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AUTHOR: 
 
 FINNEY, S. J. 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 BIBLE: IS IT OF 
 
 ORIGIN *? 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1860 
 
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 Finnoy, S J 
 
 The Bible: is it of divine origin, authority, 
 and influence? by S. J. Finney... Boston, IlarrJi, 
 x360 • 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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 THE BIBLE: 
 
 IS IT OP 
 
 DIVINE ORIGIN, AUTHORITY, AND 
 
 INFLUENCE 1 
 
 BY S. J. FINNEY. 
 
 Every system of theology that shrinks from investigation " openly declares 
 
 its own error." 
 
 " The truth shall make you free." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY BELA MAESH, 
 
 14 BROMFIELD STREET. 
 
 1 8 G . 
 
Intared acoordlag to Act of Congress, in fhe year 186», bj 
 
 8. J. FINNEY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of Ohio. 
 
 au.oi 
 
 BOBART t BOBBINS. 
 Ww bctena T/pe and ik«natypt 
 B08T01I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Reader, this little book is not an attack upon the " Bible," but 
 an honest attempt to show that the orthodox claims for th« book 
 are both gratuitous and false. I do not aim my shafts at the truths, 
 the many and beautiful truths, that lie amid its pages like 
 diamonds amid the rubbish of ages ; but only at the doctrine that 
 it is the first and last revelation of the Divine Will, of mu-aculoui* 
 origin, and infallible authority to us on all questions of morals and 
 religion ; that our reason, conscience, and intuition are, and of right 
 ought to be, subject to the authority and teachings of the Bible ; 
 that the human mind must believe it, or be damned ; that it is the 
 " only rule of religious fiiith and practice ;" and that an unqualified 
 submission to its teachings is the only ground o hope for happiness 
 here and hereafter. I have, therefore, with a fearless mind and a 
 bold hand, exposed its absurdities, its contradictions, its immoralities, 
 and its blasphemous assumptions. 
 
 Please don't forget, dear reader, that I reverence its golden truths, 
 its grand poesy, its sublime allegories, its beautiful spiritual teach- 
 ings, as highly as the most devout Christian can ; for it is a grand 
 old record, on whose dusty pages stand revealed, in lines of living 
 light, mighty utterances from the God in man ; great, sweeping 
 denunciations against tyranny and wrong; irresistible appeals to 
 the divinity of humanity, which have made great furrows upon the 
 soil of the world. 
 
 I have written to destroy the doctrine that the " Bible " is our 
 master, — greater than the God in matter and in man ; but not to 
 destroy the idea that it may be a help when we use it, instead of 
 being used by it. 
 
 When it is taken for divine authority, in sum total, it imposes 
 upon us the task of sustaining tyranny in church and state, — of 
 

 making slavery perpetual, — of eiiBtaming conjugal despotism,— of 
 imposing unnatural restraints upon our minds, —of denying the 
 teutliH of science, and of distrusting re.us^m, conseienee, and intu- 
 ition. But, left to take it for wliat it can prove iteelf to be worth, 
 
 we can read in it the rcTelations of the human mind in all stages 
 of progress, from the most abject barbarism to the divinest moments 
 
 of being. 
 
 When we take the " Bible " as an authority, we become con- 
 founded with its contradictions, disgusted with its assumptions, and 
 indignant at its blasphemous representations of God and divine 
 things. But, taking it as only a more or less jxTfect record of what 
 Tarious nations and persons did, thouglit, believed and said, wc can 
 treat it calmly, justly, and even generously; and in this light can- 
 not at all afford to part with it for any price. 
 
 There are many sublime ideas in the "Bible," — revelations of 
 the Divine Life, LoTe and Beauty, — ideas whieli came fresh and 
 sparkling from the surges of Everhisting Nature. These are true 
 lefdations of the Divine Will, inspirations from the Fount of Being, 
 .Becking incarnation in the facts of the world. 
 
 I believe not in the 5Mj>miat«ral in.<i:i ration, for natural inspira- 
 tion is adequate for the accomplishuieiit uf all the divine purposes. 
 Besides, how can God be jri/;«Tnatural, and eternal luiu uncreated, at 
 the same time? 
 
 What can he more natural than that which never had a beginning 
 — was never made — and which can therefore liave no end? The 
 divine things in the " Bible" are, therefore, the natural inspira- 
 tioDS of God, made manifest in man. Such an iilea of insjiimtion 
 gives us courage and hope ; for, if Moses, Isaiali, and Jesus, said and 
 did divine things, all men may; and the sublimest utterance and 
 deeds of Jesus become the possibility of all men made actual. 
 
 And now, kind reader, if this hook shall help to free your mind 
 from the trammels of sect, and inspire you to a nobler life than 
 mere subservience to creeds, I am content. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 TEE BIBLE. 
 
 IS IT OF DIVINE ORIGIN, AUTHORITY, AND INFLUENCE? 
 
 HISTORICAL EYIDENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Is it a miraculous collection of miraculous books, every word, 
 chapter and book of which was written by an inspiration from 
 God, so perfectly full and complete, that the writers thereof de- 
 livered the truth, nothing but the truth, and all the truth which 
 humanity needs, or which it can get, on religious and moral sub- 
 jects? Must man, must the human soul, with all its noble pow- 
 ers of intuition, reason, and the innate religious sentiments, bow 
 to the Scripture — the Jewish and Christian Scriptures? 
 
 Is the "Bible" superior to nature, master of reason, greater 
 and more God-like than conscience ? Is it the only revelation 
 from God, as an infallible rule of religious faith and practice ? 
 If so, then man ought to bow implicitly to its dictum, without a 
 question or a doubt. Human reason is nothing, unless it runs 
 parallel with the letter of the Book, if this idea be true. Or, 
 rather, it is a rebel against God's government. If it do not kisa 
 the book, it must be damned. The religious sentiment in man, 
 too, must be subject to the word of Moses, Ezra, and Jesus. If 
 Hiis idea be true, our only business is to " believe, or be damned." 
 
 I need hardly say that Christians generally so regard the 
 Bible. We hear this doctrine preached from nearly every pulpit 
 I* (6) 
 
6 
 
 of Christciitlotii. Wc arc Bolemiily told, by our self-constituted 
 religious teachers, tliat we iiiiist believe this, or be forever lost. 
 And tbeu wc are cautioned against allowing our reason to como 
 in contact witli the •* Bible;'' for. we arc told, '"The carnal 
 miiid is^ eiimitj agaiust God, is net subject to the law of God, 
 Beit her indeed cm b«,"' 
 
 It cannot be denied, the " Bible " is assumed to conic to ns in 
 tHe name of God, as a Divine Law, claiming entire mastery over 
 the whole world, social, political, and religious. In this charac- 
 ter il is claimed that it has, and of right ought to have, perfect 
 and entire control of all buman affairs, individual, uomtLiic, na- 
 tioiial, universal. Even science and pliilosophj must bow to the 
 dictum of Moses and Paul. Geology — God 's history of worlds 
 writ in rocks— must bow to the gciicsalcal cosmogony of the 
 Pentateuch. And astronomy, God's history of solar and stellar 
 systems, written in starry flames on high, too, must be second 
 and inferior to the letter of the - Word," on parchment or in 
 
 Legislatures are opened by the reading of the " Scriptures " 
 iiiimcdiatelj before and after the repeal of " Missouri Com- 
 promise lines" and the passage of « Fugitive Slave Laws," to 
 bless the glorious work of making Barbary States out of God'« 
 free soil. Catholics and Protestants carry it to war in their 
 hands against " heathen dogs," sending the souls of their mur- 
 dered enemies to hell by -Scripture;" and. when no outward 
 enemy presses, hurl it at each other's heads to settle their etcr- 
 iial war about the legitimacy of their respective organizations. 
 .Nicholas, of Kassia, goes to fight the allies witli " Scripture " for 
 his authority, and the allies do the same against him. The South 
 quotes it to sustain slavery, with all its damning sins; and the 
 Morth helps the South to do it ; only a few raise their voia^s 
 against the lie. It has figured largely in the affairs of this lower 
 world, and, if triie, its influence decides the eternal fate of all 
 this world in the world to come. Its teachings are mixed up 
 with all our institutions of learning. Men and women get mar- 
 ried by Scripture, live and die by Scripture, and go to heaven 
 
 or hell by the same. The mother sings Scripture into her baby, 
 and that bajby, grown up to be a man, sometimes blesses, but, 
 alas ! sometimes curses his mother in Scripture language, dam- 
 ning her to hell. 
 
 A Book of such wide-spread influence must have something in 
 it, and in its history, worthy of close and candid investigation. 
 All these results could not come from nothing. This book, to 
 say the least, must be a very remarkable one. A strange infatu- 
 ation seems to possess Christians about it. The idea that we are 
 either to be saved by the Scriptures, or damned by them, is 
 prevalent in all the churches in Christendom. . 
 
 Now, the *' Bible" either is, or is not, the only and infallible 
 ride of religious faith arid practice. It either is, or is not, of 
 Divine and miraculous origin, authority, and influence. If it is, 
 it ought to be susceptible of proof, of positive proof. Who, that 
 has any manhood or reason in him, can receive such an extraor- 
 dinary, such a large statement on probabilities, or on mere hear- 
 say evidence ? It is too great a matter to be so received. Such 
 claims are too astounding to be taken for granted. Our cterntil 
 destiny is, by the popular theology, based upon our reception or 
 rejection of these claims. To believe is to be saved ; but to be- 
 lieve not is to be damned, says this theology. It may be well, 
 in the outset, if faith is our only ground of hope for *' salva- 
 tion," to investigate the true grounds of faith ? 
 
 Suppose, kind reader, that this proposition was made to you, 
 for the first time, by % Mahometan for the Koran. What 
 kind or amount of evidence would satisfy your mind on this 
 paint? Would you believe it because he told you so, or because 
 the Koran made snch claims for itself? Could you believe it 
 without adequate evidence of the fact ? 
 
 But what is evidence, and what is belief? " Evidence," says 
 Webster, " is that which elucidates and enables the mind to sec 
 truth ; proof arising from our own perceptions, by the senses, or 
 from the testimony of others, or from the inductions of reason." 
 Our senses take cognizance of matter and its qualities; the dec- 
 larations of a witness furnish evidence of facts to a court or jury, 
 
8 
 
 H 
 
 it 
 
 ind reiWDiiig. or the drductiona of the mind, furnish emdence of 
 Iwtli or alsehood. Belief is the result of eYidence distinct irom 
 praonal knowledge. A niaii may Mime a proposition, and not 
 kmm it to he true. Belief, then, being the result of evidence, 
 a man cannot believe without evidence; he cannot have an ade- 
 quate belief without adequate evidence. Now, as wc do not 
 kmw the •• Bible " to be what it ia elainied to be, we must look 
 for the proof, for the evidence of the claim. 
 
 And where shall we find it? Before answering this question, 
 let me make a few remarks on the nature of evidence. We have 
 our senses for exteraal things, reason for logical things, and in- 
 tuition for spiritual things. In other words, testimony or evi- 
 dence should always correspond in character to the thing to be 
 proved. There are but three sources or fountains of evidence : 
 First, nature ; second, the verbal or written testimony of our 
 fellows ; and. lastly, ourselves, our own consciousness. Nature 
 fllrni^he3 us only with natural phenomena, laws, and principles; 
 our fellows with historical testimony, and our consciousness with 
 reason, which is the exponent or ejcpouader of nature, and the 
 judge and jury of our fellows' testimony. Our consciousness is 
 the final court of appeals. All natural facts are judged by it. 
 It is the only ground of the most demonstrative of all sciences. 
 Mathematics real upon certain axioms — self-evident truths — ^ 
 which are in the consciousness of man. For instance, the axiom 
 that the whole is equal to the sum of all its part«. The truth 
 of this axiom rests upon no external proof. You cannot prove 
 it by logic. Every attempt so to do drives you back into your 
 own consciousness. It is a cognition a joriori — a pure cogni- 
 tion, pure knowledge, and the first and purest of all scientific 
 knowledge. 
 
 But the truth of these claims is not axiomatic, is not self- 
 evident ; for, if it were, all men would believe them as soon as 
 announced. But all men who hear the statements do not believe 
 them, even after reading whole libraries of works written to prove 
 them. The evidence, then, in favor of these claims, cannot come 
 from our conaciousnem, from our intuition or reason. Neither 
 
 can it be drawn from nature ; for the very claims are of a super' 
 natural character. 
 
 The Bible is claimed to be a supernatural revelation of God's 
 will to niun, miraculouply given. If it be of a miraculous, a 
 supernatural origin, then, according to the laws of evidence, it 
 ean be proved ouly by miraculous and supernatural testimony; 
 that is, a continual miracle, or the constant repetition of the 
 original loiiacle which first gave it to the world, is essential to 
 eacli individual to whom these claims are made, to convince him 
 of the fact. It will not do to say there are miracles in the 
 Eilile. There are no miracles there, but only stories or records 
 of miracles. If tlu>.se records are true, those niiraelos were mir- 
 acles only to those who saw them ; not to us who read the stories 
 of them in this late day. The common argument from the mira- 
 cles recorded in the Bible, is all a begging of the question. It 
 stands about thus : The Bible is a miraculous revelation from 
 God. This is the proposition. Now for the proof. 
 
 A book which contains miracles must come from God. The 
 Bible contains miracles ; therefore it came from God. Now, let 
 me apply this process of reasoning to the Koran. 
 
 A book which contains miiacles must come from God. The 
 Koran contains miracles ; therefore the Koran came from God. 
 And .so of every other book which contains miraculous stories, 
 or records of so-called miracles. This kind of reasoning would 
 prove all the "Bibles" of the Pagan world divine. The fallacy 
 of this process is found in the grand blunder of mistaking the 
 account of a miracle for the miracle itself. All the Bibles of 
 the heathen contain stories of miracles. Are all divine, then ? 
 This argument is as good for the Pagan as for the Christian, and 
 so proves too much by a great shot. Again, says the Christian, 
 the writers of the Bible were honest men, and so would not tell 
 lies, and therefore 'these stories of miracles are true, and hence 
 the Bible is divine. I ask, how does he know they were honest 
 men ? Suppose they were ; do not honest men make mistakes, 
 and often believe untruths, and so state them to others? But 
 again. There are no miracles to-day affirming the truth of these 
 
I> i 
 
 10 
 
 claims for the Bible. This is a nolorious f«ct. Having shown 
 that two sources of evidence, namely, nature and our conscious- 
 ne^ are cut from the support of these claims, are precluded by 
 their nature from such support, we turn to the last source of 
 proof, the testimony of man. This testimony may be divided 
 into two parts : First, the external historical testimony, and the 
 luterual testimony of the book itself Our jury, our tribunal, is 
 nature and reason ; our judge is our consciousness ; our cognitions 
 apnon. ° 
 
 Let ns turn to these two points. First, the external history 
 of the Bible's origin; and, second, the contents and character of 
 the book Itself. Now, if these miraculous claims can be proved 
 at all they can be so proved from these two sources; and only 
 Irom these two. ^ 
 
 A^ow for the first fact io the external history of the Bible. 
 It 18 limited, crcuiHscribed, local, finite in its presence It is 
 niorc limited than the human race, which it is claimed it wia 
 given to save. It is not, and it never has been, in the hands of 
 one thousandth of the human world. This is a notorious fact 
 It IS patent to the observation of every one 
 
 How can it be an " infelHble rule of religious faith and prac 
 tice to those who never saw it, and never heard of it ? No 
 sane mind will for m moment pretend it. Of course, if God were 
 to gwe the world a revelation of his will, that revelation would 
 not be supererogatory; i| would be necessary and useful for thi.t 
 wee. If It were necessary for the whole race, for each indi- 
 vidual thereof, of course he would make it as wide in its pies- 
 
 each indmdnal of the race, or at least within his reach. Now 
 the popular theology assumes the existence of a universal nee J 
 sity for the Bible as a miraculous revelation from God: and this 
 necessity is further assumed to be in the assumed fact of nn2 
 adequacy to discover by the light of nature that moral and 
 religious truth necemry and indispensable to his eternal "salva- 
 
 lZm.l r . ^l\:''''''f »°«^ua«J of man is based on the 
 wumed fact of the "depravity" of human nature; and this 
 
 11 
 
 depravity is rested again on the doctrine of the " Fall," original 
 " sin," a woman eating an apple, in consequence of the talk of a 
 snake walking on his tail ; and this last story, on the " Bible," 
 the very book whose authority we are discussing, and thus beg- 
 ging the whole question at once. 
 
 'T is thus people often reason in a circle, and so end just where 
 they began. Thus it is that the doctrine of the necessity for 
 such a revelation as the Bible is claimed to be stands. Theolo- 
 gians sometimes quote the wickedness of the world as proof of 
 the " fall," and sometimes quote the " fall " as a proof of the 
 wickedness of the world. In both cases they beg the question. 
 To quote the wickedness of the world is no proof of the " fall ; " 
 for all human history proves man progressive. Progress is a law 
 of nature. Man is only a part or portion of a universal system of 
 things. He cannot get out of nature, nor out of the tides of 
 universal Life which are ever flowing fast from the Infinite 
 Fountain of Being. Progress is carved in the tables of granite, 
 and writ on the face of the midnight sky. All things grow up 
 toward the light. The beautiful flower turns its head to keep 
 the course of the life-bestowing sun. The oak grows with its 
 top toward the sky. So human nature tends in the ultimate ever 
 Bivineward. I have no sympathy with that cold materialism 
 which believes in a body without a soul, a world without a God, 
 and a here without a hereafter. It is a cold negativism, which 
 robs the " flower of fleeting life of all its color and perfume." I 
 believe in God, Liberty, and Immortality. That is my creed. 
 God — a name which to me stands for Life, Love, and Wisdom, 
 and which signifies Justice — the Infinite Conscience; Love, the 
 Infinite Power ; and Beauty — the Infinite Perfection. So far as 
 any individual is, io thought and life an embodiment of these 
 principles, in so far is he an Incarnation of Divinity. God, 
 then, is in matter and in man, as their Life, Power, and Des- 
 tiny. But I cannot stop to enlarge upon this beautiful topic. 
 
 If a perfect God were to give mankind a revelation of His 
 will, which was necessary for their moral and religious wants, he 
 would make that revelation as extensive as the demand which it 
 
hi 
 
 12 
 
 was giTOii to^ coTcr. This h sclflevideiit. But Ihe Bible does 
 
 mi cover otie-teiith part of such demands; therefore it is not a 
 revelation from God. But the q'ucstion comes, Does not man 
 need .oiiie revelation from God ? I answer, he docs. Mankind 
 needs a constant and world-wide revehition of God's nature ami 
 laws, physical, moral, spirituiil. Man has such an one alw-.ys 
 before, around,, above, below, and wiikiu him. God speaks t.. 
 mm from ont his Iioly temple — Nature, whose dome is the sf.r- 
 be^ewclled sky, whoso altar is a pure soul, and whose priest is 
 lleason, Intuition. 
 
 Tlie Bible was confined to the Jewish church for more than 
 four thousand years. It represents God as loving the Jews, and 
 
 haluig other iKitions. Now, let mo ask, does God have pets? 
 Is he partial to his own creatures? Bid he give the Bible for 
 the good of all ? or only for the good of a few Jews and Chri.s- 
 tians ? Does he love the greedy Jew better than the wanderini? 
 Arab, or the untutored Indian ? Who affirms these questions 
 denies the divinity of God. Who can believe in such a concen' 
 tion of Divinity? Who but a bigoted sectarian can love such 
 m Idea of God — a God who loves his friends, his pets and 
 hates his enemies? The God of Jesus' noble soul said, "Love 
 jour eiieniies." 
 
 But now let us come direct to the external argument in detail. 
 We have but two ways of proving the divinity of the Bible 
 First, by a direct appeal to the external history of its ori.-rin • .,nd* 
 second, by an appeal to its contents. I take the external argu-' 
 meat first, because it is the direct method of proof, and internal 
 last, because it is the wdireet method of proof. 
 
 The authority of the churches, as inspired' organizations on 
 this question, is Bot evidence; for they disagree. And the con- 
 science or consciousness of a Christian is no more proof of the ■ 
 divinity of the Bible, than the consciousness of a Mahometan is 
 proof of the divinitj of the Koran. 
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Is there adequate historical testimony to prove directly the 
 miraculous origin of the Bible ? This question may be divided 
 into two. First, is there adequate external historical evidence 
 that the Old Testament was of a miraculous origin ? And, sec- 
 ond, is there adequate external historical evidence to show that 
 the New Testament was of a miraculous origin ? On this part 
 of the argument I shall quote only orthodox writers. I shall 
 bring forward only such authorities as the church receives and 
 acknowledges. I shall not appeal to a single "infidel " writer; 
 I mean those whom the church calls " infidel." If one looks 
 over the pages of orthodox writers on this subject, he will see 
 that all the arguments, based on historical testimony, amount, at 
 best, only to doubtful possibilities. There is no positive or per- 
 fectly reliable historical evidence to show that the persons, to 
 whom most of the books of the Bible are ascribed, had anything 
 to do with writing them. This is strictly true of most of the 
 New Testament books, and more generally true of the Old Tes- 
 tament books. The truth of this statement will appear in the 
 following pages. 
 
 First. There is no possibility of proving directly from exter- 
 nal historical testimony that God miraculously revealed a single 
 word, sentence or book, of the Old Testament to the writers 
 thereof; for we do not know, from external history, who the 
 writers of any of the books were ; and, when they are supposed 
 to be known, it is only by the Bible itself, which we have no 
 right to assume as authority until it is proved. To make such 
 an assumption is to beg the whole question at issue. There is 
 not a page of reliable external history that gives the faintest 
 direct evidence of its divine and miraculous origin. I will prove 
 {his by the 
 
 ADMISSION OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 
 
 I quote first from a " Treatise on Biblical Criticism," by Sam- 
 uel Davidson, D. D. and LL. D., of the University of Ilalle. 
 
 2 
 
He says m Vol. z., p. 15 : -In the Old Testament we have 
 wntingB belonging to very different times. Hence arise their 
 nian.fod character, at least in part. There is great difficulty in 
 a«cert..nu.g the diU.rcnt periods belonging tfthe various rl 
 mams of the Ilebrov literature. It is not easy to assign each 
 
 toe when r'"-'?''f° "^ "■" ^ *" "'"'<""'• "^'^'o't The 
 
 Setrrsr "^ '^''''' "- '^'^'~''' -- ^-•" 
 
 don^twtr;" l^^'S *"' "" *>"" «"" '"' hoped for is a 
 doubtful appros.n>at.on, m settling the era or age in which any 
 one of Its books was written." Asrain nn *hn fij.i " "7 
 
 «me volume, he snv. : . From the ifltho f ^u^", "^ "" 
 
 wrUten, till the cV ''t"" *'"' ""^^^^ ^P^"'"'" >>ookswere 
 
 menf K Ji .1 , " ""'""'• ^- C- 2"0. the Old Testa- 
 
 ment books thenue vcs are the cxc]n.W^ c^,„.J c ■ c ■ 
 M to the state of the t,n-7l -T ' , o "'^ ^formation. 
 
 .„J *!- -r. . • '^^"^'■' ""* Samaritan Pentateuch • " 
 
 and on the 79th na^e he -iilmlt.. tK„. /-■„ ■ ^"'-^ii-ucn, 
 
 neholn, .. • *' Gesenms — a great Hebrew 
 
 .cholar - " proves .ueonte.taLIy " that Ihi. same Samarit-m Pen 
 tateueh ., of little or no vaiue.* And .since Geserjable n 
 T^ .gat.n the Pentateuch has fallen into quite gZ^ dttj 
 among the learned. Of the .MSS., he affi.u's, on the 3411^ 
 
 ZZ :l r f :?• ' '"=""" '° '- J-terminod.- it; 
 
 writers on fl,;. . • f, *^°°^^ "'^ ^^°^^-" ^mong the 
 
 Wrte s on th,s point tliure are various and conflicting opinions* 
 All tha he and the author he quotes give on this subjeeris 
 
 'ObJj** conjecture."' '"*■» &uojtcc la 
 
 In npe^kms of the history^ of the Hebrew text, prior to the 
 elose of the canon, Daviclsoo says, p 71 . « Of thZ7 p !. 
 test dtirinrr thm fj^n i . ^' ^ ^**® ®^^^ o^ t'^o 
 
 f^xt utinng tills time we know tt,Ic." Ai^ain nn n iaq ir i 
 
 . '^'^^ • " **> impossible to nscertain prccLscI j the time when 
 w© canon was completeil A„ii,o,if;« l- . / ""^ ""»e wnen 
 inilii^^f^ iir' ' y^^^°" ^^u^hentie history does not clearlv 
 wdicate this important epoch in sacred literature » ^ 
 
 After giving the conflicting opinione of various' writei. on this 
 
 * See Diaaertation the Second, on the stotU' of tho nnj^.^i ir ^ 
 fOge mi: ^ ^^ ™® printed Hebrew text. 
 
 15 
 
 point, — namely, of Habernick, Stuart, Hcngstenberg, and Jose- 
 plius^ he concludes that the whole matter is uncertain and doubt- 
 ful. Kcnnicott,* a celebrated Hebrew scholar, and collator of 
 six hundred and ninety-two Hebrew manuscripts, and also Pro- 
 fessor Bobinson,t who styles himself, " Edward Robinson, Pro- 
 fessor Extraordinary of Sacred Literature in the Theological 
 Seminary of Andover," are of the "opinion" that the books of 
 the Old Testament were collated, revised and corrected, and left 
 pure and perfect by Ezra, Nehcniiuh, and subsequent prophets. 
 That they, and especially Ezra, v^ere inspired as prophets in this 
 operation. But Davidson is quite certain that this last notion is 
 only based on Jewish " fable." To keep the MSS. pure would 
 require a miracle, and much more so to make thcui perfect after 
 once being made imperfect. 
 
 Professor Robinson, in his Calmet, admits that Moses was not 
 the author of all the Pentateuch; and it is believed that he 
 wrote none of it except in connection with xiaron. But it is 
 evident that Aaron could not have written the death of Moses ; 
 for he himself had died long before. So Ezra is chosen to 
 remove the difficulties with which the Bible is so sadly incum- 
 bered. 
 
 As a fine specimen of the total uncertainty of the facts of the 
 Bible history, take the following from llobinson's Calniet on 
 Ezra : " It is believed that Ezra was chiefly concerned in re- 
 vising and arranging the books of Scripture. He had great zeal 
 and knowledge ; and, having the spirit of prophecy, it is very 
 probable that he took great pains in collecting the sacred wri- 
 tings, and forming the present canon. 
 
 " It is thought that he assisted in completing the books of 
 Chronicles, and added what appeared necessary for illustrating, 
 comiecthuj or completing them. Some are of opimon that Ezra, 
 and Mulachi are the isame person ; and it is certain that Malachi 
 is not so much a proper as a common name, meaning angels or 
 
 * ScG nolo on pTOCcding page. 
 
 t See llobiiisou's Calnict, art. Ezra. 
 
16 
 
 mejacDgers of the Lord, and that in Ezra's time prophets were 
 calledangels— mcsseDgersof theLord." l F » were 
 
 The same author, in an article ha-ided "Bil.Ie," gays- "No 
 injury .a done to the just argument on bei.alf of inLiation 
 
 himself that Jacob contmued what concoraed himself and -a 
 length t at Jloses compi..^, arrange,!, and edited (.ou e iLt 
 cm word) a copy of the holy ^ks extant in his time " 
 
 than in .h ? I ""^ ""'^ * '- "•« -'"^^ of ^•>-hu„^ 
 tiau m the.eday» of steam-printing and electric telegraphs? 
 
 How much miraculous " inspiration " doo. if im«^ f„ -f^l 
 memn;..7 rr funon uots It need to write famiy 
 
 memoes ? He goes on : " A freedom perfectly analogous to thi*^ 
 was conducted bv Ezra In » t„.„- „ , "'ufeous to tms, 
 
 ,7, ^™' '" " '"'«' "gc. on whose edition of holy 
 fecnpture our fa.th now rest«. as it rests in like manner upon t e 
 pnor od...on of Moses, if he were the editor of some parts or 
 on h,s authority if he were the author of the whole?" "^^ ofel 
 sor Ivobmson has much more to the same effect. He well sa™ 
 "Here we ought to pause; for our faith rests upon Ezra " S 
 who M or was Ezra? Professor Robinson thfnks "E^ „!' 
 Ma ach." That " Malachi was not so much a pro;r ^. ^1 
 ha ,s the name of a certain individual, as a common name- 
 that 18. the name of a class. 
 
 If Ezra was Malachi. and if Malachi means an.rels or me«. 
 sengera of the Lord, then Ezra was not an indi^^d,,nl h » 
 company of p,„„,, .„, ^^^^ ^^^^,^ -1. bu a 
 
 posed that a company of winged and feathered angels wereThe 
 ^mpders. editors, and perfecton, of the Old Tes.ame„rboo ' 
 He. we have only suppositions, and exceedingly dubious le" 
 
 of Iln ^''"'•••"euch, though not without the concurrence 
 
 lumor matters to ,t, such as the history of the death of MoZ^ 
 and Ezra, in his mliUnr. .= „j r . JUoses; 
 
 it " iZZ T ' ^ "^ '"""' """'^ """W »»tters to 
 
 j» -iicre wo ought to pause, because here 
 
 17 
 
 our faith rests oa Ezra's edition" — (and Ezra means Malachi, 
 and Malachi means angels), — " and we doubt not this scribe" — 
 (a company of winged and plumed angels — what a scribe!) — 
 " was well instructed in the law, and had not only reasons for what 
 he did, and for liis manner of doing it, but also Divine guidance to 
 preserve him from erring. We suspect that we have many in- 
 stances of Ezra's caution, as we have marginal readings in our 
 Hebrew Bibles, which in all amount to eight hundred and forty." 
 Dr. Davidson thinks this idea of Ezra's inspiration is a Jewish 
 fable ; and certainly it sounds very fabulous to call Ezra, Mala- 
 chi, and Malachi, angels, and angels, a scribe. 
 
