Read Ebook: Watson Refuted Being an Answer to the Apology for the Bible in a Series of Letters to the Bishop Of Llandaff by Francis Samuel W Samuel Ward

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 97 lines and 33725 words, and 2 pages

A plain and faithful

NARRATIVE

OF THE

Original Design, Rise, Progress and present State

OF THE

At LEBANON, in CONNECTICUT.

PASTOR OF A CHURCH IN LEBANON.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

MARQUIS OF LOTHIAN.

That CHARITY and disinterested CARE for the Souls of Men, which make so amiable a Part of your Lordship's Character, and give a Lustre and Grace to all those worldly Honours with which God has dignified you, and entitle you to the kindest Wishes, and sincerest Prayers of all who love our Lord JESUS CHRIST, and long for the Enlargement of his Kingdom in the World; do now embolden me to inscribe the following Narrative to your Lordship, as a Testimonial of my Gratitude, for that repeated Liberality, whereby you have testified your Approbation of our feeble Attempts in the important Affair here related, and given your Sanction to the Plan we have been prosecuting.

And as you have animated and encouraged our small Beginnings, when we had most need of such Countenance and Assistance; so your Condescention and Generosity have made me solicitous how to manifest my Gratitude suitably to a Personage of such Distinction.

But as your Lordship could propose no other End, besides that which we were pursuing, when you thus opened your Hand for our Assistance therein, while it was yet small and obscure; so I may reasonably suppose, nothing I can return will give your Lordship more Satisfaction, than a plain, and concise Account of the Progress of it, and our still growing and encreasing Prospects of those good Effects, which will be the only Reward which your Lordship could have in View.

And though it be presented to your Lordship in a very plain and unfashionable Dress, agreeable to the Country from whence it comes, yet I am perswaded your Lordship will not despise it on that Account, since the Dress, plain and unfashionable as it is, does so much excel the savage, and sordid Habit, and Appearance of those miserable Creatures, who have so moved your Lordship's Compassion as to become the Objects of your Charity and Beneficence. Nor will Modesty itself under such endearing and inviting Expressions of your Lordship's Condescention and Goodness, forbid our reposing Confidence in you as our Patron, or indulging the animating Expectation of future Benefit by your Smiles on this infant Institution.

May the Blessing of many, who shall, in the present and succeeding Generations, reap the Benefit of your generous Donations, come upon you.

And that God may graciously lengthen out your valuable and important Life, to refresh the Bowels of his Saints, and encourage THIS, and every Attempt to make known the Name of CHRIST, "and manifest the Savour of his Knowledge in every Place," and late confer upon you a Crown of Life with distinguished Honours, is the earnest Prayer of,

May it please your Lordship,

Your Lordship's

much obliged, and

most obedient

humble Servant,

LEBANON, Dec. 16. 1762.

NARRATIVE

OF THE

The Considerations first moving me to enter upon the Design of educating the Children of our Heathen Natives were such as these; viz.

The great Obligations lying upon us, as God's Covenant-People, who have all we have better than they in a Covenant Way, and consequently are under Covenant-Bonds to improve it in the best Manner for the Honour and Glory of our liberal Benefactor. And can such Want of Charity to those poor Creatures, as our Neglect has shewn; and, our Neglect of that which God has so plainly made to be the Matter of our Care and Duty; and that which the Heart of the great Redeemer is so set upon, as that he never desired any other Compensation for all the Travail of his Soul, can it, I say, be without great Guilt on our Part?

It has seem'd to me, he must be stupidly indifferent to the Redeemer's Cause and Interest in the World; and criminally deaf and blind to the Intimations of the Favour and Displeasure of God in the Dispensations of his Providence, who could not perceive plain Intimations of God's Displeasure against us for this Neglect, inscribed in Capitals, on the very Front of divine Dispensations, from Year to Year, in permitting the Savages to be such a sore Scourge to our Land, and make such Depredations on our Frontiers, inhumanly butchering and captivating our People; not only in a Time of War, but when we had good Reason to think that we dwelt safely by them.

