The Jige of Reason, 
 
80 
 
 that it had long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon 
 religion ; but that I had originally reserved it to a later period in 
 life, intending it to be the last work I should undertake. The cir- 
 cumstances, however, which existed in France in the latter end of 
 the year 1793, determined me to delay it no longer. The just and 
 humane principles of the revolution, which philosophy had first 
 diffused, had been departed from. The idfea, always dangeroiis to 
 society as it is derogatory to the Almighty, that priests could for- 
 give sins, though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted the 
 feelings of humanity, and callously prepared men for the com- 
 mission of all manner of crimes. The intoler;mt spirit of church 
 persecutions had transferred itself into politics ; the tribunal, styled 
 revolutionary, supplied the place of an inquisition ; and the guil- 
 lotine and the stake out-did the fire and faggot of the church. I 
 saw many of my most intimate friends destroyed ; olhers daily car- 
 ried to prison ; and I had reasou to believe, and had also intima- 
 tions given me, that the same danger was approaching myself. 
 
 " Under these disadvantages, 1 began the former part of the Age 
 of Reason ; I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament to refer 
 to, though I was writing against both; nor could I procure any; 
 notwithstanding which, I have produced a work that no Bible be- 
 liever, though writing at his ease, and with a library of church 
 books about him, can refute. Towards the latter end of December 
 of that year, a motion was made and carried, to exclude foreign- 
 ers from the Conventioo. , There were but two in it, Anacharsis 
 Cloots and myself; and I saw, I was particularly pointed at by 
 Bourdon de I'Oise, in his speech on that motion. 
 
 "Conceivings after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, 
 I sat down and brought the work to a close as speedily as possible 
 and I had not finished it more than six hours, in the state it has 
 since appeared, before a guard came there about three in the morn- 
 ing, with an order signed by the two committees of public safety and 
 surety-general, for putting me in arrestation as a foreigner, and 
 conveyed me to the prison of the Luxembourg. 1 contrived, in 
 my way there, to call on Joel Barlow, and 1 put the manuscript of 
 the work into his hands, as more safe than in my possession in pri- 
 son ; and not knowing what might be the fate in glance, either of 
 the writer or the work, I addressed it to the protection of the citi- 
 zens of the United States. 
 
 " It is with justice that I say, that the guard who executed this 
 order, and the interpreter of the Committee of General Surety, 
 who accompanied them to examine my papers, treated me not^nly 
 with civility, but with respect. The keeper of the Luxembourg, 
 Bennoit, a man of a good heart, shewed to me every fiiendship in 
 his power, ^as did also all his family, while he continued in that 
 station. He was removed from it, put into arrestation, and car- 
 ried before the tribunal upon a malignant accusation, but ac- 
 quitted. 
 
 " After I had been in the Luxembourg about three weeks, the 
 
81 
 
 AraeikiiiTS, then in Paris, went in a body to the couvonlion, to 
 reclaim ine as their countryman and friend ; twit wt*re answered by 
 the President, Vadier, ■vrho was also President of the Committee of 
 Surety-General, and had signed the order for my arrestaiion, that 
 1 was born in England, I heard no more after this, irom any per- 
 son out of the walls of the prison, till the fall of Robespierre, on 
 the 9th of Thermidor— July 27, 1794. 
 
 " About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever, 
 that iii^ its progress had, every symptom of becoming oiortal, and 
 from the effects of which I am not recovered. It was then that I 
 remembered with renewed satisfaction, and congratulated myself 
 most sincerely, on having written the former part of " The Age of 
 Reason." I had then but little expectation of surviving, and those 
 {ibout me had less. I know, therefore, by experience, the con- 
 scientious trial of my own principles." 
 
 This is a flat contradiction to the allusion of Mr. Attor- 
 ney-General as to Mr. Paine's death. But the best authori- 
 ties deny the circumstances, in which that Learned Gentle- 
 man, -together with many others, not better Informed, state 
 him to have died. To discolour and misrepresent seems 
 to have been the object of these tpersons ; but they cailnot 
 still alter facts, or divert inquiry into the only channels they 
 may wish themselves. 
 
 " I was then with three chamber comrades, Joseph Vanhuel«, of 
 Bruges, Charles Bastini, and Michael P-obyns, of Louvain. The 
 unceasing' and anxious attention of these three friends to me, by 
 night and by day, I remember with gratitude, and mention with 
 pleasure. It happened that a physician (Dr. Graham) and a sur- 
 geon (Mr. Bond), part of the suite of General O'Hara, were then 
 m the Luxembourg. I ask not- myself, whether it be convenient 
 to them, as men under the English Government, that I express to 
 them my thanks ; but I should reproach myself if I did not ; and 
 also to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr. Markoski. 
 
 " I have some reasonto believe, because I cannot discover any 
 other cause, that this illness preserved me in existence. Among 
 the papers of Robespierre that wer6 examined and reported upon 
 to the Convention, by a Committee of Deputies, is a note in the 
 hand-writing of Robespierre, in the following words : 
 
 " Demand that Thomas Paine be decreed of accusation, for the 
 interest of America as well as of France." 
 
 " From what cause it was that the intention was not put in exe- 
 cution, I know not, and cannot inform myself; and therefore I as- 
 scribe it to impossibility,' on account of that illness. 
 . " The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power the 
 injustice I had sustained, invited me publicly and unaniroo^sly to 
 7. 
 
82 
 
 return into the Convention, and which I accepted, to shew I Gouhi 
 bear an injury without permitting it toinjure mj' principles, or my 
 disposition. It is not because right principles have been violated, 
 that they are to be abandoned. . . i 
 
 " I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publications 
 written, some in America, and gome in Enirlaud, as answers to the 
 former part of " The, Age of Reason." If the authors of these 
 can amuse themselves by so doing, I shall not interru'pt them, 
 ■^'hey may write against the work, and against me, as much as they 
 please; they do me more service than they intend, and I can have 
 no objection that they write on. They will find, however, by this 
 Second Part, without its being written as an answer to them, that 
 they must return to their work, and spin their cobweb over again> 
 The first is brushed away by accident. 
 
 " They will now find that I have furnished myself with a Bible 
 and Testament , and I can say also, that 1 have found them to be 
 much worse books than I had conceived. If I have erred in any 
 thing, in the' former part of the Age of Reason, it has been by 
 speaking better of some parts of those books than they deserved. 
 
 " I observe, that all my opponents resort, more or less, to what 
 they call Scripture Evidence and Bible Authority, to help them out. 
 They are' so little masters of the subject, as to confound a dispute 
 aboilt authenticity with a dispute about doctrines ; I will, however,, 
 put them right, that if they should be disposed to write any more, 
 they may know how to begin. 
 
 " THOMAS PAINE." 
 
 " It has often been said, that any thing may be proved from the 
 Bible, but before any thing can be admitted as proved by the 
 Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true ; for if the Bible 
 t»e not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have autho- 
 rity, and cannot be admitted as proof of any thing. 
 
 " It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the 
 Bible, and of all Christian prieists and preachers, to impose the 
 Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ;, 
 tliey have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each 
 other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and pas- 
 sages therein ; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant 
 such a thing ; another that it meant directly the contrary ; and 
 a third, that it mcimt neither one nor the other, but something 
 different from both ; and this they call understanding the Bible. 
 
 " It has happened, that all the answers which I have seen to the 
 former part of the .(4g'e o/"/?easo» have been written by priests; 
 and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, 
 and pretend to understand the Bible ; each understands it difFe- 
 I'Witly, but each understands it best ; and they have agreed in no- 
 thing, but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands 
 it not. 
 
 " Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in 
 
83 
 
 fractious disputations about doctrinal pwnts drawn from the Bible, 
 these men ought to know, and if they do not, it is civihty to inform 
 them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is suf- 
 ficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God, or 
 whether there is not. 
 
 " There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express 
 command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every 
 idea we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre, by 
 Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in 
 the East Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When 
 we read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c. that they (the 
 Israelites) came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as 
 the history itself shews, had given them no offence ; that they put 
 all those nations to the sword; that they spared neither age nor 
 infancy ; that they utterly destroyed men, wdmen, and children ; 
 that they left not a soul to breathe ; expressions that are repeated 
 over and over again in those books, and that too with exulting fe- 
 rocity; are we sure these things are facts .'' Are we sure that the 
 Creator of man commissioned these things to be done ? Are we sure 
 that the books that tell us so were written by his authority ? 
 
 " It is nat the antiquity of a tale that is any evidence of its truth ; 
 on the contrary, it is a symptom of its bieing fabulous ; for the 
 more ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resem- 
 blance of a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabu- 
 lous tradition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as 
 any other. To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty, 
 which in their own nature, and by every rule of moral justice^ are 
 crimes, as all assassination is, and more especially the assassination of 
 infants, is matter of serious concern, — " 
 
 Gentlemen, although the last three sentences of the para- 
 graph I have read are also included amongst the offensive 
 passages, declared to be so heinous in the eyes of the Deity, 
 and inserted in the information; yet his Majesty's Attorney- 
 General has thought proper to pass it over without offering 
 to you a single observation. A circumstance which, I have 
 no doubt, will make its due impression, when the period 
 arrives for the delivery of your verdict. 
 
 ■ -^" The Bible tells us, that those 
 
 assassinations were done by the express command of God. To be- 
 lieve, therefore, the Bible to be true, we must unhelieve all bur 
 belief in the moral justice of God ; for wherein could crying or 
 smiting infants offend ? And to read the Bible without horror, we 
 must undo every thing ^hat is tender, sympathising, and benevo- 
 lent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other 
 evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the sacritice I must make 
 to believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine 
 my«hoice. 
 
84 
 
 " But, in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I 
 Will, in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence, as 
 even a priest cannot deny ; and sheiy from that evidence, that the 
 Bible is not entitled to credit, as being the word of God. 
 
 " But, before I proceed to this examination, I will shew.wherein 
 the Bible differs from all other ancient writings with respect to the 
 nature of the evidence necessary to establish its authenticity ; and 
 this is tlie more proper to be done, because the advocates of the 
 Bible, in tlieir answers to the former part of the Age of Reason, 
 undertake to 8ay> and they put some stress thereon,, that tlie au- 
 thenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other 
 ancient book ; as if our belief of the one could become any rule 
 for our belief of the other. 
 
 " I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively 
 challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's Ele- 
 ments of Geometry* ; and the reason is, because it is a book of self- 
 evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and of 
 every thing relating to time, place, and circumstance. The mat- 
 ters contained in that book would have the same authority they 
 now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the 
 work been anonymous, qr had the author never been known ; for 
 the identical certainty of who was the aut!hor, makes no part of our 
 belief of the matters contained in the book. But it is quite other- 
 wise with respect to the books ascribed to Moses, to Joshua, to 
 Samuel, &c. — those are books of testimany, and they testify of 
 things naturally incredible ; and therefore the whole of our belief, 
 as to the authenticity of those books, rests, in the first place, upon 
 the certainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and 
 Samuel ; secondly, upon the credit we give to their testimony. 
 We may believe the first, that is, we may believe th& certainty of 
 the authorship, and yet not 'the testimony; in the same manner 
 that we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a 
 case, and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. .But if it 
 should be found, that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and 
 Sairiuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every 
 part of the authority and authenticity of those books is gone at 
 once ; for there can be no such thiiig as forged or invented testi- 
 mony ; neithei- can there be anonymous testimony, more especially 
 , as to things naturally incredible ; such as that of talking with God 
 face to face, or that of the sun and moon standing still at the com- 
 mand of a man. The greatest part of the .other ancient books are 
 woi-ks of genius ; of which kind, are those ascribed to Homer, to 
 Plato, to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, to Cicero, &c. Here again 
 the author is not an essential in the credit we give to any of thoge 
 works ; foi-, as works of genius, they would have the Same merit 
 
 * " Euclid according'to chronological history, lived three hundred years before 
 Christ, and about one hundred before Aschimedes ; he was of the city of Alexan- 
 dria, in Egypt. . - . 
 
85 
 
 they have now, weie thev anonymous. Nobody belie vch the Tio- 
 jiiu story, as related by Homer, to be true: for it is the poet only 
 that is admired : and the merit of the poet will rerauip, though 
 the story be fabulous. But if we disbelieve the matters related by 
 the Bible authors (Moses, for instance) as we disbelieve the things 
 related hy Homer, there remains nothing of Moses in our estima- 
 tion, but an impostor. As to the ancient historians from Herodo- 
 tus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things probable 
 and credible, and no further ; for if we do, we must believe the 
 two miracles which Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, 
 that of curing a lame man, and a blind man, in just the same 
 manner as the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. 
 We must also believe the miracle cited by Josephus, that of the 
 sea of Paraphilia opening to let Alexander and his army pass, as is 
 related of the Red Sea in Exodus. These miracles are quite as 
 well authenticated as the Bible jniracles, and yet we do not believe 
 them ; consequently the degree of evidence necessary to establish 
 our belief of things naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or 
 elsewhere, is far greater than that which obtains our belief to natu- 
 ral and probable things ; and therefore the advocates for the Bible 
 have no claim to our belief of the Bible, because that we believe 
 things stated in other ancient writings; since we believe the things 
 stated in these writings no farther than they are probable and cre- 
 dible, or because they are self-evident, like Euclid ; or admire 
 them because they aie elegant, like Homer ; or approve them be- 
 cause they are sedate, like Plato ; or judicious, like Aristotle. 
 
 " Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authen- 
 ticity of the Bible, and I begin with what are called the five books 
 of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuterono- 
 my. My intention is to shew tliat those books are spurious, aud 
 that Moses is not the author of them ; and still furthe'r, that they 
 were not written in the time of Mo^es, nor till several hundred 
 years afterwards ; that they are no other than an attempted history 
 of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to have 
 lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very 
 itrnorant and stupid pretenders ti) authorship, several hundred 
 years after the death of Moses, as men now wiile histories of things 
 that happened, or are supposed to have happened, several hundred 
 or several thousand years ago. 
 
 " The evidence that 1 shall produce in this casein from the books 
 themselves; and 1 will confine myself to this evidence only. Were 
 I to refer foi' proofs to any of the ancient authors, whom the ad- 
 vocates of the Bible call profane authors, they would controvert 
 that authority, as I controvert theirs ; I will therefore meet them 
 on their own ground, and oppose them witlj their own weapon, the 
 Bible." 
 
 If any of you, Gentlemen, wish for a Bible, to compare 
 the quotations as I read them from " The Age of Reason," 
 
86 
 
 and see that they are exactly the same, I have twelve in 
 Court for that purpose, which are entirely at your service. 
 
 (The offer not being accepted, Mr. Carlile proceeded to 
 read on.) 
 
 " In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that Moses 
 is the author of those books ; and that he is the author, is altoge- 
 ther an unfounded opinion, got abroad nobodj' knows how. The 
 style and manner in which those books are' written, give no room 
 to believe, or even to suppose, they were written by Moses ; for it 
 is altogether the style and manner of another person speaking of 
 Moses. In Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers (for every thing in 
 Genesis is prior to the time of Moses, and not the least allusion is 
 made to him therein) the whole, I say, of these books is in the 
 third person ; it is always, the Lord said unto Moses, or Moses 
 said unto tlie Lord ; or Moses said unto the people, or the people 
 said unto Moses ; and this is the style and manner that historians 
 use, in speaking of the person whose lives and actions they are 
 writing. It may be said that a man may speak of himself in the 
 third person ; and therefore, it may be supposed that Moses did; 
 but supposition proves nothing ; and if the advocates for the be- 
 lief that Mdses wrote those books himself, have nothing better to 
 advance than supposition, they may as well be silent. 
 
 " But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak 
 of himself in the third person, because any man might speak of 
 himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those 
 books, that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly 
 ridiculous and absurd : — for example. Numbers, chap. xii. ver. 3. 
 " Now, the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which 
 were on the face of the earth." If Moses said this of himself, in- 
 stead of being the meekest of men, he Was one of the mast vain 
 and arrogant of coxcombs ; and the advocates for those books may 
 now take which side they please, for both sides are .against them ; 
 if Moses was not the author, the books are without authority; and 
 if he was the author, the author is without credit, because to boast 
 of meekness, is the reverse of meekness, and is o lie in sentiment. 
 
 " In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks more 
 evidently than in the former books, that Moses is not the writer. 
 The manner here used is dramatical : the writer opens the subject 
 by a short intrc.luctory discourse, and then introduces Moses as in 
 the act of speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his ha- 
 rangue, he (the writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he 
 brings Moses forward again, and at last closes the scene with an 
 account of the death, i'uneralj and cliaracter of Moses. 
 • " This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book : 
 from the first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth 
 yerse, it is the writer who speaks ; he then introduces Moses as in 
 the act of making his harangue, and this continues to the end of 
 the 40th verse of the fourth chapter ; here the writer drops Moses, 
 
87 
 
 and speaks liistoricalLy of what was done in consequence of what 
 Moses, when living, is supposed to have said, and which the writer 
 has dramatically rehearsed. 
 
 " The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of tke 
 fifth chapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called the 
 joeople of Israel together ; he then introduces Moses us before, and 
 continues hira, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 2Gth 
 chapter. He does the same thing at the beginning of the 27th 
 chapter; and continues Moses, as in the act of speaking, to the 
 end. of the 28th chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks 
 again through the whole of the first verse, and the first line of the 
 second verse, where he introduces Moses for the last time, and con- 
 tinues hini, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 33d 
 chapter. 
 
 " The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of 
 Moses, comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last 
 chapter ; he begins' by telling the reader, that Moses went up to 
 the top of Pisgah ; that he saw from thence the land which (the 
 writer says) had been pro'mised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; 
 that he, Moses, died there, in the land of Moab, but thatflo man 
 knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day ; . that is, unto the time in 
 which the writer lived, who wrTvte the book of Deuteronomy. The 
 writei- then tells us, that Moses was 110 years of age when he died 
 — that his eye was not dim, nor his na|;ural force abated; and he 
 concludes by saying, that there arose not a prophet since in Israel 
 likeunto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, the Lord knew 
 face to face. 
 
 ^' Having thus shewn, as far as grammatical evidence applies, 
 that Moses was not the writer of those books, I will, after making a 
 few observations on the inconsistencies of the writer of the book of 
 Deuteronomy, proceed to shew, from the historical and chronoloui- 
 cal evidence contained in those books, that Moses was not, because 
 he could not -be, the writer of them ; and, consequently, that there 
 is no authority for believing, that the inhuman and horiid but- 
 cheries of men, women, and children, told of in those books, were 
 clone, aa those books say they were, at the command of God. it 
 is a duty kicurabent ob every true Deist, that he vindicates- the 
 moral justice of God against the calumnies of the Bible. - 
 
 " The writer of the Book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, 
 (for it is an anonymous work) is obscure, and also in contradiction 
 with himself, in the accoiint he has given of Moses. 
 
 " After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (audit 
 does not appear from any account that he ever cume down again) 
 he tells us, that Moses died there ia the land of Moab, and that 
 he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab ; but as there is Bo 
 antecedent to the pronoun he, there is no knowing who he was that 
 did bury him. If the writer meant that he (God) buried him, 
 how should he_ (the writer) know it? or why ahoidd we (the rea- 
 ders) believe him ? since we know not who the writer was that 
 
88 
 
 tells Hs 80, for certainly Moses could not biiuself tell whcic he was 
 buried. 
 
 " The writer also tells us, that no man fcnoweth where the se- 
 pulchre of Moses rs ?m<o this day, meaning the time in which this 
 writer iired ; how then should he know that Moses was buried in 
 a valley in the land of Moab ? For as the writer lived long after 
 the time of Moses, as is evident from his using the expression of 
 unto this day, meaning a great length of time after the death of 
 Mftses, he certainly was not at his funeral ; and, on the other hand, 
 it is impossible that Moses himself could say, that no man knotceth 
 where the sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the speaker, 
 would be an improvement on the play of a child that hides him- 
 self, and cries nobody can find me ; nobody can find Moses. 
 
 " This writer has no where told us how he came by the speecheh 
 which he hua put into the mouth of Moses to speak, and therefore 
 we have a right to conclude, that he either composed thena him- 
 self, or wrote them from oral tradition. One or other of these 
 is the more probable, since he has given, in the fifth chap- 
 ter, a table of commandments, in which that called the fourth 
 commandment is different from the fourth commandment in 
 the 20th chapter of Exodus. In that of Exodus, the reason given 
 for keeping the seventh day is, " because (says the commandment) 
 God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the 
 seventh ;" but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it 
 was the day, on which the children of Israel came out of Egypt, 
 and, therefore, says this commandment, the Lord thy God comman- 
 ded thee lo keep the sabbath-day. This makes no mention of the 
 creation, nor that of the coming out of Egypt. There are also 
 many things given as laws of Moses in this book, that are not to be 
 found in any of the othfer books ; among which is, that inhuman 
 and brutal law, chap. xxi. ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes 
 parents, the father and the mother, to bring their own children to 
 have them stoned to death, for what it is pleased to call stubbornness. 
 But priests have always been fond of preaching up Deuteronomy, 
 for Deuteronomy preaches up tythes ; and it is from this book, 
 chap. XXV. yer 4, they have taken the phrase, and applied it to 
 tything, that thou shall not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the 
 corn'; and that this might not escape observation, they have noted 
 it in the table of contents at the head of the chapter, though it is 
 only a single verse of less than two lines. O priests ! priests I ye 
 are willing to be compared to an ox, for the sake of tythes. 
 Though it IS impossible for us to know identically who the writer of 
 Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to discover him prnjessionally 
 that he was some Jewish priest, who lived, as I shall shew in the 
 course of this work, at least three hundred and fifty years after the 
 time of Moses. 
 
 " I come now to speak of the historical and chronological evidence. 
 The chronology that I shall use is the Bible chronology ; for I 
 mean not to go out of the Bible for evidence of any thing, but -to 
 
89 
 
 make the B^ble itseif prove Iwsku-ioally and dironoloyically that 
 Moses is not the author of the books aecriljed to him. It is there- 
 fore proper that I inform the reader, {such an one at least as may 
 not liave the opportunity of knowing it) that in the larger Bibles, 
 and also in some_»maller ones, there is a series of chronology printed 
 in the margin of every page, for the purpose of shewing how long 
 the historical matters stated in each page happened, or are suppo- 
 sed to have happened, before Christ, and consequently the dis- 
 tance of time beeween one historical circumstance and another. 
 
 " I begin with the book of Genesis. In the 14th chapter of Ge- 
 nesis, the writer gives an account of Lot being taken prisoner in a 
 battle between the four kings against five, and carried off; and 
 that when the account of Lot being taken came to Abraham, he 
 armed all his househol(J, and marched to rescue Lot from the cap- 
 tors ; and that he pursued them unto Dan, (ver. 14.) 
 
 " To shew in what maimer this expression of pursuing them 
 unto Dan applies to the case in question, I will refer to two cir~ 
 CLimbtmices, the one in America, the other in France. The city 
 now called New York, in America, was originally New Amsterdam; 
 and the town in France, lately called Havre Marat, was before 
 called Havre de Grace. New Amsterdam was changed to New 
 York' in the year 1664; Havre de Grace to Havre Marat in the 
 year 1793. Should, therefore, any writing be found, though with- 
 out date, in which the name of New York should be raenlioned, 
 it would be certain evidence that such a vrriting couid not have 
 been written before, and must have been written after New Am- 
 sterdam was changed to New York, and consequently not till after 
 the year 16G4, or at least during the course of that year. And, in 
 like manner, any dateless writing, with the name of Havre Marat, 
 would be certain evidence that such a writing must have been writ- 
 ten after Havre de Grace became Havre Marat, and consequently 
 not till after the year 1793, or at least during the course of that 
 year. , ' 
 
 " I nosv come to the application of those cases, and to shew that 
 there was no such place as Dan, till piany years after the death of 
 Moses ; and, consequently, that Moses could not ba the writer of 
 the book of Genesis, where this account of pursuing them unto 
 Dan is given. 
 
 " The place that is called Dan in the Bible v^as originally a town 
 of the Gentiles, called Laish ; and when the tribe of Dan seized 
 upon this town, they changed its name to Dan, in commemoration 
 of Dan, who was the father of that tribe, and the great grandson of 
 Abraham. 
 
 " To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis to 
 the 18th chapter of the book called the Book of Judges. It is 
 there said (ver. 27) that they (the Daiiites) came unto Laish to a 
 people that were quiet dnA secure, and they striate them with the 
 edge of the sword {the Bible is filled with murder) and burned the 
 €ity with.fre^ and they built a city, (ver. 28) and dwelt therein 
 
90 
 
 and they called the name of tlie cky Dan, after the name of Dan 
 their father ; howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first. 
 
 " This account of the Datiites taking possession of Laish and 
 changing it to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges immediately 
 after the deati; of Sampson. The death of Sampson is said to have 
 happened 1120 years before Christ, and that of Moses 1451 before 
 Christ ; and therefore, according to the historical arrangement, 
 the place was not called Dan till 331 years after the death of 
 Moses. 
 
 ". There is a striking confusion between the historical and the chro- 
 nological arrangement in the Book of Judges. The five last chap- 
 ters, as they stand in the book, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, are put chro- 
 nologically before all the preceding chapters ; they are made to be 
 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before the 15th, 245 before 
 thelSth, 195 before the 9th, 90 before the 4th, and 15 years be- 
 fore the 1st chapter. This shews the uncertain and fabulous state 
 ef the Bible. According to the chronological arrangement, the 
 taking of Laish, and giving it the name of Dan, is made to be 20 
 years after the death of Joshua, who was the successor of Moses: 
 and by the historical order as it stands in the book, it is made to be 
 306 years after the death of Joshua, and 331 after that of Moses, 
 but they both exclude Moses from being the writer of Genesis, 
 because, according to eithei- of the statements, no such place as 
 Dan existed in the time of Moses ; and therefore the writer of Ge- 
 nesis must have been some person who lived after the town of Laish 
 had the name of Dan ; and who that persoia was, nobody knows ; 
 and consequently the book of Genesis is anonymous and without 
 authority, 
 
 " I proceed now to state another point of historical and chronolo- 
 gical evidence, and to shew therefrom, as in the preceding case, 
 that Moses is not the author of the book of Genesis. 
 
 " In the 36th cha)jter of Genesis there is given a genealogy of 
 the sons and descendants of Esau, who are called Edonoites, and 
 also a list, by name, of the kings of Edom ; in enumerating of 
 which, it is said, ver. 31, ' And these are the kings that reigned 
 in Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of 
 Israel.'' 
 
 " Now, were any dateless writings to be found, in which, speak- 
 ing of any past events, the writer should say, these things happened 
 before there was any Congress in America, or before there was any 
 Ck)nvention in France, ifwould be evidence that such writing could 
 not have been written before, and could only be written after there 
 was a Congress in Ameiica, or a Convention in France, as the case 
 might be ; and consequently that it could not be written by any 
 person who died before there was a Congress in the one country, 
 or a Convention in the other. 
 
 " Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conversation, 
 than to refer to a fact in the room of a date : it is most natui-al so 
 to do : first, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better than a 
 
91 
 
 , date ; secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves to 
 «xcite two ideas at once ; and this manner of speaking by circum- 
 stances implies as positively that the fact alluded tec is past, as if 
 it was so expressed. When a person, speaking upon any matter, 
 says, it was before I was married, or before my sun was born, or 
 before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is abso- 
 lutely understood, and intended to be understood, that he has 
 been in America, or been in France. Language does not admit of 
 using this mode of expression in any other sense; and whenever 
 such an expression is found any where, it can only be understood 
 in the sense in which only it could have been used. 
 
 " The passage, therefore, that I have quoted-^' that these are 
 the kings that reigned in Edom, before there reigned ariy king 
 over the children of Israel,' could only have beertwritten after the 
 first king began to reign over them ; and, consequently, that the 
 book of Genesis, so far from having been written by Moses, could 
 not hav6 been written till the time of Saul at least. This is the 
 positive sense of the passage ; but the expression, any king, im- 
 plies more kings than one, at least it implies two, and this will 
 carry it to the time of David ; and, if taken in a general sense, .it 
 carries itself through all the times of the Jewish Monarchy. 
 
 - " Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that pro- 
 fessed to have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it 
 would have been impossible not to have seen the application of it. 
 It happens then that this is the case ; the two books of Chronicles, 
 which gave a history of all the kings of Israel, are p/rofessedly, as 
 well as in fact, written after the Jewish monarchy began ; and this 
 verse that I have quoted, and all the remaining verses of the 36th 
 cjiapter of Genesis, are, word for word, in the first chapter of Chro- 
 nicles, beginning at the 43d verse. 
 
 " It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles could 
 say, as he has said, 1st Chron. chap. i. ver. 43, These are the kings 
 that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the 
 children of Israel, because he was going 'to give, and has given, 
 a list of the kings that had reigned in Israel ; but as it is impossi- 
 ble that the same expression could have been used before that pe- 
 riod, it is us certain as any thing can be proved from historical lan- 
 guage, that this part of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that 
 Genesis is not so old as Chronicles, and probably not so old as the 
 book of Homer, or as jEsop's Fables, admitting Homer to have beea 
 as the tables of Chronology state, contemporary with David or So- 
 lomon, and ^sop to have lived about the end of the Jewish mo- 
 narchy. 
 
 '• Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the Author, 
 on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, 
 and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of 
 stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of down- 
 right lies. The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his 
 ark, drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of 
 
92 
 
 being enteitaiuing ; and the account of men living to eight or 
 nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the itniuoitality of tlie 
 giants of Mythology. 
 
 " Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is the 
 most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be true, he 
 was the wretch that first begari and carried on wars on the score, or 
 on the pretence of religion ; and under that mask, or that infatua- 
 tion, committed the most unexampled atrocities that are to be 
 found in the history of any nation, of which I will state only one 
 instance. 
 
 " When the Jewish army returned from one of their plundering 
 and murdering excursions, the account goes on as follows, Num- 
 bers, chiip. xxxi. rer- 13. 
 
 " ' And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the 
 congregation, went forth to meet them without tlie camp; and 
 Moses was wrath with the officers of the host, with the captains 
 over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from tlie 
 battle ; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved (ill th« women 
 alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the 
 council of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the mat- 
 ter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the 
 Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among' the liitle ones, and 
 kill every woman that hatii known a man by lying with him ; hut 
 all the women children that have not known a man b^ lying with 
 him', keep alive for yourselves.' 
 
 " Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world 
 have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to fin4 a greater 
 than Moses, if this account be true. Here is nn order to butcher 
 the bo3's, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the daughters. 
 
 " Let any mother put herself in the situation of those motlitrs : 
 one child murdered, another destined to violation, and herself in 
 the h^nds of an executioner : let any daughter put herself in the 
 situation of those daughters, destined as a prey to the murderers 
 of a mother and a brother, and what will be their feelings ? It is 
 in vain that we attempt to impose upon nature, for nature will 
 have her course, and the religion that tortures all her social ties is 
 a false, religion. 
 
 " After this detestable order, follows an account of the plunder 
 taken, and thl; manner of dividing it ; and here it is that the pjo- 
 faneness of priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes. 
 Verse 37, ' And ihe Lord's tribute of the thee-p v,-as six hundred 
 and threescore and fifteen ; and the beeves was thirty and six thou- 
 sand, of which the io>d'* tribute Vins threrscore and twelve; and 
 the asses were thirty thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was 
 threescore and one ; and the persons were thirty thousand, of wl.rch 
 the Lord's tribute was thirty and two.' In short, the matters con- 
 tained in this chapter, as well as in many other parts of the Bible, 
 are too horrid for humanity to read, or for decency to hear ; for 
 it appears, from the 35tli verse of this chapter, that' the number 
 
93 
 
 of vvomen-clilklreii coiisiji;iied to debauchery by the order of Moses 
 -was thirty-two thousand." 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Paine should also have added here, 
 that the priests took for themselves out of the spoils thirty 
 and two. Gentlemen, if I had written or published any 
 thing to equal this in indecency or wickedness, could I ex- 
 pect any favour or indulgence at your hands? I could not, 
 nor have I, or Mr. Paine, through the whole course of his 
 writings, ever attempted to affix such slanders, or such 
 blasphemies, on the Deity ; but on the other hand, we have 
 endeavoured to destroy the belief in such horrid attributes. 
 
 "Peoplein general know not what wickedness there is in this pre- 
 tended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they 
 take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good ; they 
 permit theaiselves not to doubt of it, and they carry the ideas 
 they form of tiie benevolence of the Almighty to the book which 
 they have been taught to believe v/as written by his authority. ■ 
 Good heavens ! it is quite another thing ; it is a book of lies, wick- 
 edness, and blasphemy) for what ran be greater blasphemy, than 
 to ascribe, the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty ? 
 
 " But to return to my subject, that of shewing that Moses is not 
 the author of the books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is 
 spurious. The two instances I have already given would be snffl- 
 ' cient, without any additional evidence, to invalidate the authenti- 
 city of any book that pretended to be four or five hundred years 
 more ancient than the nvatlers it speaks of or refers to as facts ; I'or 
 in the case of pursuing them unto Dan, and of the kings that 
 reigned over the children of Israel, not even the flims)' pretence 
 of prophesy can be pleaded. The expressions are in the pretev 
 tense, and it would be downright idiotism to say that a man could 
 prophesy in the [ireter tense. 
 
 *' But there are many other passages Scattered throughout those 
 books that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in Ex- 
 odus, .(another of the books aseribed to Moses) chap. xvi. verse 
 34, ' And the children of Israel did eat manna until they came 
 to a land inhabited : they did eat manna «?i/j7 </ie(/ came unto the 
 borders of the land of Canaan.' 
 