 Again, says the same author (Vol. i., p. G5) : " It is now uni- 
 versally admitted that the Old Testament has not come down to 
 us without mistake. Its absolute integrity and perfection are no 
 longer upheld. It is patent to the observation of every one." 
 The Old Testament has sliared the fate of other ancient books. 
 It has suffered from the mistakes of transcribers. Nothing but 
 a continual miracle could have saved it from this; and facts 
 show that the Deity has not interposed miraculously to prevent 
 copyists from falling into the slightest error. 
 
 He then says : " Mistakes have two causes — accident and de- 
 sign." Justin Martyr, Gesenius, TertuUian and Eusebius, Origen 
 and Jerome, — Christian fathers, — accuse the Jews of corrupt- 
 ing their sacred text. I will not vouch for the truth of the 
 accusation from these first lights of the church, for I suspect 
 them ; but they are church authority, and so good for Christians. 
 The historical evidence of Christianity turns on the testimony 
 of these same Christian Fathers." I shall notice their characters 
 as witnesses by and by. 
 
 With reo-ard to the state in which the Old Testament books 
 were left by this exceedingly uncertain character, " Ezra, Mal- 
 achi, or angels of the Lord," Dr. Davidson very candidly re- 
 marks (Vol. I., p. 108) : " Inclined as we are to go further, and 
 say that an absolutely correct, genuine copy was finished under 
 the immediate direction and superintendence of Heaven by the 
 inspired Ezra, or by him along with Nchcmiah, or by others 
 
 2* 
 
ii 
 
 m 
 
 ■Kigien of til© Lord, and that in, Ezra's time prophetg wero 
 allied angels — meswsngew of the Lord.'* 
 
 ■The ame anthor, io an article headed "Bible," ays: "No 
 injmy b done to the just argument on behalf of inspiration. 
 if we suppose Abraham wrote family memoirs of what related to 
 himself; that Jacob continued what concorned himself, and at 
 length that Moses compiled, arranged, and edited (to use a mod- 
 em word) a copj of the My wm-Jb extent in his time." 
 
 At thk ;point let me ask, are family memoirs peculiarlj 
 •*holy"'f Were they any more so in the days of Abraham, 
 than in these days of steam-printing and electric telegraphs? 
 How much miraculous '• inspiration " does it need to write fiimily 
 memoirs? He goes on : " A freedom perfectly analogous to this, 
 was conducted by Ezra, in a later age, on whose edition of holy 
 Scripture onr faith now rests, as it rests in like manner upon the 
 prior edition of Moses, if lie were the editor of some parts, or 
 OB his anthority if he were the author of the whole ?" Profes- 
 sor Robinson has much more to the same effect. He well says, 
 •* Here we onght to pause ; for our faith rests upon Ezra." But 
 who is or was Ezra ? Professor Ilobinson thinks « Ezra was 
 
 Blalaehi." That *• Malaehi was not so mueh a proper name " 
 
 that is the name of a certain individual, as a common name — 
 that is, the name of a class. 
 
 If Ezra was Bfalachi, and if Blalachi means angels or mes- 
 sengers of the Lord, then Ezra was not an individual, but a 
 company of plumed and winged angels. So, then, it is "sup- 
 posed" that a company of winged and feathered angels were the 
 compilers, editors, and perfectors of the Old Testament books. 
 Here we have only suppositions, and exceedingly dubious ones 
 at that. 
 
 Again, says Dr. Robinson: "Accepting Moses as the author 
 or writer of the Pentateuch, though not without the concurrence 
 of Aaron, we may, nevertheless, consider Joshua as adding some 
 minor matters to it, such m the history of the death of Moses; 
 and Ezra, in his edition, as adding some other minor matters to 
 it." Again, he says : " Here we ought to pause, because hero 
 
 1 m 
 
 our foith wBte OB Ezra's edition " — (and Ezra meana Malwhi, 
 i«d Malaehi means angels),-" and we doubt not this scnbe"- 
 (» company of winged and plumed angels-what a scnbe.)- 
 .. was well instructed in the law, and had not only reasons for what 
 he did, and for his manner of doing it,but also Divine guidance to 
 preserve him from erring. We suspect that we have many m- 
 stances of Ezra's caution, as we have marginal readmgs m our 
 Hebrew Bibles, which in all amount to eight hundred and forty." 
 Dr Davidson thinks this idea of Ezra's inspiraUon is a Jewish 
 fable ; and certainly it sounds very fabulous to caU Ezra, Mala- 
 ehi, and Malaehi, angels, and angels, a scribe. 
 
 Aoain, says the same author (Vol. i., p. 65) : " It is now uni- 
 versally admitted that the Old Testament has not come down to 
 us without mistake. Its absolute integrity and perfection are no 
 longer upheld. It is patent to the observation of every one. 
 The Old Testament has shared the fate of other ancient books. 
 It has suffered from the mistakes of transcribers. Nothing but 
 a continual miracle could have saved it from this; and laets 
 show that the Deity has not interposed miraculously to prevent 
 copyists from faUing into the slightest error. 
 
 He then says : " Mistakes have two causes — accident and do- 
 BKu " Justin Martyr, Gesenius, TortuUian and Eusebius, Origen 
 and Jerome, - Chrbtian fathers, - accuse the Jews of corrupt- 
 ing their sacred text. I wiU not vouch for the truth of tho 
 a<Susation from these first lights of the cbureh, for I suspect 
 tbem ; but they are chur.U authority, and so good for Christians. 
 The historical evidence of Christianity turns on the testimony 
 of these same Chrbtian Fathers." I shall notice their characters 
 
 as witnesses by and by. 
 
 With regard to the st.te in ^vhieh the Old Testataent books 
 were left by thb exceedingly uncertain ehnrattor, " Ezra, Mal- 
 aehi, or angels of tho LorJ," Dr. Davidson very candidly re- 
 marks (Vol. 1., p. 108) : " Inclined as we are to go further, and 
 Bay that an absolutely correct, genuine copy was finbhcd under 
 the immediate direction and superintendence of Heaven by the 
 inspired Ezra, or by him along with Nchemiah, or by others 
 
 2* 
 
1 1 
 
 18 
 
 after them, ine ime not make ihe (uscriion^ in ike absence of all 
 e&Mmce^ agaimi anaiogf and the str&mjest premmpimn." 
 
 Tlie exteroal cvideiiceajo faYor of tlie miraculous origio of tho 
 books of the Old TcstamcDt are absolutely nil — nothing ; while 
 the whole historjof the books prior to the fonnution of the cauori 
 m prima-facia proof of their human origin. Let us trace the 
 liiBtory of the text down still further. 
 
 After giving the causes of the corruption of the text, and 
 quoting a long list of passages proving such corruptions, he says 
 (Vol. I., p. 71) : " But we cannot suppose Old Testament wri- 
 tings were perfectly free from alterations in the earliest times 
 prior to their complete collection into one volume. No work of 
 intiquity has been long kept entirely immaculate. Nor have 
 the sacred books of the Jews escaped the same fate with others." 
 Be Wette, Bauer, Eichhorne, and others, allude to a long list 
 of parallels in Psalms, Chronicles, Kings, and Samuel, to show 
 that before the colleetioe of the books included in the canon, 
 their text had suffered much from the carelessness as well as tho 
 rashness of transcribers. Of the state of the text from the close 
 of the canon till the fall of Jerusalem, we know that it was cor- 
 rupt (See David. Bib. Crit., Vol. i., p. 111.) Such being 
 the state of the text before the formation of tho Septuiigint, — tho 
 oldest translation or version of any part of the Scriptures,— it fol- 
 lows that all subsequent versions or translations made from them 
 must be corrtipt also. Of the history of this version, Dr. Da- 
 vidson remarks (Vol i., p. 163) : "The history of this version 
 is, unfortunately, veiled in obscurity. The notices which come 
 down to m are suspicious." Writers on this version contradict 
 each other. Tliere are no sure data to rest upon. All is uncer- 
 tainty. Dc Davidson admits that the Septuagint is not a 
 faithful version. (See page 192.) Origcn and St. Jerome both 
 complain of its ini perfections. Hence all translations made from 
 this version must be iui|)crfect and coriupted also. And let it 
 be remembered tliat this, the Septuagint version, is the one from 
 which both Jesus and bis disciples always quote. Indeed, all 
 the principal versions of the Old Testament, namely, the Septua- 
 
 19 
 
 gint, the fragments of the other Greek translators, the old Syriao 
 or Peshito, the Latin of Jerome, the Turgurus, especially those 
 of Oukclos and Jonathan, and the Arabic of Saadias Hag- 
 gaon, all are admitted to be imperfect, and to a greater or less 
 extent corrupted. (David. Bib. Crit., p. 28.) 
 
 But I need go no further on this point to show that Christian 
 scholars admit all I affirm in my first proposition concerning the 
 external historical evidence of the divine and miraculous origin 
 of the Old Testament. If there were any positive historical 
 evidence of such an origin for the Bible, certainly popular theolo- 
 gians, anxious to prove it, would long ago have given it to the 
 
 world. 
 
 Such is the testimony of some of the very first writers of the 
 
 ehurch j and they testify, 
 
 1st. That they do not know when the various books of the 
 Old Testament were written ; and, 
 
 2nd. That they do not know who wrote tho different books or 
 parts of books. That they do not know, but may " suppose," 
 that Abraham wrote family memoirs, that Moses edited them, 
 and, with the help of Aaron and Joshua, filled out the Penta- 
 teuch ; and then left Ezra, Malachi, or a cotnijariy of angels, to 
 re-edit it ; adding tvhat was ncccsmry for " connecting, illustrat- 
 ing, and completing them." 
 
 3d. That they do not know when the Old Testament was com- 
 pleted either in manuscript or as a canon, or by whofn the canon 
 was closed ; whether by Ezra, Nehcmiah, Malachi, or all, or 
 
 neither. 
 
 4th. That the Old Testament books have undergone important 
 radical changes and corruptions both before and al'tcr the forma- 
 tion of the canon. That the Septuagint — the oldest version of 
 any part of the Old Testament — is corrupted. The eight hun- 
 dred and forty marginal readings are proof of this corruption of 
 the Hebrew text. 
 
20 
 
 €¥!' A P T V 1 1 T T T 
 JkJk JJL: JL X nJUi Xw X JL Jl • 
 
 •PHH MBW TBSTAMEM-T. 
 
 And now let as come to tlie New Testnment writings. Is 
 there any Iiistorieal evideoco, outside of the books themselves, to 
 flliow that thej were miraculously composed and written ? That 
 the authors were ••infallibly inspired" of God? I affirm (hat 
 there is not a single page of such history. I will prove this, 
 mlfio, by the 
 
 ADMISSICW OF "christian" SCHOLARS. 
 
 Let us ask, first, in what language was the New Testament 
 written? It is commonly thought that it was all written in the 
 Greek. But let us see what are the facts in the case. 
 
 Dr. llobinson, in his Calmct, says : •* It has been maintained 
 by many tliat Matthew wrote his GospeJ in Syriac, and that it 
 was afterwards translated into the Greek, whether by himself is 
 not certain, tkmgk it is kighhj probable." lie further continues : 
 ••The time when this Gospel was written is very U7i€ertain." 
 Again, he says: •« It has been much disputed whether it was writ- 
 ten in Hebrew or Greek. The uniinimous testimony of ancient 
 writers is in favor of a Hebrew original, and that it was written 
 for the Hebrew Christians* But, on the other band, the accu- 
 racy of this testimony is drawn into question; there is no his- 
 torioal evidence of a translation into Greek. Critics of the 
 greatest name are arraigned on both sides of the question." 
 (See Eobinson's Calmet, article Matthew.) 
 
 Again : *• It is unequivocally affirmed Matthew wrote his Gos- 
 pel while in Judea; but whether in the Hebrew or Syriac lan- 
 guage, then common in the country, or in the Greek, cannot be 
 deiermined.*^ 
 
 So, too, of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is in our Greek 
 Testaments as if original in that language, though it is strange 
 that God should send a people a revelation in any but their own 
 langnage. Syriac at this time was more spoken by the Jews 
 
 21 
 
 than the Hebrew. « Origen," says Dr. Scott, •' and some others, 
 are of opinion that it was written in either Hebrew or Syriac. 
 Now. reader, what is your " opinion " about it ? 
 
 My opinion is that it is absolutely certain that our divines 
 don't know in what language their Bible was written, at least 
 a part of it, or when it was written. Dr. Davidson is a so in 
 the fog on this subject. He seems to think it was a mixture 
 If several languages; of Hebrew, Greek, Syriac and others^ 
 (See Vol. n., pp. 1-4.) We often hear, from the pulpi , and 
 see published from the religious press, a great deal ot talk 
 about original manuscripts of the New Testament; and appeals 
 to them by Doctors of Divinity to settle their texture quar 
 rels But all this talk about original manuscripts is either pious 
 ignorance or pious fraud; for, according to the best church 
 authorities, there is not a single manuscript m existence prior to 
 the fourth century; and, according to some church writers, there 
 are none prior to the sixth century. All the manuscripts now m 
 existence are only copies of other copies, and so on for three or 
 five centuries of the church history. Take the following from 
 
 Christian writers as proof. 
 
 Davidson's Bib. Criticism, Vol. n., p. 12 : " Jlie autograpts 
 of the New Testament have perished irrevocably. What ma- 
 terial the writers made use of can only be conjectured. 
 
 Again, on the thirty-eighth page, he says: "It .s somewhat 
 remarkable that no trace of these autographs, or of primitive 
 exemplars, can be found in early history. Writers, living vc.-y 
 near the time of the Apostles, do not speak of or appeal to 
 
 *'"'"a passage has been often quoted from Tertullian's works, 
 as referring to the autographs. He ^P-l^^ f ' -'^" "" 
 K/er«>'- authentic letters. Bat it is certain that this Father 
 did not intend the nutographs, else he would have m^-\f^l 
 them in his writings against M.rcion, and so saved himself the 
 trouble of a lengthened argumentation. A smgle r^kren^ei^ 
 the ariffinals themselves would have proved Marcion s falsittca- 
 tions. But TertuUian did not so terminate the controversy; and 
 
•pn- 
 
 9^ 
 
 Am 
 
 hence it is fairly iiifcrred that the autographs were not known to 
 
 be in existence. The same remark may be applied to Clement 
 of Alexandria, Origen, and other Christian Fathers. In their 
 disputatioES with ^Heretics ' they never dreamed of appcalir^g to 
 what must have been an infallible tribunal — the originals ; but 
 they reason and adduce proofs as if they knew nothing of auto- 
 graphs." If the ** Fathers " knew of any such autographs, would 
 the? not have taken and kept them, and used them to convert the 
 world arouDd them?- (si, David. Crit.. Vol. „., pp. 40-43.) 
 
 The following is an extract from ]\Iarsh*s Translation of Mi- 
 chaelis, a profound Christian writer : 
 
 *' No manuscript of these writings (the New Testament books) 
 now in existence, is prior to the sixth century ; and various read- 
 ings, which, as appears from the quotations of the Fathers, were 
 in the texts of the Greek Testament, are to be found in none of 
 the manuscripts at present remaining; "***** and in our com- 
 mon edition of the Greek Testament are many readings which 
 •re not in a single manuscript, but are founded on mere eonjec- 
 ture." » * * «*Tlie confusion unavoidable in these versions 
 had arisen to such a height that St. Jerome, in his preface to the 
 Gospels, complains that no one copy resembles another." 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT CAKON. 
 
 Again, let me ask, when was the New Testament Canon begun 
 and completed, and by whom, and where ? History gives us only 
 conjecture on this subject. Various opinions are entertained by 
 eminent scholars on this v^ry important part of our Bible's his- 
 tory. We can find no sure or satisfactory data to rest upon. 
 Take the following quotations as proof. 
 
 Blosheim, the great Eoclesiastieal Historian of modem times, 
 says, in Vol. i., p. 72 : ''As to the time wAe» and the persons 
 
 %icAot» the books of the New Testament were collected into 
 one body or volume, there are various opinions or rather con- 
 jectures of the learned ; for the subject is attended with great 
 and almost inexplicable difficulties to us of these late times." 
 Also, Dr. Lardner, in his work on the Evidences of Christianity, 
 
 23 . 
 
 declares that, » Even as late as the sixth century the New Testa- 
 ment canon was not settled by any authority that was considered 
 decisive, or that wus universally received ; but Christian people 
 were at liberty to judge for themselves, according to the evidence, 
 concerning the genuineness of writings proposed to them as apes- 
 
 tolical." ^, . „ 
 
 Dr. Davidson (Vol. i., p. 34) says, there was a collection ot 
 some of the New Testament books as early as the first half of 
 the third century ; but that six books, namely, the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, the Apocalypse, the Second Epistle of Peter, that 
 of Jude, and the Second and Third of John, were not received 
 as inspired, as canonical. But, while that subject is thus ob- 
 Bcured by the conjectures of the learned, and the contradictions 
 of historians, there are yet some indications, quite significant, 
 that the Council of Nice was the most important as the instru- 
 ment of settling the canon of Scriptures ; notwithstanding it is 
 quite certain that after councils remodelled the doings of the 
 Nicene Council. Many books, adopted by the earlier councils as 
 divine, were rejected by the later ones as spurious ; and often 
 books were admitted into, or thrown out of the canon, by most 
 meagre majorities. These councils were held during the dark 
 ages, by the Catholic Church, and nearly all the history of their 
 doings is, therefore, obscure. All the evidence we have, m 
 church history, of the divinity and credibility of the Bible is 
 drawn from the Catholic Church, in the deepest ages of her dark- 
 est corruption. There was no Protestant Church until after the 
 great reformers, Zwingle and Luther. Still, a few facts have 
 leaked through the church, which are indicative as to the method 
 of Bible-raaking long ago practised by it. The disgraceful quar- 
 rels of the clergy and bishops in the councils assembled to decide 
 upon church doctrines, and to pass upon the canonicahty of 
 Scriptures, throw an air of burlesciue the most ridiculous on 
 their piety, and on the sacredfiess of our Bible, the fruit of their 
 decisions. Just think of God's giving an indispensable revela- 
 tion to the world, to save it from eternal death, and then IcaviDg 
 it in the hands of a set of men " who held it as a publicly 
 
24 
 
 idopted maxim that it was not only lawful, but crnnmeiidahU^ to 
 deceive and lie for the sake of piety and religion." 
 
 Dr. Cotton Blather, in his "Magnalia Christi Americana," 
 (Book Tii., p. 442), informs us that Eutychius, an author of the 
 first ages, in his account of the doings of the Nicenc Council, 
 lelates, "That upon the letters of Constantine summoning the 
 council, there were no less than two thousand and forty-eight 
 bishops came to town ; but that, in consequence of their gross 
 ignorance and errors, the emperor, on the suggestion of Bishop 
 Alexander, of Alexandria, singled out but three hundred and 
 eighteen, who were all of them orthodox children of peace ; and 
 that, by the emperor's happy choosing and wielding of these three 
 hundred and eighteen, the orthodox religion came to be estab- 
 lished."* 
 
 The decisions of this council were, therefore, only the opinions 
 of Constantine, a bloody tyrant emperor, whose hands were, when 
 he entered the Synod, dripping with the gore of several mem- 
 bers of his own family .t Of course, he weeded out all hetero- 
 doxy ; that is to say, he sent off all whose opinions were opposed 
 to his own. Such is orthodoxy ; and God deliver us from it ! 
 
 Constantine has been lauded to the skies by the Protestant 
 clergy ; but I do not hesitate to say that Constantine, the Great 
 Christian Emperor, was one of the most superstitious and bloody 
 of men. History proves it. Head Dr. Lardner or Gibbon. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 FIOUS FBAFDS 
 
 OR, now IT MAY BE PROPER TO USE FRAUDS AS A MEnTCINE, AND 
 FOR THE BENEFIT OF THOSE WHO MAY REQUIRE TO BE DECEIVED. 
 
 Such is the title of a whole chapter of Eusebius, a celebrated 
 Christian writer, who flourished in the fourth century, and Bishop 
 
 * See the Pfeoetralisi, page 149, by A. J. Davia 
 t See Gibbon *8 Decline and Fall. 
 
 25 
 
 I. n .« ;« Pftlpstine a man of vast learning, and who, in 
 fas'r^p Ifed t::d by t.e N.e„e CouacU to deUve. ^ 
 addrelsto the Emperor Constantine. on his entering into the 
 Council and who' made the first draft of the N.ceae Creed 
 
 S Eusebius Pamphilil is not the only ChrxsUan wnter of 
 nott Ihas thus given all posterity perleet.y just and a e,ua 
 cause to reieet his entire testimony on all rehgious history and 
 doc int The most learned and ..pious" writers of he J^y 
 Christian church were » infected with this leprosy. M^ 
 Ambrose and Hilary, Augustine and Gregory o Naztan en and 
 St J le, were corrupted with this scandalous doetane of 
 J esuial. rf lylny for tke sake of religion These wr«e 
 e, „„ntod to Drove the genuineness of the New Testament. 
 OrthHre e Wof thes! and other '.Christian Fathers; 
 Sines have attempted to build a valid -gument for the cred. 
 b ity of the Bible. Take the following quotations as proof of . 
 Tfl. Bishop Faustus, in the fourth -7- ^^ ^^-^^ 
 for piety and literary atUinments, boldly and hone^'y J?^''';"; 
 hat .. I is certain that the New Testament was not wntten ^y 
 Ohrist himself nor by his disciples, but a long while after them 
 bv"ole "known persons, who, lest they should not be credited 
 when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with. 
 I'd to thlirworks the names of apostles, or of such as were 
 tToscd to have been their companions, asserting that what 
 ZJud written was according to those persons to whom they 
 
 "Tnl'att'he says : " For many things have been inserted by 
 VouranSrs inX speeches of our Lord, which though pu 
 Tth undcThis name, agree notwith his faith; " aud much more 
 
 to the same effect. _ historian, 
 
 Again. The reason assigned ^y the grea* 'snu 
 >, L • r .v,„ <rrpat and " insuperable difficulty attenaing 
 Mosheim, for the great ana ins V Testament 
 
 • „o=t;„.,tmns concern nji the history ot tUe Pti-w xe»ui,u. 
 our investigations concern ^^^^ Chrisfs asceu- 
 
 is, in his own word., this . *or o ^^^^^.^^^^ j^,j 
 
 Bion into heaven, several histories ot nis 
 
 Of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by peisona 
 
 3 
 
M 
 
 whom intentions, perliaps, were not bad, but whose writings 
 
 iiaooTewd the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was 
 Ibis all; productions appeared which were imposed upon the 
 world by fraudulent men as the writings of the holy apostles. 
 Tkme apmknfpkd wrUings must have produced a sad confusion] 
 and rendered both the history and doctrine of Christ uncertain, 
 had not the ruiers of the church used all possible care and dili^ 
 gence in separating the books truly apostolic from all that spuri- 
 ous trash, and conveying them down to posterity in one vohime. 
 And these same • Rulers of the Church,' I will prove by his own 
 words, hold it as an adopted maxim, that it was right tp deceive 
 and Me when the interests of their church demanded it. His 
 own statements of their character ought to, and will in each 
 iound mind, destroy entirely the credibility and testimony of 
 these same church *Miiiers.* " 
 
 The writings of the Christian Fathers are the only authorities 
 on which the church can build an external historical argument 
 in favor of the credibility of the New Testament ns a super- 
 hiiroan work; and yet Moshcim, Vol. r., pp. 72-78, gives us to 
 know that not one of the works of the Apostolic Fathers, espe- 
 eially, can be trusted as purely the work of the author to whom 
 it is ascribed. Their names are the following : ClemUnt, Igna- 
 tius, Polycarp, and others. According to :Mo8heim, not one of 
 the works of these men can bo trusted as genuine, while nearly 
 all are admitted universally to be forgeries. (Moshcim, Vol. i.,pp. 
 74-78.) **Nor did any aposHe, or any one of their immctliatc 
 disciples, collect and arrange the principal doctrines of Clirifstian- 
 ity in a scientific or regular system." The "Apostle's Creed " 
 was extant i« the first century, but Mosheim says, page 79, that 
 though this creed was attributed to Christ's ambassadors from the 
 fourth century onward, " it is at this day unanimously agreed that 
 this opinion is a mistake." So this " Apostolic Creed," the 
 only summary of ChriBtian doctrine in the first century, is not 
 aitiiority. 
 
 " In the second century," he says, " the whole Christian sys- 
 ifn was still comprised in a few precepts and propositions; nor 
 
 27 
 
 did the teachers publicly advance any Joctrm^^^^^^^ 
 Tontained in what is called the Apostle's Creed. (Vol. i., 
 
 ^'On'page ISO, of Vol. i., he tells us that the doctrine, «'that it 
 was not only lawful, but commendable, to dece^ve and he for the 
 :Z of tJh and piety, early spread among f^^^^^ ^^ 
 the second century. » Numerous forger^s of ^^oU^^^^^^ '^^ 
 names of eminent men, sibylline verses, and a large mass ot 
 r r raTb, appeared in this and the following centunes." 
 0:^odox^^^^^^^ engaged in this nefarious business 
 
 A 1 are universally admitted to ^Yr^-'''r\!'lTZ 
 Again, he affirms, on page 79, nor did the apostles, or any one 
 Xir immediate disciples, collect and arrange the pnnc^U3. 
 
 On page 155 of Vol. i., in the third century, Mosheuu 
 admits that "piousfrauds and impositions were ^-^^^ 
 of the extemUn of Christianity- On page 11>D he ad^^^^^^^^ 
 ^\hat a change in -losiastical goven..ent w^^ 
 corrupt state of the clergy ; " and, on the lObth page, dUa s 
 rrllsive and disgraceful fl.ct, that, in ceusequeoce of the 
 ™l persuasion tha^t celibacy was a true state for those who 
 Sed I be holy, the " clergy admitted to the.r houses a^^^ 
 beds certain holy females who had ^^^^f^^^^^^^l 
 affirming, however, most beugio.slv ha^^thoy ^ sltl~^^ 
 ful intercourse with these holy sisters," On the 1^^^^ P;^^^ 
 speaks of the great mass of forged books P^l-^^/P-^;;^;^^ 
 over the signatures of distinguished men, and concludes h s 
 Larks Witt the following : " Thus, they who ^^^^fj^^^^^ 
 all others in piety, deemed it a pious act to -^^l^l^^^^^ 
 and fraud in support of pie^2^." A strange kmd of piety 
 
 *^0f the fourth century, he says, page f 0: "This unen- 
 
 lightened piety of the --;;j^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 endless frauds of persons who were base enougu tu 
 
 C of the ig— aad errors of others, d-genuousjr to 
 
 advance their own ioterests." Then follows a long detail of the 
 
 grossest impositions imaginable. And, on the 207th page, he 
 
'i \ 
 
 28 
 
 ©ontimies : " To these moral defects of the age mist be adde<i 
 two principal errors now well-nigh publicly Edoptetl, and from 
 
 which afterwards immense evils resulteil. The first was, that to 
 "deceive and lie « a mriue, when religion can be promoted by it." 
 If this is virtue and religimi, then both can come from Hell. He 
 continues : •• This had been approved in the preceding centuries ; 
 and it is almost incredible, what a mass of the most insipid 
 fable*, what a kmt of piom fidsehoois have, through all the 
 centuries, grown out of it, to the great detriment of true reli- 
 gion." " If some inquisitive person were to examine the con- 
 duct and writings of the greatest and most pious teachers of this 
 century, I fear he would find about all of tliem infected with 
 this leprosy. I cannot exeept Ambrose, nor Hilary, nor Augus- 
 tine, nor Gregory of Naz, nor Jerome." 
 
 Again, says Mosheim : ** Those authors who have treated of 
 the innocence and sanctity of the priinitive Christians, have 
 fallen into an error of supposing them unspotted models of piety 
 and virtue ; and a gross error, indeed, it is, as the strongest tes- 
 timony too evidently proves."' 
 
 Again, he says (Vol. i., p. 128) : •* If one deserves the title 
 of a bad master in morals, who has no just ideas of the proper 
 boundaries and limitations of Christian duties, nor clear and dis- 
 tinct conceptions of the different virtues and vices, nor a percep- 
 tion of those general principles to which recurrence should be 
 had in all discussions respecting Christian virtue, and therefore 
 very often talks at random, and blunders in expounding divine 
 laws; though he may say many excellent things, and excite in us 
 considerable emotion, — then I readily admit that in strict truth 
 this title belongs to many of the Fathers." 
 
 Scalliger declares that *• The Fathers put into their Scriptures 
 whatever they thought would suit their purpose." 
 