These were some of the Considerations which, I think, had some Influence to my making an Attempt in this Affair; though I did not then much think of any Thing more than only to clear myself, and Family, of partaking in the public Guilt of our Land and Nation in such a Neglect of them.

As,

And besides all this, they are so extremely poor, and depend so much upon Hunting for a Livelihood, that they are in no Capacity to support their Children at School, if their Disposition for it were ever so good.

And what are a few Instances, where Schools may possibly be maintained to some good Purpose, compared with those Tribes and Nations of them, where there are no Circumstances at present, but their Misery and Necessity, to invite us so much as to make the Trial.

I am fully perswaded from the Acquaintance I have had with them, it will be found, whenever the Trial shall be made, to be very difficult if not impossible, unless the Arm of the Lord should be revealed in an eminent Manner, to cure them of such savage and sordid Practices, as they have been inured to from their Mother's Womb, and form their Minds and Manners to proper Rules of Virtue, Decency and Humanity, while they are daily under the pernicious Influence of their Parents Example, and their many Vices made familiar thereby.

Divine Skill in Things spiritual, pure and fervent Zeal for the Salvation of Souls, shining Examples of Piety and Godliness, by which Pagans will form their first Notions of Religion, rather than from any Thing that shall be said to them, are most necessary Qualifications in a Missionary; and promise more real Good than is to be expected from many Times the Number who have never "known the Terrors of the Lord," and have no experimental, and therefore no right Understanding of the Nature of Conversion and the Way wherein it is wrought. Such were never under the governing Influence of a real Sense of the Truth, Reality, Greatness and Importance of eternal Things, and therefore will not be likely to treat them suitable to the Nature and eternal Consequences of them, surely they will not naturally do it. And how sad are like to be the Consequences to those who are watching to see whether the Preacher imony can establish the credibility, of miracles, you have left unanswered. You say it has been confuted an hundred times: had you given the confutation of it, we would have been able to ascertain the truth of your assertion. You are writing for the multitude, and being a dignitary of the church, ought to furnish the people with arms to oppose reason. Perhaps the unsuccessful attempt of Dr. Campbell has deterred you from at least recapitulating the principal answers to this proposition. Till you can prove that the great mass of mankind are not very fallible and easily deceived by any impostor, or that they are disposed and capable to examine the truth of reports spread about prodigies, you will never be able to persuade men of sense, that events impossible are to be believed upon the testimony of those who not only are, but have constantly been, the slaves of credulity in all countries.

Strabo, in his Geography, book 16, informs us, that Moses, who was an Egyptian priest, taught his followers to worship the God Jahouh, without representing it by emblems. This was the God of the Thebans, the soul of the world. The Jews have even preserved the name of Tsour, or giver of forms, and commonly translated by the word creator in chap. xxxii. of Deuteronomy. Herodotus affirms, that the Jews or Syrians of Palestine borrowed circumcision from the Egyptians. Diodorus says the same; and even Philo and Josephus do not deny it. A great many other rites were copied by the Jews from this nation. It is, therefore, of great consequence to ascertain the age in which the Jewish books were written; for if we can prove that all the fundamental points of their religion were copied from their masters the Egyptians, or borrowed from the Babylonians during the captivities, then the reader will judge of the truth of the clerical opinion, that a handful of hordes were the favourite people of God; that a set of ignorant and credulous vagabonds taught science to the Chinese, Indians, and Egyptians, and preserved nothing among themselves but some ridiculous accounts of their origin, and a collection of absurd prodigies. If we succeed in pointing out from what sources Jewish mythology is derived, there will be but little difficulty in unravelling the principal fables contained in the Pentateuch and other Jewish books. We are pretty well acquainted with the allegories of the heathen mythologies.

I am ready to grant that several of Mr. Paine's objections are not valid, and often trifling; but I declare, once for all, that I do not think myself bound to follow Mr. Paine in every instance. I shall direct my remarks, rather to disprove your reasoning, than to defend every objection of your opponent; at the same time, I shall avoid repeating what he has advanced, and you have not disproved. The chief proofs against the genuineness of the Pentateuch have been overlooked by Mr. Paine. I shall state them briefly.