 "Whetherthechildreuof Israelate manna or not, orwhat manna 
 was, or whether it was any thing more than a kind of fungus or 
 small mushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that 
 part'of the country, makes nothing to my argument; all that I 
 mean to shew is, that it is not Moses that could write this account, 
 because the account extends itself beyoiid the life and time of 
 Moses. Moses', according to the Bible (but it is such a book of lies 
 and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe, or 
 whether any) dies in the wilderness, and never came upon the bor- 
 ders of the land of Canaan ; and consequently it could, not be he 
 
94 
 
 that said what the children flf Israel did, or what they ate when 
 they came there. This account of eating manna, which they tell 
 ws was written by Moses, extends itself to the time of Joshua, the 
 saecesaors of Moses, as appears by the account given in the book 
 of Joshua, after the children of Israel had passed the river Jordan, 
 and came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. Joshua, chap< 
 V. ver. 12. ' And the manna ceased on the morrow, after they had 
 eaten of the old corn of the land; neither' had the ehildren of 
 Israel manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of 
 Canaan that year,' 
 
 " But a more remarkable instance than this occOrs in Deuterp-" 
 Momy ; which, while it shews that Moses could not be the Writer of 
 that book, shews also the fabulous notions that prevailed at that 
 time about giants. In the third chapter of Deuteronomy, among 
 the conquests said to be made by Moses, is an account of the tak- 
 ing of Og, king of Bashan, ver. 11. 'For only Og, king of 
 Bashan, remained of the race of giants ; behold, his bedstead was 
 a bedstead of iron ; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Am-' 
 mon .'' nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the 
 breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.' A cubit is 1 foot 9 
 888-lOOOths inches ; the length, therefore, of the bed was 16 feet 
 4 inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches ; thus much for this 
 giant's bed. Now for the historidal part, which, though the evi- 
 dence is not so direct and positive, as, in the former cases, is never- 
 theless very presumable and corroborating evidence, and is better 
 than the best evidence on the contrary side. 
 
 " The writer, byway of proving the existence of this giant, refers 
 to his bed, as to an ancient re/ic, and says, is it not in Rabbath 
 (or Rabbah) of the children of Ammon } meaning that it is ; for 
 such is frequently the Bible method of affirming a thing. But it 
 could not be Moses that said this, because Moses could know no- 
 thing about Rabbah, nor of what was in it. Rabbah was not a 
 city belonging to this giant king, nor was it one of the cities that 
 Moses took. The knowledge, therefore, that this bed was at Rab- 
 bah, and of the particulars of its dimensions, must be referred to 
 the time when Rabbah was taken, and this was not till four hun- 
 dred years after the death of Moses ; for which, see 2 Sam. chap, 
 xii. ver 26. ' And Joab (David's general) fought against Eahbak 
 of the children of Ammon, and took the royal city.' 
 
 " As I am not undertaking to point out all the' contradictions in 
 time, place, and circumstance, that abound in the books ascribed 
 to Moses, and which prove to a demonstration that those books 
 could not be written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses; I pro- 
 ceed to the book of Joshua, and to shew that Joshua is not the au- 
 thor of that book, and that it is anonymous anil without authority. 
 The evidence I shall produce is contained in the book itself ; I will 
 not go out of the Bible for proof against the supposed authenti- 
 city of the Bible. False testimony is always good against itself. 
 
 " Joshua, according to the first chapter of Joshua, was the imme- 
 
95 
 
 diate successor of Moses ; he was moreover a military man, whicft 
 Moses \vu8 not, and he continued as chief of the people of Israel 
 25 years ; that is, from the time that Moses died, which, according 
 to th€ Bible chronology, was 1451 years before Christ, "lintil 1426 
 years before Christ, when, according to the same chronology, Joshua 
 died. If, therefore, we find in this book, said to have been writtea 
 by Joshua, reference to facts done after the death of Joshua, it is 
 evidence that Joshua could not be the author ; and also that the 
 book could not have been written till after the time of the latest 
 fact which it records. As to the character of the book, it is hor- 
 rid ; it is a military history of rapine and murder, as savage and 
 brutal as those recorded of his predecessor in villainy and hypo- 
 crisy, Moses ; and the blasphemy consists, as in the former books, 
 in ascribing those deeds to the orders of the Almighty. 
 
 " In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the 
 preceding books, is written in the third persoji ; it is the historian 
 of Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vain-glo- 
 rious that Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the 
 last verse of the sixth chapter, that ' his fame was noised through- 
 out all the countri/.' I now come more immediately to the proof, , 
 
 " In the 24th chapter, ver. 31, it is said, ' that Israel served 
 the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that 
 ever-lived Joshua.' Now, in the name of common sense, can it be 
 Joshua that relates what people had done after he was dead } This 
 account must not only have.been written by some historian Ihat 
 lived after ' Joshua, but that lived also after the elders that out- 
 lived Joshua. 
 
 " There are several passages of a general meaning with respect 
 to time, scattered throughout the book of Joshua, that carries the 
 time in which the book was written to a distance from the time of 
 Joshua, but without marking by exclusion any particular time, as 
 in the passage above quoted. In that passage, the time that in- 
 tervened between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders 
 is excluded descriptively and absolutely, and the evidence sub- 
 stantiates that the book could not have been written till after the 
 death of the last. 
 
 " But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am 
 going to quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, , 
 they imply a time far more distant from the days of Joshua, than is 
 contained between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders. 
 Such is the passage, chap. x. ver. 14; where, after giving an account 
 that the sun stood still upon Gibeoil, and the moon in the valley 
 of Ajalon, at the command of Joshua (a tale only fit to amuse chil- 
 dren) the passage says, ' And there was no day like that, before 
 it, nor after it, .that the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man.' 
 
 " This tale of the sun standing still upon mount Gibeon, and 
 the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects 
 itself. Such a circumstance could not have happened without 
 being known all over the world. One half would have wondered 
 
96 
 
 why the sun diJ not rise, and the other why it did not set ; and 
 the traditjoa of it would be universal : whereas tJiere Is not a nation 
 ill the world that knows any thing about it. But why must the 
 moon stand still? What occasion could there be for moon-lij^ht 
 in the day-time, and that too whilst the sun shined ? As a poeti- 
 cal figure, the whole is well enough ; it is akin to that in the soi;g 
 of Deborah ami Baruk, The stars in their courses fought against 
 Sisera ; but it is inferior to the figurative declaration of Mahomet, 
 to the persons who came to expostulate with him on his goings oh : 
 TVerl thoit, said he, to come to me with the sun in thy right hand 
 and the moon in thy left, it should nut alter my career. For Jo- 
 'shua to have exceeded Mahomet, he should have put the sun and 
 moon one in each pocket, and curried them us Guy Faux carried 
 'his dark lanthorn, and taken them out to shine as he might hap- 
 ])en to want thcxru 
 
 " The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, 
 that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the 
 sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the^ ridiculous 
 makes the sublime again : the account, however, abstracted from 
 the poetical fancy, shews the ignorance of Joshua, for he should 
 have commanded the earth to have stood still. 
 
 •♦ The time implied by the expression after it, that is, after that 
 day, being put in comparison with all the time that passed before 
 it, must, in order to give any expressive signification to the pas- 
 sage, mean a great length of time :— for example, it would have 
 been ridiculous to have said to the next day, or the next week, or 
 the next month, or the next year ; to give, therefore, meaning to 
 the passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior 
 time it alludes to, it must mean centuries of years ; less, however, 
 than one would be trifling, and less than two would be barely- 
 admissible. 
 
 " A distant, but general time, is also expressed in the 8th chap- 
 ter, where, after giving an account of the taking the city of Ai, 
 it is said, ver. 28th," • And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap 
 forever, a desolation unto this day ;' and again, ver. 29, where 
 speaking of the king of Ai, whom Joshua had hangefl, and buried 
 at the entering of the gate, it is said, ' And he raised thereon a 
 great heap of stones, which remaineth unto this day ;' that is, unto 
 the day or time in which the writer of the book of Joshua lived. 
 And again, in the 10th chapter, where, after speaking of the five 
 kings whom Joshua had hanged on five trees^ and then thrownin a 
 cave, it is said, ' And he laid great stones on the oave's mouth, 
 which remain unto this. very day.' 
 
 " In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the 
 tribes, and of the places which they conquered or attempted, it is 
 said, chap. xv. ver. 63, ' As for the Jebnsites, the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out ; but 
 the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto 
 this day.' The question upon this passage is, at what time did the 
 
97 
 
 Jebusites and the children of Judah dwell together at Jerusalem f 
 As this niatttr occurs agaia in the first chapter off Judges, I sliall 
 reserve uiy observations till 1 come to that part. 
 
 " Having thus shewn from the book of Joshua itself, without 
 any auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not the author of 
 that book,, and that it is anonymous, and, consequently, with- 
 ■out authority, I proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of 
 Judges. 
 
 " The book of Judges rs anonymous on the face' of it ; and 
 therefore even the pretence is wanting to call it the word of God ; 
 it has not so much as a nominal voucher; it is altogether father- 
 lefSi 
 
 " This book begins with the same expression as the book of 
 Joshua. That of Joshua begins, chap. i. ver, 1 : Now after the 
 death of Moses, Sfc. and this of Judges begins, Noto after the 
 death of Joshua, Sfc, This, and the similarity of style between 
 the two books, indicate that they are the work of the same author; 
 ■but who he was, is altogether unknown: the only point that the 
 book proves is, that the author lived long after the time of Joshua ; 
 for though it ^begins as if it followed immediately after his death, 
 the second chapter is an epitome or abstract of the -whole book^ 
 ■which, according to the Bible Chronology, extends its history 
 through a space of 306 years ; that is, from- the death of Joshua^ 
 1426 years before Christ, to the death of Sampson, 1120 years be- 
 fore Christ, and only 25 years before Saul went to seek his father's 
 asses, and was made king. But there is good reason to believe, 
 that it was not written till the time of David at least, and that the 
 book of Joshua was not written before the same time. ' 
 
 " In the first chapter of Judges, the Writer, after announcing 
 the death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the 
 children of Judah and the native inhabitants of the land of Ca- 
 naan. In this statement, the writer, having abruptly mentioned 
 Jerusalem in the 7th verse, says immediately after, in the 8th 
 versej by way of explanation, ' Now the children of Judah had 
 fought against Jerusalem, and faAien it ;' consequently, this book 
 could not have Ijeen written before Jerusalem had been taken. 
 The reader will- recollect the quotation I have just before made 
 from the 15th chapter of Joshua, ver. 63, where it is said, that 
 the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at 
 this day ; meaning the lime when the book of Joshua was written. 
 
 " The evidence I have already produced, to prove that the 
 books 1 have hitherto treated of were not written by the persons 
 to whom they are ascribed, nor till many years after their death, 
 if such persons ever livedo is already so abundant, that 1 can afford 
 , to admit this passage with l€ss weight than 1 am entitled to draw 
 from it. For the case is, that so far" as the Bible can be credited 
 as an history, the city of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of 
 David ; and, consequently, thatthe books of Joshua, and of Judges, 
 8. ' ■ 
 
98 
 
 were not written till after the commencement of the reign of Da- 
 vid, which was 370 years after the death of Joshua. 
 
 " The name of the city, that was afterwards called Jerusalem, 
 was originally Jebus or Jebusi, and was the capital of the Jebusites. 
 The account of David's taking this city is given in 2 Samuel, 
 chap. V. .ver. 4,&c. ; also in 1 Chron. chap. xiv. ver. 4, &c. There 
 is no mention in any. part of the Bible that it was ever taken before, 
 nor any account that favours such an opinion. It is not said, 
 either in Samuel or in Chronicles, that they utterlif destroyed men, 
 women, and children ; that they left not a soul to breathe, as is 
 said of their other conquests ; and the silence here observed im- 
 plies that it was taken by cajjitulation, and that the Jebusites, the 
 native inhabitants, continued to live in the place after it was taken. 
 The account, therefore, given in Joshua, that the Jebusites dwell 
 with the children of Judah at Jerusalem at this daj', corresponds 
 to no othef time than after the taking the city by David. 
 
 " Having now shewn that every book in the Bible,, from Genesis 
 to Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the hook of Ruth, an 
 idle, bungling story, foolishly told, nobody knows by vvhom, about 
 a strolling country girl creeping slily to' bed to her cousin Boaz. 
 Pretty stuff indeed to be called the word of God ! It is, hovvever, 
 one of the best books iu the Bible, for it is free from murder and 
 rapine. 
 
 " I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to shew that 
 those books were not written by Samuel, nor till a great length of 
 time after the death of Samuel ; and that they are, like all the for- 
 mer books, anonymous, and without authority. 
 
 " To be convinced that these books have been written much 
 later than the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, it is 
 only necessary to read the account which the writer gives of Saul 
 going, to seek his father's asses, and of his interview with Samuel, 
 of whom Saul went to enquire about those lost asses, as foolish 
 people now-a-days go to a conjurer to enquire after lost things. 
 
 " The writer, iu relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the 
 asses, does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but 
 as an ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in 
 the language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which 
 obliges the writer to explain the story in the terms or language 
 used in the time the writer live"). 
 
 " Samuel, in the account given of him, in the first of those 
 books, chap. ix. is called the seer ; and it is by this tern} tlrat Saul 
 inquires after him, ver. 11 : ' And as they (Saul and his servant) 
 went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out 
 to draw water; and they said unto them. Is the seer here y 
 Saul then went according to the direction of these maidens, and 
 liiet Samuel without knowing him, and said unto him, ver. IS, 
 -' Tell Hie, I pvay thee, where the seer''s house is?_ and Samuel 
 answered Saul, and said, I am the seer.^ 
 
99 
 
 *' As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions 
 and answers, in the lagaage or manner of speaking used in the 
 .time they are' said to have been spoken ; and as that manner of 
 speaking was out of use when this author wrote, he found it ne- 
 cessary, in order to make the story understood, to explain the 
 terms in' which these questions and answers are spolien ; and he 
 does this in the 9th verse, where he says, ' Before-time, in Israel, 
 when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake. Come, let us 
 go to the seer ; for he that is now called a prophet, was before-time 
 called a seer.' This proves, as I have before said, that this story 
 of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was an ancient story at the time 
 the book of Samuel was written, and, consequently, that Samuel 
 did not write it, and that that book is without authenticity. 
 
 " But if we go further into those books, the evidence is still 
 more positive that Samuel is not the writer of them ; for they relate 
 things, that did not happen till several years after the death of Sa- 
 muel, Samuel died before Saul ; for the 1st Samuel, chap, xxviii. 
 tells, that Saul, and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up after 
 he was dead ; yet the history of the matters con,tained in those 
 books is extended through the remaining part of Saul's life, and 
 to the latter end of the life of David, who succeeded Saul. The 
 account of the death and burial of Samuel (a thing which he 
 could not write hiuisdfl is related in the 25th chapter of the first 
 book of Samuel ; and tne chronology affixed to this chapter makes 
 this to be 1060 ^ears beCorfe Christ ; yet the history of t\i\s Jirst 
 book is brought down to 1056 years before Christ ; that is, to 
 the death of Saul, which was not till four years after the death of 
 Samuel. 
 
 r " The second book of Samuel beg-iiis with an account of things 
 that did not happen till four years after Samuel was dead ; for it 
 begins with the, i-eign 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 posi- 
 ^tive 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 au- 
 thors of thote 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 "imposition. And now, ye priests of every de- 
 scription, 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 again&t you, and staring you in the face, 
 still have the assunmce to march into your pulpits, and continue 
 to inxpose these books on your congregations, as the works of in- 
 spired penmen, and'^the word of God, when it is as evident as de- 
 monstration 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. 
 
100 
 
 for contiauins *''« blasphemou* fraad ? What have ye still to 
 offer against the pure and moral religion of Deism, in support of 
 your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation ? 
 Had the cruel and murderous orders, with which the Bible is filled, 
 and the numberless torturing executions of men, women, and 
 children, in consequence of -tho^e 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 
 iu defending his injured fame. It is because ye aresunk in the 
 cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honour of tyour 
 Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them 
 with callous indifference. The evidence I have produced, and 
 shall still produce in the course of this work, to prove that the 
 Bible is without authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness 
 of a priest, relieve and tranquillize the m.inds of millions; it will 
 free them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which 
 priestcraft and the Bible had infused into their minds, and which 
 stood in everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his moral jus- 
 tice and benevolence. 
 
 " 1 come now to the two. books of Kings, and the two books of 
 Chronicles. Those books are altogether historical, and are chiefly 
 confined to the lives and. actions of the Jewish kings, who in ge- 
 neral 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 Ti-ojan war. Besides which, as those works 
 are anonymous, and as we know nothing of the writer, or of his 
 character, it is imj^ossible for us to know what degree of credit to 
 give to the matters related therein. Like all other ancient histo- 
 ries, they appear to be a jumble of fable and of fact, and of pro- 
 bable and of improbable things : but which di.-itance 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 com- 
 paring them with eaclr other, and with other parts of the Bible, to 
 shew the confusion, contradiction, and cruelty, in this pretended 
 word of God. 
 
 " The fii'St book of Kings begins with the reign of Solomon, 
 which, according to the Bible Chronology, was 1015 years before 
 ("hrist ; and the second book ends 588 years before Christ, being a 
 little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadiiezzar, after 
 taking Jerusalem, and conquering the Jews, <?arried captive to Baby- 
 lon. The two books include a space of 4271years. 
 
 " The two books of Chronicles are an 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 vprote 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 
 
101 
 
 ■ Christ. The two last yeises of the last ehapler bring the history 52 
 years more forward, that is, to 536. But these verses do not belong' 
 to the book, as I shall shew when I come to speak of the book of 
 Ezra. 
 
 " The two books of Kirtgs, besides the history of Sauli David, 
 and Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain an abstract of the 
 lives of seventeen kings and one queen, who are styled kings of 
 Judah ; and of nineteen, 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 ran- 
 corous wais against each other. 
 
 " Those two books are little more than a history of assassina- 
 tions, treachery, and wars. The cnielties that the Jews had accus- 
 tomed themselves to practise on the Canaanites, whose country 
 they had savagely invaded under a pretended gift from God, 
 they afterwards practised as furiously on each other. Scarce- 
 ly half their kings died a natural death, and in some instances whole 
 fapiilies 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 10th chapter. of the second book of Kings, 
 an account is given of two baskets full of children's heads, 70 in 
 number, being exposed at the entrance of the «ity ; they were the 
 children of Ahab, and were murdered by the orders of Jehu, whom 
 Elisha, the pretended man of God, had anointed to be king over 
 Israel, on purpose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate his 
 predecessor. And in the account of the reign of Manaham, one of 
 the kings of Israel who had murdered Shallum, who had reigned 
 but one month, it is said, 2 Kings, chap. xv. ver. 16, that Manaham 
 smote the city of Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, 
 and all the women that ivere therein that were with child they 
 ripped vp. 
 
 " Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty would 
 distinguish any nation of people by the name of his chosen people, 
 yvti 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 na- 
 tion of ruffians and cut-throats as the ancient Jews were ; a people, 
 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 bar- 
 barity and wickedness. If , we will not stubbornly shot 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 flatter- 
 ing appellation of his chosen people is lio other than a lie, which 
 the priests and leaders of the Jews had invented to cover the base- 
 ness of their own characters ; and which Christian priests, some- 
 tiraes-as corrupt, and often as cruel, have professed to believe. 
 
 " The two books of Cbvonicles 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 ai 
 
102 
 
 in that of Kin^s, there is such a frequent transition from JcinEg of 
 Judah to kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of Ju- 
 dab, that the narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same book 
 the history sometimes contradicts itself; for example, in the se- 
 cond book of Kings, chap. i. ver. 8, we are told, but in rather 
 ambiguous terras, that after the death of Ahaziah, kin^ of Israel, 
 Jehoram, or Joram (who was of the house of Ahab) reigned in his 
 stead in the second year of Jehoram, or Joram, son of Jehoshaphat 
 king of Jndah; and in chap. viii. ver. 16, of the same book, it is 
 said, and in the 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 of Joram of Israel ; and the other chapter says, that 
 Joram of Israel began to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Judah. 
 
 " Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one his- 
 tory, 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 kins:; for example, the two first rival kings, after the 
 death of Solomon, were Rehoboam and Jeroboam ; and in 1 Kings, 
 chap, xii. and xiii. an account is given of Jeroboam making an 
 offering of burnt incense, and that a man, who is there culled a 
 man of God, cried out against the altar, chap. yiii. ver. 2, • O 
 altar ! altar ! thus saith the Lord ; Behold, a child shall be born to 
 the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall be offer 
 the priests of the high places, and burn incense upon thee, and 
 men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.' — ^Ver. 3, ' 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 him; and his hand 
 which he put out against him dried up, to that he could not pull it 
 in again to him,' ' v 
 
 " 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, womld, if it had been true, been 
 recorded ift both histories. But though raeii in later times have 
 believed all that the prophets have said unto them, it does not ap- 
 pear that these prophets or historians believed each other : they 
 knew each other too well. 
 
 " Along account also is given in Kings about Elijah. It runs 
 through several ohapters, and concludes wit!) telling, -2 Kings, 
 chap. ii. ver. 11, 'And it came to pass, as they (Elijah and 
 Elisha) still went on,, and talked, that behold, there appeared « 
 chariot of fire Wid horses of fire, 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 mention 
 of, though he mentions Elijah byname; neither does be say any' 
 thing of the story related in the seeond chapter of the same book 
 of Kings, of a parcel of children calling 'Elisha bald head, bald. 
 
103 
 
 head ; and that this man of God, ver. 24, turned bacit, and looked 
 upon them, a»K< cursed tkem in the name of the Lord ; und there 
 came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tore forty and two chil- 
 drenof them.' He ulo passes over in silence the story told, 2 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 inra down, (ver. 21,) ' touched the banes of 
 Elisha, and he (the dead man) revived, and stood upon his feet^ 
 The story does not tell us whether they buried the man notwith- 
 standing he revived and stood upon his feet, or drew him up 
 again. Upon all these stories, the writer of Chronicles is as silent 
 «s any writer of the present day, who did not chuse to be accused 
 of lying, 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 thoie men styled prophets, whose writings fill up 
 the latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of He- 
 zekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these 
 historians are speaking of that jeign ; but except in one or two 
 instances at most, and those very slightly, none of the rest are so 
 much as spoken of, or even their existence hinted at ; though, ac- 
 cording to the Bible chronology, they lived within the time those 
 histories were written ; some of them long before. If those pro- 
 phet's, 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 he accoimted for, that 
 not one of these histories should say any thing about them ? 
 
 " The history of the books of Kings and of Chronicles is brought 
 forward, as I have already said, to the 5'ear 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 Chronology afhxed 
 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 
 Chronicle* were written." , 
 
 Gentlemeu, I need not read the Table which follows, it is 
 a " Table of the Prophets, with the times in which they 
 lived before Christ, and also before the Books of Kings and 
 Chronicles were written:" you ha,ve copies of the Table In 
 the volume before you, and I need not occupy your atten- 
 tion with its recital, , 
 
 *' This table is either not very honourable for the Bible histo- 
 rians, or not very honourable for the Bible prophets ; and I leave 
 to priests, and commentators, who are very learned in little things, 
 to settle the point of etiquette between the two ; and to assign a 
 reason, why the auth(>rs of Kings and Chronicles have treated those 
 
104 
 
 proplijetB, whom in tlie fotmer part of the Age of Reason, I have 
 .considered as poets, with as much degToding silence-as any histo- 
 rian of the present day would treat Peter Pindar. 
 
 *' I have one observation more to make on the book of Chroni- 
 cles ; after which I shall pass on to review the remaining 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 
 jo a time, after that kings began to reign oyer the children of Is- 
 rael ; and 1 have shewn that as this verse is verbatim the same as in 
 Chronicles, chap. i. ver. 43, where it stands consistently with the 
 lorder of history, which in Genesis it does not, the verse in Genei 
 sis, 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 
 tbetime of Moses. 
 
 The evidence 1 proceed by to substantiate this is regular, and 
 has in it but two stages. First, as I have already stated, that the 
 passage in Genesis refers itself for *ime to Chronicles ; secondly, 
 that the book of Chronicles, to which this passage refers itself, 
 was not begunio 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 genealogy of the de- 
 scendants of David, mentions Zedekiah ; and it was in the time of 
 Zedekiah, that Nelsuchadnezzar conquered .Terusalern, 5S8 years 
 before Christ, and consequently more than 860 years after Moses. 
 Those who havesuperstitiously boasted of the antiquity of the Bi- 
 ble, and particularly of the books ascribed to Moses, have done it 
 without examination, and without any other 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 hun- 
 dred years, and is about the same age with .Ssop's Fables. 
 
 " I am not contending for the morality of Homer; on the conr 
 ^rary, I think it a book of falseglory, tending to inspire immoral 
 and mischievous notions of honour: 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 iti 
 achild, than'^the moral does good to the judgment. 
 
 " Having 'now disrojssed'Kings and Chronicles, I come to the 
 next in course, the book of Ezra. 
 
 "As 'One proof, among others, I shall produce, to shew 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 two last 
 ill Chronicles; fot'By what kindpf cutting arid shuffling has it been, 
 
105 
 
 tliat ths three first verses in Ezra should be tl\e two kst 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. 
 
 " Two last Verses q^ Chronicles. " Three first Verses of Ezra. 
 
 • 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 accomplished, the Lord stir- 
 red up the spirit of Cyrus, king 
 of Persia, that he made a pro- 
 clamation throughout all his 
 kingdom, and put it also in 
 writing, saying, 
 
 • 23. Thus saith Cyrus, king 
 ofPersia, A lithe kingdoms of the ■ 
 earth hath the Lord God of hea- 
 ven given me, and he hath charged 
 ine to build him an house iu Je- 
 rusalem, which is in Judah. 
 Who is there among yon of his 
 people ? the Lord his God be with 
 him, and let hint go up.' 
 
 ' Ver. 1. Now in the first year 
 or Cyrus, king of Persia, thfil 
 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 hiia 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 lo Jeru- 
 salem, which is in Judah, and 
 build the house of the Lord God 
 of Israel (he is the God J which 
 is in the Jerusalem.'' 
 
 " The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the 
 middle of a phrase with the: word up, without signifying to what 
 place. This abrupt break, and the appearance of the same verses 
 m different books, shew, 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*. 
 
 " * I observed, as I passed along, several bro£en and senseless passages in the 
 Bj ble, without thinking them of consequence enough to be introduced in the body 
 of the work ; such as that, i Samuel, chap. xiii. ver. 1, where it is said, ' Saul 
 leigned one year ; and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose 
 him three thousand men,' &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 any thing of 
 what happened ?it the end of that one year ; and it is, besides, meje 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 angel (for sush the table of contents, at the Tiead bf the chapter, calls him) 
 appearing unto .^othua ; and the story ends abruptly, and witliojit any conclusion. 
 
106 
 
 •' The only thing that has any appesireince of certainty in tlie book 
 of Ezra, is the time in which it was written, which was immedi- 
 ately after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, 
 about 536 years beforeChrist. Ezra (who^ according to the Jew- 
 ish commentators, is the s-.ime person as is called Esdrasin 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, waa another of the returned persons ; and 
 who, it i» also probable, wrote the account of the same affair, in 
 the book that beiirs his name. But these uccoants are nothing to 
 us, nor to any other persons, 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 om tiiere i.s in any of the hislories of France, 
 or Rapiu's History of England, or the history of any other 
 country. 
 
 " But eyen in matters of historical record, neitlier of those writers 
 are to be depended upon. In the second chapter of Ezra, the 
 writer gives a hst of the tribes and fanjilies, aiid of the precise 
 number of souls of eacR that- returned from Babylon to Jerusa- 
 lem ; and this Enrolment of the persons so returned, appears to 
 have been one of the piiiicipal objects for writing the book ; but 
 in this there is an error that destroys tlie intention^ of the under- 
 taking. 
 
 " The writer begins his Enrolment in the following manner : chap. 
 ii. ver. 3, • The children of Parosh, two thousand one hundred 
 seventy and four.' Verse 4, ' The d)ildren 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. 
 
 The story is as follows :--Vor. 13, ' And it came to pass, when Joshua -was by 
 Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold tlieie stood a man over 
 against him irilh his sword drawn in his hand j ajid Joshua went unto him, and 
 Raid unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries ?' Verse 14, * And he said, 
 .Nay ; but as captain of tlic hosts of (he Lord am I now come. And Joslnia fell 
 I n liis face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith ray Ixjrd 
 iinio his servant?' Verse 15, 'And the captain of the Lord's host said unta 
 Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standcst is 
 lioly. And Joshua did so.' — And what then ? liotiiing : for here tlie story ends, 
 ftud the chapter too. 
 
 " Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told by some Jewish 
 liiiii)Ourist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from God ; and tlie compilers 
 of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the story, hove told it as a serious 
 matter. As a story of Jiuinour and ridicule, it haa a great deal of point ; for it 
 pompously introduces an angel in the figure of » man, with a drawn swoid in his 
 liand, before whom Joshua falls on his face to the earth, and worships (which is 
 contrary lo their second commandment); and then, this most important embassy 
 from heaven ends, in telling Joshua to puU off his shoe. It might us' well haro 
 told him to pull up his treeches. 
 
 " It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit every thing thcir.leadeis 
 told tliciii, as appears from the cavaUer manner in which they ■ speak of Moses, 
 when he was gone into the mount. ' As for this Moses, say thcv, we wot not, 
 what is become of him,' Exod. chap. x. xxii. vet. 1." 
 
m * 
 
 and says, the whole congregation togetlier via&/ortff and two t/tou- 
 sand three hundred and threscore." 
 
 (The Attoruey-General here smiled significantly at Mr. 
 Serjeant CopleyO Mr. Carlile proceeded. 
 
 " But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several 
 particulars, will find that thi total is but 29,818 ; bo that the 
 error is 12,542. What certainty then can there be in the Bible for 
 any thing } 
 
 " Nehemiah, io like manner, gives a list of the returned, fami- 
 lies, and of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by 
 saying, chap. vii. ver. 8, ' The children of Parosh, two thousand 
 three hundred and seventy-two ;' and so on through all the fa- 
 milies. 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 make a total but of 31,0Sy, so that the error here is 
 11,271. These writers may do w«ll enough for Bible-makers, but 
 not for any thing where truth and exactness is necessary. The next 
 book in course is jthe book of Esther. If Madam Esther thsught 
 it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasuerus, or as 
 a rival to Queen Vashty, 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 busi- 
 ness of ours ; at least, it is none of mine ; besides which, the story 
 has a great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also ano- 
 nymous. 1 pass on to the book of Job. 
 
 " The book of Job differs in character f»om all the books we 
 have hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part 
 of this book; it is the meditations of a mind stron<<ly impressed 
 with the vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, 
 and struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought com- 
 position, between willing submission and involuntary discontent ; 
 and shews man, as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned 
 than he is capable of being. Patience has but a small share in the 
 ciiaracter of the person of whom the book trents ;-on the contrary, 
 his grief is often impetuous; but he still endeavours 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 i'n a respectful manner of the book of Job in 
 the former part of the ^^^e o/ Reason, bat 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, Abe- 
 nezra and Spinosa, upon this subject ; they both say that the book 
 of Job carries no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book ; that 
 
108 
 
 the genius of Uie coniposSioa, and -the drama of the piece, are not 
 Hebrew; that it has been translated from anotlier language into 
 Hebrew, and that the author of the book was a Gentile ; that the 
 character represented under the name of Satan (which is the first 
 and only time this name is mentioned in the Bible) does not cor- 
 respond to_ any Hebrew idea ; and that the two convocations which 
 the Deity is supposed to have made of those, whom the poem calls 
 sons of God, and the familiarity which this' supposed Satan is stated 
 to have with the Deity, are in the same case. - 
 
 •^ It may also be observed, that the book shews 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 astronomical names, Pleiades,. Orion, and Arcturus are Greek, 
 and not Hebrew names; and as it does not appear from any thinig 
 that is to be found in the Bible, that the Jews knew any thing of 
 astronomy, or that they studied it, they had no translation of those 
 names into Iheir own' language, but adopted the names as they 
 found them in the poem." 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, so little doubt does there exist of the 
 book of Job being a drama, and originally written as such, 
 and acted, as a drama, in Persia to this day, that a Persian 
 copy of it, in that shape, is at present to be found in the 
 library of the East India Company. 
 
 " 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, ver. 1, ' Tlie word 
 of king Lemuel, the prophecy which 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 Lemuel; 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, however, 
 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 difiiers in character from the Hebrew writings, and 
 stands totally unconnected with every other book and chapter iu 
 the Bible before it, and after it, it has all the circumstantial evi- 
 dence of being originally a book of the Gentiles.* 
 
 • " The prayer known by the name of Agur's prayer, in the SOth chapter of 
 Proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of I^emuel, and whieh is the only 
 tensible, well-coaceived, and well- expressed prayer iu tlie Bible, has much the 
 appearance of being a prayer taken from tlie Gentiles. The name of Agur occurs 
 on no other occasion tJian this ; and he is introduced, together with the prayer 
 ascribed to him, in tlie same manner, and nearly in the same words, that Lemuel 
 and his proverbs are introduced in the chapter that follows. The first verse of the 
 SOth chapter sayi, ' The words of Agur, the son of lakeh, even the prophecy ;' 
 
109 
 
 " The Bible-makers, and those regulator* of time, the ffible 
 chroiiolbgists, appear to have been at a loss where to place, and.how 
 to dispose of the book of Job; for it contains no one historical cir« 
 cumslance, nor allusion to any, that might serve to determine itiS 
 pluce in the Bible. But it would not have answered the purpose 
 of these men to have informed the world of their ignorance; and 
 therefore they have affixed it to the sera of 1520 years' before 
 Ch™t, which is during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and 
 for which they hnre just as much authority and no more than I 
 should have fo» saying it was a thousand years before that period. 
 The probability, however, is, that it is older than any book iu the 
 Bible; and it is the only one that can be read without indignatioa 
 or disgust. 
 