 If such is our external historical testimony, what must be our 
 faith? An amount of gullibility, which the Hottentots might 
 blush to own, is requisite to faith in such testimony. The fol- 
 lowing is the sum of the historical evidence relating to the origin 
 of the Mew Testament books: 
 
 «<7 
 
 1st. It is admitted, by the brightest luminaries of the church, 
 that they don't know in what language some of the most important 
 books of the New Testament were written ,• whether in Hebrew, 
 Greek, or Syriac ; and that " the time when these parts were 
 written is very uncertain" 
 
 2d. That there are no original apostolic autographs in exist- 
 ence, and not a single particle of evidence in history that there 
 ever were any such originals ; that, if there had been, the Chris- 
 tians would surely have quoted them in their disputations with 
 heretics. But they do not so quote ; and hence we may safely 
 infer their nonexistence. 
 
 3d. That we don't know when or by whom the New Testament 
 books were collected into one volume ; that we don't know when 
 the New Testament canon was closed, or by whom i that, ac- 
 cording to Dr. Lardner, it was not closed as late as the sixth 
 century. 
 
 4th. That, from the very "ascension" of Jesus, — according 
 to Mosheim and others, — " forged histories of his life and doc- 
 trines were palmed upon the world ; " that orthodox Christians 
 were engaged in this nefarious business. These " pious frauds," 
 in the language of Neander, a Christian historian, " overflowed 
 the church like a flood," from the first to the thirteenth century} 
 that, according to Mosheim, the collection of the books waa, 
 probably, the work of " Church Kulers," as was also their can- 
 onization; and that these "Church Rulers" ^^held it not ordy 
 lawful^ but crnnmeTidable, to deceive and lie for the sake of piety 
 and religion;^'' that the most eminent Christian Fathers, such as 
 Ambrose, Hilary, Jerome, and others, — even Euscbius Pam- 
 philii, — were infected with this leprosy; their works being proof 
 of the fact. 
 
 5th. That the Christian Fathers, on whose testimony alone 
 can be built any plausible argument in favor of the credibility 
 of the New Testament books, are not adequate witnesses ; are 
 perjured witnesses, holding it a virtue to tell lies for the interest 
 of their religion and their church. That, therefore, we cannot 
 accept their testimony on any point of religious faith or doctrine 
 
 8* 
 
so 
 
 31 
 
 of 1 historical nature. Indeed, fclieir testimony is good for noth- 
 ing as the basis of an external argnmcnt. 
 
 But snppose it be admitted that the apostles did write the 
 books of the New Testament just as we ha?e them to-day. It 
 is begging the whole question to assume that they wrote under 
 m iiZllible and mirations inspimtion from God. It would bo 
 foolish to admit such claims without any proof, even iP the wri- 
 toM of the New Testament made them. But no New Testament 
 writer claims infallibility. 
 
 All the foregoing historical facts are from the very best Chris- 
 tian writers. Now, reader, what faith can you have in such 
 testimonj as this? My quotations are all civen — are all identi- 
 fied. I have made them with the books before n.e. You can 
 turn to the authors referred to, aod prove every one of them, if 
 yon have any doubts on this point. You will find a vast deal 
 more to the .same effeet in each of them, if jou will take the 
 p.u»ton«d.hem. I hope you wi.). 
 
 The history of the so-called Christian Church, from the first 
 to the nineteenth century, ii a hoiTible detail of superstition, 
 fanaticism', bigotry, intolerance, 'UsuTpation, tyranny, corruption, 
 murder, blood, and crime. Not a single century but it has stained 
 by the blood of the children of God. It has been, and is to-day, 
 the tool of despotism, the support of slavery, and the " exploit- 
 erer " of the human race. It has canonized villains and knaves; 
 compelled the worship of old pieces of wood and dead men's 
 bones; burned God's noble image at the stake; and crushed out 
 freedom from many a soul. I do not say there are no good per- 
 sons in the church, I speak of the church as an organization, 
 M a great historical fact, I do not deny that some of its doc- 
 trines are true, or that some of its principles have had a good 
 effect upon the race. 
 
 If there ever was a perfect Bible in existence, we have it not 
 now. Our common version is only a translation made by weak 
 and erring men, who did err egregiously in their translation, as 
 ■ome of the most eminent doctors of divinity amply testify. 
 
 This is corroborated also by the very numerous calls for newer 
 and better ones. 
 
 Bellamy, Fuller, DeWotte, Gesenius, and the immortal Ken- 
 nicott, and many more, are loud in their complaints against the 
 mistaken renderings in King James' version. Scores of new 
 translations have been made to remedy the defects of our com- 
 mon version ; but still, none are yet perfect. John Wesley made 
 a new translation for his followers. In Waukesha, Wisconsin, not 
 long since, I saw a translation made by Dr. Conquest, of the 
 Congregational Church, England, on the back of which was 
 printed, in letters of gilt, " The Bible, vnth twenty thoiisarid 
 emefidatiom." The Baptists have made a new translation for 
 their own use. English Unitarians have made a great many; 
 and still none are entirely satisfactory. The great and learned 
 Dr. Kennicott has the following quotations as proof of the bad 
 work of King James' translators. lie declares, after stating the 
 causes of mistaken renderings, " A new translation, therefore, 
 prudently undertaken, would be a great blessing; " and then ap- 
 peals to the British Legislature to grant it. But six years after, 
 he eonios out clamorously against King James' version, and backs 
 his appeal with* the following among other quotations : 
 
 '* Judges 15 : 4. Three hundred foxes tied tail to tail, instead 
 of wheatcn sheaves placed end to end. ' And Sampson went 
 and caught three hundred foxes, and look firebrands, and turned 
 tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.' 
 (1771, vide Scripture, p. 71.) 
 
 " Also, 1st Kings 17 : 6. Elijah not fed by ravens, but by 
 Arabs. * And the ravens brought him bread and flesh.' In tlie 
 Jlehrew, 'and the orbim (a-ll-a-B-im) brouglit him bread and 
 flesh,' instead of ' crows.' " 
 
 He gives many examples of an equally striking character. 
 "These things," says an eminent scholar, "were published at 
 Oxford, ninety-five years ago." I could quote a long list of 
 authors and divines who have called for a newer and better 
 translation of the Bible. But it is already a notorious fact, and 
 none but ignorant persons will deny it. 
 
M 
 
 33 
 
 !jl 
 
 But it will nol mm the Bible to appeal to origiBal manu- 
 
 fMsripts ; for there are none, m I have before sliowo. The Greek 
 aid Hebrew Bibles, from which our and aU translations are 
 made, are onlj compilatioiis of diierent manuscripts; which 
 nanuacripti tm not oriiziDals, but only copies or traiucripts. 
 of BtiU earlier maouserip.. (See David. Bib. Grit.. Vol. u.. p. 
 315.) 
 
 " Historj fails to brinir to lijjht the changes which the New 
 TeBtan.eatL.ks underwL. io 'egard to thei 'text, ^ tf. eaHUs. 
 'period. How thej were preserved during the first two centu- 
 ries, with what care they were copied, how often they were 
 transcribed, with what degree of veneration they were looked 
 upon by the different churches and Christians, how much author- 
 ity was attributed to them, by what test they were kept apart 
 from siHiilar writings afterwards termed apochryphd ; these are 
 interesting questions to which precise &r definite answers cannot 
 be given." (See David. Bib. Grit, Vol. ii., p 31.) 
 
 In addition to the foregoing consideration, we do know that 
 there is not a version, or manuscript, or printed edition, that is 
 not to a greater or less extent corrupted. l>r. John Mill, en- 
 Garaged and aided by Bishop Fell, gave to tffo world a new 
 edition in 1707, folio, Oxford, of the dreek Testament ; in which 
 he shows that the Mew Testament manuscripts and versions con- 
 tain no less than thirty thousand various readings ; that is, that 
 the manuscripts differ in thirty thousand different places. Since 
 John Mill, edition after edition htis appeared, until not less than 
 one hundred and fifty thousand various readings of the New 
 Testament manuscripts alone have been found and published to 
 the world. (See David., Vol. n., p. 123.) 
 
 And yet, with all these facta before them, we often hear clergy- 
 luen saying, ** There are no important radical changes in the New 
 Testament," Ciin human jjredulity and ignorance go further? 
 One hundred and fifty thousand contradictions or differences in 
 the .New Testament manuscript texts, and yet no important or 
 radical corruption ! On a close calculation, in round numbers, 
 there are only about one hundred and sixty thousand words in 
 
 the whole New Testament. How can any sane mind believe that 
 one hundred and fifty thousand variations in the different manu- 
 scripts of this New Testament, containing only about ten thou- 
 sand more words than mistakes, will produce no radical change 
 in the facts, doctrines or teachings, of this book ? The idea is 
 Just this : God writes, or causes to be written, a book or books, 
 which together constitute his Infallible Word, and then leaves 
 men to handle it, to copy it, to translate it, to edit and re-edit it, 
 until its various manuscripts differ one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand times, and yet no radical error or corruption has been ad- 
 mitted into it ! Header, do you not see that a single error con- 
 demns its infallibility, and, of course, "dimnity''? I grant 
 you that many of these variations are small, of little conse- 
 quence ; but can you believe that in this great mass there are no 
 important ones ? If you can, I will forever settle this with you, 
 by the testimony of such men as Dr. Adam Clarke. 
 
 The first passage to which I shall refer is found in 1 John 5 : 
 7. *• For there are three that bear record in heaven : the 
 Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; and these three are 
 one." On this passage rests the doctrine of the " Trinity," or 
 the " Tri'personality of God" Trinitarianism hangs on it as 
 the most direct, if not the only affirmation of this peculiar tenet. 
 I believe it is the only passage in the New Testament which 
 unequivocally affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. And yet Mr. 
 Adam Clarke, one of the most noted scholars in the Christian 
 Church, in his ponderous commentaries on the Bible, says of this 
 verse : 
 
 «* But it is likely this verse (7th) is not germine. It is want- 
 ing in every manuscript of the epistle, toritten before tJm inven- 
 tion of printing, one excepted, the Codex Montforti, in Trinity 
 College, Dublin. 
 
 " It is wanting in almost all the ancient versions but the Vul- 
 gate; and even of this version many of the most ancient have 
 it not. It is wanting, also, in almost all the Greek Fathers, and 
 in most even of the Latin." 
 
 Again, take another passage, 2 Tim. 3 : 16. « All Scripture 
 
M 
 
 is given by inspiration of God," &c. He says of this passage. 
 
 •* It is not conecfcly translated. It should read, Every writing, 
 divinely inspired, is profitable for doctrine," &c. On this mistake, 
 we fre(|uently hear clergjnien saying, the Bible claims in- 
 fallibility for itself. It is only ridiculous. 
 
 These, and many more of an equally important character, are 
 in question by the best scholars of the chnrch. There is no end 
 to the conflicting criticisms and opinimu of the learned, on scores 
 of very important passages. Hebrew and Greek scholars differ 
 and ooiitradict each other endlessly. Hardly any two agree on 
 some of the most important points in biblical criticism and 
 
 [For a long list of their conflicting testimony, sec Davidson, Vol. 
 
 IL, article, Critical Examination of Passages, page 382.] 
 
 So you see, kind reader, that all the talk about original manu- 
 scripts, of appeals to them, is only sheer folly, ignorance, or 
 ••pious fraud." Priests cannot settle their textual wars by any 
 such appeals ; for Greek and Hebrew Bibles are not one, but 
 many; and tliey differ endlessly, and contradict each other. 
 Bibilical critics cannot agree which manuscripts are of most 
 authority. All is uncertainty, contradiction and dissatisfaction. 
 And who shall decide when the doctors of such a diseased and 
 dilapidated divinity disagree? Now, reader, when you hear 
 clergymen talking loudly about original, sacred manuscripts, you 
 may know it is only pious ignorance and priestly prate. I defy 
 contradiction on these points. There is no perfect Bible in 
 existence — all are corrupt. None are genuine, pure. How 
 many such mistakes, or interpolations as these I have just quoted 
 from Clarke and Kennicott, would it take to annihilate the 
 divinity of the Bible? There are many more such. 
 
 35 
 
 THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 If the Bible " is our only infallible rule of religious faith and 
 practice," it ought to carry the unmistakable evidence of the fiict 
 on its face — on its every page — in each and all its statements; for 
 it is assumed to be an indispensable revelation of God's will to 
 man — to each man — to all mankind. If so, it should be ad- 
 dressed directly to each individual — to his senses — to his 
 reason, and to his religious nature — to his consciousness ; and 
 so addressed as to furnish the indubitable evidence of its origin 
 and authority within itself; not through Paley, or Lardner, or 
 Home, or Keith, or any human collateral aids whatever. Its 
 divinity should be a self-emdent divinity. On every page, and 
 in every line, it should blaze and shine with an unmistakable light. 
 Its divinity must be exceedingly dubious, if such huge libraries 
 as fill all Christendom, entitled " Evidences of Christianity," are 
 necessary to its proof. Can you see the sun by holding up a 
 rush-lifjht towards it ? Does God need human aid to prove his 
 divinity, or to throw light on the page of his own Word ? 
 Every book written to prove the miraculous origin of the Bible 
 is only a 'priTna facia acknowledgment, on the part of the writer, 
 that the book itself is inadequate to sustain itself, or to carry 
 conviction to the reader, of its divinity. God needs human 
 help ! This is blasphemous to God, and an insult to his Word. 
 Do men write books to prove the divinity and glory of the sun 
 and stars? Christians write books in defence of the Bible, and 
 against the destructive attacks of " Infidels," as if they feared it 
 would fail and fall. Do men fear lest the Alps shall fall, or 
 stars go out? The circulation of the Bible is left to the caprice 
 of erring men— and (alas for the world, if it be God's word ! ) — 
 often to the selfishness of sectarian churches, which, for cen- 
 turies, have quarrelled and fought, anathematized and burnt 
 each other at the stake in this world, and damned each other to 
 hell-fire and brimstone in the next. 
 
 !! 
 
li »i 
 
 m 
 
 The Bible is. to-day. depeiid«t on printiog-presaes and ml- 
 
 «.dB. steamboats aed sails, for its «^.*«'^«^«^•/f ^'^^^^^^ 
 Boder tbe control of the moncy-grasping spirit of a commercial 
 age. It goes wy slowly over the world. ^^ g;*^'^^ "^^'^T^ 
 cowtons men^move it. Is the iodi.peosable hght of God. 
 coMnteoance. then, dependent on the contmgeney of ^^^-^^^^ 
 and wisdom^ The Bible is bought and sold ^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 IIP by the traffic. Does God - " mr Falher --tke Father oj 
 ike Llions^ Jewish. Indian and Chinese-does He leave his 
 -Word" snbjcct to the Yoracions jaws of hnman eovetousness? 
 Will He permit men to buy and sell and get gain out of His own 
 diTiuity. miraculously bestowed on tbe world ^o/^^^^JJ^^^^ 
 death t Is the indispeosable truth of God an arUc e f human 
 commerce 1 It is. if the Bible be such indispensable truth W by 
 was not the light and the air we breathe subject to a like con- 
 tml by men ? Uodoubtedly it would loog since have been it it 
 could be. Are the sunlight and air of more coimequence to he 
 body of mau than the truth of GodV. moraUnd -bg-s aU- 
 butes,- the expression or revelation of Hm W i» ^ ^^ ^^^ ^r* 
 to his immortal nature ; that tbe one should be placed above be 
 Yond the reach of human eovetousness. and the other be subject 
 lits damuing sway 1 Is air iodespeosable to a. Indian s^; 
 mnd God's word not so to an Indian's souH Must the " untu- 
 tored Iiidiaii" wait for God's word until a band of " pale-tace*, 
 ie ships with -wings." print it. and bring it across the ocean on 
 tbe deck, with rum and gunpowder in the hold under it, to 
 
 Christianize him with fire and «-^r^ 'T*^ rK^w of C^^^^^^^^ 
 Becessary for an Indian to learn English Hebrew or G eek in 
 
 order to bear God speak? What ]^»«7»:-"^^;^;3^^^^^^^ 
 assumptions of Christians about the Bible ! What ^.rcas^^^^^^^^^ 
 at Divine Power, Love and Wisdom ! It is awful. No bias 
 phemy is so great as that of Christians, and tho«e who hke 
 
 Christians, shut up God's word in an old book, and damn all the 
 
 rest of the world as "heathen." idolatrous and infidel, it is a 
 
 rank insult to all Truth. - .Uould it 
 
 But to the question. If thc.Eiblc be God s Word, should it 
 
 87 
 
 not contain palpable, definite, unmistakable evidence of the fact 
 on its every page ? No one, not even Christians, will deny this. 
 But does it contain such evidence? This is the question. How 
 are we to determine J By an examination of its contents. But, 
 proceediog in this way. suppose that we have a standard within 
 ourselves. AV ^ cannot prove the Bible to be perfect, without a 
 Standard of perfection. We have such a standard in nature, but 
 we do not perfectly understand nature, and so are not competent 
 judges to decide upon Divine Perfection. But we can tell when 
 statements are false, absurd, contradictory and unreasonable, 
 which come within the range of our natural capacities. The 
 Bible claims to be addressed to us; therefore, we may justly 
 examine its contents in the light which our " Creator " bestows 
 in the constitution of things, and the natural reason, intuition 
 and consciousness of man. 
 
 I affirm this general proposition : 
 
 The Bible bears the unmistakable evidence of human origin^ 
 authority and influence, 
 
 I shall prove this by proving the following charges : 
 
 1st. It gives false and blasphemous representations of God. 
 
 2d. The Bible gives contradictory representations of God. 
 
 3d. It contradicts Astronomy, Geology and itself, in its ac- 
 count of the creation. 
 
 4th. It represents the laws of nature as suspended, transcended, 
 or violated. 
 
 5th. It contradicts itself in numerous instances. 
 
 6th. It sanctions political despotitim. 
 
 Ttk. It sanctions slavery — the sum of all villanies. 
 
 8th. It favors conjugal despotism. 
 
 9th. It sanctions polygamy and concubinage, or the practice 
 of having many wives and mistresses in addition. 
 
 10th. It teaches false and dangerous doctrines. 
 
 11th. The New Testament wi-iters misquote the Old Testa- 
 ment, and often quote and apply, as prophecy, passages of Old 
 Testament history, and, in several instances, misapply what they 
 misquote. 
 
11^ 
 
 I'* 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 
 .#' 
 
 Aed now to the proof. 1st. Tlie Bible gives false and blas- 
 phemous representations of God. It represeots him as subject 
 to human limitations and infirmities. It represents Him as 
 haviog a body like men. In Gen. 17 : 33, God is represented 
 as appearing to Abraham in the shape of three men, whom, 
 all together, Abraham calls " Lord.'* Abraham is represented as 
 sajing to the three men, in verse third, " My Lord, if now I have 
 fonnd favor in thj sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy 
 iservant." 
 
 This story goes on to relate how Abraham asked his " Lord " 
 to wash his feet, and rest «• yourselves " under a tree. It also 
 represents these "men "--the "Lord" — as drinking 7mlk and 
 eating veai. Often, throughout the entire chapter, is Abraham 
 represented as calling them •* Lord." The story winds up with 
 the following, — verse 33d : " And the Lord went his way, as soon 
 as he had done communing with Abraham ; and Abraham re- 
 turned unto hjs place." Perhaps there are some who will call 
 this story ^.nly an allegory. If so, I see no reason why we may 
 not call the talk which Moses had on the mountain, when he re- 
 ceived the tables of the Law, an allegory also. Perhaps some 
 will call the word "Lord" here only a Ji^re of speech. But 
 just think of a ''/ywre of speech ealimj veal, drinking milk, and 
 washing their feet." Perhaps it means only to be applied to 
 these men as angels, or representatives of the "Lord." If so. 
 why does it not say so? But suppose it does; do angels drink 
 milk, eat veal, and wash their feet ? Again : the story of 
 Jacob's wrestling-match with God is another proof in point It 
 IS found in Gen. 32 : 24-32. Jacob's name la changed 
 to Israel because he "prevailed;" he conquered God in a 
 wrestling-match, though he got his thigh put out in the tussle. 
 " Afterwards Jacob called the name of the place Peniel : for I 
 have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." 
 
 In Exodus 31: 17, God is represented as getting tired 
 
 with the six days' work of creation; as taking rest and being 
 
 refrcflhed. According to Webster, " refreshed " means " to give 
 
 ,^mm strength to; to invigorate; to relieve after fatigue ; as to 
 
 89 
 
 refresh the body or revive after depression." The Bible repre- 
 sents God as saying, after commanding the Jews to observe the 
 Sabbath forever, — 
 
 «* It is a sign between me and the*cliildrcn of Israel forever ; for in six 
 days the Lord*nuide heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested 
 and was refreshed." 
 
 Now, does the Omnipotent get tired, and need reviving — need 
 invigorating? Will any sane mind believe this of Deity? But 
 it may be said, this expression, " and on the seventh day he 
 rested and was refreshed," is not to be understood literally; 
 "it is only figurative language." Suppose it is; ought the 
 figure to exceed the original idea for which it stands? And 
 what idea can we get from this passage, even admitting it to be 
 a figure ? Are we to understand by it that God did not rest, 
 and was 7wt refreshed? That is not a true figure of speech 
 which conveys an idea exactly the opposite from the original con- 
 ception of the truth to be conveyed. Again : in the book of 
 Judges, 1 : 19, it is said, — 
 
 ** And the Lord was with Judah ; and he drave out the inhabitants 
 of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, 
 because they had chariots of iron.** 
 
 This chapter is headed, " Tlie acts of Judah and Simeon,'* 
 and pretends to give the history of those acts literally. No one 
 can say it is figurative. If it can be called figurative, or 
 spiritual in signification, so can the stories of all the miracles, 
 and of all the lives of both the Jews and Christians, be called 
 the same. It professes to be a literal history. But it gives us 
 to understand that the chariots of iron, which men built, are too 
 strong for God himself. He — God — was not able to drive out 
 the inhabitants of the valley, because they had them. Would 
 iron chariots have balked Napoleon? 
 
 Other passages give us the idea that God is limited in pres- 
 ence; as living up aloft, out of sight of the earth and men; as 
 not knowing what is going on below until he comes down to see; 
 M in the case of the Tower of Babel, in Gen. 11 : 5, — 
 
!^ 
 
 I 
 
 40 
 
 -lEd the lorf oaiiie down to iee tlio oity and tlie tow, wMoli the 
 
 oHldren of men builded." 
 
 And also in tke case of Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. 18 : 20, 21,— 
 
 •• 20. And the Lord eaid, Because the cry of Sodom and fiomorrah ia 
 
 great, and because their sin is very grievous, 
 
 21. I will go down now, and eee whether they have done altogether ac- 
 cotdlng to the cry of it, which is come nnto me; and if not, I will know." 
 
 In these passages both God's Omnipresence and his Omni- 
 
 ficience are denied. There are many more of the same character 
 ftii throiigh the books of the Bible. Thus in Gen. 30 : 12, — 
 
 ••And he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any- 
 thing unto him ; for mom I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast 
 not withlield % son, thine only son from me." 
 
 In this whole story of Abraham's trial, the only great idea ia, 
 that God was getting up a scheme by which to find out whether 
 Abraham feared him or not; and when he gets " his son, his only 
 son," bound and laid upon the altar, — his hand raised with the 
 knife in it to slay his son, — the Lord stops liim with, "/or nam 
 Ikmm that tkm fearesi God;'' thus plainly and unmistakably 
 implying that before "now" God did not know whether ho 
 feared him or not. The only object of this experiment, as repre- 
 sented in the passage above quoted, and throughout the whole 
 account, is to find out something before unknown. Dues God 
 grow wiser by experiment and experience ? It cannot be said 
 that this trial was instituted for Abraham's good ; for such a 
 snpposition contradicts the tenor of the entire story, and also the 
 express words of the passage containing the only reason assigned 
 by God ; "/or tmw Ikmm,'' &c. To put into Scripture a sense 
 whicb thus contradicts its express declaration is, in effect and 
 fact, to ignore the Bible, and to make a new one. So do the 
 clergy, almost universally, when a passage goes against them. 
 
 Take another passage from Beut. 8:2, — 
 
 «* And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy Qod led 
 thee these Ibrly years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove 
 
 41 
 
 thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep hi« 
 commandments, or not" 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding this forty years' experiment, God 
 still found himself mistaken ; for the Jews never proved faith- 
 ful ; not even when God himself is said to have been incarnated 
 in flesh, and stood on the earth among his ancient people ; for 
 they butchered him as a common felon. All his schemes for the 
 Jews proved entire failures. He is represented as promising 
 them an eternal kingdom, with Jerusalem for its capital, and its 
 ritual the old Law.* But more on this point hereafter. 
 
 The Bible represents God as capricious, fickleminded, change- 
 able; repenting of his own doings; as getting " sick at heart " 
 for his own work, when experience had disappointed his expecta- 
 tions. The Mosaic account of creation presents God to us as 
 the Omnipotent Author of the heavens and the earth, and all 
 that in them is ; and as saying, when he saw what he had made, 
 that it was '*very good." But soon after, we find God repre- 
 sented as cursing man and woman, and even the inanimate earth, 
 for the sin, if sin it was, of a woman's eating an apple contrary 
 to his command, in consequence of the talk of a serpent, which 
 then walked upright upon its tail, but which ever since has crept 
 upon his belly as his punishment, as a punishment for his impu- 
 dence. Gen. 0:6, — 
 
 " And it repented the Lord that he haH made man on the earth, and it 
 grieved him at his heart." 
 
 This verse represents God as sorry that he had made man on 
 earth ; as being grieved at his heart. Now, if God made man, and 
 made all things else, and called them good, they were " very 
 good ;" and if God be Omnipotent and all knowing, why should he 
 get sick at heart for his own work ? He could not, if he were what 
 alone can constitute Divinity — Infinite. The great thought of 
 this whole story is in the face and eyes of Infinite Power and 
 Wisdom. But some may say that the word " repent," as used here, 
 
 • See Isaiah — the whole. 
 
 4* 
 
42 
 
 43 
 
 does not mean a uliangc of heart, or intention, or action on the 
 part of God; that it ie oiiiy a human way of talking, in order 
 ihat men maj more easily understand God when he speaks to 
 
 Hi 
 
 But, if it don't mean repent, what can it mean ? And besides, 
 if God uaes nueh language in order that man may understand 
 him better, and in condescension to our use of words, why does 
 he not use it aa we do ? How can we know what he means, if he 
 giies to our forms of expression a sense about which we know 
 nothing? This is a condescension with a vengeance — to say 
 ••repent," and mean something else — or, perhaps, even iramu- 
 tabiiity. But all these attempts to show that the word " repent " 
 don't mean repent, as here used, are scattered to the winds, by 
 the account which follows ; for it represents God as looking down 
 upon the world, and then he saw that all flesh had "corrupted 
 his way ; '* the end of all flesh comes before him, and he deter- 
 mines to drown the world with a flood. It is done. This is the 
 overwhelming evidence that (according to the story) God was 
 siek of his own work, and so undertook to blot it out ; to undo 
 what he had done ; and if this is not repentance, then there is 
 none on earth among men. It was a square turn round. In 
 Jer. 15 : 6, God is represented as saying, in consequence of the 
 wickedness of the Jews, — his own cherished people, — that '* 1 am 
 weary with repenting." In 1 Samuel 15 : 10, 11, God is repre- 
 sented as saying : «* It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to 
 be king; for he has turned back from following me," &c. Now, 
 did not God know Saul, and what he would do, before he made 
 him king? If he did not, he is not God —not infinite. If he 
 did, then why should he repent? He did make him king, know- 
 ing the result ; and it would be very silly, even in a man, to repent 
 at results of which he was the intentional author. 
 
 But take the following quotations as a few specimens of the 
 false representations which the Bible gives of God. The reader 
 will please turn to the Bible and verify them for himself: See 
 Ex. 32: 14-36; Judges 2: 18; 1 Chron. 21: 15; Jer. 18: 
 8-10, also, Jer. 26 : 19; Jer. 42 : 10; and Jonah 3: 10. 
 
 The instance cited, in Exo. 32, is too important to be passed 
 over in silence. It contains a monstrous and even audacious 
 view of the operations of the Divine Mind. Moses was upon the 
 mount talking with God, and, being gone a long time, the people 
 became impatient, and called upon Aaron to make gods to go be- 
 fore them, ''for as for this" Moses," they "wot not what had 
 become of him." Aaron made the golden calf, and the people 
 made ofierings to it ; God discovered it, and thereupon is repre- 
 sented as speaking to Moses as follows, — 
 
 ** 7. Ab(1 the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down ; for thy people, 
 which Miou broughtest out of tlie land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 
 
 8. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded 
 them ; they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and 
 have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, Israel, which 
 have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 
 
 0. And the Lord said unto Moset3, I have seen this people, and, behold, 
 it is a stitl-necked people : 
 
 10. Now tlierefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against 
 them, and that I may consume them ; and I will make of thee a great 
 nation. 
 
 11. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth 
 thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brouglit forth out 
 of the land of Egypt, with great power and with a mighty hand? 
 
 12. Wherefore should tlie Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did 
 he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them 
 from the face of the earth ? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of 
 this evil against thy people. ' 
 
 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou 
 swarcst by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your 
 seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I 
 give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. 
 
 14. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his 
 people.' 
 