First. It was believed, by all the best informed old fathers of the church, that the Jewish books had been absolutely lost during the captivity, and that Esdras had written them from inspiration; or, that he collected the Pentateuch, and all other canonical books, out of whatever records he could find, and put them together. 1 In either case, their authority is greatly invalidated; and the more so, as the fourth book of Esdras, adopted by the Greek church, and generally deemed authentic, says expressly, that Esdras dictated the holy books during forty successive days and nights, to five scribes, who were continually writing. This tale shows sufficiently the general belief that he was the restorer of the long lost books of the law. In our second book of Nehemiah, or, properly speaking, Esdras, it is said, that Ezra, or Esdras the scribe, who was above all the people, brought the book of the law to the people, and then the people rejoiced much in being instructed in the law of God, that when they found there the commandment of the Lord ordering the Jews to perform the feast of the booths, there was great gladness, "and all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under booths: for, since the days of Joshua the son of Nun, unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so.". If the Jews had even forgotten a feast, the memory of which every father would transmit to his son, is this not an evident proof that they had no books in the captivity? Again, in chap. vii. of the 1 book of Esdras, it is said, that Esdras "had very great skill, so that he omitted nothing of the law and commandments of the Lord, but taught all Israel the ordinances and judgments."

Secondly. We know that no canon of books ever existed among the Jew's till the time of the synagogue under the Maccabees. Before their reign, there had never existed among the Jews any such council; and, if the word occurs in the Pentateuch, it is a fault of the transcribers and composers, who lived when there was a synagogue, and is not to be understood in any other acceptation than a collection of priests. The Pharisees of the second temple chose the books they thought best among a multitude of forgeries. The Talmud relates, that this synagogue were about to reject the Book of Proverbs, Ezekiel's prophecies, and Ecclesiastes, because they imagined these writings contradictory to the law of God; but a certain Rabbin having undertaken to reconcile them, they were preserved as canonical. A prodigious number of forged Books of Daniel, Esdras, and of the Prophets, were then in circulation; and to distinguish the genuine from the false works became absolutely necessary. This doubt and uncertainty conspires to render the decision of the synagogue very doubtful; particularly, as we shall show in the sequel, that many passages of the Prophecies are written evidently about the time of this choice of sacred books, and inserted in them, probably by some cunning priest, as the oracles of Sybil were forged to suit Caesar.

Thirdly. The similarity of the mysteries of the Jews to those of the Babylonians, is too glaring not to let us see the origin of Genesis in particular. The creation in six days is a perfect copy of the Gahans, or Gahan-bars, of Zoroaster; the particulars of each day's work are literally the same. The serpent was famous among the Babylonians. The mythological deluge of Ogyges and Xissuthrus, are symbols of changes arising on earth, as they imagined, from the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. These, a little ornamented by the historical narration of Deucalion's inundation related by Berosus, is the pattern of Noah's flood; the ark of Osiris and emblematical dove and raven were Egyptian hieroglyphics. The man and the woman in Paradise is a mere copy of Zoroaster's first pair. The original sin is Pandora's box. The Talmud of Jerusalem says expressly that the Jews borrowed the names of the angels, and even of their months, from the Babylonians. The Elohim, or Gods, , are said in Genesis to have created the world. It was not Jehovah, but the genii or gods that are in the Hebrew called makers of the world. And these are the very genii, who according to Sanchoniatho, were by Mercury excited against Saturn.

Fourthly. We ask, in what language was the Pentateuch written, if it really was the work of Moses? It is known that Hebrew is a dialect of the Phenician, and that the Jews spoke Egyptian for a very long time before they adopted the language of the people among whom they dwelt. In Psalm lxxxi. we learn that the Jews were surprised to hear the language of the people beyond the Bed Sea. If, therefore, Moses, or any person of that age, is the author of the Pentateuch, it is evident that the Hebrew books are mere translations. What degree of credit does a nation deserve, who have been able to take for originals books that were in the face of them translations? Is it right to persecute men, as priests have done while they had power, for refusing to give credit to this tissue of contradictory and absurd fables?