 " We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is 
 called) was before the time of the Jews, whose practice has been to 
 calumniate and blacken the character of all other nations ; and it 
 is Srom the Jewish accounts that we have learned to call them hea- 
 thens. But as far as-we knowr 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 unacquainted. It 
 appears to have been their custom to personify both virtue and 
 vice by statues and images, as is done now-a-days both by sta- 
 tuary and bj' painting ; but it does not follow from this, that 
 they worshipped them any more than we do. I pass on to the 
 Book of 
 
 " J'salms, of which it is not necessary to make much observa- 
 tion. Some of them are moral, and others are very revengeful ; 
 and the greater part relate to certain local circumstances of the 
 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 David : thgy are a collection, as song-books 
 are now-a-days, from different song-writers, who lived at different 
 times. The 137th Psalm could not have been written till more 
 than 400 years after the time of David, because it is written in 
 comraem ■ .ation 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 dozen ; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. 
 We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof; for 
 there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song, 
 saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion.''' As a man would say 
 
 here the word prophecy is used with the same application it has in the following 
 chapter 6f Lemuel, unconnected with any thing of prediction. The prayer of 
 Agur is in the 8th and 9th verses, ' Rertume far from me vanity and lies ; give me 
 neither riches nor poverty, but feed me with food convenient for me :.lest I befiill 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 any thing but 
 victory, vengeance, and riches. 
 
110 
 
 to an American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, sing us 
 one of your A<uerican songs, or your French songs, or your Eng- 
 lish songs. - This remark with respect to the time this Psalm was- 
 written, is of lio other use thdn to shew (among others already 
 mentioned) the general imposition the world has been under, with 
 respect to the authors of the Bible. No regard has ' been paid to 
 time, place, and circumstance ; and the names of persons have been 
 affixed to the several books, which it was as impossible they should, 
 write, as that a man should walk in procession at his own funeral. . 
 
 " The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collec- 
 tion, and that from authors belonging to other nations than thoie 
 of the Jewish nation, as 1 have shewn in 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 Solomon ; for it is said in the Ist verse of the 25th chapter, 
 ' These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiafi, 
 king of Judah, copied out.' It was two hundred and fifty years 
 from the time of.Splomon to the time of Hezekiah. When a man. 
 is famo'us''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 hare been the fashion of that 
 day to make proverbs, as it is now to make jest books, and father 
 them upon .thqse who never saw them. ' .^. 
 
 " The Book of Ecclesiaites, or the Preacher, is also asciribed 
 to Soloqjon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is 
 written as the solitary reflections of a >vorn-out debauchee, such 
 as Solomon was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer en- 
 joy, ories out, All is vanity .' A great, deal of the metaphor and, 
 of the sentiment is obscure, most probably by translution ,; but 
 enough is left to shew they were strongly pointed in the original. 
 From wha* is transmitted to us of the character of Solomon, he 
 was witty, ostentatious, dissolute, and at last melancholy. He 
 lived fast, and died, tired of the wprld, at the age of fifty-eight 
 years. 
 
 " Seven hundred, wives, and th?ee hundred concukines, are 
 wOTse 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 h^ppy. This 
 was the case with Solomon ; and if he could not, withall his pre- 
 tensions to wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied, 
 the mortification he afterwards endured. In this point of view, 
 his preaching is unnecessary, because, to Jcnow the 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 
 vexation of spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the 
 company of those whom we deprive of happiness. 
 
 " To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we accustom our- 
 selves to objects that can accompany the mind all the way throuo-h 
 
Ill 
 
 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 philosoph\', mathe-f 
 inatical an<ljnechanical science, area continual source of tranquil 
 pleasure; and in spite of tlie gloomy dogmas of priests, and of su- 
 perstition, the study of those things is the study of the true the- 
 ology ; it teaches man to iinow 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 grey, was always his mistress. He was never without an ob- 
 ject, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an in- 
 valid in an hospital waiting for death. 
 
 " Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but whicli 
 wrinkled fanaticism has called divine. The compilers of the Bible 
 have placed these songs after the book of Ecelekiastes ; and the 
 chronologists have affixed to them the sera of 1014 years before 
 Christ, at which time Solomon, according to the same chronology, 
 was nineteen years of age, and waa thea forming his seraglio of 
 wives' and concubines. The Bible-makers and the chronologists 
 should have managed this matter a little better, and either hava 
 said nothing about the time, or chosen a time less inconsistent with 
 the supposed divinity of those songs ; for Solomon was then in the 
 honey-moon 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 thote songs in that description. This is; the more proba- 
 ble, because he saj's, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes, chap. ii. 
 vei-. 8, ' I got me men sivgers, aud women singers, (most proba- 
 bly to sing those Songs) and musical, instruments of all sorts ; and 
 benold (ver. 11.) all was vanity and vexation of spirit.' The com- 
 
 i)ilers, however, have done their work but by halves ; for as they 
 lave given us the songs, tliey should have given us the tunes, that 
 we might sing theai. 
 
 •' The books, called the boots of the Prophets, fill up all the 
 remaining part of the Bible; they are hixteen in number, begin- 
 ning with Isaiah, and ending with Malachi ; of which 1 have given 
 you a list, in the observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen 
 prophets, all of whomj except the three last, lived within the time" 
 the books of Kings and Chronicles were written ; two only, Isaifth 
 and Jeremiah, are mentioned in the history of those books. 1 shall 
 begin with those twp, 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 ascribed to 
 Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and disorderly composi- 
 tions ever put together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor 
 end; and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of 
 
112 
 
 history in two or three of tlie first chapt«rs, is one'continHed, inco- 
 herent, bombaitlcal rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without 
 application, and destitute of naeaniug ;' a school-boy would scarcely 
 have been excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in trans- 
 lation] that kind of composition and false taste, that is properly 
 called prose run mad. 
 
 " The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, and is conti- 
 nued to the end of the 39lh chapter. It relates to some matters 
 that are said to have passed during the reign of Hezekiah, king of 
 Jadd, at which time Isaiah lived. This fragment of history be- 
 gins and ends abruptly ; it lias not the least connection wjth the 
 chapter that precedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with 
 any other in liie book. - It is probable that Isaiah wrote this frag- 
 ment himself, because he was an actor in the circumstances'it 
 treats of; but, except this part, there are scarcely two chapters 
 that hare any connection with each other: one is entitled, at the 
 beginning of the first verse, the burden of Eabylon ; another, the 
 burden of Moab ; another, the burden of Damuscas ; another, 
 the burden of Egypt; another, the burden of the Desart 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 Cinderella, or the Children in the Wood, &c. &c. 
 
 " I have already shewn, in the instance of the two last verses of 
 Chronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the com.pilers 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 are ignorant who the 
 authors were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in th* book 
 ascribed to Isaiah ; the latter part of the 44th chapter, and the be- 
 ginning of the 45th, bo far from having been written by Isaiah, 
 could only have been written bj' some person who lived, at least, an 
 hundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. 
 
 •' These chapters are u compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the 
 Jews to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, to re- 
 build Jerusalem and the temple, as is stated in Ezra. The last 
 verse of the 44lh 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 Jerusalem, 
 thou . shah be built ; and to the temple thy foundations 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 before him, the two-leaved gates, and the 
 gates shall not be shut ; I will go before thee, Sfc. 
 
 " What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to rm- 
 
 pose 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 698 years before Christ; and the 
 
 . decree of Cyrus, in favour of the Jews returning to Jerusalem, Was, 
 
113 
 
 according to the siuiie chronology, 536 5-ears before Clirist ; wliieJi 
 was 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, anonymons essays, and 
 put them together under the names of such authors as best suited 
 their purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next 
 to inventiivg it ; for it was impossible but they must have ob- 
 served it. 
 
 " When we see the studied craft of the scripture-makers, in 
 making every part of this romantic book of school-boy's eloquence, 
 bend to the monstrous idta of a Son of God, begotten by a ghost 
 on the body of a virgin, there is no imposition we are not justified 
 in suspecting them of. Every plirase and circumstance is marked 
 with the barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced into 
 meanings it was impossible 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 ssuck in the 
 error before he began to read. 
 
 " Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, Isaiah, chap, 
 vii. ver. 14, has been interpreted to mean the person called Jesus 
 Christ, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed through Chris- 
 tendom for more than a thousand years : and such has been the 
 rage of this opinion, that scarcely a spot in it but has been stained 
 with blood and marked with desolation in consequence of it. 
 Though it is not my intention to enter into controversy on subjects 
 of this kind, but to confine myself to shew that the Bible is spu- 
 rious ; and thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at 
 once the whole structure of superstition raised thereon ; I will, 
 however, stop a moment to expose the fallacious application of 
 this passage. 
 
 " Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah, 
 to whom this passage is spoken, is no business of mine ; I mean 
 only to shew the misapplication of the passage, and that it has no 
 more reference to Christ and his motlier than it has to me and my 
 mother. The story is simply thus: 
 
 " The king of Syria and the king of Israel (I have already men- 
 tioned 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 towards Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became 
 alarmed, and the account says, ver. 2. ' Their Jiearts were moved 
 as the trees of the wood are moved ivith the wind.' 
 
 " In this sitaation 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 account says, Ahaz declined doing ; giving as 
 a reason that he would not tempt the Lord; upon which Isaiah, 
 
 a 
 
114 
 
 who is the speaker, says, ver. 14, ' Tlieretbve the Lord himself 
 shall give you a sign ; bchulda mrgin shall conceive, and hear a 
 son ; and the ICth verse says, ' And before this child shall know to 
 refuse the evil, and chuse the good, the land which thou abhorrest 
 or dreadest (nieaning 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 : name- 
 ly, before this child should know to refuse the evil, and chuse the 
 good. 
 
 " Isaiah having- committed himself thus far, it became necessary 
 to him, in order to avoid the imputation of being a false proi)het, 
 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 tiiake her so ; and perhaps 
 Isaiah knew of one before-hand > for I do not suppose that the 
 prophets of that day were any more to be trusted than the priest* 
 of this : be that however as it may, he says in the next chapter, 
 ver. 2, ' And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, IJriah 
 the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, and I went unto 
 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 bare-faced perversion of this story, 
 that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interests 
 of priests in latter times, have founded a theory which they call 
 the gospel ; and have applied this story to signify the person they 
 call Jesus Christ ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they 
 eall holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in marriage, and af- 
 terwards married, whom they call a virgin, 700 years after this 
 foolish story was told ; atheory which, speaking for myself, I he- 
 sitate not to believe, and to say, is as fabulous and as false as God 
 is true, 
 
 " But to shew 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 2Sth. 
 chapter of the 2d Chronicles ; and which is, that instead of these 
 two kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as 
 Isaiah had pretended to foretel in the name of the Lord, they suc- 
 ceeded ; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed ; an hundred and twenty 
 thousaud- of his people were slaughtered; Jerusalem was plun- 
 dered, and two hxmdred thousand women, and sons and daugh- 
 ters, carried into captivity. Thus much for this lying prophet 
 and impostor Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that beare his 
 name. 1 pass on to the book of 
 
 " Jeremiah. This prophet, as he is called, lived in the time 
 that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, in the reign of Zede- 
 kiah, the last king of Judah ; and the suspifcion was strong against 
 him, that he was a traitor in the interest of Nebuchadnezzar, 
 Every thing relating to Jeremiah shews him to have been a man of 
 
115 
 
 an equivocal cliaractei : in his metaphor of the potter and the 
 clay, chap, xviii., he guards his prognostications in such a crafty 
 manner, as always to leave himself a door to escape by in case the 
 event should be contrary to what he had predicted. 
 
 " In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter, he makes the Al- 
 mighty to say, ' At what instant I shall speak concerning a na- 
 tion, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, 
 and destroy it : if that nation, against whom 1 have pronounced, 
 turn from their evil, I will repent me 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, ' At what instant I shall speak concerning 
 a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it 
 do evil in my sight, that jt obey not my voice : then I will repent 
 me of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.' Here is 
 a proviso against the other s.ide ; 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 consibteut 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 record- 
 ed therein may have been spoken by Jeiemiah, 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, tmd some- 
 times in contradiction to_eacb other; and this disorder runs even 
 to the last chapter, where the history, uppn which the greater part 
 of the book has been employed, begins a-new, and ends abruptly. 
 The book has all the appearancesof being a medley of unconnected 
 anecdotes, respecting persons and things of that time, collected 
 together in the same rude manner as if the various and contradic- 
 tory accounts, that are to be found in a bundle of newspapers, 
 respecting persons and things of the present day, were put toge- 
 ther without date, order, or explanation. 1 will give two or three 
 examples of this kifld. 
 
 " It appears, from the account of the 37th chapter, that the 
 army of Nebuchadnezzar, which is called the ariny of the Chal- 
 deans, had beseiged Jerusalem some time ; and on their hearing 
 that the army of Pharaoh, of Egypt, was marching against them, 
 they raised the seige, and retreated for a time. It may here be 
 proper to mention, in order to understand this confused history, 
 that Nebuchadnezzar had beseiged and taken Jerusalem, during 
 the reign of Jehoiakim, the predecessor of Zedekiah ; and that it 
 was Nebuchadnezzar who had made Zedekiah king, or rather vice- 
 roy; and that this second seige, of which the book of Jeremiah 
 treats, was in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against Ne- 
 buchadnezzar. This will, in some measure, account for the sus- 
 picion that affixes itself to Jeremiah, of being a traitor, and in the 
 
116 
 
 intercit of Jfebuchailnezzar ; w'nom Jeremiuh calls, in the 43rd 
 chap. ver. 10, the servant of God. 
 
 "The 11th verac of this chapter (the S7th) says ' And it came to 
 pass, that, when the anny of the Chuldeans was broken up from 
 Jerusalem, for fear of Pharaoh's army, that Jeremiah went foitli 
 out of Jevu^alem, to go (as this account states) into the land of 
 Benjamin, to separate himself thence in (be midst of the people; 
 and when he was in the gate of Benjamin a captain of the ward 
 wa§ there, whose name was Irijah ; and he took .Teremiah the pro- 
 phet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans : then Jeremiah 
 said, !t is false, I fall not away to the Chaldeans.' Jeremiah being 
 thus stopped and accused, was, after being- examined, committed 
 to prisim, on suspicion of beiriff a traitor, where he remained, as is 
 stated in the last verse of this chapter. 
 
 " But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment of 
 Jeremiah, which has no connection with this account, but ascribes 
 his imprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must 
 go back to the21st chapter. It is there stated, ver. l,.that Zede- 
 kiah sent Pashm-, the son of Malchiah, and Zephanlah, the son of 
 Maaseiah the priest, to Jeremiah, to enqaire of him concerning Ne- 
 buchadnezzar, whose army was then before Jerusalem; and Jere- 
 miah said to them, ver. 8, ' 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 svvord, and by the famine, and by the pesti- 
 lence; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that be- 
 siege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey.' 
 
 " This interview and conference bi-eaks oft abruptly at the end 
 of the 10th verse of the 21st chapter ; and such is the disorder of, 
 this book, that we have to pass over sixteen chapters, upon various 
 subjects, in order to come at the continuation and event of this 
 conference ; and this brings us to the first ver^e of the 38th chap- 
 ter, as 1 have just mentioned. 
 
 The 3Sth chapter open^ with saying, 'Then Shephatiah, the son 
 of Mattuii ; 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 Slat chapter) heard tlie words that 
 Jeremiah spoke unto the people, saving Thus saith the Lord, He 
 that remaineth in this city, shall die by the sword, the famine, and 
 bi/ the pestilence ; but he that goelh forth to the Chaldeans Shall 
 live, for he .shall have his life for a prey, and shall line ; (which 
 are the words of the conference) thertfore (say they to Zedekiah) 
 We beseech thee, let this man be put to death, for thus he weak- 
 enslh the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and 
 the hands of all the people in speaking such icords vnto them ; for 
 this man seeketh not the welfare of the people, but the hurt :' ami 
 at the sixth verse it is said, 'Then they took Jeremiah, and put 
 him into a dungeon of Makhiah.' 
 
 " These two accounts are different and contradictory. Tlie oije 
 ascribes his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out of the city ; 
 
117 
 
 the other to lils preaching and prophecyiiig- in the city ; the one to 
 his being Beized by the guard at the gaie; the other to his being 
 accused bel'ore Zedekiah, by the couf'erees.* 
 
 "Ill the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance of the 
 disordereH state of this book ; for notwithstanding- the siege of the 
 citj', by Nebuchadnezzar, has been the subject, of several of the 
 preceding chapters, particularly the 37th and ;i8th, the S9lh chap- 
 ter begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject ; at}d as 
 if the reader was to be i^nformed of every particular lespectiug it ; 
 for it begins with s?iying', ver. 1, ' In tite nintit year of. Zedekiah, 
 king of Judah, in the tenth month, came ISehtichadnezzur, king 
 of Babylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and besieged it,' 
 Sfc. Sfc. 
 
 But the instance in the last chapter (ihe 52d) is still more glar- 
 ing,; for though the story has been told over and over again, this 
 chapter still supposes the reader not to know any thing of it, for 
 it begins by saying, ver. 1, ' Zedekiah was one and twenty years 
 vld when he hegan to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusa- 
 lem, and his mother's name was Hurmttal, the daua,hter of Jere- 
 miah, of Libnah, (ver. 4.) And it came to puss, in the ninth year of 
 his reign, in the Jenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar, -King of Ba- 
 bylon, came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and. pitched 
 ■ against it, and built forts against it,' Sfc. Sfc. 
 
 "."I observed two chapters 16th and 17th, in tlie first book of Samuel, that 
 contradict each otlier with respect to David, and the manner he became acquainted 
 with Saul ; as the 37th and o8th chapters of tlie boolt of Jeremiali contradict eacli 
 otlier with respect to the cause of Jeremiah's imprisonment. 
 
 '* In the 16th chapter of Samuel, jt is said, that an evil spirit of God troubled 
 Saul, and that his sCTvauts advised him (as a remedy) ' to seek out a man who 
 was a cunning player upon the harp.' And Saul said, ver. l7, ' Provide now a 
 man that can play well, and bring him unto me.' Then answered one of his ser- 
 vants, and said, * Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlemite, that is cun- 
 ning in playing, and' a mighty man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, 
 and a comely person, and die Lord is with him j' 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 hi.'i Miuwir- 
 bearer j and when the evil spirit of God was upon Saul, [verse 23] Dav^d took his 
 harp, and played with his hand, and Saul was refreshed, and was well. 
 
 *' But-the next chapter £17] gives an account, all different to this, of the man- 
 ner that Sattl 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 53th verse of diis chapter it is said, ' And when 
 Saul saw David go forfli against the Philistine [Goliah] he said to Ahner, the cap- 
 tain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth.' And Abuer said,- As thy soul* 
 liveth, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou whose son tlie 
 stripling is. And as David returned^ from tlie slaughter of the PliWistine, Abner 
 took him and brought him before Saul,, with the head of the Philistine in his 
 hand ; and Saul said unto him. Whose son art thou, thou young man .■■ And- David 
 answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the Bethlemite.' These two accounts 
 belie each other, because each of them supposes Saul and David not to Jiave 
 known each other before. This book, the Bible, is too ridiculous even for 
 criticism. 
 
118 
 
 " It is not poseible that any one man, and more particularly Jere- 
 miah, eould have been the writer of this book. The errors are 
 »uch as could not have been committed by any person sitting down 
 to compose a work. Were I, or any other man, to wri-te in such a 
 disordered manner, nobody would read what was written ; and 
 every body would suppose that the writer was in a state of insani- 
 ty. The only way, therefore, to account for this disorder is, that 
 the book is a medley of detached unautheriticated anecdotes, put - 
 together by some stupid book-maker, under the name of Jeremiah ; 
 because many of them refer to him, and to the circumstances of 
 the times he lived in. 
 
 " Of the duplicity, and of the false predictions of Jeremiah, I 
 shall mention two instances, aijd then proceed to review the re- 
 mainder of the Bible. 
 
 " It appears from the S8th chapter, that when Jeremiah was in 
 prisjin, Zedekiah sent for him, and at this interview, which wms 
 private, Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zedekiah to surrender 
 himself to the enemy. ' 7/, siays he, (ver. 17,) thou wilt assuredly 
 gu forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall 
 live,' Sfc. Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this con- 
 ference 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, Declai'e 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 iny supplication 
 before the king ; that he would not cause me to return to Jona- 
 than's house to die there. Then came all the princes unto Jere- 
 miah, and asked him, and he told them according to all the words 
 the king had commanded.' 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 Zedekiah 
 to make Kis supplication, neither did he make it ; he went because 
 he was sent for, and he emi.iloyed that opportunity to advise Zede- 
 kiah to surrender himself to Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 " In the 34th chapter, is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah, 
 ill these words (ver. 2) ' Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give 
 this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn 
 it with fire; and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but that 
 thou 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 Led; Zedekiah, king of Judah, thus 
 saith the Lord, Thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shall die 
 in peace ; and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings 
 that were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee, and they 
 will lament thee, saying. Ah, Lord; for I home pronounced the 
 word, saith the Lord.' 
 
 " Now, instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king of 
 
119 
 
 i^abylon, and speaking willi him mouth to mouth, and dying' in 
 peace, and with the burning of odours, as at the funeral of his fathers 
 (as Jeremiah had declared the Lord himself had pronounced) the re- 
 verse, according to the 52d chapter, was the case; it i^ there said 
 (ver. 10) 'That the king of Babylon slew tie sons of Zedekiah, ^ 
 before his eyes; then he put out the eyes of Z«dekiah, and 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 aie impostors and liars ? 
 
 " As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was 
 taken into favour by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to 
 the captain of the guard, (chap, xxxix. ver. 12) ' Take him (siiid 
 he) and look well to him, and do him no harm ; but do unto him even 
 as he shall say unto thee.' Jeremiah joined himself afterwards 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 as- 
 cribed to Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are spoken of in the 
 books of Kings and of Chronicles, which the others are not. The 
 remainder of the books ascribed to the men called prophets, I shiili 
 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, 1 have said that the 
 word prophet was the Bible-word for poet, and that the flights and 
 metaphors of the Jewish poets have been foolishly prected into what 
 are now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this opinion, 
 not only because the books called the prophecies are written in poeti- 
 cal language, but because there is no word in the Bible, except it be 
 the word prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. 1 have 
 also said, that the word signifies a performer upon musical instru- 
 iflents, of which 1 have given some instances ; such as that df a 
 company of prophets prophesying with psalteries, with tabrets, with 
 pipes, with harps, &c. and that Saul prophesied with them, 1 Sam. 
 eh^p. X. ver. 5. It appears from this passage, "and from other parts 
 in the book of Samuel, that the word prophet was confined to signify 
 poetry and music ; for the person who was supposed to have a vision- 
 ary insight into concealed things, was not a prophet but a seer* 
 (1 Sam. chap, ix. ver. 9) ; and it was not till after the word seer went 
 out of use (which most probably was when Saul banished those he 
 called wizards) that the profession of the seer, or the ait of seeing, 
 became incorporated into the word prophet. 
 
 " According to the modern meaning of the woi;d prophet and pro- 
 phesying, it signifies foretelling events to a great distance of time ; 
 
 " * I know not what is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word seer in 
 English; but I observe it is translated into French by La VoynHt, from the verb 
 i'oirXo see; and wiiich means the person who sefs, or the se«r." 
 
120 
 
 and it became necessary to the inventors of the gospel to give it this 
 latitude of meaning, in order to apply or to stretch what they call 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament, "to the times of the Neve ; but 
 according to the Old Testament, the prophesying of the seer, and 
 afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word seer 
 was incorporated into that of prophet; had reference only to things of 
 the time then passing, or very closely connected with it; such as the 
 event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey, or of 
 any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any circumstance 
 then pending, or of any difficalty they were then in ; all of which 
 had immediate reference to theniselve.5 (as in the case already men- 
 tioned of Ahaz and Isaiah with respect to the expression, Behold a 
 virgin sliull eonceine and bear a son) and not to any distant future 
 time. It was that kind of prophesying that corresponds to wiat we 
 call fortune-telling; such as casting nativities, predicting riches, for- 
 tunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for lost goods, &c. ; and 
 it is the fraud of the Christian church, not that of the Jews ; and the 
 ignorance and the superstition of modern, not that of ancient times, 
 that elevated those poetical — musical — conjuring — dreaming — strol- 
 ing gentry, into the lank they have since had. 
 
 " Cut," besides this general character of all the prophets, they 
 had also a particular character. They were in parties, and they 
 prophesied for or against, according to the party they were with ; as 
 the poetical and political writers of the present day write in defence 
 of the party they associate with against the other. 
 
 " After the Jews were divided into two nations, that of Judah 
 and that of Israel, each party had its prophets, who abused and 
 accused each other of being false prophets, lying prophets, impos- 
 torsj Lc. 
 
 " The prophets of the party of Judah prophesied against the 
 prophets of the party of Israel ; and those .of the party of Israel 
 against those of Judah. This party prophesying shewed itself im- 
 mediately on the separation under the first two rival kings Rehoboam 
 and Jeroboam. The prophet that cursed, or prophesied, against the 
 altar that Jeroboam had built in Bethtil, was of the party of Judah, 
 where Rehoboam wds king ; and he was way-laid, on his return 
 home, by a prophet of the party of Israel, who said unto him, 
 (1 Kings, chap, x.) ' Jirt thou the man of God that came from 
 Judah '^ and he said I am.'' Then the prophet of the party of 
 Israel said to him, '■ I am a prophet also, as thou art (signifying of 
 Judah,) atid an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, say- 
 ing, Bring him bufk with thee unto thine house, that he may eat 
 bread and drink water: but (says the 18th verse,) he lied unto him.' 
 The event, however, according to the story, is, that the prophet of 
 Judah never got back to Judah, for he was found dead on the road, 
 by the contrivance of the prophet of Israel, who, no doubt, was 
 called a true prophet by his own party, and the prophet of Judah a 
 lying prophet. 
 
 " In the third chapter of tlie second of Kings, a stoiy is related 
 
121 
 
 of prophesying or conjuring, that shews, in iseveral particulars, the 
 character of a prophet, Jehoshaphat, king of Judahj and Joram, 
 king of Israel, had for a while ceased their party animosity, and en- 
 tered into an alliance ; and these two, together with the king of 
 Edpm, engaged in a war against the king of Moab. After uniting, 
 and marching their armies, the story says, they were in great dis- 
 tress for water^ upon which Jehoshaphat said, 'Is there not here a 
 prophet of the LorA, that toe may enquire of the Lord by him ? 
 and one of the servants of the Icing of Israel said, here is Elisha. 
 (Elisha was of the party of Judah.) And Jehoshaphat, the king of . 
 Judah, said, the word of the Lord is with him. The story then 
 says, that these three kings went down to Elisha ; and when Elisha 
 
 iwho, as I have said, was a Judahmite projihet) saw the king of 
 srael, he said unto him, ' JVhat have I to do with thee, get thee to 
 the prophets of thy father and the prophets of thy mother. Nay 
 but, said the Iting of Israel, the Lot d hath called these three kings 
 together, to deliver them into the hand of the king of Moah,' 
 (meaning because of the distress they were in for water) ; upon 
 which l3isha said, ' As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I 
 stand, surely, zvere it not that I regard the presence of Jehosha- 
 phat, king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor see thee.^ 
 Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. We have 
 now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying. 
 
 " Ver. 15. ' Bring me, said Elisha, a minstrel : and it came to 
 pass, when the minstrel .played, that the hand of the Lord came 
 upon him.' Here is the farce of the conjuror. Now for the pro- 
 phecy : ' And Elisha said, (singing most probably to the tune he 
 was playing) Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of 
 ditches ;' which was just telhng them' what every countryman could 
 have told them, without either fiddle or farce, that the way to get 
 water was to dig for it. 
 
 " But as every conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing, so 
 neither were those prophets ; for though all of them, at least, those 
 I have spoken of, wei-e famous fbr lying, some of them excelled in 
 cursing'. Elisha, whom 1 have just mentioned, was a chief in this 
 branch of prophesying ; it was he that cursed the forty-t\^ children 
 in the name of the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devour- 
 ed. We are to suppose that those children were of the party of 
 Israel ; but as those who will curse will lie, there is just as much 
 credit to be given to this story of Elisha's two she-bears as there is 
 to that of the Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said : — 
 
 Poor children three devoured he. 
 
 That could not with him grapple ; 
 
 ' And at one sup he eat them up, 
 
 Asa man would eat an apple. 
 
 ^' There was another description of men called prophets, that 
 amused themselves with dreams and visions ; but whether by night 
 or by day, we know not. These, if they were not quite haa'mless, 
 were but little mischievous. Of this class are 
 
122 
 
 " Ezekiel and Daniel ; and the first question upon those liooks, 
 as upon all the others, is. Are they genuine ? that is, were they 
 written by Ezekiel and Daniel ? 
 
 " Of this there is no proof ; but so far as my own opinion goes, I 
 am more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not. My 
 reasons for this opinion are as follow : First, Because those books 
 do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not written by 
 Ezekiel and Daniel, as the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, 
 &e. &c. prove they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Sec. 
 
 Secondly, Because they wer^e not written till after the Babylonish 
 captivity began ; and there is good reason to believe, that not any 
 book in the Bible was written before that period : at least, it is 
 proveable, from the boolcs themselves, as I have already shewn, that 
 they were not writteH-lill after the commencement of the Jevfish jno- 
 Barchy. 
 
 " Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed to 
 Ezekiel and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition these men 
 were in at the time of writing them. 
 
 " Had the numerous commentators and priests, who have foolishly 
 employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and unriddle 
 those books, been carried into captivity, as Ezekiel and Daniel weie, 
 it would have greatly improved their intellects, in comprehending 
 the reason for this mode of writing, and have saved them the trou- 
 ble of racking thfiir invention, as they have done, to no pmpose ; 
 for tliey would have found that themselves would be oblige to write 
 whatever they had to write, respecting their own aifairs, or those of 
 their friends, or of their country, in a concealed manner, as these 
 men have done. 
 
 " These two books differ from all the rest; for it is only those 
 that are filled with accounts of dreams and visions ; and this dif- 
 ference arose from the situation the writers were in 4is prisoners of 
 war, or prisoners of state,' in a forwgn country, which obliged them 
 to coayey even the most trifling infornjation to eafh other, and all 
 their political projects or opinions, in obscure and metaphorical 
 terms. They pretend to have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, 
 becaiise it wa? unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We 
 ought, however, to suppose, that the persons to whom they wrote 
 understood what they meant, and that it was not intended any body 
 else should. , But these busy commentators and priests have been 
 puzzling their wits to find out what it was not intended they should 
 know, and with which they have oothing to do. 
 
 " Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, under 
 the first captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, 'nine years before the 
 second captivity in the time of Zedekiah. The Jews were then still 
 numerous, and had considerable force at .Jerusalem ; and as it is na- 
 tural to suppose that men, in the situation of Ezekiel and Daniel, 
 would be meditating the recovery of their country, and their own 
 deliverance, it is reasonable to suppose, that the accounts of dreams 
 and visions, with which these books are filled, are no other than a 
 
123 
 
 disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitate those objects : it 
 served them as a cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are not this, 
 they are tales, reveries, and nonsense ; or at least, a fanciful way of 
 wearing oflf the wearisomeness of captivity ; but the presumption is, 
 they are the former. 
 
 While Mr. Carlile was reading this paragraph, the Chief 
 Justice ordered candles to be brought into the Court. 
 While the caudles were preparing, he addressed the Chief 
 Justice as follows: 
 
 My Lofd, I wish your Lordship would relieve me by 
 adjourning the Court until to-morrow morning, for 1 feel 
 exhausted, and find I cannot proceed much further. ' 
 
 Chief Justice. — I cannot yet adjourn the Court; but you 
 can retire for a few minutes, and take some refreshment. 
 
 Mr. Carlile then withdrew with a few friends. Candles 
 were introduced at half past five; the law-officers of the 
 Crown appeared in close conversation, and after an absence 
 of about five minutes, Mr. Carlile returned, and was about 
 to proceed, when 
 
 The Chief Justice observed, that one of the Jury was 
 absent from the box, although within hearing, and that the 
 Defendant had better wait until he was in his place. On 
 the return of this Juryman, he proceeded: — • 
 
 " Ezekiel begins his book by speaking of a vision of cherubims, 
 and of a vision of a wheel within a wheel, which he says he saw by 
 the river Chebar, in the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable 
 to suppose, that by the cherubims he meant the temple at Jerusalem, 
 where they had ..figures of cherubims } and by a wheel within a 
 wheel (which, as a figure, has always been understood to signify 
 political contrivance) the project or means of recovering Jerusalem } 
 Jn the latter part of his book, he supposes himself transported to 
 Jerusalem, and into the temple; and he refers back to the vision on 
 the river Chebar, and says (chap, xliii. ver. 3,) that this last vision 
 was like the vision on the rjver Chebar ; which indicates^ that those 
 pretepded dreams and visions had for their object the recovery of 
 Jerusalem, and nothing further. 
 
 " As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild as the 
 dreams and visions they undertake to explain, which commentators 
 and .priests have made of those books, that of converting thejn into 
 things which they call prophecies, and making them bend to times 
 and circumstances, as far remote even as the present d?iy, it shews 
 the fraud or the extreme folly to which ci-edulity or priestcraft 
 can go. 
 
 " Scarcely any thing can be more absurd, than to su^ipose that 
 men situated as Ezekiel and Daniel ware, whose country was over- 
 run, and in the possession of the enemy, {^11 their friends and relaT 
 
124 
 
 tions in capti\ily abioed, ot in slavery at home, or massacred, or in 
 continual danger of it ; scarcely any thing, I say, can be moie ab- 
 surd, than to suppose that such men should find nothing- to do but 
 that of employing their time and their thoughts about what was to 
 happen to other nations a thousand or two thousand years after they 
 were dead ; at the same time, nothing is more natural, than that 
 they should meditate the recovery of Jerusalem, and their own deliver- 
 ance; and that this was the sole object of all the cbscnre and appa- 
 rently frantic writings contained in those books. 
 
 " In this sense, the mode of writing used in those two books being 
 forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not irrational ; 
 but if we are to use the books as prophecies, they are false. In the 
 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speaking of Egypt, it is said, (ver. II,) 
 ' No foot of man should pass through it, norjvol of beuit ihuuld 
 pass through it ; neither shall it be inhabited fur forty i/ears.' 
 This is what never came to pass, and consequently it is false, as all 
 the books I have already viewed are. I here close this part of the 
 subject. 
 
 " In the former part of the ^ge of Reason, 1 have spoken of 
 Jonah, and of the stoiy of him and the whale. A fit story for ridi- 
 cule, if it was written to be believed ; or of laughter, if it was in- 
 tended to try what credulity could swallow; for if it could swallow 
 Jonah and the whale, it could swallow any thing. 
 