 This whole story is one of the most foolish and blasphemous in 
 the whole Bible. The substance of it is about this: God 
 attempts by miracles to get the Jews into the land of Canaan. 
 On the way, while Moses is gone, they make and worship a 
 golden calf, after having seen the wonders of plague-smitten 
 
*f 
 
 I 
 
 1^1, lie pillars of cloud and of fire, the miraculotis passage of 
 the Red Sea, and a host of other miracles. Now, I venture to say, 
 there is not a savage in the North American wilds, who, after 
 seeing such wonders as the Bible says were often performed 
 before the Jews by God, could or would have fallen thus into 
 calf-worship, and that, too, against the oft-repeated injunctions 
 of God himself, amid these wonders. It is not in humanity 
 to thus ignore its own senses, or to forget such astounding 
 wonders as are here related. 
 
 But its improbability is not the worst feature in it. God sees 
 the Jews with their calf, becomes desperate, wants Moses " to let 
 Mm a/o»c,'* — to stand clear — to keep from between Aim and 
 them, so that he could get mad enough to destroy them ; and 
 backs his appeal by promises of making a great nation out of 
 Moses — thus appealing to his ambition to second the divine 
 wrath. But Moses, more merciful tlian his God, beseeches God, 
 makes appeals to his mercy, and to his love of human praise, and 
 iiially jogs the divine memory — coaxes and wheedles Divinity 
 out of his pasiion — gets God cooled off; and then follows the 
 statement, " And the Lord repe'tiied of ike evil which he thought 
 to do unto his people.*^ Does Divinity become so angry as to 
 forget His most sacred promises to His own children? Can the 
 moral suasion of man prevail over the "hot wrath" of God? 
 Can His anger be cooled by appeals to His fear of what a parcel 
 of Egyptians will say about Him? This whole chapter in 
 Exodus says yes. But who can believe it ? If we should find 
 such things in a Mormon or a Hindoo Bible, we would exclaim, 
 ** What foul ideas these heathens had of God ! '* 
 
 But all of this story is not yet told. It goes on : Moses goes 
 down from the Lord, with the tables of stone, and when he gets 
 near enoug.i to see what the Jews are about, forgetting his recent 
 moral triumph over an angry God, his " wrath waxes hot;" he 
 throws down the tables in a fit of madness, and, breaking them in 
 pieces, burns the golden calf in the fire, grinds it — a adf of 
 gdd — to powder, and strows it upon the water ; then, calling upon 
 th© sons of Levi, commands them, in the name of God, to pmt 
 
 45 
 
 every man his sword by his side, and to " slay every man his 
 brother, companion, and neighbor." The order is obeyed, and 
 three thousand fell victims to the wrath of a man who possessed 
 more mercy and kindness than his God. The blasphemy of this 
 passage is awliil. 
 
 But there is another, still more blasphemous, if possible, in 
 Numbers 14. It is bricHy the following: As the Jews ap- 
 proached the land of Canaan, Moses sent twelve men — " heads of 
 the children of IsraeV — to spy out the land, and report unto 
 the people. They spent forty days in their tour, returned, re- 
 ported that the country was fine, the land fertile, brought grapes 
 and pomegranates, as specimens of its productions, but added, it 
 was full of giants, of warlike nations. This disheartened the 
 people ; " they wept all night, and said, Would to Cod that we 
 had died in the land of Egypt." They rebelled, and wanted to 
 choose a leader, and return to Egypt. Moses, and Aaron, and 
 Caleb, and Joshua, urged them to battle, by saying, "Jehovah 
 is with us." But the people would stone them. Then the glory 
 of God appeared before all the children of Israel, and God says 
 to Moses, — 
 
 **How long will this people provoke me?" * ♦ "I will smite tliem 
 with the pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make of thee a greater 
 nation and mightier than they." 
 
 Then Moses, again more calm than God, says, — 
 
 " Then the Egyptians shall hear it, and they will tell it to tlie inliabi- 
 tants of this land. * » * Now, if thou shalt kill all this people as one 
 man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak say- 
 ing : Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land 
 which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them." 
 
 Then he proceeds to calm the excitement in the bosom of 
 Deity, 
 ** Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people." 
 
 Jehovah finally consents to do so, but adds, — 
 
 " As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the 
 Lord." " Because all those men * * * have tempted me now these ten 
 
I 
 
 46 
 
 tiraea, mirely thej sliall not see the Itind wliicli I sware unto their fathcri. 
 • • * Y«ii:r caroasseB shall full in this wildernees. * * * In this wilder- 
 mma atall thej be eonsuiacd, and there shall they die." 
 
 CiiB any passage be more blaspheiii,ou8 than this? No far- 
 fetched comments, or supposititious speculations, can plaster over 
 this story, so as to hide its innate deformity; no veil of " mys- 
 tery ** can hide its horns. It is plain, matter-of-fact talk, but a 
 monstrous fiction. Bui there are many more passages of the 
 same sort. 
 
 But, if possible, the Bible gives still darker representations of 
 God. It represents him as having pets — peculiar favorites — 
 the Jews, for whom he oares more than for all the rest of man- 
 kind. The Jews are allowed to sell bad nieat to strangers, but 
 mist not eat it themselves. They may run the risk of poisoning 
 strangers, but must not poison themselves by it. Beut. 14: 21, — 
 
 •* Ye shall not cat of anything that dieth of itfself : thou shalt give it 
 mnto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it ; or tlioii mayest 
 sell it unto an alien : for tliou art an holy people unto the Lord thy (5 ml." 
 
 Not long since, some Jews in Cincinnati were tried and found 
 guilty of this very thing, selling bad meat to " the heathen " 
 about them. What a pity for the poor Jews, that they must be 
 tried and punished by a Christian government, professing to re- 
 ceive this same command as from God, for their strict observance 
 of it ! When will the age of consistency come ? I fear — I 
 know, not until men cease worshipping old fables. 
 
 But the Bible represents God as subject to criminal vices, 
 murderous passions, deep and deadly hatred. In his treatment 
 of other nations, for the aggrandizement of the Jews, his partial- 
 ity is palpably manifest. In Exodus 11, he is represented as 
 commanding the Jews to spoil the Eg}'ptians, by borrowing from 
 them, under false pretences; and in chaper 13: 36, we are 
 told that G'od teaches his chosen people to swindle ! 
 
 •» 35. And the children of Israel did aocorfing to^ the word of Moses ; 
 md they lK),rrow«l of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, 
 
 and raiment. 
 
 8§. And the Lord giwc the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, 
 
 47 
 
 80 that they lent unto them such things as they required j and they 
 spoiled the Egyptians." 
 
 But it may be said that the Egyptians had oppressed the 
 Jews, and robbed them. But where is the proof? We have no 
 proof of the fact, except the Bible it&clf, and this book is on trial 
 We have no right to assume the truth of the slory until it shall 
 be proved. We have no testimony but that of the Jews, and 
 such testimony is not admissible. And, besides, suppose it were 
 true that the Egyptians had treated the Jews unjustly ; has God 
 no other course, no other alternative, than to teach swindling, in 
 order to secure justice to the covetous Jews? Is God, is Infinite 
 Wisdom and Power driven to this, that he must teach his pets 
 vice, to obtain justice ? Had not Egypt (according to the story) 
 just felt the most hideous vengeance from his Omnipotent hand; 
 and yet, at last, after all these astounding, miraculous plagues, 
 visited by God directly upon her land and its inhabitants, for the 
 especial benefit of the Jews, we have this silly, self-destructive 
 tale, of God teaching the Jews to swindle in order to give the 
 Jews their due. Can two wrongs beget one right? But the 
 history of these ten iilagucs, visited upon Egypt miraculously by 
 God, — by a fabulous being whom the Jews called Jehovah, — is 
 sufficient, of itself, to make and fix the charge of blasphemy upon 
 the Bible. Only a demon God can gloat over such bloody, 
 nmrderous work as in detailed in the history of these plagues. 
 ^«ine times God is represented as hardening Pharaoh's heart so 
 that he would not let the people go, in order that he might smite 
 her land and people, and all things in and about them. In 
 chapter 9 : 15, 16, we have revealed both the horrible deed and 
 the vain-glorious motive which moves God to smite Egypt. 
 it,— 
 
 ** 14. For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and 
 upon thy servants, and upon thy people ; that thpu mayest know that 
 there is none like me in all the earth. 
 
 15. For now I will stretch fuith my hand, that I may smite thee and 
 thy people with pestilence ; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth. 
 
 16. And in very deed for this cause have 1 rai;Mid thee up, for to shew 
 
I 
 
 48 
 
 In tliee mj power, mid that mj name maj be declared tlirougliont all tlie 
 
 eartli." 
 
 God wants to be known tliroughout all the earth, so here he is 
 represented as smiting with awlul aud unsparing destruction the 
 land of his own creatures, aj, his creatures themselves. For 
 what would suCh a God be known but for power, and a spirit 
 which a devil might blush to own ; an ambition which would 
 sweep like a besom of death o'er the world, and which might 
 make hell darker with its frown? Does the Infinite^ does the 
 holj FcUker of Spirits, the Bdty of Lope^ and Justice, and 
 Beautj, wish to be known through such horrid deeds ? If so, I 
 do not wish to know him. I prefer to perish beneath his frown, 
 with humanity, than to be the silly, «eltish pet of such a God. 
 This is not the God of nature, but the God of fable, ignorance, 
 seltishness, covetousness and murderous, lustful passions. This is 
 m blasphemous story, a libel on both God aud his works. He 
 who loves the smile of such a Divinity, must be first lull of all 
 that is selfish, cofetous, cruel, murderous, malignant. 
 
 The Bible representa God as loving some and hating others 
 before they are born. In liomans 9 : 11-13, is the ibl lowing 
 statement, — 
 
 t* 
 
 11. (For the children being not jet bom, neither having done any 
 
 good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, 
 
 not of works, but of him that calleth :) 
 
 12. It was said unto her, Tlie elder shall serve the younger. 
 
 18. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. 
 
 14. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? 
 God forbid. 
 
 16. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have 
 mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.'* 
 
 This story represents God as partial, as loving and hating, 
 
 without any actual cause, unborn persons; and loving Jacob -r- 
 
 & liar, a deceiver, a swindler, and a polygamist — and hating 
 :Esau, whom Jacob cheated out of his father's blessing, by lying 
 and fraud, at his mother's instigation. He not only cheated 
 Eaan out of his blessing, but lied to his poor old blind lather. 
 
 But of this matter of Jacol* mid Ksaii hcrcafler. Now it luiiy 1)0 
 
 49 
 
 said that the word translated " hate " here only means a less de- 
 gree of love. But suppose it does j is it not still partiality to 
 love one less than another, before either deserve it? But it is 
 not a less degree of love ; it is a deep, deadly, malignant hutred, 
 aa the follow iiig, from Malachi 1, proves, — 
 
 ** 2. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou 
 loved us I Was not Esau Jacob's brother ? saith the Lord : yet I loved 
 Jacob. 
 
 3. And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste 
 for the dragons of the wilderness. 
 
 4. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and 
 buIM the desolate places ; thus saitii the Lord of hosts, They shall build, 
 but I will throw down, and they shall call them. The border of wicked- 
 ness, and The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever." 
 
 If this is not real, deadly, malignant hatred, then there is none 
 anywhere. It needs no further comment. 
 
 But there are many other passages which represent God as 
 unjust, as implacable, revengeful, full of wrath. They represent 
 him as punishing little children for their flithers' sins, and even 
 brutes for the sins of their owners ; as visiting the sins of idola- 
 tors upon their children to the third and fourth generation ; as 
 punishing whole nations, thousands of men, women and children, 
 for their rulers' sins. Take the following quotations as a few 
 specimens. Joshua 7 : 10-26, represents God as commanding 
 Achan and all his sons and daughters, and oxen and sheep and 
 asses, aud all tluit he had, to be stoned with stones and burnt 
 with fire, because Achan stole the wudge of gold. In 2 Samuel 
 21, God is represented as sanctioning the hanging of Saul's 
 seven sons and grandsons for their father's sin, because Saul, a 
 long time before, had done wrong to the Gibeonitos. After this 
 bloody deed, we are told, God was entreated for the land. God 
 is said to have sent a pestilence upon the land because of Saul's 
 wrong, committed many years before, and as stopping it after this 
 heartless butchery of Saul's innocent sons and grandsons. In 
 Deuteronomy 21 : 18-22, God is represented as commariding 
 parents to stone t/ieir stubborn and rebellious children unto 
 
I III ! 
 
 " I 
 
 m 
 
 ieatk In 2 Kings 10, God is represented as decIariDg that 
 Jehu did well when he slew Ahab*s seventy sons — cut oif their 
 heads — because tbeir father sinned. " The whole house of Ahab 
 shall perish," saith the Lord, by the prophet (2 Kings 9:8); 
 and so all his children suffer for his sin. In 1 Samuel 15 : 2, 3, 
 we find this, — 
 
 •• 2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did 
 to Israel, how he laid wait for Mm in the waj when lie came up from 
 
 8.. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, 
 'and spaitj them not ;, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, 
 
 OK and sheep, camel and nss." 
 
 This command came to Saul. Here God is said to demand 
 
 the total destruction of the Amalekites for sins committed more 
 than four hundred years before by their forefathers. luuocenfc 
 men, women, children, and dumb brutes, are the sacrifice which 
 God is said to demand for some folly or wrong committed long 
 
 before. Saul went, it is said, and slew all the Amalekites. But 
 he spared Agag,the king, and some of the shcej) and oxen. But, 
 80 enraged is God at this, that he repents having made Saul king. 
 Then Samuel takes Amv and hews him in pieces before the Lord 
 to prevent being consumed by divine wrath. These are horrid, 
 awful, blasphemous stories, Ijut not the worst. 
 
 Take another blaspliemuus story from 2 Samuel 24 : 1, — ■ 
 
 •* 1. And again tlic anger of the Loitl was kindled against Israel, and 
 he moved Bavid against tlieni to say, Go, niimhor Israel and Jmlah. 
 
 10. And David's heart smote hiui iitlor tU.it !i had iiunibered the peo- 
 ple. And David said unto the Lord, I liave sinned jrreatly in that I have 
 ■4mm ; and now, I beseech thee, Lord, take away the iniijuity of thy 
 wrvant ; for I have done veiy iboliahlj." 
 
 If God moved David to number the people, how could it be 
 Bin or folly? Why should David pray to be forgiven for doing 
 just what God himself moved him to do ? Was it a sin and 
 folly for David to do what the divine impulse made him do? 
 Perhaps David did not know that God moved him. But whethef 
 
 51 
 
 he did, or not, it does not make any difference in the blasphemy 
 of the account. 
 
 "11. For when David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord 
 came unto the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, 
 
 12. Go and say unto David, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three 
 things ; choose thee one of thciii, that I may do it unto thee. 
 
 lo. So Ga<l came unto David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall 
 seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt tliou tice three 
 months before thine enemies, ivhile they pursue thee? or that there be 
 three days' pestilence in tliy land? Now advise, and see what answer I 
 shall return to him that sent me. 
 
 14. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait; let us fall now 
 into tlie liand of the Lord ; fur his mercies are great ; and lot me not fall 
 into the hand of nmn. 
 
 15. So the Lord sent a postilcncc upon Israel from the morning even to 
 the time appoints 1 ; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beer- 
 eheba seventy thous;uul men. 
 
 11). And when the angel sti-etched forth his hand upon Jerusalem to 
 destroy it, the Lord repeiitod him of the evil, and said to tlie angel that 
 dt«troycd tlie peopk', It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel 
 of the Lord was by the tlireshing-plaee of Araunah the Jebusite. 
 
 17. An<l David spake unto the Lord wlien he saw the angel that smote 
 the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wicketlly ; but 
 these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be 
 against me, and against my father's house." 
 
 A more blasphemous story was never forged. Seventy thou- 
 sand innocents slain, by God, for an act, not sin, of David, which 
 God himself moved him to do! If David sinned in numbering 
 the people, why did not God kill him, if he must kill somebody? 
 Why murder the innocent ? If there is any sin in the case, it is 
 God's, not David's or the people's. But David's slaughtered 
 people fell victims to the murderous passions of the Great Om- 
 nipotent. No blasphemy can transcend that of this chapter. 
 
 As another illustration of the "false" and blasphemous rep- 
 resentations which the Bible gives of God, see Numb. 31 : 1, 2, — 
 
 "1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
 
 2. Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites ; afterward shalt 
 thou be gathered unto thy people." 
 

 Moaes arms bis people for tlie work. They go forth and slay 
 and burn. But they did not kill all the women and children. 
 
 ** 9. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captive, 
 and tlieli- little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their 
 
 iocks, and all their goods. 
 
 10. xV.nd they burnt all theii* cities wlieiuiu they dwelt, and all their 
 goodly castles, with fire. 
 
 11. And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of 
 beaste. 
 
 12. And they brought the captives, and tlie prey, and the spoil, nnto 
 Moses and Eleazar the priest, and unto the cony:re«!;.-itioii of tlic children 
 of Israel, unto the camp of the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan, near 
 
 13. And Moses and Elcjizcr the priest, nnd all tlic princes of the con- 
 gregation, went fui'tli to meet them without tlie camp. 
 
 14. And Moses w:is wroth with the otficers of tlie host, witli the cap- 
 tains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the 
 battle. 
 
 15. And Bloses said nnto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 
 
 16. Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of 
 Biilaam, to commit trespass ag-uinst the Lord in the matter of Peer, and 
 there was a plague amon^i; the congregation of the Lor<l. 
 
 17. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones,^ and kill 
 every woman tliat hath known man by lying with him.*' 
 
 Murder and gross prostitution, all under the immediate direc- 
 tion and control of the Infinite God ! Who can believe this? 
 It is a monstrous lie, a scandalous and unequalled blasphemy 
 against the God of Nature, and the Beautiful Father of Spirits. 
 Becrepit old men and women, the sucking infant on its mother's 
 bloody breast, and little male children, all weltering in their gore, 
 on their own soil, amid the altars of Homey and the graves of 
 their fathers ! And all charged upon God ! None but a demon, 
 of hate and rancorous malice full, which the fabled apostate 
 damned alone could feel, could thus gloat in death and blood. 
 This story contains and ascribes to God a spirit which would wrap 
 the fabled hell itself in Egyptian gloom. 
 
 There are many more such awful stories in this old book. 
 Joshua, tenth and eleventh chapters, is a horrid retail and 
 
 53 
 
 wholesale of such doings. Reader, examine them for your- 
 self. 
 
 The Bible represents God as a Great Moloch. It represents 
 him as demanding human sacrifices, and as receiving them. (See 
 Genesis 22.) It is true that in this case of Abraham he did 
 not accept the offering ; but in many others he did accept them. 
 (See 2 Samuel 21: 1-14; Judges 11: 29-40; Joshua 7: 24, 
 25, and 2 Kings 10.) We are told, in the New Testament, that 
 God accepts Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Paul, 
 in the twenty-fifth verse of the fourth chapter of Romans, says, — 
 
 *' Jesus was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justifi- 
 cation." 
 
 In 1 Corinthians 15 : 1-3, — 
 
 "1. Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached 
 unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand ; 
 
 2. By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached 
 unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. 
 
 3. For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how 
 that Christ died fur our sins according to the scriptures."** 
 
 Again, Paul declares, in Galatians 3 : 13, — 
 
 " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, heinff made a curse 
 Ibr us ; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,*'' 
 
 Again, Hebrews 9 : 15, — 
 
 " And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by 
 means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under 
 the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of 
 
 eternal inlieritance. ' ' 
 
 And again, while speaking of sacrifices, he exalts the sacrifice 
 of Jesus Clirist over all other sacrifices. In the tenth chapter 
 of Hebrews is this passage. The chapter is headed " Chrisfs 
 perfect sacrifice.'^ 
 
 c« 
 
 iO. By the which will we are sanctified thi*ough the offering of the 
 IxKiy of Jesus Christ once for all." 
 
 Again, in Romans 3 : 25, — 
 6* 
 
54 
 
 55 
 
 
 •■•Wliom God liatli set fortli to 'be a propitiation, tliroiigh fliitli in his 
 
 Wowl, to declare Iiis rightcmsness for tlie remiaiioE oi'Bins that are past, 
 
 tli,rougl:i the ibrbeanincc ol" liod,." 
 
 And also io, 1 John 2 : 2 , — 
 
 "And lie is the propitifttioii for our sins; and not for ours only, but 
 
 Ibr the sins, of the whole world." 
 
 It IB plaielj declared that "Jesus Christ is the atoning sficri- 
 ice ** for the sins of the world. According to Webster, '* pro- 
 pitiation** itt both these passages means "atoning Siicrifice," 
 Literally it nieaus appeasing the wrath of an offended person ; 
 mod in these passages it means to appease the wrath of liud l>y 
 the atoning sacriice of Jesos. Atone or atonement, according to 
 Webster, in tbeologj "is the expiation of sin n,iadc hy the obe- 
 dience and personal sufferings of Christ.'* Here, then, we have 
 the doctrine of ** ¥icariou8 atonement," Jesus a suffering, djing 
 sacrifice to God, to appease the divine wrath. Hence all this 
 pulpit talk about the " precious blood of Christ; '* ** being wasfied 
 in the blood of the Lamb," Ao., &c. Now, what docs it all 
 mean? Why, simply this: God is angry at mankind; he id 
 .going to kill somebody; Jesus offers himself as an ■^' atoning 
 Bacrifice" for the sins of the wMe world. God accepts the 
 offering, Jesus suffers and dies upon the cross in man's stead, and 
 Ci'od, seeing his agony and bloody death, is satisfied. 
 
 Mere, then, is presented to us one of the darkest, mo»t Ijloody, 
 and horrid spectacles the eye of the world ever looked upon. 
 The « ju«t s„ffevi„g for the unjust ;" the innocent Jeans d,i.,g ,or 
 the sins of a guilty world ! And we are told, in many other pa-- 
 •■;ges, and in nearly every church in Christendom, that God gave 
 '■'■his only begotten Son** to suffer and die upon the cross for the 
 original and actual sins of the world, God accepts the blood of 
 the murdered, gentle Jesus, — murdered by the hands or at the 
 beekof his chosen Priests, the Jewish High Priests, — as an expia- 
 tion of the sins of the world, as an atonement for all mankind's 
 misdoings ! Can anything be more bIasj,»hemous, moi-e dcrogu- 
 lory of the justice and wisdom of Deity? Is God a blood- 
 
 thirsty monster, that he can be appeased only by tlic .shedding of 
 the blood of his own innocent Sun? I know well what are the 
 arguments of church and clergy on this point. They tell us tliut 
 all mankind was groaning beneath the eurfco of tiod's bruken 
 law; that in consc(iucnce of '' Adaai s fall , we s'uuwd all;" 
 that death passed upon all men from Eve's eating an apple, and 
 ^Adam's helping her, in violation of Go.i'.s eomuiand; and tli;it, 
 because God, being ju^t, and hiu'ing told our first parents that 
 "in the day thou eatest thereof thou t^halt surely die;" and 
 they having eaten, the law having been broken, somebody must 
 jiay the penalty ; and so at last Jesus offers himself to sn ve man 
 from the result of his sin, if sin it be, to eat a goodly-looking 
 apple. All these assumptions are purely gratuitous. Suppose 
 nnin did disobey God's law, did eat the apple, what then ? Is 
 God so blind, so obtuse in his moral qualities, that he accepts 
 •Jesus* mangled body, torn by his own priesthood's hate, as an 
 expiation ? That doctrine njay display nobleness on the part of 
 Jesus, but what must we think of a God whose wrath is assuaged 
 in the blood of the innocent? It will not do to say, "it is vol- 
 untary on the part of Jesus." It does not change the murder- 
 ous nature of the sacrifice, or of a God who could accept it. It 
 makes it still more awful, and stamps tlie brand of murder 
 deeper on the divine brow. And, besides, it makes the God, 
 who uttered the passage, " In the day that thmi (to Adam) cat- 
 est thereof thou shalt surely die," a liar. If Jesus dies for man, 
 and in his stead, and such death is an atonement for the sins of 
 the whole world, and man, in consequence, does not suffer the 
 penalty, tlien was God — this Bible God — a great liar; for, he 
 declared that man should die, not Jesus. So, if Jesus suffers 
 for man, he makes " God's " law of no effect. The passage, " In 
 the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," is a great lie 
 anyhow. The story tells us that Adam did eat, and then goes 
 right on propagating his species and peopling the world. Can a 
 dead man and woman propagate their kind ? Ah ! but, says the 
 Bible apologist, this passage means, " Dying thou shalt begi/i to 
 die,** If it means so, why don't it say so ? But how does a 
 

 pii«t know tliat it meaiiB so 1 It is very convenient to be able 
 to make Bible sometimes. But, says another, it was only phys- 
 ical death spoken of here, and probably man would always have 
 remained on the earth, in the form, if he had not sinned. I ask 
 how do we know? If it was, then all for whom Christ made an 
 atonement, would live forever in their material bodies. Not 
 even a single Christian does so remain in his body. This idea 
 must be abandoned, then. ^ 
 
 But another says, " It was only spiritual death — the death 
 of the soul — spoken of here." Well, suppose it was? God 
 is made a liar by this supposition, too. If Adam and Eve's 
 souls had died in the day they eat, how long would their bodies 
 have lived and propagated their kind ? When a man's soul is 
 dead, or has even gone out of the body, though it still live in 
 another sphere, his body dies and is heaped with other dust. 
 
 Thus it is, as Parker well says, •' Lies in theology, like bits 
 of glass in a kaleidoscope, are multiplied again and again in 
 fantastic combinations." The last resort of the theologian to 
 escape from this great dilemma is the third and last supposition, 
 that the death here spoken of is eternal torment in hell, or the 
 annihilation of the wicked. Two classes of Bible apologists 
 maintain, each, one of these views. They both give the lie to 
 the passage, " In the iay," &c. The first class put off the pun- 
 ishment or ** death" to some unknown "judgment-day," and the 
 second do so likewise ; thus both contradicting the entire passage. 
 
 On this subject, the vicarious atonement, I shall have more to 
 Ba, by and by. 
 
 The Bible represents God as deceiving people. It represents 
 him as sending lying spirits on purpose to deceive them, and 
 sometimes for the very worst of purposes, in order that tliey 
 might be damned. 2 Chronicles 17 : 18-22, represents God as 
 sending lying spirits to deceive Ahab, in order to get him killed. 
 Hear it, — 
 
 •t • 
 
 ' 20. Tlieii there came oat a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, 
 I win eEtice Mm, And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? 
 21. And he said, I will go oat. and be a lying spirit in the mouth of 
 
 57 
 
 all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou 
 shalt also prevail ; go out and do even so." 
 
 In Deuteronomy, God is represented as employing false proph- 
 ets to try the Jews, to see whether they feared him or not. Take 
 another passage from Judges : 23. See, also, 1 Samuel 19 : 
 i), and Ezekiel 14 : 9. lu this last ((uolatioii, or rather refer- 
 ence, God is represented us saving, " It' a prophet be deceived, 
 I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet." Take another, from 
 2 Thcasalonians 2 : 9-12,— 
 
 *' 8. And thwi'sliall tliat Wicke.l l>c revcilcd, whom the Lord shall con- 
 sume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness 
 of his coming. 
 
 9. Even him, whose ccminji; is after the working of Satan, with all 
 power, and sign!5, and lying wonders. 
 
 10. And with all deoeivablcncss of unrighteousness in them that per- 
 ish ; because they received not tlic k,\e of the truth, that they might be 
 saved. 
 
 11. And for this cause God sh:dl send them strong delusion, that they 
 should believe a lie. 
 
 12. That they might be damned who believed not the truth, but had 
 pleasure in unrigliteousness. " 
 
 The only reason given in this passage for " sending strong de- 
 lusion " to believe a lie, that they might be damned, is that they 
 received not the love of the truth, but had pleasure in unrigh- 
 'teousness. But does God find any necessity, in this fact, to 
 engage actually and actively in deceiving them, to get them 
 damned ? According to the orthodox notion, they were sure to 
 be damned anyhow ; and are we to believe that God is so malig- 
 nant that he delights in deceiving, and thus blinding them to 
 their destruction, in order to hasten and deepen their tormnnt ? 
 
 " Sma' pleasure it can gie e'en to a de'il 
 To scare poor wretches and hear us squeal," — 
 
 much less to a God, the Father of men. Will it be said, " God 
 only leaves them to their own hardness of heart, and blindness 
 of mind"? This supposition is at variance with the positive 
 
05 
 
 ioclaralion of the paesage before us ; for it represents God as 
 actually and actively engaged in sending ''strong ddusiom^'^ 
 working great wonders, " that they might be damned." Theolo- 
 gians often tell us that God may be said to do what he allows to 
 be done. If so, then God may be said to do the dirty work of 
 the devil ; but would it not be saying a great lie ? If God does 
 whatever he allows or permits to be done, then is he the author 
 of all the wrong in the world. This is outrai,'eous blasphemy. 
 But, says one, '^God is supreme, and can do as he pleases with 
 his own creatures." I ask, can God please to he a ^aeat tyraot, 
 munlcrer, and Bloloch? Can iXvQ Divine be pleaded with ston- 
 ing and burning innocent children for their lathers' sins? Can 
 He ha pkmed to butcher whole nations, — thousands of men, 
 women, and children, — for sins committed by their forefathers, 
 or their rulers, hundreds of years before? Can he be pleased 
 with (he awful murders ascribed to him ia the Bible, which I 
 have (|uotcd ? If such is God, what and who is the Devil ? 
 