Fifthly. In the books of the Old Testament, we find abundant proofs that they have been written in an age greatly posterior to that of Moses. In Genesis, chap. xii. ver. 6, we find these words, "And the Canaanite was then in land." This implies another period when the Canaanite was not in the land, which, we learn from the Bible, did not happen till after David, and could not therefore be written by Moses. The beginning of Deuteronomy is certainly not written by him; for he never passed the Jordan; he died upon Mount Nebo, to the eastward of it. The English translation has in chap. i. v. 5, of this book, said, "on this side of the Jordan," for "on that side," which is in the original. The translator has taken similar liberties very often. In chap. xxxiii. we find this expression, "There never was in Judea so great a prophet as Moses," and such could be pointed out in many places. Here needs no comment to show that such passages could only be written in a posterior age, and when there had been several prophets after Moses. Thomas Paine mentions many other passages, which I shall consider when I come to your next letter.

The above considerations would be sufficient to invalidate the genuineness and authenticity of any historical book: but here we find that the credulity of bigots requires less proof for the authority of a work, which, according to them, is the fountain of faith, than for Ossian's poems, or any other book of no consequence. If a common historical work contains fables, impossible events, and anachronisms; if its age is not ascertained; if we are certain that it was unknown for many centuries; if we are even ignorant whether it is an original or a translation, who would give the slightest credit to such a book? Yet are enlightened nations led by the testimony of the Jews, a people credulous beyond measure, extremely ignorant, almost continually in slavery, and dispersed. This is the nation that pretends to give an account of the creation, and, with a vanity peculiar to an insignificant people, to assume the supremacy among nations, and arrogate to themselves the exclusive protection of Jehovah, and dare make their Adam the common stock of mankind. You allow, my Lord, that several passages have been interpolated in the Pentateuch. No person in the least acquainted with the history can deny that it has suffered great alterations; 1 and I have already noticed the opinion of the best informed fathers of the church upon the non-existence of the Pentateuch, several centuries prior to Esdras. I now beg to be informed, how we are to decide, if Hilkiah, in the reign of Josias, collected from tradition, or some old book he found in a chest, the precepts of the law? and whether the other famous scribe, Esdras, did not compile from hearsay, and some imperfect and scattered manuscripts of no authority, together with a great many Babylonish traditions, those venerable five books of Moses? We are informed, in one of the books that bears his name, that Esdras was the wisest of his cotemporaries, and therefore a very fit and probable person to write books out of old legends.

If the books of the Old Testament were composed at so late a period, no wonder then that we find all the mysterious part of them so much like the religion of the ancients, and particularly of the Babylonians, and the historical part made up of heterogeneous matters, which in our days, unassisted by any profane writer of that age, we can make nothing of. I shall mention a few of the most striking points of resemblance between the Jewish and other mysteries. Abraham, the most famous of their patriarchs, has ever been celebrated in India. This they seem to have brought from their native country, Arabia. We have already noticed, that their account of the creation is exactly copied from Zoroaster, who says, that the world was made in six periods of time, called by him the thousands of God and of light, meaning the six summer months; in the first, God made the heavens; in the second, the waters; in the third, the earth; in the fourth, trees; in the fifth, animals; and in the sixth, man. The Etrurians and the Hindoos have very similar traditions of the highest antiquity, which, though they were emblems at first perfectly understood, astronomers afterwards converted them into periods, comprehending as many years as was required for different revolutions of the planetary system.