 " But, as is already shewn in the observations on the book of Job, 
 and of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the 
 Bible are originally Hebrew, or only translations from books of the 
 Gentiles into Hebrew ; and as the book of Jonah, so far from treat- 
 ing of the affairs of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, but 
 ti-eats alto'gether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is a book 
 of the Gentiles than of the Jews ; and that it has been written as a 
 fable, to expose the nonsense and satirize the vicious and malignant 
 character of a Bible prophet, or a predicting priest. 
 
 " Jonah is represented, first, as a disobedient prophet, running 
 away from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the 
 Gentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish ; as if he ignorantly sup- 
 posed, by such a paltry contrivance, he could hide himself where 
 God could not find him. The vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea ; 
 and the mariners, all of whom are Gentiles, believing it to be a judg- 
 ment, on account of some one on board who had committed a crime, 
 agreed to cast lots, to discover the offender ; and the lot fell upon 
 Jonah. But, before this, they had cast all their wares and merchan- 
 dize overboard, to lighten the vessel, while Jonah, like a stupid fel- 
 low, was fast asleep in the hold. 
 
 " After the lot had designated -Jonah to be the offender, they 
 questioned him to know who and what he was i and he told them he 
 was an Hebrew; and the story implies, that he confessed himself 
 to be guilty. But these Gentiles, instead of sacrificing him at once, 
 without pity or mercy, as a company of Bibl^ prophets or priests 
 would have done by a Gentile in the same case, and a lis related 
 
125 
 
 Samuel had dona by Agag, and Moses by the women and chikUen ; 
 they endeavoured to save him, though at the risk of their own lives ; 
 for the account says, ' Nevertheless (that is, though Jonah was a 
 Jew, and a foreigiler, and the cause of all their misfortunes, and the 
 loss of their cargo,) the men rowed hard to bring the boat to land, 
 but they could not, for the sea tvrought, and was tempestuous 
 against them.'' Still, however, they were unwilling to put the fate 
 of the lot into execution ; and they cried (says the account) unto the 
 Lord, saying, ' We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for thi.< 
 man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood ; for thou, O Lord, 
 hast done as it pleased thee.' Meaning thereby, that they did not 
 presume to judge Jonah guiUy, since that he might be innocent; but 
 tTiat they considered the lot that had fallen upon him as a decree of 
 God, or as it pleased God. The address of this prayer shews that 
 the Geatiks worshipped one Supreme Being, and that they were not 
 idolators, as the Jews represented thera to be. But the storm still 
 continuing, and the danger increasing, they put the fate of the lot 
 into execution, and cast Jonah into the sea ; where, according to the 
 story, a great fish swallowed him up whole and alive ! 
 
 " We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the storm 
 in the fish's belly. Here we are told that be prayed ; but the prayer 
 is a made-up prayer, taken from various parts of the Psalms, with- 
 out connection or consistency, and adapted to the distress, but 
 not at all to the condition that Jonah' was in. Itis sucha prayer as 
 a Gentile, who might know something of the Psalms, could copy 
 out for him. This circumstance alone, were there no other, is suffi- 
 cient to indicate that the whole is a made-up story. The prayer, how- 
 ever, is supposed to have answered the purpose, and the story goes on 
 (taking off at the same time the cant language of a Bible-prophet,) 
 saying, ' The Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah 
 upon dry land.' 
 
 " Jonah then received a second mission to Nineveh, with which 
 he sets out ; and we have now to consider him as a preacher. The 
 distress he is represented to have suffered, and remembrance of his 
 own disobedience as the cause of it, and the miraculous escape he is 
 supposed to have had, were sufficient, one would conceive, to have 
 impressed him with sympathy and benevolence in the execution of 
 his mission ; but, instead of this, he enters the city with denuncia- 
 tion and malediction in his tnouth, crying, ' Yet forty days, and 
 Nineveh shall be overlhroivn.' 
 
 " We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the last 
 act of his mission ; and here it is that the malevolent spirit of a 
 Bible-prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears in all that blackness 
 of character, that men ascribe to the being they call the devil. 
 
 " Having published his predictions, he withda-ew, says the story, 
 to the east side of the city. But for what? not to contemplate, in 
 retirement, the mercy of his Creator to himself, or to others, but to 
 wait, with malignant impatience, the destruction of Nineveh. It 
 carae to pass, however, as the story relates, that the Ninevites re- 
 
126' 
 
 formed, and tliat God, according to the Bible phrase, repented him 
 of the evil he had said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, 
 saith the first verse of the last chapter, displeased Junuh exceed- 
 ingly, ^and he was very angry. His obdurate heart would rather 
 that all Nineveh should be destroyed, and every soul, young and old, 
 perish in its ruins, than that his prediction shpuld not be fulfilled. 
 To expose the character of a prophet still more, a gourd is made to 
 grow up in the night, that promiseth him an agreeable shelter from 
 the heat of the sun, in the place to which he is retired ; and the next 
 morning it dies. 
 
 " Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is 
 ready to destroy himself. ' It is belter, said he, for me to die than 
 to live.'' This briijgs on a supposed expostulation between the Al- 
 mighty and the prophet; in which the former says, ' Dost thou 
 well to be angry for the gourd? Jnd Jonah said, I do well to be 
 Mgry even unto death. Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity 
 on the ^rourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it 
 to grow, which came vp in a night, and perished in a night ; and 
 should I not spare Nineceh, that great city, in which are more 
 than threescore thousand persons, that cannot discern between their 
 right hand and their left <" 
 
 " Here is both the winding up of the satire, and the moral of the 
 fable. As a satire it strikes against the character of all the Bible- 
 prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgments upon men, 
 women, and children, with which this lying book, the Bible, is 
 crowded ; such as Noah's flood, the destruction of the cities of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to 
 sucking infants, and women with child, because the same reflection, 
 that there are more than threescore thousand persons that cannot 
 discern between their right hand and their left, jneaning young 
 children, applies to all their cases. It satirizes also the supposed 
 partiahty of the Creator for one nation more than for another. 
 
 " As amoral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of predic- 
 tion ; for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to 
 wish it. The pride df having his judgment right, hardens his heart, 
 till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, 
 the accomplishment or the failure of his predictions. This book 
 ends with the same kind of strong and well-directed point against 
 prophets, prophecies, and indiscriminate judgments, as the chapter 
 that Benjamin Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the 
 stranger, ends against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions. 
 Thus much for the book of Jonah. 
 
 " Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I 
 have spoken in the former part of the Age of Reason, and already 
 vt this ; where I have said that the word prophet is the Bible word 
 for poet; and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many 
 of which are becomq obscure by the lapse of time and the change of 
 circumstances, Tiave been ridiculously erected into things called pro- 
 pHecies, and applied to purposes the writers never (bought of. 
 
127 
 
 "VVhefl a priest quotes any of those passages, he unriddles it agfee- 
 ablyto his own views, and imposes that explanation upon his con- 
 gregation as the meaning of the writer. The whore 0/ Babylon 
 has been the common whore of all the priests, and each accused the 
 • Other of keeping the strumpet ; so well do they agree in their ex- 
 planations. 
 
 " Theienow remain only a few books, which they call the books 
 of the lesser prophets ; and as 1 have already shewn that the greater 
 are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the 
 little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the 
 priests, and both be forgotten together. 
 
 " I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through 
 a- VFOod with an axe on his shoulder, and feir,trees. Here they lie ; 
 and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, per- 
 haps, stick them in the ground, but they will never make them 
 grow. — I pass on to the beoks of the New Testament. 
 
 " THE jNTEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 *' The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophe- 
 cies of the Old ; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation. 
 
 " As it is nothing extraordinary that a womVn should be with 
 child befoi-e she was married, and that the son she might bring 
 forth should be executed, even unjustly ; I see no reason for not be- 
 Jievihg, that such a woman as Maty, and such a man as Joseph, and 
 Jesus, existed : their mere existence is a matter of indiftierence, 
 aI)out Which there is no ground, either to believe, or to disbelieve, 
 and *hich comes under the common head of, It may he so ; and 
 ■uihat then? The probability; however, is, that there were such 
 pel-Sons, or at least such as reseinbled them in part of the circum- 
 stances, because almost all romantic stories have been suggested by 
 some actual circumstance ; as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 
 not a word of which is true, were suggested by the case of Alex- 
 ander Selkirk. 
 
 " It is not then the existence, or non-existence, of the persons 
 that I trouble myself about; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told 
 iu the New Tes'tament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised 
 thereon, ag'ainst, Which 1 contend. T|ie story, taking it as it is told, 
 is blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman 
 engAged to be married, and while under this engagenient, she is, to 
 sjte'ak plain latiguage, debauched by a ghost, under the impious pre- 
 tence, (Luke, chap. i. ver, 35,) that 'the Hofy, Ghost shall come 
 upon thee, and the power oj" the Highest shall overshadow thee.' 
 
 Gentlemen, great stress has been laid on these passages 
 by Mr. Attorney General, but when you find the Unitarians, 
 who have established their own Bible, disbelieving the im- 
 
128 
 
 maculate eoncseption, and consequently the divinity of 
 Jesus; when you find, as I shall be able to stiew you, that " 
 inmany parts of their Bible, they disagree with that used by 
 the established Church, I would ask you how you can cen- 
 sure Mr. Paine for the expression of his opinions? I would 
 ask the Attorney-General also how he could prosecute me 
 or Mr. Paine, for holding such opinions, as he himself has 
 always been under the repute of believing? The' Unitarians, 
 who disbelieve the Trinity, who deny therefore the divinity, 
 of Jesus, are protected by the Act of Parliament which I 
 have read to you; and it is not a little strange to see, why 
 Mr. Paine, or myself,' should be held guilty, or eonsi- 
 -dered to be doing wrong, merely for doing that which 
 others are allowed by law to do. 
 
 Notwithstandiog which, Joseph afterwards married her, cohabits 
 with her as his wife, and in his turn rivals the ghost. This is put- 
 ting the story into intelligible language and when told in this man- 
 ner, there is not a priest but must be ashamed to own it. 
 
 " Obscenity in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is always 
 a token of fable and imposture ; for it is necessaiy to our serious be- 
 lief in God, that we do not connect it with stories that run, as this 
 does, into ludicrous interpretations. This story is, upon the face of 
 it, the same kind of story as that of Jupiter and Leda, or Jupiter and 
 Europa, or any of the amorous adventures of Jupiter ; and shews, 
 as is already stated in the former part of the Age of Reason, that 
 the Christian faith is built upon the heathen mythology. 
 
 " As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as con- 
 cerns Jesus Christ, are confined to very short space of time, less than 
 two years, and all within the same country, and nearly to the same 
 spot, the discordance of time, place, and circumstance, which de- 
 tects the fallacy of the books of the Old Testament, and proves them 
 to be impositions, cannot be expected to be found here in the same 
 abundance. The New Testament, compared with the Old, is like a 
 farce of one act, in which there is not room for very numerous vio- 
 lations of the unities. There are, however, some glaring contradic- 
 tions, which, exclusive of the fallacy of the pretended prophecies, 
 are sufficient to shew the story of Jesus Christ to be false. 
 
 " I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted, first, that 
 the agreement of all the parts of a story does not prove that story to 
 be true, because the parts may agree, and the whole may be false ; 
 secondly, that the disagreement of the parts of a story proves the 
 whole cannot, he true. The agreement does not prove truth, but the 
 disagreement proves falsehood positively. 
 
 " The history of Jesus Christis contained inthe fourbooksascribed 
 to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The firet chapter of Matthew 
 begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ ; and in the third 
 chapter of Luke, there is also given a g-enealogy of Jesus Clirist, 
 
129 
 
 Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to be true, be* 
 cause it might, nevertheless, be a fabrication ; but as they contra- 
 dict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. 
 If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood ! and if Luke 
 speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood ; and as there is no authority 
 for believing one more than the other, there is no authority for be- 
 lieving either ; and if they cannot be believed even in the very first 
 thing they sgy, and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be be- 
 lieyed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an unifonn thing ; 
 and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to admit, it is impossi- 
 ble tOr«uppose it can be contradictory. Either then the men called 
 apostles vi.ere impostors, or the books ascribed to them have been 
 written by other persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case in 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 "The book of Matthew gives, chap. i. ver. 6, a genealogy by 
 name from -David, up through Joseph, the husband of Maiy, to 
 Christ ; and makes there to be twenty-eight generations. "The book 
 of Luke gives also a genealogy by name from Christ, through Jo- 
 seph, the husband of Mary, down to David, and makes there to be 
 forty-three generations; besides which, iliere are only the two 
 names of David and Joseph that are alike in the two lists. 1 here 
 insert both genealogical lists, and for the sake of perspicuity and 
 comparison have placed them both in the same direction, that is, 
 from Joseph down to David." 
 
 Gentlemen, I need not read to you the two genealogies^ 
 you no doubt are well acquaitoted with them in the New- 
 Testament. 
 
 " Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood 
 between them (as these two accounts shew they do) in the very com-^ 
 mencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of 
 what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left 
 for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards ? If they 
 cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how ' 
 are we to believe thein, when they tell us, he was the Son of God* 
 the begotten by a ghost ; and that an angel announced this in secret 
 to his mother .'' If they lied in one genealogy, why are we to be- 
 lieve them in the other ? If his natural genealogy be manufactured, 
 .which it certainly is, why are not we not to suppose, that his celes« 
 tial genealogy is manufactured also ; and that the whole is fabulous ? 
 Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon 
 the belief of a story naturally impossible ; repugnant to every idea 
 of decency ; and related by persons already detected of falsehood ? 
 IF it not more safe, that we stop ourselves at the plain, pure, and un- 
 mixed belief of one God, which is Deism, than that we commit our- 
 selves on an ocean of improbable, irrational,, indecent, and contra^ 
 dictory tales .? 
 
 « The first question, however, upon the books of the New Testa- 
 ment, as npop those of the Old, is, Are they genuine ? Were they 
 16 ^ 
 
130 
 
 wrilleu by the persons to wlibm they are ascribed ? for it is upon 
 this gimliid only, that the strange things related therein have been . 
 credited. U|)bii this point, there is no direct proof for or against ; 
 kiid all that this state of a case;proves, is doiAlfuhuss ; and doubt- 
 fulness is the opposite of belief. The state, therefore, that the 
 books are in, proves against themselves, as far as this kind cf proof 
 clA *-o. 
 
 " But, exclusive of this, the presiimption is, that the books rail- 
 ed the Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; and that they 
 are iiB^ositions. The disordered State of the history in these four 
 booksv the silence of one book upon matters related in the other, 
 a'nd the disagreement that is to be found among' them, implies, that 
 they are the production of some unconnected individuals, many years 
 after the things they pretend to relate, eaeh of whom made liis own 
 leijend ; and not the writings of men li\'ing intimately together, as 
 the uien called apdstJes are supposed to have done i in line, that they 
 have been manufactured, as the books cjf the Old Testament have. 
 beeii, by other persons than those whose names they bear. 
 
 " The story of the angel announcing, what the church calls the 
 hnmaculale coi.ception, is not so much as mentioned in Jhe books 
 ascribed to Mark and John ; and is differently related in Matthew 
 and Luke. The former saysi the angel appeared to Joseph ; the lat- 
 ter says, it was to Mary ; but either, Joseph or Mary, was the worst 
 evidence that could have been thought of; for it was others that 
 should have testifiedyfar */(«»;, land not they for themselves. Were 
 any girl that is now with child to say, and even to swear it, tTiat she 
 W'as gotten with child by a ghost, and that an angel told her so, would 
 she be believed ? Certainly she >vould not. Why then are we to "be- 
 lieve the same thing of another girl whom We never saw, told by iio- 
 bqdy knows who, nor when, nor where ? How strange and incon- 
 sistent is if, that the same circumstance that would weaken the belief 
 even of a probable story, should be gi\eh-as a motive for beliieving' 
 this one, th^'t has upon the face of it every' token of absolute im pos- 
 sibility and imposture. 
 
 " 'I'he story of Herod destroying all the children under two yeare 
 old, belongs altogether to the book of JIatthew : not one of the rtst 
 mentions any thing about it. Had such a circumstance been frtie, the 
 fiyiiv^rsalily of it must have made it known to all the writers ; and 
 the thing would have been too sti-iking to have been omiited by any. 
 This wri'tev tells lis, that Jesus eScdped this slaughter, because Joseph 
 and Mary were warned by an angel to flee with him into Egypt; hut 
 he forgot to make any provision for John, who was then under t*b 
 years of age. John, liovvever, who staid behind, fared- as Well as 
 Jesus w-ho fled ; and theiefore the s^tcny cireumstautially belies itself. 
 
 " Not any two of these Wi'iters agree in reciting, exact fy iit the 
 seane words, the \vritten inscription, short as it is, which they tell 
 us was^put over Christ when he was crucified : and besides this, 
 Mark says, He wSs' crucified at the third hoftr (iiine in the moj-ning) ; 
 and John saysj it was the sixth hour (twelve at uoou.) 
 
131 
 
 " The iiisrription is thrts stated in those books :■— 
 Matthew.. This is .Jesus the king- of the Jews. 
 
 Mark The king- of the .Jews. 
 
 Luke This is the kins^ of the .Jews. 
 
 John Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews. 
 
 " We may infer from these circumstances, trivial as tliey are, that 
 those writers, whoever they were, and in whatever time they lived, 
 were not present at the scene. The only (wie of the men, called 
 apostles, who appears to have been near the spot, was Peter; and 
 When he was accused of being-one of .lesus's followers, it is said 
 (Matthew, chap! xxvi. v. 7-!), ' Then Peler began to curse and to 
 swear, saying, I know noi the man .' yet we are now called upon to 
 believe the same Peter, conTicted, by their own account, of perjury. 
 For what reason, or on what authority, shall Vi'e do this .-' 
 
 "The accounts that are given of ihe circuui.«tances, that they 
 tell us attended: the cnieilixion, are differently related in those four 
 books. 
 
 "-The book ascribed to Matthew says, ' There was darkness over 
 all the land f rum t/ie .sixth hour unlo the ninth hour — tlial the veil - 
 of the temple was rent in twtihi from the top to the bottom — that 
 there uas an earthquake —that the rocks rent — that the graves 
 opened, that the bodies of many of the saints thrd slept arose and 
 came, out of their graves after the rcsttrreclion, and went into the 
 holy city, iind appeared nuto many.'' Such is the account which 
 this dashing writer of the book of MattJM w gives ; but in wiiich he 
 is not supported by the wiiters of the other books. 
 
 " The writer of the book ascril)ed to Slark, in detailing the cir- 
 cumstancesljof the crucifixion, makes no mention of any earthquake, 
 nor of the rocks rending, nor of llie graves opening, nor of the dead 
 raen walking out. The writer of the book of Luke is silent upon 
 the same points. And as to the writer of the book of John, though 
 he details ail the circumstances of the crucifixion down to the burial 
 of Christ, he says nothing about either the darkuess^-the veil of 
 tiie teinpk-^the earthquake — the rocks — the graves — nor the dead 
 men. 
 
 " Now if it had been true, that those things had happened; and 
 if the writeis of these books had lived at the time they did happen, 
 and had been the persons they are saiti to be, namely, the four men 
 called apostles, Matthew, Maik, Luke, and John, it was not possible 
 for them, as true historians, even without the aid of inspiration, not 
 to have recorded them. The things, supposing them to have been 
 facts, were of too much notoriety notio have been known, and of too 
 much importance not to have been told. All these supposed apos- 
 tles must have been witnesses of the. earthquake, if there had been 
 any ,; for it was not passible foi- them to have been absent from it ; 
 the opening of the graves and the resurrection of the dead men, and 
 their walking about the city, is of greater importance than the earth- 
 quake. An earthquake is always possible, and natural, and proves 
 nothing ; but this opening of the graves is supernatural, and directly 
 in point to their doctrine, their cavise, and their apostleship. Had 
 
132 
 
 it been true, it would have filled up, whole chapters of those books, 
 and been the chosen theme and general chorus of all the writeis ; 
 but instead of this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling con- 
 versations of, he said this, and she said thai, are often tediously de- 
 tailed, while this most important of all, had it been true, is passed 
 ofTin a slovenly manner by a single dash of the pen, and that by one 
 writer only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest. 
 
 " It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the 
 lie after it is told. The vniter of the book of Matthew should have 
 told us who the saints were that came to life again, and went into the 
 city, and what became of them afterwards, and who it was that saw 
 them ; for he is not hardy enough to say he saw them himself; whe- 
 ther they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he-saints and she- 
 saints ; or whether they came full dressed, and where they got their 
 dresses ; whether they went to their former habitations, and reclaim- 
 ed their wives, their husbands, and their property, and how they 
 were received ; whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of 
 their possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival 
 interlopers ; whether they remained on earth, and followed their 
 former occupation of preaching or working; or whether they died 
 ag-ain, or went back to their graves alive', and buried themselves. 
 
 " Strange indeed, that an army of saints should return to life, and 
 nobody know who they were, nor who it was that saw them, and 
 that not a word more should be said upon the subject, nor these 
 Saints have any thing to tell us ! Had it been the prophets who (as 
 we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, ihei/ must have 
 had a great dealto say. They could have told us every thing, and 
 we should have had ^ posthumous prophecies, with notes and com- 
 mentaries upon the first, a little better at least than we have now. 
 Had it been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David, 
 not an unconverted Jew had remained in all .Jerusalem. Had it been 
 John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then present, every body 
 would have known them, and they would have out-preached and 
 out-famed all the other apostles. But instead of this, C'ese saints 
 are made to pop up, like Jonah's gourd in the night, for no purpose 
 atallbutto witherinthe morning. Thus much for this part of tho.story, 
 
 " The tale of the resuirection follows that of the crucifixion ; 
 and in this as well as in that, the wrileis, whoever they were, dis- 
 agree 80 much, as to make it evident that none of them were there. 
 
 "The book of Matthew states, that when Christ was put in the 
 sepulchre, the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a guard to be 
 placed over the sepulchre, to prevent the body being stolen by the 
 disciples ; and that in consequence of this request, the sepulchre 
 loas made sure, sealing the stone that covered the mouth, and set- 
 ting a watch: But the other books say nothing about this applica- 
 tion, nor about the seahng, nor the guard, nor the watch; and ac- 
 cording to their accounts, there were none. Matthew, Jiowerer, 
 follows up this part of the story of the guard or the watch with a 
 second part, that I shall notice in the conclusion, as it serves to 
 detect the fallacy of those books. 
 
13.3 
 
 " The book of Matthew continues its account, and says, (chap, 
 xxviiii. ver. 1,) that at the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn, 
 towards the hist day of the week, came Mari/ Magdalene and the 
 other Mary, to see the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising', 
 and John says it \va;i. t'.c^i k . Luke sayn it was Mary Magdelene, and 
 Joanna, and Mary l lie mother oi James, and other tcomen, that 
 ctime to the sepulchre ; and John states, that Mary Magdalene came 
 alone. So well do they agree about their first evidence ! they all, 
 however, appear to have known most about Mary Magdalene; sbe 
 was a woman of a large acquaintance, and it was not an ill conjec- 
 ture that she might be upon the stroll. . 
 
 "The book of Matthew goes on to say, (ver. 2.) 'And behold 
 there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended 
 fxom heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and 
 sat upon it.' But the other books say nothing about any earthquake, 
 nor about the angel rolling back the stone, ajid sitting upon it ; and 
 according to their account, there was no angel fitting there. Mark 
 says the angel was within the sepulchre, sitting on the right side, 
 Luke says there were two, and they were both standing up ; and 
 John says, theyr were both silting down, one at the head and the 
 -other at the feet. 
 
 " Matthew says, that the angel that was sitting upon the stone on 
 the outside of tlie sepulchre, told the two Marys that Christ was risen, 
 and that Ibe women went aiuay qui-ckly. Mark says, that the 
 women, upon seeing the stone rolled away, and wondering at it, 
 went -anio the sepulchre, and that it was the angel that was sitting 
 within on the right side, that told them so. Luke says, it was the > 
 two angels that were standing up ; and John says, it was Jesus 
 Christ himself that told it to Mary Magdelene ; aiid that she did not 
 go into the sepulchre, but only stooped down and looked in. 
 
 " Now, if the writers of these four books had gone into a court 
 oi justice to prove an alibi (for it is of the nature of an alibi that 
 is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body 
 by supernatural means,) and liad tliey given their evidence in the 
 ^ame contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been 
 in danger of having their ears cvopt for perjury, and would have 
 justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, 
 that have been imposed upon tlie world, as being given by divine in- 
 spiration, and as the unchangeable word of God. 
 
 " The writer of the book of Maltbevv, after giving this account, 
 relates a stojy that is not to be found in any of the other books, and 
 which is the same I have just before alluded to. 
 
 " 'Now, says he, (that is, after tlie conversation the women had 
 had with the angel sitting upon the stone,) behold some of the watch 
 (meaning the watch that he had said had been placed over the se- 
 pulchre) came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the 
 things that were done ; and when they were assembled with the 
 elders and' had taken counsel, they gave large-money unto the sol- 
 diers, saying. Say ye, that his disciples came by night, and st(rfe 
 Jiini away while we slept ; and if this come to the governor's «aiv, 
 
134 
 
 we will persuade liim, and secure you. So they took the money, 
 and did as they were taught ; and this saying (that liis disciples 
 stole him away) is commonly reporlT^d among the Jews until thii 
 day.' 
 
 " The expression, until this day, is an evidence that thfcbook as- 
 cribed to Matthew was not wiitten by Matthew, and that it has been 
 manufactured long- after the times and things of which it pretends 
 to treat ; for the expression implies a great length of intervening 
 time.^ It would be inconsistent in us to speak in this manner of any 
 thing ^happening in our own time. To give, therefore, iuteiligible 
 meaning to the expression, we must suppose a lapse of some genera- 
 tions at least, for this manner of speaking cariiesthe mind back to 
 ancient time. 
 
 " The absurdity also of the story is worth noticing ; for it shews 
 the writer of the book of Matthew to have been an exceedingly 
 weak and- foolish mai>. Ke tells a story, that coMradicts itself in 
 point of possibility;- for (hough the guard, if there were any, might 
 be made to say thiit the body was taken away while they were asleep, 
 and to give that as a reason ior their not having presented it, that 
 same sleep must also have prevented their knowing how, and by 
 whom it was done; and yet they are made to say, that it was the 
 disciples who did it. Were a man to tender his evidence of some- 
 thing that he should say was done, and of the manner of doing it, 
 and of the person who did it while he was asleep, and could know 
 nothing of the matter, such evidence could not be received : it will do 
 . well eijough for Testamtnt evidence, but not for any thing where 
 truth is concerned. 
 
 " I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, that 
 respects the pretended appearance of Christ after this pretended re- 
 surrection. 
 
 " The writer of the book of Matthew relates, • that the angel 
 thai was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, said to 
 the two Maiys, chup. xxviii. ver. 7, ' Befwld Christ is gone before 
 you into Galilee, there ye shall see him; la, I have told youJ 
 And tile some writer, at tha two next verses (S, 9,) makes Christ him- 
 self to speak to the same purpose to these women, immediately after 
 the angel had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell it to 
 the disciples ; and at the IGth vei'se it is said, ' then llie eleven dis- 
 ciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had ap- 
 poiijted them ; and, when they saw him, they worshipped him.' 
 
 " But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very diiferent 
 to this ; for he says, chap. xx. ver. 19, ' 1 hi-n. the same day at even- 
 ing, being the Jirst day of the week (that is, the same day that 
 Christ is said to "have risen,) ii^hen. the doors were shut, where the 
 disciples^ ner.e assembled, J'or Jyar of the Jews, came Jesus and 
 stood in the midst of them.' 
 
 " According to Matthew the eleven were marching to Galilee, to 
 meet Jesus jn a mountain, by his own appointment, at the very time 
 when, according to John, they were assembled in another place, and 
 that not by appointment but'iii secret, for fear of the Jews. 
 
135 
 
 '^' The writer of the book of Li^ke coiitradjcts that of Ulatthew 
 iijore pointedly than' John does ; for he says expressly, that tlie 
 meeting was in Jerusdlem the evening of the same day that he 
 (Christ) rose, and that the eleven, were there. iSee Luke, chap. xxiv. 
 ver. ^ i :J3. ' ' , 
 
 " Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disci- 
 ples the riorbt of wilful lying-, that the wiitei- of ihese bqoks cOujd 
 be any of the eleven persons called disciples; fpr if," according to 
 Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus' m ^ mountain 
 by his own appointment, on the same day that he is said to* (laye 
 risen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven ; yet' the 
 writer of Luke says expressly, and John impliefe as much, that the 
 meeting was, that same day, in a house in Jerusalem'; and, on tlje 
 other hand, if, according to Luke and John,' the eleven were asseip- 
 bled in a house in Jerusalem, Matthevy must have been one of that 
 eleven ; yet Matthew says, the meeting was in a mountain in Ga- 
 lilee, and consequently the evidence given in those books destroys 
 each other. 
 
 " The writer of the book of Mark says nothing about any- meet- 
 ing in Galilee ; but he says, chap. xvi. ver. 12, that Christ,' after his 
 resurrection, appeared in another form to two of theth, as they walked 
 iutDthe country, and that these two told it to the residue, >vho would 
 not believe them. Luke also tells a story,' in which he keeps Christ 
 employed the whole of the day of this pretended 'resurrection, uvitil 
 the evening, and which totally invalidates the account of goin* to 
 the mountain in Galilee. He sayj;, that two of them, without say- 
 ing which two, went that same djiy to a village called tmniaus, 
 tlireesrore furlongs (seven miles and a half) from Jerusalem, and that 
 Christ, in disguise, went with them, and s,t:iid with ,the;iii imto the 
 evening, and sUjpped with them, and then .vanished out of their sight, 
 and re-appeared that same evening, at the meeting of the eleven in 
 Jerusalem, 
 
 " This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of this 
 pretended re-appearance of Christ is stated ; the only point in whi<;h 
 the \yriters agree, is the skulking privacy of that re-appeaiance ; for 
 whether it was in. the recess of a mountain in Galilee, or in a sKuf-up 
 house in Jurusalem, it was still skulking. To what cause then are 
 we to assign chis skulking? On the one hand, it is directly repug- 
 nant to the supposed or pretended end — that of convincing the woi Id 
 that Chiist was risen ; and, on the other hiiVid, to have asserted the 
 publicity of it, would have exposed the writers of those books to 
 public detection, and therefore they have i;een under the necessity 
 of making it a private affair. 
 
 " As to the account of Christ bfiing seeri by more than five hun- 
 dred at once, itris Paul only who says it, and not the flVe hundred 
 who say it for themselves. It is, theiefore, the testimony of' but 9ne 
 man, and that too of a man, who did not, according to the same aie- 
 'count, believe a word ef the matter himself, at the time it is said «o 
 have happened. His evi(ience, supposing him to have been tte 
 
136 • ~ 
 
 writer o^ the -1 5th chapter of Corinthians, where tlus account i» 
 given, is like that of a man, who comes into a court of justice to 
 swSar, that what he had sworn before is false. A man may often see 
 reason, and he has too always the right of changing his opinion ; JDut 
 this liberty does not extend to matters of fact. 
 
 " I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into heaven. 
 Here all fpar of the Jews, and of every thing else, must necessarily 
 have been out of the question : it was that which, if true, was to 
 seal the whole ; and npan which the reality of the future mission 
 jof the disciples was to rest for proof. Words, whether declarations 
 or promises, that passed in private, either in the recess of a moun- 
 tain in Galilee, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even supposing 
 them to have been spoken, could not be evidence in public ; it was 
 therefore necessary that this last scene should preclude the possi- 
 bility of denial and dispute; and that it shotfld be, as 1 have, stated 
 jn the former part of the jige of. Reason, as public and as visible 
 as the sun at noon day : at least, it ought to have been as public as 
 the crucifixion is reported to have been. But to come to the point. 
 
 " In the fiyst place the writer of .the book of Matthew does not 
 ^ay a syllable about it ; neither does the writer of the book of John. 
 This, being the case, is it possible to suppose that those writers, who 
 affect to be even minute in other ipatters, would have been silent 
 lipon thjs, hfid it been true > The writer of the book of Mark passes 
 ]it off iij a careless, slovenly manner, With a single dash of the pen, as 
 if he was tired of romancing, or ashamed of the story. So also does 
 the wpter of Luke. And ^ven between these two, there is not an 
 apparent agreejnent, as tp the place where this final parting is said 
 to have been. 
 
 " The book of M^rk says, that Christ appeared to the eleven 
 as they sat at mfeat ; alluding to the meeting of the eleven at 
 Jerusalem: he then states the conversation that he says passed at 
 that meeting; and immediately after says (as a school-boy would 
 .finish a dull story) ' So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, 
 he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of dod.' 
 But the writer' of Luke says, that the ascension was from Bethany; 
 that Ac (Christ) led iheik put as far as Bethany, unci was parted 
 froni thpn then there, and was carried up into heaven.^ So also 
 Mahomet: sind as to Moses, the apostle Jiule says, ver. 9, That 
 Michael and the devil.disputed ahoKt his budij. While we belieye 
 such ffibles as Ijiese, or either of thein, we believe" unworthily of the 
 Almighty, 
 
 " I have now gope through the examination of the four books as- 
 cribed to Mfitthew, M^rk, Luke, and John; and when it is consi- 
 dered th^t the whole space of lime, from the crucifixion to what is 
 called the ascensiop, is but a few d^ys, fipparently not more than 
 three or four, and that Jill the circumstances ai-e reported to have 
 happened nearly about the same spot, Jerusalem ; it is, I believe, 
 impossible to find, in any story upon recoid, so many and such g1ar- 
 jpg absurdities, coplradietions, an(l falsehoods, as jive in those books. 
 
m 
 
 They are more numerous and striking than I liad any expectation of 
 finding', when I began this examination, and far more so than I had 
 any idea of, when I wrote the former part of the Age o/' Reason.— — 
 
 Gentlemen, why was the latter part of this paragraph 
 omitted? Why did Mr. Attorney-General say, that Mr. 
 Paine had views far diiferent on the subject from those he 
 has expressed? No, Gentlemen, Mr. Paine sincerely believed 
 what he wrote, for he was af that moment 'threatened with 
 the guillotine. And I ask of the Attorney-General how he 
 Could bring forward, much less sujjport, the assertions he 
 has made with respect to the death of that Friend to Reason 
 and the Human Race? 
 
 . 1 had then neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, nor could I 
 
 procure any. My own situation, even as to 'existence, was becoming 
 every day more precarious; and as I was willingv to leave something 
 behind me upon the subject, 1 was obliged to be quick and concise. 
 The qiiolatipns I then made were from memoiy only, but they are 
 correct ;■ and the opinions I have advanced in that work are the 
 effect of the most clear and long-established conviction — that the 
 Bible and Testament are impositions upon the world — that the fall of 
 man — the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his 
 dying to appease'the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange 
 means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and 
 power of the Almighty — that the only true religion ' is Deism, by 
 which I then meant, and now mean, the belief of one God, and an 
 imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called 
 moral virtues— and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is 
 concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So 
 say I now — and so help me God. 
 
 " But to return to the subject. — Though it is impossible, at this 
 distance of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the writers of those 
 /our books (and this alone is sufficient to hold them in doubt, and 
 where' we doubt we do not believe) it is not difficult to ascertain 
 ne^gatively that they were hot written by the persons to whom they 
 are ascribed. The contradictions in those l)ooks demonstralje two 
 things : 
 
 " First, ihat the writers cannot have been eye-witnesses and ear- 
 witnesses of the matters they relate, or thiy would have related 
 them without those contradictions ; and consequently that the books 
 have not been wiitten by the persons called apostles, who are sup- 
 posed to hayfe been witnesses of this liind. 
 
 " Secondly, that the writers, whoever they were, have not acted 
 in concerted imposition , but each writer, separately and individually 
 for himself, and without t'he knowledge of the other. 
 
 " The same evidence that applies to prove the one, applies equally 
 to prove both cases ; that is, that the books were not written by the 
 f^m called apostles, and also that they are not a qpacerted imposi, 
 
 \ 
 
138 
 
 tion. As to inspiration, it is altogether out of the (^^uestion; we may 
 as well attempt to unite tiuth and falsehood, as inspiratioi) and coiit 
 tradiction. 
 
 " If four men are eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses to a scene^ they 
 will, without any concert between them, agree as to the time and 
 place when and where that scene happened. Their indii'idual know- 
 ledge of the thing, each one knowing it for himself, renders conct^rt 
 totally unnecessary ; the one will not say it wgs in a mountain iti 
 the country, and the other ^it a house in town : the one will not say 
 it was at sun-rise, and the other that it was dark. For in whatey;er 
 place it was, at whatever time it was, they know it equally alike. 
 
 " And, on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they will 
 make their separate relations of that story agiee, and corroborate 
 with each other to support the whole. That concert supplies the 
 want of fact. in the one case, as the knowledge of the fact supersedes, 
 in the other x;ase, the necessity of a concert, the same contradicr 
 tions, therefore, that prove there has been no concert, prove also that 
 the reporters had no knowledge of the fact (or rather of th^t which 
 they relate as a fact,) and detect also the falsehood of thei^- reports. 
 Those books, therefore, have neither been written by tljie men called 
 apostles, nor by impostoi-s in concert. How then haye they been 
 written ? 
 
 , " I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is much 
 of that which is called wilful lying, iOr lying originally ; except in 
 the case of men setting up to-be prophets, as i" the Old I'estament : 
 fqr prophesying is lying professionally. In almost all other cases, it 
 is not. difficult to discover the progress, by which even simple sup- 
 position, with the aid of credulity, will, in time, grow in^o a lie, and 
 at last be told as a f^ict; and whenever we can find a charitable 
 reason for a thing of this kind, we ought not to indulge a st^vete 
 one. 
 
 " The story of JesusChrist appearing after he was dead, is the 
 stoiy of an apparition, sutsh as timid imaginations can always create 
 in visiim, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told 
 of the assassination of Julius Csesar, not many years before, and 
 they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the execu- 
 tion of innocent persons. In cases of this kind, compassion lends 
 its aid, and benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a little and 
 a little farther, till it beicomes a most certain truth. Once start a 
 ghost, and credulity tils up the history of its life, and assigns the 
 cause of its appearance I one tells it one way, another another vray, 
 till there are as many stories about the ghost and about tlie proprietor 
 of the ghost, as there are about Jesus Christ in these four books. 
 
 ." The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with that 
 strange mixture of the natural and impossible, that distinguishes 
 legendary tale frOm fact. He is represented as suddenly coming in 
 jtud going out when the doors are shut, and of vanishing out of 
 sight, and appearing again, as que would conceive of an unsubstan- 
 tial visivn ; then again he- is hungry, sits down to meat, and eats 
 
139 
 
 his supper. Bqt as those who tell stories of this kind, never pvoyide 
 for all the.cases, so it is here : they hfive told us, that wlien he arose 
 he left his grave clothi's behind him; but they have forgotten to pro- 
 vide other clothes for hiui to appear in afterwards, or to tell us what 
 he did with theiu when he ascended; whetlier he stripped all oft', oi 
 went up clothes and all. In the case of Elijah, Ihey have been care- 
 ful eaou^h to make him throw down his mantle; how it happened 
 not to be burnt ki the chariot of fire, they also have not told us. 
 But as imagination supplies all defipiencies of this kind, we may sup- 
 pose, if we please, that it was made of salamander's wool. 
 
 "Those who are not much acquainted with eccleMastical history, 
 may suppose that the book called the New Testament has existed ever 
 since the time of Jesus Christ, as they suppose that the books as- 
 cribed to Moses have existed ever since the time of Moses. But the 
 fact is historically otherwise; there was no such book as the New 
 Testament till more than three hundred years after the time that 
 Christ is said to have lived. 
 
 " At what time the books ascribed to Matthew, JSiaik, Luke, 
 and Joliii, ljes);an to appear, is altpg*tlier a matter of uncertainty. 
 There is ixit tlie least shadow of evidence of who the persons wert- 
 that wrote thein, nor at what time they were written ; and thev 
 might as well have been called by the names of any of the other sup- 
 posed apostles, as by the names they are now calleil. The originals 
 are not iti the possession of any Christian church existing, any 
 more than the two tables of stone writteiron, they pretend, by the 
 finger of God, upon mount Sinai, aud given to Moses, are in the 
 possession of the Jews. And even if they were, there is no pos- 
 sibility of proving the hand writing in either case. At the time 
 those books were written there was' no printing., and consequently 
 there could be no publication, otherwise than by written copies, 
 which any man might make or alter at pltasure, and call them 
 originals. Can we suppose it is consistent with tlie wisdom of the 
 Almigiity, to commit iijmself and his will toman, upon such pre- 
 carious means as these, or riiat it is consistent we should pin our 
 faith upon such uncertaintie-; ? We cannot mal>e nor alter, nor 
 even imitate, so much as one blade of gra.ss that he has made, 
 and yet we can make or alter words of God as eusily as words 
 of man.* 
 
 " * The former part of the Age ofReasm has not been published two years, and 
 there is already an expression in it that is not miiie. Tlie expression is. The book 
 of Luke wan carried, by a majonty of one voice onlif. It may be true, but it is not I 
 that have said it. Spme person, who niigiit know of the cirtunistance, has added 
 it in a note at tlie bottom of the page of some of the editions, printed either in Ei>g- 
 land or in America ; and the printers, after that, have erected it into a body of 
 the work, and made me the Author of it. If this lias happened witliin such a short 
 space of time; notwithstanding tlie aid of printing, which prevents the alteration of 
 copies individually ; what may not have happened in a much greater length of 
 time, wheft there was po* printing, and when any man who could write could make 
 a written cojiy, and call it an original, by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John ':" 
 
 I 
 
140 
 
 f About three "hundred and fifty years after ttie time that Christ 
 is said to have lived, several writings of the kind I am speaking of, 
 were scattered in thehands of divers individuals ; and as the church 
 had begun to form itself into an hierarchy, or church government, 
 with temporal powers, it set itself about collecting them into a code, 
 as we now see -them called The New Testament. They decided by 
 vote, as I have before said in the former part of the Age of Eeason, 
 which of those writings, out of the collection they had made, 
 should be the word of God, and which should not. The Rab- 
 bins of the Jews had decided, by vote, upon the books of the 
 Bible before. 
 
 " As the object of the church, as is the case in all national es- 
 tablishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror the 
 means it used ; it is consistent to suppose, that the most miracu- 
 lous and wonderful of the writings they had collected stood the best 
 chance of bei no- voted. Andas to the authenticity of the books, the 
 vote stands in the place of it ; for it can be traced no higher. 
 
 " Disputes, however, ran liigh among the people then calling 
 themselves Chuistians ; not only as to points of doctrine, but as to 
 the authenticity of the books. In the contest between the persons 
 called Saint Augustine and Fauste, about the year 400, the lat- 
 ter says, ' The books called the Evangelists have l;een composed 
 long after the times of the apostles, by some obscure men, who, 
 fearing that the world would not give credit to their relation of mat- 
 ters of which they could not be informed, have published them 
 under the names of the apostles ; and which are so full of sottish- 
 ness and discordant relations, that there is neither agreement nor 
 connection between them.' 
 
 " And in another place, addressing himself lo the advocates of 
 those books, as beingthe wordof God, he says, ' It is thus that your 
 predecessors have inserted, in the scriptures of our Lord, many 
 things, v^hich, though they carry his name, agree not with his doc- 
 trines. This is not surprising, since that we have often proved 
 that these things have not been written by himself, nor by his apos- 
 tles, but that for the greatest part they are founded upon tales, 
 upon vagub reports, and put toijether by 1 know not what, half- 
 Jews, wi^h but little agreement between them; and which they 
 have nevertheless published tinder the names of the apostles of our 
 Lord," and they have thus attributed to them their own errors and 
 their //«■.'* 
 
 '' The reader will see by thefe extracts, that the authenticity of 
 the books of- the New Testament was denied, and the books treated 
 as tales, forgeiies, and lies, at the time they were voted to be the 
 word of God. But the iiiterttt of the church, with the assistance of the 
 faggot, bore down the opposition, and at last suppressed all inves- 
 
 '* * I have taken these two extracts from Boulangcr's Life of Paul, i^ritf^n in 
 French; Boulanger has quoted them from .tlie -writings of Augustine against 
 Fayste, to -which he refers." 
 
141 
 
 tigation. Miracles followed upon miracles, if we will believe tliera; 
 and men were taught to say they believed whetlier they believed or 
 not. But (by way of throwing in a thought) the Freach Revolu- 
 tion has excomniLuiicated the church from the power of working 
 miracles: she has not been able, with the assistance of all her 
 saints, to work one miracle since the revolution began ; and as she 
 never stood in greater need than now, we may, wiihout the aid of 
 divination, coiicl-ude,, that all lier former miracles were tricks and 
 lies.* 
 
 " When we consider the lapse of more than three hundred years 
 intervening between the time that Christ is said to have lived and 
 the time the New Testament was formed into a book, we must see, 
 even without the assistance pf historical evidence, the exceeding 
 uncertainty there is of its authenticity. The authenticity of the 
 book of Homer, so far as regards the authorship, is much better 
 established than that of the New Testament, thuugh Homer is a 
 thousand years the most ancient. It was only an exceeding good 
 poet that could have written the book of Homer, and therefore few' 
 men only could have attempted it ; and a'hian feupable of doing it 
 would not have thrown away his. own lame by i;i^i"? '^ to another. 
 In like maiuier, theie were but few that could have composed Eii* 
 clid's Elements, because none but an exceeding good geometrician 
 could have been the author of that work. 
 
 " But with respect to the books of the New Testament, particu- 
 larly such parts as tell us of the resurrection and ascension of 
 Christ, any person who could tell a story of an apparition, or of a, 
 man's tvalking,' could have made such books ; for the story is most 
 wretchedlj' told. The chance, therefore, of forgery in the Testa- 
 ment, is millions to one greater than in the case of Homer or Eu- 
 
 " * Boulanger, in his Life of Paul, has collected from the ecclesiastical histories, 
 and the writings of ^the fathers, as they are .called, several matters which shew the 
 opinions tliat prevailed girilong the diiferent sects of Christians, at tlie time the 
 Testament, as we now see it, was voted to be the word of God. The following ex- 
 tj'acts are from tlie second ciiapter of tliat worlt. 
 
 " * The JMarcionists (a Gliristiaa sect), assv^red tliat the evangelists were filled 
 witli falsities. 'U'he Maniche,ens, who formed a very nniuerous sect at the com- 
 mencement of Christianity, rejected asj'ahe, all the New Testament; and shewed 
 other writings quite dilFererft that they gave for authentic. Tlie Coiinthians, like 
 the Marcionists, admitted not the Acts of the Apostles. Tiie Encratites, and tiie 
 Sevcnians, adopted neither the Acts nor the Epistles^f Paul, Chrysostome, in 
 a homily which lie made upon, the 'Acts of the Apbstles, says, thatin his time,, 
 about the year 400, many people Itnew nothing either of the author or of the 
 book. St. Irene, who livedbeforfi that time, reports that tlie Valentinians, like: 
 several other sects of the Cliri^tians, accused the Scriptures of being filled witli, 
 imperfections, errors, and contradictions. The Ebionites or Nazarenes," who were 
 the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul, and regarded him a^ an im- 
 postor. They report, among other things, that he was originally a Pagan, that he 
 came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time ; and that having a mind to marry 
 the daughter of the high priest, he caused himself to be circumcised ; but that 
 KOt being able to obtain her, he quarrelled with the Jews, and wrote against cir- 
 cumcision, and against the observatio.n of the sabbath, and against alL tlie legal 
 oa-diiiances.' " , ; • . 
 
142 
 
 did. Of the numerous priests or parsons of the present day, bi- 
 shops and aH, every one of them can make a sermon, or translate a 
 scrap of Latin, especially if it has been translated a thousand 
 times before ; but is there any amongst them that can write poetry 
 like Homer, or science like Euchd ? The sum total of a parson's 
 learning, with very few exceptions, is u 6 ah, and liic, hate, hoc ; 
 and their knowledge of science is three times one is three ; and 
 this is more than sufficient to have enabled ihein, had they lived at 
 the time, to have written all the books of the New Testament. 
 
 " As the opportunities of forgery were greater, so also was the 
 inducement. A man could gain no advantage by writing under 
 the name of Homer or Euclid; if he coirld write equal to them, it 
 would" be better that he wrote under his own name; if. iufeiior, he 
 could not succeed. Pride would prevent the former, and impossi- 
 bility the luLter. But with respect to such books as compose the 
 NewTestaijient, all the inducements were on the side of forgery. 
 The best imagined history that could have been made, at the dis- 
 tance of two or three humlred years after the time, could not have 
 passed for an ovigiiral under the name of the real writer; the only 
 chalice of success Jay in forgery, for the church wanted pretence 
 for its new doctrine, and truth and talents were out of the 
 tjuestioti. 
 
 " But as it is nn>t uncommon (as before observed) to relate sto- 
 ries ©f persons ivu/l:ing after they are dead, and of ohosts and ap- 
 ]j;iritions of such iis have fallen by some violent or extraordinary 
 means; and as the people of that day were in the habit of be- 
 lievini; such things, and of the appearance of angels, and also of 
 devils, and of their getting into people's insides, and shakiagthem 
 like a tit of an ague, and of their being cast out again as if by an 
 emetic — (Mary Magdalene, the book ofMark tells us, hud brought 
 up, or been brought to bed of sev*=n devils) ; it was nothing ex- 
 traordinary that some story of this kind should get abroad of the 
 person culled Jesus Christ, and become afterwards the foundatioa 
 of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 
 Each writer told the tale as lie heard it, or thereabouts, and gave 
 ,to his book the name of the saint or the apostle who in tradition 
 had given as the eje-witness. It is only upon this ground that the 
 contradictions in thoSe books can be accounted for ; and if this be 
 not the casL-, they are downright impositions, lies, and forgeries, 
 without even the cipology of credulity. 
 
 "That they laave been written by a sort of half-Jews, as the fore- 
 going quotations mention, is discernible enough. The frequent 
 references made to that chief assassin and impostor, Moses, and to 
 the men called propliet;s, establishes this point ; and, on the other 
 hand, the church has complimented the fraud, by admitting the 
 Bible and Testament to reply to each other. Between the Chris- 
 tian Jew and the Christian Gentile, the thing called a prophecy, 
 and the thing prophesied ; the type, and the thing typified; the 
 sign, and the thing signified, have been iiichistrtously rummaged 
 
143 
 
 up, alid fitted together like old locks iind |)ick-lock keys. The 
 story foolislily enougli told of Eve audthe serpent, and naturally 
 enough as to the enmity between men and serpents (for the serpent 
 ahvays bites aliout ihe Aee/, because it cannot reacli higher ; and 
 the man always knocks the serpent about the head, as the most 
 effectual way to prevent its biting) ; this foolish stoiy, I say, has 
 been made into a puophecy, a type, and a promise to begin with ; 
 and the lying imposition of Isaiah to Ahaz, That u virgin shall 
 conceive and bear ason, as a sign that Ahaz should conquer, when 
 the event was that he was defeated (as already noticed in the ob- 
 servations oil the book of Isaiah), has been perverted, and made to 
 set-Ve as a winder-up. 
 
 "Jonah and the whale are also made into a sign or type. Jonah 
 is Jesus, and the whale is the grave ; for it is said, (and they have 
 made Christ to say it of himself) Matt. chap. xvii. ver. 40, ' I'or 
 as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so 
 shall the Son of man be thne days and three nights in the heart of 
 the earth.' But it happens aukwardly enough that Christ, accord- 
 ing to their own account, was but one day and two nigh^ in the 
 grive,; about 30 hours instead of 7*2 ; that is, the Friday night, 
 the Saturday, and the; Saturday night; for they say he was up on 
 the Sunday morning by sun-rise, or before. But as this tits quite 
 as well as the bite and the kick in Genesis, or the virgin and her 
 soti in Is'diah, it will pass in the lump of orthodox things. Thus 
 ^tich for the historical part of the Testament and its evidences. 
 
 " Epistles of Paul. — The epistles ascribed to Paul, being four- 
 teen in iiurabfer, almost till up the remaining part of the Testa- 
 tnent. Whether those epistles were written by the person to whom, 
 they were ascribed, is ainatterof nogreat importance, since the writer 
 "whoever he was, attempts to prove his doctrine by argument. He 
 d'oes nat pretend to have been witness to any of the scenes told of 
 the resurrection and ascension ; and he declares that he had not 
 -bdieved them. 
 
 " The story of liis being struck to the ground as he was jour- 
 neying to Damasicus, has nothing in it miracnlous or extraordi- 
 t4ary ; he escaped with his life, and that is more than many others 
 liave doile, who have been struck with light-ning ; and that he 
 should lose his sight for three days, and be unable to eat or drink 
 during that time, is nothing more than is common in such condi- 
 tions. His companions that were with him appear i.'pt to have 
 sufFeied in the same manner, for they were well enough to lead 
 him the remainder of the journey; neither did they pretend to 
 BavB seen any vision. 
 
 The character of the person called Paul, according to the ac>- 
 ^ounts given of him, has in it a great deal of violence and fanati- 
 ^sm ; he had persecuted with as much heat as he preached after- 
 ■ftralds; the stroke he had received had changed his' thinking, 
 without altering his constitution ; and, either as a Jew or a Chris- 
 tian, he was the same zealot. Such men are never good moral 
 
14i 
 
 evideHces ojf any doctrine they preach. They are always in eX" 
 tremes, as well as of action as of belief. 
 
 " The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument, is the resur-, 
 rection of the same body ; and he advances this as an evidence of 
 imniortalitj'. But so much will men differ iu their manner of 
 thinking, and in the conclusions they draw from tlie same pre- 
 mises, that this doctrine of the resurrection of the same body, so 
 far from being an eviflence against it; for if I have already diediri 
 this body, and ai^i raised again in the same body in which 1 have 
 died, it is presumptive evidence that I shall die again. That re- 
 surrection no more secures me agai/ist the repetition of dying, 
 than an ague fit, when past, secures me against another. To be- 
 lieve, therefoie, in immortality, I must have a more elevated idea 
 than is contained in the gloomy doctrine of the resurrection. 
 
 " Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had rather 
 have a better body and a more convenient form thaa the present. 
 Every animal in the creation excels us in something. The winged 
 insects, without mentioning doves or eagles, can pass over 'more 
 space and with greater ease^ in a few minutes, than man can in an 
 hour. The glide of the smallest fish, in proportion to its bulk,' 
 exceeds us in motion, almost beyond. comparison, and without 
 weariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend from the bottoua 
 of a dungeon, where man, by the want of that ability, would 
 perish ; and a spider can launch itself from the top, as a playful 
 amusement. The personal powers of man are so limited, and his 
 heavy frame so little constructed to extensive enjoyment, that 
 there is nothing to indues us to wish the opinion of Paul to be 
 true. It is too little for the magnitude of the scene — too mean 
 for the sublimity of the subject. 
 
 " But all other arguments apart, the consciousness of existence 
 is the only conceivable idea we can have of another life, and the 
 continuance of that consciousness is immortality. The conscious- 
 ness of existence, or the knowing that we exist, is not necessarily 
 confined to the same form, nor to the same matter, even in this 
 life. 
 
 We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the same 
 matter, that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years ago ; and 
 yet we are conscious of being the same persons. Even legs and 
 arms, which make up almost half the human frame, are not neces- 
 saVy to the consciousness of existence. These may be lost or takeq 
 away, and the full consciousness of existence remain ;. and were 
 their place supplied by wings or other appendages, we cannot con- 
 ceive thiit it could alter^our consciousness of existence. In short, 
 we know not how much, or rather how little, of our composition it 
 is, and how exquisitely fine that little is, that creates in us this 
 consciousness of existence ; and all beyond that is like the pulp 
 of a peaCTi, distinct and separate from die vegetative speck in the 
 kernel. 
 
 " Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter it is 
 
145 
 
 ttiat a thought is produced in wliat we call the mind ? and yet 
 that thought, when produced, as I now produce the thought I am 
 writing, is capable of becoming immortal, and is the only produc- 
 ion of man that has that capacity. 
 
 " Statues of brass or marble will perish ; and statues made in 
 imitation of them are not the same statues, nor the same workman- 
 ship, any more than a copy of a picture is the same picture. But 
 print and reprint a thought a thousand times over, and that with , 
 materials of any kind — carve it in wood, or engrave it on stone, the 
 thought is eternally and identically the same thought in every case. 
 It has a capacity of unimpaired existence, unaffected by change of 
 matter, and is essentially distinct, and of a nature different from 
 every thing else that we know of or can conceive. If then the 
 thing produced.has in itself a capacity of being immortal, it is more 
 than a token that the power that produced it, which is the self-same 
 thing as consciousness of existence, can be immortal also ; and that 
 as independently of the matter it was first connected with, as the 
 thought is of the printing or writing it first appeared in. The one 
 idea is not more difiicult to believe than the other, and we can see 
 that one is true, 
 
 " That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the 
 same foim or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in the 
 works of the creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that 
 demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches 
 to us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their 
 little life resembles an earth and a heaven — a present and a future 
 state : and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in 
 miniature. i 
 
 " The most beautiful parts of the creation, to our eye, are the 
 winged insects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that 
 form and that inimitable brilliancy by progressive changes.- The 
 slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of to-day, passes in a few days 
 to a torpid figure, and a state resembling death ; and in the next 
 change comes forth, in all the miniature magnificence of life, a 
 splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former creature re- 
 mains; every thing is changed; all his powers are new, and life 
 is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the consciousness 
 of existence is not the same in this state of the animal as before; 
 why then must I believe that thle resurrection of the same body 
 is necessary to continup to me the consciousness of existence here- 
 after ? 
 
 " In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have called the 
 creation the true and only real word of God ; and this instance, or 
 this text, in the book of creation, not only shews to us that this 
 thing may be so, but that it is so; and that the belief of a future 
 state is a rational belief, founded upon facts visible i* the creation ; 
 fqr it is not more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter 
 in a better state and form than at present, than that a worm should 
 11. 
 
146 
 
 become a butterfly, aiid quit the dunghill for the atraospheiei, if we 
 ^id uot know it as a fart. 
 
 " As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul, in the 15th chap- 
 ter of 1 Corinthians, which makes part of the burial service of 
 some Christian sectaries, it is as destitute of meaning as the tolling 
 of the bell at the funeral; it explains nothing to the understand- 
 ing — it illustrates nothing to the imagination, but kaves the 
 reader to find any meaning if he can. ' All flesh (says he) is not 
 the same flesh. There is one flesh of men ; another of beasts ; 
 another of fishes; and another of birds.' And what then? — no- 
 thing. A cook could have said as much. ' There are also (says 
 he) bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial ; the glory of the celes- 
 tial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.' And what 
 then ? — nothing. And what is the difference ? nothing that he has 
 told. ' There is (says he) one glory of the sun, and another glory of 
 the moon, and another glory of the stars.' And what then .■' — 
 nothing ; except that he says that one star differeth from another 
 star in glory, instead of distance ; and he might as well have told us, 
 that the moon did not shine so bright as the sun. All this is nothing 
 better than the jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases 
 he does not understand, to confound the credulous people who come 
 to have their fortunes told. Priests and conjurors are of the same 
 ti'ade. 
 
 " Sometimes Paul afiects to be a naturalist, and to prove his 
 system of resurrection from the principles of vegetation. ' Thou 
 fool, (says he) that which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
 die.' To which one might reply in his own language, and say. 
 Thou fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
 die not; for the grain that dies in the ground never does nor can 
 vegetate. It is only the living grains that produce the next crop. 
 But the metaphor, iu any point of view, is no simile. It is suc- 
 cession, and not resurrection. 
 
 " The progress of an animal from one state of being to another, 
 as from a worm to a butterfly, applies to the case ; but this of the 
 grain does not, and shews Paul to have been what he says of others, 
 a fool. 
 
 " Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by 
 him or not, is a matter of indifference ; they are either argumen- 
 tative or dogmatical; and as the argument is defective, and the 
 dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote 
 them. And the same may be said for the remaining parts of the 
 Testament. It is not upon the epistles, but upon what is caHed the 
 Gospel, contained in the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John, and upon the pretended prophecies, that the theory 
 of the church calling itself the Christian Church, is founded. The 
 epistles are dependent upon those, and must follow their fatfe • for if 
 the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all reasoning founded upon it 
 as a supposed truth, must fall witl^ it. 
 
147 
 
 " We know from history, that one of the principal leaders of this 
 church, Athanasius, lived at the time the New Testament was formed ; 
 and we know also, from the absurd jargon he has left us under the 
 name of a creed, the character of the men who formed the New Tes- 
 tament; and We know also from the same history, that the authen- 
 ticity of the books of which it is composed was denied at that time. 
 It is upon the vole of such as Athanasius, that the Testament was 
 decreed to be the word of God ; and nothing can present to us a 
 more strange idea than that of decreeing the word of God by vote. 
 Those who rest their faith upon such authority put man in the place 
 of God, and have no true foundation for future happiness ; credulity, 
 however, is not a crime; but it becomes criminal by resisting con- 
 viction. It is sti;angling in the womb of the conscience the efforts 
 it makes to ascertain truth. We should never force belief upon our- 
 selves in any thing. 
 
 " I here close the subject on the Old Testament and the New. 
 The evidence I have produced to prove them forgeries, is extracted 
 from the books themselves, and acts, like a two-edged sword, either 
 way-. If the evidence be denied, the authenticity of the Scriptures 
 is denied with it; for it is Scripture evidence : and if the evidence 
 be admitted, the authenticity of the books is disproved. The con- 
 tradictory impossibilities contained in the Old Testament and the 
 New, put them in the case of a man who swears for and against. 
 Either evidence convicts him of perjury, and equally destroys repu- 
 tation. 
 
 " Should the Bible and Testament hereafter fall, it is not I that 
 have been the occasion. I have done no more than extracted the 
 evidence from the confused mass of matter with which it is mixed, 
 and arranged that evidence in a point of light to be clearly seen and 
 easily comprehended : and having done this, 1 leave the reader to 
 judge for himself, as I have judged for myself. ' 
 
 " CONCLUSION. 
 
 " In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have spoken of Uie 
 three frauds, mystery, miracle, and prophecy ; and as I have seen 
 nothing in any of the answers to that work, that in the least affects 
 what I have there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber this 
 Second Part with additions that are not necessary. 
 
 " 1 have spoken also in the same work upon what is called reve- 
 lation, and have shewn the absurd misapplication of that term to 
 the books of the Old Testament and the New ; for certainly revela- 
 tion is out of the question in reciting any thing of which man has 
 been the actor or the witness. That which a man has done or seen, 
 needs no revelation to tell him he has done it, or seen it; for he 
 knows it already ; nor to enable him to tell it or to write it. It is 
 ignorance, or imposition, to apply the term revelation in such cases ; 
 
148 
 
 yeX the Bible and Testament are classed under this fraudulent de- 
 scription of being all revelation. 
 
 " Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between Ood 
 and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals ot his 
 will to man ; but though the power of the Almighty to make such 
 a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all 
 things are possible, -yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever 
 was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to prove) is 
 revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account ot it 
 to another is not revelation ; and whoever puts faith in that account, 
 puts it in the man from whom the account comes ; and that man may 
 have been deceived, or may have dreamed it; or he may be an im- 
 postor, and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to 
 judge of the truth of what he tells; for even the morality of it 
 would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, the proper an- 
 swer would be, ' When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to he a 
 revelation ; hit it is not, and cannot he incumbent upon me to believe 
 it to be revelation be/ore : neither is it proper that I should take the 
 word of a man as the word of God, and put man in the place of 
 God.' This is the manner in which 1 have spoken of revelation in 
 the former part of the Age of Reason, and which, while it reveren- 
 tially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, 
 to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of 
 one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended 
 revelation. 
 
 " But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility 
 of revelation, I totally disbeheve that the Almighty ever did com- 
 municate any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any lan- 
 guage, or by any kind of vision, or appearance, or by any means 
 which our senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than by the 
 universal display of himself in the works of the creation, and by 
 that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to 
 good ones. 
 
 " The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and 
 the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race, have had 
 their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It 
 has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the 
 Divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happi- 
 ness of man, that ever was propagated since man begau to exist. It 
 is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand 
 devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, 
 if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and 
 monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible -prophets, to 
 come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit 
 among us. 
 
 " Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of 
 men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the 
 bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religious wars, 
 that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes ; whence 
 
149 
 
 arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and 
 this monstrous belief, that God has spoken to man ? The lies of 
 the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testa- 
 ment of the other. 
 
 " Some Christians pretend, that Christianity was not established 
 by the sword ; but of what period of time do they speak ? It was 
 impossible that twelve men could begin with the sword ; they had not 
 the power ; but no sooner were the professors of Christianity suffi- 
 ciently powerful to employ the sword, than they did so, and the 
 stake and the faggot too ; and Mahomet could not do it sooner. By 
 the same spirit that Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant 
 (if the story be true) he would have cut off his head, and the head of 
 his master, had he been able. Besides this, Christianity! grounds 
 itself originally upon the Bible, and the Bible was established alto- 
 gether by the sword, and that in the worst use of it; not to terrify, 
 but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts, they butchered all. 
 The Bible is the sire of the Testament, and both are called the 
 word of God. The Christians read both books ; the ministers 
 preach from both books ; and this thing called Christianity is made 
 up of both. It is then false to say that Christianity was not esta- 
 blished by the sword. 
 
 " The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers : and the 
 only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists 
 than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and 
 they call the Scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them by a 
 worse name, they had been nearer the truth. 
 
 " It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of 
 the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial mi- 
 series, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among 
 mankind, to expel all ideas of revealed religion as a dangerous he- 
 resy, and an impious fraud. Wliat is it that we have learned from 
 this pretended thing called levealed religion ? — nothing that is useful 
 to man, and every thing that is dishonourable to his Maker. What 
 is it the Bible teaches us i — rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is 
 it the Testament teaches us .' — to believe that the Almighty com- 
 mitted debauchery with a woman engaged to ))e manied ; and the 
 belief of this debauchery is called faith. 
 
 " As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly 
 scattered in those baoks, they make no part of this pretended thing, 
 called revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, 
 and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which 
 it cannot exist ; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all 
 societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject; 
 and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. 
 The doctrine of not retaliating injuries is much better expressed in 
 Proverbs, which is.a collection as well from the Gentiles as the Jews, 
 than it is in the Testament. It is there said, Proverbs xxv. ver. 21, 
 ' If thine enemy he hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if he he 
 
150 
 
 thirsty, give him water to drink*:' but when it is said, as in the 
 Testament, ' If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to hnm 
 the other also;' it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and 
 sinking man into a spaniel. 
 
 " Loving of enemies, is another dogma of feigned morality, and 
 has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist^ 
 that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good m a . 
 political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retahates on 
 the other, and calls it justice ; but to love in proportion to the in- 
 jury, if it could be done, would be to oflFer a premium for a cnme. 
 Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a 
 moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a 
 proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and 
 prejudice, as in the case of rehgious opinions, and sometimes in po- 
 litics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal in- 
 tention ; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to onr 
 own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that 
 it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no 
 motive for love on the other part ; and to say that we can love vo- 
 luntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impos- 
 sible. . 
 
 " Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties, that, in the first 
 place, are impossible to be performed ; and, if they could be, wonW 
 be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. 
 The maxim of doing as we would be done unto, does net include 
 this strange doctrine of loving enemies ; for no man expects to be 
 loved himself for his crime or for his enmity. 
 
 " Those who preach this doctrine of lovii^ their enemies, are in 
 general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so 
 doing ; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypo- 
 crisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, 
 I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous mora- 
 lity ; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, 
 or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, 
 or in the French Revolution ; or that I have, in any case, returned 
 evil^for evil. 
 
 •* * According to what is called Christ*s sermon on the mount in the book of 
 Matthew, where, among some other good things, a great deal of this feigned mo- 
 rality is introduced, it is there expressly said, that the doctrine of forbearance, or 
 of not retaliating injuries, was not any part of the doctrine cf^ the J^ws ; but as this 
 doctrine is found in Proverbs, it must, according to that statement, have been co- 
 pied frojn the Gentil^es, from whom Christ had learned it. Those meu, whom 
 Jewish and Christian idolators hava abusively called heathens, had much better 
 and clearer ideas of justice and. morality than are to be found in the Old Testa- 
 ment, so far as it is Jewisji j or in the New. The answer of Solon on tiie question, 
 ' Which is the most perfect popular government V has never been exceeded by 
 any man since his time, as containing a maxim of political morality. ' That,' says- 
 he, * where the least injury done to th^ meanest individiuil is considered as an insult on 
 the whole constitution." Solon lived about 500 years before Christ." 
 
151 
 
 Gentleiteii, as a proof of this assertion, 1 will relate iq 
 you an anecdote, shewing the character of Mr. Paine, that 
 occurred during the French Revolution. 
 
 Mr. Paine happened to be dining one day with a few- 
 friends at a Coffee House in Paris, delivered his opinion 
 very freely on the English Government, and much to the 
 satisfaction of every one present, with the exception of a 
 Captain of the English army, who walked up to the part of 
 the room where Mr. Paine was sitting, and struck him a 
 violent blow, which nearly knocked him off his seat. An 
 alarm was instantly giveii that the Captain hhd struqk & 
 Citizen Deputy of the Convention, which was considered An 
 insult to the Nation at large; the offender was hurried into 
 custody, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Mr. 
 Paine prevented him from being executed on the spot. 
 
 It ought to be observed, that an act of the Convention 
 had awarded the punishment of death to any one who 
 should be convicted of striking a deputy : Mr. Paine was 
 therefore placed in a very unpleasant situation. He imme- 
 diately applied to Barrere, at that time President of the 
 Committee of Public Safety, for a passport for his impru- 
 dent adversary, who after much hesitation complied wit^ 
 bis request. It likewise occasioned Mr. Piiine considerable 
 persoial ineonvenience to procure his liberation ; but even 
 this was not sufficient; the Captain was without- friends 
 and pennyless, and Mr. Paine generously supplied him 
 with money to defray his traveliiBg expences. 
 
 This, Gentlemen, I think, is a satisfactory proof of the 
 humane and benevolent character of Mr, Paine. 
 
 But it is not incumbent on man fa 
 
 reward a bad action with a g-ood one, or to return good for evil ; and 
 wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty. It is also 
 absurd to suppose, that such doctrine can make any part of a re- 
 vealed relig^ion. We imitate the moral character of tlie Creator by 
 forbearingr with each other, for he forbears with all ; but this doc- 
 trine would imply that he loved man, not in proportion- as he was 
 good, but as he was bad. 
 
 " If we consider the nature of oiir condition here, we mijst see 
 there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is 
 it we want to know ? , Does not the creation, the universe we be- 
 hold, preach to us the existence of ah Almighty power that governs 
 and regulates the ^hole ? And is not the evidence that this creation 
 holds ou^ to our senses infinitely stronger than any thing- we can 
 read in a book, that any impostor might make and call the word 
 
152 
 
 of God? As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every 
 man's conscience. ' ^ 
 
 " Here we are. The existence of an Almighty power is suffi- 
 ciently demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is 
 impossible we should, the nature and manner of its existence. We 
 cannot conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a 
 fact that we are here. We must know also, that the power that 
 called us into being, can, if he please, and when he pleases, call us 
 to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and, 
 therefore, without seeking any other motive for_ the belief, it is 
 rational to believe that he will, for we know before-hand that he 
 can. The probability, or even possibility of the thing is all that we 
 ought to know ; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere 
 slaves of terror; our belief would have no merit, and our best 
 actions no virtue. 
 
 " Deism then, teaches us, without the possibility of being de- 
 ceived, all that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation 
 is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the hand-writing of 
 the Creator himself, the certainty of his existence, and the immu- 
 tability of his power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to 
 him forgeries. The probability that we may be called to account 
 hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief; 
 for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the 
 fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we 
 should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the phi- 
 losopher, or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were 
 no God. 
 
 " But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with 
 the strange fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adven- 
 tures related in the Bible, and the obscurity and obscene nonsense of 
 the Testament, that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog. 
 Viewing all these things in a confused mass, he confounds fact with 
 fable ; and as he cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject 
 all. But the belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other 
 things, and ought not to be confounded with any. The notion of a 
 Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God. A multipli- 
 city of beliefs acts as a division of belief; and in proportion as any 
 thing is -divided it is weakened. 
 
 " Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form, instead of 
 fact ; of notion instead of principle ; morality is banished to make 
 room for an imaginary thing called faith, and this faith has its 
 origin in a supposed debauchery; a man is preached instead of 
 God ; an execution is an object for gratitude ; the preachers daub 
 themselves vrith the blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to 
 admire the brilliancy it gives them ; they preach a humdrum sermon 
 on the merits of the execution ; then praise Jesus Christ for being 
 executed, and condemn the Jews for doing it. 
 
 " A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached 
 
153 
 
 together, coufounds the God of the creation with the imagined' God 
 of the Christians, and lives as if there were none. 
 
 "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there 
 is.ncne more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, 
 more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this 
 thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to 
 convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart tor- 
 pid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of power, 
 it serves the purpose of despotism ; and as a means of wealth, the 
 avarice of priests ; but so far as respects the good of man in general, 
 it leads to nothing here or hereafter. 
 
 " The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in 
 it every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple Deism. 
 It must have been the first, and will probably be the last that man 
 believes. But pure and simple Deism does not answer the purpose 
 of despotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an 
 engine, but by mixing it with human inventions, «^nd making their 
 own authority a part ; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, 
 but by incorporating themselves and their functions with it, and he- 
 coming, like the government, a party in the system. It is this that 
 forms the otherwise mysterious connection of church and state ; the 
 church humane, and the state tyrannic. 
 
 " Were a man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to 
 be, with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by 
 the force of that belief ; he would stand in awe of God, and of him- 
 self, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from 
 either. To give this belief the full opportunity of force, it is ne- 
 cessary that it acts alone. This is Deism. 
 
 " But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one 
 part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part called 
 the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can 
 attach itself to such wild conceits.* 
 
 " It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the 
 other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of 
 the Creator, as it is of government to hold man in ignorance of 
 his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the 
 other, and are calculated for mutual support. The study of the- 
 ology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; 
 it is founded on nothing ; it rests on no principles ; it proceeds 
 by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; 
 and it admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as 
 
 " • The book called the Book of Matthew," sajs, chap. iii. ver. 16, that the 
 Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as well have said a goose ; 
 the creatures are equally harmless, and the one is as much a nonsensical lie as the 
 other. The second of Acts, ver. 2, 3, says, that it descended in a mighty rushing 
 ■wind, in the shape of cloven tongues: perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd 
 stuff is only fit for tales of witches aird wizards." 
 
154 
 
 a Sfcifehcfei \Vithbut out beitig- in possession of the principles upbii 
 which it is founded ; arid as this is not the case with Christian theo- 
 Jogy, it is therefdre thfe study of nothing. 
 
 " Instead theti of stildying theolog;Jr, as is iiovfr done, out 6f the 
 Bihlfe and Testatiierlt, thfe inteatiirig of which books are always coti- 
 it-overted, arid the authenticity of which is disproved, it is nefcesSary 
 that we refer to the Bible of the creation. The principles we disco- 
 ver there are eternal, and of divine origin : they are the foundatioii 
 of all the Science that exists in the wdild, arid must be the foundation 
 of theology. 
 
 " We can know God only through his works. We cannot have a 
 coliception of any one attribute, but by following some principle 
 that leads to it. We have only a confused idea of his power, if we 
 have not the means of comprehendiug something of its iiiiinensity. 
 We can have no idea of hiS Wisdom, but by knowing the order and 
 lAannet in which it acts. The principles of sciehce lead to this 
 kflowledge ; for the Creator of man is the Creator of science, and 
 it is through that medium that man can see God, as it were, face 
 to fate. 
 
 " Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed vtith 
 pdwer of vision, to behold at one view, and to contemplate deli- 
 
 ' berately, the structure of the universe ; to mark the movements of 
 the several planets, the cause of their varying appearances, the 
 unerring order in which they revolve, everi to the remotest comet ; 
 their conuections and dependence on each other ; and to know the 
 system of laws established by the Creator, that governs and regu- 
 lates the whole ; he Would then conceive, far beyond what ahy 
 church theology can teach him, the power, the wisdom, the vast- 
 ness, the muhificence of the Creator ; he would then see, that all 
 the knowledge man has of science, and that all the mechanical arts 
 by which he renders his situation comfortable here, are derived 
 from that source : his mind, exalted by the scene, and convinced by 
 the fact, would increase in gratitude as it increased in knowledge ; 
 his religion or his worship would become united with his improve- 
 ment as a man ; any employment he followed, that had connection 
 wilhithe principles of the creation, as everything of agricultur'e, 
 of science, and of the mechanical arts, has, woiild teach him 
 more of Godi and of the gratitude he owes to him than any theolo- 
 
 , gical Christian sermon he now hears. Great objects inspire great 
 thoughts ; great munificence excites great gratitude ; but the grovel- 
 ing tales and doctrines of the Bible and Testament are fit only tci ex- 
 cite contempt. 
 
 " Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actual 
 scene 1 have described, he can demonstrate it; because he has a 
 knowledge of the principles upon which the creation is constructed. 
 We know that the greatest works can be represented in model, 
 and that the universe can be represented by the Same meanS. The 
 same principles by which we measure an inch, or ari acre of groiiiiS, 
 
155 
 
 will measure to millions extent. A circle of an inch diameter has 
 the same geometrical properties as a circle that would circumscribe 
 the universe. The same properties of a triangle that will demon- 
 strate upon paper the course of a ship, will do it on the ocean ; and 
 when applied to what are called the heavenly bodies, will ascertain 
 to a minute the time of an eclipse, though these bodies are millions 
 of miles distant from us. This knowledge is of divine origin ; and 
 it is from the Bible of the creation that man has learned it, and not 
 from the stupid Bible of the church, that teacheth man nothing.* 
 
 " All the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by 
 the aid Of which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth, 
 and without which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appear- 
 ance and condition from a common animal, comes from the great 
 machine and structure of the universe. The constant and unwearied 
 obsei-vations of our ancestors upon the movements and revolutions of 
 the heavenly bodies, in what are supposed to have been the early 
 ages of the world, have brought this knowledge upon earth. It is 
 not Moses and the prophets, nor Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, that 
 have done it. The Almighty is the great mechanic of the creation ; 
 the first philosopher and original teacher of all science : — Let tJs, 
 then, learn to reverence our master, and not let us forget the 
 labours of our ancestors. 
 
 " Had we at this day no knowledge of machinery, and were it 
 possible that man could have a view, as I have before described, 
 of the structure and machinery of the universe, he would ^oon 
 conceive the idea of constructing some at least of the mechanical 
 Works we now have ; and the idea so conceived would progressively 
 advance in practice. Or could a model of the universe, such as 
 is called an orrery, be presented before him and put in motion, 
 his mind would arrive at the same idea. Such an object and sucU 
 a subject would, whilst it improved him in knowledge useful to 
 himself as a man and a member of society, as well as entertaining 
 
 * ** The Bible-makers have undertaken to give me, in the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis, an account of the creation j and in doing this, they have demonstrated no- 
 thing but their ignorance. They make there to have been three days and three 
 nights, evenings and mornings, before there was a sun ; when it is the presence 
 qr absence of the sun that is the cause of day and night — and what is called his 
 rising and setting, that of morning and evening. Besides, it is a puerile and piti- 
 ful idea, to suppose the Almighty to say, ' Let there be light.' It is the impe- 
 rative manner of speaking that a conjuror uses, when he says to his cups and balb; 
 Presto, be gone — and most probably has been taken from it, as Moses and his rod 
 are a conjuror and his wand. Longinus calls this expression the sublime ; and 
 by the same lule, the conjuror is sublime too j for the manner of speaking is ex- 
 pressively and grammatically the same. When authors and critics talk of the 
 sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous. The sublime of 
 the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke's sublime and beautiful, is like sl 
 wind-mill just visible in a fog, which imagination might distort into a flying moun- 
 tain, or an archangel, or a flock of wild geese." 
 
156 
 
 afford far belief matter for impressing him with a knowledg^e of, 
 and a belief in, Ihe Creator, and of the reverence and gratitude 
 that man owes to him, than the stupid texts of the' Bible and Tes- 
 tament, from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, 
 Oljly stupid sermons can be preached. If man must preach, let him 
 preach something that is edifying, and from texts that aie known to 
 be true. 
 
 " The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every 
 part of science, whether connected with the geometry of the uni- 
 verse, with the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the 
 properties of inanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for 
 philosophy— for gratitude as for human iinprovement; It will per- 
 haps be said, that if such a revolution in the system of religion take 
 place, every preacher ought to be a philosopher. Most certainly ; 
 and every house of devotion a school of science. 
 
 " It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science, 
 and the right use of reason, and setting up an invented thing called 
 revealed religion, that so many wild and blasphemous conceits 
 have been formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him 
 the assassin of the human species, to make room for the religion 
 of the Jews. The Christians have made him the. murderer of 
 himself, and the founder of a new religion, to supersede and expel 
 the Jewish religion. And to find pretence and admission for 
 these things, they must have supposed his power or his wisdom 
 imperfect, or his will changeable ; and the changeableness pf the 
 will is the imperfection of the judgment. The philosopher knows 
 that the laws of the Creator have never changed with respect 
 either to the principles of science, or the properties of matter. 
 Why, then, is it to be supposed they have changed with respect 
 to man ? 
 
 " 1 here close the subject. I have shewn in all the foregoing 
 parts of this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions 
 and forgeries ; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of 
 it to be refuted, if any one can do it ; and I leave the ideas that are 
 suggested in the conclusion of the work to rest on the mind of 
 the reader; certain as I am, that when opinions are free, either in 
 matters of government or religion, truth will finally and powerfully 
 prevail." 
 
 Gentlemen, I Lave now conchuded the Second Part of the 
 Age of Reason, and I see nothing either dangerous or im- 
 moral throughout it. Why, then, if it do not contain one 
 single immoral sentiment, should I be dragged here for fine 
 and imprisonment, in the event of your verdict being against 
 me, and handed over by you to my persecutors, to be by 
 them thrown perhaps into a dungeon, there to rot and pine, 
 and deprive me of all assistance and consolation ? I say. 
 
157 
 
 Gentlemen, let me have the Age of Reason to preach from, 
 let the Attorney-General take the Bible, and you will soon 
 see who ma.kes the greater number of converts. 
 
 (Mr. Carlile then continued to read the Age of Reason, 
 Part III. which he commenced at half-past 7 o'clock.) 
 
 " To the Ministers and Preachers of all Denominations of 
 Religion. 
 
 " It, is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to de- 
 tect and expose delusion and error. But nature has not given to 
 every one a talent for the purpose ; and among those to whom suj-h 
 a talent is given, there is often a want of disposition or of courage 
 to do it. ' 
 
 " The world, or more properly speaking, that small part of it 
 called Christendom, or the Christian world, has been amused for 
 more than a thousand years with accounts of Prophecies in the Old 
 Testament, about the coming of the person called Jesus, Christ, and 
 thousands of sermons have been preached, and volumes written, ,to 
 make man believe it. 
 
 " In the following treatise I have examined all the passages in 
 the New Testament, quoted from the Old, and called prophecies 
 concerning Jesus Christ, and 1 find no such thing as a prophecy of 
 any such person, and I deny there are any. The passages all relate 
 to circumstances the Jewish nation was in at the time they were 
 written or spoken, and not to any thing that was or was not to 
 happen in the world seven hundred years afterwards ; and 1 have 
 shewn what the circumstances were, to which the passages apply or 
 refer. I have given-chapter and verse for every thing 1 have said, 
 and have not gone out of the books of the Old and New Testament 
 for evidence, that the passages are not prophecies of the person 
 called Jesus Christ. 
 
 " The prejudice of unfounded belief often degenerates into the 
 prejudice of custom, and becomes, at last, rank hypocrisy. When 
 men, from custom, or fashion, or any worldly motive, profess or pre- 
 tend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any reason 
 for believing, they unship the helm of tlieir morality, and being 
 no longer honest to their own minds, they feel no moral difficulty 
 in being unjust to others, it is from the influence of this vice, 
 hypocrisy, that we see so many Church and Meeting-going pro- 
 fessors and pretenders to religion, so full of trick and deceit in their 
 dealings, and so loose in the performance of their engagements, that 
 they are not to be trusted further than the laws of the country will 
 bind them-. Morality has no hold on their minds, no restraint on 
 their actions. 
 
 " One set of preachers make salvation to consist in believing. 
 They tell their congregations, that if they believe in Christ, their 
 
158 
 
 siiis shall be foi^iven. This, in the first place, is an encouragement 
 to sin, in a similar manner as when a prodigal young fellow is told 
 his fatheF-will pay all his debts, he runs into debt the faster, and 
 becomes the more extravagant: Daddy, says he, pays all, and on he 
 goes. Just so in the other case, Christ pays all, and on goes the 
 sinner. 
 
 " in the next place, the doctrine these men preach is not true. 
 Tlie New Testament rests itself for credibility and testimony on 
 what are called prophecies in the Old Testament, of the person 
 called Jesus Christ ; and if there are no such thing as prophecies of 
 any such person in the Old Testament, the New Testament is a 
 forgery of the councils of Nice and Laodocia, and the faith founded 
 thereon, delusion and falsehood.* 
 
 " Another set of preaciiers tell their congregations that God pre- 
 destinated and selected from all eternity, a certain number to be 
 saved, and a certain number to be damned eternally. 1 f this were 
 true, the day of Judgment is past : their preaching is in vain, and 
 they had better work at some useful calling for their livelihood. 
 
 " This doctrine, also, like the former, hath a direct tendency to 
 demoralize mankind. Can a bad man be reformed by telling him, 
 that if he is one of those who were decreed to be damned before he 
 was born, his reformation will do him no good ; and if he was de- 
 creed to be saved, he will be saved whether he believes it or not? 
 for this is the result of the doctrine. Such preaching and such 
 preachers do injury to the moral world. They had better be at the 
 plough. 
 
 " As in my political works, my motive and object have been to 
 give man an elevated sense of his own character, and free him from 
 th,e slavish and superstitious absurdity of monarchy and hereditary 
 government, so in ray publications on religious subjects, my endea- 
 vours have been directed to bring man to a right use of the reason 
 that God has given him ; to impress on him the great principles of 
 divine morality, justice, mercy, and a benevolent disposition to all 
 men, and to all creatures, and to inspire in him a spirit of trust, 
 confidence, and consolation in his Creator, unshackled by the fables 
 of books pretending to be the mord of God. 
 
 " THOMAS PAINE." 
 
 " ESSAY ON DREAMS. 
 
 " In order to understand the tiature of dreams, or of that which 
 passes in ideal vision during a state of sleep, it is first necessary 
 
 ." • The Councils of Nice and Laodocia \wre lield about 350 years after the 
 time Christ is said to have lived ; and the boolcs that now compose the New Tes- 
 tament, were then voted fur by yeas and nays, as we row vote a law. A great 
 ra£»ny *^' "'S'^" offered had a majority of nxys, and were rejected. This is the 
 way the New Testament came into "beingi" 
 
159 
 
 to understand the composition and decomposition of the human 
 mind. 
 
 " The three great faculties of the mind are imagination, 
 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. There is not, and cannot 
 be, any visible demonstration of this anatomically, bnt accidents 
 happening to living persons, shew 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 these three faculties occupy distinct apartments of 
 the brain, is known only to that Almighty power 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 unknown 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 welLwaking 
 as sleeping, that have no prior intention to direct them. Each 
 nieniber acts as if it had a will or a mind of its own. Man governs 
 tne 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 ob- 
 servation can be made upoh it. All is mystery : all is darkness in 
 that womb of thought. 
 
 " Whether the brain is a mass pf matter in continual rest; whe- 
 ther 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 em- 
 ployed, be it the imagination, the judgment, or the memory, man 
 knows^ nothing of. He knows not the cause of his own wit. His 
 own brain copceals it from him. 
 
 " Comparing invisible by visible things, as metaphysical can 
 sometimes be compared to physical things, the operations of these 
 distinct and several .faculties have some resemblance to the mecha- 
 nism of ft, watch. The main spring which puts all in motion, cor- 
 
160 
 
 responds to the imagination; tlie pendulum or balance, which cor- 
 rects and regulates that motion, conespouds 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 drearn be reasonable or frantie, remembered or forgotten. 
 
 " If there is any faculty in mental man that never sleeps, it is 
 that voktile 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 re- 
 cords 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 our- 
 selves. Some random thought runs in the mind, and we start, as 
 it were into recollection tiiat 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 ah uproar. 
 
 " If the memory sleeps, we shall have no other knowledge of the 
 dream than that we have dreamt, without knowing what it was about. 
 In this case rt 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 slum- 
 bering 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 have to do. 
 But when the memory starts into wakefulness, it brings the know- 
 ledge of these things back upon us, like a flood of light, and some- 
 times the dream with it. 
 
 " But the most curious ciicumstance 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 convei-sation 
 with several, asks questions, hears ansv/ers, gives and receives in- 
 formation, 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. 
 
]G1 
 
 and dream of seeing him, and asking Iiim liis name, he cannot tell 
 it ; for it is ourselves asking ourselves the question. 
 
 " But though the imagination cannot supply the place of real me- 
 mory 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 hap- 
 pened, and l(5lls them as if they had happeiied. It goes to places 
 that never existed, andkhowswhere all the streets and houses 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 dieam, and, in 
 thedelusion of dreaming, tell a dream it never dreamed, and tell it as 
 if it was from memory. It may also be remarked, that the imagina- 
 tion in a'dream, has no idea of tirne, as ihne. It counts only by 
 circumstances ; and if a succession of circumstances pass in a dream 
 that would require a great lerigth of time to accomplish them, it 
 will appear to tlie dreamer that a length of time et[ual thereto has 
 passed also. 
 
 " As this is the state of mind in dream it iiiaj 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 union constitute the rational man. In dreams 
 it is otherwise, and therefore that state which is called insanity ap- 
 pears to be no other than a disunion of those faculties and a cessation 
 of the judgment, during wakefulness, that we so often experience 
 daring sleep; and idiocily, 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 it is 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, saying, Joseph thou son of David, 
 fear not thou to take unto thee Mary thy icife, for that which is 
 conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Matt. ch. J. ver. 20. 
 
 " After this we have the childish stones of three or four other 
 dreams ; about Joseph going into Egypt ; about his coming back 
 agaiin ; 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 revolu- 
 tion, which, by establishing the universal rightof conscience, first 
 opened the way to free discussion, and for the French- revolution 
 v/hich followed, this religion of dreams had continued to be preached^ 
 and that after it had ceased to be believed. Those who preached it 
 12. 
 
162 
 
 and did not believe it, slill believed the delusion necessary. They 
 were not bold enough to be honest, nor honest enough to be hold. 
 
 " Every new religion, like a new p'ay, requires anew apparatus of 
 dresses and machinery, to fit tiie new characters it creates. — The, 
 story of Christ in the New Testaraent 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 jiew 
 order of beings it calls Angels — There was hO Holy Ghost belore 
 the time of Christ, nor Angels before the time of fibraham. — 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 wilderness; then three of them visit i^'arah ; 
 another wrestles a fall with Jacob, and these birds of passage having 
 found their way to earlh and baik, are continually coming and 
 going. — They eat and drink, and up asrain to iieaven. — What they 
 do with the food they carry away in their bellies the' Bible does not 
 tell us. — Pejhaps they do as the birds do, discharge it as they flyj 
 for neither the scripture nor the church hath told us there are neces- 
 sary houses for them in heaven, 
 
 " Onie would think that a system loaded with such gross and vul- 
 gar absurditiesi as scripture religion is, could never have obtained 
 credit, yet we have seen what priestcraft and fanaticism could do, 
 and credulity believe. 
 
 " From angels in the Old Testament we get to prophets, to witches, 
 to seers of visions, and dreamers of dreams, and sometimes we are 
 told as in 2 Sam. ch. 0. ver. !5. that God whispters in the ear — At 
 other times we are not told how the impulse was given or whether 
 sleeping orwaking— 111 2 Sam. ch. 24. ver. 1. itis said, " Andagain 
 the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he mooed 
 David against them to sai/ go number Israel and Jadah." — And 
 in 1 Chron. ch. 21. ver. 1. when the same story is again related, it is 
 said, " and Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to 
 number Israel.'" 
 
 " Whetiier this was jione sleeping or waking; we are not told, but 
 it seems that David whcmi they call " a man after God's own heart" 
 did not know by what spirit he was moved, and as to the men call-' 
 ed ins.pired penmen they agree §o well about the matter, that in one 
 book they sayithat it was God, andin theother that it was the Devii. 
 
 " 'Yet this is the tiiish, that the chiiroh imposes upon the wor'd as 
 the word of God ; this is the collection of lies,, and contradictions, 
 called the Holy Bible ! this is the rubbish called revealed religion ! 
 
 " The idea that writers of the Old Teslanient had of a God was 
 boi^tiertJ'is, conlemptible and vulgar. — They make him the .Mars of 
 the Jews, the fighting God of Israel,, the conjuring God of their 
 Priests and Prophets. — 1 h/y teU as wmy fables of him as the 
 Gfcekf; tfvltrof Heretics. 
 
163 
 
 " They pit him against Phaioah, as it were to box with him, and, 
 Moses carries the challenge : they ma,ke their God to say insultingly, 
 "./ will get me honour upon Pharoah, and upon his Host, upon 
 his Chariots and upon his Horsemen." — And that he may keep 
 his word, they make him set a trap in the Red Sea in the dead of night, 
 for Pharoah, his host, and his horses, and drown them as a rat- 
 catcher would do so many rats — Great honour indeed ! the story of 
 Jack the Giant-killer is better told ! 
 
 " They match him againstthe Egyptian magicians to conjure with 
 them, and after hard conjuring on both sides, (for where there is no 
 great contest, there is no great honour) they bring him off' victori- 
 ous ; 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 obtains the laurel, and he 
 covers Ihein all over with lice ! — The Egyptian magicians cannot do 
 the same, and this lonsy triumph proclaims the victory ! 
 
 " They make their God to rain fire and brimstone upon Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and belch fire and smoke upon inount Sinai : as if he 
 was the Pluto of the lower regions.— They make him salt. Liit's wife 
 like pickled pork ; they make hiin pass like Shakspeare's Queep 
 Mab into the brain of their priestSj prophets and prophetesses ^nd 
 fickle 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 oftjie Old Testament : andasto the 
 New, though the authors of it have varied the scene, they have con- 
 tinued the vulgarity. 
 
 " Is man ever to be the dupe of priestcraft, the slave of supersti- 
 tion J Is he never to have just ideas of his CreatjOr .? It is better 
 not to believe there is a God than tq believe of him falsely. When 
 we behold the mighty universe that surrounds us, and dart our. con- 
 leii'plation, into the eternity of space, filled with inumerahle orbs, 
 revolving in eternal harmony, how paltry must the tales of tiie Old 
 and New Testaments, prophanely called the word of God, appear to 
 thoughtful man ! The stupendous wisdom, and unerring order, 
 that reign and govern throughout this wondrous whole, and call us 
 to reflection, put to shame the Bible ! — The 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 bias-- 
 phemed. It is making a' profane use of reason. 
 
 " I «hall conclude this Essay on Dreams with the two first verses of 
 the 34th chapler of Ecclesiasticus, one of the books of the Apocry- 
 pha. 
 
 " Ver. 1. " TKehopes of a man void of understanding are vaixt 
 and false ; and- dreums lift up fools — Whoso regardclh dreams is 
 like him that catcheth at a shctdtiw, arid followeth after the wind." 
 
 " ! now proceed to an examination of the passa<;es in the Bible 
 
164 
 
 called prophecies of the coming- af Chiiat, and to shew there are no 
 prophecies of ai)y such person. That the passages clandestinely 
 styled prophecies are not prophecies, and that they refer to, circuin- 
 stances the Jewish nation was in' at the time they were written or' 
 spoken, and not to any distance or futur^ time or person. 
 
 "AN EXAMINATION OF TFJE PASSAGES IN THE NEW 
 TESTAMENT, 
 
 Quoted from the old, and called prophecies of the coming of 
 Jesus Clirist. 
 
 "The passages called Prophecies of, or concerning, Jesus Christ, in 
 the Old Testament, may be classed upder the two following heads : 
 
 " First, those referred to in the four books of the New Testament 
 called the Four Evangelists, Matlheiv, Mark, Luke and John. 
 
 " Secondly, those which translators and commentators, have, of 
 their own imagination, erected into prophecies, and dubbed with that 
 title, at the head of the sevei-al chapters of the Old Testament. Of 
 these it is scarcely worth while to waste time, ink and paper upon, 1 
 shall therefore confine myself chiefly to those referred to in the 
 aforesaid four books of the New Testament. If I shew that these 
 are not prophecies of the person called Jesus Chiist, nor have refer- 
 ence to any such person, it will be perfectly needless to combat those 
 which translators or the Church have ijivented, and for which they 
 had no other authority than their own imagination. 
 
 " 1 begin with the book called the Gospel according to St. Mat- 
 thew. 
 
 " In the first chap. ver. 18. it is said, "Noiv the birth of Jesus Christ 
 was in this wise ; when his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, 
 before they came together, she was found with child by 
 THE HOLY G/foST."— This is going a little too fast ; because to 
 make this verse agree with the next, it should have said no moriB 
 than that she was found with child: for the next verse says. Then 
 Joseph her husband being a just man, and not willing to make her a 
 public example, ivas minded tq put her qway privily." — Consequently 
 Joseph had found out no moie than that she was with child, and hie 
 knew it was not by himself. 
 
 <-', Ver. 20. " Arid while he thought of these things (that is, whether he 
 should put her away privily or make a public example of her) " be- 
 hold the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in 4 DREAM, (that is 
 Josepli •dreamed that an angel appeared uutp hijn; " saying, Joseph, 
 -thou son of David, feur not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for 
 that which is conceived in her is of the. Holy G^ho^t. And she shciil 
 bring forth a son and call his name Jhits : for he Shall save his peo- 
 ple from their sins."^ 
 
 " Now without entering- into any discjussion itppn the merits or de- 
 
1G5 
 
 merits of the adcount hei:e given, it is proper to observe, that it has 
 no higher authority than that of a dream : for it is impossible for a 
 man to behold any thing in a d)eam but that which he dreams of. 
 I ask not, therefore, whether Joseph, (if there were such a (nan) 
 had such a dream ot not, because, adrnittit)g lie had, it proves no- 
 thil(g. So wonderful and irrational is the faculty of the mind in 
 dream, that it acts the part of all the characters its imagination 
 creates, and what it thinks it hears from any of them is no other 
 thin what the roving rapidity of its own imagination invents. It is 
 therefore nothing to me what Joseph dreamed of; whether of the 
 fidelity or infidelity of his wife : 1 pay no regard to my own dreams, 
 a&d I should be weak indeed to put faith in the dreams of another. 
 
 "The verses that follow those I have quoted, are the woi-ds of the 
 writer of the book bf Matthew. '■'■Now (says he) all this Ixhat iS, all 
 this dreaming and this pregnancy) was done, that it might be ful- 
 filled, which was spoken of thd Lord, by the prophet, saying, 
 
 " Behold (I. Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son 
 and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is 
 God vjith. Us'." 
 
 " This passage -is in Isaiah, rhap. 7. ver. 14, and the writer of the 
 book of Matthew erideavours to make his readers believe that this 
 passage' is a prophecy of the person called Jesus Christ. It is no 
 such thing ; and I go to shew it is not. But it is first necessary 
 that I explain the occasion of these words being spoken by Isaiah. 
 The reader will then easily peVcielve that so far from their being 
 a prophecy of Jesus' Christ, they have not the least reference 
 to such a person, or to any thing that could happen in the tirtie that 
 Christ is said to have lived, which was about seven hundred years 
 after the time of Isaiah. The case is this : 
 
 " On the death of Solomon the Jewish nation' split into two mo- 
 narchies : one called- the kingdom of Judah, the capital of which 
 was Jerusalem ; the other the kingdom of Israel, the capital of 
 which was Samaria. The kingdom of Judah followed the liri^ of 
 David, and the kingdom of Israel that of Saul ; and these two rival 
 monarchies frequently carried on fieice wars against each other, 
 
 " At the time Ahaz was king of Judah, which was in the time of 
 Isaiah, Pekah was king of Israel : and Pekah joined himself to Rezin, 
 king of Syria, to make war against Ahaz, kiiig of Judah, and these 
 two kings marched a confederated atidpowerful army against JeVu- 
 salem, Ahaz and his people became alarmed at the danger, and 
 " their hearts were moved, as the trees of the wood are moved luith 
 the wind.'' Isaiah chap. 7. ver. 3. 
 
 "In this perilous 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; aftd^ to assure him that this should be' the case (the case 
 was however directly contrary *,) tells Ahaz;; to ask a sign of the 
 
 * Chron. chap. 28. ver. 1st. " Ahaz was twcntv years old when he began to 
 
166 
 
 Lufd. This All az Jtcli lied doing, giving as a ruasoii that he would 
 not tfcinpt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah, who pretends to be-seut 
 »roin God, says, ver; 14. " Therefore the Lord himself shall give you 
 ii sign, behold a virgin shall conceive and bare a son — butler andhoney 
 «hall he' eat that he may know to refuse the evil arid choose the good 
 —For before the rhild shall know to refuse the evil and choose Ihp 
 good, the laud vshich thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her 
 kings," meaning the king of Israel and the king of Syria who w^re 
 marching againt him. 
 
 " Here then is the sign, which was to be the birth of a child, and 
 that chilcl a son ; and here also is the time Hmited for the accom- 
 plishment of the sign, namely, before the child should know to re- 
 fuse the evil , and choose the good. ' 
 
 " The thing therefore to be a sign of success to Ahaz must be some- 
 thing that would take place before the event of the battle tlien pend- 
 ing between him and the two kings could be known. A thing to be 
 a sign must precede the thing signified. The si^n of rain must be 
 before the rain. 
 
 " It would have been mockery and insulting nonsense for Isaiah to 
 have assured Ahaz as a sign, that these two kjngs should not pre- 
 vail against him, that a child should be born seven hundred years 
 after he was dead,, and that before the child so born should know to 
 refuse the evil arid choose the good, he, Ahaz, should be delivered 
 from the danger he was then immediately threatened with, 
 
 " Butlhe case is, that the child of which Isaiah speaks was his own 
 ci'iild, with which hiswife, or his mistress, was then pregnant, for he 
 says in tl^enext chapter, ver. 2, " and I took.unto me faithful wit- 
 nesses, to record Uriah the priest, and Zcchariah, the son of Jebe- 
 rechiah, and twent unfa the prophetess, and she conceived and bare 
 a son," and he says at ver. 18 of the same chapter, " Behold I, and 
 the children whom the Lord hath given me, a,re for signs andffor 
 wonders ii\ Israel." 
 
 " it may not h.e improper here to observe, that the word translated 
 & virgin in Isaiah, does not signify a virgin in Hebrew, brjt merely 
 a young woman. The tense also is falsified in ,the. translation. ., Levi _ 
 gives the Hebrew, text.ofthe I4th verse of the 7tii chapter of Isaiah 
 and the translation in English with jt — " behold a young woman is 
 withtjhild anfL beareth a son." The expressjibn, says he, is in the 
 pre.*ient tense. This translation agrees with the other circumstances 
 
 reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, but lie did not that 'wtiioh nas 
 rigtit in the siglit of the Lord.— Ver. $, Wlierefore the Lord his God delivjored him 
 into the hand rif tlie king of Syria, and they smote him, and carried away a great, 
 multit'iide of them captive and brought thtni to 'Damascus, and lie was also deli- 
 vered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him wilfa. a great slaughter. ' 
 
 Ver. 6. '■ And Pekah (kipg of Israel) slew in Jiidah an hundred and ,;twcoty ; 
 lhoi*aand, in one day.—'Yej;. 8., And the children of Israel carrjcdaway captive of 
 their brethren- two hundred thousand, women, sons and danghters. 
 
167 
 
 related of the birth of this child -which was to be a sign to Ahaz. 
 But as the true translation could not have been ini-posed upon the 
 world as a prophesy of a child to be born seven hundred years after- 
 wards, the Christian translators have falsified the original; and in- 
 steadTof making Isaiah to say, behold a young woman is with child 
 and beareth a son, they make him to say. Behold a virgm Shall con- 
 ceive and hear a son. It is, however, only necessary for a person 
 to read the 7lh and 8th chapters of Isaiah, and he will be convinced 
 that the passage in question is no prophecy of the person called 
 Jesus Christ. I pass on to the secoud passage quoted from the Old 
 Testament by the New, as a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 
 
 " Matlhew, chap. 2. ver. 1. "Now when Jesus was born in 
 "Bethlehem of Judah in the days of Herod the king, behold 
 there came wise men fr'»m the east to Jerusalem, — saying, where is 
 he that is born king of the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the 
 east, and are ccme to worship him. \A hen Herod, the king, heard 
 these things he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him,— and when 
 he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people toge- 
 ther, he demanded of them where Christ should be born— and they 
 said unto him in Bethlehem, in the land of Judfea; for thus it is writ- 
 ten by the prophet — and thoit 'Bethlehem, in the land of Judea art 
 not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come 
 a Governor that shall rule my people Israel." This passage is in 
 Micah, chap. 5, ver. 2. 
 
 " I pass over the absurdity of seeing and following a star in the day 
 time as a man A^ould a will with, the ivisp, or a candle and lanthorn 
 at night : and also that of seeing it in the east, when themselves 
 came from the east, for could such a thing be seen at all to serve 
 theni for a guide, it must be in the west to them. I confine myself 
 solely, to the passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ. 
 
 " I he hook of Micah, in the passage above cjuoted, chap 5. ver. 2, 
 is sptjaking Of some person, without mentioning his name, from 
 whom some great achievements were expected ; but the description 
 he gives of thia person at the 5th ver. pi-oves evidently that it is not 
 Jesus Christ, for, he says, at the 5lh verse, " And this man shall he 
 the peace vvhen the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he 
 shall tread in our palaqes, then shall we raise up 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 swords 
 and the land of Mmrod on the entrance thereof ; thus shall. //e (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 treadelh, 
 within our borders." 
 
 " This is so evidently descriptive of a military cljief, that it can- 
 not be applied to Christ, without outraging 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 Remans, and 
 
168 
 
 ijot the 4ssyji;itis, that had conquered anjl were in the, land o/" Jadea, 
 and irod^ih their palaces when Christ was born, and when he died, 
 and so far froni his driving theiri out, it was they who sjgned, the 
 warrant for his execution, and he suffered i)nder it. 
 
 " Having- thus shewn 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 adreani. 
 Joseph dreametb another dream, and dreameth that he seeth another 
 angel. The account begins at the 13th ver, of the 2d chap, of, Matthew. 
 
 " The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying. 
 Arise, and take the young child and his mother,. and flee into Egypt, 
 and, be thou there until 1 bring thee.vi'ord : For Herod will seek the 
 life of the young child to destroy him. — When, he arose he, tpok tlje 
 young child and his mother by.nfght, and departed irito Egypt — and 
 was there until the death of Hero^j that it, might be fujfiUed, which 
 was spoken of the Lqrd by the prophet, saying. Out of E^y^t have 
 I called my son." 
 
 " This passage is in the book of Hosea, chap. xi. ver. 1. The 
 Words are, " ^^'hen Israel was a child, then 1 loved him and called 
 my son out of Egypt — As they called thera, so they wept froni 
 them, they sacrificed unto Baalim and burnt 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 Pharoah, 
 and, to the idolatry they committed afterwards. To make it 
 apply to Jesus Christ, he then must be the pei'son w:ho sacrificed 
 unto Bq,alim and burnt incense to graven images; for the persons 
 called out of Egypt by the collective name, Israel, and , the 
 persons committing this idolatry, are the same persons, or the des- 
 ceiidants of then\. 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 Mat- 
 thew. 
 
 " This is iritroduced by a story told by nobody but himself, and 
 scarcely believed by any body, of the slaughter of all the children 
 under two years old, by the command of Hprod. A thing, which it 
 is not probable could be done biy Herod, as he only held an office 
 under the Roman governnieiit, to wfiich appea.ls, could always be 
 had, as we see ill the case of Pavil. 
 
 "Matthevf, however, having made or told h^i^ story, says, c\^ap. ii. 
 ver. 17,— " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken, by Jeremy 
 the prophet, saying— /ra Ramah was there a voice hea,rd, Iqnienta-^ 
 tion, and weeping, andgreat mourning, Rachel weeping fQr her chil- 
 dren and woidd not be comforted, because they werenof.". 
 
 " This passage is in Jeremiah, chap, xxxi. ver. 15, anci this verse, 
 when separated from the verses before and after it, apd which ex- 
 plains its application, might with equal piopriety'be applied to 
 
1(39 
 
 every case of warSj sieges, and other vi«leiices, such as the Ghris- 
 liaiis themselves have often done to the Jews, where mothers, haye 
 lamented the loss of their children. There is nothing in the verse, taken 
 singly, that designates, or points out, any particular application of itj 
 otherwise than that it points to some circumstance, which., at the 
 time of writing it, had. already happened, and not to a thing yet to 
 happen, for the verse is in tht> preter or past tense. — I gQ' to ex-' 
 plain the case and:shew the applicE^tion, of the verse. 
 
 "Jeremiah lived ;in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged, took, 
 plundered, and. destroyed Jerusal^r|t> and led the Jews captive to Ba^ 
 bylon. He carried his violence against the Jews to every extr.emPi 
 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 sorrojv and^ sufifering to the Jews, that Je- 
 remiah is speaking. Their Temple was destroyed, their land desor 
 Jated, their nation and government entirejy brpken up, and thetti- 
 selves, men, women, and childr.en,. carripd into captivity. They had 
 too many sorrows of their own immediately before thieir eyes, to 
 pertriitthem, or any of their chiefs, to be employing themselves^ on 
 things that tiiight, or might not happen in the world s^ven hundred 
 years afterwards. 
 
 " It is, as already observed of this tinieof sorrow andsuffering to the 
 Jews that Jeremiah is speaking in the verse in question. In the 
 two next verses, the 16th and 17th, he endeavours to console the 
 sufferers by giving them hopes, and according to the fashion of 
 speaking in those days, assurances from the Lord, that their sufFer- 
 iijgs should have an end, and that their children sliould return again 
 to their own land. But I leave the verses to sf.eak for themselves, 
 and the Old Testament to, testify against the New. 
 
 " Jereipiah Cjhap. x?.xj. ver. 15.^" Thus ss,i\h the Lord, a voice 
 loas heard in Ramah (it is in the preter tense) lamentation and bitr 
 tpr weeping, Rachel weeping for her children refused tp be comforted 
 because they were not. 
 
 " Verse 16. — "Thussaith the,Lord,refrain,thy voice from weeping, 
 and thine eyes from tears : for thy> work shall be rewarded, saith 
 the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. 
 
 "Verse 17..^" And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that. 
 thy children shall come again to their own border." 
 
 . " By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the children 
 of which Jeremiah speaks (meaning the people of the Jewish nation,. 
 scriptu>ally cs^\%A children of Israel, and not-mere infants under two 
 years old) ,an(l who were to. return again from the land of, the enemyj 
 apd. come again into th^ir own borders, can mean the children th(it 
 ■Matthew makes Herod to slaughter. Could, those return again fvom 
 the land of the enemy, or how can the land of the, enemy |be applied, 
 to them } Could they come again to their own borders .'' Good Hea- 
 'vens,! Hg)v,JiEjs,the world'been imposeduppn by testameotiBOiakers, 
 
170 
 
 prtest-craft.andpretended prophecies,' I pass on to the fifth passage 
 called a prophecy of Jesus Christ. ' 
 
 " This, like two of the former, is introduced by adreahi. Joseph 
 dreaineth another dream, and dreame(h of another Angel. And 
 Matthew is ag:ain the historian of the dream and the dreamer. If it 
 were asked how Matthew could know what Josepti dreamed, neither 
 the Bishop nor all the Church could ansiver the question. Perhaps 
 it was Matthew that dreamed and not Joseph ? that is, Joseph dream- 
 ed by proxy in Matthew's biain, 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, rhap. ii. ver. 19. 
 " But when Herod was dead, behbld an Angel of the Lord appeared 
 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 fsrael— 
 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 rfnfiaOT (here is another dream) he turned 
 aside into the parts of Galilee — and he came and dwelt in a city call- 
 ed iVazarei/i, <Aaf iimigrAi 6e yMZ/?/ZedwAJcA was spoJten, by the pro- 
 phets' — He shall be called a 'Nazarine." 
 
 " Here is g'ood circumstantial evidence, that Matthewdreamed,'for 
 there is no such passage in all the Old Testament : and 1 invite the 
 bishop and all the priestsin Christendom, including those of Americu, 
 to produce it. Ipass on to the sixth passage called a prophecy of 
 Jesus Christ. i 
 
 " 'I his, as Swift says on another occasion, is fejrjfed 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. 4. ver. 12. " Now when Jesus heard that " John 
 was cast into prisoh he departed into Galilee — and leaving Nazareth 
 he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea roast, in 
 the border of Zebulon and Nephthalim — That it might' be fulfilled 
 which was spoken by Esaiiis (Isaiahl the prophet, saying, — The 
 land of Zehidon, and the land of Nepthalim,'by the way of the sea, 
 beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles — the people which sat in 
 darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and 
 sh'adoiD of death, light is springing iipon them." 
 ' " I wonder Matthew httshot madethe criS-cross-roW, or thi; Christ- 
 cross-row, (I'know not how the priests spell it) into a prophecy.. 
 He might as well have done this, as cut out these unconnected and, 
 uiidescriptive sentences from the place they stand in and diibbed 
 theraiwith 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 vexa- 
 tion when at the first he lightly afilicted the land of Zebuhn, and 
 
171 
 
 the land of Nepthali, ayid afterwards did more grievously affiict her 
 by the ivay of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations." 
 
 " All this relates to two clicumstances that had already happened at 
 the time these words in Isaiah were written. The one where the 
 land of Zebulon and of Nepthali had been lightly afflicted, and after- 
 wards more grievously by the way of the sea. 
 
 " But observe, reader, how Matthew has falsified the text. He 
 begins his quotation 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 immediately 
 before the eye of the reader, I will repeal the verse, and put between 
 crotchets [] the words he has left outj and put in Italics those he has 
 preserved. 
 
 " [Nevertheless the dimness shall ,not be such as was in her vexa- 
 tion when at the first he lis-htly afflicted] the land of Zebulon and 
 the land of Nepthali, [and did more grievously afflict her] by the way 
 of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations. 
 
 " What gross imposition is ittp 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. " Thepeople that walkedin 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 pro- 
 phetical. The whole is in the prefer tense. It speaks of things that 
 had been accomplished at 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 in- 
 tended to be so,, and that to attempt to make it so is not only to fal- 
 sify the original, but to commit a criminal imposition, it is matter 
 of no concern-to us, otherwise than as curiosity, to know who the 
 people were of which the passage speaks that sat in darkness, and 
 what the light, was that had shined in upon them. 
 
 " If we look intothepreceding chapter, the 8th, of which the 9th 
 is only a. continuation, we shall find the writer speaking at the 19th 
 yerse o( " witches a7id wizards who peep about and mutter,", and 
 of people who made application to them; and he preaches and 
 exhorts.tliem against this darksame practice. , i.t is, of this people, 
 and^f this darksome practice, wqlking in darknessihat he is speak- 
 ing at the 'id verse of the 9th chapter ; and, with r.espect to the light , 
 that .had shined in upon them it refers entii'tjly tp. his own ministry, 
 and. to the boldness of it, which opposed itself to that of the witches 
 and, ,wiz.ards who peeped about and muttered,. 
 
 "Isaiah is uponthe whole, a wild disorderly, writer, preserving, in 
 general, no clear chain of perception in the arrangement of his ideas, 
 
172 
 
 aftd consequently producing no defined conclusions from them. It is 
 thewildness of his style, the confusion of his ideas, and the ranting 
 Trtetaphors he employs, that have afforded so many opportunities to 
 pritest-oraft'in some cases-, and' to superstition in others, to impose 
 those defects' upon the world as- prophecies of Jesus Christ. Find- 
 ing 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 meaniiig of'their 
 own, and called it tei 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 iriiposition or ignorance of 
 priests and commentators, by letting Isaiah speak for himself. 
 
 " If the words walking in darkness, and light breaking 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 rehgion and government, and it is only since the American 
 Revolution began that light has broken in. The belief of one God, 
 whose attributes are revealed to us in the book or scripture of the 
 creation, vphich no human hand can counterfeit or falsify, and not 
 in a written or printed book, which, as Matthew has ;shewn, can be 
 altered or falsified by ignorance or design, is now making its' way 
 among us ; and'as to government, the light- is already gone forth, 
 and whilst men ought to be careful not to be blinded by tire excess of 
 itj as at a certain time in France, when every thing was Robespiereaa 
 violence, they ought to reverence, and even' to adore it, with all the 
 firmness and peseverancethat true wisdom can inspire. 
 
 " I pass on to the seventh passage, called a prophecy of Jesus 
 Clirist. 
 
 "Matthew, chap. viii. ver. 16. " When the eveningwas come, they 
 brought unto him, (Jesus,) many that were possessed with rie^'ils, 
 and he cast out the spirit with his word, and heated all that were 
 sick.— That it inight be fulfilled; which was spoken by Esaias, 
 (Isaiah) the prophet saying, himself took our infirmities, and bear 
 our sickness" 
 
 " This affair of people being possessed by devils, and of casting 
 them otit, was the fable of the day, when the books of the New Tes- 
 tament were written. It bad not existence at any otlier time. The 
 b6oks of the Old Testament mention nostith thing ; the people of the 
 present day know of nosuch thing; nord-oes thehiStory of any people' 
 or country speak of such a thing. It starts upon usall at oncein the 
 book of Matthew ; and is altogether an invention of the New Testa- 
 ment-makers and the Christian church. The bbok of Matthew 
 is the first book where the word Devil is mentioned*. We read in 
 some of the books of the Old Testament, of things called familiar 
 spirits, the supposed companions of people called witches and wizards. 
 It was no other than the trick of pretended conjurors to obtain money 
 
 * The word devil is a persoiiificalion of the wcrd nil. 
 
173 
 
 from credulpus.and igriorant people ; or tlie fabiicated charge of 
 superstitious malignancy against unfortunate and decrepid old age., 
 
 " But the idea of a familiar 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 familiar spirit is a dexterous agent, (bat 
 comes and goes and does as he is bidden : in the other, he is a tur- 
 bulent roaring monster, that tears and tortures the body, into con- 
 vulsions. Reader, vfhoever 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 ajluded 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 of,) hath borne 
 our griefs and carried our sorrows." It is in (he 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 
 nof even applicable as a circumstance. 
 
 " Isaiah, or at least the writer of the book that bears his name, em- 
 ploys the whole of this chapter, the 53.d, 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 pereonally knowii; and it is this silence, which is evidence of no- 
 thing, 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 the 
 times they lived in big with danger, were never thinking about their 
 own affairs, nor the fate of thtir own friends, but were continually 
 running a wild-goose chase into futurity. 
 
 "■ To make a monody into a prophecy is an absurdity. The clia- 
 racjtersaud 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 pro- 
 phecyi; apd none but an iippostor, or a bigot, would call it so. , 
 
 " l^aiah,.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 persecutions, his imprisonment, his 
 patience in suffering, and his perseverance in principle, are all 
 within the line of nature; they belong exclusively to none, and m^y 
 wijtl) 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 : 
 soijiething beyond the line of nature : something beyond the ipt of 
 mqrtal man; and there are no such expressions in this chapter, nor 
 any other chapierin.the Old Testament. ,. 
 
 '' It is no exclusive description to say of a person, as is said of the 
 person Isaiah is lamenting in this chapter. " He was appressedi 
 and he was afflicted, yet he ope.ned not his mouth, he is brought as a 
 Jycmb. tp. the slaughter, and as a sheep bpfore his shearers, is dumb, 
 
174 
 
 'S6 he opehednot his mouth.'' This may be said of thousands of per- 
 sons, who have siifferfcd oppression and unjust death with patience, 
 sileii(^e, and perfect resig-nation. 
 
 " Grotius, whom the bishop esteems a most learned man, and who 
 certainly was so, supposes that the person of whom Isaiah is speak- 
 ing, is Jeremiah. Grotius is led into this opinion, from the agree- 
 mentUhere is between the description given .by Isaiah, and the case 
 of Jeremiah, as stated in thebook that bears his name. If Jeremiah 
 was ah innocent man, and not a traitor in the interest of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar,' when Jerosalem was besieged, his case was hard : he was 
 accused by his countrymen, was persecfrted, oppressed, and impri- 
 soned, and he says of himself, see Jeremiah, chap. ii. ver. 19. '■ But. 
 as for me, I was like a lamb or an ox that is brouaht to the slaugh- 
 ter." 
 
 " 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 bis own time, whose case Isaiah is lamenting iu 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 Chi ist, 
 
 " Matthew, chap. xii. ver. 14. " I hen the Pharisees went out and 
 held a council against him, how they might destroy him — But when 
 Jesus knew it he withdrew himself: and great numbers followed 
 him and he healed them all — and he charged them they should not 
 make hiin known : That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
 Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying", 
 
 " Behold my servant whom I have chosen ; my beloved in whom 
 ir.y soul is well pleased, 1 will put my spirit upon him, and he shall 
 shew judgment to the Geiitiles-^heshallnotstrivenor cry,neithershaH 
 any man hear his voice in the streets — a bruised reed shall he not 
 breakj and smoaking 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— that great numbers fol- 
 lowed him — that he healed them —and that he charged them they 
 should not make him Jcnown. 
 
 " 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 withdrawing himself-^with great numbers following him 
 — ^with his healing them— nor with his charging them not to make 
 him knoWn. 
 
 " Th,e purpose for which the passage is quoted, and the passage it- 
 self, areas remote from each other, as hothipg from something." But 
 
175 
 
 the case is, that people have been so long in the habit of reading fhft 
 hooks called the Bible and Testament with their eyes shut, and their 
 
 senses locked up, that the most stupid inconsistencies have passed, 
 on them for tiuih, and imposition for prophecy. The all wise Crea- 
 tor hath been dishonoured by being made the author ipf fable, and 
 ti.e human mind degraded by believing it. - 
 
 , " In thispassage, 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 tlie history, that bigotry 
 and imposition have laid hold of, to call it prophecy, 
 
 '* Had Isaiah lilted in the time of Cyrus, the passage would descrip- 
 tively apply to him. As kiugof 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' 
 ^<'ho might then be compared to a bruised reed, was extensive. But 
 this description rioes notapply to Jesus Christ, who had no authority 
 among the Gentiles ; and aa to his own countrymen, figuratively des- 
 cribed 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 heard, 
 and we are told thtt he travelled about the country fur 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 j multitude upon a mountain, and it would be a quibble 
 to say that a mountain is not a street,, siane it is a place equally as 
 public. 
 
 "The last verse in the passage (the 4th) as it stands fn Isaiah, and 
 which Matthew has not quoted, says, " Me shall not fail nor be dis- 
 couraged till he have set judgment in the Earth, and the Isles shall 
 Wait for his law." ^ This also applies to Cyius. He was not dis- 
 couraged, he did not fail, he conquered all Babylon, liberated the 
 Jews, and established laws. But this <annotbe 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 Testamenv, was continually moving from place to 
 place to avoid being appridiended*. 
 
 * In th« second part of the Age of Reason, I have shewn that the book ascribed 
 to Isaiah is not only misceilaneona as to matter but as to authorship ■, that there 
 are parts in it which could not be written by Isaiah, because tliey speak of things 
 one hundred and fifty years afler he was dead. The instance I have given of 
 this, in that' work, corresponds with tlie subject I am upon, at least a little better 
 thaii Matthew's iniroductionajidliisquotation. 
 
 " Isaiah lived, iiie latter part of |)is 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 pvoclamation, which Is given in the 
 first chapter "f the l>oot of Ezra, for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Tt 
 
176 
 
 "Bttt it is inunateiial to us, at this distance of timB,to knowwho 
 the person was ; it is sufficient to the purpose 1 am upon, that of 
 detecting fraud and falsehood, to know who it was not, and to shew 
 it was not the person called Jesns Christ. 
 
 " 1 pass on to the ninth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus Christ, 
 
 " Matthew, chap. xxi. vtr. 1. and when they drew nigh unto Jeru- 
 salem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then 
 Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying unto them, go into the village 
 over against you, and' straightway ye shall find au ass tied, and a 
 colt with her, loose them and bring-them unto me, — and if a nyman 
 say aiight to you, ye shall say, the Lord hath need of them, and 
 straightway he will send them. 
 
 " Ail this was done that it might he fulfilled which was spoken 
 by the prophet saying. Tell ye the daughter of Sion, behold thy king 
 cometh unto the meek, and setting on 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 Zechaiiah, chap. ix. ver. 9. and is one of the 
 whims of friend Zechariah to congratulate his countrymen who were 
 then returning from captivity in Babylon, and himself ^vith them, to 
 Jerusalem. It has no concern with any other subject. It is strange 
 that apostles, priests and commentators, never permit, or never sup- 
 pose, the Jews to be speaking of their own affairs. Every thing in 
 
 cannot'be donbted, at least it ouglit not to be doubted, that the Jews would feel 
 an affectionate gratitude for tliis act of benevolent justice, and it is natural fhey 
 would express that gratitude in the customary stjle, bombastical and hyperbolical 
 as it was, which the3' used on extraor<^inary 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 i " Thatsaith of Cifrns he is my shepherd and shall perfcnrm all my 
 pleasures : even saying- to Jesitsalem thou shalt be built, and to the Temple thy foun-. 
 dation shalt be la^id. Thus saith the Lord to his anrunted, to Cyrxis, whose right hand 
 I have holden to siihdue nations befm-e him ; and I will loose the loins of HngSy to 
 open before him the two leaved gates and the gates shall not be shut.'" 
 
 This complimentary address is in the present tense, which shews that the things 
 of which it 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, and that the book which bears his name is a conipilatidu. The proverbs 
 called Solomon's, and the Psalms called David's, are of Ih'e' same kind. The two 
 list verses of the second book of Cbroniclbs, and the three first verses of the firSt 
 chapter of Ezra, are word fur word the same ; which shew that the compilers of 
 the Bible mixed the writings of different authors together, and put them uhder 
 some common head. 
 
 As we have here an instance in Ihc 44th and 45th clijpters of Uie introduction 
 of the name of Cyrils into a book to' Which it cannot belong, it affords good 
 gfouild to conclude, that the jias'Sage ill the 42d chapter, ip which the character 
 of Cyrus is given' withoul Uh name; has been introduced in like manner, and that 
 the person there spoken of is Cyrus. 
 
177 
 
 ihe Jewish books is perverted and distorted into uieanings never in- 
 tended by the writers. Even the poor ass must not be a Je\y-ass 
 but a Christian-ass. I wonder they did not make an apostle of him, 
 or a bishop, or at least make hiui speak and prophecy. He could 
 have lifted up his voice as loud as any of them. 
 
 f Zechanah, in the first chapter of his book, indulges himself in 
 seTeral 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 sitting 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 red horses speckled and white," He says no- 
 thing about green horses, nor blue horses, perhaps because it is dif- 
 ficult t6 disiinguish 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 teil us what colour the angel was of, whether black or white 
 nor whether he came to buy horses, or only to look at them as curi- 
 osities, 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 16tli. verse, " There- 
 fore, thus saith the Lord, I AM RETURNED to Jerusalem with 
 mercies ; my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and 
 a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." An expression sig- 
 nifying tiie 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 hundred years afterwards, that is 
 the subject upon which Zechariah is always speaking. 
 
 " As to the expression of riding upon an ass, which Qommentators 
 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 conveyance 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 com- 
 mentators distort every thing. 
 
 " There is besides very reasonable grounds to conclude that this 
 story of Jesus riding pubhcly into Jerusalem, accompanied, as it is 
 said at the 8th and 9th verses, by a great multitude, shouting and 
 rejoicing 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 apprehended, 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 belter ; yet here 
 13 
 
-178 
 
 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 
 romagce ; the principal personage of which is an imaginary or alle- 
 gorical character, founded upon some tale, and in which the moral 
 is in many parts gqod, and the narrative part very badly and blun- 
 deringly written, 
 
 " I pass on to the tenth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus 
 . Christ. 
 
 " Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 51. " And behold one of thera 
 which was 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 
 its place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword 
 —-Things thou that I cannot now pray to iny 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 Jesus said to the multitudes are ye come out as against a 
 thief with swords and with staves for t^ 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 noi probable that the Jews who were then a conquer- 
 ed 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 o(f higi ear, he would have been inmiediately taken up by the 
 guard that tof>k up his master and sj^nt to prison with him. 
 
 "Thirdly — What sort of diacjplps and preaching apostles must 
 those of Christ 'have been that wore swords .' 
 
 " Fourthly — This scene is represented to have taken place the 
 same evening of what is called the Lord'^ supper, which make^, ac- 
 cording to ll)^ ceremony of it,, the inconsistency of wearing swords 
 tjie greater. 
 
 ", I pa^ on to the elesenth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 " Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 3. " Then Judas which had be- 
 trayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, 
 ^nd l^ro'ught agaiu the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and 
 elcjpi-s, saying, I have sinned in that 1 have betrayed the innocent 
 bloody And th«y said, what is that to us, see thou to that. And 
 he cast down the pieces ^f silver aud departed and went and hanged 
 
179 
 
 himself — And the chief priests took tlie silver pieces aud said, it is 
 not lawful to put them in the treasury because it is the price of blood 
 —And they took counsel and bought with them the potters' field to 
 bury strang-ers in. Wherefore that field is called the field of blood 
 unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jere- 
 miah 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 potters' 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. Lwill recite the whole passage. 
 
 " Jeremiah, chap. 32, ver. 6. " And Jeremiah said, the word of 
 the Lord came unto me saying — Behold Hanameil, the son of Shal- 
 lum thine uncle, shall come unto thee, saying^ buy thee my field 
 that is in Analhoth, for the right of redemption is thine to buy it — 
 So Hanameil 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 countiy of Benjamin, 
 for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; 
 buy it for thyself. Then I knew this was the word of the Lo^rd — 
 And I bought the field of Hanameil mine uncle's son that was in 
 Anathoth, and weighed him the money even seventeen shekels of sil- 
 ver — and 1 subscribed the evidence and sealed it; and took witnesses 
 and weighed' him the money in balances. So 1 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 Maaseith, in 
 the sight of Hanameil mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the 
 witnesses that subscribed, before all the Jews that sat in the court of 
 the prison — and I charged Baruch, before them, saying. Thus sailh 
 the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Take these evidences, this evi- 
 dence 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 thussaith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, houses 
 and fields, and vineyards, shall be possessed again in this land." 
 
 " I forbear making any remark on this abominable imposition 
 of Matthew. The thing glaringly speaks for itself. It is priests > 
 and commentators that I rather ought to censure for having preach- 
 ed 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 1 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 will be safe ; but if thou trustest to the book called the 
 
ISO 
 
 scriptures thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood. But 
 1 return to my subjert. 
 
 " '1 hf-re 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 potter for a field ; and if they 
 had, the passage in Zechariah has no more to do with Jesus, Judas, 
 and the field to bury stangers in, than that already- quoted." I will 
 recite the passage. 
 
 '• Zechariah, chap. xi. ver. 7. " And 1 will feed the flock of 
 slaughter, evtu you, O poor of the flock, and I took unto me two 
 slaves ; the one 1 called Beauty and the other 1 called Bands, and 
 1 fed the flock — Three shepherds also I cut off in one month ; 
 and iny soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. — Then 
 said I, I will not feed you; that which dieth, let it die ; and that 
 which is to be cut off, let it be cufofF, and let the rest eat every one 
 the flesh of another. — And 1 took my staff', even Beauty, and cut it 
 asunder that 1 might break my covenant which I had made with all 
 the people. — And it was broken. in thatday ; and so the poor of the 
 flock who waited upon me knew that it was 'the word of the Lord. 
 
 " ' And 1 said unto thenii 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 1 was prized at of them ; and I took the thirty pieces of silver 
 
 ' and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. 
 
 " ' When 1 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 cen- 
 tury, in the boolc of Jeremiah, from whence says he, it was talten and inserted 
 without coherence, in tliat of Zechariah — well, let it be so, it does not malce the 
 ca^e a wit the better for the New Testament ; but it mal;es the case a great deal 
 the worse'for the Old. Because it shews, as I have mentioned respecting some 
 passages in a book ascribed to Isaiah, that the worlts of different authors have 
 been so mixed and confounded together they cannot now be discriminated, ex- 
 cept where tiiey are historical, chronological, or biographical, as in the interpola- 
 tion in Isaish. ,It is tl.e name of Cyrus inserted where it could not be inserted, as 
 he\vas not in existence till one hundred and fiftv years after the time of Isaiah 
 that detects the interpolation and the blunder witli 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 be^t and most celebrated 
 mathematicians of his lime, for which he was made professor of mathematics of 
 the university of Cambridge. Ke wrote so much in defence of tlie Old Testa- 
 ment, and of what he calls prophecies of .Tesus Christ, that at last he began to 
 suspect the truth of the scriptures and wrote against them; for it is only those 
 who examine them see the imposition. 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 prose- 
 cuted for writing against them, It was this that gave occasion to Swift in his ludi- 
 crous epigram on Ditton and Whiston, each of which set up to find out the longi- 
 tude, to call tho one good muster Dittsn, and the other vnd<ed Will Whiston. But 
 
181 
 
 Gentlemen of the Jury — Whilst on this subject ■ about 
 Whiston, I cannot fail to relate an anecdote concerning him, 
 which is a case in point for my defence. 
 
 Whiston was persecuted by his fellow collegians, and by 
 the clergy in general of his day,' for wishing to restore some- 
 thing he called primitive Christianity, or to abolish the'corrup- 
 tions of what was then called Christianity. He was a great 
 favourite with Caroline, the Queen Consort of George the 
 First. One day when walking in Hampton Court Gardens 
 with her, she observed, " Mr. VVhiston, whatever might be 
 your peculiar opinions, whether they be right or wrong, 
 would it not be better for you to keep fhem to yourself, and 
 not expose yourself thus to persecution?" Whiston surprized, 
 looked stedfastly on the Queen, and askeS : " Can your IMa- 
 jesty be really in earnest as to what you say ?" "Yes" she re- 
 plied. Then answered Whiston, " Where would yourprotes- 
 tant Majesty have been now if Luther and Calvin had held 
 their tongues?" The Queen's smiling silence shewed her ac- 
 quisecence in the justness of the reniark, the subject dropped, 
 but she ever after used her influence to stay the rage of the 
 prosecutions against him. * 
 
 " There is no making either head or tail of this incoherent gib- 
 berish. His two staves, one called Beauty, and the other Bands, is 
 so much like a fairy tale, that I doubt if it had any higher 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 ^Airfy pieces of silver, whatever it was for, is called a goodly 
 price, it vcas as much as the thing was worth, and according to the 
 
 as Swift was a great associate with llie Free-thinkers of those days, sacli as Boling- 
 broke, Pope, and others, who did not believe the books called the scripture?i, 
 there is no certainty whether he wittily called him viicked for defending the scrip- 
 tures, or for writing against them. The known character of Swift decides for tlie 
 former. 
 
 * Another anecdote of Whiston is worthy of being inlroduded here althoiigli. 
 not used on the trial. It must be considered a note by the editor. Whision was 
 one day in company with the Lord Chief Justice King, and the subject of his dis- 
 course' naturally turning to the persecutions of the former, the Cliief Justice observ- 
 ed, Mr. Whiston you should not expose yourself so obstinately to these persecu- 
 tions, you should temporize a little to calm them. Whiston answered, my Lord^ 
 when you examine a witness upon any thing in, the couit, Avhat w(mld you do 
 with one who temporized or stated what he did not believe or know ? we should 
 send him to gaol for perjury or prevarication answered the Chief Jus-tice. Well 
 then, suppose God Almighty in the next world should be as rigid in exacting jus- 
 tice as t|ie Lord Chief Justice is in this ; 'Wliat then ? The Chief Justice could 
 make no answer, and when Whiston told the anecdote to the Queen, she 
 bserved " Very right, Mr. Whision, he could make you no answer." 
 
182 
 
 language of (he 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 admittance 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, 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 hang- 
 ing himself as Matthew says, that he fell headlong and burst asunder, 
 some Commentators endeavour to get over one part of the contradic- 
 tion by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged himself first and 
 the rope broke. 
 
 " Acts, chap. i. vev. 16. " Men and brethren, this scripture 
 must needs have been fulfilled whi^h the Holy Ghost by the mouth 
 of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to thera 
 that took Jesus. (David says not a vvord about Judas) ver. 17, for 
 he (Judas) was numbered among us and obtained part of our mi- 
 nistry. 
 
 " ' Ver. 18. Now this man purchased afield with the reward of 
 iniquity dnd falling headlong 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 contradic- 
 tions and absurdities. 
 
 " I pass on to the twelfth passage) called a prophecy of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 " Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 35. " And they crucified him 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 lots." This expression is in the 
 22d Psalm, ver, 18. The writer of that Psalm, (vyhoever he vpas, 
 for the Psalms are a collection and not the work of one man) is 
 speakingiof himself and of his own case and not of that of another. 
 He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Testament wri- 
 ters ascribed to Jesus Christ. " My God, my God, rvhy 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 Ciod. 
 
 " The picture which the writer draws of his own situation in this 
 Psalm, is gloomy enough. He is not prophecying, but complaining 
 of his own hard case. He represents himself as surrounded by ene- 
 mies and beset by persecutions of every kind ; and by way of shew- 
 ing the inveteracy of his persecutors, he says, at the 18th verje, They 
 part my garrnents among them and cast lots upon my vesture. The 
 expression is in the present tense ; and is the same as to say, they 
 
183 
 
 pursue iiae 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, hut pi-dperty, or rather the admitting a 
 man to, or investing him vcith property , and as it is used in this 
 Psalm distinct from the word garment, it alppeftrs to be used in this 
 sense. But Jesus had no property ; for they make him say of him- 
 ' self, " 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 ourselv.es to suppose the Al- 
 mighty would condescend to tell, by what is called the spirit of pro- 
 phecy, what would 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 anything which the common accidents of life, or the quar^ 
 rels 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, eve^n 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 controul. But any executioner 
 and his assistants might quarrel about dividing the garments of a 
 sufferer, or divide them without qqarrelling, and by that means fulhl 
 the thing called a prophecy, or pet it aside. 
 
 " In the passages before examined, 1 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. 
 
 " Here end the passages called prophecies by Matthew. 
 
 " Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ expir- 
 ed on the cross, thu 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 pro- 
 phecy 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 pre- 
 tended prophecy of an old^cxiat, the proper deduction is, there weie 
 no such things, and that the book of Matthew is fable and false- 
 hood. 
 
 " 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 prophecies and but 
 few in Luke and John. Such as they are I shall examine, an'd al66 
 such other passages as interfere with those cited by Matthew. 
 
184 
 
 " Mark begins his booit by a passage which he puts in the siiape 
 of a prophecy. Mark, chap. i. ver. 1. — " The beginning of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God— As it is written in the pro- 
 phets," Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which, shall pre- 
 pare the way before thee." Malachi, chap. iii. ver 1. The passage 
 in the original is in the first person. Mark makes this passage to 
 be a prophecy of John the i3aptist, said, by the Church, to be a fore- 
 runner of Jesus Christ. But if we attend to the verses that follow 
 this expression, as it stands in Malachi, and to the first and fifth ver- 
 ses 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 my 
 messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me," says at the se- 
 cond verse. But who may abide the day of his coming < and who 
 shall stand ivhen he appeareth ? 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 wht)m he calls the messen- 
 ger. 
 
 " Behold, says he, chap. iv. ver. 1. " The day cometh that 
 shall burn like an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wick- 
 edly shall be stubble ; and the day cometli that shall burn them up, 
 saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave thein neither root nor 
 branch." 
 
 " Verse 5. " Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before 
 the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." 
 
 " By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance, Mark has 
 n)ade Elijah into John the Baptis!, und Malachi's description of the 
 day of judgement into the birth day of Christ, Meave to the Bishop 
 to settle. 
 
 " Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chapter, con- 
 founds two passages together taken from different books of the Old 
 Testament. The second verse, " Behold I send my messenger before 
 thy face which shall prepare the way before thee," is taken, as I 
 have before said, from Malachi, The third verse, which says, 
 " The voice of one crying in the loilderness, prepare ye the way of 
 the Lord, make his paths straight," is not in Malachi, but in Isaiah, 
 chap. xl. ver. 3. Whiston says; that both these, verses were origin- 
 ally in Isaiah. If so, it is another instance of the disordered state 
 of the Bible, and corroborates- what 1 have said with respect to the 
 nanie and description of Cyrus being in the book of Isaiah, to which 
 it cannot chronologically Ijelong. 
 
 " The words in Isaiah, chap xl. vtr. a. " T/.e voice of him that 
 
185 
 
 cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord make Ms 
 paths straight," are in the present tense, and, consequenly, not pre- 
 dictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures which the Old Testa- 
 ment authors frequently used. That it is merely metaphorical may 
 he seen at the 6th verse, " " And the voice said cry, and he said 
 what shall 1 cry ? All flesh is grass." This is evidently nothing but 
 n figure, for fl^sh is not grass, otherwise than as 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 par- 
 ticular person or purpose. 
 
 " I pass on to the eleventh chapter. 
 
 " In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalent 
 upon a colt, but he does not make it the accimiplishment of a pro- 
 phesy as Matthew has done, for he says nothing about a prophesy. 
 Instead of which he goes on to the other tack, and in order to add 
 new honours to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle ; for he says, 
 ver. 2, it was " a colt whereon man never sat," signifying thereby, 
 that as the ass had not been broken, he consequently was inspired 
 into good manners, for we do not hear that be kicked Jesus Christ 
 off. There is not a word about his kicking in all tlie four Evan- 
 gelists. 
 
 " I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon a 
 jack-ass, to the 15th chapter. 
 
 "At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting 
 Chrisfs garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies n& 
 prophesy 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 trans- 
 gressors." The same thiog might be said of the thieves. 
 
 " This expression is in Isaiah, chap. liii. ver. 12 — Grotius applies 
 it to Jeremiah. But the case has happened so often in the world 
 where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and is 
 still continually 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, iqi the time of Robespierre, were num- 
 bered with transgressors ; and if himself had not fallen, the same 
 case, according to a note in his own hand-writing, had befallen me, 
 yet 1 suppose the Bishopwill not allow that Isaiah was prophecying 
 of Thomas Paine, 
 
 " These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference to 
 prophecies. 
 
 " Mark concludes iiis book by making- Jesus to say to his disci- 
 ples, chap. xvi. ver. 15. " Go ye into all the world and preach the 
 Gospel to every creature — he that beiieveth and is baptized shall: 
 be saved, but he that beheveth not shall be dasnned, (fine Popish 
 stuff' this) and these signs shall follow them that believe; iu my 
 
186 
 
 ttame they shall 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 saving and 
 wonder-working faith, should try those things upon himsdf. He 
 should take a good dose of arsenic, and if he please, I will send him 
 a rattle-snake frBtn America ! as for myself, as I believe in God and 
 not at all in Jesus Christ, nor in the books called the Scriptures, the 
 experiment does not concern me. 
 
 " I pass on to the book of Luke. 
 
 *' There are no passages in Luke caUed prophecies excepting 
 those which relate to the passages 1 have already examined. 
 
 " Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes 
 no references to the passage in Isaiah, as Matthew does. He speaks 
 also oif Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he says nothing 
 about a prophecy. He speaks of John the Baptist, a-nd refeis to the 
 passage in Isaiah of which 1 have already spoken. 
 
 " At the 1.3th 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 ivill hill thee— and he said unto them, 
 go ye, and tell that Fox, behold I cast out devils and I do cures to- 
 day and 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 b^an 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 Testa-? 
 ment is involved with respect to Herod, jnay afford 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. Mat- 
 thew calls Herod a king ; and Luke, chap. 3, ver. 1, 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 
 then by Tetrarclis or Governors. 
 
 " Luke, chap 2, makes Jesus to be born wheii Cyrenius was gO' 
 vernor of Syria, to which government Judea was annexed ; and ac- 
 cording 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 Egypt ; 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 preachiagj as is before stated. 
 
187 
 
 I have already shewn that Luke, in the book called the Acts of the 
 Apostles, (which commentators ascribe to Luke) contradicts the ac- 
 count 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 in)- 
 
 possible those books could have been written by divine inspiration. 
 
 'Our belief in God and his unerring wisdom forbids us to believ« 
 
 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. 1 pass on to the book of John. 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOHN. 
 
 " John, like Mark and Luke is not much of a prophecy-monger. 
 He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus's clothes, and 
 some other trifles, of which I have already spoken. 
 
 " John makes Jesus to say, chap. v. ver. 46. " For had ye be- 
 lieved 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 brethen, 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 imposition ! The person 
 spoken of in IXeuteronomy, and also in Numbers where the sanje 
 person is also spoken of, is Joshua, the minister of Moses, and his 
 immediate successor, and just such another Robespierrean cliaracter 
 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 pre- 
 vent confusion after Ms death, for the Israelites had no settled sys- 
 tem of government ; it was thought best to noniinate 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 wWch 
 I have given unto tlie children of Israel — and when thou hast seen it, 
 thou also shall be gathered unto thy people as Aaron thy brother is 
 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 congre- 
 gation — Which may go out before them, and which, may go in before 
 them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in, 
 that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep that have no shep- 
 herd — And the Lord said unto Moses, take thee Joshua, the son of 
 
188 
 
 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 congrega- 
 tion, and give him a charge in their sight — and thou shalt put some 
 of thine honour upon him, and that all the congregation of the chil- 
 dren of Israel may be obedient — ver. 22, and Moses did as the 
 Lord commanded, and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar 
 the priest, and before all the congregation : and he laid hands upon 
 him, and gave him charge as the Lord commanded by the hand 
 of Moses." 
 
 " 1 have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth, or the conju- 
 ration, 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 Projihecies." The work is tediously written and tire- 
 some 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-two 
 years after the lime of Moses, where as it was an immediate successor to Moses, 
 whowas 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, as entirely omitted the account in the book of Numbers which I have 
 given at length word for word, and which shews beyond the possibility of a doubt, 
 tliat the person spoken of by Moses is Joshua and no other person. 
 
 " Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hear-say 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 quotation from a traveller of tlie name ofTavei-nur, whom he calls (by way of 
 giving credit to what ht says) a celebrated traveller, that those walls were made of 
 burnt brich, ten feet square and thrtefeet thick. — If Newton had only thought of 
 calculating the weight of such a brick, he would have seen the impossibility of 
 their being used or even made. A brick ten feet sqiuare and three feet tliick, con- 
 tains 300 cubit feet, and allowing a cubit foot of brick to be only one hundred 
 pounds, each of the Bishop's bricks would weiglj 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 (vo- 
 lume 2d, page 211) far exceds his bricks often foot square in thewalls of Baby- 
 lon : the^e are but brick-bats compared to them. 
 
 " The stones (says he) employed in the foundation, were in magnitude forty 
 cubits, tliat 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 thick, and contains 7, '234 cubit 
 feet. 1 now go to deinonstrate the imposition of this Bishop. 
 
 " A cubit fjot of water weighs sixty-two pounds and a hitlt^ — The specific rra- 
 vity of marble to water ij as '2\ is to one. The weight therefore of a cubic 
 
]89 
 
 " 1 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 cress 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 scripture should be ful- 
 filled, A bone of him shall not be broken. 
 
 " The passage here referred to is in Exodus, and has no more to 
 do with Jesus than with the ass he rode upon to Jerusalem ; nor yet 
 so much, if a roasted jack-ass, 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 an 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 was to 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 shall not eat thereof. In 
 
 foot of marble is 1.56 pounds, which, multiplied by 7,234, the number of cubit 
 feet in one of (hose stones makes the weight of it be 1,128,304 pounds, which is 503 
 tons. Allowing then a horse 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 
 into the 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 of great guns used by the Turks at the taking of Con- 
 stantinople, one of which he says, was drawn by seventy yoke of oxen and by two 
 thousand men. Volume 3d, page 117. 
 
 ** The weight of a cannon that carries a ball of 48 pounds, which is' 'he largest 
 cannon that are cast, weighs 8,000 pounds, about three tons and a half, and may 
 be drawn by three yoke of oxen. Any body may now calculate what the weight 
 of the bishop's greot^un must be that required seventy yoke of o^en to draw it. 
 This bisliop beats Gulliver. 
 
 " When men give up the use of the divine gift of reason \n writing on any sub- 
 ject, be it relii,'ipus 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 prophe- 
 cies contain above one thousand two hundred pages, and he says in volume 3. 
 page 117. " I have studied brevity." This is as marvellous as the bishop's great 
 gun. 
 
190 
 
 one house shall it be eaten : thou shalt not carry forth aught of the 
 flesh thereof abroad out of the house ; Neither shalt thou 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 J esus's bones or 
 any part of him. 
 
 " John having thus filled up the measure of apostolic fable, con- 
 cludes 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 loorld 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 could 
 contain them.— Here ends the examination of>the passages called 
 prophecies. 
 
 " I have now, reader, gone through and examined all the passages 
 which the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, quote 
 from the Old Testament, and call them prophecies of Jesus Christ. 
 ' When I first set down to this examination, I expect 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 shewn 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 Testament 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 shew they refer to the children of Israel coming out of 
 Egypt in the time of Pharaoh, and to the idolatry they committed 
 afterwards, 
 
 " Again they tell us that when the soldiers canie to break the 
 legs of the crucified persons, they found Jesus was already dead and 
 
191 
 
 therefore did not break his. They then, with some alteration of 
 the original, cKt out a sentence froxn Exodus, a bone of him shall 
 not be broken, and apply it as a prophecy of that case. 
 
 " Tlie words, " Neither shall ye break a bone thereof." (for they 
 have altered the text) are in the Bible. But what of that } They 
 are, as in the former case only part of a passage, and not awhole 
 passage, and when read with the words they are immediately joined 
 to shew it is the bones of a he-lamb, or a he-goat of which the pas- 
 sage 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 cases, 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 
 iraaginaiy 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 exis- 
 tence 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, contradictions, and absurdities, 
 which are to be met with'inalmost every page of the Old and New Tes- 
 tament, all the priests of the present day, who supposed themselves 
 capable, would triumphantly shew 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, sefk 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. 
 
 " This examination becomes more necessary, because when the 
 New Testament was written, 1 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 six hundred common printed Bibles now cost. Conse- 
 quently, the book was in the hands but of very few persons, and 
 those chiefly of the church. This gave an opportunity to the writers 
 of the New Testament 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 turn- 
 ed every way, stood sentry over the New Testament; and time. 
 
192 
 
 which brings every thing else to light, has served to thicken the 
 <larkness that guards it from detection. 
 
 " Were the New Testament now to appear for the first time, every 
 priest of the present day, vpould 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 Testament ur-ver 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. Length of time can make no dif- 
 ference in- the right to do it at any time. But instead of doing this, 
 th'ey go on as their predecessors went on before them, to tell the 
 people there are prophecies of Jesus Christ, when the truth is there 
 Ave 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. liut.if he had done so, those would have been the only 
 cii-cumstances respecting him, that would have differed from the 
 common lot of man ; and consequently, the only case that would 
 apply exclusively to him, as prophecy would be some passage in the 
 Old Testament 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, tlie 
 Old Testament guards upon such things, (>y telling us of passages as 
 they call prophecies, and that falsely so, about Joseph's dreams, old 
 clolhes, 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. 
 1 have several reasons for this : First, that I may be clearly under- 
 stood. Secondly, that it may be seen I am in earnest ; and Thirdly, 
 because it is an affront to tiutli to treat falsehood with complai- 
 sance. 
 
 " I will close this treatise with a subject 1 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 Tes- 
 tament, nor of the Koran, that 1 dignify with that sacred title. That 
 which is revelation to me exists in something which no human mind 
 can inverit ; no human hand can counterfeit or alter. 
 
 " The word of God is the Creation we behold ; and this word of 
 God i-evealeth to man all that is necessary fur man to know of his 
 Creator. 
 
 " Do wewantto contemplate his^power.' we see it in the immensity 
 of his creation. 
 
193 
 
 " Do we want to contemplate his wisdom ? we see it in the 
 unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is go- 
 verned. 
 
 " 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 with- 
 holding that abundance, even from the pnthankful, 
 
 " Do we want to contemplate his will so far as it respects man ? 
 The goodness he shews 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 im- 
 postor invent ; but the scripture called the Creation, 
 
 " When, in the first part of the Age of Reason, 1 called the cre- 
 ation 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 Middteton, 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 Cambridge, in 
 England, which furnished him with extensive opportunities of read- 
 ing, and necessarily required he should be well acquainted with tbe 
 dead as well as the living languages. He was a man of a strong ori- 
 ginal 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 
 shew 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 attack- 
 ed, without ceremony, the miracles \Vhich the church pretended to 
 perform ; and in one of his treatises he calls the creation a revela- 
 tion. The priests of England, of that day, in order to defend their 
 citadel, by first defending its out-works, attacked him for attacking 
 the Roman ceremonies ; and one of them censures him for calling 
 the creation a revelation. He thus replies to him: 
 
 " ' One of theni,' says he, ' appears to be scandalized by the 
 title of revelation, Which I have given to that discoveiy 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 con- 
 sider 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 gra- 
 dual deduction of consequences, to learn his own nature also, with all 
 the duties belonging to it, which relate either to God, or to his fel- 
 low-creatures. This, constitution of things was ordaine<l by God, as 
 14 
 
194 
 
 a universal law or rule of coniluct to man ; the souice 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 coiiscide 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 con- 
 templating this law he would discover the genuine way, which God 
 himself has marked out to us, for the acquisition of true knowledge; 
 not h-om the authority or reports of Our fellow creatures, but from 
 the information of the fact, and material objects, which in his 
 providential 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 know- 
 ledge, were first discovered to man, so that grand discovery furnish- 
 ed new light, towards tracing out the rest, and made all the inferior 
 subjects of human knowledge, more easily discoverable to us by th« 
 same method, 
 
 " 'I had another view likewise in the sanre passages, and appli- 
 cable to the same end, of giving the reader a more enlarged notion 
 of 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 
 vrith them the proofsrof their origin, and shewing themselves to be 
 the production of an all-wise and almighty being : and by accustom- 
 ing his mind to these sublime reflections, he will be prepared to dcs 
 termine whether those miraculous interpositions so confidently affirm- 
 ed to us by the primitive fathers, can reasonably be thought to ma:ke a 
 part in the grand scheme of the Divine administration, or whether it 
 be agreeable, thatGodwhocreatedall things by his will, and can give 
 whatturnto themhepleasesby the same will, should, for the particu- 
 lar purposes of hisgovernmentand the services of the church, descend 
 to the expedient of visions and revelations, granted sometimes to boys 
 fortheinstruction of the elders, and sometimes to women to settle the 
 fashionand length of their veils, andsometimes to Pastoisof the Church, 
 to enjoin them to^ordainone man a lecturer, another a priest; or that 
 he should scatter a profusion of iniracles around the stake of a mar- 
 tyr, yet all of them vain and insignificant, and without an^ sensible 
 ^ect either of preserving the life, or easing the suflierings of the 
 saint, or even of mortifying his persecutors, who are 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, bow contemptible must 
 they be ? And how incredible must it be thought, that for the in- 
 
196 
 
 struttion of his Church, God should employ ministers so precarious, 
 unsatisfactory, and inadequate, as the extacies of women and boys, 
 and the visions of interested 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 principle sages of antiquity who madeit 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) 1 shall here transcribe in his own words, 
 as they will illustrate my sens^ also, in the passages that appear so 
 dark and dangerous to my antagonist. 
 
 " * The true law (it is Cicero who speaks) is right reason, con- 
 foimable 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 
 preserves it with the wicked. This law cannot be over-ruled by any ~ 
 other, nor abrogated in the whole oj in part ; nor can we be "absolv- 
 ed from it, either by the senate or by the people ; nor are we to seek 
 any other comment, or interpreter of it but itself : nor can there be 
 one law at Rome, and another at Athens ; one now and another here- 
 after; but the same eternal immutable law comprehends all nations, 
 at all times, under one common master and governor of all — Go». 
 He is'the inventor, propouuder, 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 wiU 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, .1 shall ever 
 avow and defend it as the fundamental, essential and vital part of all- 
 true religion.' Here ends the quotation from Middleton. - 
 
 " 1 have here given the reader two sublime extracts from men 
 who lived in ages of time, far remote from each otlier, 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 TestameMa, the theology of schools built thereon, 
 but by studying the Creator in the immensity and unchangeable order 
 of his creation, and the immutability of his law. ' There cannot,' 
 says Cicero, ' be one lam now, and another hereafter; but the same 
 eternal immvitable law comprehends all nations, at all times, under 
 one common mastei^ and governor of all — Gop.' But according to 
 
196 
 
 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 another age of the world. As 
 all this is contradictory to the eT;ernal immutable nature, and the un- 
 erring and unchangeable wisdom of God, we must be compelled to 
 hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and the new law, called the 
 Old and the New Testament, to be impositions, fables, and for- 
 geries. 
 
 " In Middleton, we see the manly eloquence of an enlarged mind, 
 and the genuine sentiments of a true believer in his Creator. In- 
 stead of reposing his faith on books, by whatever name they may be 
 called, whether Old Testaments or New, he fixes the creation as the 
 great original standard by which every other thing called the word or 
 workofGod, istobetried. Inthiswehaveanindisputable scale where- 
 by to measure every word or work imputed to him. If the thingso imput- 
 ed carries not in itself theevidenceof thesame Almighliness of power, 
 of the same unerring truth and wisdom, and the same unchangeable 
 order in all its parts, as are visibly demonstrated to our senses, and 
 comprehensible by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the uni- 
 verse, 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, wh» ever they were, will' be con- 
 victed of forgery. 
 
 " The invariable jW-inciples, and unchangeable order, which regu- 
 late the movements of all the parts that compose the universe, de- 
 monstrate 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, representSvhim as a God 
 of deceit, a God not to be confided in. Ezekiel makes God to say, 
 chap, 14. ver. 9. ' and if the prophet be deceived when he hath 
 spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.' And at the 
 20th chap. ver. 25, he makes God, in speaking of the children of 
 Israel to say, ' Wherefore I gave them statutes that were not good, 
 and judgments by which they could not live.' This, so far from being 
 the word of God, is horrid blasphemy 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 hnen, and goat's hair, and 
 rams' skins dyed red, and badger skins, &c. chap. xxv. ver. 3, and 
 in one of these pretended prophecies I have just exanjined, 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 ' tvheat 
 and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and 
 
197 
 
 ■makea loaf or a cake thereof, and bake it with human dung and eat 
 it ;' but as Ezekiel complained that this iness was too strqngfor 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 move- 
 ments, and we shall be at a loss to iiiid a name sufficiently contempt- 
 ible 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 Hke the 
 stars in heaven and the saihd on the sea shore for multitude, and that 
 he would give them the lapd 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, could,' consistently with ihat power and 
 that wisdom, make such a promise. 
 
 " The performance of the promise was to begin, according to that 
 book,' by four hundred years of bondage and affliction. Genesis, 
 chap. XV. ver. 13, ' And God said unto Abraham., know of a surety 
 that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and 
 shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred 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 four hundred years. 
 
 " But the case is, the book of Genesis was written after the bond- 
 age in Egypt had taken place ; and in order to get rid of the disgrace 
 of ihe 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 conse- 
 quently 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 We, that the human mind has degenerated 
 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. 
 
 " As to the New Testament, if it be brought and tried by that 
 .•standard which, as Middleton wisely says, God has revealed to our 
 
198 
 
 senses, of his Almighty power and wisdom, in the creation and go- 
 vernment 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 argument, that 
 the story of Christ is of human inveftlion and not of divine origin, I 
 will confine myself to shew that it is derogatory to God, by the con- 
 trivance of it; because the means it supposes God to use, are not ad- 
 equate 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 co- 
 venant of grace, and to instruct mankind in a new doctrine, which it 
 calls Faith, meaning 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 bad notthis faith should 
 to use the words of the New Testament, be DAMNED. 
 
 " Now if this were a fact, it is consistent with that attribute of 
 God, called his Goodness, that no time should be lost in letting poor 
 unfortunate man know it; and as that goodness was united to Al- 
 mighty 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 Almightiness 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 consistently with his Almightiness. It is this only that can be- 
 come the infallible criterion by which we can possibly distinguish 
 the works of God from the works of man. 
 
 " Observe now. Reader, how the comparison between this suppos- 
 ed 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 demonstrat- 
 ed to our senses in the visible creation, goes on. 
 
 " Th^ Old Testament tells us, that God created the heavens and 
 the earth, and every thing therein, in six days. The term six days, is 
 ridiculous enough when applied to God ; but leaving out that absui-dity 
 it contains the idea of Almighty power acting -unitedly with Al- 
 mighty wisdom, to produce an immense work, that of the creation of 
 the Universe, and every thing therein in a thort time. 
 
 " Now as the eternal salvation of man, is of much greater import- 
 ance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, as the New 
 Testament tells us, on man's knowledge of, and belief in, the person 
 called Jesus Christ, it necessarily ioUows from our belief in the good- 
 ness 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' the world. To suppose the Al- 
 mighty would pay greater regard and attention to tlie ct-eation and 
 
J 99 
 
 organization of iiianimnte matter, tlian he would to the salvation 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, not 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 the child than to 
 make the world, for nine months were passed away and totally lost, 
 in a state of pi"egnancy ; which is more than forty times longer time, 
 than God employed in making the v.orld, according, to the Bible ac- 
 count. 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 be- 
 fore he began to preach what they call his mission. Millions of 
 souls died in the mean time without knowing it. Fourthly ; it was 
 above three hundred 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 thousand years 
 after that before it could be circulated ; becaus'j neither Jesus nor his 
 apostles had knowledge of, or were inspired with the art of printing: 
 and consequently, 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 nineteenth Psalm, which is truly deisti- 
 cal, and to shew how universally and instantaneously the works of God 
 make themselves known, compared with this pretended salvation by 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 " Psalm ]9th. ' The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 firmament sheweth his handy work — Day unto day uttereth speech, 
 and night unto night sheweth 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 chamber 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 the salvationby Jesus Christ been inscribed 
 on the face of the Sun and the Moon, in characters that all nations 
 vrould have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four 
 hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is 
 now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came 
 upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know any 
 tiling of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it. 
 
 ." I have now reader, gone through all the passages called prophe- 
 cies of Jesus Christ, and shewn there is no such thing. 
 
 " 1 have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, aiid compared 
 the several circumstances of it with that revelation, vfhich, as Mid^ 
 
200 
 
 dieton wisely says, God has made to us of his Power and Wisdom in 
 the structure of the universe, and by wbieh every thing ascribed to 
 him is to be tried. The result is, that the story of Christ has not 
 one traif, either in its character,or in the means employed, that bears 
 the least resejnblance to the power and wisdom of God, as demon- 
 strated in the creation of the universe. All means are human means, 
 slow, uncertain and inadequate to the accotnplishment of the end 
 proposed, and therefore the whole is a fabulous invention, and un- 
 deserving of credit. 
 
 " The priests of the present day profess to believe it. They gain 
 their living by it, and they exclaim against something they call infi- 
 delity. I will define what it is. He that believes in the story 
 OF Christ is an Infidel to God. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Contradictory Doctrines in the New Testament, hetiveen 
 Matthew and Mark. 
 
 - " In the New Testament, Mark chap. 16, ver. 16, it is said, 
 ' He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; he, that believeth 
 not shall be damned.' This is making salvation, or in other words, 
 the happiness 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 Matthew,' 
 makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doctrine to ' The gos- 
 pel according to Mark,' for it makes salvation, or the future happi- 
 ness of man, to depend entirely otirgood 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 it calls the last day, or the day of judgement where the whole 
 world is represented to be divided into two parts, the righteous and 
 the unrighteous, inetaphorif:al!y 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 kingdom prepared for 
 you from the beginning of the world — -for I was an hungered and ye 
 gave me meat — / was thirsty and ye gave me drink — / was a stran- 
 ger 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. 
 
 " ' 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 and in prison and came unto 
 thee. 
 
 " ' And the king shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say 
 unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto mc' 
 
201 
 
 " Here is nothing about believing in Christ ; nothing about that 
 phantom of the imagination, called Faith. The works here spoken 
 of, are works of humanity and benevolence, or in other words, an 
 endeavour to make God's creation happy. Here is nothing about 
 preaching and making long prayers, as if God must be dictated to 
 by man; not about building churches and meetings, nor Wring- 
 priests to pray and preach in them. Here is nothing about predesli- 
 nation, that lust which some men have for damning one another. 
 Here is nothing about baptisna, 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 i 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. 'Charity, with them, begins and ends at home. 
 
 " Had it been said, Come, ye blessed, ye have been liberal in pay- 
 ing the preachers of the tuord ; ye have contributed largely towards 
 building churches and meeting houses, there is not a hired priest in 
 Christendom but would have thundered it continually in thfe 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 PAINE. 
 
 " My Private Thoughts on a Future State. 
 
 " I HAVE said in the first part of the Age of Reason, that / 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 res- 
 pect 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 good- 
 ness. 1 leave all these matters to him as my Creator and friend, and i 
 1 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 existence hereafter. It is in his power to 
 do so, or not do so, audit is not in our power to decide which he 
 will do. 
 
 *.' The book called the New Testament, which I hold to be fabu- 
 lous, and have shevra to be false, gives an account in the 25th chap- 
 ter 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 sheej) and the goats. They are then to receive their sentence. 
 
202 ^ 
 
 To the one, figuratively called the sheep, it says, ' Come ye blessed 
 qf my father inherit the kinffdom prepared for you Jrpm tf^e founda- 
 tion of the world.' To the other %uiativeJy called the goats, it says, 
 * Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the 
 Devil and Ms angels,' 
 
 " Now the case is, the world cannot be thus divided — the moral 
 world, like the physical worid, is compospd of numerojis degrees of 
 character, v(inning iHipercpplibly one into the other, in such a man- 
 ner that no fixed point of division can be found in either. Thai point 
 is no where, or is every where. The whole world might be divided 
 into two parts numerically, but not as to moral character; and there- 
 fore the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be di- 
 vided, whose difference is marked by their external figure, is absurd. 
 All sheep arestill sheep ; all goats are still goats ; it i$ their physical 
 nature to be so. fiut one part t>f the world are not all good alike^ 
 nor the other part all wicked ahke. , There are some exceedingly 
 good ; others exceedingly wicked. There is another description of 
 men who cannot be ranked with either theoae or the other — they be- 
 long neither to the sheep nor the goats; and there is still another 
 description of them, who are so very insignificant both in character 
 and conduct as not to be worth the trouble of damniirg or saving, or 
 of raising from the dead. *" 
 
 " My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in 
 doing good, and endeavouring to make their fellow mortals happy, 
 for this is the only way in which we can seri'e God, will be happy 
 hereafter ; and that the very wicked will meet with some punishment. 
 But those who are neither good nor bad, or are too insignificant for^ 
 notice, will be dropt entirely.' This is my opinion. It is consistent 
 with my idea of God's justice, and witli the reason that God has 
 given me, and I gratefully know he has given me a large share of 
 that divine gift. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 These Geutteraea are Mr. Paine's notious of a future state, 
 they are not miue. 
 
 I have now gone through the whole of the three books 
 which are brought into the iniformation, and you must be 
 convinced, Gentlemen, that there is not an immoral expres- 
 sion in them, save where it be a quotation. I think I have 
 shewn you that the autkor has evinced an enlarged and libe- 
 ral mind. The opinions and sentiments of Mr. Paine on 
 the subject under discussion are my opinions and sentiments. 
 This work contains a body of truth to which I subscribe. 
 The author has certainly spoken disrespectfully of certain 
 passages in the Old anid New Testament, but it should be 
 consid«!t ' J'at lie 'jyii^vr ,■, thing of tfie character given 
 
203 
 
 them, and his own apology is, that, he cannot pay complai- 
 sance to error and falsehood. An apology quite suflBcient 
 to satisfy any reasonable mind. 
 
 I now feel exhausted, and beg your Lordship to adjourn 
 the Court till to-morrow. 
 
 Chief Justice. — Have* you much more to offer the Jury 
 in defence. ^- i 
 
 Mr. -Carlile. — If my bodily strength permits I have 
 enough to last till Saturday night. 
 
 Chief Justice. — As I would not willingly curtail your 
 defence, if you request me, I shall now adjourn till to-morrow. 
 
 Mr. Carlile. — I request it, my Lord. , 
 
 The Chief Justice, Addressing the Jury, said that he 
 was not desirous of imposing upon them any restraints. 
 They would of course take care not to hold communications 
 with any persons on the subject of the trial. The Jury sig- 
 nified their acquiescence ; and the Chief Justice addressed 
 himself to Mr. Carlile, saying, perhaps you would leave your 
 books and notes. with the Officer of the Court. 
 '<:^7-. Carlile. — I thank you, my Lord, I had rather not. 
 
 On Ifeaving the Court the Defendant,"^ accompanied by 
 Mr. Hunt, Mr. Sherwin, and Mr. Fry, was received with 
 warm applause by the people gathered about the Hall. ^ 
 
 END OF THE FIRST DAY S PROCEEDINGS. 
 
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