 There is no blasphemy so imi>udcnt as that of those who as- 
 cribe to God all tliesc atrocious crimes. Let no reader call me 
 henier against God. I only blaspheme a l(X}k which 
 
 gives such bloody descriptions of God, and false as bloody. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BIBLE GIVES CONTRADICTORY REPRESENTATIONS OF GOD. 
 
 Some passages speak of him as one God; others speak of him 
 as several. Some i)assages speak of him as having a body, like 
 men ; others tell us that he is a spirit, without " body or parts." 
 Some passiiges represent him as being seen of men, often, and in 
 various places at difi'ei ent times ; that Moses, Jacob, Isaiah, and 
 others, saw him face to face, and talked with him; while others 
 tell us he is invisible — that " no man hath seen God at any 
 time." The New Testament tells us that no man ever saw God 
 tl any time, notwithstaQding all the statements in the Old Tes- 
 
 59 
 
 lament of men seeiiig him, talking with him, hearing him speak, 
 and even wrestling with him. Compare Exod. 20 : 1-3, and 1 
 John 1 : l-l, with Gen. 1 : 2G and 11:7. God's invisible vis- 
 ibility IbuiKl by comparing Gen. 32: 30 with John 1 : 18; Ex. 
 33 : 20 with 1 Tim. 6 : 15 ; Isa. 6 : 1 with Ex. 33 : 23 ; Numb. 
 14 : 14, Ex. 24 : 10 and 33 : 10, with John 5 : 37. 
 
 Some passages speak of God as omnipotent, almighty, able to 
 do anything, to accomplish whatever he sets about ; that he never 
 faints or gets tired ; while others speak of him as getting stuck 
 fast, unable to carry out his wishes, in consequence of difficulties 
 which finite men throw in his way, as getting tired with the six 
 days' work of creation, as taking rest and being refreshed. Com- 
 pare Mark 10 : 27 with Ex. 4 : 24 ; Matt. 19 : 26 with Gen. 
 32 : 28 ; Job 42 : 2 with Judges 1 : 19 ; Isaiah 40 : 28 with 
 Gen. 2:2; John 1 : 14 with Ex. 31:17; John 10 : 3 with Mark 
 6 : 5-7. 
 
 Some passages represent God as omnipresent, — everywhere, 
 — even in hell; while others teach us that he is finite, limited, 
 local in presence, as living overhead somewhere, and so far off 
 as to have to come down to earth to find out what is going ou 
 among men. Compare Jer. 23 : 24 with Gen. 11 : 5-7 ; Ps. 
 139 : 7-10 with Judges 18 : 20, 21. 
 
 Some passages teach that God is omniscient, all-knowing, as 
 the all-searching eye ; while others represent him as not know- 
 ing what is in men's hearts until he finds out by experiment upon 
 them. Compare Acts 1 : 24 with Deut. 8 : 2; Ps. 139 : 2-12 
 with Deut. 13 : 3, and Gen. 22 : 12. 
 
 Some passages represent God as unchangeable, immutable, 
 • "with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;'* 
 another set of passages teach us that he is changeable, fickle- 
 minded, capricious; that he often changes in consequence of 
 some unlooked-for human contingency getting in his way. Some 
 passages say God never repents ; others say he gets weary with 
 repenting. And many others represent him as often repenting, 
 as often as he finds himself mistaken in a former course of inten- 
 tion or action. Compare Numb. 23 : 19 with Gen. 6 : 6 ; 1 Sam. 
 
in 
 
 60 
 
 15 : 11 witli 15 : 29 ; Job 23 : 18 with Judges 2 : 18 ; Ps. 33 : 
 11 with 1 Chron. 21 : 15 ; Isa. 40 : 28 with Jer. 15:6, and Isa. 
 14 : 24 with Jer. 18 : 8-10 ; Hos. 13 : 14 with Jer. 26 : 19 ; 
 James 1 : 17 with Jer. 42 : 10 ; Numb. 23 : 19 with 1 Sam. 2 : 
 30 ; Mai. 3 : 6 with Jonah 3 : 11. 
 
 Some pasBtges tell us God is a God of truth ; that he cannot 
 lie ; that he punishes the liar, and commands false prophets to be 
 stoned ; while other passages represent him as falsifying his own 
 word, as lying by proxy through false prophets, and sending lying 
 spirits among men on purpose to deceive them ; as sending men 
 •' strong delusions," working false miracles, to make them believe 
 a lie, thai they might be damned. Compare Deut, 32 : 4 with 
 2 Chron. 18 : 22 ; 1 Kings 8 : 56 with Numb. 14 : 34 ; Ex. 20 : 
 16 with Eze. 14 : 9 ; Numb, 23 : 13 with Rom. 3 : 7, and Titus 
 1 : 17 with 1 Kings 22 : 20-23 ; Heb. 6 : 18 with 2 The.ss. 2 : 
 9-11 ; 1 Sam. 15 : 20 with Dcut. 13 : 1-3. 
 
 Some passages tell us God is no respecter of persons ; ftiat he 
 is impartial in his dealings ; while others tell us he loves one and 
 hates another before either is bora ; that he makes some lor honor 
 and others for dishonor. Compare Eom. 2 : 11 with Gen. 25 : 
 23; Job 34 : 19 with Mai. 1 : 1-4 ; Aets 10 : 34 with Horn. 9 : 
 20-13; and 2 Chron. 19: 7 with the whole history of God's 
 represented doings with the Jews. 
 
 One set of passages tell us God is just and righteous ; that ho 
 will not condemn the righteous nor justify the wicked ; that the 
 soul that sinneth it shall die; that the son shall not bear the 
 iniquity of the father; that all his ways are just, equal, aiitl 
 right ; that man shall have no ground to say the fathers have 
 eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth arc set on edge ; that 
 a man shall be judged by and according to his works ; that 
 whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap; while another 
 set represent God as unjust, visiting Adam's guilt upon the whole 
 world, and the sins of fathers upon their children to the third and 
 fourth generation ; as killing little children because their fathers 
 stole ; as destroying whole nations for thoir rulers' sins ; as butch- 
 ering whole families for their fathers' sins — dead long before; 
 
 61 
 
 I 
 
 as destroying seventy thousand men, women, and children, for an 
 act of one of his favorites — David, which he himself moved 
 David to do ; and at last as accepting the murder of his own son 
 for the sins of a guilty world. Compare Jer. 81 : 29-30 with 
 Gen. 3 : 14-19; Ezek. 18 : 1-20 with Gen. 9 : 22; Deut. 32 : 
 4 with 2 Sam. 24 : 15-17 ; Job 34 : 10 with Num. 31 : 2 ; Ps. 
 92 : 15 with 2 Sam. 15 : 1-8 ; Gen. 18 : 25 with Ezek. 20 : 25 ; 
 Prov. 17 : 15 with 1 Peter 3 : 18 ; Uom. 8 : 32 ; Isa. 53 : 5-11. 
 Some passages tell us God is love; that he is full of compas- 
 sion, abundant in goodness, forgiving iniquity; that his tender 
 mercies are Qver all the work of his hands; that he would not 
 that any should perish, but that all should inherit eternal life ; 
 while others represent him as exceedingly furious, and jealous; 
 that his anger shall burn to the lowest hell ; as reserving unbe- 
 lievers for the day of wrath ; as commanding the Jews to murder 
 surrounding nations, to prostitute their virgins, to swindle them 
 out of their jewels, to lay waste their habitations, to spread death 
 and bloody desolation in their path, and threatening to torment 
 others in hell-flames forever, turning whole nations into hell, 
 grinding the wicked as ashes beneath the soles of the feet of the 
 righteous. Take the following as a few specimens : Compare 
 1 John 4 : 16 with Deut. 23 : 6 ; Ps. 106 : 1 with Ezra 9 : 12 ; 
 Ps. 107 : 7 with Ex. 20 : 5 ; Ps. 109 : 68 with Deut. 4 : 24 ; 
 Ps. 145 : 9 with Deut. 9 : 3, Prov. 16 : 4. 
 
 Some passages represent God as commanding the sacrifice of 
 animals, and speak of the effluvia of burning flesh as a sweet savor 
 to God ; while others say he has no pleasure in them, that he did 
 not institute them, that all he requires is to do justly, love mercy, 
 and walk humbly with God. Compare Gen. 8 : 21 with Jer. 7 : 
 21-23 ; Lev. 1 : 9 with Micah 6:6-8; Ex. 12 : 1 with Ps. 51 : 
 16 ; Lev. 4 : 5-6 with Ps. 50 : 9-13, and Isa. 06 : 3. 
 
 6 
 
62 
 
 lit 
 
 IB 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IT CONTBADICTS ASTttONOMY, QEOLOOY AND ITSELF, IN ITS ACCOUNT 
 
 Of CREATION. 
 
 I HiiD not stop to prove that Astronomy displays the Art 
 and Science of God, or that Geology is God's word in granite 
 rocks. If God ever did anything, he put those starry worlds in 
 motion. They move anyhow, and display a Divine art. If 
 Genesis contradicts Astronomy, Genesis must be false. I wiil not 
 waste words on this point. If Moses contradicts Nature, Moses 
 tells errors, that is all ; for Nature is the art of all the Divinity 
 iiian can ever know. When man gets out of, or above Nature 
 he gets out of, and above God, and into nothing. 
 
 The Bible gives us to understand the heavens and the earth 
 and all that in them is, were created in six days, about six 
 Iho^usand years ago. Ex, 20 : 11, — 
 
 •* II. For io six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
 that in them is, and rented the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed 
 the acventk day, and hallowed it. " 
 
 Some theological geologists have tried to make the word " day " 
 here an India-rubber thing, capable of indefinite stretching so as 
 to cover a long period of time, but with very poor success. It is 
 perfectly evident that the Jews understood the word " day " as 
 embracing a common day of twenty-four hours. From the 20th 
 of Exodus it is perfectly certain that it is to be understood liter- 
 ally, God commands the Jews to, — 
 
 ** 8. Remember the Sabbatli-day to keep it holy. 
 
 9. Six days shalt thou lalior, and do all thy work ; 
 
 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it thou 
 ihalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man- 
 servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is 
 within, thy gates.*' 
 
 Why? because,— 
 
 •* 11. For ill six days the Loitl made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
 that in them ie, and restetl on the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed 
 
 te Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." 
 
 63 
 
 Here the Jews are commanded to work six days, and rest on 
 the seventh, because God worked six days, and rested on the sev- 
 enth. Now, if the word " day " is an indefinite word, embracing 
 a long and indefinite period of time, how could the Jews know 
 when to work or when to rest, and how do we know when to keep 
 the Sabbath at all ? If it means, according to Dr. John Pye 
 Smith, many thousands or even millions of years, the Sabbath has 
 not yet begun ; men are fooling away one seventh of their time 
 on a false notion that it is " holy.'' That " day " is here used lit- 
 erally, is also evident from the story of the fourth day's work, as 
 given in Gen. 1 : 14-19. The lights put in the heavens are said 
 to be for days, &c., and to divide the ligiit from the darkness. But 
 this story of creation is untrue, because it gives us three days and 
 three nights before the creation of sun, moon and stars; and then 
 goes on to say that the sun, moon and stars were created expressly 
 to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. 
 
 " 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, 
 to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for sea- 
 sons, and fur days, and fur years. 
 
 15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give 
 light upon the earth ; and it was so. 
 
 16. Ami God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, 
 and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars also. 
 
 17. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon 
 the earth, 
 
 18. And to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the 
 light from the darkness : and God saw that it was good." 
 
 Here just look at the passage. Now, if God had already had 
 three days and three nights, without sun, moon and stars, why 
 should he create them for the very purpose of ruling over day 
 and night? In the account of the first day's work we are told 
 that God created light and divided it from darkness, and if so, 
 why does he create sun, moon and stars, for the same object, three 
 days afterward ? The ^tory is self-contradictory. But it contra- 
 dicts Astronomy in that it represents the heavens and earth, the 
 BUD, and all the planets and stars, as only about six thousand 
 years old ; while it is u dcm.jnsti uted fact that the light from 
 

 1 
 
 f 
 
 III 
 ■ 
 
 \i 
 
 eome of tlie netrest of the fixed stars would occupy mMiom of 
 ages to reach our earth, though travelling at the rate of one huo- 
 dhred and ninetj-two thousand ive hundred miles in a single sec- 
 ond of time ; so that if those stars were only six thousand years 
 old, they would be invisible to this earth's inhabitants lor ages 
 to come. And yet, men will believe this foolish story, written by 
 nobody knows whom, when or where, against all the mathemati- 
 cal demonstrations of the Art of God — Astronomy. The Bible 
 always has stood in the way of scientific discoveries. It was thrown 
 at Galileo's head, but he dodged it. 
 
 Again, this account contradicts the great facts and demonstra- 
 tions of Astronomy, being contradictory to the constitution and 
 course of things. If there were three days and nights without 
 any sun, moon or stars, then has the whole constitution of the 
 uaiverse been changed, and essentially reversed, or rather inverted ; 
 for day and night are now, and always have been since human 
 history begun, subject to the revolution of the earth on its axis 
 as it rolls round the sun, and different portions of its surface 
 being presented to and from the sun alternately, and hence the 
 succession of day and night, A day would be impossible without 
 the sun, and could you blot it from the sky, the solar system 
 would go to ruin. Is it not, then, perfectly evident that this 
 story of creation contradicts the divine order, as displayed in 
 the vast and magnificent constitution of Nature? And can a 
 theory, thus contradictory to Nature, he true ? There is no proof 
 that any such radical change as is presupposed in this Genesaical 
 account has ever taken place in Nature. There is proof to tlie 
 contrary. Herschel describes stars so distant that the light from 
 them must have occupied more than a million of years in reachin 
 this earth. And this is not a specukliou, but a mathoniatiual 
 certainty. The constancy and immutability of Nature's laws are 
 abundant proof against such unnatural and fabulous assumptions, 
 made in the face of facts, and against true reason. Must we 
 ignore the principles of Nature, in order to preserve the dignity 
 and importance of ancient opinion and tradition? If we aro 
 thus to abandon the plain teachings of Nature, and set sail ou an 
 
 I* 
 
 65 
 
 unknown sea of fabulous and useless speculation, then farewell 
 to all science, philosophy and progress. 
 
 ^ But again, the Bible theory of creation contradicts the revela- 
 tion of God in the earth ^ Geology. The simple facts of Geol- 
 ogy are destructive of Genesis. Niagara's voice, for more than 
 six thousand years, has pealed a hymn of praise to the heavens ; 
 and this is proved by the depth and length of the channel below 
 the falls. According to the latest authority, the Mississippi has 
 flowed in its present bed lor more than one hundred thousand 
 years. " The turbid waters of this ' Father of Waters' have 
 laved the banks of cypress swamps along its course for untold 
 ages." The bones of man, of the type of the North American 
 Indian, have been exhumed from the delta of the Mississippi at 
 New Orleans, which were found lying below the fourth forest 
 level, and, making large allowance, must have lain there for more 
 than fifty thousand years. The exhumed lelics of ancient civili- 
 zation in the valley of the Nile antedate the history of the Jew- 
 ish theocracy; and the foot-prints of the Creator are found in 
 the granite pages of the primary and fossil ilerous rocks, long 
 anterior to the fabulous era of this Genesaical history of cieatioil! 
 Humboldt describes a tree now growing in the iamous gardens 
 of Montezuma, as more than six thousand years old ; and another, 
 in Central America, as but little less than twenty thousand years 
 old. 
 
 The age of a tree is very easily and accurately ascertained by 
 its rings of annual growth. A circular saw has been invenled, 
 by which a cylinder of solid wood can be taken from a tree of 
 any size, extending from the surface to tlie centre of the tree. 
 In this way Humboldt and others have ascertained that there are 
 now living, trees of an age which transcends the biblical chro- 
 nology of creation. 
 
 And now, the issue before us, between Genesis and Geology, is 
 II plain one. I have shown conclusively that the word " day " is 
 to be understood as a day, and consequently the contradiction 
 between Genesis and Nature is unmistakable. Now which shall 
 ¥© abanHon ? To me the choice is a plain one. I cannot believe 
 6» 
 
66 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 i 1 
 
 
 that God tells lies iu ilio stars, or in rocks ; in tbe mountains or 
 riren of eurth ; or that those hugo giants of the forest — those 
 centnrj-worn sontinele of time and the ages gone — are faithless to 
 their great niiasion as laudmarks of the Crcutor's doings; and 
 until I can thus abandon yonder star-lit volume, gleaming with 
 the philosophy of creation; until I can reject God's granite 
 record ; until I can reject my senses, my reason and my intui- 
 tion, I cannot accept Genesis as true and infallible. 
 
 4. It represents the Lams of Nature as suspended or tram- 
 eendedf as i?i Fairy-Land. 
 
 In Gen. 2: 21-24, we are told that woniaii w;!s ^in^L^ularly 
 manufactured out of a man's rib, thus teaching us tha,l ilic first 
 woman came from a man. *' But if it was so once, the reverse 
 has been the case ever since." A man's rib metamorphosed into 
 a woman! The organic laws of humanity — of all Nature — 
 are oppo.sed to this foolish story, added to the experience and 
 observation of thousands of years of human history. Iu the story 
 of the " Deluge " you may find a most palpable disregard and 
 ignorance of the Laws of Nature. 
 
 The first difficulty in the way of believing this story is the fact 
 that there is not sufficient water on the globe to cover the tops 
 of the highest mountains, about five miles above the present 
 ocean; the quantity requisite to this fact being eight times 
 greater than the earth and surrounding atmoyphere has capacity 
 of holding. The next difficulty in the way of this story's being 
 true, is, the total incapacity of the Ark to contain the animals. 
 The Ark was only about four hundred and fifty ket long, seveuty- 
 ive feet broad, forty-five feet high. The iiunjber of ,s|)eeies of 
 animals actually known and described by zoologists, is one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand, and the probable ntunber existing on tlie 
 globe to-ilay is not less than half a million. Add to this the 
 great amount of food necessary to keep them for one year, and 
 none but an idiot can fail of seeing the folly of asking sane minds 
 to believe such nonsense. A tliousand species of niamtnalia, six 
 thousand species of birds, two thousand species of reptiles, and 
 one hundred and twenty thou-.nid sp^-cies of insects, fimst have 
 been provided with spare -mi] food. And, besides, it is to be 
 
 67 
 
 remembered, that seven males and females of each species of the 
 mammalia were taken, — fourteen thousand mammalia in the 
 Ark; and taking two of unclean beasts, and seven of birds, and 
 then the insects, and we have a fine load for such a scow as Noah 
 sailed in. 
 
 Just think; fourteen elephants and their food for a year; 
 fourteen lions and sheep enough to feed them for a year; four- 
 teen rhinoceroses of each species, and five species, making sev- 
 enty of this large animal ; and so on through the entire range of 
 mammalia, and these in connection with nine hundred and twenty- 
 eight thousand of the remaining animals, all shut up in a little 
 pen four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet broad, and 
 ibrfy-Gve feet high ; with only one door, and that pitched tight ; 
 with only one window, and that in the top of the roof; and for 
 the first forty days shut up air-tight, with no air but what comes 
 through this window ; and all the tilth of this filthy host shut up 
 with old Noah in such a coop ; and Noah and his fanjily obliged 
 to feed, water, and clean after them, and all their filth to be car- 
 ried up forty-five feet high and thrown out of a hole in the roof 
 less than twenty-two inches square! What a monstrous, silly 
 fable is this to be found in any book, much more in " God's " 
 Book of books ! Another important, insurmountable difficulty 
 in this story are the facts, brought to light by modern science, 
 respecting the distribution of animals and plants on the globe. 
 Suppose tropical animals to attempt to migrate to temperate or 
 frigid zones, they must inevitably perish. And so of polar ani- 
 mals, should they attempt to take up their residence in tropical 
 or temperate climates. And, besides, Nature furnishes impene- 
 trable barriers, which many animals could never cross. (See 
 Hitchcock's Religion of Geology, pp. 128-131.) Any one can 
 see at a glance that the mammalia and their food alone would 
 fill a hundred such vessels; and the food for the carnivora and 
 the graminivorous animals would more than fill such a vessel. 
 The story is totally incredible. 
 
 But the nature of this whole story, and the character of its 
 author's intelligence, are clearly revealed in a single verse. (Gen 
 1: 20),- 
 
 II 
 
m 
 
 69 
 
 I 
 
 •« 18. And the waters premled exceedingly upon the earth ; and all 
 
 'tlie^ high hills that were under the whole heaven wei-e covered. 
 20. Fifteen cubits apward did the waters prevail ; and the mountains 
 
 'Were covered." 
 
 *' Fifteen cuhiis upward did the waters prevail; and the 
 mmntaim were cmeredJ' A Scripture cubit, according to 
 Webster, is less than twentj-two ioches ; so that the tops of 
 the mouotains were covered by twenty-seven and a half feet of 
 water. Just think of a " mountain " twenty-seven and a half 
 feet above tho sea. What a mountain! This one passage alone 
 totally annihilates the credibility of the whole story. Its ab- 
 surdity is too palpable to need further comments 
 
 Eut there are many more such things in the Bible. The 
 plagues of Egypt, the miraculous passage of the Ked Sea on dry 
 land, the preservation of a million Jews in a wilderness forty 
 years without laboring for food or raiment, — one suit of clothes 
 lasting the whole time, — the sun and moon standing still at the 
 command of Joshua to enable the Jews to butcher their enemies 
 by daylight; the story of Sampson; the incestuous origin of the 
 Moabites ; the story of Jacob and Esau ; of Jacob's rod policy 
 to steal or swindle his father-in-law's best cattle ; the miraculous 
 pestilence ; the wonders of the Ark ; the story of the miraculous 
 shower of quails, three feet and a half deep, thirty miles wide, 
 all around the Jewish camp — sixty-six miles in diameter ; the 
 miraculoua conception of Jesus, his birth, resurrection, and ascen- 
 sion ; the miracles ascribed to him ; turning water into wine ; 
 raising the dead to life, &c., &c., — all attest the utter incredibility 
 of the popular assumptions of Bible Infallibility, on the ground 
 ©f the representations of Natural Laws being transcended, trans- 
 formed, or abolished at the will, against the immutability so clearly 
 written all over the constitution, and so beautifully illustrated in 
 the oourse of things. Some of these stories deserve particular 
 attention. The story of the quails, found in Numbers 11 : 31 ; 
 the origin of the Bloabites and Ammonites, in Gen. 19 : 31-38; 
 the birth and character of Sampson, found in Judges 13th, 14tli, 
 15th and 16th chapters ; and the wonders of the Ark, found io 
 
 1 Samuel 4th, 5th and 6th chapters, are of this sort. To take 
 the first. Lot's daughters get their father so drunk he do«8 not 
 know anything, and then conceive and have children by him ; 
 thus violating known laws of physiology. To take the second 
 story, of S.uipson ; of all of the.n tin's is the most absurd. He is 
 represented as of mir;.culous birth, possessing miraculous strength, 
 which lay in his long hair, and which left hira when his hair was 
 shorn off. He works mightily " when the Spirit of the Lord is 
 upon him." He slays a young lion, catches three hundred foxes, 
 ties tail to tail, with firebrands between them, and sends them 
 into the Philistines' corn to destroy it ; breaks the cords that 
 bind him, and, with the jawbone of an ass, slays a thousand 
 men; and at last pulls down the temple of Gaza in his wrath, 
 and entombs himself with thousands of Philistines in its ample 
 rums. When we read such stories in Grecian and Koman my- 
 thology, of Hercules and other heroes, we ascribe them to the 
 fabulous spirit of a fabulous and mythological age ; to human 
 fancy m a low state of culture ; and so all unprejudiced minds 
 Will do with this story. All the murders which Sampson com- 
 mitted are ascribed to the "Spirit of the Lord," in this storj 
 Judge ye, does the "Si-irit of the Lord" delight i.i blood and 
 nmrder ? To take the stories of the wonders wrought by the 
 Jewish Ark ; the mere presence of the Ark before °the Dacron 
 of the Philistines caused the Dagon to fall and break in pieces. 
 These stories may possibly be believed by some uncultured, super- 
 stitious and credulous minds; but I do not hesitate to say that no 
 sound, candid and thinking mind can believe them for a moment 
 after examination. But it will be said these are miracles So 
 are the stories of Hercules, found in Hesiod and others, as much. 
 And, beside, to assume that these stories are miraculous, to 
 prove the Bible miraculous, is to assume one miracle to prove 
 another, which is illogical, and also is begging the question 
 What would a Christian think of a Mormon or a Mahometan 
 Who, to prove the divinity of the Book of Mormon, or Al-Koran' 
 should pomt him to the stories of miracles; for instance to the * 
 account of Joseph Smith's "Plates," their origin, or to tho 
 
 ! 
 
• 
 
 70 
 
 Koran's story of the ascension of Elijah on his jiss up to heaven ? 
 Would a Christian not laugh at the Folly of such a plea? These 
 Btories belong to the fabulous era of Jewish mythology. Fact 
 and fiction, truth and falsehood, are strangely woven together in 
 the Bible. No man in his senses will contend that it takes 
 " infallible Divine Inspiration " to write such stories as these. 
 Baron Blunchausen, Sinbad the Sailor, Robinson Crusoe, are 
 as divine, and need as much, though of a higher order of inspira- 
 tion, for their production, as do these Jewish fables. And it is 
 counted a part, an indispensable part of religion, to believe these 
 fables. Indeed, it is deemed an essential part of Christianity, in 
 our day, to believe that God was miraculously engaged in inspir- 
 ing the authors of such foolish stories. If Christianity can suc- 
 ceed only by demanding credence in such mythology, let it perish 
 forever from the world. 
 
 5. It contradicts itself in mimerous insta?ices. I will begin 
 by quoting the least important contradictions first. 
 
 The two accounts of the return of the children of Israel again 
 to Jerusalem and Judea contradict each other in giving the 
 names of their leaders. 
 
 See Ezra 2 : 2, — See, also, Nehemiah 7 : 7, — 
 
 Whicli came with Zcrubbabel : Who came with Zcrubbabel, 
 
 Jeshua, Nehemiah Seraiah, Rcela- Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azarlah, Ra:ua- 
 
 iah, Mordecai, Bilehan,, Miipar, iah, Nahamani, Mordccai, Bilslian, 
 
 Bigvai, Rehiim, Baanah. Theniim- Misperetli, Bigvai, Nehum, Bfuuiiili. 
 
 ber of the men of the people of Tlie number, / say^ of the men of 
 
 Ismei the people of Israel was this. 
 
 The subjoined are a very few specimens of the many numerical 
 contradictions of the Bible, related in different places, which give 
 the history of the same events. Let the reader carefully examine 
 |lhe contexts of all these passages. 
 
 f Exodus 12 : 40, — Acts T : 6, — 
 
 40. Now the sojourfling of the 6. And God spake on this wise, 
 children of Israel who dwelt in That his seed should sojourn in a 
 / Egypt, i«i« four hundred and thirty strange land ; and that they should 
 jmm, * bring them into bondage, and en- 
 
 treat them efil four hundred yeaiu 
 
 71 
 
 Gen. 46 : 27,— Acts 7 : 14,^ 
 
 27. And the sons of Joseph which 14. Then sent Joseph, and called 
 
 were borne him in Egypt, were two his father Jacob to him, and all his 
 
 souls : all the souls of the house of kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. 
 
 Jiicob, which came into Egypt, were 
 
 threescore and ten. 
 
 Numbers 25 : 9, — 
 
 9. And those that died in the 
 plague were twenty and four thou- 
 sand. 
 
 2 Samuel 10 : 18,— 
 
 18. And the Syrians fled before 
 Israel ; and David slew the men of 
 seven humlrcd cliariots of the Svr- 
 lans, and forty thousand horsemen, 
 and smote Shobach the captain of 
 their host, who died there. 
 
 Same. 
 
 2 Samuel 24 : 3, — 
 
 IS. So Gad came to David, and 
 told hiiu, and said unto him, Sliall 
 seven years of famine come unto 
 thee in thy land ? or wilt thou flee 
 three months before thine enemies, 
 while they pursue thee? or that 
 there be throe days' pestilence in 
 thy land? Now advise, and see 
 what answer I shall return to Mm 
 that sent me. 
 
 2 Samuel 24 : 9,— 
 
 9. And Joab gave up the sum of 
 
 1 Corinthians 10 : 8,— 
 
 8. Neither let us commit fornica^ 
 tion, as some of them committed, 
 and fell in one day three and twenty 
 thousand. 
 
 1 Chronicles 18 : 4, — 
 
 4. And David took from him a 
 thousand chariots, and seven thou- 
 sand horsemen, and twenty thou- 
 sand footmen ; David also houghed 
 all the chariot-/ior.sts, but reserved 
 of them an hundred chariots. 
 
 1 Chronicles 19 : 18, — 
 
 18. But the Syrians fled before 
 Israel : and David slew of the Syr- 
 ians seven thousand men which 
 fouyhi in chariots, and forty thou- 
 sand footmen, and killed Shophach 
 the captain of the host. 
 
 1 Chronicles 21 : 12, — 
 
 12. Either three years' fominc : 
 or three months to be destroyed be- 
 fore thy foes, while that the sword 
 of thine enemies overtaketh thee ; 
 or else three days the sword of the 
 Lord, even the pestilence, in the 
 land, and the angel of the Lord 
 destroying throughout all the coasts 
 of Israel. Now therefore advise 
 thyself what word I shall bring 
 again to him that sent me. 
 