Thus, while the Hindoos and Persians called the days or ages of the world, each of many thousands of years; the Jews, ignorant of astronomy, and fond of the marvellous, comprised all within six common days. Their firmament or heaven of crystal, and its windows, are absurdities not peculiar to them; the feast of the Pascha, which signifies passage, is of Egyptian origin, and was in reverence for the passage of the sun at the vernal equinox: the sacrifices of calves or oxen, the ceremony of the scape-goat, are Egyptian and Indian; the latter, in particular, have a ceremony altogether the same with that of the scapegoat. It is too long to insert here, but I refer my readers to Mr. Halhed's introduction to the code of Gentoo laws for information on this head. The distinction between pure and impure animals was first made by the Egyptians; the ladder seen in Jacob's vision, is exactly a copy of that with seven steps in the cave of Milthra, representing the seven spheres of the planets, by means of which souls ascended and descended. It is also the mythology of the Hindoos, whose antiquity no man at the present day can venture to deny. The seven candlesticks, and the twelve stones are Egyptian, and were emblems of the seven planets, and twelve signs of the Zodiac. The serpent is the most famous Egyptian hieroglyphic; it signifies eternity, or the sum of all things. The fasts before feasts are also derived from this nation. The Jewish high-priest, like the Egyptian, wore an image of sapphire, being the emblematic picture of truth, upon, his breast: in short, the Egyptians, their masters, gave them the first ideas of mysteries, which, in the course of time, they mingled with the Chaldaic; and Manetho informs us, in the extract given by Josephus in his first book against Appian, that, in authors of great authority, he found the Jews to have been distinguished in Egypt by the name of captive pastors, which Josephus artfully enough has attempted to convert into captive kings. These are the men whom sacred historians pretend to have taught the Egyptians all their arts. These wretches, despised of all nations, were themselves the emphatical admirers of the wisdom of the East. Their legislator was an Egyptian priest, and learned all that he knew from them; and you would persuade us that a set of Arabian hordes had founded the Egyptian empire, simply because they, like the Irish, are pleased to say that they were antedeluvians. I pardon the Jews for their credulity; but Europeans in the 18th century ought not to think as the inhabitants of Palestine. If we give credit to all the reports of the origin of nations, we may give up all pretensions to common sense.

The immortality of the soul is shown, by the learned but superstitious Warburton, never to have been mentioned in the Pentateuch; nor the notion of hell, or of future rewards and punishments. There is nothing more certain, however, than that the Pharisees, long before Christ, strenuously maintained the immortality of the soul, and in some measure adopted the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which they had got from the Greeks and other nations.

The Sadducees, founding themselves upon the Bible, fervently denied a future life. The Essenians, according to Philostratus, were Pythagoreans, both in their morals, belief, and mode of life, except that a few of the Jewish articles of faith, such as the necessity of circumcision, were mingled with their creed. Josephus himself acknowledges the similarity between the Essenians and the Plisti among the Thracians, to whom Zamolxis, the disciple of Pythagoras, taught his doctrines: The Therapeutes, the pattern and ori--gin of Christian morals, were reckoned amongst the Jews to be the most holy among the Essenians. They sacrificed their passions to God; they never swore, but made simple affirmations; they lived, as it were, in convents; they despised bodily pain: when they entered their state of perfection, they abandoned their property, wives, children, and all earthly concerns; they lived upon bread and water and salt; and spent the six days of the week in interpreting the allegorical sense of the Bible. They revered the Sabbath with a most scrupulous exactness; then they assembled in places set apart for religion, the men ranged on one side, and the women on the other, separated by a division four feet high, to prevent temptation. Then they sung praises to God, and preached; they obeyed all the laws of their country, but never would execute any order to hurt another person. They, like the Pythagoreans, thought themselves possessed of the gift of prophecy; they, like the Pythagoreans, believed in the great year, whence arose the famous millennium of the Christians. The three sects of Jews--Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenians, lived all in perfect harmony; the incredulous Sadducees not being considered as heretics, but often attaining the dignity of high-priests. This suffices to show, that the Jews borrowed from other nations those very mysteries which the ignorance of writers has misled mankind to consider as the special revelations of Jesus Christ.

I have insisted so much upon this circumstance, because there is not a single article of Christian morals, nor one religious tenet, contained in the New Testament, that was not known before Jesus Christ was born. And the Christian religion, like that of the Jews, is a corruption of the mythologies of the nations they brand with the name of infidels.

But, Sir, who gave you the right, you who exclaim so much against the unsupported assertions of Thomas Paine, to suppose that the author of Chronicles copied an interpolation from Genesis, knowing, as he must have done, that it was interpolated by Samuel?

You next attempt to justify the conduct of God towards the Canaanites, whose great crime was to defend their own country, and to adore their own gods instead of the God of the Jews. When a man makes an apology for such conduct, we only can answer by an appeal to the feelings of men, from which alone we derive notions of humanity. It was natural for the adorers of a Phenician Jehovah to be the enemies of the Babylonish Baal: both these gods sprang from the wild fancies of men. The jealous God of the Jews, the all-wise, omnipotent, and benevolent, could not convert the worshippers of another god, without exterminating whole nations, even to the little children; but this barbarous mandate came from the priests, who have in all countries, and all systems of Religion, adopted this method of conversion. You state, that Moses "gave an order that the boys and women should be put to death; but, that the young maidens should be kept alive for themselves;" and, that you "see nothing in the proceeding, but good policy combined with mercy. The young men might have become dangerous avengers of what they would esteem their country's wrongs; the mothers might have again allured the Israelites to the love of licentious pleasures, and the practice of idolatry, and brought another plague upon the congregation; but the young maidens, not being polluted by the flagitious habits of their mothers, not likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept alive:" and you add, that "the women children were not reserved for the purposes of debauchery, but of slavery; a custom abhorrent from our manners, but every where practised in former times, and still preserved in countries where the benignity of the Christian religion has not softened the ferocity of human nature." Is extermination an example of the mercy of priests and their gods, "whose justice is subservient to mercy," "whose punishments originate in his abhorrence to sin,"--and whose commands to massacre, to butcher, and to exterminate, "are only benevolent warnings?"--You dare Mr. Paine to prove, that the young women were kept for debauchery; and you triumphantly add, "that if he does, you will allow Moses to be the horrid monster he describes him, and the Bible a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy." Do you think, that consigning to slavery thirty-two thousand maids, is consistent with the benignity of God? I do not hesitate to consider this worse than merely making them the partners of licentious pleasures. But, in what consisted the wonted wisdom of a God, whom you describe as ever solicitous to lessen the influence of sin? Let me ask you, if the young women were not as liable to incite the passions of the Jews as their mothers, and whether their slavery would not increase the opportunities for debauchery? Could it be consistent with humanity, much less with the mercy of an all powerful God, to put to death all the boys of a nation, merely because they might in time revenge the insolent invaders of their country? Were all the male children already polluted from their birth? It would have been easy for them to convert them to another religion, but to your God it was impossible. The bloody invaders of America pursued not another plan, even after "the benignity of the Christian religion softened the ferocity of human nature." Have these Christian invaders any where respected the chastity of women when they made them slaves? And have the Jews, God's chosen nation, at any period, either while under his protection, or since he abandoned them, shown themselves more virtuously inclined than other people; were they ever prevented by the striking manifestations of his mercy, his power, and his justice, from going away to adore other gods, and falling into all sorts of wickedness? In short, if the Bishop rests his defence of Moses and the Bible upon this passage, I am willing to appeal to the judgement of all mankind. If any person can believe it consistent with the benevolence of omnipotence, to sacrifice whole nations to be massacred and plundered by a few hordes of bloody Jews; if he can think this to be part of a grand scheme for the good of mankind, he must give up all pretensions to reason, common sense, and humanity. But it is time the world should see, that this holy book the Bible, "which, in weight of authority, and extent of utility, exceeds all the libraries of the philosophers," contains pretences for all bad actions, and stifles the laws of humanity and morality. Upon this book have inquisitors, crusaders, and religious men, founded pretences for the most diabolical persecutions, avowedly undertaken for the express purpose of unrooting infidelity, and for the glory of the Lord. Every man who reads the word of God is warranted to reason thus: God has ordered murder and robbery; he has instigated his favourite people to exterminate whole nations; therefore I can do no better than to imitate the Almighty; and every crusader may pretend to have the same authority from God as Moses; and miracles are never wanting to prove it. Because Abraham was a pimp, and his wife a prostitute, so may any person be, without losing the patronage of the God of Abraham. Every man, in short, may imitate the meek Moses, the humane David, without fearing to incur the displeasure of the Almighty. Thus Ravaillac thought he was doing as holy a deed, when he attempted the life of Henry; as Dominic, or Torquemada, when butchering the wretched heretics, who had the misfortune to fall a prey to their bloody zeal. The whole Old Testament is so filled with barbarous stories, that if they did not excite laughter by their improbability, they would freeze the blood in, the veins of any man endowed with humanity. What an irksome task have those undertaken, who have attempted to reconcile the horrible crimes of the Jews with the mercy and wisdom of the Creator? Has ferocity forsaken Christians as you insinuate? Have the modern religious fanatics yielded in cruelty to the Jews? Those two religions have successively inundated the earth with the blood of innocent victims. Have not the followers of Christ constantly preached passive obedience to the church, have they not frequently relieved the people of their oaths, and have they not fomented most of the civil wars that laid waste all Europe? It is well that priests have not been able to persuade mankind of late, that the minister was the oracle of God. The pride and foolishness of science has put this out of their power; they cannot lead nations as they did the Jews; we are not so easily persuaded of the immediate manifestations of God's commands to the priest. We know science too well to believe that the pillar of fire that went before the Israelites was God himself. We might have shown the people, that a pan with red-hot substances would have the appearance of a fire by night, and a cloud of smoke by day, a custom practised, from time immemorial, by the caravans. Although, my Lord, the wisdom of God may be foolishness to man, I acknowledge I am neither fond of crediting absurdities, nor have I so much faith as to take the work of priests for supernatural mandates of Providence; when they speak in their usual senseless and unintelligible language, I conclude that it is either to dazzle the ignorant multitude, or I look upon their dreams as the consequence of dire superstition, the first effect of which is to make us unacquainted with ourselves, under the imposing aspect of familiarising us with imaginary beings. At the conclusion of my remarks upon the Old Testament, I shall give a few extracts from those books, wherein my readers may see the character of the Jews and their God in glaring colours, and judge whether any honest man would not tremble at the thoughts of having done as much injustice, and committed such atrocities as this Jehovah.