 1 Chronicles 21 : 5, — 
 
 6. And Joab gave the sum of 
 
\k 
 
 n 
 
 111* mmiber of the people unto the the number of the people unto 
 Mug : aiifl there were in Israel David. And all they of Isniel were 
 eight hundrecl thousand viiliant men ft thousand thousand and an hun- 
 thiit drew the sword ; and the men dred thousand men that drew sword: 
 of Judah were ive hundred thou- and Judah was tour hundred thre©- 
 9md men. score and ten thousand men that 
 
 drew sword. 
 
 1 Chronicles 11 : 11,— 
 
 It. And this is the number of 
 mij^'hty men whom David had ; 
 Jashobeam an Ilachmonite, the 
 
 cliief of the captains ; lie lifted up 
 Ms spear against three hundred 
 slain % him at bne time. 
 
 2 Samuel 23 : 8, — 
 
 8. These be the names of the 
 mighty men whom David had : The 
 Tiichmonite that sat in the seat, 
 chief among the captains ; the same 
 was Adino the Eznite : he lijted up 
 his spiar against eight hundred, 
 whom he slew at one time. 
 
 It will be seen, by a close and critical view of the foregoing 
 contradictions, that no human skill can reconcile them. 
 
 Some maj say, they are not important. But I answer, will 
 God inspire men infallibly and miraculously to write unimpor- 
 tant things — and contradictions at that ? A single error con- 
 demns the Bible's infiillibility, and of course its divinity. And 
 besides, once admit a small mistake, and you open the door for 
 endless corruptions. 
 
 I make the following references to the promises and prophecies 
 of the Bible, said to have been made to Abraham and his seed, 
 that they should possess the land of Canaan forever, and bo 
 multiplied as the dust of the earth ; and, in opposition to these 
 promises, I set those passages which show conclusively the utter 
 failure of those promises and prophecies. They were not, and 
 never can be fulfilled. As a people, the Jews are not now, and 
 have not been for centuries, in possession of Canaan. " They are 
 swallowed up in the tide of nations." Jerusalem is in ruins. 
 The old ritual, which was to be eternal, is not the law of Pales- 
 tine; and no combination of circumstances can ever reinstate 
 this lonely, wandering people on the soil of the promised land. 
 Their own selfishness, which constitutes the very soul of their 
 religion,— - of the decalogue itself even, — is and will be their con- 
 
 73 
 
 stant evil genius, who, with black wing, croaks aloud o'er their 
 ruined altars and temples. Like a spirit of destruction has 
 It ever presided over the counsels of the Synagogue and the 
 oannedrim. 
 
 But to the contradictions : 
 
 PROMISES AND PKOPHECIES. 
 
 Genesis 12 : 7, 15, — 
 
 7. And the Lord appeared 
 unto Abram, and said, Unto thy 
 seed wiU I give this land: and 
 there builded he an altar unto the 
 LoED, who appeared unto him. 
 
 15. For all the land which thou 
 eeest, to thee will I give it, and to 
 thy seed forever. 
 
 Genesis 13 : 16, — 
 
 16. And I will make thy seed as 
 the dust of the earth : so that if a 
 man can number the dust of the 
 earth, then shall thy seed also be 
 numbered. 
 
 Genesis 13 : 17, 18, — 
 
 17. Arise, walk through the land 
 in the length of it and in the breadth 
 of it ; for I will give it unto thee. 
 
 18. Then Abram removed his 
 tent, and came and dwelt in the 
 plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, 
 and built there an altar unto the 
 
 LOBD. 
 
 Genesis 15 : 5, — 
 
 5. And he brought him forth 
 abroad, and said. Look now toward 
 heaven, and tell the stars, if thou 
 be able to number them : and he 
 said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 
 
 Genesis 17 : 8, — 
 
 8. And I will give unto thee, and 
 7 
 
 THEIR FAILUllE. 
 
 1 Kings 9 : 7, — 
 
 7. Then I will cut off Israel out 
 of the land which I have given 
 them ; and this house which I have 
 hallowed for my name, will I cast 
 out of my sight ; and Israel shall be 
 a proverb and a b^-word among all 
 people. 
 
 Ezekiel29: 15,— 
 
 15. It shall be the basest of the 
 kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt it- 
 self any more above the nations : 
 for I will diminish them, that they 
 shall no more rule over the nations. 
 
 2 Kings 17 : 20,— 
 
 20. And the Lord rejected all the 
 seed of Israel, and afflicted them, 
 and delivered them into the hand 
 of spoilers, until he had cast them 
 out of Ms sight. 
 
 2 Chronicles 29 : 9,— 
 
 9. For lo, our fathers have fallen 
 by the sword, and our sons and our 
 daughters and our wives are in 
 captivity for this. 
 
 Isaiah 18: 2,— 
 2. That sendeth ambassadors by 
 
74 
 
 "I V 
 
 to tlij eeed titer thm, tlie land 
 wliefdn thou art a stranger, all the 
 land of Canaan, for an everlaeting 
 fOflsession : and I will be their God. 
 4. As tor me, behold, my cove- 
 nant is with thee, and thou shalt 'be 
 a father of many nations. 
 
 Genesis 28 : 14, — 
 
 14. And thy seed shall be as the 
 
 dust of earth ; and tiiuu shalt spread 
 abroad to the west, and to the east, 
 and to the north, and to the south : 
 and in thee and in thy seed shall all 
 
 the fiimiMes of the earth be blessed. 
 
 sea, eren in Tessels of bulrushes 
 upon the waters, saying. Go, yo 
 swift messengers, to a nation scat- 
 tered and peeled, to a people terri- 
 ble ft'om their beginning hitherto : 
 a nation meted out and trodden 
 down, whose land the rivers have 
 spoiled ! 
 
 Isaiah 18 : 7, — 
 
 7. In that time shall the present 
 be brought unto the Lord of hosts 
 of a people scattered and peeled, 
 and from a people terrible from 
 their beginning hitherto ; a nation 
 meted out and trodden under toot, 
 whose liind tlie rivers have spoiled, 
 to the place of the name of the 
 LoBD of hosts, the mount Zion. 
 
 See, also, Deuteronomy 8: 7, and Jeremiah 18: 16; Deut. 
 11: 89, and Jere. 25 : 11 ; Deut. 11 : 23, and Ezekiel 12: 
 15; Deut. 11: 24, and Ezek. 12: 16; Joshua 1: 3, and 
 ikeL29: 12; Joshua 1 : 4, and Ezek. 29: 14; Jere. 33: 
 
 17, and Hosea 3 : 12. 
 
 There are mmj other passages to the same effect. 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII, 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT CONTRADICTIONS. 
 
 if AiTHiw and Luke contradict each other in giving the geneal- 
 ogy of Jesus. Compare Matthew 1 : 1-18, with Luke 3: 23-38. 
 
 Both agree that Jesus was descended from David on his fath- 
 er*s side. Matthew makes twenty-fi?e generations hetween Joseph 
 and David, while Luke makes forty generations ; and many names 
 — some thirty-eight — are mentioned by Luke, which are not 
 mentioned by Matthew at all. And both these genealogies con- 
 tofidicfc the corresponding genealogies in the Old Testament. 
 
 75 
 
 After both admit that Jesus was descended from David, natur- 
 ally, and give these contradictory genealogies to prove it, they 
 both affirm that he had no human father — that " Mary was with 
 child by the Holy Ghost," Still further: Matthew traces his 
 descent through the illustrious Solomon, and Luke traces it 
 through the obscure Nathan, the brother of Solomon. Now, 
 how could he be descended at once from both Solomon, and from 
 Solomon's brother Nathan? And, if he had no human father, 
 how was he descended from David at all? Are we to believe 
 such contradictory statements, such self-destructive and astound- 
 ing stories, on the testimony of two men, whom we know nothing 
 of, only from their own statements ? Are we to receive as true, 
 as the infallible word of God, such miserable historical blunders, 
 Buch contradictions of all organic laws, on the mere ipse dixit 
 of Scripture ? Would a virgin be believed to-day, who, when 
 found with child, should tell such a story as that here ascribed 
 to Mary ? Jesus never referred to it in his life. There is no 
 proof in the New Testament that he believed a word of it. Even 
 divine power cannot make both these stories true. Some may 
 say that Luke gives Mary's genealogy. But the fact is, that he 
 pretends to give the genealogy of. Joseph, and not of Mary at 
 all. Not a word does he say of Mary's genealogy. The Jews 
 never give the genealogy of women. 
 
 But there are other contradictions, which require attention 
 here. The accounts with regard to his death are contradictory. 
 (See Mark 15 : 25, and John 19 : 14.) Mark says, " And it 
 was the third hour (nme o'clock), and they crucified him ; " while 
 John gives us to understand that it was about the sixth hour 
 (twelve o'clock) when sentence was passed upon him, when he 
 was delivered up by Pilate. The one has him actually crucified 
 before the other gets him into the hands of the high priests. 
 Both stories cannot be true ; but both tnay be false, and one 
 certaifdy must be untnie. 
 
 Th£re are cmUradictory accounts of the visitors to Jesus' 
 sepulchre, and of the resurrection. Matthew begins by telling 
 us, Matthew 28 : 1,— 
 
76 
 
 tc 
 
 ^ 
 
 III 
 
 I'll III 
 
 Mm tlie ei«i of tie Sabbath, m it began to dawn toward the irst day 
 
 of the week, came Mary MagdaloE© and the other Mary to the sepulchre." 
 
 Mark, 16: 1, 2, tells us, — 
 
 *' 1. And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the 
 mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might 
 come and anoint him. 
 
 2. And very early in the morning, tlie first day of the week, they came 
 
 unto the aepuichi*e at the rising of the sun.'* 
 
 And John begiDS by telling ns, John 20 : 1,- 
 
 "The first day of tho week oometh Mary Magdalene, when it was yet 
 
 dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepul- 
 
 •lire." 
 
 While Luke tells m that the women which followed Jesus from 
 
 Galilee, and others, came. Luke 23 : 55, and also 24 : 1, — 
 
 •• Now upon the iirst day of the week, very early in the morning, they 
 came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, 
 
 and ee:rtain others with them." 
 
 Matthew sends two women, and John one, to the sepulchre. 
 Mark sends seYeral others. John finds Mary Magdalene at the 
 sepulchre while it is yet dark, and Mark finds Mary Magdalene 
 ud several others with her at the sepulchre, but not until sun- 
 rise. The contradictions thioken is the accounts proceed. Mat- 
 thew describes an earthquake, and (me ansel, who rolled away 
 the stone .nd spoWe to I two wo^en. JoL U totally oblivio^ 
 of the earthquake and the angel ; but describes Mary Magdalene 
 as seeing the stone taken away, and going after Peter and the 
 beloved disciple, and alone. Mark describes the woman as look- 
 ing into the sepulchre, and seeing one young man, clothed in 
 white, sitting on the right. Luke describes the several women 
 as coming to the sepulchre, and, finding the stone away, went 
 into the sepulchre ; but, when they saw not the body of Jesus, 
 they were perplexed, and all at once two men stood by them in 
 *• Aining garments.'* Matthew represents his one angel as send- 
 ing his two women, one of whom was Mary Magdalene, after, or 
 ntker to tell the disciples, and, as they went, as meeting Jesus 
 
 77 
 
 himself, as holding him by the feet, &c. John represents his 
 om woman ^ the same Mary Magdalene -- as seeing two angels 
 m the sepulchre; and, turning round, meets Jesus right at the 
 sepulchre, and, instead of being allowed to hold his feet, she is 
 forbidden to touch him. There are many more contradictions 
 and msurmountable objections in these accounts, on which it is 
 needless to dwell at present. No human skill can reconcile these 
 pomt-blank discrepancies. All these stories cannot be true. All 
 but one must be false ; for no two agree. My opinion is they 
 are all untrue. They all bear the unmistakable marks of forgery 
 We don't know who wrote them, as I have before shown. We 
 don't know when they were written. We only know this, they 
 contradict each other, and teach the doctrine of the resurrection 
 of a dead physical body, in total contradiction to the known laws 
 of organic existence, and in direct opposition to the experience 
 of the whole human race for thousands of years. I believe the 
 story to be a pure fabrication, and, when received as divine, full 
 of untold injury to the believer. 
 
 But there are insurmountable contradictions in the doctrines- 
 and teachings ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament. Now, 
 readers, don't misunderstand me. I believe there was a man, — 
 a glorious reformer, by the name of Jesus, — and I believe, too, 
 that he was a much better man than the New Testament makes 
 him out to be, and more consistent. But I don't believe he was 
 a God aiiy more than Pythagoras, or Socrates, or Confucius, 
 were Gods. I don't believe he was infallible. But more of this 
 hereafter. Now to the New Testament doctrinal contradictions. 
 Matthew 5 : 17, represents Jesus as saying to his disciples,— 
 
 " 17. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets ; I 
 am come not to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
 18. For verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or 
 one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." 
 
 While in the same chapter be is represented as annulling it, in 
 88 to 44, — 
 
 "43. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 l>or and hate thine enemy.'* 
 
 7* 
 
 >e < 
 
 I 
 
1 
 
 
 18 
 
 fliii quoting raaxims and sayiagB, which ire perfect cniboili- 
 iMite of th© old law, and aoinilling thein by cominaDdii>g jual 
 the opposite course of action. 
 
 In Matthew 16 : 6-13, Jesus if represented as telling his din- 
 •iples to beware of the doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees ; 
 while in Matthew 23 : 1-3, he is represented as conMimiiding 
 Ihein to observe and do whatsoever those same Scribes aud Pliiu- 
 isees bid them, and then immediately goes on to denounce the 
 Scribes and Pharisees in the bitterest terms imaginable, calling 
 them ^^kypocriies;' *»blind guides," "fools," *» whitcd sepnlcbreb;' 
 ** serpents;' "generation of vipers." Bid he wish his disciplca 
 to "o^wrwayKl (lb whatsoever" "hypocrites," "blind guides," 
 •* fools," "serpents/' and "vipers," should bid them? Was 
 tlesus iueh a fool m to wish such dictators for his disciples, sim- 
 |>ly because '* they sat in Moses' seal " ? 
 
 In Matthew 5th, he says,— 
 
 "44. But I »y unto you. Love your ememiea, blew them lbs*t cure© 
 
 you, do good to tliem tl»t hate you, and pray for them which iksiMtefully 
 use you, and po^reecmte you : 
 
 45. That you may be th© children ©f your Father wMch m in iK-aven ; 
 fcr he maketh his aim to rise on the e?il «ul on the good, and Mcndeth 
 min on the just and on the unjust.** 
 
 While in Luke 14 : 25, he is represented as saying to the mul- 
 titude which had assembled to hear him, — 
 
 "26. If any man oome to me, and l»to not his Cither, and mother, 
 and wife, and children, and brethreu, and siiters, yea, and hii own life 
 
 also, he cannot be my disciple." 
 
 But some will say this latter passage is not to be understood 
 literally; it don't mean that his disciples are actually to /mte 
 their nearest kindred. But, I answer, if it don't mean so, why 
 does it say so? And again, if this passage is not to be taken 
 literally, by what rule is the first one, in Matthew 5 : 44, to be 
 proved literal f 
 
 Bit another says —the last one — the command to hate one's 
 Iwt friends only means that they are to be loved less than 
 
 79 
 
 Jesus ; that they must be regarded as having less claim on our 
 affections than Jesus has. But I answer, this is making a new 
 Bible. If Jesus meant to be so understood, could he not have 
 said so as easily as any modern Christian ? But, suppose he did 
 mean so ; are we, therefore, to obey a command which thus bids 
 us love a stranger (no matter what his unsupported claims) more 
 than our "fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, ay, our own life"? 
 If Jesus were God, would he, could he, have thus violated one 
 of his own laws, inwrought in the very souls of his children, by 
 commanding them to do what is, and always must be, while the 
 holiest affections of humanity remain a part of itself, a perfect 
 impossibility? And, beside, admitting Jesus to be "God," has 
 he established such antagonistic relations between himself and 
 his creatures, that, to love him as God, we are to hate our most 
 sacred relations, or, if you please, to love them less? To love 
 God more is it necessary to love our nearest and dearest friends 
 less, or, still worse, to hate them ? The contradiction is palpa- 
 ble; all apologies are futile, are self-destructive. 
 
 There are many more contradictions in the New Testament. 
 Take the following as specimens. In Luke 2 : 14, angels are 
 represented as saying, in heralding the birth and mission of 
 Jesus, " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will 
 to men." While in Luke 12 : 51, Jesus himself is represented 
 as saying, — 
 
 61. Suppose ye that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you nav • 
 but rather division." "^ ' 
 
 See, also, Matthew 10 : 34. If Jesus told the truth here, 
 tlie angels sang a most delusive strain. Perhaps they did not 
 understand his character and mission. If they did, then tliey 
 were deceivers and hypocrites. If they did not understand it, 
 they ought not to have sung at all. But some may say, he only 
 meant that division would come as a consequence of the wick- 
 edness of the world arrayed in opposition to his teachings. 
 But such an idea is precluded by a passage in Matthew 10 : 
 34, — 
 
 : )i 
 
 Jl 
 
oU 
 
 81 
 
 «« U. Thmk not that I am come to send peace on eartli ; I came not to 
 
 wnd peace, but a sword. 
 
 85. For I am come to set a man at variance against his fotlier, and the 
 daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother- 
 in-law." 
 
 Here he represents himself as coming on purpose to create 
 discord — to break up families. This he declares positively. 
 It is the object of his mission, as set forth in this passage. The 
 word " sword ** is a type of war. Does God descend on earth 
 to carry war into the nations? Can Dirinity find nothing better 
 to do ? Nothing more worthy infinite power, love, and wisdom ? 
 JDon't forget that he declares, " I came mt to send peace, but a 
 sword." He negatives all idea of a mission of peace. Nega- 
 tively, he does not come to calm the troubled souls and jarring 
 elements of ''Home, Sweet Home;'* he does not come to quiet 
 the domestic circle, to breathe the beautiful spirit of harmony 
 into the family or the nations ; but, positively, he comes to do 
 just the reverse of all this — to set them "at variance." If 
 such was Jesus' mission, the Christian church has perfectly ac- 
 coniplished it. It has been entirely and always true to the 
 declared mission of its assumed founder. It has been a mon- 
 strous fountain of lies, of superstition, of tyranny, of war, of 
 blood, of persecution, of corruption, of crime, and of social, na- 
 tional, and religious desolation. The squares of populous cities 
 — **of Antioch, of Byzantium, of Jerusalem, of Damascus, of 
 Kome, the plains of the Low Countries," and tijc " Holy Inquisi- 
 tion," with ita rack, dungeons, and gibbets, all bathed and black- 
 ened in the blood of ita slauchtered millions — victims to its 
 entire and triumphant success, in the fulElnient of its mission. 
 
 Matthew tells us that Judas repented, when he saw that Jesus 
 was condemned, and brought the pieces of silver and threw them 
 fti the feet of the chief priests, '* and went and hanged him- 
 self;" and that the priests took those pieces of silver and 
 •• bought the Potter's Field." But the writer of Acts tells us 
 that Judas purchased a field "with the reward of iniquity," — 
 iiom same pieces of silver, — " and, falling headlong, burst open 
 
 in the midst, and his bowels gushed out." Now, if Judas, as 
 Matthew says, threw that silver down at the chief priests' feet, 
 and if those priests took up that silver and bought the Potter's 
 Field, Judas certainly did not purchase the field, as Acts tells us. 
 How could he buy it after he had "hanged himself"? But, 
 again : If Judas "hanged himself," as Matthew says, he could 
 not have come to his death by "falling headlong and' bursting 
 asunder in the midst,'' in a field which he purchased after he had 
 hanged himself, as Acts tells us. I was once told, in reply to 
 this point, by a priest, that Judas probably hanged himself, and 
 the rope broke, and so he fell and burst. But it is quite strange 
 how a man, hanging by the neck, could " fall headlong." He 
 would be quite likely to fall feet " long." And, beside, if this 
 supposition were legitimate, so far as it goes, it does not touch 
 half the story. If Judas bought the field, the chief priests did 
 not ; and vice versa. But there is another grand difficulty in 
 this story. Matthew tells us that the buying of the potter's 
 field by the chief priests was the fulfilment of a prophecy ut- 
 tered by Jeremiah or " Jeremy," and then pretends to quote the 
 prophecy as follows, — 
 
 " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, 
 saying. And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that 
 was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value ; 
 
 And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me." 
 
 Now, reader, there is not such a passage anywhere in " Jere- 
 my," or in any other of the prophets, or any other book of the 
 Old Testament. This pretended " prophecy " is evidently forged 
 by the writer of Matthew to suit the occasion. Jews and Chris- 
 tians were once — in the first century and onward — in the 
 habit of ''lyi/ig for tke i7Uerest of religion,'' and considered it, 
 as I have before shown, as commendable so to do. 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 lllL 
 
h 
 
 11 1 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIBLE SANCTIONS POLITICAL DESPOTISM, 
 
 In llomans IS : 1-2, we find the following passage : 
 
 *• Of subjection io magidraies. 
 
 •'1. Let every soul l>e subject unto tlie higher powers. For there is no 
 
 power but of God ; the powers that be are onlaiued of God. 
 
 2. Wiiosoever therefore resiateth the power, resisteth the ordinance of 
 God ; and tliej that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." 
 
 This chapter begins with a command to every soul to be in 
 Biibjeetion to rulers. And see the reason given — negatively, 
 *' For there is no power but of God ; " and positively, *' All powers 
 are ordained of God." Here is a monstrous lie, given as a reason 
 why every soul should be " subject to the powers that be." Reader, 
 do you believe that God " ordained" the government of Kussia, 
 or the laws and magistrates of Rome? Bo you believe that the 
 ehive codes of ancient Rome, and of the modern " Barbary States " 
 of America, are *• ordained of God ** ? If such " powers as be '* 
 to-day can come of God or good, in the name of common sense, 
 what can come from the devil or evil? Do you believe that for 
 disobeying the requisitions of the fugitive-slave code, you will be 
 daiinied? That code was ordained by the "powers that be;" 
 has it, therefore, the sanction of God? The Bible says it has. 
 Washington and his glorious compatriots actively resisted the 
 powers of the British government. Are they damned ? If the 
 Bible be true they are. Washington's noble brow, once illumin- 
 ated with the living flame of freedom, is now dinmied with the 
 Bmoke of the pit, and across its once radiant front, now charred 
 and cindered with the fires of hell, is written in letters of eternal 
 ire, •* I resisted the poivers that he, and I am damned^' while 
 George the Thir<l, safely clutching at the revenue derived from 
 the " stamp act," is folded in the bosom of Abraham. But this 
 chapter goes on : 
 
 ** 3. For rulew are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt 
 
 83 
 
 thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou 
 Bhalt have praise of the same." 
 
 Are not our rulers a terror to good works? Are they not a 
 terror to those who would harbor, and feed, and clothe a poor 
 hunted fugitive slave, flying from the house of bondage to a land 
 of liberty ? You know they are. Are not the rulers of Russia 
 a terror to the good works of the poor, oppressed subjects, strug- 
 gling for freedom? Are not the rulers of England a terror to 
 the good works of her mechanics, her ill-fed, ill-clothed and illy- 
 educated operatives, and to her starving Irish, crying for bread ? 
 Is there a nation whose rulers are not and have not always been 
 a terror to good works, to a greater or less extent ? There is 
 not. All human history proves there is not. Do men get 
 praise by their rulers for good works? They do not. They 
 often get imprisoned for them. Again, in 1 Peter 2 : 13, we are 
 told: 
 
 " 13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake : 
 whether it be to the king, as supreme.'* 
 
 Some may say that Paul, in these passages, only meant that 
 good "powers that be" — righteous rulers, are ordained of God. 
 But this latter passage destroys such a supposition. And, be- 
 side, if Paul meant righteous " powers," why did he not say so ? 
 Whydidhesay, "The powers that be are ordained of God"? Paul 
 lived in an age when the government of Rome sanctioned, 
 established, upheld and propagated, the most crushing system of 
 slavery the sun ever shone upon ; and that, too, when Nero sat 
 upon the imperial throne, as chief ruler. And yet, not a word 
 does Paul say, either against slavery or the slave oligarchy of 
 his time; not a lisp against these unjust rulers; but, in the face 
 of imperial tyranny, surrounded by crushed and bleeding slaves, 
 whose groans loaded every breeze, made so by the " powers that 
 be," he, in a voice Of divine authority, declares, "The powers 
 that be are ordained of God;" and then threatens with damna- 
 tion all who resist those powers, commanding men " to submit to 
 
 k 
 
 HI 
 
i 
 
 84 
 
 merf mriinafice of man, for the Lord's sake:* If this is not 
 sanctioning political despotism, nothing can sanction it. We 
 know that governments are equally in the habit of oppressing 
 the weak, of plundering the poor, and of kidnapping men, women 
 and childreo ; and yet the Bible says, " Do good, and thou shalt 
 hme praise ©f the same," More damning doctrines never found 
 iitteranc© in any language, or in any book on earth. This 13th 
 chapter has for eighteen hundred years been a refuge of lies for 
 tyrants and oppressors, 
 
 7. The Bibk samtimis slavery — the chattelizing of human 
 beings, soul and body. It represents God, through Noah, as 
 €iirsing the posterity of Ham — dooming one-third of the human 
 race to servitude. See Gen. 9 : 25, — 
 
 [ r' 
 
 111' 
 
 ' i 
 
 
 « And he saicl. Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be 
 unto Ms brethren." 
 
 You can see how this curse was sanctioned, perpetuated and 
 carried out on the Canaanites — the descendants of Ham's son, 
 Canaan, by turning to the 25th chapter of Leviticus, — 
 
 cc 
 
 M 
 
 39. And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be 
 sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant : 
 
 40. But m hired servant, and m a sojourner he shall be with thee, and 
 
 sliall serve thee unto the year of jubilee' : 
 
 41. And then he shall depart from thee, both he and his children with 
 hini, and shall i-eturn unto his own family, and unto the possession of his 
 fathers shall he return. 
 
 42. For they are my servants which I brought forth out of the land of 
 Egypt ; they shall not be sold as bond-men, 
 
 43. Thou shalt not rale over him with rigor, but shalt fear thy 
 God. 
 
 44. Both thy bond-men and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt have, 
 shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; of them shall ye buy 
 bond-men and bond-uiaiils. 
 
 45. Moreover of the children of tlie strangers that do sojourn among 
 you ; of them shall ye buy, and of their families th;it are with you, which 
 they begat in your land ; and they shall be your possession. 
 
 46. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after yoU| 
 t© inherit them for a possession ; they shall be your bond-men forever : 
 
 85 
 
 but over your brethren, the cMldren of Israel, ye shaU not rule one over 
 another with rigor." 
 
 Here is perpetual slavery for a portion of the human race. It 
 is sometimes said that this servitude is only voluntary. Suppose 
 it was. Had persons any right to sell themselves as slaves for 
 life ? If not, how much less to sell their unborn posterity " for- 
 ever," into hopeless, irremediable bondage ! But the language 
 of the passage plainly indicates the bondage to be involuntary on 
 the part of the bound, — " of them shall ye buy," " to inherit them 
 for a possession," &c. The slavery, therefore, was involuntary, 
 being hereditary and perpetual. None but Hebrew servants — 
 " hired servants " — went free at the jubilee. The " bond-men 
 and inrnd-maids" remained in bondage '* forever." The distinc- 
 tion here made between Hebrew servants and bond-men and 
 bond-women is clear and unequivocal ; but the right of the 
 master over the body — the person of his slave — over his life, 
 is clearly expressed in the following passage. Exodus 21 : 20, 21, 
 
 " 20. And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he 
 die under his hand ; he shall be surely punished. 
 
 21. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punish- 
 ed ; for he is his money.'* 
 
 Simply because his slave was his money, the monster might 
 whip him to death, only provided he whipped him to a two or 
 three days' death — a sort of living, tormenting death. Yet the 
 Bible sanctions it. I say, away with the authority of a book 
 which thus give countenance to such crimes. But the New 
 Testament sanctions slavery. In five passages, at least, the 
 relation of a slave to his master, as one who ought to " obey " 
 that master, is recognized. Take the following as proof: Ephe- 
 sians 6 : 5, — 
 
 ** 5. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to 
 the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto 
 Christ." 
 
 Also Colossians 3 : 22, — 
 
 «« 22. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh ; 
 
 8 
 
 til. 
 
 t 
 
 MMMMlMimiMII^I 
 
86 
 
 not witli ej€-aerTice, as men pleasera ; but in singleness of heart, fearing 
 
 God." 
 
 M 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 « 
 
 In these passages the relation of master and slave is unequiYO- 
 callj and clearly recognized by Paul. The word *' master " hero 
 is from the Greek word " despotes," signifying absolute despot. 
 The servant is absolute subject — slave. And we know that 
 Paul was addressing himself to a class of the most abject slaves, — 
 lioman slaves, — thaii which none were ever more abject. All 
 around Jesus and his disciples triumphed this horrid system of 
 lioman slavery. Yet not a word does the New Testament re- 
 cord which any of them ©ver uttered against it as a wrong — as 
 a sin. On the contrary, Paul, in five or six successive epistles, 
 recognized the relation between a slave and his master as a just 
 relation, by commanding slaves to " obey their masters " — to obey 
 their masters ** in all things*'— "to be subject to their masters 
 with all fear," •* not only to the good and gentle, but, also, to 
 the froward." He tells them to obey even bad musters. And 
 we all know what horrid commands masters often give to their 
 slaves. In one place Paul commands slaves to honor their 
 master with " all honor," " lest the name of God and his doctrine 
 should be blasphemed." It is blasphemous, then, for a slave to 
 refuse to " count his master worthy of all honor." Is not a 
 slave, by such teaching, made still more degraded ? Ask — com- 
 mand a female slave to count her master, who is prostituting her 
 body and soul to his own passions, " to cmint him worthy of all 
 kofmr,'' when he has destroyed her womanhood, crushed her 
 spirit, and robbed her of all a woman holds most sacred ! 
 
 There is no command which a master can give to his slave, 
 but Paul comniiinds slaves to obey, and that, too, in spirit us 
 well as fact. He would subject the soul of a slave to the same 
 kind of servitude — bondage — as his body is already under. 
 This is horrid. It is infidel to God, who made man free. It is 
 destructive of all the interests of humanity — of its social, its 
 moral, and its spiritual destiny. I brand these teachings of Paul 
 thus, and hold him accountable at the bar of Universal Justice, 
 
 87 
 
 for this detestable teaching. Can it be that Paul did not know 
 that slavery was wrong ? If he did not, he was entirely unfit to 
 teach even the North American Indians. If he did know it to 
 be wrong then he was a consummate hypocrite, or a paltry time- 
 server ; for .f slaves should follow his teaching slavery would be 
 etc nal. It is sometimes said that Jesus and his disciples con- 
 tented themselves with teaching doctrines which would slowly 
 • undermine slavery, instead of denouncing it in form and word 
 But this IS not the fact ; for here, in these passages above quoted, 
 slavery is explicitly recognized, and the relation of a slave to his 
 master set forth as a relationof subjection -of obedience, on the 
 part of the slave, and authority to demand and compel such sub- 
 jection and obedience on the part of the master. Nothing can 
 be plumer And, besides, just look at the idea advanced. Jesus 
 and his d.sciples and apostles openly countenancing slavery -^ 
 openly recognizing the relation ofmaster and slave,-and covertly 
 disseminating principles which would ultimately undermine it ' 
 Expediency. The Infaimie, Incarnale God (as Christ is re^ 
 garded by the church) practising the doctrine of expediency ' It 
 18 also said that Christianity did abolish slavery in the Eoman 
 ^.mp.n^ in the reigns of the Antonies, during the second century. 
 i^ut this IS not true. Slavery was not abolished in the Eoman 
 Empire at all in the second century, nor even partially until the 
 thirteenth century. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol i 
 page 2o.) And now, to-day, in Aimvh^, — most Christian 
 country, dotted all over with churches called Christian, — three 
 millions and a half of slaves load the air with their groans 
 while from thousands of pulpits is whined out. like Paul " Ser- 
 vants, obey your masters." - Obey in all things your masters » 
 8. The Bible favors Conjugal Despotism, and, bij so doing, 
 degrades woman. 
 
 The Bible makes the husband lord and master, and the wife 
 subject and slave. It gives the husband unlimited power to rule 
 over the wife, and commands the wife to obey her husband. It 
 represents God as saying to woman. Gen. 3 : 16,— 
 
 •• And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and U shall rule over thee» 
 
 i I 
 
 II 
 
88 
 
 mi 
 
 § 
 
 Agaio, ie 1 Corintliiaiis 11 : 3, 8, 9, — 
 
 «« a For the man ia not of the woman, but the woman of the man. 
 a Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the 
 
 I BH i.li- 
 
 fi' 
 
 In tbis first passage the husband is made the ruler. In the 
 eecond we are told a monstrous lie, namely, that the man was not 
 created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Nature says, 
 man and woman were created for each other. But Paul followed 
 the old Geoesaical fable of creation. He had a low estimate 
 of woman, and of the sacred state of marriage, as is perfectly 
 evident from a passage in one of his epistles, where he says : " It 
 is better to marry than to burn." His only idea of marriage 
 here seems to have been that it is merely a convenience for the 
 gratification of the animal passions, — the lowest possible object 
 of marriage. No wonder, then, that he should talk so much 
 mbout the subjection of woman, while he regards them as mere 
 appendages to man, machines of passions of the grossest order. 
 fhis idem of PauFs is still further illustrated by the following 
 passages. Bphesians 5 : 22-25, — 
 
 " 21 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the 
 
 Iiord.. 
 
 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head 
 0f the church ; and ho is the savior of the body. 
 
 24. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be 
 ta flMir own husbands in everything. 
 
 25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, 
 •ad gave himself for it** 
 
 It will be i©en that the subjection of the woman to the man here 
 commanded is perfect and entire, " as unto the Lord" It is 
 true that he tells husbands to **love their wives;" but he gives 
 the wife no guaranty that her husband will love her, while he 
 does give the husband entire mastery over his wife. If he had 
 made the subjection of the wife contingent upon the love of the 
 husband, it would have taken off some of the curse ; but even 
 then subjection would be tyranny. Love knows no subjection, 
 
 89 
 
 but exaltation of its object. What and whom we truly love, we 
 exalt, we worship, we cherish. If a husband loved his wife he 
 would scorn the idea of subjecting her, and of her submission. 
 Submission is the counterpart of oppression. Paul knew nothing 
 of pure conjugal love, at least of its high and holy nature and 
 power. 1 Timothy 2 : 11-14,— 
 
 "11. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 
 
 12. But I suflFer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the 
 man, but to be in silence. 
 
 13. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 
 
 14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in 
 the transgi'-ession. 
 
 15. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they con- 
 tinue in fiiith, and charity, and holmes, and sobriety." 
 
 This is one of the most tyrannical, the most unnatural, the 
 most degrading passages, in respect to women, to be found in the 
 whole Bible. "Silence, with all subjection," is the state in 
 which woman must abjectly learn. Her noble gift of speech 
 must not be used. Her superior natural aptitude for instructing 
 and unfolding her own and her children's souls is here forbidden. 
 And the reason given for this abject degradation and submission 
 of woman is, " that Adam was first formed, then Eve." As 
 good a reason could be given for Adam's submission to asses, 
 "yor tke^ ivere first formed, then Adam^ And then Paul 
 goes on loading women with the crimes of the world — as the 
 mother of sin. It is horrid to contemplate the degradation to 
 Which such teaching, if obeyed, as it often is in Christendom, 
 will and does subject woman — man's only earthly guardian 
 angel. But take another from Paul. It is a climax. Here it 
 is from iha third chapter of first Peter : " Likewise, ye wives, be 
 in subjection to your own husbands ;" and then, after referring to 
 some minor points continues, — * 
 
 ff<. 
 
 '5. For after this manner in the olden time the holy women also, who 
 trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own 
 husbands: 
 
 8* 
 
 ,J;j 
 ..iil 
 
m 
 
 6. Eten m Bunk ohsyvd Abraham, calling him lord : whose daughters 
 yi» are, m long an je do well, and are not afraid with any amaiement." 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ill 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 •* Being in subjection tn their own husbands, even as Sarah 
 obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." Let me ask how Sarah 
 obeyed her lord. Turn to Oen. 12. When Abraham was 
 going down to Egypt, with Sarah, he feared the Egyptians would 
 fall in love with his wife, because she was a "fair woman to 
 look upon," and kill him to get her ; he told her to lie, by saying 
 ehe was his sister; and she did so. Now, of every woman who 
 reads this book, let me ask, are you anxious to become the 
 daughters of lying Sarah, who lied in obedience to her lying and 
 cowardly husband ? Are you willing to become the mere tools 
 of your husbands, as is commanded in those passages above 
 quoted ? Are you willing to part with the use of your God- 
 bestowed instincts of self-sovereignty, with your glorious and 
 eloquent gifts of speech, at the audacious beck of Paul 7 If so, 
 I pity you. Can such teachings as these ever elevate woman to 
 her true sphere? Never. They are to-day crushing out the 
 pure instincts and angel natures of thousands, even in our own 
 country. 
 
 9. Tke BiMe sa?tcthm Pdygamy and CmwuMrmge^ or the 
 practice of having many wives and mistresses in addition. Abra- 
 liam had a wife, and at the same time had children by a female 
 slave. And the Bible nowhere condemns him for it, but, on the 
 contrary declares,^ — 
 
 •* 6. Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my 
 commandments, mj statutes, and my laws." 
 
 (See Gen. 26.) Jacob had two wives, whom he purchased, and 
 at the same time he had children by two female slaves; and yet 
 is not condemned, but is called the father of the faithful. 
 
 Solomon had «et?c7i kuTtdred wives and three hundred concu- 
 bines; and yet he is declared in the Bible to be the wisest man 
 that ever did, or ever should live. 
 
 91 
 
 In 2 Samuel 12 : 8, God is represented as saying to David 
 through Nathan, — 
 
 " 8. And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into 
 thy bosom, and gave thee the house Israel andof Judah : and if that had 
 been too little, I would, moreover, have given unto thee such and such 
 things." 
 
 David had previously bought a wife of Saul — his daughter, 
 
 Michal — and paid for her with four hundred foreskins of the 
 
 Philistines. And then God is represented, in the above passage, 
 
 as giving David all his father-in-law's, Saul's wives " into his 
 
 bosom." But David was not content with this; he seduced the 
 
 wife of a living man, and Nathan reproves him for this, but not 
 
 for having many wives. Indeed, this passage makes God the 
 
 panderer to David's passions. And then we are told, in 1 Kings 
 lo,— — 
 
 « 5. Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, 
 and turned not aside from anything that he commanded Mm all the days 
 of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite." 
 
 But it is sometimes said, in answer to this charge of polygamy 
 against the Bible, that Jesus discountenanced and abolished it, 
 in Matthew. But Jesus nowhere in the New Testament speaks 
 of polygamy at all, but only of divorce. And woman is still 
 further degraded by being reduced to the condition of a chattel. 
 She was bought, in Scripture times, by God's chosen people. 
 Marriage was held up as a bargain and sale. 
 
 See Gen. 34: 12; 29: 15-17; 1 Sam. 18: 25-27; also, 
 Hosea 3:2; Deut. 21 : 10-14. 
 
 I' 
 
 1' I 
 
|i^ 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 i 
 
 nil! 
 
 ill!:) .J 
 
 fHB BIBLE TEACHES FALSE AND DANGEROUS DOCTRINES ON 
 MORALS, TUEOLOGY AND BELIOION ; AND ON YAIIIOUS OTHER 
 SUBJECTS. 
 
 It gives us bad and dangerous teachiDss on the relations 
 of parents and cbildien. In Deut. 21, — 
 
 •• 18. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not 
 ohej the voice of his fither, or the voice of his mother, and that, when 
 they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them : 
 
 19. Then shall his father and his motlier lay hold on him, and bring 
 Hm out unto the elders of his city, and unto tlic gat« of his place ; 
 
 20. And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is 
 Btublsom and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and 
 a drunkard. 
 
 21. And all tlie men of his city sliall stone him with stones, that he 
 die; so shalt thou put evil away from aniong you, and all IsvMtl shall 
 Iiear and ;fear.''' 
 
 This is a command to parents to stone their stubborn and 
 rebellious children to death. Parents, is it right ? Was it 
 ever riglit to murder children because thej are stubborn and 
 rebellious ? If it was right in the days of Moses, is it not right 
 to-day, and forever ? Truth and falsehood, right and wrong, are 
 eternal distinctioiiSy which no temporary expedient can set aside. 
 There is no intelligent parent who can for one moment sanction 
 the principle involved in this passage. None but a savage will 
 rnj it is just. There is a bitter malignity in it, worthy only of 
 a demon. The Bible also sanctions the punishment of children 
 for the crimes of their parents, as in the case of Achan, already 
 referred to. In other passages, also, the Bible gives parents the 
 power of life and death over their children. (In Gen. 21 : 14, 
 27 : 29, and, also, Exodus 21 : 15-17 ; Lev. 20 : 9.) The 
 Bible sanctions the law of primogeniture. God is said to give 
 
 93 
 
 to the first-born a double portion of the estate. The first-born, 
 also, was a priest of the whole family, and ruled the younger 
 children by virtue of having been the first born. 
 
 The Bible contains horrible laws, and is awfully profane in 
 its threats of capital punishment. Bead the twenty-second 
 chapter of ]>euteronoray, also the twentieth chapter of Leviti- 
 cus ; and, in truth, you can scarcely go amiss of these horrible 
 laws anywhere in the Old Testament. The Bible contains bad 
 morals in its teachings on the subject of usury. See Deut. 22,— 
 
 "19. Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, 
 usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury : 
 
 20. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend money upon usury, but unto 
 thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury; that the Lord thy God may 
 bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whether thou 
 goest to possess it" 
 
 The Jews might take usury of strangers, but not of each 
 other. This is fine morality, indeed ! Of the same piece are the 
 Bible teachings on thje subject of bad meat, before referred to. 
 Some of the worst teachings on the subject of morals may be 
 found in its sanction of the vices and crimes of the old patri- 
 archs. Take the history of Jacob and Esau, found in Gene- 
 sis, beginning art the twenty-fifth chapter. The first instance is 
 in the case of the pottage, which has passed into a proverb. In 
 this case, who cannot see that Esau was much less blamable 
 than Jacob ? Esau was tired, and hungry, and faint ; and Jacob 
 takes advantage of his faintness in order to swindle him out of 
 his birthright. Esau asks his brother Jacob to give him some 
 pottage, for, said he, « I am faint." And Jacob, Jew-like, is in 
 lor a bargain, and says, " Sell me this day thy birthright." 
 Instead of dealing in the true spirit of a brother with Esau, 
 and as all true brothers would, by cheerfully giving him to eat, 
 he, well knowing that a starving man would give his all for 
 something to eat, thus robs his own brother of his birthright. 
 It is a specimen of robbery the more detestable because prac- 
 tised upon a brother. None but a covetous gambler could have 
 
 I 
 
 ll 
 
94 
 
 uttered that foul and hiohI unnatural request: "sell me this bay 
 THY BiKTiiiiiuHT." The miim spirit of robbery soon afterward 
 again nianifested itself in Jacob, by both lying und steuling. 
 Isaac sends Esau to the field for venison to make savory meat 
 of, promising to bless him for so doing. But Jacob's mother 
 overheare Isaac, and calls Jacob, tells him all, and then invents 
 a scheme to lie, and steal away Esau's blessing. Jacob yields to 
 her solicitations ; she kills two kids, makes savory meat, clothes 
 Jacob in hair, lest his father should find him out, and sends hiui, 
 with a foul lie in his teeth, to cheat his poor blind father, and to 
 steal Esau's blessing. The scheme is successful, Isaac is de- 
 ceived, and Esau is robbed a second time. But the history of 
 Jacob's remarkable piety does not end here. We find him, after 
 a time, swindling his father-in-law, Labau, out of all his best 
 sheep and cattle, through his ring-streaked and speckled rod 
 policy; which, accordi.ig to Gen. 31 : 9, was God's own work all 
 of it. Not a word does the Bible utter against the robberies of 
 Jacob, but, through the whole of it, God is represented as stand- 
 ing at Jacob's back and blessing him. Is not this teaching bad 
 morals? Are not such morals false and dangerous? But it 
 may be said that Laban was perfidious with Jacob ; that he de- 
 ceived Jacob. Suppose he did. Is that any reason Jacob should 
 swindle Laban ? Can two wrongs create one right? Are men 
 thus to practise perfidy for perfidy, swindling for swiudling, and 
 robbery for robbery? But Jacob's treatment of Esau'' was, 
 according to the story itself, totally unprovoked by Esau; so 
 that no palliation, on the ground of retaliation, is at all 
 admissible. 
 
 But, again, the Bible teaches false and dangerous doctrines 
 on the subject of providential or foreiooking labor. Jesus is 
 represented, in Matthew, as forbidding his disciples to take any 
 thought for the morrow. See Matthew 6 : 24-34. He says,— 
 
 «« 24. No man can serve two maeters : for cither he will hate the one 
 and loTc tlie other; or els© he will hold to the one and despise the other. 
 
 ¥ott cmuiot aervi God, and mammon. 
 
 5I& 
 
 25. Therefore I say unto you. Take no thought for your life, what ye 
 shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall 
 put on. Is not the lite more than meat, aud the body than raiment ? 
 
 26. Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, 
 nor gather into baius; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye 
 not much better than they 7 
 
 27. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his 
 stature ? 
 
 28. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the 
 field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; 
 
 2'J. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was 
 not arrayed like one of these. 
 
 30. Wlierelbre, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, 
 and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, 
 ye of little faith? 
 
 31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or What 
 shall we drink? or Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 
 
 32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your heavenly 
 Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 
 
 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and 
 all these things sliall be added unto you. 
 
 84. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall 
 teke thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
 thereof." 
 
 Now, reader, what do you understand by this passage ? Does 
 it mean what it says, or does it mean something else ? It says, 
 " Take no thought what ye shall eat, or drink, or wear." Now. 
 does it mean m thought ? If it don't mean so, why does it say 
 so ? And if it does not mean so, how are we to ascertain what 
 it does mean? Some may say, Jesus only meant anxious 
 thought; he only meant that we should not be over-a?ixims 
 about temporal things. If he meant this, why did he not s?y 
 this? Could he not have said, take no over-anxious tlmight, as 
 easily as he said what is written in the passage, and thus leave 
 his meaning plain, so plain that it should need no interpretation, 
 or supposititious explanations? But the intent and meaning of 
 the passage is found in itself. It says, " take no thought," &c., 
 and then points to the birds, who neither •' sow nor gather into 
 barns," and the lilies of the field, which « toil not, neither spin," 
 
96 
 
 as examples to be followed ; and adds to the example of the 
 birds, " yet your heavenly Father feedeth them ; are ye not 
 much better than they?" And then asks the question, "Which 
 of you by taking thou-^'ht can add one cubit unto his stature? " 
 
 Aa if it were as impossible to succeed in providential or fore- 
 lookiig labor, as it would be to add twenty-two inches to a per- 
 Bon's Iieighfc simply by a thought. The thought and comparison 
 mre supremely ludicrous. What husbandman but would laugh at 
 such a doctrine, and especially at the ridiculous parallel introduced 
 to enforce it, if he should find it for the first time in the Ohio 
 Cultivator or the Genesee Farmer ? And, still further, the passage 
 attenpta to enforce the doctrine, by attempting to reduce intelli- 
 gent, human, voluntary, reafeoning beings to the level of vege- 
 tables, in all respects relating to care for our bodies, and their 
 clothes. The idea is just this : We must take no thought or 
 care about what we shall put on, because God clothes the lilies 
 ('•which take no thought") in beautiful garments, on the ground 
 that we are better than they ; and if God takes so much care of 
 them, will he not clothe us? Undoubtedly God, or rather 
 Nature, would clothe us, if we did not clothe ourselves, and 
 in garments like those of the root-diggers of Central America, 
 or of the cannibals ^m hair. Beautiful garments for civilized 
 people, truly ! Thus the examples quoted prove conclusively that 
 Jesus meant " no thought." But will any sane mind follow 
 such teachings ? If followed, it would soon reduce tho world to 
 barbarism. Suppose farmers should follow it, how long before 
 the most advanced nations would become extinct, or at least 
 become mere savages and banditti ? They would soon starve to 
 death, for uncultivated Nature could not furnish them with food 
 sufficient for their sustenance. All science, philosophy, art, and 
 commeree, would be extinguished forever. 
 
 The Bible teaches false and dangerous doctrine on the subject 
 of intemperance. It holds up men guilty of drunkenness as 
 God's especial favorites. For proof of this, read the stories of 
 Noah and Lot. Noah became so drunk that he did not know 
 whether he was clothed or naked ; and Lot became so drunk that 
 
 97 
 
 more. A poor, heavy-hea. ted man is not likelv to for J/ k 
 povertj. in drinking until he gets ^u^. S^Z^ ,^^1^1 
 
 ert''tY'^J!'P' ^'" "" '""finable curses on the person, and 
 even on the chUdren and wife, of some one whom he fancTe has 
 injured h.m. The one hundred and ninth Psalm is » l.T ! 
 si^eimen of David's dead., revengeful s^tararit-"" 
 
 hali ^' ""■" " "'"^"^ ""^ °™^ '^^ •««» '«t Satan stand at his right 
 
 Jo JsL" '' *"" '^ •""'^^' '^* "^ "^ "-<•«--''»; -1 let his prayer 
 8. Let his days bo few; and let another take Ms office. 
 
 11. Let the extortioner oatcli all thif li*. i.«fi,. i i ^ xi 
 spoil Ms labor. ^' ^^*^' ^^^ ^«* **»« strangers 
 
 41 wiu L:rohX: -^^^-^ --^ '"-' -'*••- '^* «-- ^ 
 
 Iet"ot^relin '^f'' f,'^!'^'*'"'" "^ remembered with tho Lord; and 
 lec not the sm of his mother be blotted out. 
 
 15. Let them be before the Lord contini,nii„ « .* v 
 memo.7 of them from the earth. """*"""'"y' «'"* "o "«? «<•* «« the 
 
 10. Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but nersec„t«l 
 the poor and needy man. that he might even aby the b™k«l i^C^!?" 
 
 David eomplains, in the outset, of his enemies, recounts his 
 wrongs by them and offers up this petition to his God. The 
 spmt confamed ,n this prayer is worthy of a demon. 
 
 Ihe consequences of such teachings are too obvious to need 
 fiirther comment. x\o human inge.mity can make this passa-^ 
 teach any other doctrine than this. Such fanaticisms were com- 
 
 «7 
 
Ho 
 
 inon in tlie days of Jeais. Jesus himself belonged to a sect— 
 the Essenes — one class of which were the Therapeute, who 
 taught such doctrines, and who were in the habit of shutting 
 themselTes up in caves apart Irom the rest of mankind, in 
 order to carry out these unnatural doctrines. 
 
 Again, the Bible teaches a false and dangerous doctrine when 
 it teaches the doctrine of forgiveness for sin; and especially 
 when it teaches the doctrine of forgiveness for sin through the 
 vicarious atonement of Jesus. That it does sanction and teach 
 the doctrine of vicarious atonement I have before proved, and 
 of salvation from sin's effecte through that atonement. I now, 
 therefore, proceed to examine more in detail this idea of forgive- 
 ness for sin. 
 
 First; the doctrine of vicarious atonement is a violation 
 and subversion of the foundations of Infinite Justice, Love and 
 Wisdom. It is destructive of the most essential elements and 
 attributes of Divinity. It makes all divine law only foolish 
 caprice, and distorts the radiant attributes of divine justice and 
 love into the gross passion of revenge. 
 
 Let us examine this subject closely and critically. I have 
 shown that " propitiation," as used in Kom. 3 : 25, means 
 "atoning sacrifice," and that " atone'* means "expiation of sin 
 by the obedience and personal sufferings of Christ." Now, 
 expiation, according to Webster, means primarily in all lan- 
 guages, "to appease; to allay resentment," "Expiation"— 
 the act of atoning for crimes ; " and, among Christians, cxpmiion 
 for the sins of men is considered as made only by the obedience 
 and sufferings of Christ" Here, then, is the whole subject 
 before us. On it, I may be allowed to say, rests the central 
 doctrine of the Christian churches and creeds ; and, as I have 
 ■hown, it is a central doctrine of the Bible — of the New Tes- 
 tament. On its truth rests the whole superstructure of modem 
 theology. Take it out of the New Testament, and out of church 
 creeds^ and they would immediately dissolve and disappear. It 
 is a very important doctrine, then, and so needs dose investiga- 
 tion. If true, it is necessary to know it; but, if false, it is one 
 
 lilf 
 of ae most dangerous, unholy, immoral and destructive doctrines 
 
 its^ect^ upon mind-^upon .CJ^^Z IS^ ^ "' 
 slllZTj f i," f ''*°°'""^"'' "'«*' - - -<"="-« and 
 
 ot i).v.n,ty- Justice. Justice has its foundation in God as 
 the law of cause and effect. The law of justice is thelw of 
 cause and effect. On its immntoK:!,-* u , , 
 
 world, Th» 7 V mmntability hangs the destiny of all 
 
 worlds. The stars keep their appointed courses in virtue of ite 
 
 in:' T:t' f •^'""'^ '-''' ^o,.jTLi:t 
 ztz, af; :tChtf^:; ttr t ''-'-' *- 
 
 'a -^ ^°" '^ nature, by virtue of ifs 
 
 influence Destroy it, and the universe is dislolved, and goj 
 
 lawnxfJu8t.ce _ of cause and effect. An effect is just, when it 
 proceeds legitimately from an adequate cause. That i^ U L 
 just as an effect; .t stands in a true or natural relation to ite 
 
 «n„l w T • ,- **"^' ^o*! between God's soul and man's 
 Boul By physical sm we outrage and prevent physical har- 
 mony. as a natural, necessary and inevitable result. By mental 
 and spiritual sin we prevent spiritual harmony 
 
 If we are spiritual individualities, if we possess souls (and I 
 «,ntend we do , then those souls must be organisms, and there- 
 
 ZJZ T' T"*""' '"■«*'^'' '^^^' J-^* ^« the body is 
 
 if ou so r?T T"' 'T '" °"'^ *^ '"°<^- °f *e action 
 of our spiritual natures. For instance, it is not the eye- the 
 
 physical eye -which sees; for, remove the soul, and though the 
 
 organism of the eye still remain as perfect as before death, yet 
 
 m, sight takes place. The conscious power, which sees through 
 
 the eyo as a wmdow, is gone, and with it vision is fled. So with 
 
 all our external senses. Therefore, the body derives all its 
 
100 
 
 1^ 
 
 ll 
 
 power from the soul, — from the epiritual oature, — and henoe 
 the laws of the body tie only the modes of the act ion of the soul, 
 tad, ooEseqnently, the laws of man's spiritual nature are as 
 inflexible as the so-called laws of his physical nature. Now, 
 man'g religious and moral nature is the sum of his spiritual being. 
 and, therefore, must be governed by inflexible, immutable laws. 
 If, therefore, man's physical laws are only the outward manifesta- 
 tion of tli« modes of action of the soul, then, as a necessary 
 result, every spiritual or moral sin is always and everywhere 
 invariably and inevitably attended by adequate eflects, — cfiects 
 deleterious, and which are determined precisely by the nature 
 ind extent of the sin which caused them. For, outrage any 
 organic law of physical life, and pain or disease and iU-health 
 will inevitably follow snch outrage ; as, for instance, put your 
 hand in a flame of fire, and hold it there a sufficient time, and all 
 its beautiful parts and functions will be destroyed, and no power 
 can restore it. All the sacrificei of Paganism, of Judaism, and 
 of Christianity combined, cannot prevent the natural results of 
 the relation which the flame, as a cause, sustains to the hand as 
 its Tictim, and to its destruction as an effect. And no amount of 
 praying can restore the lost hand. No " atonement " will prove 
 eflectual here. Sacrifice the bodies of never so many goats, or 
 bulls, or firstlings of the flock, or noble reformers like Jesus of 
 Naiareth, it is all in vain. Immutability is stamped upon the 
 whole constitution and course of things, by its great soul, and no 
 scheme of mythological theology can interpose any effectual 
 barrier to the constant operation of the great law of Justice — 
 cause mnd effect. If Divinity is visible anywhere, it is in the 
 immutability of cmise and effect. I regard this law as an un- 
 mistakable revelation of the Divine Will and Wisdom. 
 
 No sane mind will deny these positions. And now we have 
 a foundation, laid by God, on which to stand while we examine 
 the doctrine of the " Vicarious Atonement," which teaches, that, 
 for the obedience and personal sufferings of Jesus, called Christ, 
 man's sins may be forgiven, and man thus saved from their 
 natural and legitimate effects. At first sight, it is evident that 
 
 101 
 
 ^:J7:J ^"°"' ' f '"^ '^''^'' '^ g-^« °f ^^^Btenfe, 
 inorganic or organic, can be brought forward to its support AU 
 
 Nature gt,es thu doctrine^ in its fa.e^ the lie S G^t 
 of ligh , turnmg all ways to keep the way of the tree of life to 
 
 TplIT' st: '^ r'' "^ *° ^"^ '^^"S's end and aim ^ 
 
 nappmess. bhe is ever true to her missinn a^a u 
 
 pains but to bless. ^°** '*'* °«^«' 
 
 But this doctrine of "atonement" teaches us that Divine 
 Justice accepts an innocent person as a blon^! ^f'^""^ 
 exniafp tK» o.v» „ j • » ^ °" "® * Dioodj sacrifice, to 
 
 expiate he s.ns and cnmes of a guilty race, and to reconcile God 
 to man, to assuage the divine wrath. Accordingly, all Christians 
 wmd up their prayers with " Lord, save us, ffr Christ's sake " 
 Thcologiai. often tell us that aU deserve damnation, and ntSr 
 prayers acknowledge that «%_ especial snbiJ! 7 
 tjey are-ought to be in hculithB^^ltaSrte Ej 
 
 death. But. let me ask Is GoZ.h m ^ ' '"^'""^^ ''""* 
 pleased to ^ve ^111^:^;!! T '' °^^ '"°'"''' "' *" ^' 
 Miest, nf /?! f ^ "' ^"'"""^ " ^"^ 'hireling high 
 
 priests, of (blasphemous assumption!) His own chosen peopfe 
 
 the doctrine. I well know what are the miserable nil • 
 »ade to this objection by priests and 2:^::''^^^^ 
 hat Jesus voluntari^ offered himself as a propitiation^! the 
 
 ot a God that could accept the sacrifice? None but a God of 
 
 ove The rnchlr """ °> '"''"«"'*'' ''''^''''' "-*"'« 
 
 could tlT T ^"^"! "^"''* "^ "^""'"S eo^'' ^^i bulls,- 
 could accept such a sacrifice. 
 
 of r'V!l"''r '' *'? ^'''""' '^^ ^"^^""g^ ^^^ o^el death 
 of the gentle Je^us. and the sin of Eve's eating an apple four 
 
Ij 
 
 thoimiid jears before ? Or what relation is there between tli© 
 iios of the whole world, and his sufferings and death ? We are 
 taught in the Bible, as I hafe shown, that the sins of the world 
 aiajbe, or rather mre, expiated bj Jesus* personal sufferings and 
 crucifixion. Now, let me ask, by what attribute of DiTinily. or 
 bj what law of Justice, or by what principle of Nature, can si.cli 
 a sentiineiit find support ? It is clearly a gnituitous my tliulogicui 
 MBUinption, without a single jot of justice. The fcins of ihe 
 whole race forgiven — expiated — blotted out in the blood of a 
 murdered reformer ! ! It it awful And then to be told by the 
 Bible and the creeds that this same Jesus is God himself — tlio 
 « ¥ery and eternal Father, in whom dwells all the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily," makes Gvd bifth a liar a?id a suicide ; for the 
 Bible tells us that God said to Adam and Eve, " in the day that 
 thou eatest thereof, ik&u — not I — shalt surely die ;" and again, in 
 mother passage: "The soul that sinueth, ii — not God — shall 
 mirely die." But the doctrine under consideration perfectly 
 contradicts and nullifies both these passages, and then teaches us 
 that God himself, instead of punishing guilty man. incariia(e.<4 
 himself in flesh, on purpose to be hated, despised, persecuted and 
 murdered, im order to save man from the divine wrath, arid so 
 prove God a liar. God tells man he shall die if he siii ; Imt, 
 instead of executing His threat, commits suicide — deliberate, 
 predetermined suicide. Now, I defy any theologian, who accepts 
 this doctrine, to escape this point. But we are told that it is 
 through faith in Jesus' sufferings and death, that we are saved. 
 Fmik in a hjint; tmd suicidal God ! ! — (according to this theory). 
 Who but a demon can have faith in such an insane and deriion 
 God ? Mo supposititious, speculations can make this theory other 
 than what I have here set it forth. This doctrine contains the 
 idea of the forgiveness for sins, through the blood, and for the 
 sake of the righteousness, of Jesus. It is the doctrine of imputed 
 rightaousness. Now let me ask, what natural relation has the 
 blood or righteousness of Jesus to a man's sins actually commit- 
 ted I Can that blood wash out those sins? No. They are 
 iilready eternal facts in the life, in the memory, and on the state 
 
 108 
 
 of the man's soul. As causes, those sins produce their natural 
 and mevitable effects, and nothing can unmake them. Man may 
 outgrow them by a life of after goodness, but their effects have 
 been wrought upon him, and he has felt them, and so, Omnipo- 
 tenoe itself cannot blot them out. God cannot iftsmoy a fact 
 God canmt unmake the law of cause and effect; for, should he' 
 make an effort, he would only thereby acknowledge its authority. 
 ^or his effort - his action ^ would simply indicate something to 
 be done, and therefore some method or means of doing it • and 
 hence would be a prima fa^ia acknowledgment that an effect, 
 VIZ., the destruction of cause and effect, was to be accomplished 
 or produced by his action, or effort, which action or effort is the 
 -ca^cse- of the desired effect. ' So, therefore, as God cannot de- 
 stroy the " law of cause and effect," he cannot forgive sin he can- 
 not blot out sin's effects through the blood or righteousness of 
 Jesus. An example of goodness may inspire us to goodness, but 
 no murder can expiate a sin. Can two wrongs produce one 
 rigbt? It not, how can the death and personal sufferin<rs of 
 Jesus expiate sin? But what is the real relation of Jesus' 
 crucifixiou to the world? How should we interpret it?^ I 
 answer, it interprets itself. He was crucified for teaching 
 doctrines which were heretical to those which God^s own chosm 
 pneslhfxd (I mean the Bible God) had been taught to rcntrd 
 as divme and infallible, and that, too. by the whole Old T(°sla. 
 ment ; and was crucified by those very priests who, according 
 t^ the Old Testament, were the God-appointed expounders of his 
 word. They hated Jesus because he nullified the principles of 
 the old law, by substituting opposite ones in their stead, and for 
 expressly doing away with some of the most cherished do.rmas 
 ot Judaistn; and, so deep and deadly is their hatred, thatlhey 
 murder him who uttered them. And jet, if this doctrine of 
 " atonement " be true, these hireling and murderous priests were 
 the greatest benefactors of the race, for they were the principal 
 agents of perfecting and executing a scheme of salvation most 
 stupendous, in which the murder of an incarnate God constitutes 
 ikQ crowning act in the great plan. Glorious Priests I! blessed 
 
 (I 
 

 104 
 
 Benefmtors of the worM !! Mdy was your mission and faith' 
 
 fiMy executed! May the songs of the redeemed in heaven 
 eternally chant your praise ! May jour names dwell like honey 
 on the pious lips of all Christians for whose eternal salvation 
 you crucified Deiiy. I had nearly forgotten Judas. But I 
 must pay him a tribute likewise. If this doctrine be true, 
 Ju,Jl ^eat Urray., ought to have the highest seat in the 
 kingdom of dory. Judas ! — thou chosen of God for the comple- 
 tiof of the stjeodous p.au of salvation, in <»»pany with thy 
 illustrious brothers, the high priests — great is thy merit. 
 May pious souls venerate thee for thy mission's sake ; for, with a 
 J. i e.b.e. of thy glorious deed, didst thou serve the race. 
 by delivering up unto thy God-appointed brothers, the high and 
 holy priests, an incariwie God, and for this hast received only 
 lliirty pieces of Bilver, and the curses of all Christendom ! Thou 
 oughiesi to have received a pension for life, aid a vicegereficy i-u 
 Heaven ; for, but for thy great work, God had imt been slaiii, and 
 so the world had not been saved. Such is the homage Christians 
 ought to pay to Judas and the high priests, as principal agents 
 in this "great plan of rcdeuiptiou." 
 
 Reader, I am not speaking mere irony. I would do all this, 
 ay, more, if I could be made to believe this doctrine of atone^ 
 nicnt ; I would make a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, on the spot 
 where Judas " hung himself," would worship his soul aud deed; 
 and, could I get it, I would keep as a relic the very rope that 
 Itad the sanctity of embracing the holy mck of God's own chosen 
 principal agent — Judas, the Great Betrayer ! I would protest 
 mgainst the spirit of all Christendom, which condemns both the 
 high priests and Judas ; for, if this " plan of redemption " be 
 holy and God-ordained (and all Christians profess to believe it), 
 and if God is holy and good, of course he would not use evil 
 means in its completion. But, as he did use the high priests 
 and the Ctreat Betrayer, Jadas, in its completion, therefore they 
 are holy, and just, and good. No other conclusion is possible ; 
 for it is a ** great plan," according to theology ; and, if a plan, 
 must bate been embraced in all its details, before its execution, 
 
 105 
 
 in the conception of God ; and therefore the part which the priests 
 and Judas played must have been predetermined by God ; and, 
 therefore, Judas and his co-workers ought not to be condemned, 
 but worshipped. But the very fact that these prominent agents 
 of God are universally detested, is conclusive evidence that the 
 work which they performed is equally detestable also. It is, in 
 fact, the detestable nature, the nefarious effect of their work 
 which brings universal condemnation upon them. If Judas had 
 betrayed Jesus to a beautiful supper at a pious friend's house, or 
 to a seat in the synagogue or the sanhedrim, as one whose words 
 were wise, Christians would bless, instead of hating and cursing 
 him. But, how much more ought they to bless him because he 
 betrayed Jesus to crucifixion in order to save the whole world 
 from death ! And yet it is the fate of Jesus, as the result of 
 Judas' betrayal, that damns Judas, while, by the very doctrine 
 under discussion, this very fate of Jesus is the grand result 
 sought by God, and aimed at in this "great plan of redemption,*' 
 I repeat it, it is the unnatural, the monstrous, the criminal, the 
 bloody, murderous effect or end of their work, which damns 
 Judas and the priests ; and yet this very end is God-ordained, 
 and these persons are only God-predetermined, forechosen agents 
 in the accomplishment of this very effect. 
 
 Christians damn the unconscious agents of God for executing 
 his plan, and bless God, the great designer, for its effects. Now, 
 by what rule shall we curse agents who perform their part, and 
 without whose performance the plan fails, while we exculpate the 
 great planner himself, who got up the plan, and in whose hand 
 these agents are only tools manufactured by the great designer 
 himself for this very end ? If the conception of killing God be 
 holy, the killing of him must be equally holy also. If it be neces- 
 sary to crucify God, to save man, it is equally necessary that 
 somebody should do it ; and if God got up the scheme, and 
 chose his own executioners, — made them, in fact, — who is to 
 blame but himself? The doctrine involved in this plan of salva- 
 tion damnation is, "the end justifies the means," which is 
 Jesuitical enough for any monk of the dark ages. 
 
 i 
 
106 
 
 107 
 
 AbcI now, reader, wliat must be the influence of sucli i doe- 
 trine oil the hearts and lives of men? Why, just this: that if 
 
 the J believe they can be forgiven for sin on the righteousness 
 and through the blood of Jesus, at any time, they will continue 
 sinning just so long as their passions and perverted appetites are 
 stronger than their pritwipies. They will, therefore, be alter- 
 nately sinning and repenting, and repenting and sinning again. 
 This is the personal history of ninety-nine Christians in every 
 hundred. Chrisiian reader ^ you know it is. And is not this, 
 therefore, a dangerous doctrine 1 So long as a few prayers and 
 tears, and a little professed faith in Jesus as an all-sufficient 
 Saviour, are believed to be capable of blotting out men's sins, 
 80 long will they sin. The horrid effects of this doctrine are 
 ollen demonstrated in the criminal on the gallows. A man com- 
 mits murder on a fellow-man who is not a believer in popular 
 Christianity. The murderer is caught, sentenced, and remanded 
 to prison to await his execution. During the interim he is 
 blessed with a priest and a Bible. The priest pictures before 
 his imagination the awfulness of his crime, and eternal damna- 
 tion as his doom, *• ufdess he repent and believe in Jestf^, and 
 ikm be saved." He knows his crime is great, feels guilty, be- 
 comes frightened, ** repents^ believes ^ « baptized" and — and 
 what next ? Why, he is swung off into heaven, into glory with 
 hdy angels ; while his poor victim, whom he gave no chance of 
 repentance, hut sent straight to hell, is 
 
 i< 
 
 Groaning in eternal torment " 
 
 The murderer, as is almost universally the case, after closing a 
 life of licentiousness with murder, is shouting ** glory " in heaven; 
 while his victim, who led a good, moral, upright and honest life, 
 is wailing in hell ! Such is the horrid influence of this doctrine 
 upon the morals of this life, and the motives to a life of bliss 
 hereafter. The " atonement " gives a virtual license to live in 
 sin ; it grants ** indulgetices ** darker than those of the monk 
 Tetas©l,and pays for them in the blood of a murdered reformer — 
 Jesna. I defy any Christian to escape this point. And here I 
 
 leave it, having .shown that the Bible sanctions such a doctrine. 
 Fathers and mothers, don't degrade your children by teaching 
 such horrid and immoral doctrines, such outrageous lies, such 
 blasphemies against God, and all truth and beauty. 
 
 CHAPTEB XI. 
 
 And now, let us ask, what is, and has been, the influence of 
 this doctrine that the " Bible is of Divine Origin and Infallible 
 Authority"? I answer, it is and has been deleterious to human 
 freedom, progress, and unity. It dwarfs the intellectual, the 
 moral, and the spiritual nature of man. This is its tendency. 
 
 1. In the first place, the Bible, when received as " the only 
 infallible rule of religious faith and practice," is, in its tenden- 
 cies, destructive of human, intellectual, and spiritual freedom. 
 And why ? Because it bounds and circumscribes the natural 
 liberty of the human faculties, chains the soul and the religious 
 sentiment in man to the early, ignorant, murderous, and foolish 
 dogmas of both Jews and primitive Christians. " Thau shalt 
 not be wise above what is written" is a sentence perfectly em- 
 bodying the idea of Bible authority, and clearly indicative of its 
 intended influence on the race. We must not step beyond the 
 circumference of the fathers' thought in religion, morals, or gov- 
 ernment. This is the doctrine involved. " To the law and to 
 the testimony ; if they speak not according to these, it is because 
 there is no light in them," is the declaration of Scripture, as ap- 
 plied to itself, to its own authority. It thus ignores the God in 
 man, in Nature — the only living God—md bows man upon 
 the altar of age, of antiquity ; shuts up a dead, traditionary God 
 within the covers of an old book, and makes it heresy to doubi. 
 the silly cosmogony and theology of Moses, Joshua, John, and a 
 lying Peter. 
 
 It teaches us that God was once living in the ancient world, 
 
ma 
 
 109 
 
 once made himself miraculoaslj conspicuoiiB in human affairs, 
 once spoke to men face to face " as a man speaketh to his friend; '* 
 that he incarnated himself in the person of Jesus, was craoified 
 on the cross for human sins, and has not showed himself or been 
 heard of since. Since the death of Jesus, according to this 
 doctrine, we have had a iiving Devils and a dead God, Since 
 the bloody cross, men are no more to see God, to talk with him 
 face to face; we must speak and pray to him by proxy, " must 
 whine and whimper in his ear in the name of Jesus ! " It thus 
 inverts the divine order, and turns the race backward to the dark 
 and more barbarous past foir light. In its view, a million shining 
 worlds are only lamps for the pigmies of this little earth to see by, 
 and ten hundred millions of beating hearts, and thinking heads, 
 and working hands, are of less consequence than the mould- 
 ering relics, the superstitious dogmas, and the sensual religion 
 of ancient semi-»vages. It rears costly edifices on the crashed 
 bodies of oppressed men and women, and denies the right of 
 thought and speech on religion to all who will not think its 
 thought, and speak its word, on pain of eternal death. God's 
 word in a book (assumed) is truer than God*s works in nature ; 
 and the letter of defunct polygamists, and lustful soothsayers, is 
 regarded as of more importance than the natural and healthful 
 instincts, the ihin^ reason and religious sentiment of a throbbing 
 spirit. One of the most destructive effects of this idea about the 
 Bible m practical aikeism, and indeed theoretical atheism also; 
 for it affirms a Divinity in a traditionary record as the only 
 Divinity which men can get at for any great purpose of life. It 
 teaches us to distrast the voice of our Creator and constant 
 Inspirer^ as manifest in la, by calling U8 depraved in soul, 
 God-forsaken, and calls instinct reason, and intuition the voice 
 of a Devil. A iiving Devil and a dead God ; the first in 
 men, living, acting men, — the second only in a record, shut 
 up between the lids of an old musty book ! ! And how does the 
 race get along with such an anomalous trinity — a living Devil 
 the first person, a dead God the second person, and an old 
 self-contradictory record the third person? Yes — how does 
 
 ^ race get along with such a defunct trinity — only one living 
 person in it, and that person — a devil ? Quite as well as can be 
 expected. It has wrapped the gloom of an Egyptian mental 
 night, as a mantle, about the world for a thousand years — called 
 the dark ages — a thousand years in which the Bible and the 
 doctrine of its infallibillity reigned supreme. In obedience to 
 " Bi^le " examples. Christians bathed the plains of Turkey in the 
 blood of her slaughtered sons— millions of men, women and 
 chUdren ; and those plains are to day whitened with their bleach- 
 ing bones. Nearly every great war of Christendom has been 
 waged in defence of, or in attempts to fasten the Bible and its 
 doctrines upon the soul of humanity. Gibbon, Hume, Macaulay, 
 and a host of historians, all testify to facts which sustain this 
 position. In the language of an eminent divine of our own 
 time, " The squares of Paris, of Antioch, of Byzantium, of 
 Jerusalem, of Da-mascus, of Rome, the plains of the Low Coun- 
 tries," and the racks and dungeons, gibbets and stakes, and the 
 fires of Rome and of Smithfield, all testify to the effect of this 
 doctrine's reign in the world among men. 
 
 In Christian America the Bible is the text-book of " border 
 ruffiam " and of slavery propagandists. Its authority sanctions 
 "the sum of all viWmiGs''^ slavery. Is it not, therefore 
 destructive theoretically and practically, in government and in 
 the soul of man of true mental, moral, physical, and spiritual 
 freedom? Can a book which ties up both soul and body to 
 the dictum of a Mosaic slave-code be anything but destructive 
 of human liberty? Slavery of the body is bad enough; but 
 slavery of the soul is devilish ; and I have shown that the Bible 
 sanctions both. Any doctrine, which thus enslaves man, soul and 
 body, must necessarily be destructive in its tendencies to human 
 progress; for progress depends upon the free and natural action 
 of human faculties. But how can these faculties act successfully 
 while in chains to false authority ? I do not say there are no 
 truths in the Bible. There are many great truths there; but, if 
 it is infallible, I am not free to receive those truths, and reject 
 its errors. But, rejecting its infallibility, I am at liberty to re- 
 
 10 
 
110 
 
 ceive what commends itself to mj reason and intuition as true, 
 and to reject what is absurd, unreasonable, and untrue. No be- 
 liever in its infallibility can have or exercise such a liberty. 
 He is a slave to its every word. He has only " to believe or be 
 damned.** No choice is left him but total subjection to its every 
 word as authoritative. No matter how absurd, how unreasona- 
 ble, how self-contradictory it may be, so long as a man believes it 
 to be dod's infallible word, he must not doubt, on pain of damna- 
 
 illlll* 
 
 And, now, is such a mental state natural, just, or productive 
 of good, of intelligence, of wisdom and virtue ? It is destruc- 
 tive of all. It is a subversion of the ftindamental principles of 
 intellectual and moral, of physical and of spiritual life and 
 growth. Tie up the arm — it shrinks and withers. So of every 
 human mental and spiritual faculty. Action, ftee, healthy ac- 
 tion of all our faculties, is the only means of personal, of social, 
 or of national and universal growth — of human progress. 
 
 In scientific, artistic and philosophical life, doubts are often, 
 if not always, the keys to new discoveries, inventions and philo- 
 sophical truths. If Gall had not doubted the doctrines of the old 
 metaphysics, he never would have discovered the noble science 
 of mind, as it is in living man. Implicit faith in the scientific 
 or philosophical revelations of the past would have totally dis- 
 armed the souls of the great discoverers and benefactors of the 
 race of all power to advance beyond the narrow range of the 
 thoughts of the fathers, and so have robbed the race of its 
 brightest crown — progre&s, advancement. Implicit faith in the 
 past would have effectually shut the lipa of Jesus from the 
 words ** Ye have heard that it hath been said of old time, Thou 
 shalt love thy friends and hate thy enemies; but J say unto you, 
 ioee your enemies" The liberty exercised by Jesus, of contra- 
 dicting the doctrines of the past, if untrue, is our highest mental 
 right, our only capacity of advancement. But for this liberty, 
 and its use, the world would stagnate, and the race tramp round 
 and round in the same eternal circle, like an old mill-horse, 
 grinding out the same eternal Me — no progress, no advancement. 
 
 
 111 
 
 no growth. This is as true in religion as in science of any other 
 kmd. It is as true in sociology as in philosophy. It is univer- 
 sally and eternally true. But the popular idea of the Bible is 
 opposed to this truth, and is therefore untrue. Men must doubt 
 the doctrines of Moses in order to believe those of Jesus ; and 
 doubt some ascribed to Jesus in order to believe the great^t 
 truths of this nineteenth century. 
 
 As action is the only means of progress, so liberty is the only 
 just condition of action. A mind is not in a state of natural lib- 
 erty, or of true action, when the fear of damnation holds it in 
 subjection to the foolish dictum of Moses and Paul. Such a 
 mind is in the most abject state of slavery— the slavery of soul 
 —of intellectual and religious slavery. And such is the state 
 of all Christians who are full in the faith that the Bible is the 
 only and infallible rule of religious faith and practice. I regard 
 the churches of all Christendom as only so many religious forges, 
 and priests as the manufacturers, where and by whom soul- 
 chains, ay, and body-chains too, are forged and fastened upon 
 the spirits and limbs of men, women, and children, and all 
 through this popular notion about the Bible. It is high time 
 this iron yoke was broken from off the neck of humanity. As I 
 have shown, it is the very core of the religious and political des- 
 potisms of all Christendom. It is the authority and apology for 
 African slavery, — " oligarchs" in America's Barbary States,— 
 and cannot therefore be from God, the Father of both blacks and 
 whites. 
 
 Let me now sum up the argument against the Bible. First, 
 it is proved, by the authority of the first Christian scholars and 
 divines, that there is not a jot or tittle of external historical 
 evidence to prove that a single book, chapter or word of the 
 Bible came from God miraculously ; but, on the other hand, 
 from the same source it is proved that false Gospels, false Acts 
 of the Apostles, false Epistles, were forged by orthodox Chris- 
 tians ; and that, too, immediately after the death of Jesus ; and 
 that there is no proof in history that the disciples ever wrote a 
 word of the New Testament ; that it is certain, if they had left 
 
no 
 
 any **oriffifmi mitojraph,'** tlie Fatliers would have quotiid 
 them in their disputations with heretics — but they did not so 
 quote them : that the most learned writers of the church doii*t 
 know when, or in what language, or where, much of the Bible 
 was written, or by whom ; that they don't know when or by 
 whom the oanons of both the Old and New Testaments were 
 settled; that they do know that the only persons who could 
 have separawd the genuine from the spurious New Testament 
 
 even commendaMe^ to deceim and lie for the interests ofrelifjion 
 and tkdr church ; " that, even admitting the Bible to have been • 
 once pure, it is so no more, being endlessly corrupted by tran- 
 scribers, copyists and translators — so that all Bibles are cor- 
 rupted ** irremcaM.y ; " that the manuscripts of the Bible differ 
 and contradict each other endlessly, and so we have no true 
 standard of correction ; and, therefore, that ** the Bible *' is not 
 an infaiiible rule of rdigiom faith and practice. 
 
 The following is the sum of the internal testimony. From an 
 examination of the Bible's contents, it is proved. 1st, that ii 
 gives b'lasphemom representatiom of God ; speaks evil of Beily ; 
 subjects Divinity to criminal and revolting vices and crimes, 
 such as killing men, women and children, all for his own glory 
 — teaching the Jews to swindle their neighbors — as command- 
 ing little children to be stoned for their fathers' sins — as cutting 
 off whole nations for their rulers' sins — at one time as de-stroy- 
 ing seeenty thomand persons by pestilence, because he himself 
 moved David to number Israel and Judah — as loving some, 
 and hating others, before either were born. It further repre- 
 sents him as capricious — as getting mad, and being cooled off 
 by being coaxed and wheedled out of his passion by appeals to 
 Ms vanity, &c., &e.; and that, therefore, the Bible is not from 
 God. 2d. It gives contradictory representations of God ; one 
 eel of passages teaching one thing, and another teaching exactly 
 thi opposite, and is not, therefore, of " Divine ori|»in, authority, 
 or iniuence." 3d. It contradicts the facts and mathematical 
 demonstrations of astronomy and geology, — the living word 
 
 113 
 
 writ in starry worlds, and carved on earth's granite pages, and is 
 not, therefore, of ''Divim origin^' &c. 5th. It is self-contradic- 
 tory, in numerous instances which no ingenuity can reconcile, and, 
 consequently, is not of '* Divine origin." &c. 6th. It sanctions 
 political despotism, and cannot, therefore, be of " Divine origin," 
 &c. 7th. It sanctions slavery, « the mm of all villanies." 
 It is not, therefore, of " Divine origin," &c. 8th. It favors con- 
 gugal despotism, and cannot be of " Divine origin," &c. 9th. It 
 sanctions polygamy and concubinage, or the practice of having 
 many wives and mistresses in addition. 10th. It teaches false 
 and dangerous doctrines on morals, theology, religion, and 
 various other subjects; it is not, therefore, of Divine or mirac- 
 ulous origin, of infallible authority, or of a holy or just influ- 
 ence when so regarded. 
 
 Will any one believe that God has a right, because he is 
 Omnipotent, to speak evil of himself ; or to cause men to do so ? 
 Will God contradict himself? Can his word in worlds contra- 
 dict his word in a book ? Will God, or can he, violate or 
 abolish his own laws until he can annihilate himself? Will, or 
 do, his works contradict themselves and each other ? Does our 
 Father, the Father of all races, love to exalt oppressors on the 
 crushed and bleeding bodies of his oppressed children? Does 
 God, the all-merciful, butcher his subjects "all for his own 
 glory?" Can Divine Justice sanction swindling and murder? 
 Does it make men to slaughter fathers, mothers, and little male 
 children, as the Bible says God did, in order to prostitute the 
 virgin daughters of one nation, the Midianites, to the devilish 
 lusta of another, the Jews? Will Divine Holiness and Wisdom 
 hold up, as examples, such men as a lying and lecherous David, 
 Abraham, and Jacob, or as old Solomon, with his thousand de- 
 graded prostitutes? Are the eyes of God pleased with the 
 present subjugation of women, as a result of Bible teachings? 
 Will Infinite Love make man a "master" and "lord" over his 
 wife, as a subject and slave ? Are the eyes and ears of God well 
 pleased with the chattelization of his noblest work, the crack of 
 the slave-driver's lash, amid the blood and groans of their slaves ? 
 
 10* 
 
f make tli© Bible •* Divine," all these questions must be d^ 
 Moiistrafcivelj answered in the affirmative, and every defence of 
 tbe Bible, as a miraculous revelation from God, must necessarily 
 aesume the defence of crime, of vice, and of wrong of every 
 grade, as consistent with the divine nature and attributes. To 
 the Bible student who has followed me closely, this is certain. 
 There is no escape from it. Header, is not this point fairly 
 established, and beyond successful contradiction, in the foregoing 
 pages? In all truth and honesty, I believe it is. I know it is, 
 or I know nothing. 
 
 Before these facts, these internal facts of the Bible, all the 
 talk about miracles and prophecy amounts to naught. How 
 many miracles, for instance, would it take to prove both sides of 
 II proposition true*? How many prophecies would be necessary 
 to prove that God is all-powerful, and at the same time that 
 ** chariots of iron " are too strong for him ? How many miracles 
 would it take to prove that God is both visible and invisible at 
 the game time ? How many miracles will it take to prove that 
 God is all-knowing, and yet, at the same time, that he don't know 
 whether Abraham feared him or not, until he tries him — makes 
 iin actual experiment to find out? A miracle is, literally, a 
 wonder, — theologically, a supernatural event, — a "violation of 
 the established constitution and course of things." Now, how 
 many « miracles'* will It take to prove that lying, swindling, 
 murder, and prostitution, are in concord with the Divine Will, as 
 I have shown the Bible teaches ? 
 
 Turn the universe inside out, and it could not prove light dark- 
 ness, sin holiness, murder a virtue, and prostitution just. A lie 
 is eternally a lie, and crime nothing but crime. Are virtue and 
 vice only temporary distinctions dependent on the mere caprice 
 of an arbitrary being called "God," "Jehovah," "Jove," or 
 •* Lord " ? Or are they eternal antagonists, eternal distinctions, 
 as are light and darkness, happiness and woe, discord and har- 
 mony, and founded in the nature of the divine mind, and inher- 
 ing in the constitution of things, and whose destruction muit 
 invoke the annihilation of Eternal Power, Justice, Love, Wii- 
 
 115 
 
 dom, and Beauty ? If the latter, then the Bible is blasphe- 
 mously impious, and no amount of wonders can make it else. 
 And, beside, any miracles which are educed to prove the divinity 
 of the Bible, should, to be legitimate, and of any force, be ex- 
 pressly wrought for this very purpose; and the power, so work- 
 ing the miracles, should so declare its object at the time. But 
 there are no such miracles in the Bible. Of what force are the 
 so-called miracles of Jesus in proving the lies of Abraham and 
 David to be truths ? Did the story of his turning water into 
 wine, turn the murdering of the old men, women, and male chil- 
 dren, of the Midianites, and the prostitution of their virgins, by 
 the Jews, at God's command, into a glorious virtue, a holy, 
 righteous deed? If it did, then virtue is only spoken wind or 
 written parchment, and lies are only the contradiction of the two. 
 If so, committing crime, and charging it to God, is a divine 
 work, and the stories of Sinbad the Sailor are divine, and the 
 governmental murders of Nicholas of Russia are as holy as 
 those of Moses. The prophecies uttered by Isaiah, or Jeremiah, 
 or Daniel, or Jesus, if true, do not, and cannot, in the nature of 
 things, prove the cosmogony of Genesis to be consistent with the 
 known facts and demonstrations of science. They were not 
 given for that purpose. They have no reference to the divinity 
 of the Bible ; and, if true, they only prove that the prophet saw 
 truly. All the prophecies of all religiondom can't prove the 
 truth, the usefulness, or the soundness of Jesus' doctrine on the 
 subject of providential or forelooking labor. Truth and Justice 
 are our standards of divinity, not our divinity — our conceptions 
 of God — the standard of truth and justice. We ought to judge 
 the divinity of all nations, all books, and creeds, by truth and 
 justice; not truth and justice by book and traditionary divinities. 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
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