I beg the reader will observe, that the writer of the Book of Joshua does not mention the second, third, or any other book of Moses, but simply notices the book of the law of God. Now this great book was written upon twelve stones, and in Exodus we find the precise commandment of Moses to build the altar, and to read the commandments at the feast of tabernacles; so that it contained not one line of history, and could have no authority. It was a law written upon stones, which Moses, in Exod. chap. xxiv. v. 7, is said to have read to the people: "And he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people." This covenant, and particularly the repetition of it after the disobedience of the Jews, is the only part of the Scriptures that Moses ordered to be preserved with a religious care. Nothing of the most important parts of Genesis or the other five books is ever mentioned in the commandments of the law of God: the writer of the law certainly knew not that the Pentateuch existed. Had Moses written such a work, would he have failed to recommend to the Levites to keep the precious records of mankind, the sublime account of the creation? Did not the whole of the faith of the Jews depend on their being acquainted with the history of their forefathers, who were under the immediate protection of God? The ten commandments every person knows from the light of nature; no nation has ever mistaken them; but the origin of mankind is a subject of great darkness, and which the Jews ought to have preserved most carefully. Certain, however, it is, that excepting a few rites, the Jews lost not only their books, but even the recollection of their feasts, during their captivity. The other books referred to in the Bible prove, that those left are mere collections of borrowed stories, and pretended abridgements of books of greater authority, which are unfortunately lost, and leave a wide field for scepticism, particularly upon improbable or contradictory accounts. As to the belief that the books of the Old Testament are inspired, it is a tale, which, after what we have stated, even a child would laugh at.

You next seriously endeavour to corroborate the ridiculous miracle of the sun and moon standing still. You are as unsuccessful in historical as in scientifical arguments. The story in question is so stupid, that the bare mention of it marks a man's credulity, so as to render him the object of compassion. That an ignorant fanatic should attempt to defend such absurdities, would be a matter of no surprise; but to witness a Regius Professor of Divinity, a natural philosopher, bring forward facts from profane history to prove the truth of so bare-faced a lie, denotes at least your want of prudence. I cannot persuade myself that you seriously believed what you wrote; I cannot think you capable of falling at once into the most gross astronomical and historical error. I shall state the matter briefly. There was a tradition in all antiquity, and particularly among the Egyptians, relating to that motion of the earth's axis which has been observed by astronomers, and whose complete revolution round the four cardinal points takes up no less than 9,160,000 years. In the course of this revolution, it necessarily happens, that the sun will rise where it sets, that north will be south, and so on. The Egyptian priests pretended that this revolution had taken place in their country without changing the climate, while the Babylonians maintained, in the time of Alexander, that 140,000 years had elapsed since their first astronomical observations. This, no doubt, was the time that must have elapsed since the earth moved north and south. The Egyptian priests, long before Herodotus, had lost their knowledge of astronomy, which accounts for their mistake. It is evident, that the displacement of the earth's axis must be accompanied by the heaviest gravitating matter, and, therefore, what is now land, has been and will, in the course of ages, become sea. Now, my Lord, what has the Egyptian tradition to do with the sun stopped by the robber Joshua? What connection has the stoppage of the sun, or rather the earth's motion, with the sun rising where it sets? Were the thing possible, the sun would nevertheless rise in the east. Besides, does Joshua say the sun changed its course? Had this been the case, , how could the earth change its axis in an hour, without shattering the whole globe, without inundating vast tracts of country, and tearing others asunder to reestablish the equilibrium of gravity? Study and consider; do not attempt to ridicule the little learning of Thomas Paine, when you fall into such absurdities. Read Chinese history, and you will find that their careful astronomers did not perceive the long day and night. It was probably the sun of Judea only that altered its course; they did not seem to be enlightened by the same luminary. Those who believed that heaven was made of crystal, could find no difficulty in crediting this silly story. I have insisted so much upon this, because you ought to know the common principles of astronomy, and somewhat of history. Here again you appeal to the book of Jasher: it deserves no more consideration. To deem an appeal to a lost book evidence of a prodigy, because the author affirms it, is a degree of credulity which may gain the kingdom of heaven; but, in the republic of letters, such believer will pass for a very contemptible reasoner.

These are the miracles, and the histories, better attested than the History of the Twelve Knights Of Charles the Great, and such other foolish tales. Surely, none can believe that 19,000 men fought against the Midianites, and murdered a prodigious number, without having lost a man, and disbelieve the famous battles of the knights, in many of which six men fought several thousands; the conversation of the devil with Cromwell, or the miraculous appearance of God to almost all the knights and warriors among the Catholics. The sacred phial of Rheims, and the chapel of Loretto, were both conveyed in a manner you know well, and which few men in the two countries dare controvert. They too appeal to their books of Jasher. The tale of making the sun stand still has not even the merit of novelty; this luminary had long before stopt his career, out of respect to Bacchus. Neither is the shower of hail-stones new, for Jupiter of old sent a shower of hail upon the rebellious sons of Neptune.

You now come to Samuel. You are candid enough to acknowledge with Hartley, that he could not have been the author of the second book, nor of most of the first that go under his name, yet this has been the opinion of the church; and I know of no direct proofs that he wrote the remainder: by what logic do you or Hartley conclude, that Samuel wrote any part of the books ascribed to him? An author is proved not to have written most part of a work ascribed to him, who then would, without direct proofs, proclaim him the writer of some small passage, or any particular part of the work? Who but a clergyman would build a system upon a mutilated, spurious, and insignificant collection of absurdities and wonders? It is, I allow, probable that Samuel wrote something: your quotations prove no more; but what this was, we are, I presume, equally unacquainted with. That the scribes also composed some records of the lives of their kings, I will not deny. The question is, what degree of credit does the mutilated, contradictory, and fabulous collection, said to be made out of these records, deserve?

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet