The age of reason / by Thomas Paine. / Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809

Ex Libris 
C. K. OGDEN ! 



X 







AGEOF 




REASON 



AS PAINE. 



K U E E T 1 1 O I' ( ; H T P IT BL I S 1 1 I \ ( ; CO M V A X V . 

L'S. STONKCI 'i rr.i; STIIKFT, E.C. 

I8HO. 



I'KIi.K OXK SHILLING, 
AND SIXPENCE. 



S^ack 
Annex 

JC 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. 



THOMAS PAINE was born on the 29th January, 1736, when 
George II. was King of England and in the heat of quarrel 
with Frederick Prince of Wales. Thomas Paine died on 
the 8th June, 1809, when King George III. was in full and 
bitter enmity with George Prince of Wales. In. the seventy- 
one years which have passed since Paine's death bigotry 
has been busy with his name. In the twenty years which 
preceded his death hundreds of booksellers and newsmen 
were sent to gaol for selling or being found in possession of 
his works. As a politician Paine had declared war against 
kings, and as an unbeliever against churches, and the pulpit 
united with the throne to defile his memory. Foolish bigots 
call Thomas Paine an Atheist in truth he was a Deist and 
one who did not deny a future state of existence. Paine's 
father was a Quaker and staymaker. After a little stay- 
making, a little work in the excise, and some teaching, 
Paine, when about 39 years of age, went to America. He 

got there in a time of turmoil when the Boston Ports Bill 

A 2 



iv LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. 

had driven Massachusetts wild, and Colonel Washington of 
Virginia was preparing to raise a regiment to aid the old 
Bay State. At first Paine settled in the Quaker City, 
obtaining literary work in Pennsylvania with Mr. Aitkin, a 
bookseller, but his pen was soon to find more stirring 
employ. The Tory Government of poor mad George III. 
believed, or professed to believe, that with a regiment of the 
Guards it would be easy to sweep New England. General 
Gage, who commanded at Boston, was soon undeceived. In 
April, 1775, he determined to destroy some colonial military 
stores in magazine at Concord, a few miles from the 
metropolis of Massachusetts. The British regulars in gay 
uniforms marched out to merry tunes, contempt for the 
colonists pervading officers and men. But at Lexington Green 
these drilled soldiers, hired servants of a bad Government, 
fired on the local yeomanry, and the fire came back. Each 
farm sent its " minute " men, each ditch was a rifle pit, each 
hedge held a skirmisher. King George's troops were 
checked, the colonists they sneered at drove them back. 
America was awakening ; the Lexington skirmish, the 
shameful march back, now at last a very race for life, 
and the King's general, Gage, is besieged by the rough 
farm men who were till now King George's subjects, and 
even now they hai'dly dream of being anything else. The 
militia Colonel, George Washington, had written only a few 
weeks before as to independence : " I am well satisfied that 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. V 

no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North 
America." Thomas Paine's pen was now the very mightiest 
of weapons. He boldly advocated the separation of the 
united colonies from the mother country. He defied the old 
monarchy in the name of the new republic. His first 
trumpet-note was in the publication of " Common Sense," 
which produced an enormous effect on both sides of the 
Atlantic. It said for men in Philadelphia that which men 
in Boston hoped but dared hardly think ; it put in clear 
defiant words that which some down New Orleans way were 
as much opposed to as were the representatives of the Court 
of St. James' itself. Few pamphlets have had an effect 
like this, it was the reveille'e sharply sounded to a whole 
people. It stirred the New York traders, roused the steady- 
going denizens of the city of brotherly love into a quick 
step along the banks of the Schuylkill ; it made the dwellers 
on the Mississippi feel that in the sterile east and far-off 
north there was manhood too big to bend the knee longer to 
crowned lunacy 8,000 miles away. What Paine commenced 
in " Common Sen.se " he followed up right vigorously, and 
the 4th July, 1776, with its grand Declaration of Independ- 
ence, was but the mighty flame from the spark which Paine 
had fanned into fire. Through the gloomy, the wearying, 
and often doubtful struggle, Thomas Paine cast in his lot 
with George Washington, hungry sometimes, footsore often, 
now and again heartsore and almost despairing, but never 




VI LIFK OF THOMAS PATNK. 

quite beaten. And so the revolution went on until the 
surrender at Yorktown sealed the defeat of the British 
Government. Paine's services were acknowledged in formal 
fashion by resolution of the Pennsylvanian Legislature in 
177o ; by letter from George Washington in 1783 ; and by 
resolution of the Congress of the United States of America 
in 1785. But Paine's services to liberty have been most 
thoroughly acknowledged by the undying- and undimin- 
ished hostility to his memory shown by the foes of liberty 
wherever the Anglo-Saxon language is spoken. 

" The world is my country and to do good is my religion.'' 

In 1789 the assembly of the States General in France 
was the first mighty stride in the march of the French 
Revolution. The proceedings in France made the English 
aristocracy mad with fear. The channel was not so broad 
as the Atlantic. Paris was nearer Windsor than Phila- 
delphia. Tory tyranny linked itself with every crowned 
despot in Europe that liberty might be strangled in her very 
cradle. Prosecutions at home and menace abroad ; the 
prison and the sword ; but these might not be enough and 
Burke's pen and tongue were added. To Burke's reflections 
on the revolution in France came as crushing answer 
Thomas Paine's famous " Rights of Man." Its printers 
were arrested, its publishers were fined and imprisoned, but 
it was none the less sold. Men read it in fields, watching 



LIJ?'K OK THOMAS 1'AIKJi. Vll 

for tlie constables as birds watch for the fowler. An 
enormous number of copies were sold, and each clay some 
one was sent to gaol for having, or selling, or lending, or 
even for speaking of this terrible " Rights of Man." And 
Thomas Paine is elected member of the Assembly, and he 
sits to try a king. The Thetford staymakor's son judges the 
crowned Capet. And he has courage too this Paine 
courage to spare as well as to destroy ; courage to pardon 
as well as to condemn. Paine condemned the Kiug but 
would have spared his life. The generous vote for mercy 
made extreme men suspicious. The whirl of the revolution^ 
made fierce by hunger, despair, and treachery, drew this 
foreigner into prison, and Paine narrowly escaped the 
guillotine. Now may he not rest 'f has he not done enough ? 
He has wrestled with two monarchies need a giant do 
more ? Yes, there is still more to do an old book which 
fetters human thought, which has compelled an age of blind 
faith. And it is to challenge this that Thomas Paine pen* 
his ' Age of Reason." 

ClIAHUiS BuADLAUGlt, 



THE AGE OF REASON. 



IT has been my intention, for several years past, to publish 
my thoughts upon religion. I am well aware of the diffi- 
culties that attend the subject, and, from that consideration, 
had reserved it to a more advanced period of life. I in- 
tended it to be the last offering I should make to my fellow 
citizens of all nations, and that at a time when the purity of 
the motive that induced me to it, could not admit of a 
question, even by those who disapproved of the work. 

The circumstance that has now taken place in France, of 
the total abolition of the whole national order of priest- 
hood, and of' everything appertaining to compulsive systems 
of religion, and compulsive articles of faith, has not only 
precipitated my intention, but rendered a work of this kind 
exceedingly necessary, lest in the general wreck of super- 
stition, of false systems of government, and false theology, 
we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the theology 
that is true. 

As several of my colleagues, and others of my fellow 
citizens of France, have given me the example of making 
their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will 
make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frank- 
ness with which the mind of man communicates with itself 

I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happi- 
ness beyond this life. 

I believe in the equality of man ; and I believe that 
religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and 
endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. 

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other 
tilings in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this 
work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons 
for not believing them. 

B 



Z AGE OF REASON. 

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish 
church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the 
Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any other 
church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. 

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, 
Christion, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human 
inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and 
monopolise power and profit. 

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who 
believe otherwise ; they have the same right to their belief 
as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of 
man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does 
not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in 
professing to believe what one does not believe. 

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may 
so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. 
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the 
chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief 
to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for 
the commission of every other crime. He takes up the 
trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify 
himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Cau 
we conceive anything more destructive to morality than 
this? 

Soon after I had published the pamphlet, " Common 
Sense," in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a 
revolution in the system of government would be followed 
by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous 
connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, 
whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually 
prohibited by pains and penalties every discussion upon 
established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that 
until the system of government should be changed, those 
subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the 
world ; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution 
in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions 
and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to 
the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God and 
no more. 

Every national church or religion has established itself 
by pretending some special mission from God, communi- 
cated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses ; 



AGE OF REASON. O 

the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles aud saints*; 
and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God were 
not open to every man alike. 

Each of those churches show certain books, which they 
call revelation, or the word of God. The Jews say that 
their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face ; 
the Christians say that their word of God came by divine 
inspiration ; and the Turks say that their word of God (the 
Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of 
these churches accuse the others of unbelief, and, for my 
own part, I disbelieve them all. 

As it is necessary to fix right ideas to words, I will, 
before I proceed further into the subject, offer some obser- 
vations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied 
to religion, means something communicated immediately 
from God to man. 

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to 
make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, 
for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to 
a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is 
revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second 
person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it 
ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is a reve- 
lation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, 
and consequently they are not obliged to believe it. 

It is a contradiction .in terms and ideas, to call anything 
a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either ver- 
bally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the 
first communication after this it is only an account of 
something which that person says was a revelation made to 
him ; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, 
it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same 
manner ; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have 
only his word for it that it was made to him. 

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received 
the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, 
they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no 
other authority for it than his telling them' so ; and I have 
no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. 
The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity 
with them ; they contain some good moral precepts, such as 
any man qualified to be a law-giver or legislator, could 



4 AGE OF REASON. 

produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural 
intervention.* 

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven 
and brought to Mahomet by an angel the account comes too 
near the same kind of heresay evidence and second-hand 
authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, 
and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it. 

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin 
Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without 
any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed 
husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a 
right to believe them or not ; such a circumstance required a 
much stronger evidence than their bare word for it ; but we 
have not even this for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any 
such matter themselves ; it is only reported by others that 
they said so it is heresay upon heresay, and I do not choose 
to rest my belief upon such evidence. 

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that 
was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the son of 
God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still 
some fashion and repute in th^ world, and that mythology 
had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. 
Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the 
heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of 
their gods. It was not a new thin?, at that time, to believe 
a man to have been celestially begotten ; the intercourse of 
gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. 
Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited 
with some hundreds ; the story, therefore, has nothing in it 
either new, wonderful, or obscene ; it was conformable to 
the opinions that then prevailed among the people called 
Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was those people only that 
believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief 
of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the 
heathen mythology, never credited the story. 

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called 
the Christian church sprung out of the tail of the heathen 
mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first 
instance by making the reputed founder to be celestially 

* It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that 

God VISITS THE 8IKS OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDRI N ; it IS COH- 

trary to every principle of moral justice. 



AGE OF REASOX. O 

begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no 
other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was 
about twenty or thirty thousand ; the statue of Mary 
succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus ; the deification 
of heroes changed into the canonisation of saints ; the 
mythologists had gods for everything ; the Christian mytho- 
logists had saints for everything ; the church became as 
crowded with the one, as the Pantheon had been with the 
other, and Rome was the place of both. The Christian 
theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mytho- 
logists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue ; 
and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the 
amphibious fraud 

Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most 
distant disrespect to the real character of Jesus Christ. 

He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality 
that he preached and practised was of the most benevolent 
kind ; and though similar systems of morality had been 
preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philo- 
sophers, many years before ; by the Quakers since ; and 
by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded 
by any. 

Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, 
parentage, or anything else ; not a line of what is called 
the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of 
him is altogether the work of other people ; and as to 
the account given at his resurrection and ascension, it was 
the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His 
historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural 
manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same 
manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to 
the ground. 

The wretched contrivance with which this latter part is 
told, exceeds everything that went before it. The first part, 
that of the miraculous conception, was not a thing that 
admitted of publicity, and therefore the tellers of this part 
of the story had this advantage, that though they might not 
be detected, they could not be expected to prove it, because 
it was not one of those things that admitted of proof, and it 
was impossible that the person of whom it was told could 
prove it himself. 

But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and 



AGE OF REASON. 

his ascension through the air, is a tiling very different as to 
the evidence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a 
child in the womb. The resurrection and ascension, sup- 
posing them to have taken place, admitted of public and 
ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a 
balloon, or the sun at noon-day, to all Jerusalem at least. 
A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires 
that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and 
universal ; and as the public visibility of this last related 
act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the 
former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that 
evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number 
of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as 
proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the 
rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it 
appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection, and, 
as they say, would not believe without having ocular and 
manual demonstration himself. So neither will /, and the 
reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, 
as for Thomas. 

It is in vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. 
The story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has 
every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face 
of it. Who were the authors of it is as impossible for us 
now to know, as it is for us to be assured that the books in 
which the account is related, were written by the persons 
whose names they bear ; the best surviving evidence we now 
have respecting this affair is the Jews. They are regularly 
descended from the people who live in the time this resurrec- 
tion and ascension is said to have happened, and they say it 
is not ti-ue. It has long appeared to me a strange incon- 
sistency to cite the Jews, as a proof of the truth of the 
story. It is just the same as if a man were to say, I will 
prove the truth of what I have told you by producing the 
people who say it is false. 

That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he 
was crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, 
are historical relations strictly within the limits of pro- 
bability. He preached most excellent morality and the 
equality of man ; but he preached also against the corrup- 
tions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought 
upon him the hatred and vengance of the whole order of 



AGE OF REASON. 7 

priesthood. The accusation which those priests brought 
against him, was that of sedition and conspiracy against the 
Roman government, to which the Jews were then subject 
and tributary ; and it is not improbable that the Roman 
government might have some secret apprehension of the 
effects of his doctrine as well as the Jewish priests ; neither 
is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the 
delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the 
Romans. Between the two, however, the virtuous Reformer 
and Revolutionist lost his life. 

It is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with 
another case I am going to mention, that the Christian 
mythologists, calling themselves the Christian Church, have 
erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is 
not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the 
mythology of the ancients. 

The ancient mythologists tell us that the race of giants 
made war against Jupiter, and that one of them threw one 
hundred rocks against him at one throw ; that Jupiter 
defeated him with thunder, and confined him afterwards 
under Mount Etna, and that every time the giant turns him- 
self Mount Etna belches with fire. It is here easy to see that 
the circumstance of the mountain, that of its being a volcano, 
suggested the idea of the fable ; and that the fable is made 
to fit and wind itself up with the circumstance. 

The Christian mythologists tell us that their Satan made 
war against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined 
him afterwards, not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is 
here easy to see that the first fable suggested the idea of 
the second ; for the fable of Jupiter and the Giants was 
told many hundred years before that of Satan. 

Thus far the ancient and the Christian mythologists differ 
very little from each other. But the latter have contrived 
to carry the matter much farther. They have contrived to 
connect the fabulous part of the story of Jesus Christ with 
the fable originating from Mount Etna ; and, in order to 
make all the parts of the story tie together, they have taken 
to their aid the traditions of the Jews ; for the Christian 
mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythology, 
and partly from the Jewish traditions. 

The Christian mythologists, after having confined Satan 
in a pit, were obliged to let him out again to bring on the 



8 AGE OF REASON. 

sequel of the fable. He is then introduced into the garden 
of Eden in the shape of a tnake or a serpent, and in that 
shape he enters into familiar conversation with Eve, who is 
no way surprised to hear a snake talk ; and the issue of thin 
tete-a-tete is, that he persuades her to eat an apple, and the 
eating of that apple damns all mankind. After giving Satan 
this triumph over the whole of creation, one would have 
supposed that the Church mythologists would have been 
kind enough to send him back again to the pit ; or, if they 
had not done this, that they would have put a mountain 
upon him (for they gay that their faith can remove a moun- 
tain), or have put him tinder a mountain, as the former 
mythologists had done, to prevent his getting again among 
the women, and doing more mischief. But instead of this 
they leave him at large, without even obliging him to give 
his parole the secret of which is, that they could not do 
without him, and, after being at the trouble of making him, 
they bribed him to stay. They promised him ALL the Jews, 
ALL the Turks by anticipation, nine-tenths of the world 
besides and Mahomet in to the bargain. After this, who can 
doubt the bountifulness of the Christian mythology ? 

Having thus made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, 
in which none of the combatants could be either killed or 
wounded put Satan into a pit let him out again given 
him a triumph over the whole creation damned all man- 
kind by the eating of an apple, these Christian mythologists 
bring the two ends of their fable together. They represent 
this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at once 
both God and Man, and also the Son of God, celestially 
begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that' 
Eve in her longing had eaten an apple. 

Putting aside everything that might excite laughter by 
its absurdity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confining- 
ourselves merely to an examination of the parts, it is im- 
possible to conceive a story more derogatory to the 
Almighty, more inconsistent with his wisdom, more con- 
tradictory to his power, than this story is. 

In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the in- 
ventors were under the necessity of giving to the being 
whom they call Satan, a power equally as great, if not 
greater, than they attribute to the Almighty. They have 
not only given him the power of liberating himself from the 



AGE OP REASON. 

pit, after what they call his fall, but they have made that 
power increase afterwards to infinity. Before this fall 
they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, 
as they represent the rest. After his fall he becomes, 
by their account, omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and 
at the same time. lie occupies the whole immensity of 
space. 

Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent 
him as defeating, by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of 
the creation, all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. 
They represent him as having compelled the Almighty to 
the direct necessity either of surrendering the whole of the 
creation to the government and sovereignty of this Satan, or 
of capitulating for its redemption by coming down upon 
earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the shape of a 
man. 

Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way 
that is, had they represented the Almighty as compelling 
Satan to exhibit himself on a cross, in the shape of a snake, 
as a punishment for his new transgression, the story would 
have been less absurd less contradictory. But instead of 
this, they make the transgressor triumph, and the Almighty 
fall. 

That many good men have believed this strange fable, 
and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is 
not a crime), is what I have no doubt of. In the first placs 
they were educated to believe it, and they would have 
believed anything else in the same manner. They are also 
many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what 
they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in 
making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the 
idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into 
the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more un- 
natural anything is, the more is it capable of becoming the- 
object of dismal admiration. 

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, 
do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do 
we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant 
we are born, a world furnished to our hands that cost us 
nothing? Is it we that light up the sun, that pour down, 
the rain, and fill the earth with abundance ? Whether we 



10 AGE OF REASON. 

sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes 
on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in 
future, nothing to us ? Can our gross feelings be excited 
by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide ? Or is the 
gloomy pride of man become so intolerable that nothing can 
flatter it but the sacrifice of the Creator ? 

I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but 
it would be paying too great a compliment to their credulity 
to forbear it upon that account ; the times and the subjects 
demand it to be done. The suspicion that the theory of 
what is called the Christian Church is fabulous, is becoming 
very extensive in all countries ; and it will be a consolation 
to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubting what 
to believe, and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely 
investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the 
books called the Old and New Testament. 

These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with 
Revelation (which, by the bye, is a book of riddles that 
requires a revelation to explain it), are, we are told, the 
word of God. It is therefore proper for us to know who 
told us so, that AVC may know what credit to give the report. 
The answer to this question is, that nobody can tell, except 
that we tell one another so. The case, however, historically 
appears to be as follows : 

When the Church mythologists established their system, 
they collected all the writings they could find, and managed 
them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncer- 
tainty to us, whether such of the writing as now appear 
under the name of the Old and New Testament, are in 
the same state in which those collectors say they found 
them, or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed 
them up. 

Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books 
out of the collection they had made should be the WOKD OF 
GOD, and which should not. They rejected several ; they 
voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the 
Apocrypha ; and those books which had a majority of votes 
were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted other- 
wise, all the people since calljng themselves Christians had 
believed otherwise, for the belief of the one comes from the 
vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, 
we now know nothing of ; they called themselves by the 



AGE OF REASON. 11 

general name of the Church, and this is all we know of the 
matter. 

As we have no other external evidence or authority for 
believing those books to be the word of God, than what I 
have mentioned, which is no evidence or authority at all, I 
come, in the next place, to examine the internal evidence 
contained in the books themselves. 

In the former part of this essay, I have spoken of revela- 
tion, I now proceed further with that subject, for the 
purpose of applying it to the books in question. 

Revelation is a communication of something, which the 
person to whom that thing is revealed did not know before. 
For if I have done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no 
revelation to tell me I have done it, or seen it, nor to enable 
me to tell it, or to write it. 

Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done 
upon earth, of which man himself is the actor, or the 
witness ; and consequently all the historical and anecdotal 
parts of the Bible, which is almost the whole of it, is not 
within the meaning and compass of the word revelation, and 
therefore is not the word of God. 

When Samson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he 
ever did so (and whether he did or did not is nothing to us), 
or when he visited his Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did 
anything else, what has revelation to do with these things ? 
If they were facts he could tell them himself ; or his secre- 
tary, if he kept one, could write them, if they were worth 
either telling or writing ; and if they were fictions, revela- 
tion could not make them true : and whether true or not, 
we are neither the better nor the wiser for knowing them. 
When we contemplate ' the immensity of that Being who 
directs and governs the incomprehensible WHOLE, of which 
the utmost ken of human sight can discover but a part, we 
ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the word 
of God. 

As to the account of the Creation, with which the book 
of Genesis opens, it has all the appearance of being a tra- 
dition which the Israelites had among them before they 
came into Egypt ; and after their departure from that 
country, they put it at the head of their history, without 
telling (as it is most probable) that they did not know how 
they came by it. The manner in which the account opens 



12 AGE OF REASON. 

shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly ; it is nobody 
that speaks ; it is nobody that hears ; it is addressed to 
nobody ; it has neither first, second, nor third person ; it has 
every criterion of being a tradition ; it has no voucher, 
Moses does not take upon himself by introducing it vith the 
formality he uses on other occasions, such as that of saying, 
" The Lord spake unto Moses, saying" 

Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the Crea- 
tion I am at a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too 
good a judge of such subjects to put his name to that 
account. He had been educated among the Egyptians, who 
were a people as well skilled in science, and particularly in 
astronomy, as any people of their day ; and the silence and 
caution that Moses observes, in not authenticating the 
account, is a good negative evidence that he neither told it, 
nor believed it. The case is, that every nation of people 
had been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much right 
to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest ; and 
as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to con- 
tradict the tradition. The account, however, is harmless ; 
and this is more than can be said for many other parts of 
the Bible. 

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous 
debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unre- 
lenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible 
is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the 
word of a Demon, than the word of God. It is a history 
of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise man- 
kind : and for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest 
everything that is cruel. 

We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, 
but what deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, 
till we come to the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the 
anonymous publications, the Psalms, and the book of Job 
more particularly in the latter we find a great deal of 
elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the power and 
benignity of the Almighty ; but they stand on no higher 
rank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as 
well before that time as since. 

The Proverbs, which are said to be Solomon's, though 
most probably a collection (because they discover a know- 
ledge of life, which his situation excluded him from 



AGE OF REASON. 13 

knowing), are an instructive, table of ethics. They are 
inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the Spaniards, and 
not more wise and economical than those of the American 
Franklin. 

All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by 
the name of the Prophets, are the works of the Jewish 
poets and itinerant preachers, who mixed poetry, anecdotes, 
and devotion together : and those works still retain the air 
and style of poetry, though in translation.* 

There is not throughout the whole book, called the Bible, 
any word that describes to us what we call a poet, or any 
word that describes what we call poetry. The case is, that 
the word prophet, to which latter times have affixed a new 
idea, was the Bible word for poet, and the word prophesying 
meant the art of making poetry. It also meant the art of 
playing poetry to a tune upon any instrument of music. 

We read of prophesying with pipes, tabrets, and horns 
of prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals ; 
and with every other instrument of music then in fashion. 

* As there are many readers who do not see that a composition is 
poetry, unless to be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add 
this note. 

Poetry consists principally in two things imagery and composition. 
The composition of poetry differs from that of prose in the manner of 
mixing long and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of 
a line of poetry, and put a short one in the room of it, or put a long 
syllable where a short one should be, and that line will loose its poetical 
harmony. It will have an effect upon the line like that of misplacing 
a note in a song. 

The imagery in these books called the Prophets, appertains alto- 
gether to poetry. It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not 
admissible in any other kind of writing than poetry. 

To show that these writings are composed ia poetical numbers, I will 
take ten syllables as they stand in the book, and make a line of the 
same number of syllables (heroic measure), that shall rhyme with the 
last word. It will then be seen that the composition of these books is 
poetical measure. The instance I shall produce is from Isaiah : 
" HEAE, YE HEAVENS, AND GIVE EAR, EAUTII ! " 
'Tis God himself that calls attention forth. 

Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to 
which I shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out tho 
figure, and showing the intention of the poet : 

" ! THAT MINE HEAD WERE WATERS, AND MINE EYES " 

Were fountains, flowing like the liquid skies ? 
Then would I give the mighty flood release, 
And weep a deluge for the human race. 



11 AGE OF 11EASOX. 

Were we now to speak of prophesying with a fiddle, or 
with a pipe and tabor, the expression would have no mean- 
ing, or would appear ridiculous, and to some people con- 
temptuous, because we have changed the meaning of the 
word. 

We are told of Saul being among the prophets, and also 
that he prophesied ; but we are not told what they prophesied 
nor what he prophesied. The case is, there was nothing to 
tell ; for these prophets were a company of musicians and 
poets, and Saul joined in the concert, and this was called 
prophesying. 

The account given of this affair, in the book called 
Samuel, is, that Saul met a company of prophets ; a whole 
company of them ! coming down with a psaltery, a tabret, 
a pipe, and a harp, and that they prophesied, and that he 
prophesied with them. But it appears afterwards, that Saul 
prophesied badly that is, he performed his part badly for 
it is said, that an ' : evil spirit from God"* came upon Saul, 
and he prophesied. 

Now, were there no other passage in the book called the 
Bible than this, to demonstrate to us that we have lost the 
original meaning of the word prophecy, and substituted 
another meaning in its place, this alone would be sufficient ; 
for it is impossible to use and apply the word prophesy, in 
the place it is here used and applied, if we give to it the 
sense which latter times have affixed to it. The manner in 
which it is here used strips it of all religious meaning, and 
shows that a man might then be a prophet, or might 
prophesy, as he may now be a poet or a musician, without 
any regard to the morality or the immorality of his character. 
The word was originally a term of science, promiscuously 
applied to poetry and music, and not restricted to any subject 
upon which poetry and music might be exercised. 

Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they 
predicted anything, but because they composed the poem or 
song that bears their name, in celebration of an act already 
done. David is ranked among the prophets, for he was a 
musician, and was also reputed to be (though perhaps very 

* As those men, who call themselves divines and commentators, arc 
very fond of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning 
of the first part of the phrase, that of AX EVIL SPIRIT FROM GOD. I 
keep to my text I keep to the meaning of the word prophesy. 



AGE OF REASOX. 15 

erroneously) the author of the Psalms. But Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob are not called prophets ; it does not 
appear from any accounts we have, that they could either 
sing, play music, or make poetry. 

We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They 
might as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God ; for 
there cannot be degrees in prophesying consistently with its 
modern sense. But there are degrees in poetry, and there- 
fore the phrase is reconcilable to the case, when we under- 
stand by it the greater and the lesser poets. 

It is altogether unnecessary, after this to offer any ob- 
servations upon what those men styled prophets have 
written. The axe goes at once to the root, by showing 
that the original meaning of the word has been mistaken, 
and consequently all the inferences that have been drawn 
from those books, the devotional respect that has been paid 
to them, and the labored commentaries that have been 
written upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are not 
worth disputing about. In many things, however, the 
writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate than that 
of being bound up, as they now are, with the trash that 
accompanies them, under the abused name of the word of 
God. 

If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, 
we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeable- 
ness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking 
place by any means or accident whatever, in that which we 
would honor with the name of the word of God ; and there- 
fore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human 
language. 

The continually progressive change to which the meaning 
of words is subject, the want of an universal language, 
Avhich renders translation necessary, the errors to which 
translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and 
printers, together with the possibility of wilful alteration, 
are of themselves evidences that human language, whether 
in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the word of 
God. The word of God exists in something else. 

Did the book, called the Bible, excel in purity of ideas 
and expression all the books that are now extant in the 
world, I would not take it for my rule of faith, as being the 
word of God, because the possibility would nevertheless 



1C AGE OF REASON. 

exist of my being imposed upon. But when I see through- 
out the greatest part of this book scarcely anything but a 
history of the grossest vices, and a collection of the most 
paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator 
by calling it by his name. 

Thus much for the Bible ; I now go on to the book 
called the New Testament. The Neii* Testament ! that is 
the new will, as if there could be two wills of the Creator. 

Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to 
establish a new religion, he would undoubtedly have written 
the system himself, or procured it to be written in his life- 
time. But there is no publication extant authenticated with 
his name. All the books called the New Testament were 
written after his death. He was a Jew by birth and by 
profession ; and he was the Son of God in like manner that 
every other person is for the Creator is the father of all. 

The first four books, called Matthew, Mark, Luke, -and 
John, do not give a history of the life of Jesus Christ, but 
only detached anecdotes of him. It appears from those 
books, that the whole time of his being a preacher was not 
more than eighteen months ; and it was only during this 
^hort time that those men became acquainted with him. 
They make mention of him at the age of twelve years, 
sitting, they say, among the Jewish doctors, asking and 
answering them questions. As this was several years before 
their acquaintance with him began, it is most probable they 
had this anecdote from his parents. From this time there 
is no account of him for about sixteen years. Where he 
lived, or how he employed himself, during this interval is 
not known. Most probably he was working at his father's 
trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear 
that he had any school education, and the probability is, 
that he could not write, for his parents were extremely poor, 
MS appears from their not being able to pay for a bed when 
he was born. 

It is somewhat curious, that the three persons whose names 
are the most universally recorded, were of very obscure 
parentage. Moses was a foundling ; Jesus Christ was born 
in a stable ; and Mahomet was a mule-driver. The first 
and the last of these men were founders of different systems 
of religion ; but Jesus Christ founded no new system. He 
called ir.cn to the practice of moral virtues, and the belief 



AGE OP REASON. 17 

of one God. The great trait in his character is philan- 
throphy. 

The manner in which he was apprehended shows that he 
was not much known at that time ; and it shows also that 
the meetings he then held with his followers were in secret ; 
and that he had given over or suspended preaching publicly. 
Judas could not otherwise betray him than by giving infor- 
mation where he was, and pointing him out to the officers 
that went to arrest him ; and the reason for employing and 
paying Judas to do this, could arise only from the causes 
already mentioned, that of his not being much known, and 
living concealed. 

The idea of his concealment not only agrees very ill with 
his reputed divinity, but associates with it something of 
pusillanimity, and his being betrayed, or in other words, his 
being apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend 
to be crucified. 

The Christian mythologists tell us that Christ died for the 
sins of the world, and that he came on purpose to die. Would 
it not then have been the same if he had died of a fever, or 
of the small pox, of old age, or of anything else ? 

The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon 
Adam, in case he ate the apple, was not that thou shalt surely 
be crucified, but thou shalt surely die the sentence of death 
and not the manner of dying. Crucifixion, therefore, or any 
other particular manner of dying, made no part of the 
sentence that Adam was to suffer, and consequently, even 
upon their own tactics, it could make no part of the sentence 
that Christ was to suffer in the room of Adam. A fever 
would have done as well as a cross, if there was any occasion 
for either. 

This sentence of death, which they tell us was thus passed 
upon Adam, must either have meant dying naturally that 
is, ceasing to live, or have meant what these mythologists 
call damnation and consequently, the act of dying on the 
part of Jesus Christ must, according to their system, apply 
as a prevention to one or other of these two things happening 
to Adam and to us. 

That it does not prevent our dying is evident, because we 
all die ; and if their accounts of longevity be true, men die 
faster since the crucifixion than before ; and with respect to 
the second explanation (including with it the natural death 

C 



18 AGE OF REASON. 

of Jesus Christ as a substitute for the eternal death or dam- 
nation of all mankind), it is impertinently representing the 
Creator as coming off, or revoking the sentence by a pun or 
a quibble upon the word death. That manufacturer of 
quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books that bear his name, 
has helped this quibble on by making another quibble upon 
the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams : the 
one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy ; the other who 
sins by proxy, and suffers in fact. A religion thus inter- 
larded with quibble, subtei-fuge, and pun, has a tendency to 
instruct its professors in the practice of these arts. They 
acquire the habit without being aware of the cause. 

If Jesus Christ was the being which those mythologists 
tell us he was, and that he came into this world to suffer, 
which is a word they sometimes use instead of to die, the 
only real suffering he could have endured would have been 
to live. His existence here was a state of excitement or 
transportation from Heaven, and the way back to his original 
country was to die. In fine, everything in this strange 
system is the reverse to what it pretends to be. It is the 
reverse of the truth, and I become so tired with examining 
into its inconsistencies and absurdities, and I hasten to the 
conclusion of it, in order to proceed to something better. 

How much or what parts of the book called the New 
Testament were written by the persons whose names they 
bear, is what we can know nothing of, neither are we certain 
in what language they were originally written. The matters 
they now contain may be classed under two heads : anecdote 
and epistolary correspondence. The four books already 
mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are altogether 
anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place. 
They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others 
did and said to him ; and in several instances they relate 
the same event differently. Revelation is necessarily out of 
the question with respect to those books, not only because 
of the disagreement of the writers, but because revelation 
cannot be applied to the relating of facts by the persons 
who aw them done, nor to the relating or recording of any 
discourse or conversation by those who heard it. The book 
called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work), 
belongs also to the anecdotal part. 

All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book 



AGE OF REASON*. 19 

of enigmas, called the Revelations, are a collection of letters 
under the name of epistles ; and the forgery of letters has 
been such a common practice in the world, that the proba- 
bility is at least equal, whether they are genuine or forged. 
One thing, however, is much less equivocal, which is, that 
out of the matters contained in those books, together with 
the assistance of some old stories, the church has set up a 
system of religion very contradictory to the character of the 
person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of 
pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person 
whose life was humility and poverty. 

The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of souls 
therefrom by prayers bought of the church with money, the 
selling of pardons, dispensations, and indulgencies, are 
revenue laws, without bearing that name or carrying that 
appearance. But the case nevertheless is, that those things 
derive their origin from the paroxysm of the crucifixion and 
the theory deduced therefrom, which was that one person 
could stand in the place of another, and could perform meri- 
torious services for him. The probability, therefore, is, that 
the old theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption 
( which is said to have been accomplished by the act of one 
person in the room of another) was originally fabricated on 
purpose to bring forward and build all those secondary and 
pecuniary redemptions upon, and that the passages in the 
books, upon which the idea or theory of redemption is built, 
have been manufactured and fabricated for that purpose. 
A\ r hy are we to give this church credit when she tells us that 
those books are genuine in every part, any more than we 
irive her credit for everything else she has told us, or for 
t lie miracles she says she has performed? That she could 
fabricate writings is certain, because she could write ; and 
the composition of the writings in question is of that kind 
that anybody might do it, and that she did fabricate them 
is not more inconsistent with probability than that she 
should tell us, as she has done, that she could work and did 
work miracles. 

Since then no external evidence can, at this long distance 
of time, be produced to prove whether the church fabricated 
the doctrines called redemption or not (for such evidence, 
whether for or against, would be subject to the same 
suspicion of being fabricated), the case can only be referred 

c 2 



20 AGE OF REASON. 

to the internal evidence which the thing carries of itself, 
and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a 
fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory 
or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of 
pecuniary justice, and not that of moral justice. 

If I owe a person money and cannot pay him, and he 
threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the 
debt upon himself, and pay it for me ; but if I have com- 
mitted a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed, 
moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even 
if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice in this, 
is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing 
itself ; it is then no longer justice ; it is indiscriminate 
revenge. 

This single reflection will show that the doctrine of 
redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea, correspond- 
ing to that of the debt, which another person might pay ; 
and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the 
system of second redemption, obtained through the means 
of money given to the church for pardons, the probability is 
that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other 
of those theories ; and that, in truth, there is no such thing 
as redemption ; that it is fabulous, and that man stands in 
the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did 
stand, since man existed, and that it is his greatest consola- 
tion to think so. 

Let him believe this and he will live more consistently 
and morally than by any other system. It is by his being 
taught to contemplate himself as an outlaw, as an outcast, 
as a beggar, as a mumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a 
dunghill, at an immense distance from his Creator, and who 
must make his approaches by creeping and cringing to inter- 
mediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous 
disregard for everything under the name of religion, or 
becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the 
latter case he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation 
of it; his prayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude; 
he calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill, 
and all the blessing of life by the thankless name of vanities; 
he despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF 
REASON ; and having endeavored to force upon himself the 
belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungrate- 



AGE OF REASON. 21 

fully calls it Jiuman reason, as if man could give reason to 
himself. 

Yet with all this strange appearance of humility, and this 
contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest 
presumptions : he finds fault with everything ; his selfish- 
ness is never satisfied ; his ingratitude is never at an end. 
He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even 
in the government of the universe. He prays dictatorially ; 
when it is sunshine he prays for rain, and when it is rain he 
prays for sunshine. He follows the same idea in everything 
that he prays for, for what is the amount of all his prayers, 
but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind and 
act otherwise than he does ? It is as if he were to say, 
Thou knowest not so well as I. 

But some perhaps will say are we to have no word of 
God no revelation ? I answer, Yes ; there is a word of 
God there is a revelation. 

THE WORD OF GOD is THE CREATION WE BEHOLD, and 
it is in this word which no human invention can counterfeit 
or alter, that God speaketh universally to man. 

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore 
incapable of being used as the means of unchangeable and 
universal information. The idea that God sent Jesus Christ 
to publish, as they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from 
one end of the earth to the other, is consistent only with the 
ignorance of those who knew nothing of the extent of the 
world, and who believed, as those world-saviours believed 
and continued to believe for several centuries (and that in 
contradiction to the discoveries of philosophers, and the 
experience of navigators), that the earth was flat like a 
trencher, and that a man might walk to the end of it. 

But how Avas Jesus Christ to make anything known to 
all nations ? He could speak but one language, which was 
Hebrew ; and there are in the world several hundred 
languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the same 
language or understand each other ; and as to translations, 
every man who knows anything of languages, knows that it 
is impossible to translate from one language to another, 
not only without losing a great part of the original, but 
frequently of mistaking the sense ; and besides all. this, 
the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ 
lived. 



22 AGE -OF REASON. 

It is always necessary that the means that are to ac- 
complish any end, be equal to the accomplishment of that 
end, or the end cannot be accomplished. It is in this that 
the difference between finite and infinite power and wisdom 
discovers itself. Man frequently fails in accomplishing his 
ends, from a natural inability of the power to the purpose, 
and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power 
properly. The means it useth are always equal to 
the end ; but human language, more especially as 
there is not an universal language, is incapable of 
being used as an universal means of unchangeable 
and uniform information, and therefore it is not the 
means that God useth in manifesting himself universally 
to man. 

It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and concep- 
tions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh 
an universal language, independently of human speech or 
human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is 
an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It 
cannot be forged ; it cannot be counterfeited ; it cannot be 
lost ; it cannot be altered ; it cannot be suppressed. It does 
not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be pub- 
lished or not, it publishes itself from one end of the earth to 
the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds, and 
this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for 
man to know of God. 

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the 
immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his 
wisdom ? We see it in the unchangable order by which the 
incomprehensible whole is governed. Do we want to con- 
template his munificence? We see it in the abundance with 
which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his 
mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance 
even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know 
what God is ? Search not the book called the Scripture, 
which any human hand might make, but the Scripture 
called the Creation. 

The only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that 
of a, first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehen- 
sible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first 
cause is, he arrives at the belief of it, from the ten-fold 
greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond 



AGE OF REASON. 23 

description to conceive that space can have no end ; but it is 
more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the 
power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we 
call time, but it is more impossible to conceive a time when 
there shall be no time. In like manner of reasoning, every- 
thing we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it 
did not make itself. Every man is an evidence to himself 
that he did not make himself, neither could any tree, plant, 
or animal make itself, and it is the conviction arising from 
this evidence that carries us on, as it were, by necessity, to 
the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature 
totally different to any material existence we know of, and 
by the power of which all things exist, and this first cause 
man calls God. 

It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover 
God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable 
of understanding anything, and, in this case, it would be 
just as consistent to read even the book called the Bible to 
a horse as to a man. How then is it that those people 
pretend to reject reason ? 

Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that 
convey to us any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and 
the l!)th Psalm. I recollect no other. Those parts are true 
deistical composition ; for they treat of the Deity through 
his works. They take the book of Creation as the word of 
God, they refer to no other book, and all the inferences 
they make are drawn from that volume. 

1 insert, in this place, the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased 
into English verse by Addison. I recollect not the prose, 
and where I write this I have not the opportunity of seeing it. 

" The spacious firmament on high, 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens a shining frame, 
Their great Original proclaim. 
The unwearied sun, from day to day, 
Does his Creator's power display, 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 

" Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The ifloon takes up the wondrous tale, 
And nightly to the list'ning earth 
Repeats the story of her birth ; 



24 AGE OF REASON. 

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

" What, though in solemn silence all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; 
What, though no real voice or sound, 
Amidst their radiant orbs be found ; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
For ever singing as they shine, 

' THE HAND THAT MADE US IS DIVINE.' " 

What more does man want to know than that the hand, 
or power, that made these things divine is omnipotent? Let 
him believe this with the force it is impossible to repel, if 
he permits his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will 
follow of course. 

The allusions in Job have all of them the same tendency 
with this Psalm : that of producing or proving a truth, 
that would be otherwise unknown, from truths already 
known. 

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert 
them correctly ; but there is one occurs to me that is appli- 
cable to the subject I am speaking upon. " Canst thou by 
searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty 
to perfection ? " 

I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, 
for I keep no Bible, but it contains two distinct questions, 
that admit of distinct answers. 

First Canst thou by searching find out God ? Yes ; 
because in the first place, I know I did not make myself, 
and yet I have existence, and by searching into the nature 
of other things, I find that no other thing could make itself; 
and yet millions of other things exist ; therefore it is, that 
I know by positive conclusion resulting from this search, 
that there is a power superior to all those things, and that 
power is God. 

Secondly " Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfec- 
tion?" No. Not only because the power and wisdom he 
has manifested in the structure of the creation that I behold 
is to me incomprehensible, but because even this manifesta- 
tion, great as it is, is probably but a small display of that 



AGE OF REASON'. 25 

immensity of power and wisdom by which millions of other 
worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were created and 
continue to exist. 

It is evident that both these questions were put to the 
reason of the person to whom they were supposed to have 
been addressed ; and it is only by admitting the first 
question to be answered affirmatively that the second could 
follow. It would have been unnecessary and even absurd 
to have put a second question more difficult than the first, 
if the first question had been answered negatively. The 
two questions have different objects : the first refers to the 
existence of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can 
discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering 
the whole of the other. 

I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed 
to the men called apostles that convey any idea of what 
God is. Those writings are chiefly controversial ; and the 
gloominess of the subject they dwell upon that of a man 
dying in agony on a cross is better suited to the gloomy 
genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible 
they were written, than to any man breathing the open air 
of the creation. The only passage that occurs to me that 
has any reference to the works of God, by which only his 
power and wisdom can be known, is related to have been 
spoken by Jesus Christ as a remedy against distrustful care: 
" Behold the lillies of the field, they toil not, neither do they 
spin." This, however, is far inferior to the allusions in Job, 
and in the nineteenth Psalm ; but it is similar in idea, and 
the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty 
of the man. 

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as 
a species of Atheism a sort of religious denial of God. 
It professes to believe in man rather than in God. It 
is a compound made up chiefly of manism with but little 
Deism, and is as near Atheism as twilight is to darkness. 
It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body 
which it calls a redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque 
self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this 
means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has 
put the whole orbit of reason into shade. 

The effect of this obscurity has been that of tui'niug every- 
thing upside down, and representing it in reverse : and 



26 AGE OF REASON. 

among the revolutions it has thus magically produced, it has 
made a revolution in theology. 

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing 
the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies 
the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of 
the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true 
theology. 

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is 
the study of human opinions and of human fancies " con- 
cerning " God. It is not the study of God himself in the 
works that he has made, but in the works of writings that 
man has made ; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs 
that the Christian system has done to the world that it has 
abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, 
like a beautiful innocent to distress and reproach, to make 
room for the hag of superstition. 

The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the 
Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological 
order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are 
theological orations conformable to the original system of 
theology. The internal evidence of those orations proves 
to a demonstration that a study and contemplation of the 
works of creation, and of the power and wisdom of God 
revealed and manifested in those works, made a great part 
of the religious devotion of the times in which they were 
written ; and it was this devotional study and contempla- 
tion that led to the discovery of the principles upon which 
what are now called sciences are established ; and it is to 
the discovery of these principle that almost all the arts that 
contribute to the convenience of human life owe their 
existence. Every principal art has some science for its 
parent, though the person who mechanically performs the 
work does not always, and but very seldom, perceives the 
connection. 

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences 
"human inventions;" it is only the application of them 
that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of 
principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the 
universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make 
principles ; he can only discover them. 

For example, every person who looks at an almanack sees 
an account when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also 



AGE OF REASON. 27 

that it never fails to take place according to the account 
there given. This shows that man is acquainted with the 
laws by which the heavenly bodies move. But it would 
be something worse than ignorance were any church 
on earth to say that those laws are a human invention. 

It would also be ignoi'ance, or something worse, to say 
that the scientific principles, by the aid of which man is 
enabled to calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take 
place, are a human invention. Man cannot invent any- 
thing that is eternal and immutable ; and the scientific 
principles he employs for this purpose must be, and are, of 
necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which 
the heavenly bodies move, or they could not be used as 
they are to ascertain the time when and the manner how 
an eclipse will take place. 

The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the 
fore-knowledge of an eclipse, or of anything else relating to 
the motion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in 
that part of science that is called trigonometry, or the pro- 
perties of a triangle, which, when applied to the study of the 
heavenly bodies, is called astronomy; when applied to direct 
the course of a ship on the ocean, it is called navigation ; 
when applied to the construction of figures drawn by rule 
and compass, it is called geometry ; when applied to the 
construction of plans of edifices, it is called architecture ; 
Avhen applied to the measurement of any portion of the sur- 
face of the earth, it is called land-surveying. In fine, it is 
the soul of science. It is an eternal truth. It contains the 
" mathematical demonstration " of which man speaks, and 
the extent of its uses is unknown. 

It may be said that man can make or draw a triangle, and 
therefore a triangle is a human invention. 

But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image 
of the principle : it is a delineation to the eye, and from 
thence to the mind, of a principle that would otherwise be 
imperceptible. The triangle does not make the principle, 
any more than a candle taken into a room that was dark 
makes the chairs and tables that before were invisible. All 
the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, 
and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by 
man. Man had no more to do in the formation of those 
properties or principles than he had to do in making the 



28 AGE OF REASON. 

laws by which the heavenly bodies move ; and, therefore, 
the one must have the same divine origin as the other. 

In the same manner as it may be said that man can make 
a triangle, so also it may be said he can make the me- 
chanical instrument called a lever. But the principle by 
which the lever acts is a thing distinct from the instrument, 
and would exist if the instrument did not ; it attaches itself 
to the instrument after it is made; the instrument therefore 
can act no otherwise than it does act ; neither can all the 
efforts of human invention make it act otherwise. That 
which, in all such cases, man calls the " effect," is no other 
than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the senses. 

Since then, man caunot make principles, from whence did 
he gain a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, 
not only to things on earth, but to ascertain the motion of 
bodies so immensely distant from him as all the heavenly 
bodies are ? From whence, I ask, "could" he gain that 
knowledge, but from the study of the true theology ? 

It is the structure of the universe that has taught this 
knowledge to man. That structure is an ever-existing 
exhibition of every principle upon which every part of 
mathematical science is founded. The offspring of this 
science is mechanics; for mechanics is no other than the 
principles of science applied practically. The man who pro- 
portions the several parts of a mill uses the same scientific 
principles as if he had the power of constructing an uni- 
verse ; but, as he cannot give to matter that invisible 
agency by which all the component parts of the immense 
machine of the universe have influence upon each other, 
and act in motional unison together without any apparent 
contact, and to which man has given the name of attraction, 
gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place of that 
agency by the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the 
parts of man's microcosm must visibly touch. But could he 
gain a knowledge of that agency, so as to be able to apply it 
in practice, we might then say that another " canonical 
book " of the Word of God had been discovered. 

If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also 
could he alter the properties of the triangle ; for a lever 
(taking that sort of lever which is called a steel-yard, for 
the sake of explanation) forms, when in motion, a triangle. 
The line it descends from (one point of that line being in 



AGE OF REASON. 29 

the fulcrum), the line it descends to, and the cord of the arc 
which the end of the lever describes in the air, are the three 
sides of a triangle. The other arm of the lever describes 
also a triangle ; and the corresponding sides of those two 
triangles, calculated scientifically, or measured geometrically, 
and also the signs, tangents, and secants generated from the 
angles, and geometrically measured, have the same propor- 
tions to each other as the different weights have that will 
balance each other on the lever, leaving the weight of the 
lever out of the case. 

It may also be said that man can make a wheel and axis, 
that he can put wheels of different magnitudes together, and 
produce a mill. Still the case comes back to the same point, 
which is, that he did not make the principle which gives the 
wheel those powers. That principle is as unalterable as in 
the former cases, or rather it is the same principle under a 
different appearance to the eye. 

The po'iver that two wheels of different magnitudes have 
upon each other is in the same proportion as if the semi- 
diameter of the two wheels were joined together, and made 
into that kind of lever I have described, suspended at the 
part where the semi-diameters join ; for the two wheels, 
scientifically considered, are no other than the two circles 
generated by the motion of the compound lever. 

It is from the study of the true theology that all our 
knowledge of science is derived, and it is from that know- 
ledge that all the arts have originated. 

The Almighty Lecturer, by displaying the principles of 
science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to 
study and to imitation. It is as if He had said to the 
inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, " I have made 
an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the 
starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. 
He can now provide for his own comfort, and learn from ??/ 
munificence to all to be kind to each other." 

Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, 
that his eye is endowed with the power of beholding, to an 
incomprehensible distance, an immensity of Avorlds revolving 
in the ocean of space ? Or of what use is it that this 
immensity of worlds is visible to man ? What has man to 
do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with the star 
he calls the North star, the moving orbs he has named 



30 AGE OF REASON. 

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are 
to follow from their being visible ? A less power of vision 
would have been sufficient for man, if the immensity he now 
possesses were given only tc waste itself, as it were, on an 
immense desert of space glittering with shows. 

It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry 
heavens, as the book and school of science, that he discovers 
any use in their being visible to him, or any advantage 
resulting from his immensity of vision. But when he con- 
templates the subject in this light, he sees an additional 
motive for saying that "nothing was made in vain;" for in 
vain would be this power of vision if it taught man nothing. 

As the Christian system of faith has made a revolution 
in theology, so also has it made a revolution in the state of 
learning. That which is now called learning was not 
learning originally. Learning does not consist, as the 
schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of languages, 
but in the knowledge of things to which language gives 
names. 

The Greeks were a learned people ; but learning with 
them did not consist in speaking Greek, any more than in a 
Roman speaking Latin, or a Frenchman speaking French, 
or an Englishman speaking English. From what we 
know of the Greeks it does not appear that they knew or 
studied any language but their own ; and this was one 
cause of their becoming so learned it afforded them more 
time to apply themselves to better studies. The schools of 
the Greeks were schools of science and philosophy, and not 
of languages ; and it is in the knowledge of the things that 
science and philosophy teach that learning consists. 

Almost all the scientific learning that now exists came 
to us from the Greeks, or the people who spoke the Greek 
language. It therefore became necessary for the people of 
other nations who spoke a different language, that some 
among them should learn the Greek language, in order that 
the learning the Greeks had might be known in those 
nations, by translating the Greek books of science and 
philosophy into the mother tongue of each nation. 

The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and in the 
same manner for the Latin) was no other than the drudgery 
business of a linguist ; and the language thus obtained was 
no other than the means, as it were, the tools, employed to 



AGE OF REASON. 31 

obtain the learning the Greeks had. It made no part of the 
learning itself, and was so distinct from it as to make it ex- 
ceedingly probable that the persons who had studied Greek 
sufficiently to translate those works such, for instance, as 
" Euclid's Elements " did not understand any of the learn- 
ing the works contained. 

As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead 
languages, all the useful books being already translated, the 
languages are become useless, and the time expended in 
teaching and in learning them is wasted. So far as the 
study of languages may contribute to the progress and 
communication of knowledge (for it has nothing to do with 
the creation of knowledge) it is only in the living languages 
that new knowledge is to be found ; and certain it is that, 
in general, a youth will learn more of a living language in 
one year than of a dead language in seven, and it is but 
seldom that the teacher knows much of it himself. The 
difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from 
any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but 
in their " being dead " and the pronunciation entirely lost 
It would be the same thing with any language when it 
becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists 
does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian ploughman 
or a Grecian milkmaid did ; and the same for the Latin, 
compared with a ploughman or a milkmaid of the Romans ; 
and, with respect to pronunciation, and idiom, not so well as 
the cows that she milked. It would, therefore, be advan- 
tageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the 
dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally 
did, in scientific knowledge. 

The apology that is sometimes made for continuing to 
teach the dead languages is that they are taught at a time 
when a child is not capable of exerting any other mental 
faculty than that of memory. But this is altogether erro- 
neous. The human mind has a natural disposition to scien- 
tific knowledge and to the things connected with it. The 
first and favorite amusement of a child, even before it 
begins to play, is that of imitating the works of man. It 
builds houses with cards or sticks ; it navigates the little 
ocean of a bowl of water with a paper boat ; or dams the 
stream of a gutter, and contrives something which it calls a 
mill ; and it interests itself in the fate of its works with a 



02 AGE OF REASON. 

care that resembles affection. It afterwards goes to school, 
where its genius is killed by the barren study of a dead 
language, and the philosopher is lost in the linguist. 

But the apology that is now made for continuing to teach 
the dead languages could not be the cause at first of cutting 
down learning to the narrow and humble sphere of linguistry ; 
the cause, therefore, must be sought for elsewhere. In all 
researches of this kind, the best evidence that can be pro- 
duced is the internal evidence the thing carries with itself, 
and the evidence of circumstances that unite with it ; both 
of which in this case are not difficult to be discovered. 

Putting, then, aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, 
the outrage offered to the moral justice of God, by sup- 
posing him to make the innocent suffer for the guilty, and 
also the loose morality and low contrivance of supposing 
him to change himself into the shape of man, in order to 
make an excuse to himself for not executing his supposed 
sentence upon Adam putting, I say, those things aside, as 
matter of distinct consideration, it is certain that what is 
called the Christian system of faith, including in it the 
whimsical account of the creation; the strange story of Eve, 
the snake, and the apple ; the ambiguous idea of a man-god ; 
the corporeal idea of the death of a god ; the mythological 
idea of a family of gods ; and the Christian system of arith- 
metic, that three are one, and one is three, are all irrecon- 
cileable, not only to the divine gift of reason that God has 
given to man, but to the knowledge that man gains of the 
power and wisdom of God by the aid of the sciences, and 
by studying the structure of the universe that God has 
made. 

The setter-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Chris- 
tian system of faith, could not but forsee that the continually- 
progressive knowledge that man would gain, by the aid of 
science, of the power and wisdom of God, manifested in the 
structure of the universe, and in all the works of creation, 
would militate against, and call into qtiestion, the truth of 
their system of faith ; and, therefore, it became necessary 
to their purpose to cut learning down to a size less dangerous 
to their project; and this they effected by restricting the idea 
of learning to the dead study of dead languages. 

They not only rejected the study of science out of the 
Christian schools, but they persecuted it ; and it is only 



AGE OF REASON. 33 

within about the last two centuries that the study has been 
revived. So late as 1610. Galileo, a Florentine, discovered 
and introduced the use of telescopes, and by applying them 
to observe the motions and appearances of the heavenly 
bodies, afforded additional means for ascertaining the true 
structure of the universe. Instead of being esteemed for 
those discoveries he was sentenced to renounce them, or the 
opinions resulting from them, as a damnable heresy. And 
prior to that time Vigilus was condemned to be burned for 
asserting the antipodes, or, in other words, that the earth 
was a globe, and habitable in every part where there was 
land. Yet the truth of this is now too well known even to 
be told. 

If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, 
it would make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose 
and remove them. There was no moral ill in believing the 
earth was flat like a trencher any more than there was 
any moral virtue in believing it was round like a globe ; 
neither was there any moral ill in believing that the Creator 
made no other world than this, any more than there was 
moral virtue in believing that he made millions, and that the 
infinity of space is filled with worlds. But w r hen a system 
of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of 
creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a 
manner almo.-t inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an 
entirely different ground. It is then that the truth, though 
otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential by becoming 
the criterion, that either confirms by corresponding evidence, 
or denies by contradictory evidence the reality of religion 
itself. In this view of the case it is the moral duty of man 
to obtain every possible evidence that the structure of the 
heavens, or any other part of creation, affords with respect 
to systems of religion. But this the supporters or partisans 
of the Christian system, as if dreading the result, incessantly 
opposed, and not only rejected the sciences but persecuted 
the professors. Had Newton or Descartes lived three or 
four hundred years ago, and pursued their studies as they 
did, it is most probable they would not have lived to finish 
them ; and had Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds 
at the same time, it would have been at the hazard of 
expiring for it in flames. 

Latter times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and 

D 



34 AGE OF REASON. 

Vandals ; but however unwilling the partisans of the 
Christian system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, 
it is nevertheless true that the age of ignorance commenced 
with the Christian system. There was more knowledge in 
the world before that period than for many centuries after- 
wards ; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, 
as already said, was only another species of mythology, and 
the mythology to which it succeeded was a corruption of an 
ancient system of Theism.* 

It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to 
no other cause, that we have now to look back through a vast 
chasm of many hundred years to the respectable characters 
we call the ancients. Had the progression of knowledge 
gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed, 
that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising 
superior in knowledge to each other ; and those ancients we 
now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the 
background of the scene. But the Christian system laid all 
waste ; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the 
sixteenth century we look back through that long chasm, to 



* It is impossible for us now to know at what time the heathen 
mythology began ; but it is certain, from the internal evidence that it 
carries, that it did not begin in the same state or condition in which it 
ended. All the gods of that mythology, except Saturn, were of modern 
invention. The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that which is 
called heathen mythology, and was so far a species of atheism, that it 
admitted the belief of only one God. Saturn is supposed to have abdi- 
cated the government in favor of his three sons and one daughter, 
Jupiter, Pluto. Neptune, and Juno ; after this thousands of other gods 
and demi-gods were imaginarily created, and the calendar of gods in- 
creased as fast as the calendar of saints, and the calendars of courts 
have increased since. 

All the corruptions that have taken place in theology, and in religion, 
have been produced by admitting what man calls revealed religion. 
The mythologists pretended to more revealed religion than the Chris- 
tians do. They had their oracles and their priests, who were supposed 
to receive and deliver the word of God verbally on almost all occasions. 

Since then, all corruptions, down from Moloch to modern predestina- 
rianism, and the human sacrifices of the heathens, to the Christian 
sacrifice of the Creator, have been produced by admitting what is called 
revealed religion, the most effectual means to prevent all such evils and 
impositions is, not to admit of any other revelation than that which is 
manifested in the book of Creation, and to contemplate the Creation as 
the only true and real word of God that ever did or ever will exist, and 
that everything else called the word of God is fable and imposition. 



AGE OF REASON. 35 

the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in 
which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the 
fertile hills beyond. 

It is an inconsistency, scarcely possible to be credited, 
that anything should exist under the name of a religion, 
that held it to be irreligious to study and contemplate the 
structure of the universe that God had made. But the fact 
is too well established to be denied. The event that served 
more than any other to break the first link in this long 
chain of despotic ignorance is that known by the name of 
the Reformation by Luther. From that time though it 
does not appear to have made any part of the intention of 
Luther, or of those who are called reformers the sciences 
began to revive, and liberality, their natural associate, 
began to appear. This was the only public good the 
Reformation did, for, with respect to religious good, it 
might as well not have taken place. The mythology still 
continued the same', and a multiplicity of national popes 
grew out of the downfall of the pope of Christendom. 

Having thus shown, from the internal evidence of things, 
the cause that produced a change in the state of learning, 
and the motive for substituting the study of the dead 
languages in the place of the sciences, I proceed, in addition 
to the several observations already made in the former part 
of this work, to compare, or rather to confront, the evidence 
that the structure of the universe affords with the Christian 
system of religion. But as I cannot begin this part better 
than by referring to the ideas that occurred to me at an 
early part of life, and which, I doubt not, have occurred ini 
some degree to almost every other person at one time or 
other, I shall state what those ideas were, and add thereto 
such other matter as shall arise out of the subject, giving to 
the whole, by way of preface, a short introduction. 

My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good 
fortune to have an exceedingly good moral education, and 
a tolerable stock of useful learning. Though I went to the 
grammar school, I did not learn Latin, not only because I 
had no inclination to learn languages, but because of the 
objection the Quakers have against the books in which the 
language is taught. But this did not prevent me from being 
acquainted with the subjects of all the Latin books used in 
the school. 

D2 



36 AGE OF REASON. 

The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had 
some turn, and I believe some talent, for poetry, but this I 
rather repressed than encouraged, as leading too much into 
the field of imagination As &oon as I was able I purchased 
a pair of globes, and attended the philosophical lectures of 
Martin and Ferguson, and became afterwards acquainted 
with Dr. Bevis, of the society called the Royal Society, then 
living in the Temple, and an excellent astronomer. 

I had no disposition for what is called politics. It pre- 
sented to my mind no other idea than is contained in the 
word jockey-ship. When, therefore, I turned my thoughts 
towards matters of government, I had to form a system for 
myself that accorded with the moral and philosophical 
principles in which I had been educated. I saw, or at least I 
thought I saw, a vast scene opening itself to the world in 
the affairs of America, and it appeared to me that, unless 
the Americans changed the plan they were then pursuing 
with respect to the government of England, and declare 
themselves independent, they would not only involve them- 
selves in a multiplicity of new difficulties, but shut out the 
prospect that was then offering itself to mankind through 
their means. It was from these motives that I published 
the work known by the name of " Common Sense," which 
is the first work I ever did publish, and, so far as I can 
judge of myself, I believe I never should have been known 
to the world as an author on any subject whatever had it 
not been for the affairs of America. I wrote ' Common 
Sense" the latter end of the year 1775, and published it the 
first of January, 1776. Independence was declared the 
fourth of July following. 

Any person who has made observations on the state and 
progress of the human mind by observing his own cannot 
but have observed that there are two distinct classes of what 
are called thoughts : those that we produce in ourselves by 
reflection and the act of thinking, and those that come into 
the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a 
rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking 
care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth 
entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all 
the knowledge I have. As to the learning that any person 
gains from school education, it serves only, like a small 
capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for 



AGE OP REASON. 37 

himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his 
own teacher, the reason of which is that principles, being of 
a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed 
upon the memory. Their place of mental residence is the 
understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they 
begin by conception. Thus much for the introductory 
part. 

From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and 
acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of 
the Christian system, or thought it to be a strange affair ; 
I scarcely knew which it was. But I well remember, when 
about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by 
a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church, 
upon the subject of what is called " Redemption by the 
death of the Son of God." After the sermon was ended I 
went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden 
steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the 
recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that 
it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man that 
killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any 
other way ; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that 
did su"h a thing, I could not see for what purpose they 
preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of 
thoughts that had anything in it of childish levity ; it was 
to me a serious reflection arising from the idea I had that 
God was too good to do such an action, and also too mighty 
to be under the necessity of doing it. I believe in the 
same manner to this moment ; and I moreover believe that 
any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks 
the mind of a child cannot be a true system. 

It seems as if parents of the Christian profession were 
ashamed to tell their children anything about the principles 
of their religion. They sometimes instruct them in morals, 
and talk to them of the goodness of what they call Provi- 
dence ; for the Christian mythology has five deities : there 
is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, God 
the Providence, and the Goddess Nature. But the Christian 
story of God the Father putting His son to death, or em- 
ploying pcopte to do it (for that is the plain language of 
the f^tory), cannot be told by a parent to a child : and to 
tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and 
better is making the story still worse, as if mankind could 



38 AGE OF REASON. 

be improved by the example of murder ; and to tell him 
that all this is a mystery is only making an excuse for the 
incredibility of it. 

How different is this from the pure and simple profession 
of Deism ! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his reli- 
gion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and 
benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to 
imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical. 

The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to 
true Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that 
professed by the Quakers : but they have contracted them- 
selves too much by leaving the works of God out of their 
system. Though 1 reverence their philanthropy, I cannot 
help smiling at the conceit, that -if the taste of a Quaker 
could have been consulted at the Creation, what a silent and 
drab-colored Creation it would have been ! Not a flower 
would have blossomed its gaities, nor a bird been permitted 
to sing. 

Quitting these reflections, I proceed to other matters. 
After I had made myself master of the use of the globes, 
and of the orrery,* and conceived an idea of an affinity of 
space, and of the eternal divisibility of matter, and obtained 
at least a general knowledge of what is called natural philo- 
sophy, I began to compare or, as I have before said, to 
confront the eternal evidence those things afford with the 
Christian system of faith. 

Though it is not a direct article of the Christian system 
that this world that we inhabit is the whole of the habitable 
creation, yet it is so worked up therewith from what is 
called the Mosaic account of the Creation, the story of Eve 
and the apple, and the counterpart of that story, the death 
of the Son of God, that to believe otherwise that is, to 
believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as 

* As this book may fall into the hands of persons who do not know 
what an orrery is, it is for their information I add this note, as the 
name gives no idea of the uses of the thing. The orrery has its name 
from the person who invented it. It is a machinery of clock-work, 
representing the universe in miniature, and in which, the revolution of 
the earth round itself and round the sun, the revolution of the moon 
round the earth, the revolution of the planets round the sun, their 
relative distances from the sun as the centre of the whole system, 
their relative distances from each other, and their different magni- 
tudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call the heavens. 



AGE OF KEASON. 39 

numerous as what we call stars renders the Christian 
system of faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it 
in the mind like feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot 
be held together in the same mind, and he who thinks that 
he believes both has thought but little of either. 

Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familiar to 
the ancients, it is only within the last three centuries that 
the extent and dimensions of this globe that we inhabit 
have been ascertained. Several vessels, following the track 
of the ocean, have sailed entirely round the world, as a man 
may march in a circle, and come round by the contrary side 
of the circle to the spot he set out from. The circular 
dimensions of our world in the widest part, as a man would 
measure the widest round of an apple or a ball, is only 
twenty-five thousand and twenty English miles, reckoning 
sixty-nine miles and a-half to an equatorial degree, and may 
be sailed round in the space of about three years.* 

A world of this extent may at first thought appear to us 
to be great ; but if we compare it with the immensity of 
space in which it is suspended, like a bubble or a balloon in 
the air, it is infinitely less in proportion than the smallest 
grain of sand is to the size of the world, or the finest par- 
ticle of dew to the whole ocean ; and is therefore but small ; 
and, as will be hereafter shown, is only one of a system of 
worlds, of which the universal creation is composed. 

It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the im- 
mensity of space in which this and all the other worlds are 
suspended, if we follow a progression of ideas. When we 
think of the size or dimensions of a room, our ideas limit 
themselves to the walls, and there they stop. But when our 
eye or our imagination darts into space that is, when it looks 
upward into what we call the open air, we cannot conceive 
any walls or boundaries it can have ; and if, for the sake of 
resting our ideas, we suppose a boundary, the question im- 
mediately renews itself, and " asks, What is beyond that 
boundary ? and in the same manner, What is beyond the 
next boundary? and so on, till the fatigued imagination 
returns and says, there is no end. Certainly, then, the 

* Allowing a ship to sail, on an average, three miles in an hour, she 
would sail entirely round the world in less than one year, if she could 
sail in a direct circle ; but she is obliged to follow the course of the 
ocean. 



40 AGE OF REASON 

Creator was not cramped for room when he made this world 
no larger than it is ; and we have to seek the reason in 
something else. If we take a survey of our own world, or 
rather of this of which the Creator has given us the use as 
our portion in the immense system of creation, we find every 
part of it the earth, the waters, and the air that surrounds 
it filled, and as it were crowded, with life, down from the 
largest animals we know of to the smallest insects the naked 
eye can behold, and from thence to others still smaller, and 
totally invisible without the assistance of the microscope. 
Every tree, every plant, every leaf, serves not only as an 
habitation, but as a world to some numerous race, till 
animal existence becomes so exceedingly refined that the 
effluvia of a blade of grass would be food for thousands. 

Since, then, no part of our earth is left unoccupied, why 
is it to be supposed that the immensity of space is a naked 
void lying in eternal waste ? There is rpom for millions of 
worlds as large or larger than ours, and each of them 
millions of miles apart from each other. 

Having now arrived at this point, if we carry our ideas 
only one thought further we shall see. perhaps, the true 
reason at least a very good reason for our happiness, why 
the Creator, instead of making one immense world, extend- 
ing: over an immense quantity of space, has preferred dividing 
that quantity of matter into several distinct and separate 
worlds, which we call planets, of which our earth is one. 
But before I explain my ideas upon this subject, it is neces- 
sary (not for the sake of those that already know, but for 
those who do not) to show what system of the universe is. 

That part of the universe that is called the solar system 
(meaning the system of worlds to which our earth belongs, 
and of which Sol, or in the English language the sun, is the 
centre) consists, besides the sun, of six distinct orbs, or 
planets, or Avorlds, besides the secondary bodies, called the 
satellites or moons, of which our earth has one that attends 
her in her annual revolution round the sun, in like manner 
as the other satellites or moons attend the planets or worlds 
to which they severally belong, as may be seen by the 
assistance of the telescope. 

The sun is the centre round which those six worlds or 
planets revolve at different distances therefrom, and in 
circles concentric to each other. Each world keeps con- 



AGE OF REASON. 41 

stantly in nearly the same track round the sun, and con- 
tinues at the same time, turning round itself, in nearly an 
upright position, as a top turns round itself when it is spin- 
ning on the ground, and leans a little sideways. 

It is this leaning of the earth (twenty-three and a-half 
degrees) that occasions summer and winter, and the different 
lengths of days and nights. If the earth turned round 
itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or level of the 
circle it moves in around the sun, as a top turns round when 
it stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would be 
always of the same length twelve hours day, and twelve 
hours night and the seasons would be uniformly the same 
throughout the year. 

Every time that a planet (our earth for example) turns 
round itself, it makes what we call day and night ; and 
every time it goes entirely round the sun, it makes what we 
call a year; consequently our world turns three hundred 
and sixty five times round itself in going once round the 
sun.* 

The names that the ancients gave to those six worlds, and 
which are still called by the same names, are Mercury, 
Venus, this world that we call ours, Mars, Jupiter, and 
Saturn. They appear larger to the eye than the stars, being 
many million miles nearer to our earth than any of the stars 
are. The planet Venus is that which is called the evening 
star, and sometimes the morning star, as she happens to set 
after or rise before the sun, which in either case is never 
more than three hours. 

The sun as before said, being the centre, the planet or 
world nearest the sun is Mercury; his distance from the sun 
is thirty-four million miles, and he moves round a circle 
always at that distance from the sun, as a top may be sup- 
posed to spin round in the track in which a horse goes in a 
mill. The second world is Venus; she is fifty-seven million 
miles distant from the sun, and consequently moves round 
in a circle much greater than that of Mercury. The third 
world is this that we inhabit, and which is eighty-eight 
million miles distant from the sun, and consequently moves 

* Those who supposed the sun went round the earth every twenty- 
four hours made the mistake in idea, that a cook would do in fact, that 
should make the fire go round the meat, instead of the meat turning 
round itself towards the fire. 



42 AGE OF REASON. 

round a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth 
world is Mars : he is distant from the sun one hundred and 
thirty-four million miles, and consequently moves round in 
a circle greater than that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter: 
he is distant from the sun five hundred and fifty-seven 
million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle 
greater than that of Mars. The sixth world is Saturn : he 
is distant from the sun seven hundred and sixty-three 
million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle that 
surrounds the circles or orbits of all the other worlds or 
planets. 

The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of 
space tlmt our solar system takes up for the several worlds 
to perform their revolutions in round the sun, is of the 
extent in a straight line of the whole diameter of the orbit 
or circle in which Saturn moves round the sun, which, being 
double his distance from the sun, is fifteen hundred and 
twenty-six million miles ; and its circular extent is nearly 
five thousand millions, and its globical content is almost 
three thousand five hundred million times three thousand 
five hundred million square miles.* 

But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. 
Beyond this, at a vast distance into space, far beyond all 
power of calculation, are the stars called the fixed stars. 
They are called fixed because they have no revolutionary 
motion, as the six worlds or planets have that I have been 
describing. Those fixed stars continue always at the same 

* If it should be asked, how can man know these things ? I have 
one plain answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate an 
eclipse, and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the planet 
Venus, in making her revolutions round the sun, will come in a straight 
line between our earth and the sun, and will appear to us about the 
size of a large pea crossing across the face of -the sun. This happens 
but twice in about a hundred years, at the distance of about eight years 
from each other, and has happened twice in our time, both of which 
were foreknown by calculation. It can also be known when they will 
happen again for a thousand years to come, or to any other portion of 
time. As. therefore, man could not be able to do those things if he did 
not understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolu- 
tions of the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of calcula- 
ting an eclipse or a transit of Venus, is a proof, in point that the 
knowledge exists, and as to a few thcmsands, or even a few million 
miles, more or less, it makes scarcely any sensible difference in such 
immense distances. 



AGE OF REASON. 43 

distance from each other, and always in the same place, as 
the sun does in the centre of our system. The probability 
therefore is, that each of those fixed stars is also a sun, 
round which another system of worlds or planets, though 
too remote for us to discover, performs its revolutions, as 
our system of worlds does round our central sun. 

By this easy progression of ideas, the immensity of space 
will appear to us to be filled with systems of worlds, and 
that no part of space lies at waste, any more than any part 
of the globe of earth and water is left unoccupied. 

Having thus endeavored to convey in a familiar and easy 
manner some idea of the structure of the universe, I return 
to explain what I before alluded to, namely, the great 
benefits arising to man in consequence of the Creator 
having made a plurality of worlds, such as our system is, 
consisting of a central sun and six worlds besides satellites, 
in preference to that of creating one world only of a vast 
extent. 

It is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our know- 
ledge of science is derived from the revolutions exhibited to 
our eye (and from thence to our understanding) which those 
several planets or worlds, of which our system is composed, 
make in their circuit round the sun. 

Had, then, the quantity of matter which these six worlds 
contain been blended into one solitary globe, the conse- 
quence to us would have been that either no revolutionary 
motion would have existed or not a sufficiency of it to give 
us the idea and the knowledge of science we now have ; and 
it is from the sciences that all the mechanical arts that con- 
tribute so much to our earthly felicity and comfort are 
derived. 

As, therefore, the Creator made nothing in vain, so also 
must it be believed that he organised the structure of the 
universe in the most advantageous manner for the benefit of 
man ; and as we see, and from experience feel, the benefits 
we derive from the structure of the universe, formed as it is, 
which benefits we should not have had the opportunity of 
enjoying if the structure, so far as it relates to our system, 
had been a solitary globe, we can discover at least one reason 
why a plurality of worlds has been made, and that reason 
calls forth the devotional gratitude of man as well as his 
admiration. 



44 AGE OF REASON. 

But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe only, 
that the benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are 
limited. The inhabitants of each of the worlds of which 
our system is composed enjoy the same opportunities of 
knowledge as we do. They behold the revolutionary 
motions of our earth as we behold theirs. All the planets 
revolve in sight of each other, and therefore the same 
universal school of science presents itself to all. 

Neither does the knowledge stop here. The system of 
worlds next to us exhibits, in its revolutions, the same 
principles and schools of science to the inhabitants of their 
system as our system does to us, and in like manner through- 
out the immensity of space. 

Our ideas, not only of the almightiness of the Creator, 
but of his wisdom and his beneficence,, become enlarged in 
proportion as we contemplate the extent and the structure of 
the universe. The solitary idea of a solitary world rolling, 
or at rest, in the immense ocean of space, gives place to the 
cheerful idea of a society of worlds, so happily contrived as 
to administer, even by their motion, instruction to man. We 
see our'own earth filled with abundance, but we forget to 
consider how much of that abundance is owing to the 
scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the universe has 
unfolded. 

But, in the midst of those reflections, what are we to 
think of the Christian system of faith, that forms itself 
upon the idea of only one world, and that of no greater 
extent, as is before shown, than twenty-five thousand miles, 
an extent which a man walking at the rate of three miles 
an hour for twelve hours in the day, could he keep in a 
circular direction, would walk entirely round in less than 
two years. Alas ! what is this to the mighty ocean of space 
and the almighty power of the Creator ? 

From whence then could arise the solitary and strange 
conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds 
equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of 
all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, 
one man and one woman had eaten an apple. And, on the 
other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the 
boundless creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a 
Redeemer ? In this case, the person who is irreverently 
called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself, ^yould 



AGE OF REASON. 45 

have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world 
in an endless succession of deaths, with scarcely a momentary 
interval of life. 

It has been by rejecting the evidence that the word or 
works of God in the creation affords to our senses, and the 
action of our reason upon that evidence, that so many wild 
and whimsical systems of faith and of religion have been 
fabricated and set up. There may be many systems of 
religion that, so far from being morally bad, are in many 
respects morally good ; but there can be but ONE that is 
true ; and that one necessarily must, as it ever will, be in 
all things consistent with the ever existing word of God 
that we behold in his works. But such is the strange con- 
struction of the Christian system of faith, that every 
evidence the heavens afford to man either directly con- 
tradicts it or renders it absurd. 

It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in 
encouraging myself to believe it, that there have been men 
in the world who persuaded themselves that what is called a 
pious fraud might, at least under particular circumstances, 
be productive of some good. But, the fraud being once 
established, could not afterwards be explained ; for it is with 
a pious fraud as with a bad action, it begets a calamitous 
necessity of going on. 

The persons who first preached the Christian system of 
faith, and in some measure combined with it the morality 
preached by Jesus Christ, might persuade themselves that it 
was better than the heathen mythology that then prevailed. 
From the first preachers the fraud went to the second, and 
to the third, till the idea of its being a pious fraud became 
lost in the belief of its being true ; and that belief became 
again encouraged by the interest of those who made a liveli- 
hood by preaching it. 

But, though such a belief might by such means be ren- 
dered almost general among the laity, it is next to impossible 
to account for the continual persecution carried on by the 
church for several hundred years against the sciences and 
against the professors of science, if the church had not some 
record or some tradition that it was originally no other than 
a pious fraud, or did not foresee that it could not be main- 
tained against the evidence that the structure of the universe 
afforded. 



46 AGE OF REASON. 

Having thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies be- 
tween the real Word of God existing in the universe and 
that which is called the Word of God, as shown to us in a 
printed book that any man might make, I proceed to speak 
of the three principal means that have been employed in 
all ages, and perhaps in all countries, to impose upon 
mankind. 

Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophecy. 
The two first are incompatible with true religion, and the 
third ought always to be suspected. 

With respect to mystery, everything we behold is, in one 
sense, a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery. 
The whole vegetable world is a mystery. We cannot 
account how it is that an acorn, when put into the ground, 
is made to develop itself and become an oak. We. know 
not how it is that the seed we sow unfolds and multiplies 
itself, and returns to us such an abundant interest for so 
small a capital. 

The fact, however, as distinct from the operating cause, 
is not a mystery, because we see it ; and we know also the 
means we are to use, which is no other than putting the 
seed into the ground. We know, therefore, as much as is 
necessary for us to know ; and that part of the operation 
that we do not know, and which if we did Ave could not 
perform, the Creator takes upon himself, and performs it 
for us. We are, therefore, better off than if we had been 
let into the secret, and left to do it for ourselves. 

But though every created thing is in this sense a mystery, 
the word mystery cannot be applied to moral truth any more 
than obscurity can be applied to light. The God in whom 
we believe is a God of moral truth, and not a God of mys- 
tery or obscurity. Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It 
is a fog of human invention that obscures truth, and repre- 
sents it in distortion. Truth never envelopes itself in 
mystery; and the mystery in which it is at any time 
enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself. 

Religion, therefore, being a belief of the God, and the 
practice of moral truth, cannot have connexion with mystery. 
The belief of a God, so far from having anything of mys- 
tery in it, is of all beliefs the most easy ; because it arises 
to us, as is before observed, out of necessity. And the 
practice of moral truth, or, in other words, a practical 



AGE OF REASON. 47 

imitation of the moral goodness of God, is no other than our 
acting towards each other as he acts beniguly towards all. 
We cannot serve God in the manner we serve those who 
cannot do without such service ; and, therefore, the only 
idea we can have of serving God, is that of contributing 
to the happiness of the living creation that God has 
made. This cannot be done by retiring ourselves from the 
society of the world, and spending a recluse life in selfish 
devotion. 

The very nature and design of religion, if I may so express 
it, prove even to demonstration that it must be free from 
everything of mystery, and unencumbered with everything 
that is mysterious. Religion, considered as a duty, is in- 
cumbent upon every living soul alike, and therefore must be 
on a level to the understanding and comprehension of all. 
Man does not learn religion as he learns the secrets and 
mysteries of a trade. He learns the theory of religion by 
reflection. It arises out of the action of his own mind upon 
the things which he sees or upon what he may happen to 
hear or to read, and the practice joins itself thereto. 

When men whether from policy or pious fraud, set up 
systems of religion incompatible with the word or works of 
God in the creation, and not only above but repugnant to 
human comprehension, they were under the necessity of 
inventing, or adopting, a word that should serve as a bar to 
all questions, inquiries, and speculations. The word mys- 
tery answered this purpose ; and thus it has happened that 
religion, which in itself is without mystery, has been cor- 
rupted into a fog of mysteries. 

As mystery answered all general purposes, miracle followed 
as an occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder 
the mind, the latter to puzzle the senses. The one 'was the 
lingo, the other the legerdemain. 

But before going further into this subject, it will be proper 
to inquire what is to be understood by a miracle. 

In the same sense that everything may be said to be a 
mystery, so also may it be said that everything is a miracle, 
and that no one thing is a greater miracle than another. 
The elephant, though larger, is not a greater miracle than a 
mite ; nor a mountain a greater miracle than an atom. To 
an Almighty power it is no more difficult to make the one 
than the other, and no more difficult to make a million of 



48 AGE OF REASON. 

worlds than one. Everything, therefore, is a miracle in one 
sense ; whilst, in the other sense, there is no such thing as a 
miracle. It is a miracle when compared to our power and 
to our comprehension. It is not a miracle compared to the 
power that performs it. But, as nothing in this description 
conveys the idea that is affixed to the word miracle, it is 
necessary to carry the inquiry further. 

Mankind have conceived to themselves certain laws by 
which what they call nature is supposed to act, and that a 
miracle is something contrary to the operation and effect of 
those laws. But unless we know the whole extent of those 
laws, and of what are commonly called the powers of nature, 
we are not able to judge whether anything that may appear 
to us wonderful, or miraculous, be within, or beyond, or be 
contrary to, her natural power of acting. 

The ascension of a man several miles high into the air 
would have everything in it that constitutes the idea of a 
miracle, if it were not known that a species of air can be 
generated several times lighter than the common atmospheric 
air, and yet possess elasticity enough to prevent the balloon, 
in which that light air is enclosed, from being compressed 
into as many times less bulk, by the common air that sur- 
rounds it. In like manner, extracting flames or sparks of 
fire from the human body as visible as from a steel struck 
with a flint, and causing iron or steel to move without any 
visible agent, would also give the idea of a miracle, if we 
were not acquainted with electricity, and magnetism; so 
also would many other experiments in natural philosophy to 
those who are not acquainted with the subject. The restor- 
ing persons to life who are to appearance dead, as is prac- 
tised upon drowned persons, would also be a miracle if it 
were not known that animation is capable of being suspended 
without being extinct. 

Besides these, there are performances by sleight of hand, 
and by persons acting in concert, that have a miraculous 
appearance, which, when known, are thought nothing of. 
And, besides these, there are mechanical and optical decep- 
tions. There is now an exhibition in Paris of ghosts and 
spectres, which, though it is not imposed upon the spectators 
as a fact, has an astonishing appearance. As, therefore, we 
know not the extent to which either nature or art can go, 
there is no positive criterion to determine what a miracle is; 



AGE OF REASON. 49 

and mankind in giving credit to appearances, under the idea 
of their being miracles, are subject to be continually imposed 
upon. 

Since then, appearances are so capable of deceiving, and 
things not real have a strong resemblance to things that are, 
nothing can be more inconsistent than to suppose that the 
Almighty would make use of means such as are called 
miracles, that would subject the person who performed them 
to the suspicion of being an impostor, and the person who 
related them to be suspected of lying, and the doctrine in- 
tended to be supported thereby to be suspected as a fabulous 
invention. 

Of all the modes of evidence that ever were invented to 
obtain belief to any system or opinion to which the name of 
religion has been given, that of miracle, however successful 
the imposition may have been, is the most inconsistent. 
For, in the first place, whenever recourse is had to show, for 
the purpose of procuring that belief, (for a miracle, under 
any idea of the word, is a show) it implies a lameness or 
weakness in the doctrine that is preached. And, in the 
second place, it is degrading the Almighty into the character 
of a showman playing tricks to amuse and make the people 
stare and wonder. It is also the most equivocal sort of 
evidence that can be set up ; for the belief is not to depend 
Upon the thing called a miracle, but upon the credit of the 
reporter, who says that he saw it; and, therefore, the thing, 
were it true, would have no better chance of being believed 
than if it were a lie. 

Suppose I were to say that when I sat down to write this 
book, a hand presented itself in the air, took up the pen r 
and wrote every word that is herein written, would anybody 
believe me ? Certainly they would not. Would they 
believe me a whit the more if the thing had been a fact ? 
Certainly they would not. Since then, a real miracle, were 
it to happen, would be subject to the same fate as the false- 
hood, the inconsistency becomes the greater of supposing the 
Almighty would make use of means that would not answer 
the purpose for which they were intended, even if they were 
real. 

If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely 
out of the course of what is called Nature that she must go 
out of that course to accomplish it, and we see an account 

E 



f>0 AGE OF REASON. 

given of such miracle by the person who said he saw it, it 
raises a question in the mind very easily decided, which is 
Is it more probable that Nature should go out of her course, 
or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in 
our time, Nature go out of her course, but we have good 
reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the 
same time ; it is, therefore, at least millions to one that the 
reporter of a miracle tells a lie. 

The story of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale 
is large enough to do it, borders greatly on the marvellous ; 
but it would have approached nearer to the idea of a miracle 
if Jonah had swallowed the whale. In this, which may 
serve for all cases of miracles, the matter would decide itself 
as before stated, namely : Is it more probable that a man 
should have swallowed a whale, or told a lie ? 

But supposing that Jonah had really swallowed the whale, 
and gone with it in his belly to Nineveh, and to convince 
the people that it was true, have cast it up in their sight of 
the full length and size of a whale, would they not have 
believed him to have been the devil instead of .a prophet? 
Or, if the whale had carried Jonah to Nineveh, and cast 
him up in the same public manner, would they not have 
believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one of 
his imps? 

The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles 
related in the New Testament is that of the devil flying 
away with Jesus Christ, and carrying him to the top of a 
high mountain, and to the top of the highest pinnacle of the 
Temple, and showing him, and promising him " all the 
kingdoms of the world." How happened it that he did not 
discover America ? or is it only with kingdoms that his 
sooty highness has any interest ? 

I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ 
to believe that he told this whale of a miracle himself ; 
neither is it easy to account for what purpose it could have 
been fabricated, unless it were to impose upon the con- 
noisseurs of miracles, as it is sometimes practised upon the 
connoisseurs of Queen Anne's farthings, and collectors of 
relics and antiquities, or to render the belief of miracles 
ridiculous by outdoing miracle, as Don Quixote outdid 
chivalry, or to embarrass the belief of miracles by making 
it doubtful by what power, whether of God or of the devil, 



AGE OF REASON. 51 

anything called a miracle was performed. It requires, 
however, a great deal of faith in the devil to believe this 
miracle. 

In every point of view in which those things called 
miracles can be placed and considered, the reality of them 
is improbable and their existence unnecessary. They would 
not, as before observed, answer any useful purpose even if 
they were true, for it is more difficult to obtain belief to a 
miracle than to a principle evidently moral without any 
miracle. Moral principle speaks universally for itself. 
Miracle could be but a thing of the moment, and seen but 
by a few ; after this it requires a transfer of faith from God 
to man to believe a miracle upon man's report. .Instead, 
therefore, of admitting the recitals of miracles as evidence 
of any system of religion being true, they ought to be con- 
sidered as symptoms of its being fabulous. It is necessary 
to the full and upright character of truth that it rejects the 
crutch, and it is consistent with the character of fable to 
seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much for mystery 
and miracle. 

As mystery and miracles took charge of the past and 
the present, prophesy took charge of the future, and rounded 
the tenees of faith. It was not sufficient to know what had 
been done, but what would be done. The supposed prophet 
was the supposed historian of times to come ! And if he 
happened, in shooting with a long bow of a thousand years, to 
strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of 
posterity could make it a point-blank ; and, if he happened 
to be directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case 
of Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented himself, and 
changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make 
a man ! 

It has been shown in a former part of this work that the 
original meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has 
been changed, and that a prophet, in the sense of the word 
as now used, is a creature of modern invention ; and it is 
owing to this change in the meaning of the words that the 
flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and phrases and 
expressions now rendered obscure by our not being acquainted 
with the local circumstances to which they applied at the 
time they were used, have been erected into prophesies, and 
made to bend to explanations at the will and whimsical 



52 AGE OF REASON. 

conceits of sectaries, expounders, and commentators. Every- 
thing unintelligible was prophetical, and everything in- 
significant was typical. A blunder would have served for 
a prophesy, and a dishclout for a type. 

If by a prophet we are to suppose a man to whom the 
Almighty communicated some event that would take place 
in future, either there were such men or there were not. 
If there were it is consistent to believe that the event so 
communicated would be told in terms that could be under- 
stood, and not related in such a loose and obscure manner 
as to be out of the comprehension of those that heard it, and 
so equivocal as to fit almost any circumstance that might 
happen .afterwards. It is conceiving very irreverently of 
the Almighty to suppose he would deal in this jesting 
manner with mankind, yet all the things called prophesies in 
the book called the Bible come under this description. 

But it is with prophesy as it is with miracle. It could 
not answer the purpose even if it were real. Those to 
whom a prophesy should be told could not tell whether the 
man prophesied or lied, or whether it had been revealed to 
him or whether he conceived it ; and if the thing that he 
prophesied, or pretended to prophesy, should happen, or 
something like ft among the multitude of things that are 
daily happening, nobody could again know whether he fore- 
knew or guessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A 
prophet, therefore, is a character useless and unnecessary, 
and the safe side of the case is to guard against being im- 
posed upon by not giving credit to such relations. 

Upon the whole, mystery, miracle, and prophesy are 
appendages that belong to fabulous and not to true religion. 
They are the means by which so many lo heres ! and lo 
theres ! have been spread about the world, and religion has 
been made into a trade. The success of one impostor gave 
encouragement to another and the quieting salvo of doing 
some good by keeping up a pious fraud protected them from 
remorse. 

Having now extended the subject to a greater length than 
I first intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a 
summary from the whole. 

Firstly, that the idea or belief of a word of God existing 
in print, or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself 
for the reasons already assigned. These reasons, among 



AGE OF REASON. 58 

many others, are the want of an universal language ; the 
mutability of language ; the errors to which translation are 
subject ; the possibility of totally suppressing such a word ; 
the probability of altering it, or of fabricating the whole, 
and imposing it upon the world. 

Secondly, that the Creation we behold is the real and 
ever-existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. 
It proclaims his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it 
manifests his goodness and beneficence. 

Thirdly, that the moral duty of man consists in imitating 
the moral goodness and beneficence of God, manifested in 
the creation towards all his creatures. That seeing as we 
daily do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example 
calling upon all men to practise the same towards each other, 
and consequently, that everything of persecution and revenge 
between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals, 
is a violation of moral duty. 

I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence 
J content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, 
that the Power that gave me existence is able to continue 
it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without 
this body ; ami it appears more probable to me that I shall' 
continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had 
existence, as I now have, before that existence began. 

It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth, 
and all religions agree. All believe in a God. The things 
in which they disagree are the redundancies annexed to that 
belief ; and therefore, if ever an universal religion should 
prevail, it will not be believing anything new, but in getting 
rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed at first. 
Adam, if ever there was such a man, was created a Deist ; 
but in the meantime let every man follow as he has a right 
to do, the religion and the worship he prefers. 



54 AGE OF REASON. 



PART II. 



PREFACE. 

I HAVE mentioned in the former part of the " Age of 
Reason," that it had long been my intention to publish my 
thoughts upon religion, but that I had originally reserved it 
to a later period in life, intending it to be the last work I 
should undertake. The circumstances, however, which 
existed in France in the latter end of the year 1793, deter- 
mined me to delay it no longer. The just and humane 
principles of the revolution, which philosophy had first dif- 
fused, had been departed from. The idea, always dangerous 
to society, as it is derogatory to the Almighty that priests 
could forgive sins though it seemed to exist no longer, had 
blunted the feelings of humanity, and callously prepared 
men for the commission of all manner of crimes. The in- 
tolerant spirit of church persecutions had transferred itself 
into politics ; the tribunals styled revolutionary supplied the 
place of an inquisition ; and the guillotine of the State 
outdid the fire and faggot of the church. I saw many of 
my most intimate friends destroyed ; others daily carried to 
prison ; and I had reason to believe and had also inti- 
mations given me, that the same danger was approaching 
myself. 

Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the 
" Age of Reason ; " I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testa- 
ment to refer to, though I was writing against both, nor 
could I procure any : notwithstanding which I have pro- 
duced a work that no Bible believer, though writing at his 
ease, with a library of church books about him, can refute. 
Towards the latter end of December of that year, a motion 
was made and carried, to exclude foreigners from the Con- 
vention. There were but two in it Anacharsis Clootz and 
myself : and I saw I was particularly pointed at by Bourdon 
de 1'Oise, in his speech on that motion. 



AGE OF REASON. 55 

Conceiving, after this, that I had but a few days of liberty, 
I sat down, and brought the work to a close as speedily as 
possible ; and I had not finished it more than six hours, in 
the state it has since appeared, before a guard came there, 
about three in the morning, with an order, signed by the 
two Committees of Public Safety and Surety-General, for 
putting me in arrestation as a foreigner, and conveyed me 
to the prison of the Luxembourg. I contrived, in my way 
there, to call on Joel Barlow, and I put the manuscript of 
the work into his hands, as more safe than in my possession 
in prison ; and not knowing what might be the fate in France 
either of the writer or the work, I addressed it to the pro- 
tection of the citizens of the United States. 

It is with justice that I say, that the guard who executed 
this order, and the interpreter of the Committee of General 
Surety who accompanied them to examine my papers, treated 
me not only with civility, but with respect. The keeper of 
the Luxembourg, Bennoit, a man of a good heart, showed to 
me every friendship in his power, as did also all his family, 
while he continued in that station. He was removed from 
it, put into arrestation, and carried before the tribunal upon 
a malignant accusation, but acquitted. 

After I had been in the Luxembourg about three weeks, 
the Americans then in Paris went in a body to the Conven- 
tion, to reclaim me as their countryman and friend, but were 
answered by the president, Vadier, who was also President 
of the Committee of Surety-General, and had signed the 
order for my arrestation, that I was born in England. I 
heard no more after this, from any person out of the walls 
of the prison, till the fall of Robespierre, on the 9th of 
Thermidor July 27, 1794. 

About two months before this event, I was seized with a 
fever, that in its progress had every symptom of becoming 
mortal, and from the effects of which I am not recovered. 
It was then that I remembered with renewed satisfaction, 
and congratulated myself most sincerely, on having written 
the former part of the " Age of Reason." I had then but 
little expectation of surviving, and those about me had less. 
I know, therefore, by experience the conscientious trial of 
my own principles. 

I was then with three chamber comrades, Joseph Van- 
huele, of Bruges, Charles Bastini, and Michael Robyns, of 



56 AGE OF REASON. 

Louvain. The unceasing and anxious attention of these 
three friends to me, by night and by day, I remember with 
gratitude and mention with pleasure. It happened that a 
physician (Dr. Graham), and a surgeon (Mr. Bond), part of 
the suite of General O'Hara, were then in the Luxembourg: 
I ask not myself whether it be convenient to them, as men 
under the English Government, that I express to them my 
thanks, but I should reproach myself if I did not ; and also 
to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr. Markosi. 

I have some reason to believe, because I cannot discover 
any other cause, that this illness preserved me in existence. 

Among the papers of Robespierre that were examined 
and reported upon to the Convention by a Committee of 
Deputies, is a note in the handwriting of Robespierre, in 
the following words : 

"Demander que Thomas Paine Demand that Thomas Paine be 

soit decrete d'accusation, pour Tin- decreed of accusation, for the in- 

teret de 1'Amerique autant que de terest of America as well as of 

la France." France. 

From what cause it was that the intention was not put 
in execution, I know not, and cannot inform myself ; and 
therefore I ascribe it to impossibility, on account of that 
illness. 

The Convention, to repair as much as lay in their power 
the injustice I had sustained, invited me publicly and 
unanimously to return into the Convention, and which I 
accepted, to show I could bear an injury without permitting 
it to injure my principles, or my disposition. It is not 
because right principles have been violated, that they are to 
be abandoned. 

I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publica- 
tions, written, come in America, and some in England, as 
answers to the former part of the " Age of Reason." If 
the authors of these can amuse themselves by so doing, I 
shall not interrupt them. They may write against the 
work, and against me, as much as they please.; they do me 
more service than they intend, and 1 can have no objection 
that they write on. They will find, however, by this second 
part, without its being written as an answer to them, that 
they must return to their work, and spin their cobweb over 
again. The first is brushed away by accident. 

They will now find that I have furnished myself with a 



AGE OF REASON. 57 

Bible and Testament, and I can say also, that I have found 
them to be much worse books than I have conceived. If I 
have erred in anything, in the former part of the " Age of 
Reason," it has been by speaking better of some parts of 
those books than they deserved. 

I believe, that all my opponents resort, more or less, to 
what they call Scripture Evidence and Bible Authority, to 
help them out. They are so little masters of the subject, as 
to confound a dispute about authenticity with a dispute 
about doctrines ; I will, however, put them right, that if 
they should be disposed to write any more, they may know 
how to begin. 

October, 1795. THOMAS PAINE. 

It has often been said that anything may be proved from 
the Bible ; but before anything can be admitted as proved 
by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for 
if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it 
ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof 
of anything. 

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on 
the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to im- 
pose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the 
word of God ; they have disputed and wrangled, and have 
anathematised each other about the supposable meaning of 
particular parts and passages therein ; one has said and 
insisted that such a passage meant directly the contrary ; 
and a third, that it neither meant one nor the other, 
but something different from both ; and this they call under- 
standing the Bible. 

It has happened which all the answers I have seen to the 
former part of the " Age of Reason " have been written by 
priests; and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend 
and wrangle, and pretend to understand the Bible ; each 
understands it differently. But each understands it best : 
and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers 
that Thomas Paine understands it not. 

Now, instead of wasting their time, and heating them- 
selves in fractious disputatious about doctrinal points drawn 
from the Bible, these men ought to know, and if they do 
not, it is civility to inform them, that the first thing to be 
understood is, whether there is sufficient authority for 



58 AGE OF REASON. 

believing the Bible to be the word of God, or whether there 
is not. 

There are matters in that book, said to be done by the 
express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, 
and to every idea of moral justice, as anything done by 
Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France ; by 
the English Government, in the East Indies ; or by any 
other assassin in modern times. When we read in the books 
ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c., that they (the Israelites) 
came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the 
history itself shows, had given them no offence, that they put- 
all those nations to the sword ; that they spared neither age nor 
infancy ; that they utterly destroyed men, women, and children; 
that they left not a soul to breathe ; expressions that are 
repeated over and over again in those books, and that too 
with exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are facts ? 
are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned these 
things to be done ? are we sure that the books that tell us 
so were written by his authority ? 

It is not the antiquity of a tale that is any evidence of its 
truth ; on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous ; 
for the more ancient any history pretends to be, the more it 
has the resemblance of a fable. The origin of every nation 
is buried in fabulous tradition, and that of the Jews is as 
much to be suspected as any other. To charge the commis- 
sion of acts upon the Almighty, which in their own nature, 
and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes, as all assas- 
sination is, and more especially the assassination of infants, 
is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us that 
those assassinations were done by the express command of 
God. To believe therefore the Bible to be true, we must 
unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of God : for 
wherein could crying or smiling infants offend ? And to 
read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything 
that is tender, sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of 
man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that 
the Bible is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to 
believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to 
determine my choice. 

But, in addition to all the moral evidence against the 
Bible, I will, in the progress of this work, produce such 
other evidence, as even a priest cannot deny ; and show 



AGE OF REASON. 59 

from that evidence, that the Bible is not entitled to credit, 
as being the word of God. 

But before I proceed to this examination, I will show 
wherein the Bible differs from all other ancient writings 
with respect to the nature of the evidence necessary to 
establish its authenticity ; and this is the more proper to be 
done, because the advocates of the Bible, in their answers 
to the former part of the " Age of Reason," undertake to 
say, and they put some stress thereon, that the authenticity 
of the Bible is as well established as that of any other 
ancient book ; as if our belief of the one could become any 
rule for our belief of the other. 

I know, however, but of one ancient book that authorita- 
tively challenges universal consent and belief ; and that is 
"Euclid's Elements of Geometry;"* and the reason is, 
because it is a book of self-evident demonstration, entirely 
independent of its author, and of everything relating to 
time, place, and circumstance. The matters contained in 
that book would have the same authority they now have, 
had they been written by any other person, or had the work 
been anonymous, or had the author never been known ; for 
the identical certainty of who was the author, makes no 
part of our belief of the matters contained in the book. But 
it is quite otherwise with respect to the books ascribed to 
Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel, &c. Those are books of 
Testimony, and, they testify of things naturally incredible ; 
and therefore the whole of our belief, as to the authenticity 
of those books, rests, in the 'first place, upon the certainty 
that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, or 
were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel : secondly, 
upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may 
believe the first that is, we may believe the certainty of 
the authorship and yet not the testimony : in the same 
manner that we believe that a certain person gave evidence 
upon a case, and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. 
But if it should be found that the books ascribed to Moses, 
Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, 
and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity of 

* Euclid, according to chronological history, lived three hundred 
years before Christ, and about one hundred years before Archimedes 
he was of the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. 



60 . AGE OF REASON. 

those books is gone at once ; for there can be no such thing 
as forged or invented testimony ; neither can there be 
anonymous testimony more especially as to things naturally 
incredible such as that of talking with God face to face, or 
that of the sun and moon standing still at the command of 
a man. The greatest part of the other ancient books are 
works of genius ; of which kind are those ascribed to 
Homer, to Plato, to Aristotle, to Demosthenes, to Cicero, 
&c. Here again the author is not an essential in the credit 
we give to any of those works ; for, as works of genius, 
they would have the same merit they have now, were they 
anonymous. Nobody believes the Trojan story, as related 
by Homer, to be true ; for it is the poet only that is ad- 
mired ; and the merit of the poet will remain, though the 
story be fabulous. But, if we disbelieve the matters related 
by the Bible authors (Moses, for instance), as we disbelieve 
the things related by Homer, there remains nothing of 
Moses in our estimation but an imposter. As to the ancient 
historians from Herodotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far 
as they relate things probable and credible, and no further ; 
for if we do, we must believe the two miracles which 
Tacitus relates were performed by Vespasian, that of curing 
a lame man and a blind man, in just the same manner as 
the same things are told of Jesus Christ by his historians. 
We must also believe the miracles cited by Josephus, that 
of the sea of Pamphilia opening to let Alexander and his 
army pass, as is related of the Red Sea, in Exodus. These 
miracles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible mira- 
cles, and yet we do not believe them ; consequently the 
degree of evidence necessary to establish our belief of things 
naturally incredible, whether in the Bible or elsewhere, is 
far greater than that which obtains our belief to natural 
and probable things ; and therefore the advocates for the 
Bible have no claim to our belief of the Bible, because we 
believe things stated in other ancient writings ; since we 
believe the things stated in those writings no further than 
they are probable and credible : or because they are self- 
evident, like Euclid ; or admire them because they are 
elegant, like Homer ; or approve them because they are 
sedate, like Plato ; or judicious, like Aristotle. 

Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the 
authenticity of the Bible ; and I begin with what are called 



AGE OF REASON. 61 

the five books of Moses : Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Num- 
bers, and Deuteronomy. My intention is to show that those 
books are spurious, and that Moses is not the author of 
them : and still further, that they were not written in the 
time of Moses, nor till several hundred years afterwards ; 
that they are no other than an attempted history of the life 
of Moses, and of the time in which he is said to have lived, 
and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very 
ignorant and stupid pretenders to authorship, several 
hundred years after the death of Moses ; as men now write 
histories of things that happened, or are supposed to have 
happened, several hundred or several thousand years ago. 

The evidence that I shall produce in this case is from 
the books themselves ; and 1 will confine myself to this 
evidence only. Were I to refer for proofs to any of the 
ancient authors, whom the advocates of the Bible call pro- 
fane authors, they would controvert theirs ; I will therefore 
meet them on their own ground, and oppose them with their 
own weapon, the Bible. 

In the first place, there is no affirmative evidence that 
Moses is the author of those books, and that he is the author 
is altogether an unfounded opinion got abroad nobody knows 
how. The style and manner in which those books are 
written, give no room to believe, or even to suppose, they 
were written by Moses : for it is altogether the style and 
manner of another person speaking of Moses. In Exodus, 
Leviticus, and Numbers (for everything in Genesis is prior 
to the time of Moses, and not the least allusion is made to 
him therein), the whole, I say, of these books, is in 'the 
third person : it is always, " the Lord said unto Moses," or 
" Moses said unto the Lord," or " Moses said unto the 
people," or " the people said unto Moses : " and this is the 
style and manner that historians use, in speaking of the 
persons whose lives and actions they are writing. It may 
be said that a man may speak of himself in the third person, 
and therefore it may be supposed that Moses did : but 
supposition proves nothing, and if the advocates for the 
belief that Moses wrote those books himself have nothing 
better to advance than supposition, they may as well be 
silent. 

But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might 
speak of himself in the third person, because any man might 



62 AGE OF REASON. 

speak of himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a 
fact in those books, that it is Moses who speaks, without 
rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd for example, 
Numbers, chap, xii., verse 3, " Now the man Moses was 
very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of 
the earth." If Moses said this of himself, instead of being 
the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arro- 
gant of coxcombs ; and the advocates for those books may 
now take which side they please, for both sides are against 
them : if Moses was not the author, the books are without 
authority, and if he was the author, the author is without 
credit, because the boast of meekness is the reverse of meek- 
ness, and is a lie in sentiment. 

In Deuteronomy, the style and manner of writing marks 
more evidently than in the former books that Moses is not 
the writer. The manner here used is dramatical : the 
writer opens the subject by a short introductory discourse, 
and then introduces Moses as in the act of speaking ; and 
when he has made Moses finish his harangue, he (the writer) 
resumes his own part, and speaks till he brings Moses for- 
ward again, and at last closes the scene with an account of 
the death, funeral, and character of Moses. 

This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this 
book : from the 1st verse of the 1st chapter, to the end of 
the 5th verse, it is the writer who speaks ; he then intro- 
duces Moses as in the act of making his harangue, and this 
continues to the end of the 40th verse of the 4th chapter ; 
here the writer drops Moses, and speaks historically of what 
was done in consequence of what Moses, wnen living, is 
supposed to have said, and whi^h the writer has dramati- 
cally rehearsed. 

The writer opens the subject again, in the 1st verse of the 
5th chapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called 
the people of Israel together ; he then introduces Moses as 
before, and continues him, as in the act of speaking, to the 
end of the 26th chapter. He does the same thing at the 
beginning of the 27th chapter ; and continues Moses, as in 
the act of speaking, to the 28th chapter. At the 29th 
chapter, the writer speaks again through the whole of the 
1st verse, and the 1st line of the 2nd verse, where he intro- 
duces Moses for the last time and continues him, as in the 
act of speaking, to the end of the 33rd chapter. 



AGE OF REASON. 63 

The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part 
of Moses, comes forward, and speaks through the whole of 
the last chapter ; he begins by telling the reader that Moses 
went up to the top of Pisgah ; that he saw from thence the 
land which (the writer says) had been promised to Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob : that he, Moses, died there, in the land of 
Moab, but that no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this 
day ; that is, unto the time in which the writer lived who 
wrote the book of Deuteronomy. The writer then tells us, 
that Moses was 110 years of age when he died that his 
eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated ; and he con- 
cludes, by saying, that there arose not a prophet since in 
Israel like unto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, 
the Lord knew face to face. 

Having thus shown, as far a^ grammatical evidence 
applies, that Moses was not the writer of those books, I will, 
after making a few observations on the inconsistencies of 
the writer of the book of Deuteronomy, proceed to show, 
from the historical and chronological evidence contained in 
those books, that Moses was not, because he could not be, the 
writer of them ; and, consequently, that there is no authority 
for believing that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men, 
women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as 
those books say they were, at the command of God. It is a 
duty incumbent on every true Deist, that he vindicate the 
moral justice of God, against the calumnies of the Bible. 

The writer of the book of Deuteronomy, whoever he was, 
for it is an anonymous work, is obscure, and also in contra- 
diction with himself, in the account he has given of Moses. 

After telling that Moses went to the top of Pisgah (and 
it does not appear from any account that he ever came down 
again) he tells us, that Moses died there in the land of 
Moab, and that he buried him in a valley in the land of 
Moab ; but as there is no antecedent to the pronoun he, 
there is no knowing who he was that did bury him. If the 
writer meant that he (God) buried him how should he (the 
writer) know it ? or why should we (the readers) believe 
him? since we know not who the writer was that tells us so, 
for certainly Moses could not himself tell where he was 
buried. 

The writer also tells us that no man knoweth where the 
sepulchre of Moses is unto this day, meaning the time in 



64 AGE OF REASON. 

which this writer lived ; how then should he know that 
Mo.'es was buried in a valley in the land of Moab ? for as 
the writer lived long after the time of Moses, as is evident 
from his using the expression of unto this day, meaning a 
great length of time after the death of Moses, he certainly 
was not at his funeral : and on the other hand, it is im- 
possible that Moses himself could say, that no man knoweth 
where the sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the 
speaker, would be an improvement on the play of a child 
that hides himself, and cries nobody can find me nobody 
can find Moses. 

This writer has nowhere told us how he came by the 
speeches which he has put into the mouth of Moses to speak, 
and therefore we have a right to conclude, that he either 
composed them himself, or wrote them from oral tradition. 
One or other of these is the more probable, since he has 
given in the fifth chapter a table of commandments, in 
which that called the fourth commandment is different from 
the fourth commandment in the twentith chapter of Exodus. 
In that of Exodus, the reason given for keeping the seventh 
day is, " because [says the commandment] God made the 
heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh ; " 
but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it was 
the day on which the children of Israel came out of Egypt, 
and therefore, says this commandment, the Loid thy God 
commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day. This makes no 
mention of the creation, nor that of the coming out of 
Egypt. There are also many things given as laws of Moses 
in this book, that are not to be found in any of the other 
books ; among which is that inhuman and brutal law, 
chapter xxi., verses 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorises parents, 
the father and the mother, to bring their own children to 
have them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call 
stubbornness. But priests have always been fond of preach- 
ing up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes ; 
and it is from this book, chapter xxv., verse 4, they have 
taken the phrase, and applied it to the tithing, that thou shj.lt 
not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn ; and that this 
might not escape observation, they have noted it in the 
table of contents at the head of the chapter, though it is 
only a single verse of less than two lines. O priests ! 
priests ! ye are willing to be compared to an ox for the sake 



AGE OF REASON. 65 

of tithes. Though it is impossible for us to know identically 
who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to 
discover him professionally, that he was some Jewish priest 
who lived, as I shall show in the course of this work, at 
least three hundred and fifty years after the time of Moses. 

I come now to speak of the historical and chronological 
evidence. The chronology that I shall use is the Bible 
Chronology; for I mean not to go out of the Bible for evidence 
of anything, but to make the Bible itself prove historically 
and chronologically that Moses is not the author of the 
books ascribed to him. It is therefore proper that I inform 
the reader (such an one at least as may not have opportunity 
of knowing it) that in the larger Bibles, and also in some 
smaller ones, there is a series of chronology printed in the 
margin of every page, for the purpose of showing how long 
the historical matters stated in each page happened, or are 
supposed to have happened, before Christ, and consequently 
the distance of time between one historical circumstance and 
another. 

I begin with the book of Genesis. In the 14th chapter 
of Genesis, the writer gives an account of Lot being taken 
prisoner in a battle between the four kings against five, and 
carried off ; and that when the account of Lot being taken 
came to Abraham, he armed all his household, and marched 
to rescue Lot from the captors ; and that he pursued them 
unto Dan (verse 14.) 

To show in what manner this expression of pursuing them 
unto Dan applies to the case in question, I will refer to two 
circumstances ; the one in America, the other in France. 
The city now called New York, in America, was originally 
New Amsterdam ; and the town in France, lately called 1 
Havre Marat, was before called Havre-de-Grace. New 
Amsterdam was changed to New York in the Year 1664: 
Havre-de-Grace to Havre Marat in the year 1793. Should, 
therefore, any writing be found, though without date, in 
which the name of New York should be mentioned, it would 
be certain evidence that such writing could not have been 
written before, and must have been written after New 
Amsterdam was changed to New York, and consequently 
not till after the year 1664, or at least during the course of 
that year. And, in like manner, any dateless writing with 
the name of Havre Marat would be certain evidence tha 



66 AGE OF REASON. 

such a writing must have been written after Havre-de- 
Grace became Havre Marat, and consequently not till after 
the year 1793, or at least during the course of that year. 

I now come to the application of those cases, and to 
si low that there was no such place as Dan till many years 
after the death of Moses ; and consequently that Moses 
could not be the writer of the book of Genesis, where this 
account of pursuing them unto Dan is given. 

The place that is called Dan in the Bible, was originally 
a town of the Gentiles, called Laish ; and when the tribe 
of Dan seized upon this town they changed its name to 
Dan, in commemoration of Dan, who was the father of that 
tribe, and the great grandson of Abraham. 

To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from 
Genesis, to the 18th chapter of the book called the book of 
Judges. It is there said (ver. 27) that they (the Danites) 
came unto Laish, unto a people that ivere at quiet and secure, 
and they smote them ivith the edge of the sword (the Bible is 
filled with murder) and burnt the city with fire; and they 
built a city (ver. 28) and dwelt therein, and they called the 
name of the city Dan after the name of Dan, their father, 
Jiowbeit the name of the city ivas Laish at the first. 

This account of the Danites taking possession of Laish, 
and changing it to Dan, is placed in the book of Judges 
immediately after the death of Samson. The death of 
Samson is said to have happened 1120 years before Christ, 
and that of Moses 1451 before Christ ; and therefore, 
according to the historical aiTangement, the place was not 
called Dan till 331 years after the death of Moses. 

There is a striking confusion between the historical and 
the chronological arrangement in the book of Judges. The 
five last chapters as they stand in the book 17, 18, 19, 20, 
21, are put chronologically before all the preceding chapters ; 
they are made to be 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 
before the loth, 245 before the 13th, 195 before the 9th, 
90 before the 4th, and 15 years before the 1st chapter. 
This shows the uncertain and fabulous state of the Bible. 
According to the chronological arrangement, the taking of 
Laish, and giving it the name of Dan, is made to be 20 years 
after the death of Joshua, who was the successor of Moses ; 
and by the historical order, as it stands in the book, it is 
made to be 306 years after the death of Joshua, and 331 



AGE OF REASON. 67 

after that of Moses; but they both exclude Moses from 
being the writer of Genesis, because, according to either of 
the statements, no such place as Dan existed in the time of 
Moses ; and therefore the writer of Genesis must have 
been some person who lived after the town of Laish had the 
name of Dan ; and who that person was nobody knows, 
and consequently the book of Genesis is anonymous, and 
without authority. 

I proceed now to state another point of historical and 
chronological evidence, and to show therefrom, as in the 
preceding case, that Moses is not the author of the book of 
Genesis. 

In the 36th chapter of Genesis there is given a genealogy 
of the sons and descendants of Esau, who are called 
Edomites, and also a list, by name, of the kings of Edom : 
in enumerating which, it is said, verse 31, "And these are 
the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned 
<tni/ king over the children of Israel" 

Now, were any dateless writings to be found, in which, 
speaking of any past events, the writer should say, These 
things happened before there was any congress in America, 
or before there was any convention in France, it would be 
evidence that such writing could not have been written 
before, and could only be written after there was a congress 
in America, or a convention in France, as the case might 
be ; and consequently that it could not be written by any 
person who died before there was a congress in the one 
country, or a convention in the other. 

Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conver- 
sation, than to refer to a fact in the room of a date : it is 
most natural so to do ; first, because a fact fixes itself in the 
memory better than a date ; secondly, because the fact in- 
cludes the date, and serves to excite two ideas at once : and 
this manner of speaking by circumstances implies as posi- 
tively that the fact alluded to is past, as if it were so 
expressed. When a person, speaking upon any matter, says, 
It was before I was married, or before my son was born, or 
before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is 
absolutely understood, and intended to be understood, that 
he has been married, that he has had a son, that he has been 
in America, or been in France. Language does not admit 
of using this mode of expression in any other sense : and 

F2 



68 AGE OF REASON. 

whenever such an expression is found anywhere, it can only 
be understood in the sense in which only it could have been 
used. 

The passage, therefore, that I have quoted, that " these 
are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there 
reigned any king over the children of Israel," could only 
have been written after the first king began to reign over 
them ; and, consequently, the book of Genesis, so far from 
having been written by Moses, could not have been written 
till the time of Saul at least. This is the positive sense of 
the passage ; but the expression, any king, implies more 
kings than one, at least it implies two ; and this will carry 
it to the time of David, and, if taken in a general sense, it 
carries itself through all the times of the Jewish monarchy. 

Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that 
professed to have been written after kings began to reign in 
Israel, it would have been impossible not to have seen the 
application of it. It happens then that this is the case : the 
two books of Chronicles, which give a history of all the 
kings of Israel are professedly, as well as in fact, written 
after the Jewish monarchy began ; and this verse that I 
have quoted, and all the remaining verses of the 36th chapter 
of Genesis, are, word for word, in the 1st chapter of 
Chi-onicles, beginning at the 43rd verse. 

It was with consistency, that the writer of the Chronicles 
could say, as he has said, 1 Chronicles, chapter i., verse 43, 
" these are the Icings that reigned in the land of Edom, before 
any king reigned over the children of Israel ; " because he was 
going to give, and has given, a list of all the kings that had 
reigned in Israel ; but as it is impossible that the same 
expression could have been used before that period, it is as 
certain as anything can be proved from historical language, 
that this part of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that 
Genesis is not so old as Chronicles, and probably not so old 
as the book of Homer, or as .^Esop's fables ; admitting 
Homer to have been, as the tables of Chronology state, con- 
temporary with David or Solomon, and JEsop to have lived 
about the end of the Jewish monarchy. 

Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the 
author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word 
of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis 
but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary 



AGE OF 112A.SON: 69 

or invented absurdities, or of downright lies. The story of 
Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a 
level with the Arabian tales, without the merit of being 
entertaining ; and the account of men living to eight and 
nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality 
of the giants of the Mythology. 

Besides, the character of Moses, as stated in the Bible, is 
the most horrid that can be imagined. If those accounts be 
true, he was the wretch that first began and carried on wars, 
on the score, or on the pretence of religion ; and under that 
mask, or that infatuation, committed the most unexampled 
atrocities that are to be found in the history of any nation, 
of which I will state only one instance. 

When the Jewish army returned from one of their 
plundering and murdering excursions, the account goes oil 
as follow, Numbers, chapter xxxi., verse 13 : 

" And Moses and Eleazer the priest, and all the princes 
of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the 
camp. And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, 
with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, 
which carne from the battle, and Moses said unto them, 
Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the 
children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit 
trespass against the Lord, in the matter of Peor ; and there 
was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, 
therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every 
woman that hath known man by lying with him ; but all the 
women children that have not known man by lying with him, 
keep alive for yourselves." 

Among the detestable villains that in any period of the 
world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to 
find a greater than Moses if this account be true. Here is 
an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and 
debauch the daughters. 

Let any mother put herself in the situation of those 
mothers : one child murdered, another destined to violation, 
and herself in the hands of an executioner; let any daughter 
put herself in the situation of those daughters, destined as a 
prey to the murderers of a mother and a brother, and what 
will be their feelings? It is in vain that we attempt to 
impose upon nature, for nature will have her course, and the 
religion that tortures all her social ties is a false religion. 



70 AGE OF KEASON. 

After this detestable order, follows an account of the 
plunder taken, and the manner of dividing it ; and here it 
is that the profaneness of priestly hypocrisy increases the 
catalogue of crimes. Verse '61 to 40, "And the Lord's 
tribute of the sheep was six hundred and threescore and 
fifteen : and the beeves were thirty and six thousand, of 
which the Lord's tribute was three score and twelve : and the 
asses were thirty thousand and five hundred, of which the 
Lord's tribute was three score and one, and the persons were 
sixteen thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was thirty and 
two persons. 

In short, the matters contained in this chapter, as well as 
in many other parts of the Bible, are too horrid for humanity 
to read, or for decency to hear ; for it appears from the 
35th verse of this chapter, that the number of women and 
children consigned to debauchery by the order of Moses 
was thirty-two thousand. 

People in general know not what wickedness there is in 
this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of super- 
stition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and 
that it is good ; they permit themselves not to doubt of it, 
and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of 
the Almighty of the book which they have been taught to 
believe was written by his authority. Good heavens ! it is 
quite another thing ; it is a book of lies, wickedness, and 
blasphemy ; for what can be greater blasphemy, than to 
ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the 
Almighty ? 

But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses- 
is not the author of the books ascribed to him, and that the 
Bible is spurious. The two instances I have already given 
would be sufficient, without any additional evidence, to 
invalidate the authenticity of any book that pretended to be 
four or five hundred years more ancient than the matters it 
speaks of or refers to as facts ; for, in the case of pursuing 
them unto Dan, and of the kings that reigned over the children 
of Israel^ not even the flimsy pretence of prophecy can be 
pleaded. The expressions are in the preter-tense, and it 
would be downright idiotism to say that a man could pro- 
phecy in the preter-tense. 

But there are many other passages scattered throughout 
those books that unite in the same point of evidence. It is 



AGE OF REASON. 71 

said in Exodus (another of the books ascribed to Moses), 
chapter xvi., verse 34, " And the children of Israel did eat 
manna forty years until they came to a land inhabited ; they 
did eat manna until they came unto the borders of the land of 
Canaan" 

Whether the children of Israel ate manna or not, or what 
manna was, or whether it was anything more than a kind of 
fungus or small mushroom, or other vegetable substance 
common to that part of the countiy, makes nothing to my 
argument ; all that I mean to show is, that it is not Moses 
that could write this account, because the account extends 
itself beyond the life and time of Moses. Moses, according 
to the Bible (but it is such a book of lies and contradictions 
there is no knowing which part to believe, or whether any), 
died in the wilderness, and never came upon the borders of 
the land of Canaan; and consequently it could not be he 
that said what the children of Israel did or what they ate 
when they came there. This account of eating manna, 
which they tell us was written by Moses, extends itself to 
the time of Joshua, the successor of Moses ; as appears by 
the account given in the book of Joshua, after the children 
of Israel had passed the river Jordan, and came unto the 
borders of the land of Canaan, Joshua chapter v., verse 12, 
" And the manna ceased on the morrow, after they had eaten 
of the old corn of the land ; neither had the children of Israel 
manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of 
Canaan that year." 

But a more remarkable instance than this occurs in 
Deuteronomy : which, while it shows that Moses could not 
be the writer of that book, shows also the fabulous notions 
that prevailed at that time about giants. In the third chapter 
of Deuteronomy, among the conquests said to be made by 
Moses, is an account of the taking of Og, king of Bashan. 
Verse 11, "For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the 
remnants of the giants ; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead 
of ii-on : is it not in Rabbath, of the children of Ammon ? 
nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the 
breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." A cubit is 1 foot 
9,888-lOOOths inches ; the length, therefore, of the bed was 
sixteen feet four inches, and the breadth seven feet four 
inches; thus much for this giant's bed. Now for the histori- 
cal part, which, though the evidence is not so direct and 



72 AGE OF REASON. 

positive as in the former cases, is nevertheless very presum- 
able and corroborating evidence, and is better than the best 
evidence on the contrary side. 

The writer, by way of proving the existence of this giant, 
refers to his bed as to an ancient relic, and says, is it not in 
Rabbath (or Rabbah) of the children of Arnmon? meaning 
that it is ; for such is frequently the Bible method of 
affirming a thing. But it could not be Moses that said this, 
because Moses could know nothing about Kabbah, nor of 
what was in it. Rabbah was not a city belonging to this 
giant king, nor was it one of the cities that Moses took. 
The knowledge, therefore, that this bed was at Rabbah, and 
of the particulars of its dimensions, must be referred to the 
time when Rabbah was taken, and this was not till 400 
years after the death of Moses ; for which see 2 Samuel, 
chapter xii., verse 26 : " And Joab (David's general) 
fought against Rabbah of the children of Amman, and took 
Ihe royal city." 

As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions 
in time, place, and circumstance, that abound in the books 
ascribed to Moses, and which prove to a demonstration that 
those books could not be written by Moses, nor in the time 
of Moses, I proceed to the book of Joshua, and to show that 
Joshua is not the author of that book, and that it is anony- 
mous, and without authority. The evidence I shall produce 
is contained in the book itself. I will not go out of the 
Bible for proof against the supposed authenticity of the 
Bible. False testimony is always good against itself. 

Joshua, according to the 1st chapter of Joshua, was the 
immediate successor of Moses ; he was, moreover, a military 
man, which Moses was not ; and he continued as chief of 
the people of Israel twenty-five years that is, from the 
time that Moses died, which, according to the Bible chrono- 
logy, was 1451 years before Christ, until 1426 years before 
Christ, when, according to the same chronology, Joshua 
died. If, therefore, we find in this book, said to have been 
written by Joshua, reference to facts done after the death of 
Joshua, it is evidence that Joshua could not be the author, 
and also that the book could not have been written till after 
the time of the latest fact which it records. As to the cha- 
racter of the book, it is horrid ; it is a military history of 
rapine and murder, as savage and brutal as those recorded 



AGE OF REASON. 73 

of his predecessor in villainy and hypocrisy, Moses ; and 
the blasphemy consists, as in the former books, in ascribing 
those deeds to the orders of the Almighty. 

In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the 
preceding books, is written in the third person ; it is the 
historian of Joshua that speaks, for it would have been 
absurd and vainglorious that Joshua should say of himself, 
as is said of him in the last verse of the 6th chapter, that 
" his fame was noised throughout all the country." I now 
come more immediately to the proof. 

In the 24th chapter, verse 31, it is said: " And Israel 
served the Lbrd all the days of Joshua, and all the days of 
the elders that over-lived Joshua" Now, in the name of 
common sense, can it be Joshua that relates what people 
had done after he was dead? This account must not 
only have been written by some historian that lived after 
Joshua, but that lived also after the elders that out-lived 
Joshua. 

There are several passages of a general meaning with 
respect to time scattered throughout the book of Joshua, 
that carries the time in which the book was written to a 
distance from the time of Joshua, but without marking by 
exclusion any particular time, as in the passage above 
quoted. In that passage the time that intervened between 
the death of Joshua and the death of the elders is excluded 
descriptively and absolutely, and the evidence substan- 
tiates that the book could not have been written till after 
the death of the last. 

But though the passages to which I allude, and which I 
am going to quote, do not designate any particular time by 
exclusion, they imply a time far more distant from the days 
of Joshua, than is contained between the death of Joshua 
and the death of the elders. Such is the passage, chapter x., 
verse 14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood 
still upon Gibeou and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at 
the command of Joshua (a tale only fit to amuse children), 
the passage says : ' And there was no day like that before 
it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a 
man." 

This tale of the sun standing still upon mount Gibeon, 
and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables 
that detect itself. Such a circumstance could not have 



74 AGE OF REASON. 

happened without being known all over the world. One 
half would have wondered why the sun did not rise, and the 
other why it did not set, and the tradition of it would 
be universal ; whereas, there is not a nation in the world 
that knows anything about it. But why must the moon 
stand still ? What occasion could there be for moonlight 
in the daytime, and that too whilst the sun shined ? As a 
poetical figure the whole is well enough ; it is akiu to that 
in the song of Deborah and Baruk The stars in their courses 
fought against Sisera ; but it is inferior to the figurative 
declaration of Mahomet to the person who came to expostu- 
late with him on his goings on : Wert thou to come to me 
with the sun in thy right hand, and the moon in thy left, it 
should not alter my career. For Joshua to have exceeded 
Mahomet, he should have put the sun and moon one in each 
pocket, and carried them as Guy Fawkes carried his dark 
lanthorn, and take them out to shine as he might happen to 
want them. 

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related 
that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above 
the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the 
ridiculous makes the sublime again ; the account, however, 
abstracted from the poetical fancy, shows the ignorance of 
Joshua, for he should have commanded the earth to have 
stood still. 

The time implied by the expression after it that is, after 
that day being put in comparison with all the time that 
passed before it, must, in order to give any expressive signifi- 
cation to the passage, mean a great lengtli of time. For 
example, it would have been ridiculous, to have said to the 
next day, or the next week, or the next mouth, or the next 
year ; to give, therefore, meaning to the passage, compara- 
tive to the wonder it relates, and the prior time it alludes 
to, it must mean centuries of years ; less, however, than one 
would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admis- 
sible. 

A distant, but general time, is also expressed in the 8th 
chapter ; where, after giving an account of the taking of the 
city of Ai, it is said, verse 28, " And Joshua burnt Ai, and 
made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day ; " 
and again, verse 29, where, speaking of the king of Ai, whom 
Joshua had hanged and buried at the entrance of the gate, it is 



AGE OF REASON. 75 

said, " And he raised thereon a great heap of stones, that 
remaineth unto this day ; " that is, unto the day or time in 
which -the writer of the book of Joshua lived. And again, 
in the 10th chapter, where, after speaking of the five kings 
whom Joshua had hangdd on five trees, and then thrown in 
a cave, it is said, " And he laid great stones on the cave's 
mouth, which remain unto this very day." 

In enumerating the several exploits of Joshua, and of the 
tribes and of the places which they conquered or attempted, 
it is said, chapter xv., verse 63, " As for the Jebusites, the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not 
drive them out ; but the Jebusites dwell with the children 
of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day" The question upon 
this passage is, at what time did the Jebusites and the chil- 
dren of Judah dwell together at Jerusalem ? As this matter 
occurs again in the first chapter of Judges, I shall reserve 
my observations till I come to that part. 

Having thus shown from the book of Joshua itself, 
without any auxiliary evidence whatever, that Joshua is not 
the author of that book, and that it is anonymous and con- 
sequently without authority, I proceed, as before mentioned, 
to the book of Judges. 

The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it ; and 
therefore even the pretence in wanting to call it the word of 
God ; it has not so much as a nominal voucher ; it is 
altogether fatherless. 

This book begins with the same expression as the book of 
Joshua. That of Joshua begins, chapter i., verse 1, " NOVJ 
after the death of Moses" &c., and this of Judges begins, 
" Now after the death of Joshua," &c. This, and the simi- 
larity of style between the two books, indicate that they are 
the work of the same author ; but who he was is altogether 
unknown ; the only point that the book proves, is that the 
author lived long after the time of Joshua, for though it 
begins as if it followed immediately after his death, the 
second chapter is an epitome, or abstract, of the whole book, 
which, according to the Bible chronology, extends its history 
through a space of 306 years that is, from the death of 
Joshua, 1426 years before Christ, to the death of Samson, 
1120 before Christ, and only 25 years before Saul went to 
seek his father's asses, find was made king. But there is good 
reason to believe, that it was not written till the time of 



76 AGE OF REASON. 

David at least, and that the book of Joshua was not written 
before same time. 

In the first chapter of Judges, the writer, after announcing 
the death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between 
the children of Judah and the native inhabitants of the land 
of Canaan. In this statement, the writer, having abruptly 
mentioned Jerusalem in the 7th verse, says immediately 
after, in the 8th verse, by way of explanation, " Now the 
children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem and had 
taken it ; " consequently this book could not have been 
written before Jerusalem had been taken. The reader will 
recollect the quotation I have just before made from the 
loth chapter of Joshua, verse 63, where it is said, that the 
" Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem 
unto thi<i day ; " meaning the time when the book of Joshua 
was written. 

The evidence I have already produced to prove that the 
books I have hitherto treated of were not written by the 
persons to whom they are ascribed, nor till many years after 
their death, if such persons ever lived, is already so abun- 
dant, that I can afford to admit this passage with less weight 
than I am entitled to draw from it. For the case is, that so 
far as the Bible can be credited as a history, the city 
of Jerusalem was not taken till the time of David ; and, 
consequently, that the books of Joshua and of Judges 
were not written till after the commencement of the 
reign of David, which was 370 years after the death of 
Joshua. 

The name of the city that was afterwards called Jerusalem, 
was originally Jebus or Jebusi, and was the capital of the 
Jebusites. The account of David's taking this city is given 
in 2 Samuel, chapter v., verse 4, &c. ; also in 1 Chronicles, 
chapter xiv., verse 4, &c. There is no mention in any part 
of the Bible that it was ever taken before, nor any account 
that favors such an opinion. It is not said, either in 
Samuel or in the Chronicles, that they utterly destroyed men, 
icomen, and children that they left not a soul to breathe, as is 
xtiid of their other conquests ; and the silence here observed 
implies that it was taken by capitulation, and that the 
Jebusites, the native inhabitants, continued to live in the 
place after it was taken. The account, therefore, given in 
Joshua, that the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at 



AGE OF REASON. 77 

Jerusalem unto this day, corresponds to no other time than 
after the taking of the city by David. 

Having now shown that every book in the Bible, from 
Genesis to Judges, is without authenticity, I come to the 
book of Ruth, an idle, bungling story, foolishly told, nobody 
knows by whom, about a strolling country girl creeping 
slily to bed to her cousin Boaz. Pretty stuff indeed to be 
called the word of God ! It is, however, one of the best 
books in the Bible, for it is free from murder and rapine. 

I come next to the two books of Samuel, and to show that 
those books were not written by Samuel, nor till a great 
length of time after the death of Samuel ; and that they are, 
like all the former books, anonymous, and without 
authority. 

To be convinced that these books have been written much 
later than the time of Samuel, and consequently not by him, 
it is only necessary to read the account which the writer 
gives of Saul going to seek his father's asses, and of his 
interview with Samuel, of whom Saul went to inquire about 
those lost asses, as foolish people now-a-days go to a conjurer 
to inquire after lost things. 

The writer, in relating the story of Saul, Samuel, and the 
asses, does not tell it as a thing that had just happened, but 
as an ancient story in the time this writer lived ; for he tells 
us in the language or terms used at the time that Samuel 
lived, which obliges the writer to explain this story in the 
terms or language used in the time the writer lived. 

Samuel, in the account given of him in the first of those 
books, chapter ix., is called the seer : and it is by this term 
that Saul inquires after him. Verse 11," And as they [Saul 
and his servant] went up the hill to the city, they found 
young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, 
is the seer here?" Saul then went according to the direc- 
tion of these maidens, and met Samuel without knowing 
him, and said unto him, verse 18, " Tell me, I pray thee, 
where the seer's house is. And Samuel answered Saul, and 
said, I am the seer." 

As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these ques- 
tions and answers, in the language or manner of speaking 
used in the time they are said to have been spoken, and as 
that manner of speaking was out of use when this author 
wrote, he found it necessary, in order to make the story 



78 AGE OF REASON. 

understood, to explain the terms in which these questions 
and answers are spoken : and he does this in the 9th verse, 
where he says, " Beforetime, in Israel, when a man went to 
inquire of God, thus he spake, Come and let us go to the 
eeer ; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime 
called a seer." This proves, as I have before said, that this 
story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, Avas an ancient story at 
the time the book of Samuel was written, and consequently 
that Samuel did not write it, and that that book is without 
authenticity. 

But if we go further into those books, the evidence is still 
more positive that Samuel is not the writer of them ; for 
they relate things that did not happen till several years after 
the death of Samuel. Samuel died before Saul, for the first 
Samuel, chapter xxviii., tells that Saul and the witch of 
Endor conjured Samuel up after he was dead; yet the 
history of the matters contained in those books is extended 
through the remaining part of Saul's life, and to the latter 
end of the life of David, who succeeded Saul. The account 
of the death and burial of Samuel (a thing which he could 
not write himself), is related in the 25th chapter of the first 
book of Samuel ; and the chronology affixed to this chapter 
makes this to be 10GO years before Christ; yet the history of 
this first book is brought down to 1056 years before Christ ; 
that is, to the death of Saul, which was not till four years 
after the death of Samuel. 

The second book of Samuel begins with an account of 
things that did not happen till four years after Samuel was 
dead ; for it begins with the reign of David, who succeeded 
Saul, and it goes on to the end of David's reign, which was 
forty-three years after the death of Samuel : and, therefore, 
the books are in themselves positive evidence that they were 
written by Samuel. 

I have now gone through all the books in the first part of 
the Bible, to which the names of persons are affixed as being 
the authors of those books, and which the church, styling 
itself the Christian church, have imposed upon the world as 
the writings of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel : and I have 
detected and proved the falsehood of this imposition. And 
now, ye priests of every description, who have preached and 
written against the former part of the " Age of Reason," 
what have ye to say? Will ye, with all this mass of evidence 



AGE OF REASON. 79 

against you, and staring you in the face, still have the 
assurance to march into your pulpits, and continue to impose 
these books on your congregations as the works of inspired 
penmen, and the word of God, when it is as evident as 
demonstration can make truth appear, that the persons who, 
ye say, are the authors, are not the authors, and that ye 
know not who the authors are ? What shadow of pretence 
have ye now to produce, for continuing the blasphemous 
fraud ? What have ye still to offer against the pure and 
moral religion of Deism, in support of your system of false- 
hood, idolatry, and pretended revelation ? Had the cruel 
and murderous orders with which the Bible is filled, and the 
numberless torturing executions of men, women, and children, 
in consequence of those orders, been ascribed to some friend, 
whose memory you revered, you would have glowed with 
satisfaction at detecting the falsehood of the charge, and 
gloried in defending his injured fame. Is it because ye 
are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in 
the honor of your Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales 
of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference ? The 
evidence I have produced, and shall still produce, in the 
course of this work, to prove that the Bible is without 
authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness of a priest, 
relieve and tranquilise the minds of millions ; it will free 
them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which 
priestcraft and the Bible had infused into their minds, and 
which stood in everlasting opposition to all their ideas of his 
moral justice and benevolence. 

I come now to the two books of Kings and the two books 
of Chronicles. These books are altogether historical, and 
are chiefly confined to the lives and actions of the Jewish 
kings, who, in general, were a parcel of rascals : but these 
are matters with which we have no more concern than we 
have with the Roman emperors, or Homer's account of the 
Trojan war. Besides which, as those works are anonymous, 
and as we know nothing of the writer, or of his character, 
it is impossible for us to know what degree of credit to give 
to the matters related therein. Like all other ancient 
histories, they appear to be a jumble of fable and fact, and 
of probable and of improbable things ; but which distance 
of time and place, and change of circumstances in the 
world, have rendered obsolete and uninteresting. 



80 AGE OF REASON. 

The chief use I shall make of those books will be that 
of comparing them with each other, and with other parts of 
the Bible, to show the confusion, contradiction, and cruelty 
in this pretended word of God. 

The first book of Kings begins with the reign of Solo- 
mon, which, according to the Bible chronology, was 1015 
years before Christ ; and the second book ends 588 years 
before Christ, being a little after the reign Zedekiah, whom 
Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jerusalem and conquering 
the Jews, carried captive to Babylon. The two books 
include a space of 427 years. 

The two books of Chronicles are a history of the same 
times, and in general of the same persons, by another author; 
for it would be absurd to suppose that the same author wrote 
the history twice over. The first book of Chronicles (after 
giving the genealogy from Adam to Saul, which takes up 
the first nine chapters) begins with the reign of David ; and 
the last book ends, as in the last book of Kings, soon after 
the reign of Zedekiah, about 588 years before Christ. The 
two last verses of the last chapter bring the history fifty-two 
years more forward that is, to 536. But these verses do 
not belong to the book, as I shall show when I come to speak 
of the book of Ezra. 

The two books of Kings, besides the history of Saul, 
David, and Solomon, who reigned over all Israel, contain 
an abstract of the lives of seventeen kings and one queen, 
who are styled kings of Judah ; and of nineteen, who are 
styled kings of Israel : for the Jewish nation, immediately 
on the death of Solomon, split into two parties, who chose 
separate kings, and carried on most rancorous wars against 
each other. 

Those two books are little more than a history of assassi- 
nations, treachery, and wars. The cruelties that the Jews 
had accustomed themselves to practise on the Canaanites, 
whose country they had savagely invaded under a pre- 
tended gift from God, they afterwards practised as 
furiously on each other. Scarcely half their kings died a 
natural death, and, in some instances, whole families were 
destroyed to secure possession to the successor; who, after 
a few years, and sometimes only a few months, or less, share 
the same fate. In the tenth chapter of the second book of 
Kings, an account is given of two baskets full of children's 



AGE OF REASON. 81 

heads, seventy in number, being exposed at the entrance of 
the city : they were the children of Ahab, and were mur- 
dered by the order of Jehu, whom Elisha, the pretended 
man of God, had anointed to be king over Israel, on pur- 
pose to commit this bloody deed, and assassinate his prede- 
cessor. And in the account of the reign of Manaham, one 
of the kings of Israel, who had murdered Shallum, who had 
reigned but one month, it said, 2 Kings, chapter xv., verse 
16, " Then Manaham smote the city of Tiphsah, because 
they opened not to him, and all the women therein that were 
with child he ripped vp. 

Could we permit ourselves to suppose that the Almighty 
would distinguish any nation of people by the name of his 
chosen people, we must suppose that people to have been an 
example to all the rest of the world, of the purest piety and 
humanity, and not such a nation of ruffians and cut-throats 
as the ancient Jews were ; a people who, corrupted by and 
copying after such monsters and imposters as Moses and 
Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, and David, had distinguished them- 
selves above all others on the face of the known earth for 
barbarity and wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut 
our eyes and steel our hearts, it is impossible not to see, in 
spite of all that long-established superstition imposes upon the 
mind, that the flattering appellation of his chosen people is no 
other than a lie, which the priests and leaders of the Jews 
had invented to cover the baseness of their own characters ; 
and which Christian priests, sometimes as corrupt, and often 
as cruel, have professed to believe. 

The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same 
crimes ; but the history is broken in several places by the 
author leaving out the reign of some of their kings, and in 
this, as well as in that of Kings, there is such a frequent 
transition from kings of Judah to kings of Israel, and from 
kings of Israel to kings of Judah, that the narrative is 
obscure in the reading. In the same book, the history 
sometimes contradicts itself : for example, in the second 
book of Kings, chapter i., verse 17, we are told, but in 
rather ambiguous terms, that after the death of Ahaziah, 
King of Israel, Jehoram, or Joram (who was of the house 
of Ahab), reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram, 
or Joram, son of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah ; and in 
chapter viii., verse 16, of the same book, it is said, And in 



82 AGE OF REASON. 

the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, King of Israel 
(Jehoshaphat being then King of Judah), began to reign : 
that is, one chapter says Joram of Judah began to reign in 
the second year of Joram of Israel ; and the other chapter 
says, that J oram of Israel began to reign in the Jifth year of 
Joram of Judah. Several of the most extraordinary matters 
related in one history as having happened during the reign 
of such and such of their kings, are not to be found in the 
other, in relating the reign of the same king ; for example, 
the two first rival kings, after the death of Solomon, were 
Kehoboam and Jeroboam; and in 1 Kings, chapters xii. and 
xiii., an account is given of Jeroboam making an offering 
of burnt incense, and that a man, who is there called a man 
of God, cried out against the altar, chapter xiii., verse 2, 
" O altar ! altar ! thus saith the Lord : Behold, a child 
shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah byname; 
and upon these shall he offer the prieats of the high places 
that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt 
upon thee." Verse 4, " And it came to pass when King 
Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had 
cried against the altar, in .bethel, that he put forth his hand 
from the altar, saying, Lay hold on liini ; and his hand which 
he put forth against him dried up, so that lie could not pull it 
in again to him. 

One would think that such an extraordinary case as this 
(which is spoken of as a judgment), happening to the chief 
one of the parties, and that at the lirst moment of the sepa- 
ration of the Israelites into two nations, would, if it had 
been true, been recorded in both histories. But though 
men in later times have believed alt that the prophtts have 
said unto them, it does not appear that thete prophets, or 
historians, believed each other : they knew each other too 
well. 

A long account is also given in Kings about Elijah. It 
runs through several chapters, and concludes with telling, 
2 Kings, chapter ii., verse 11, *" And it came to pass, as 
they (Elijah and Elisha) still went on, and talked, that, 
behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, 
and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
wind into heaven" Hum ! this the author of Chronicles, 
miraculous as the story is, makes no mention of, though he 
mentions Elijah by name : neither does he say anything of 



AGE OF REASON. 83 

the story related in the second chapter of the same book of 
Kings, of a parcel of children calling Elisha, bald head, bald 
head ; and that this man of God, verse 24, " turned back 
and looked upon them, and cursed them in the name of the 
Lord, and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, 
and tore forty-and-two children of them." He also passes 
over in silence the story told, 2 Kings, chapter xiii., that 
when they were burying a man in the sepulchre where 
Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, 
as they were letting him down (verse 21), " touched the 
bones of Elisha, and he (the dead man), revived and stood 
up on his feet" The story does not tell us whether they 
buried the man, notwithstanding he revived and stood up on 
his feet, or drew him up again. Upon all these stories the 
writer of Chronicles is as silent as any writer of the present 
day, who did not choose to be accused of lying, or at least 
of romancing, would be about stories of the same kind. 

But, however these two historians may differ from each 
other with respect to the tales related by either, they are 
silent alike with respect to those men styled prophets, whose 
writings fill up the latter part of the Bible. Isaiah, who 
lived in the time of Hezekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and 
again in Chronicles, when these historians are speaking of 
that reign, but except in one or two instances at most, and 
those very slightly, none of the rest are so much as spoken 
of, or even their existence hinted at ; though, according to 
the Bible chronology, they lived within the time those his- 
tories were written, some of them long before. If those 
prophets, as they are called, were of such importance in 
their day as the compilers of the Bible, and priests and 
commentators have since represented them to be, how can it 
be accounted for, that not one of these histories should say 
anything about them ? 

The history in the books of Kings and of Chronicles is 
brought forward as I have already said to the year 588 
before Christ: it will, therefore, be proper to examine which 
of these prophets lived before that period. 

Here follows a table of all the prophets with the times in 
which they lived before Christ, according to the chronology 
affixed to the first chapter of each of the books of the 
prophets ; and also the number of years they lived before 
the books of Kings and Chronicles were written. 

62 



84 



AGE OF REASON. 



Table of the Prophets, with the time in which they lived before 
Christ and also before the books of Kings and Chronicles 
were written. 



NAMES. 


Years bef. 

Christ. 


Years bef. 
Kings and 
Ohron. 


Observations. 


Isaiah 


760 


172 


mentioned. 


Jeremiah 


629 


41 


(mentioned only in 
< the last chapt. of 


Ezekiel 


595 


7 


( Chronicles, 
not mentioned. 


Daniel 


607 


19 


not mentioned. 


Hosea 


785 


97 


not mentioned. 


Joel 


800 


9]9 


not mentioned. 


Amos . 


789 


199 


not mentioned. 


Obadiah 


789 


199 


not mentioned. 


Jonah 


862 


274 


see the note.* 


Micah 


750 


162 


not mentioned. 


Nahum .t 


713 


125 


not mentioned. 


Habakuk 


626 


38 


not mentioned. 


Zephaniuh 


630 


42 


not mentioned. 


zeTh?riahl after ! h a e 

Malachi f y ear 588 ' 









This table is either not very honorable for the Bible his- 
torians, or not very honorable for the Bible prophets ; and 
I leave to priests and commentators, who are very learned 
in little things, to settle the point of etiquette between the 
two; and to assign a reason why the authors of Kings and 
Chronicles have treated those prophets, whom, in the former 
part of the " Age of Reason," I have considered as poets, 
with as much degrading silence as any historian of the pre- 
sent day would treat Peter Pindar. 

I have one observation more to make on the Book of 
Chronicles, after which I shall pass on to review the 
remaining books of the Bible. 

In my observations on the book of Genesis, T have quoted 
a passage from the 36th chapter, verse 31, which evidently 
refers to a time after kings began to reign over the children 

* In 2 Kings, chapter xiv., verse 25, the name of Jonah is mentioned 
on account of the restoration of a tract of land hy Jeroboam, but 
nothing further is said of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of 
Jonah, nor to his expedition to Nineveh, nor to his encounter with a 
whale. 



AGE OF REASON. 85 

of Israel ; and I have shown, that as this verse is verbatim 
the same as in Chronicles, chapter i., verse 43, where it 
stands consistently with the order of history, which in 
Genesis it does not, that the verse in Genesis, and a great 
part of the 36th chapter, have been taken from Chronicles; 
and that the book of Genesis, though it is placed first in the 
Bible, and ascribed to Moses, has been manufactured by 
some unknown person, after the book of Chronicles was 
written, which was not until at least eight hundred and 
sixty years after the time of Moses. 

The evidence I proceed by, to substantiate this is regular, 
and has in it but two stages. First, as I have already 
stated, that the passage in Genesis refers itself for time to 
Chronicles ; secondly that the book of Chronicles, to which 
this pas-age refers itself, was not begun to be written until 
at least eight hundred and sixty years after the time of 
Moses. To prove this, we have only to look into the 13th 
verse of the 3rd chapter of the first book of Chronicles, 
where the writer, in giving the genealogy of the descendants 
of David, mentions Zedekiah ; and it was in the time of 
Zedekiah that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, 588 
years before Christ, and consequently more than 860 years 
after Moses. Those who have superstitiously boasted of the 
antiquity of the Bible, and particularly of the books 
ascribed to Mo>es, have done it without examination, and 
without any authority than that of one credulous man 
telling it to another ; for, so far from historical and chrono- 
logical evidence applies, the very fir?t book in the Bible is 
not so ancient as the book of Homer by more than three 
hundred years, and is about the same age as ^Esop's Fables. 

I am not contending for the morality of Homer ; on the 
contrary, I think it a book of false glory, tending to inspire 
immoral and mischievous notions of honor: and with respect 
to JEsop, though the moral is in general just, the fable is 
often cruel; and the cruelty of the fable does more injury to 
the heart, especially in a child, than the moral does good to 
the judgment. 

Having now dismissed Kings and Chronicles, I come to 
the next in course, the book of Ezra. 

As one proof among others I shall produce, to show the 
disorder in which this pretended word of God, the Bible, 
has been put together, and the uncertainty of who the 



86 AGE OF REASON. 

authors were, we have only to look at the three first verses 
in Ezra, and the two last in Chronicles ; for by what kind 
of cutting and shuffling has it been, that the three first 
verses in Ezra should be the two last verses in Chronicles, 
or that the two last in Chronicles should be the three first in 
Ezra ? Either the authors did not know their own works, 
or the compilers did not know the authors. 

Two last verses of Chronicles. Three first verses of Ezra. 

Verse 22. Now in the first year Verse 1. Now in the first year 
of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the 
word of the Lord, spoken by the word of the Lord by the mouth of 
mouth of Jeremiah, might be ac- Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the 
complished, the Lord stirred up Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, 
the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, king of Persia, that he made a pro- 
that he made a proclamation clamation throughout all his king- 
throughout all his kingdom, and dom, and put it also in writing, 
put it also in writing, saying, saying, 

23. Thus saith Cyrus, king of 2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of 
Persia, All the kingdoms of the Persia, The Lord God of heaven 
earth hath the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms 
given me: and he hath charged of the earth: and he hath charged 
me to build him an house in Jeru- me to build him an house in Jeru- 
salem, which is in Judah. "Who is salem, which is in Judah. 
there among you of all his people? 3. Who is there among you of 
the Lord his God be with him, and all his people ? his God be with 
let him go up. him, and let him go up to Jeiu- 

salem, which is in Judah, and 
build the house of the Lord God 
of Israel (he is the God) which is 
in Jerusalem. 

The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends 
in the middle of a phrase with the word up, without signify- 
ing to what place. This abrupt break, and the appearance 
of the same verses in different books, show as I have already 
said, the disorder and ignorance in which the Bible has 
been put together, and that the compilers of it had no 
authority for what they were doing, nor we any authority 
for believing what they have done.* 

* I observed, as I passed along, several broken and senseless passages 
in the Bible, without thinking them of consequence enough to be intro- 
duced in the body of the work ; such as that, 1 Samuel, chapter xiii., 
verse 1, where it is said, "Saul reigned one year: and when he had 
reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose him three thousand men," &c. 
Tli'j first part of the verse, that Saul reigned one year, has no sense, 
sin'-e it does not tell us what Saul did, nor say anything of what 



AGE OF REASON. 87 

The onlv thing that has any appearance of certainty in 
the book of Ezra, is the time in which it was written, which 
was immediately after the return of the Jews from the 
Babylonian captivity, about 536 years before Christ. Ezra 
(who according to the Jewish commentators is the same 
person as is called Esdras in the Apocrypha), was one of 
the persons who returned, and who, it is probable, wrote the 
account of that affair. Nehemiah, whose book follows next 
to Ezra, was another of the returned persons ; and who, it 
is also probable, wrote the account of the same affair, in the 
book that bears his name. But those accounts are nothing 
to UP, nor to any other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as 
a part of the history of their nation ; and there is iust as 
much of the word of Gcd in those books, as there is in any 

happened at the end of that one year ; and it is, besides, mere 
absurdity to sav he reigned one ypar. when the verv next phrase says 
he hnd reigned two, it was impossible not to have reigned one. 

Another instance occurs in Joshua, chapter v., where the writer tells 
us a storv of an angel ffor such the table of contents, at the head of 
the chapter, calls him) appearing unto Joshua : and the story ends 
abruptly, and without any conclusion. The story is as follows : 
"Verse 13. "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jerico; that he 
lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, there stood a man over against 
him, with his sword drawn in his hand : and Joshua went unto him 
and said unto him. Art thou for us, or for onr adversaries?" Verse 14, 
"And he said. Nay: but as captain of the hosts of the Lord am I now 
come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and 
said unto him. What saith my Lord unto his servant?" Verse 15, 
" And the captain of the Lord's hosts said unto Joshua. Loose thy shoe 
from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And 
Joshua did so." And what then ? nothing : for here the story ends, 
and the chapter too. 

Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told by 
some Jewish humorist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from 
God : nnd the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the 
story, have told it as a serious matter. Asa story of humor and ridi- 
cule, it has a great deal of point; for it pompously introduces an angel 
in the figure of a man, with a drawn sword in his hand, before whom 
Joshua falls on his face to the earth, and worships (which is contrary 
to their second commandment), and then this most important embassy 
from heaven ends in telling Jo=hua to pull off his shoe. It might as 
well have told him to pull up his breeches 

It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit everything their 
leaders told them, as appears from the oavnlier manner in which thev 
speak of Moses, when he was prone into the mount. "As for this 
Moses," sav tbey "we wot not what is become of him." Exodus, chapter 
xxxii., verse 1. 



88 AGE OF REASON 

of the histories of France, or Rapin's history of England, or 
the history of any other country. 

But even in matters of historical record, neither of those 
writers is to be depended upon. In the second chapter of 
Ezra, the writer gives a list of the tribes and families, and 
of the precise number of souls of each, that returned from 
Babylon to Jerusalem ; and this enrolment of the persons so 
returned appears to have been one of the principal objects 
for writing the book ; but in this there is an error that 
destroys the intention of the undertaking. 

The writer begins his enrolment in the following manner : 
Chapter ii., verse 3, " The children of Parosh, two thou- 
sand an hundred seventy and two." Verse 4, "The children 
of Shephatiah, three hundred and seventy two." And in 
this manner he proceeds through all the families ; and in 
the 64th verse, he makes a total, and says, " The whole 
congregation together was forty and two thousand three 
hundred and three score. 

But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the 
several particulars, will find that the total is but 29,818 ; so 
that the error is 12,542.* What certainty can there be in 
the Bible for anything ? 

Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list of the returned 
families, and of the number of each family. He begins, as 
in Ezra, by saying (chapter vii., verse 8), " The children of 
Parosh, two thousand an hundred seventy and two ; " 
and so on through all the families. In the 66th verse, 
Nehemiah makes a total and says, as Ezra had said, " The 

* Particulars of the families from Second chapter of Ezra. 



Chap. ii. 


Bt.forwd. 12,243 


Bt.forwd. 15,953 ! Bt. forwd. 24,153 


Ver. 3 ... 2172 


Ver. 14 ... 2056 


Ver. 25 ... 743 


Ver. 36 ... 973 




4 ... 372 


15 ... 454 


> 


26 ... 621 




37 ... 1052 




5 ... 775 


16 ... 98 




27 ... 122 




33 ... 1247 




6 ... 2812 


j 


17 ... 323 




28 ... 223 




39 ... 1017 




7 ... 1254 




18 ... 112 




29 ... 52 




40 ... 74: 




8 ... 945 




10 ... 223 




30 ... 165 




41 ... 128 




9 ... 760 


, 


20 ... 95 




31 ... 1254 




42 ... 139 




10 ... 642 




21 ... 123 




32 ... 320 




58 ... 392 




11 ... 623 


J 


22 ... 56 




33 ... 725 




60 ... 652 




12 ... 1222 


, 


23 ... 128 


' 34 ... 345 




' 13 ... 66 


' 


24 ... 42 


35 ... 3630 




12.243 


15,953 


24,153 


Total 29,827 



AGE OF REASON. 89 

whole congregation together was forty and two thousand 
three hundred find threescore." But the particulars of this 
list makes a total but of 31,089, so that the error liere is 
11,271. These writers may do well enough for Bible- 
makers, but not for anything where truth and exactness are 
necessary. The next book in course is the book of Esther. 
If madam Efther thought it any honor to offer herself as a 
kept mistress to Ahasuerus, or as a rival to Queen Vashti, 
who had refused to come to a drunken king, in the midst of 
a drunken company, to be made a show of (for the account 
says they had been drinking seven days, and were merry), 
let Esther and Mordecai look to that, it is no business of 
ours; at least, it is none of mine; besides which the story 
has a great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is 
al-o anonymous. I pass on to the book of Job. 

The book of Job differs in character from all the books 
we have hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make 
no part of this book ; it is the meditations of a mind 
strongly impressed with the vicissitudes of human life, and by 
turns sinking under and struggling against the pressure. It 
is a highly- wrought composition, between willing submission 
and involuntary discontent ; and shows man, as he some- 
times is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable of 
being. Patience has but a small share in the character of 
the person of whom the book treats ; on the contrary, his 
grief is often impetuous; but he still endeavours to keep a 
guard upon it, and seems determined, in the midst of 
accumulating ills, to impose upon himself the hard duty of 
contentment. 

I have spoken in a respectful manner of the book of Job 
in the former part of the " Age of Reason," but without 
knowing at that time what I have learned since ; which is, 
that from all the evidence that can be collected, the book of 
Job does not belong to the Bible. 

I have seen the opinion of two Hebrew commentators, 
Abenezra and Spinoza, upon this subject ; they both say 
that the book of Job carries no internal evidence of being a 
Hebrew book ; that the genius of the composition, and the 
drama of the piece, are not Hebrew; that it has been trans- 
lated from another language into Hebrew, and that the 
author of the book was a Gentile ; that the character repre- 
sented under the name of Satan (which is the first and only 



90 AGE OF REASON. 

time this name is mentioned in the Bible), does not corre- 
spond to any Hebrew idea, and that the two convocations 
which the Deity is supposed to have made of those whom 
the poem calls sons of God, and the familiarity which this 
supposed Satan is stated to have with the Deity, are in the 
same case. 

It may also be observed, that the book shows itself to be 
the production of a mind cultivated in science, which the 
Jews, so far from being famous for, were very ignorant of. 
The allusions to objects of natural philosophy are frequent 
and strong, and are of a different cast to anything in the 
books known to be Hebrew. The astronomical names, 
Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are Greek, and not Hebrew 
names; and it does not appear from anything that is to be 
found in the Bible, that the Jews knew anything of astro- 
nomy, or that thev studied it : they had no translation of 
those names into their own language, but adopted the names 
as they found them in the poem. 

That the Jews did translate the literary productions of 
the Gentile nations, into the Hebrew language, and mix 
them with thpir own, is not a matter of doubt: the 31st 
chapter of Proverbs is an evidence of this : it is there 
said (verse 1), " The words of king Lemuel, the prophfcy that 
his mother tmir/Jit him." This verse stands as a preface to 
the Proverbs that follow, and which are not the proverbs of 
Solomon, but of Lemuel ; and this Lemuel was not one of 
the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of some other country, 
and consequently a Gentile. The Jews however, have 
adopted his proverbs : and as they cannot give anv account 
who the author of the book of Job was, nor how thev came 
by the b<5ok : and as it differs in character from the Hebrew 
writings, and stands totally unconnected with every other 
book and chapter in the Bible before it, and after it. it has 
all the circumstantial evidence of being originally a book of 
the Gentiles.* 

* The prayer known by the name of AGUR'S PRATER, in the 30th 
chapter of Proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel, 
and which is the only sensible, well-conceived, and well-expressed 
prayer in the T?ible, has much the appearance of being a prayor taken 
from the Gentiles. The name of Agur occurs on no other occasion than 
this ; and he is introduced, together with the prayer ascribed to him, 
in the same manner, and nearly in the same words, that Lemuel and 



AGE OF REASON. 91 

The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the 
Bible chronologists, appear to have been at a loss where to 
place and how to dispose of the book of Job : for it contains 
no one historical circumstance, nor allusion to any, that 
might serve to determine its place in the Bible. But it 
would not have answered the purpose of these men to have 
informed the world of their ignorance ; and therefore they 
have affixed it to the era of one thousand five hundred and 
twenty years before Christ, which is during the time the 
Israelites were in Egypt, and for which they have just as 
much authority, and no more, than I should have for say- 
ing it was a thousand years before that period. The pro- 
bability, however, is, that it is older than any book in the 
Bible : and it is the only one that can be read without 
indignation or disgust. 

We know nothing of wliat the ancient Gentile world (as 
it is called) was before the time of the Jews, whose practice 
has been to calumniate and blacken the character of all 
other nations ; and it is from the Jewish accounts that we 
have learned to call them heathens. But as far as we know 
to the contrary, they were a just and a moral people, and 
not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and revenge, but of 
whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It appears 
to have been their custom to personify both virtue and vice 
by statutes and images, as is done now-a-days both by 
statuary and by painting ; but it does not follow from this, 
that they worshipped them any more than we do. I pass on 
to the book of Psalms, of which it is not necessary to make 
much observation. Some of them are moral and others are 
very revengeful, and the greater part relates to certain local 
circumstances of the Jewish nation at the time they were 
written, with which we have nothing to do. It is, however, 

his proverbs are introrluced in the chapter that follows. The first verse 
of the 30th chapter says, " The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, even 
the prophecy." Here the word prophecy is used with the same appli- 
cation it has in the following chapter of Lemuel, unconnected with any- 
thing of prediction. The prayer of Augur is, in the 8th and 9th verses, 
" Remove far from me vanity and lies ; give me neither poverty nor 
riches ; feed me with food convenient for me : lest I be full and deny 
thee, and say, Who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal and take 
the name of my God in vain." This has not any of the marks of being 
a Jewish prayer, for the Jews never prayed but when they were in 
trouble, and never for anything but victory, vengeance, and riches. 



92 AGE OF REASON. 

an error, or an imposition, to call them the Psalms of 
David; they are a collection, as song-books are now-a-days, 
from different song writers, who lived at different times. 
The 137th Psalm could not have been written till more than 
400 years after the time of David, because it is written in 
commemoration of an event, the captivity of the Jews in 
Babylon, which did not happen till that distance of time. " By 
the rivers of Babylon we sat down; yea, we wept when we remem- 
bered Zion, We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the 
midst thereof; for there they required of us a song, sayir\g, sing 
tis one of the songs of Zion." As a man would say to an 
American, or to a Frenchman, or to an Englishman, Sing 
us one of your American songs, or your French songs, or 
your English songs. This remark, with respect to the time 
this psalm was written, is of no other use than to show 
(among others already mentioned), the general imposition 
the world has been under with respect to the authors of the 
Bible. No regard has been paid to time, place, and circum- 
stance ; and the names of persons have been affixed to the 
several books which it was as impossible they should write, 
as that a man should walk in procession at his own funeral. 

The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a col- 
lection, and that from authors belonging to other nations 
than those of the Jewish nation, as I have shown in the 
observations upon the book of Job ; besides which, some of 
the proverbs ascribed to Solomon did not appear till two 
hundred and fifty years after the death of Solomon : for as 
is said in the 1st verse of the 25th chapter,. " These are also 
proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Ihzekiah, king ofJudah, 
copied out" It was two hundred and fifty years from the 
time of Solomon to the time of Hezekiah. When a man is 
famous and his name is abroad, he is made the putative 
father of things he never said or did ; and this, most pro- 
bably, has been the case with Solomon. It appears to have 
been the fashion of that day to make proverbs, as it is now 
to make jest-books, and father them upon those who never 
saw them. 

The book of Ecclesiastes or the Preacher is also ascribed 
to Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. 
It is written as the solitary reflections of a worn-out de- 
bauchee, such as Solomon was, who, looking back on scenes 
he can no longer enjoy, cries out, " All is vanity /" A great 



AGE OF REASON. 93 

deal of the metaphor and of the sentiment is obscure, most 
probably by translation ; but enough is left to show they 
were strongly pointed in the original.* From what is 
transmitted to us of the character of Solomon, he was witty, 
ostentatious, dissolute, and at last melancholy. He lived 
fast, and died, tired of the world, at the age of fifty-eight 
years. 

Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines are 
worse than none ; and however it may carry with it the 
appearance of heightened enjoyment, it defeats all the felicity 
of affection, by leaving it no point to fix upon ; divided love 
is never happy. This was the case with Solomon ; and if 
he could not, with all his pretensions to wisdom, discover it 
beforehand, he merited, unpitied, the mortification he after- 
wards endured. In this point of view, his preaching is 
unnecessary, because to know the consequences, it is only 
necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives and 
three hundred concubines would have stood in the place of 
the whole book. It was needless after this to say, that all 
was vanity and vexation of spirit ; for it is impossible to 
derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive 
of happiness. 

To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we accustom 
ourselves to objects that can accompany the mind all the 
way through life, and that we take the rest as good in their 
day. The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age ; 
and the mere drudge in business is but little better: wherea?, 
natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, 
are a continual source of tranquil pleasure ; and, in spite of 
the gloomy dogmas of priests and of superstition, the study 
of those things is the study of the true theology : it teaches 
man to know and to admire the Creator, for the principles 
of science are in the creation, and are unchangeable, and 
of divine origin. 

Those who knew Benjamin Franklin, will recollect that 
his mind was ever young, his temper was ever serene ; 
science, that never grows grey, was always his mistress. He 
was never without an object ; for when we cease to have an 
object, we become like an invalid in an hospital waiting for 
death. 

* THOSE THAT LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOW SHALL BE DARKENED, is an 

obscure figure in translation for loss of sight. 



94 AGE OF REASON. 

Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but 
which wrinkled fanaticism has called divine. The compilers 
of the Bible have placed these songs after the book of 
Ecclesiastes ; and the chronologists have affixed to them the 
era of 1014 years before Christ, at which time Solomon, 
according to the same chronology, was nineteen years of age, 
arid was then forming his seraglio of wives and concubines. 
The Bible-makers and the chronologists should have managed 
this matter a little better, and either have said nothing about 
the time, or chosen a time little less inconsistent with the sup- 
posed divinity of those songs ; for Solomon was then in the 
honeymoon of one thousand debaucheries. 

It should also have occured to them, that as he wrote, if 
he did write, the book of Ecclesiastes, long after these songs, 
and in which he exclaims, that all is vanity and vexation of 
spirit, that he included those songs in that description. This 
is the more probable, because he says, or somebody for him 
(Ecclesiastes, chapter ii., verse 8), " / gat me men singers and 
ivomen singers (most probably to sing those songs), as musical 
instruments and that of all sorts" and behold (verse 2), "all 
was vanity and vexation of spirit." The compilers, however, 
have done their work but by halves : for as they have given 
us the songs, they should have given us the tunes, that we 
might sing them. 

The books called the books of the Prophets fill up all the 
remaining part of the Bible ; they are sixteen in number, 
beginning with Isaiah, and ending with Malachi; of which I 
have given you a list, in the observations upon Chronicles. 
Of these sixteen prophets, all of whom, except the three last, 
lived within the time the books of Kings and Chronicles 
were written, two only, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are mentioned 
in the history of those books. I shall begin with those two, 
reserving what I have to say on the general character of the 
men called prophets to another part of the work. 

Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book 
ascribed to Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and 
disorderly compositions ever put together : it has neither 
beginning, middle, nor end ; and, except a short historical 
part, and a few sketches of history in two or three of the first 
chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant, full 
of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute 
of meaning ; a school-boy would scarcely have been excused 



AGE OF REASON. 95 

for writing such stuff; it is (at least in translation) that kind 
of composition and false taste that is properly called pro^e 
run mad. 

The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, that is 
continued to the end of the 39th chapter. It relates some 
matters that are said to have passed during the reign of 
Hezekiah, king of Judah, at which time Isaiah lived. This 
fragment of history begins and ends abruptly ; it has not 
the least connexion with the chapter that precedes it. nor 
with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book. 
It is probable that Isaiah wrote the fragment himself, 
because he was an actor in the circumstances it treats of ; 
but, except this part, there are scarcely two chapters that 
have auy connexion with each other ; one is entitled, at the 
beginning of the first verse, " the burden of Babylon ; " 
another, "the burden of Moab;" another, " the burden of 
Damascus ; " another, " the burden of Egypt ; " another, 
"the burden of the Desert of the Sea;" another, "the 
burden of the Valley of Vision ; " as you would say, the 
story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain, the story of 
Cinderella, or the Children in the Wood, &c., &c. 

1 have already shown, in the instance of the two last 
verses of Chronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the 
compilers of the Bible mixed and confounded the writings of 
different authors with each other ; which alone, were there 
no other cause, is sufficient to destroy the authenticity of any 
compilation, because it is more than presumptive evidence 
that the compilers were ignorant who the authors were. A 
veiy glaring instance of this occurs in the book ascribed to 
Isaiah ; the latter part of the 44th chapter, and the begin- 
ning of the 45th, so far from having been written by Isaiah, 
could only have been written by some person who lived at 
least a hundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. 

These chapters are a complaint to Cyrus, who permitted 
the Jews to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian 
captivity, to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, as is stated 
in Ezra. The last verse of the 44th chapter, and the 
beginning of the 45th, are in the following words : " That 
saith of Cyrus : He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my 
pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and 
to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the 
Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have 



96 AOE OK REASON. 

holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins 
of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates 
shall not be shut ; I will go before thee" &c. 

What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to 
impose this book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, 
when Isaiah, according to their own chronology, died soon 
after the death of Hezekiah, which was 698 years before 
Christ ; and the decree of Cyrus, in favor of the Jews 
returning to Jerusalem, was, according to the same chrono- 
logy, 536 years before Christ : which is a distance of time, 
between the two, of 162 years. I do not suppose that the 
compilers of the Bible made these books ; but rather that 
they picked up some loose, anonymous essays, and put them 
together under the names of such authors as best suited their 
purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is 
next .to inventing it; for it is impossible but they must have 
observed it. 

When we see the studied craft of the Scripture-makers, 
in making every part of this romantic book of school-boy's 
eloquence bend to the monstrous idea of a Son of God 
begotten by a ghost on the body of a virgin, there is no 
imposition we are not justified in suspecting them of. Every 
phrase and circumstance is marked with a barbarous hand of 
superstitious torture, and forced into meanings it was 
impossible they could have. The head of every chapter, and 
the top of every page, are blazoned with the names of Christ 
and the church, that the unweary reader might suck in the 
eiTor before he began to read. 

" Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a. son" (Isaiah, 
chapter vii., verse 14), has been interpreted to mean the 
person called Jesus Christ, and his mother Mary, and has 
been echoed through Christendom for more than a thousand 
years ; and such has been the rage of this opinion, that 
scarcely a spot in it but has been stained with blood, and 
marked with desolation in consequence of it. Though it is 
not my intention to enter into controversy on subjects of 
this kind, but to confine myself to show that the Bible is 
spurious ; and thus, by taking away the foundation, to over- 
throw at once the whole structure of superstition raised 
thereon ; I will, however, stop a moment to expose the 
fallacious application of this passage. 

Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of 



AGE OF REASON. 97 

Judah, to whom the passage is spoken, is no business of 
mine ; I mean only to show the misapplication of the passage, 
and that it has no more reference to Christ and his mother, 
than it has to me and my mother. The story is simply 
this : 

The king of Syria and the king of Israel (I have already 
mentioned that the Jews were split into two nations ; one of 
which was called Judah, the capital of which was called 
Jerusalem ; and the other Israel) made war jointly against 
Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched their armies towards 
Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became alarmed, and the 
account says (verse 2), " And his heart was moved and the 
heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the 
wind." 

In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to 
Ahaz, and assures him in the name of the Lord (theVant 
name of all the prophets), that these two kings should not 
succeed against him ; and to satisfy Ahaz that this should 
not he the case, tells him to ask a sign. This, the account 
says, Ahaz declined doing ; giving as a reason that he would 
not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah, who is the speaker, 
says " Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign ; 
" Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son ; " and the 
16th verse says, " For before the child shall know to refuse 
the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorest (or 
dreadest, meaning Syria and the kingdom of Israel), shall 
be forsaken of both her kings." Here, then, was the sign, 
and the time limited for the completion of the assurance or 
promise namely, before this child should know to refuse 
the evil, and choose the good. 

Isaiah having committed himself thus far, it became 
necessary to him, in order to avoid the imputation of being 
a false prophet, and the consequence thereof, to take 
measures to make this sign appear. It certainly was not a 
difficult thing, in any time of the world, to find a girl with 
child, or to make her so ; and perhaps Isaiah knew of one 
before-hand ; for I do not suppose that the prophets of that 
day were any more to be trusted than the priests of this; be 
that however as it may, he says, in the next chapter (verse 
2), " And I took unto me faithful witness to record, Uriah 
the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And / 
went unto the prophetess, and she conceived, and bare a son." 

H 



98 AGE OF REASON 

Here then is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child 
and this virgin ; and it is upon the bare-faced perversion of 
this story that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and 
sordid interests of priests in latter times, have founded a 
theory which they call the gospel ; and have applied this 
story to signify Jesus Christ ; begotten they say by a ghost 
whom they call holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in 
marriage, and afterwards married, whom they call a virgin, 
seven hundred years after this foolish story was told ; a 
theory which, speaking for myself, I hesitate not to dis- 
believe, and to say, is as fabulous and as false as God is 
true.* 

But to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah, we 
have only to attend to the sequel of this story ; which, 
though it is passed over in silence in the book of Isaiah, is 
related in the 28th chapter of the 2nd of Chronicles ; and 
which is, that instead of these two kings failing in their 
attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah, as Isaiah had pre- 
tended to foretell in the name of the Lord, they succeeded ; 
Ahaz was defeated and destroyed ; a hundred and twenty 
thousand of his people were slaughtered ; Jerusalem was 
plundered ; and two hundred thousand women and sons and 
daughters carried into captivity. Thus much for this lying 
prophet and imposter, Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods 
that bears his name. I pass on to the book of 

Jeremiah. This prophet, as he is called, lived in the time 
that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, in the reign of 
Zedekiah, the last king of Judah ; and the suspicion was 
strong against him that he was a traitor in the interest of 
Nebuchadnezzar. Everything relating to Jeremiah shows 
him to have been a man of an equivocal character : in bis 
metaphor of the potter and the clay, chapter xviii., he 
guards his prognostications in such a crafty manner as 
always to leave himself a door to escape by, in case the 
event should be contrary to what he had predicted. 

In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter, he makes the 
Almighty to say, " at what instant I shall speak concerning 

* In the 14th verse of the 7th chapter, it is said, that the child should 
be called Immanuel ; but this name was not given to either of the 
children otherwise than as a character, -which the word signifies. That 
of the prophetess was called Mahershalal-hash-baz, and that of Mary 
was called Jesus. 



AGE OF REASON. 99 

a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to 
pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom 
I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the 
evil that I thought to do unto them." Here was a proviso 
against one side of the case, now for the other side. 

Verses 9 and 10, "And at what instant I shall speak con- 
cerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to 
plant it ; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, 
then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would 
benefit them." Here is a proviso against the other side ; 
and, according to this plan of prophesying, a prophet could 
never be wrong, however mistaken the Almighty might be. 
This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this manner of speaking 
of the Almighty, as one would speak of a man, is con- 
sistent with nothing but the stupidity of the Bible. 

As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to 
read it, in order to decide positively that, though some 
passages recorded therein might have been spoken by 
Jeremiah, he is not the author of the book. The historical 
parts, if they can be called by that name, are in the most 
confused condition ; the same events are several times 
repeated, and that in a manner different, and sometimes in 
contradiction to each other ; and this disorder runs even to 
the last chapter, where the history, upon which the greater 
part of the book has been employed, begins anew, and ends 
abruptly. The book has all the appearance of being a med- 
ley of unconnected anecdotes, respecting persons and things 
of that time, collected together in the same rude manner, as 
if the various and contradictory accounts that are to be 
found in a bundle of newspapers respecting persons and 
things of the present day, were put together without date, 
order, or explanation. I will give two or three examples of 
this kind. 

It appears from the account of the 37th chapter, that the 
army of Nebuchadnezzar, which is called the army of the 
Chaldeans, had besieged Jerusalem some time; and on their 
hearing that the army of Pharaoh, of Egypt, was marching 
against them, they raised the siege and retreated for a time. 
It may here be proper to mention, in order to understand 
this confused history, that Nebuchadnezzar had besieged 
and taken Jerusalem, during the reign of Jehoiakim, the 
predecessor of Zedekiah ; and that it was Nebuchadnezzar 

H2 



100 AGE OV REASON. 

who had made Zedekiah king, or rather viceroy ; and that 
this second siege, of which the book of Jeremiah treats, was 
in consequence of the revolt of Zedekiah against Nebuchad- 
nezzar. This will, in some measure, account for the suspi- 
cion that affixes itself to Jeremiah, of being a traitor, and in 
the interest of Nebuchadnezzar, whom Jeremiah calls, in the 
43rd chapter, verse 10, the servant of God. 

The llth verse of this chapter (the 37th) says, " And it 
came to pass that when the army of the Chaldeans was 
broke up from Jerusalem, for fear of Pharaoh's army, then 
Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem, to go [as this account 
states], into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself 
thence in the midst of the people. And when he was in the 
gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose 
name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hanna- 
niah: and he took Jeremiah the prophet, saying, Thou 
fallest away to the Chaldeans. Then said Jeremiah, It is 
false ; if all not away to the Chaldeans." Jeremiah being 
thus stopped and accused, was, after being examined, com- 
mitted to prison, on suspicion of being a traitor, where he- 
remained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter. 

But the next chapter gives an account of the imprison- 
ment of Jeremiah, which has no connection with this 
account, but ascribes his imprisonment to another circum- 
stance, and for which we must go back to the 21st chapter. 
It is there stated, verse 1, that Zedekiah sent Pashur, the 
son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the 
priest, to Jeremiah, to inquire of him concerning Nebu- 
chadnezzar, whose army was then before Jerusalem ; and 
Jeremiah said unto them, verses 8 and 9, " Thus saith the 
Lord, behold I set before you the way of life and the way of 
death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, 
and by the famine, and by the pestilence ; but he that goeth. 
out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall 
live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey." 

This interview and conference breaks off abruptly at the 
end of the 10th verse of the 21st chapter; and such is the 
disorder of this book, that we have to pass over sixteen 
chapters, upon various subjects, in order to come at the con- 
tinuation and event of this conference ; and this brings us 
to the 1st verse of the 38th chapter, as I have just men- 
tioned 



AGE OF REASON. 101 

The 38th chapter opens with saying, " Then Shaphatiah 
the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and 
Jucal the son of Sheleliah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah 
[here are more persons mentioned than in the 21st chapter], 
heard the word that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the 
people, saying, " Thus saith the Lord, He that remaineth in 
the city shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pesti- 
lence; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, for he 
shall have his life for a prey, and shall live " (which are the 
words of the conference). Therefore they say to Zedekiah, 
" We beseech thee, let this man be put to death, for thus he 
weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in this 
city, and the hands of all the people in speaking such words 
unto them ; for this man seeketh not the welfare of this 
people, but the hurt ; " and at the 6th verse it is said, " Then 
took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of 
Malchiah." 

These two accounts are different and contradictory. The 
one ascribes his imprisonment to his attempt to escape out 
of the city ; the other to his preaching and prophesying in 
the city ; the one to his being seized by the guard at the 
gate; the other to his being accused before Zedekiah by the 
conferees.* 

* I observe two chapters, 16th and 17th, in the first book of Samuel, 
that contradict each other with respect to David, and the manner he 
became acquainted with Saul ; as the 37th and 38th chapters of the 
book of Jeremiah contradict each other with respect to the cause of 
Jeremiah's imprisonment. 

In the 16th chapter of Samuel, it is said, that an evil spirit of God 
troubled Saul, and that his servants advised him, (as a remedy) " to 
seek out a man who was a cunning player upon the harp." And Saul 
said (verse 57), Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring 
HIM to me. Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold I 
have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing 
and a mighty valiant man. and a man of war, and prudent in matters, 
and a comely person, and the LORD is with him. Wherefore Saul sent 
messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son. And (verse 
21), David came to Saul, and stood before him, and he loved him 
.greatly, and he became his armour-bearer. And when the evil spirit 
from God was upon Saul (verse 23) that David took an harp, and 
played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well. 

But the next chapter (17) gives an account, all different to this, of 
the manner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is 
ascribed to David's encounter with Goliath, when David was sent by hia 
ifather to carry provision to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th 



102 AGE OF REASON. 

In the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance* 
of the disordered state of this book ; for, notwithstanding 
the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar has been the subject 
of several of the preceding chapters, particularly the 37th 
and 38th, the 39th chapter begins as if not a word had been, 
said upon the subject, and as if the reader was to be in- 
formed of every particular respecting it ; for it begins with 
saying, verse 1, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of 
Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
Babylon, and all his army, against Jerusalem, and they 
besieged it," &c., &c. 

But the instance in the last chapter (the 52nd) is still 
more glaring ; for, though the story has been told over and 
over again this chapter still supposes the reader not to know 
anything of it: for it begins by saying, verse 1, " Zedekiah 
was one-and-twenty years old when he began to reign, and he- 
reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother s name was 
Hammutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libna. (Verse 4). And 
it came to pass, in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth 
month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar, 
king of Babylon, came, he and all his army, against Jeru~ 
salem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it," &c., 
&c. 

It is not possible that any one man, and more particularly 
Jeremiah, could have been the writer of this book. The 
errors are such as could not have been committed by any 
person sitting down to compose a work. Were I, or any 
other man, to write in such a disordered manner, nobody 
would read what was written ; and everybody would suppose 
that the writer was in a state of insanity. The only way x 
therefore, to account for the disorder is, that the book is a 
medley of detached, unauthenticated anecdotes, put together 

verse of this chapter it is said, "And when Saul saw David go forth 
against the Philistine (Goliath), he said unto Abner, the captain of the. 
host, Ahner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, as thy soul 
liveth, king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire thou whose, 
son the stripling is. And as David returned from the slaughter of the. 
Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head 
of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, Whose son art, 
thou, thou young man ? And David answered, I am the son of thy 
servant Jesse the Beth-lehemite." These two accounts belie each other, 
because each of them supposes Saul and David not to have known each 
other before. This book, the Bible, is too ridiculous even for criticism,. 



AGE OF REASON. 103 

by some stupid book-maker, under the name of Jeremiah, 
because many of them refer to him, and to the circumstances 
of the times he lived in. 

Of the duplicity and of the false predictions of Jeremiah, 
I shall mention two instances, and then proceed to review 
the remainder of the Bible. 

It appears in the 38th chapter, that when Jeremiah was 
in prison, Zedekiah sent for him ; and at this interview, 
which was private, Jeremiah pressed it strongly on Zede- 
kiah to surrender himself to the enemy. " If (says he, 
verse 1) thouwilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's 
princes, then thy soul shall live," &c. Zedekiah was appre- 
hensive that what passed at this conference should be 
known : and he said to Jeremiah, verse 25, " But if the 
princes [meaning those of Judah] hear that I have talked 
with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, 
Declare unto us now what thou hast said to the king ; hide 
it not from us, and we will not put thee to death ; also what 
the king said unto thee : then thou shalt say unto them, I 
presented my supplication before the king, that he would 
not cause me to return to Jonathan's house, to die there. 
Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him : 
and he told them according to all these words that the king had 
commanded." Thus, the man of God, as he is called, could 
tell a lie, or very strongly prevaricate, when he supposed 
it would answer his purpose ; for certainly he did not go 
to Zedekiah to make his application, neither did he make 
it : he went because he was sent for, and he employed 
that opportunity to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to 
Nebuchadnezzar. 

In the 34th chapter is a prophesy of Jeremiah to Zede- 
kiah, in these words, verse 2, " Thus saith the Lord, Behold 
I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, 
and he shall burn it with fire ; and thou shalt not escape 
out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken and delivered 
into his hand ; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the 
king of Babylon, and he shall speak to thee mouth to mouth, 
and thou shalt go Babylon. Yet hear the ivord of the Lord ; 
Zedekiah, king of Judah, thus saith the Lord of thee, thou 
shalt not die by the sword. But thou shalt die in peace ; and 
with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were 
before thee, so shall they burn odors for thee, and they will 



104 AGE OF REASON. 

lament thee, saying, Ah, Lord; for I have pronounced the 
word, saith the Lord" 

Now instead of Zedekiah beholding the eyes of the king 
of Babylon, and speaking with him mouth to mouth, and 
dying in peace, and with the burning of odors, as at the 
funeral of his fathers (as Jeremiah had declared the Lord 
himself had pronounced), the reverse, according to the 52nd 
chapter, was the case: it is there said, verse 10, " And the 
king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes ; 
then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah ; and the king of 
Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, 
and put him in prison till the day of his death." What 
then can we say of these prophets, but that they were 
impostors and liars ? 

As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of these evils. He 
was taken into favor by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in 
charge to the captain of the guard, chapter xxxix., verse 
12, " Take him (said he) and look well to him, and do him 
no harm ; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee." 
Jeremiah joined himself afterwards to Nebuchadnezzar, and 
went about prophesying for him, against the Egyptians, who 
had marched to the relief of Jerusalem while it was besieged. 
Thus much for another of the lying prophets, and the book 
that bears his name. 

I have been the more particular in treating of the books 
ascribed to Isaiah and Jeremiah, because those two are 
spoken of in the books of Kings and of Chronicles, which 
the others are not. The remainder of the books ascribed to 
the men called prophets I shall not trouble myself much 
about ; but take them collectively into the observations I 
shall offer on the character of the men styled prophets. 

In the former part of the " Age of Reason," I have said 
that the word prophet was the Bible word for poet, and that 
the flights and metaphors of the Jewish priests have been 
foolishly erected into what are now called prophecies. I am 
sufficiently justified in this opinion, not only because the 
books called the prophecies are written in poetical language, 
but because there is no word in the Bible, except it be the word 
prophet, that describes what we mean by a poet. I have 
also said that the word signified a performer upon musical 
instruments, of which I have given some instances ; such as 
that of a company of prophets prophesying with psalteries, 



AGE OF REASON. 105 

with tabrets, with pipes, with harps, &c., and that Saul pro- 
phesied with them, 1 Samuel, chapter x., verse 5. It appears 
from this passage, and from other parts in the book of 
Samuel, that the word prophet was confined to signify 
poetry and music ; for the person who was supposed to 
have a visionary insight into concealed things was not a 
prophet but a seer* 1 Samuel, chapter ix., verse 9 : and it 
was not till after the word seer went out of use (which most 
probably was when Saul banished those he called wizards), 
that the profession of the seer, or the art of seeing, became 
incorporated into the word prophet. 

According to the modern meaning of the word prophet and 
prophesying, it signifies foretelling events to a great distance 
of time ; and it became necessary to the inventors of the 
Gospel to give it this latitude of meaning, in order to apply 
or to stretch what they call the prophesies of the Old Testa- 
ment to the times of the New. But, according to the Old 
Testament, the prophesying of the seer, and afterwards of 
the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word seer was 
incorporated into that of prophet, had reference only to 
things of the time then passing, or very close. y connected 
with it ; such as the event of a battle they were going to 
engage in, or of a journey, or of any enterprise they were 
going to undertake, or of any circumstance, then pending, 
or of any difficulty they were then in ; all of which had 
immediate reference to themselves (as in the case already 
mentioned of Ahaz and Isaiah, with respect to the expres- 
sion, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son), and not 
to any distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying 
that corresponds to what we call fortune-telling ; such as 
casting nativities, predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate 
marriages, conjuring for lost goods, &c., and it is the fraud of 
the Christian church, not that of the Jews, and the ignorance 
and the superstition of modern, not that of ancient times, 
that elevated, those poetical musical conjuring dream- 
ing strolling gentry, into the rank they have since had. 

But besides this general character of all the prophets, they 
had also a particular character. They were in parties, and 

* I know not what is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word 
seer in English ; but I observe it is translated into French by LE 
VOTANT, from the verb VOIE, to see ; and which means the person who 
sees, or the seer. 



106 AGE OF REASON. 

they prophesied for or against, according to the party they 
were with ; as the poetical and political writers of the present 
day write in defence of the party they associate with, against 
the other. 

After the Jews were divided into two nations that of 
Judah, and that of Israel, each party had its prophets, who 
abused and accused each other of being false prophets, lying 
prophets, impostors, &c. 

The prophets of the party of Judah, prophesied against 
the prophets of the party of Israel ; and those of the party 
of Israel against those of Judah. This party-prophesying 
showed itself immediately on the separation, under the. first 
two rival kings, Rehoboam and Jeroboam. The prophet 
that cursed, or prophesied, against the altar that Jeroboam 
had built in Bethel, was of the party of Judah, where 
Rehoboam was king ; and he was way-laid, on his return 
home, by a prophet of the party of Israel, who said unto 
him (1 Kings, chapter xiii., verse 14), " Art thou the man 
of God that earnest from Judah ? and he said, I am." Then 
the prophet of the party of Israel said to him, " I am a 
prophet also as thou art (signifying of Judah), and an angel 
spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, bring him 
back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and 
drink water : but (says the 18th verse), he lied unto him." 
This event, however, according to the story, is that the 
prophet of Judah never got back to Judah, for he was found 
dead on the road, by the contrivance of the prophet of 
Israel ; who, no doubt, was called a true prophet by his own 
party, and the prophet of Judah a lying prophet. 

In the third chapter of the second of Kings, a story is 
related of prophesying or conjuring, that shows, in several 
particulars, the character of a prophet. Jehoshaphat, king 
of Judah, and Jehoram, king of Israel, had, for a while, 
ceased their party animosity, and entered into an alliance : 
and those two, together with the king of Edom, engaged in 
a war against the king of Moab. After uniting and march- 
ing their ar'mies, the story says, they were in great distress 
for water; upon which Jehoshaphat said, verse 11, "Is 
there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire 
of the Lord by him ? And one of the king of Israel's servants 
answered and said, Here is Elisha (Elisha was of the party 
of Judah), the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the 



AGE OF REASON. 107 

hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the 
Lord is with him." The story then says, that these three 
kings went down to Elisha : and when Elisha (who, as I 
have said, was a Judahmite prophet) saw the king of Israel, 
he said unto him, " What have I to do with thee ? Get 
thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of 
thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay, 
for the Lord hath called these three kings together, to 
deliver them into the hand of Moab." (Meaning because 
of the distress they were in for water). Upon which Elisha 
said, " As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, 
surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, 
the king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor fc.ee 
thee." Here is all the venom and the vulgarity of a party 
prophet. We have now to see the performance or manner 
of prophesying. 

Verse 15: "Bring me (said Elisha) a minstrel; and it 
came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the 
Lord came upon him." Here is the farce of the conjurer. 
Now for the prophesy : " And Elisha said [singing most 
probably to the tune he was playing], Thus saith the Lord, 
make this valley full of ditches ; " which was just telling 
them what every countryman could have told them, without 
either fiddle or farce, that the way to get water was to dig 
for it. 

But as every conjurer is not famous alike for the same- 
thing, so neilher were those prophets ; for though all of 
them, at least those I have spoken of, were famous for lying r 
some of them excelled in cursing. Elisha, whom I have 
just mentioned, was a chief in this branch of prophesying r 
it was he that cursed the forty-two children in the name of 
the Lord, whom the two she-bears came and devoured. We 
are to suppose that those children were of the party of 
Israel : but as those who will curse will lie, there is just as- 
much credit to be given to this story of Elisha's two she- 
bears, as there is to that of the dragon of Wantley, of whom, 
it is said : 

" Poor children three devoured he, 
That could not with him grabble ; 
And at one sup he ate them up, 
As a man would eat an apple." 

There was another description of men called prophets,. 



108 AGE OF REASON. 

that amused themselves with dreams and visions ; but 
whether by night or by day we know not. These, if they 
were not quite harmless, were but little mischievous. Of 
this class are 

Ezekiel and Daniel ; and the first question upon those 
books, as upon all the others is, are they genuine ? that is, 
Were they written by Ezekiel and Daniel ? 

Of this there is no proof ; but so far as my own opinion 
goes, 1 am more inclined to believe they were, than that 
they were not. My reasons for this opinion are as follows : 
First, Because those books do not contain internal evidence 
to prove they were not written by Ezekiel and Daniel, as 
the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, &c., &c., prove 
they were not written by Moses, Joshua, Samuel, &c. 

Secondly, Because they were not written till after the 
Babylonish captivity began : and there is good reason to 
believe, that not any book in the Bible was written before 
that period: at least it is provable, from the books themselves, 
as I have already shown, they were not written till after the 
commencement of the Jewish monarchy. 

Thirdly, Because the manner in which the books ascribed 
to Ezekiel and Daniel are written, agrees with the condition 
these men were in at the time of writing them. 

Had the numerous commentators and priests who have 
foolishly employed or wasted their time in pretending to 
expound and unriddle those books, been carried into 
captivity, as Ezekiel and Daniel were, it would have greatly 
improved their intellects, in comprehending the reason for 
"this mode of writing, and have saved them the trouble of 
racking their invention, as they have done, to no purpose ; 
for they would have found that themselves would be obliged 
to write whatever they had to write, respecting their own 
affairs, or those of their friends, or of their country, in a 
concealed manner, as those men have done. 

These two books differ from all the rest ; for it is only 
these that are filled with accounts of dreams and visions ; 
and this difference arose from the situation the writers were 
in, as prisoners of war, or prisoners of state, in a foreign 
country, which obliged them to convey even the most trifling 
information to each other, and all their political projects or 
opinions, in obscure and metaphorical terms. They pretend 
to have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, because it was 



AGE OF REASON. 109 

unsafe for them to speak facts or plain language. We ought, 
however, to suppose that the persons to whom they wrote 
understood what they meant, and that it was not intended 
anybody else should. But these busy commentators and 
priests have been puzzling their wits to find out what it was 
not intended they should know, and with which they have 
nothing to do. 

Ezekiel and Daniel were carried prisoners to Babylon, 
under the first captivity, in the time of Jehoiakim, nine 
years before the second captivity, in the time of Zedekiah. 
The Jews were then still numerous, and had considerable 
force at Jerusalem, and as it is natural to suppose that men, 
in the situation of Ezekiel and Daniel, would be meditating 
the recovery of their country, and their own deliverance, it 
is reasonable to suppose that the accounts of dreams and 
visions, with which these books are filled, are no other than 
a disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitate those 
objects ; it served them as a cypher, or secret alphabet. If 
they are not this, they are tales, reveries, and nonsense ; 
or, at least, a fanciful way of wearing off the wearisome- 
ness of captivity; but the presumption is, they were the 
former. 

Ezekiel begins his books by speaking of a vision of 
cherubims, and a vision of a wheel within a wheel, which he 
says he saw by the river Chebar, in the land of his captivity. 
Is it not reasonable to suppose that by the cherubims he 
meant the temple at Jerusalem, where they had the figures 
of cherubims ? and by a wheel within a wheel (which as a 
figure has always been understood to signify political con- 
trivance) the project or means of recovering Jerusalem ? 
In the latter part of this book he supposes himself transported 
to Jerusalem, and into the temple ; and he refers back to 
the vision on the river Chebar, and says (chapter xliii. r 
verse 3) that this last vision was like the vision on the river 
Chebar, which indicates that those pretended dreams and 
visions had for their object the recovery of Jerusalem, and 
nothing further. 

As to the romantic interpretations and applications, wild 
as the dreams and visions they undertake to explain, which 
commentators and priests have made of those books, that 
of converting them into things which they call prophecies, 
and making them bend to times and circumstances as far 



110 AGE OF REASON. 

remote even as the present day, it shows the fraud or the 
extreme folly to which credulity or priestcraft can go. 

Scarcely anything can be more absurd than to suppose 
that men situated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country 
was overrun, and in the possession of the enemy, all their 
friends and relations in captivity abroad, or in slavery at 
home, or massacred, or in continual danger of it scarcely 
anything, I say, can be more absurd, than to suppose that 
such men should find nothing to do but that of employing 
their time and their thoughts about what was to happen to 
other nations a thousand or two thousand years after they 
were dead ; at the same time nothing is more natural than 
that they should meditate the recovery of Jerusalem and 
their own deliverance ; and that this was the sole object of 
all the obscure and apparently frantic writings contained in 
those books. 

In this sense, the mode of writing used in those two books 
being forced by necessity, and not adopted by choice, is not 
irrational : but if we are to use the books as prophesies, they 
are false. In the 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speaking of 
Egypt, is said, verse 11, " No foot of man shall pass through 
it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it ; neither shall it be 
inhabited forty years" This is what never came to pass, 
and consequently it is false, as all the books I have already 
reviewed are. I here close this part of the subject. 

In the former part of the "Age of Reason," I have 
spoken of Jonah, and of the story of him and the whale. A 
fit story for ridicule, if it was written to be believed ; or of 
laughter, if it was intended to try what credulity would 
swallow ; for if it could swallow Jonah and the whale, it 
could swallow anything. 

But, as is already shown in the observations on the book 
of Job and the Proverbs, it is not always certain which of 
the books in the Bible are originally Hebrew, or only 
translations from the books of the Gentiles into Hebrew ; 
and as the book of Jonah, so far from treating of the affairs 
of the Jews, says nothing upon that subject, but treats alto- 
gether of the Gentiles, it is more probable that it is a book of 
the Gentiles than of the Jews : and that it has been written 
as a fable to expose the nonsense and satirise the vicious and 
malignant character of a Bible prophet or a predicting 
priest. 



AGE OF REASON. Ill 

Jonah is represented first, as a disobedient prophet, run- 
ning away from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a 
vessel of the Gentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish ; as if 
he ignorantly supposed, by such a paltry contrivance, he 
could hide himself where God could not find him. The 
vessel is overtaken by a storm at sea ; and the mariners, all 
of whom are Gentiles, believing it to be a judgment, on 
account of some one on board who had committed a crime, 
agreed to cast lots to discover the offender ; and the lot fell 
upon Jonah. But, before this, they had cast all their wares 
and merchandise overboard, to lighten the vessel, while 
Jonah, like a stupid fellow, was fast asleep in the hold. 

After the lot had designated Jonah to be the offender, 
they questioned him to know who and what he was ; and he 
told them he was a Hebrew ; and the story implies that he 
confessed himself to be guilty. But these Gentiles, instead 
of sacrificing him at once, without pity or mercy, as a com- 
pany of Bible prophets or priests would have done by a 
Gentile in the same case, and as it is related Samuel had 
done by Agag, and Moses by the women and children, they 
endeavored to save him, though at the risk of their own 
lives ; for the account says, Jonah, chapter i., verse 13, 
"Nevertheless [that is, though Jonah was a Jew and a 
foreigner, and the cause of all their misfortunes, and the 
loss of their cargo], the men rowed hard to bring it (the boat) 
to land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and was 
tempestuous against them" Still, however, they were un- 
willing to put the fate of the lot into execution ; and they 
cried (says the account) unto the Lord, saying, verse 14, 
" We beseech thee, Lord, we beseech thee, let iis not perish 
for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood ; for 
thou, Lord hast done as it pleased thee." Meaning thereby, 
that they did not presume to judge Jonah guilty, since he 
might be innocent; but that they considered the lot that had 
fallen upon him as a decree of God, or as it pleased God. 
The address of this prayer shows that the Gentiles 
worshipped one Supreme Being, and that they were not 
idolators, as the Jews represented them to be. But the 
storm still continuing, and the danger increasing, they put 
the fate of the lot into execution, and cast Jonah into the 
sea ; where, according to the story, a great fish swallowed 
him up whole and alive. 



112 AGE OF REASON. 

We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from 
the storm in the fish's helly. Here we are told that he- 
prayed ; but the prayer is a made-up prayer, taken from 
various parts of the Psalms, without any connexion or con- 
sistency, and adapted to the distress, but not at all to the 
condition that Jonah was in. It is such a prayer as a 
Gentile who might know something of the Psalms, could 
copy out for him. This circumstance alone, were there no 
other, is sufficient to indicate that the whole is a made-up 
story. The prayer, however, is supposed to have answered 
the purpose, and the story goes on (taking up at the same 
time the cant language of a Bible prophet), saying, Jonah, 
chapter ii., verse 10, "And the Lord spake unto the Jish, and 
it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." 

Jonah then received a second mission to Nineveh, with 
which he sets out ; and we have now to consider him as a 
preacher. The distress he is represented to have suffered, 
the remembrance of his own disobedience as the cause of it, 
and the miraculous escape he is supposed to have had, were 
sufficient, one would conceive, to have impressed him with 
sympathy and benevolence in the execution of his mission ; 
but, instead of this, he enters the city with denunciation and 
malediction in his mouth, crying, Jonah, chapter iii., verse 
4, " Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." 

We have now to consider the supposed missionary in the 
last act of his mission ; and here it is that the malevolent 
spirit of a Bible prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears 
in all that blackness of character that men ascribe to the 
being they call the devil. 

Having published his predictions he withdrew, says the 
story, to the east side of the city. But for what ? not to 
contemplate in retirement the mercy of his Creator to him- 
self, or to others, but to wait with malignant impatience the 
destruction of Nineveh. It came to pass, however, as the 
story relates, that the Ninevites reformed, and that God, 
according to the Bible phrase, repented him of the evil he 
had said he would do unto them, and did it not. This, saith 
the verse of the last chapter, displeased Jonah exceedingly, 
and he was very angry. His obdurate heart would rather 
that Nineveh should be destroyed, and every soul, young 
and old, perish in its ruins, than that his predictions should 
not be fulfilled. To expose the character of a prophet still 



AGE OP REASON. 113 

more, a gourd is made to grow up in the night, that 
promiseth him an agreeable shelter from the heat of the sun 
in the place to which he is retired ; and the next morning 
it dies. 

Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he 
is ready to destroy himself. Jonah, chap iv., verse 8, " It 
is better (said he) for me to die than to live" This brings on 
a supposed expostulation between the Almighty and the 
prophet: in which the former says, verses 9, 10, 11, " Dost 
thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to 
be angry even unto death. Then, said the Lord, thou had pity 
on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither 
madest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a 
night; and should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein 
are more than six score thousand persons, that cannot discern 
between their right hand and their left hand ? " 

Here is both the winding up of the satire and the moral 
of the fable. As a satire it sti-ikes against the character of 
all the Bible-prophets, and against all the indiscriminate 
judgments upon men, women, and children, with which this 
lying book, the Bible, is crowded ; such as Noah's flood, the 
destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the extir- 
pation of the Canaanites, even to sucking infants, and 
women with child, because the same reflection, that there 
are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern 
between their right hand and their left hand, meaning young 
children, applies to all their cases. It satirises also the 
supposed partiality of the Creator for one nation more than 
for another. 

As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of 
prediction ; for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes 
inclined to wish it. The pride of having his judgment right 
hardens his heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or 
sees with disappointment, the accomplishment or the failure 
of his predictions. This book ends with the same kind of 
strong and well-directed point against prophets, prophecies, 
and indiscriminate judgments, as the chapter that Benjamin 
Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the 
Stranger ends against the intolerant spirit of religious per- 
secution. Thus much for the book of Jonah. 

Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called pro- 
phecies, I have spoken in the former part of the " Age of 

z 



114 AGE OF REASON. 

Reason ; " and already in this, where I have said that the. 
word prophet is the Bible word for poet ; and that the flight* 
and metaphors of those poets, many of which are become 
obscure by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances, 
have been ridiculously erected into things called prophecies, 
and applied to purposes the writers never thought of. When, 
a priest quotes any of those passages he unriddles it agree- 
ably to his own views, and imposes that explanation upon 
his congregation as the meaning of the writer. The whore 
of Babylon has been the common whore of all the priests,, 
and each has accused the other of keeping the strumpet ; sa. 
well do they agree in their explanations. 

There now remain only a few books, which they call the 
books of the lesser prophets ; and as I have already shown 
that the greater are imposters, it would be cowardice to, 
disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, 
in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be for- 
gotten together. 

I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go 
through a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees* 
Here they lie ; and the priests, if they can, may re-plant 
them. They may, perhaps, stick them in the ground but 
they will never make them grow. I pass on to the books of 
the New Testament. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the 
prophecies of the old ; if so, it must follow the fate of its 
foundation. 

As it is nothing extraordinary that a woman should be 
with child before she was married, and that the son she 
might bring forth should be executed, even unjustly : I see 
no reason for not believing that such a woman as Mary, and. 
such a man as Joseph, and Jesiis existed : their mere exis- 
tence is a matter of indifference, about which there is no. 
ground, either to believe or to disbelieve, and which comes 
under the common head of, It may be so, and what then ? 
The probability, however, is, that there were such persons, or 
at least such as resembled them in part of the circumstances^. 



AGE OF REASON. 115 

because almost all romantic stories have been suggested by 
by some actual circumstances as the adventures of Robinson 
Crusoe, not a word of which is true, were suggested by the 
case of Alexander Selkirk. 

It is not then the existence, or non-existence, of the 
person that I trouble myself about ; it is the fable of Jesus 
Christ as told in the New Testament, and the wild and 
visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. 
The story taken as it is told, is blasphemously obscene. It 
gives an account of a young woman engaged to be married, 
and while under this engagement, she is, to speak plain 
language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious pre- 
tence (Luke, chapter i., verse 35), that " the Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee." Notwithstanding which, Joseph afterwards marries 
her, cohabits with her as his "wife, and in his turn rivals the 
ghost. This is putting the story into intelligible language, 
and when told in this manner, there is not a priest but must 
be ashamed to own it.* 

Obscenity in matters of faith, however wrapped up, is 
always a token of fable and imposture ; for it is necessary 
to our serious belief in God, that we do not connect it with 
stories that run, as this does, into ludicrous interpretations. 
This story is, upon the face of it, the same kind of story 
as that of Jupiter and Leda, or Jupiter and Europa, or any 
other of the amorous adventures of Jupiter ; and shows, as 
is already stated in the former part of the " Age of Reason," 
that the Christian faith is built upon the heathen mytho- 
logy. 

As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as 
concerns Jesus Christ, are confined to a very short space of 
time, less than two years, and all within the same country, 
and nearly to the same spot, the discordance of time, place, 
and circumstance, which detects the fallacy of the books of 
the Old Testament, and proves them to be impositions, 
cannot be expected to be found here in the same abundance. 
The New Testament compared with the Old, is like a farce 
of one act, in which there is not room for very numerous 
violations of the unities. There are, however, some glaring 

* Mary, the supposed virgin-mother of Jesus, had several other 
children, sons and daughters. See Matthew, chapter xiii., verses 55, 56. 

i 2 



116 AGE OF REASON. 

contradictions which, exclusive of the fallacy of the pre- 
tended prophecies, are sufficient to show the story of Jesus 
Christ to be false. 

I lay it down as a position which cannot be controverted 
first, that the agreement of all the parts of a story does 
not prove that story to be true, because the parts may agree 
and the whole may be false ; secondly, that the disagreement 
of the parts of a story proves the whole cannot be true. The 
agreement does not prove the truth, but the disagreement 
proves falsehood positively. 

The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four books 
ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first 
chapter of Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of 
Jesus Christ ; and in the third chapter of Luke there is also 
given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. 'Did these two agree it 
would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might, 
nevertheless, be a fabrication ; but as they contradict each 
other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. 
If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood ; and if 
Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood ; and as there 
is no authority for believing one more than the other, there 
is no authority for believing either ; and if they cannot be 
believed even in the very first thing they say and set out to 
prove, they are not entitled to be believed in anything they 
say afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing ; and as to 
inspiration and revelation, were we to admit it, it is 
impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either 
then the men called apostles were impostors, or the 
books ascribed to them have been written by other 
persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case of the Old 
Testament. 

The book of Matthew gives (chapter i., verse 6) a gene- 
alogy by name from David, up through Joseph, the husband 
of Mary, to Christ, and makes there to be twenty-eight 
generations. The book of Luke gives also a genealogy by 
name from Christ, through Joseph, the husband of Mary, 
down to David, and makes them to be forty-three genera- 
tions ; besides which there are only the two names of David 
and Joseph that are alike in the two lists. I here insert 
both genealogical lists, and for the sake of perspicuity and 
comparison have placed them both in the same direction 
that is, from Joseph down to David. 



AGE OF REASON. 



117 



Genealogy according to 
Luke. 


Christ 


23 Neri 


2 Joseph 
3 Heli 


24 Melchi 
25 Addi 


4 Matthat 


26 Cosam 


5 Levi 


27 Elmodam 


6 Melchi 


28 Er 


7 Janna 


29 Jose 


8 Joseph 
9 Mattathias 


30 Eliezer 
31 Joram 


10 Amos 


32 Matthat 


11 Naum 


33 Levi 


12 Esli 


34 Simeon 


13 Nagge 
14 Maath 
15 Mattathias 


35 Juda 
36 Joseph 
37 Jonan 


16 Semei 


38 Eliakim 


17 Joseph 
18 Juda 


39 Melea 
40 Menan 


19 Joanna 


41 Mattatha 


20 Rhesa 


42 Nathan 


21 Zorobabel 


43 David 


22 Salathiel 





Genealogy according to 
Matthew. 

Christ 23 Josaphat 

2 Joseph 24 Asa 

3 Jacob 25 Abia 

4 Matthan 26 Roboam 

5 Eleazar 27 Solomon 

6 Eluid 28 David* 

7 Achim 

8 Sadoc 

9 Azor 

10 Eliakim 

11 Abiud 

12 Zorobabel 

13 Salathiel 

14 Jeconias 

15 Josias 

16 Amon 

17 Manaases 

18 Ezekias 

19 Achaz 

20 Joatham 

21 Ozias 

22 Joram 

Now if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a 
falsehood between them as these two accounts show they 
do in the very commencement of their history of Jesus 
Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what authority 
(as I have before asked) is there left for believing the 
strange things they tell us afterwards ? If they cannot be 
believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how are 
we to believe them when they tell us he was the Son of God, 
begotten by a ghost ; and that an angel announced this 
in secret to his mother ? If they lied in one genealogy, 

* From the birth of David to the birth of Christ is upwards of 1080 
years ; and as the lifetime of Christ is not included, there are but 27 
full generations. To find therefore the average age of each person 
mentioned in the list, at the time his first son was born, it is only 
necessary to divide 1080 by 27, which gives 40 years for each person. 
As the lifetime of man was then but of the same extent it is now, it is 
an absurdity to suppose that 27 following generations should all be old 
bachelors before they married; and the more so when we are told that 
Solomon, the next in succession to David, had a house full of wives 
and mistresses before he was twenty-one years of age. So far from 
this genealogy being a solemn truth, it is not even a reasonable lie. 
The list of Luke gives about twenty-six years for the average age, and 
this is too much. 



118 AGE OP REASON. 

why are we to believe them in the other ? If his natural 
genealogy be manufactured (which it certainly is) why are 
we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manu- 
factured also, and that the whole is fabulous ? Can any 
man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon 
the belief of a story naturally impossible : repugnant to 
every idea of decency ; and related by persons already 
detected of falsehood ? Is it not more safe that we stop 
ourselves at the plain, pure, and unmixed belief of one 
God, which is Deism, than that we commit ourselves on an 
ocean of improbable, irrational, indecent, and contradictory 
tales. 

The first question, however, upon the books of the New 
Testament, as upon those of the old, is, Are they genuine ? 
were they written by the persons to whom they are ascribed ? 
for it is upon this ground only that the strange things related 
therein have been credited. Upon this point there is no 
direct proof for or against ; and all that this state of a case 
proves is doubtfulness ; and doubtfulness is the opposite of 
belief. The state, therefore, that the books are in, proves 
against themselves as far as this kind of proof can go. 

But exclusive of this, the presumption is that the books 
called the Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John, were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John, and that they are impositions. The disordered 
state of the history in these four books, the silence of one 
book upon matters related in the other, and the disagreement 
that is to be found among them, implies, that they are the 
production of some unconnected individuals, many years 
after the things they pretend to relate, each of whom made 
his own legend ; and not the writings of men living 
intimately together, as the men called apostles are supposed 
to have done ; in fine, that they have been manufactured, 
as the books of the Old Testament have been by other 
persons than those whose names they bear. 

The story of the angel announcing what the Church calls 
the immaculate conception, is not so much as mentioned 
in the books ascribed to Mark and John ; and is differently 
related in Matthew and Luke. The former says the angel 
appeared to Joseph, the latter says it was to Mary; but 
either Joseph or Mary was the worst evidence that could 
have been thought of, for it was others that should have 



AGE OF REASON. 119 

testified for them, and not they for themselves. Were any 
girl that is now with child to say, and even to swear it, that 
she was gotten with child by a ghost, and that an angel told 
her so, would she be believed ? Certainly she would not. 
Why, then, are we to believe the same thing of another girl 
whom we never saw, told by nobody knows who, nor when, 
nor where ? How strange and inconsistent it is, that the 
same circumstance that would weaken the belief even of a 
probable story, should be given as a motive for believing 
this one, that has upon the face of it every token of absolute 
impossibility and imposture ? 

The story of Herod destroying all the children under two 
years belongs altogether to the book of Matthew ; not one of 
the rest mentions anything about it. Had such a circum- 
stance been true, the universality of it must have made it 
known to all the writers, and the thing would have been too 
striking to have been omitted by any. This writer tells us 
that Jesus escaped this slaughter, because Joseph and Mary 
"were warned by an angel to flee with him unto Egypt ; but 
he forgot to make any provision for John, who was then 
under two years of age. John, however, who stayed behind, 
fared as well as Jesus who fled and therefore the story 
circumstantially belies itself. 

Not any two of these writers agree in reciting, exactly in 
the same words, the written inscription, short as it is, which they 
tell us was put over Christ when he was crucified ; and, 
besides this, Mark says he was crucified at the third hour 
(nine in the morning), and John says it was the sixth hour 
'(twelve at noon).* 

The inscription is thus stated in these books 

Matthew This is Jesus the king of the Jews. 

Mark The king of the Jews. 

Luke This is the king of the Jews. 

John Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. 

We may infer from these circumstances, trivial as they 
; are, that those writers, whoever they were, and in whatever 
time they lived, were not present at the scene. The only 

* According to John, the sentence was not passed till about the 
sixth hour (noon), and consequently, the execution could not be till the 
afternoon ; but Mark says expressly that he was crucified at the third 
hour (nine in the morning) chapter xv., verse 25 ; John, chapter xix., 
farse 14. 



120 AGE OF KEASON. 

one of the men called apostles who appears to have been 
near the spot was Peter, and when he was accused of heing 
one of Jesus's followers, it is said (Matthew, chapter xxvi., 
verse 74) : ' Then Peter began to curse and to swear, saying, 
I know not the man ; ' yet we are now called upon to believe 
the same Peter, convicted (by their own account) of perjury. 
For what reason or on what authority shall we do this ? 

The accounts that are given of the circumstances that 
they tell us attended the crucifixion, are differently related 
in those four books. 

The book ascribed to Matthew says (chapter xxvii., 
verse 45) : " Now from the sixth hour there was darkness 
over all the land until the ninth hour." Verses 51, 52, 53 : 
" And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
from the top to the bottom ; and the earth did quake, and 
the rocks rent ; and the graves were opened, and many 
bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the 
graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, 
and appeared unto many." Such is the account which this 
dashing writer of the book of Matthew gives, but in which 
he is not supported by the writers of the other books. 

The writer of the book ascribed to Mark, in detailing the 
circumstances of the crucifixion, makes no mention of any 
earthquake, nor of the rocks rending, nor of the graves 
opening, nor of the dead men walking out. The writer of 
the book of Luke is silent also upon the same points. And 
as to the writer of the book of John, though he details all 
the circumstance of the crucifixion down to the burial of 
Christ, he says nothing about either the darkness the veil 
of the temple the earthquake the rocks the graves 
nor the dead men. 

Now, if it had been true, that those things had hap- 
pened, and if the writers of these books had lived at the 
time they did happen, and had been the persons they are 
said to be namely, the four men called apostles, Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, it was not possible for them, as true 
historians, even without the aid of inspiration, not to have 
recorded them. The things, supposing them to have been 
facts, were of too much notoriety not to have been known, 
and of too much importance not to have been told. All 
these supposed apostles must have been witnesses of the 
earthquake, if there had been any ; for it was not possible 



AGE OF REASON. 121 

for them to have been absent from it ; the opening of the 
graves, and the resurrection of the dead men, and their 
walking about the city, is of greater importance than the 
earthquake. An earthquake is always possible, and natural, 
and proves nothing ; but this opening of the graves is super- 
natural, and directly in point to their doctrine, their cause, 
and their apostleship. Had it been true, it would have filled 
up whole chapters of those books, and been the chosen 
theme and general chorus of all the writers ; but instead of 
this, little and trivial things, and mere prattling conversa- 
tions of He said this, and he said that, are often tediously 
detailed, while this most important of all, had it been true, 
is passed off in a slovenly manner by a single dash of the 
pen, and that by one writer only, and not so much as hinted 
at by the rest. 

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to sup- 
port the lie after it is told. The writer of the book of 
Matthew should have told us who the saints were that came 
to life again, and went into the city, and what became of 
them afterwards, and who it was that saw them ; for he is 
not hardy enough to say that he saw them himself ; 
whether they came out naked, and all in natural buff, he- 
saints and she-saints ; or whether they came full dressed, 
and where they got their dresses ; whether they went to 
their former habitations and re-claimed their wives, their 
husbands, and their property, and how they were received ; 
whether they entered ejectments for the recovery of their 
possessions, or brought actions of crim. con. against the rival 
interlopers ; whether they remained on earth, and followed 
their former occupation of preaching or working ; or whether 
they died again, or went back to their graves alive and 
buried themselves. 

Strange, indeed, that an army of saints should return to 
life, and nobody know who they were, nor who it was that 
saw them, and that not a word should be said upon the sub- 
ject, nor these saints have anything to tell us ! Had it been 
the prophets who (as we are told) had formerly prophesied 
of these things, they must have had a great deal to say. 
They could have told us everything, and we should have had 
posthumous prophecies with notes and commentaries upon 
the first, a little better at least than we have now. Had it 
been Moses, and Aaron, and Joshua, and Samuel, and David, 



122 AGE OF REASON. 

not an unconverted Jew had remained in all Jerusalem. 
Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of the time then 
present, everybody would have known them, and they would 
have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles. 
But instead of this, these saints are made to pop up, like 
Jonah's gourd, in the night ; for no purpose at all but 
to wither in the morning. Thus much for this part of the 
story. 

The tale of the resurrection follows that of the cruci- 
fixion ; and in this as well as in that, the writers, whoever 
they were, disagree so much, as to make it evident that none 
of them were there. 

The book of Matthew states, that when Christ was put in 
the sepulchre, the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a 
guard to be placed over the sepulchre to prevent the body 
being stolen by the disciples ; and that in consequence of 
this request, the sepulchre was made sure sealing the stone 
that covered the mouth and setting a watch. But the other 
books say nothing about this application, nor about the 
sealing, nor the guard, nor the watch, and according to their 
accounts there were none. Matthew, however, follows up 
this part of the story of the guard or the watch with a 
second part, that I shall notice in conclusion, as it serves 
to detect the fallacy of these books. 

The book of Matthew continues its account, and says 
{chapter xxviii., verse 1) that at the end of the Sabbath, as 
it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. 
Mark says it was sun-rising, and John says it was dark. 
Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, and Joana and Mary 
the mother of James, and other women that came to the 
sepulchre ; and John states, that Mary Magdalene came 
alone. So well do they agree about their first evidence. They 
all, however, appear to have known most about Mary Mag- 
dalene ; she was a woman of a large acquaintance, and it 
was not an ill conjecture that she might be upon the stroll. 

The book of Matthew goes on to say (verse 2), " And 
behold ! there was a great earthquake, for the Angel of the 
Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the 
stone from the door and sat upon it." But the other books 
say nothing about any earthquake, nor about the angel 
rolling back the stone, and sitting upon it ; and, according to 



AGE OF REASON. 123 

their accounts, there was no angel sitting there. Mark says, 
the angel was within the sepulchre sitting on the right side. 
Luke says there were two, and they were both standing up ; 
and John says they were both sitting down, one at the head 
and the other at the feet. 

Matthew says, that the angel that was sitting upon the 
stone on the outside of the sepulchre told the two Marys 
that Christ was risen, and that the women went away 
quickly. Mai'k says, that the women, upon seeing the stone 
rolled away, and wondering at it, went into the sepulchre, 
and that it was the angel that was sitting within on the right 
side that told them so. Luke says, it was the two angels 
that were standing up : and John says, it was Jesus Christ 
himself that told it to Mary Magdalene, and that she did not 
go into the sepulchre, but only stooped down and looked 
in. 

Now if the writers of those four books had gone into a 
court of justice to prove an alibi (for it is of the nature of 
an alibi that is here attempted to be proved namely, the 
absence of a dead body, by supernatural means), and had 
they given their evidence in the same contradictory manner 
as it is here given, they would have been in danger of 
having their ears cropt for perjury, and would justly have 
deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the 
books that have been imposed upon the world, as being 
given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word 
of God. 

The writer of the book of Matthew, after giving this 
account, relates a story that is not to be found in any of the 
other books, and which is the same I have just before 
alluded to. 

" Now, says he (that is, after the conversation the women 
had with the angel sitting upon the stone), behold some of 
the watch (meaning the watch that he had said had been 
placed over the sepulchre) came into the city, and showed 
unto the chief priests all the things that were done ; and 
when they were assembled with the elders and had taken 
counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, 
Say ye, his disciples came by night, and stole him away 
while we slept ; and if this come to the governor's ears, we 
will persuade him and secure you. So they took the money, 
and did as they were taught ; and this saying (that his 



124 AGE OP REASON. 

disciples stole him away) is commonly reported among the 
Jews until this day" 

The expression, until this day, is an evidence that the book 
ascribed to Matthew was not written by Matthew, and that 
it has been manufactured long after the times and things of 
which it pretends to treat ; for the expression implies a 
great length of intervening time. It would be inconsistent 
in us to speak in this manner of anything happening in our 
own time. To give, therefore, intelligible meaning to the 
expression, we must suppose a lapse of some generations at 
least, for this manner of speaking carries the mind back ta 
ancient time. 

The absurdity also of the story is worth noticing ; for it 
shows the writer of the book of Matthew to have been an 
exceedingly weak and foolish man. He tells a story, that 
contradicts itself in point of possibility ; for though the 
guard, if there were any, might be made to say that the 
body was taken away while they were asleep, and to give 
that as a reason for not having prevented it, that same sleep 
must also have prevented their knowing how and by whom 
it was done ; and yet they are made to say, that it was the 
disciples who did it. Were a man to tender his evidence of 
something that he should say was done, and of the manner of 
doing it, and of the person who did it, while he was asleep, 
and could know nothing of the matter, such evidence 
could not be received. It will do well enough for Testament 
evidence, but not for anything where truth is concerned. 

I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, 
that respects the pretended appearance of Christ after this 
pretended resurrection. 

The writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the Angel 
that was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, 
said to the two Marys, chapter xxviii., verse 7, " Behold 
Christ is gone before you into Galilee, there shall ye see 
him ; lo, I have told you." And the same writer, at the 
two next verses (8, 9), makes Christ himself to speak to the 
same purpose to these women immediately after the angel 
had told it to them, and that they ran quickly to tell it to 
the disciples : and at the 16th verse it is said, "Then the 
eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain 
where Jesus had appointed them : and when they saw him 
they worshipped him." 



AGE OF REASON. 125 

But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very 
different to this ; for he says, chapter xx., verse 19, " Then 
the same day at evening, being the first day of the week 
(that is, the same day that Christ is said to have arisen), 
when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled 
for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst of 
them." 

According to Matthew, the eleven were marching to 
Galilee, to meet Jesus, in a mountain, by his own appoint- 
ment, at the very time when according to John, they were 
assembled in another place, and that not by appointment, 
but in secret, for fear of the Jews. 

The writer of the book of Luke contradicts that of 
Matthew more pointedly than John does ; for he says 
expressly , that the meeting was in Jerusalem the evening of 
the same day that he (Christ) arose, and that the eleven 
were there. See Luke, chapter xxiv., verses 13, 33. 

Now it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed 
disciples the right of wilful lying, that the writer of these 
books could be any of the eleven persons called disciples ; 
for if, according to Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee 
to meet Jesus in a mountain by his own appointment, on 
the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and John 
must have been two of that eleven ; yet the writer of Luke 
says expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting 
was that same day, in a house in Jerusalem : and on the 
other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were 
assembled in a house in Jerusalem, Matthew must have 
been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says, the meeting was 
in a mountain in Galilee, and consequently the evidence 
given in those books destroys each other. 

The writer of the book of Mark says nothing about any 
meeting in Galilee : but he says, chapter xvi., verse 12, that 
Christ, after his resurrection, appeared in another form to 
two of them, as they walked into the country, and that these 
two told it to the residue, who would not believe them. 
Luke also tells a story, in which he keeps Christ employed 
the whole of the day of this pretended resurrection, until 
the evening, and which totally invalidates the account of 
going to the mountain in Galilee. He says that two of 
them, without saying which two, went that same day to a 
village called Emmaus, three score furlongs (seven miles 



126 AGE OF REASON 

and a half) from Jerusalem, and that Christ, in disguise,, 
went with them, and stayed with them unto the evening, and 
supped with them, and then vanished out of their sight, and 
reappeared that same evening at the meeting of the eleven 
in Jerusalem. 

This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of 
this pretended reappearance of Christ is stated ; the only 
point in which the writers agree is the skulking privacy of 
that reappearance ; for whether it was in the recess of a 
mountain in Galilee, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, it 
was still skulking. To what cause, then, aie we to assign 
this skulking ? On the one hand, it is directly repugnant 
to the supposed or pretended end, that of convincing the 
world that Christ was risen: and on the other hand, to have 
asserted the publicity of it, would have exposed the writers 
of those books to public detection, and therefore they have 
been under the necessity of making it a private affair. 

As to the account of Christ being seen by more than five 
hundred at once, it is Paul only who says it, and not the 
five hundred who say it for themselves. It is, therefore, the 
testimony of but one man, and that, too, of a man who did 
not, according to the same account, believe a word of the 
matter himself, at the time it is said to have happened. His 
evidence, supposing him to have been the writer of the 15th 
chapter of Corinthians, where this account is given, is like 
that of a man who comes into a court of justice to swear 
that what he had sworn before is false. A man may often 
see reason, and he has, too, always the right of changing 
his opinion : but this liberty does not extend to matters of 
fact. 

I now come to the last scene, that of the ascension into 
heaven. Here all fear of the Jews and of everything else 
must necessarily have been out of the question : it was that 
which, if true, was to seal the whole ; and upon which the 
reality of the future mission of the disciples was to rest for 
proof. Words, whether declarations or promises, that 
passed in private, either in the recess of a mountain in 
Galilee, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem, even sup- 
posing them to have been spoken, could not be evidence in 
public : it was, therefore, necessary that this last scene 
should preclude the possibility of denial and dispute: and that 
it should be, as I have stated in the former part of the "Age 



AGE OF REASON. 127 

of Reason," as public and as visible as the sun at noon-day; 
at least, it ought to have been as public as the crucifixion is 
reported to have been. But to come to the point. 

In the first place, the writer of the book of Matthew does 
not say a syllable about it; neither does the writer of the book 
of John. This being the case, is it possible to suppose that 
those writers, who affect to be even minute in other matters 
would have been silent upon this had it been true ? The 
writer of the book of Mark passes it off in a careless, 
slovenly manner, with a single dash of the pen, as if he was 
tired of romancing or ashamed of the story. So also does 
the writer of Luke. And even between these two there is 
not an apparent agreement as to the place where his final 
parting is said to have been. 

The book of Mark says that Christ appeared to the 
eleven as they sat at meat alluding to the meeting of the 
eleven at Jerusalem : he then states the conversation, that 
he says passed at that meeting, and immediately after says, 
chapter xvi., verses 14, 19 (as a school-boy would finish a 
dull story), " So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them 
he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand 
of God." But the writer of Luke says, chapter xxiv., verse 
50, that the ascension was from Bethany : that he (Christ) 
led them out as far as to Bethany, and was parted from them, 
and was carried up into heaven. So also was Mahomet: and 
as to Moses, the apostle Jude says, verse 9, that Michael and 
the devil disputed about his body. While we believe such 
fables as these, or either of them, we believe unworthily of 
the Almighty. 

I have now gone through the examination of the four 
books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and 
when it is considered that the whole space of time, from the 
crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is but a few days,, 
apparently not more than three or four, and that all the cir- 
cumstances are reported to have happened nearly about the 
same spot, Jerusalem ; it is, I believe, impossible to find in 
any story upon record, so many and such glaring absurdities, 
contradictions and falsehoods, as are in those books. They 
are more numerous and striking than I had any expec- 
tation of finding when I began this examination, and far 
more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former 
part of the " Age of Reason." I had then neither Bible* 



128 AGE OF REASON. 

nor Testament to refer to, nor could I procure any. My 
own situation, even as to existence, was becoming every day 
more precarious ; and as I was willing to leave something 
"behind me upon the subject, I was obliged to be quick and 
concise. The quotations I then made were from memory 
only, but they are correct ; and the opinions I have ad- 
vanced in that work are the effect of the most clear and 
long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testa- 
ment are impositions upon the world that the fall of man 
the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of 
his dying to appease the wrath of God and of salvation, by 
that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonor- 
able to the wisdom and power of the Almighty that the 
only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and now 
mean, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral 
character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues 
and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is con- 
cerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. 
So say I now and so help me God. 

But to return to the subject. Though it is impossible, at 
this distance of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the 
writers of these four books (and this alone is sufficient to 
hold them in doubt, and where we doubt we do not believe), 
it is not difficult to ascertain negatively that they were not 
written by the persons to whom they are ascribed. The 
contradictions in those books demonstrate two things. 

First, that the writers cannot have been eye-witnesses and 
ear-witnesses of the matters they relate, or they would have 
related them without those contradictions ; and, conse- 
quently, that the books have not been written by the persons 
called apostles, who are supposed to have been witnesses of 
this kind. 

Secondly, that the writers, whoever they were, have not 
acted in concerted imposition : but each writer, separately 
and individually for himself, and without the knowledge of 
the other. 

The same evidence that applies to prove the one, applies 
equally to prove both cases ; that is, that the books were 
not written by the men called apostles, and also that they 
are not a concerted imposition. As to inspiration, it is 
.altogether out of the question ; we may as well attempt to 
unite truth and falsehood, as inspiration and contradiction. 



AGE OP REASOX. 120 

If four men are eye-witnesses ami car-v, linesses to a scene, 
they will, without any concert between them, agree as to the 
time and place when and where the scene happened. Their 
individual knowledge of the thing, each knowing it for him- 
self, renders concert totally unnecessary : the one will not 
say it was in a mountain in the country, and the other at a 
house in to\vn : the one will not say it was at sunrise, and 
the other that it was dark. For in whatever place it was, at 
whatever time it was, they knew it equally alike. 

And on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they 
will make their separate relations of that story agree and 
corroborate with each other to support the whole. The con- 
cert supplies the want of fact in the one case, as the know- 
ledge of the fact supersedes, in the other case, the necessity 
of a concert. The same contradictions, therefore, that prove 
there has been no concert, prove also that the reporters had 
no knowledge of the fact (or rather of that which they 
relate as a fact), and detect also the falsehood of their 
reports. Those books, therefore, have neither been written 
by the men called apostles, nor by impostors in concert.. 
How, then, have they been written ? 

I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is; 
much of that which is called wilful lying, or lying origi- 
nally ; except in the case of men setting up to be prophets,, 
as in the Old Testament, for pi-ophesying is lying profes- 
sionally. In almost all other cases ; it is not difficult to 
discover the progress by which even simple supposition, with 
the aid of credulity, will, in time grow into a lie, and at last, 
be told as a fact : and whenever we can find a charitable 
reason for a thing of this kind, we ought not to indulge &,, 
severe one. 

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead, is 
the story of an apparition ; such as timid imaginations cau< 
always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of 
this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Csesar, 
not many years before, and they generally have their origin 
in violent deaths, or in the execution of innocent persons. 
In cases of this kind compassion lends its aid, and benevo- 
lently stretches the story. It goes on a little and a little 
farther, till it becomes a most certain truth. Once start a 
ghost, and credulity fills up the history of its life, and assigns 
the cause of its appearance : one tells it one way, another 



130 AGE OF REASON. 

another Tray, till there are as many stories about the ghost 
and about the proprietor of the ghost, as there are about 
Jesus Christ in these four books. 

The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told with 
that strange mixture of the natural and impossible, that 
distinguishes legendary tale from fact. Pie is represented 
as suddenly coming in and going out when the doors were 
shut, and of vanishing out of sight and appearing again, as 
one would concfeive of an unsubstantial vision ; then again 
he is hungry, sits down to meat, and eats his supper. But 
as those who tell stories of this kind, never provide for all 
the cases, so it is here ; they have told us that when he arose 
he left his grave clothes behind liim : but they have for- 
gotten to provide other clothes for him to appear in after- 
wards, or to tell us what he did with them when he ascended: 
whether he stripped all off, or went up clothes and all. In 
the case of Elijah, they have been careful enough to make 
him throw down his mantle ; how it happened not to be 
burned in the chariot of fire, they also have not told us. 
But as imagination supplies all deficiencies of this kind we 
may suppose, if we please, that it was made of salamander's 
wool. 

Those who are not much acquainted with ecclesiastical 
history may suppose that the book called the New Testa- 
ment has existed ever since the time of Jesus Christ : as 
they suppose that the books ascribed to Moses have existed 
ever since the time of Moses. But the fact is historically 
otherwise ; there was no such book as the New Testament 
till more than three hundred years after the time that Christ 
is said to have lived. 

At what time the bookc ascribed to Matthew, Mark. Luke, 
and John, began to appear, is altogether a matter of uu- 
-certainty. There is not the least shadow of evidence of 
who the persons were that wrote them, nor at what time 
they were written, and they might as well have been called 
by the names of any of the other supposed apostles, as by 
the names they are now called. The originals are not in 
the possession of any Christian church existing, any more 
than the two tables of stone written on, they pretend, by 
the finger of God, upon Mount Sinai, and given to Moses, 
are in the possession of the Jews. And even if they were, 
there is no possibility of proving the hand- writing in cither 



AGE OF REASON. 131 

case. At the time those books were written there was no 
printing, and consequently there could be no publication, 
otherwise than by written copies, which any man might 
make or alter at pleasure, and call them originals. Can we 
suppose it consistent with the wisdom of the Almighty to 
commit himself and his will to man upon such precarious 
means as these, or that it is consistent we should pin our 
faith upon such uncertainties ? We cannot make, nor alter, 
nor even imitate, so much as one blade of grass that he has 
made ; and yet we can make or alter u-ords of God as easily 
as words of man.* 

About three hundred and fifty years after the time that 
Christ is said to h ive lived, several writings of the kind I 
am speaking of were scattered in the hands of divers indi- 
viduals ; and as the church had began to form itself into an 
hierarchy or church government with temporal powers, it set 
itself about collecting them into a code, as we now see them, 
called The Neiv Testament. They decided by vote, as I have 
before said in the former part of the " Age of Reason," 
which of those writings out of the collection they had made, 
should be the word of God, and which should not. The 
rabbins of the Jews had decided, by vote, upon the books of 
the Bible before. 

As the object of the Church, as is the case in all national 
establishments of churches, was power and revenue, and 
terror the means it used, it is consistent to suppose, that the 
most miraculous and wonderful of the writings they had 
collected stood the best chance of being voted. And as to 
the authenticity of the books, the vote stands in the place of it ; 
for it can be traced no higher. 



* Tho former part of the "Age of Reason" has not been publised two 
years, and there is already an expression in it that is not mine. Tho 
expression is. The book of Luke was carried by a majority of one voice 
only. It may be true, but it is not I that have said it. Some person, 
who might know of the circumstances, has added it in a note at the 
bottom of the page of some of the editions, printed either in England 
or in America, and the printers, after that, have erected it into the 
body of the work, and made me the author of it. If this has happened 
within s'ich a short space of time, notwithstanding the aid of printing, 
which prevents the alteration of copies individually, what may not have 
happened in a much gi eater length of time, when there was no printing, 
and when any man who could write could make a written copy, and 
call it an original by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John ? 

K2' 



132 AGE OF REASON. 

Disputes, however, ran high among the people then calling 
themselves Christians; not only as to points of doctrine, but 
as to the authenticity of the books. In the contest between 
the persons called Saint Augustine and Fauste about the 
year 400, the latter says, "The books called the Evangelists 
have been composed long after the time of the apostles, by 
some obscure men, who, fearing that the world would not 
give credit to their relation of matters of which they could 
not be informed, have published them under the name of 
the apostles ; and which are so full of sottishncss and dis- 
cordant relations, that there is neither agreement nor con- 
nection between them." 

And in another place addressing himself to the advocates 
of those books as being the word of God, he says, " It is 
thus that your predecessors have inserted, in the scriptures 
of our Lord, many things, which, though they carry his 
name, agree not with his doctrines. This is not surprising, 
since that we have often proved that these things have not 
been written by himself, nor by his apostles, but that for the 
greatest part they are founded upon tales, upon vague reports, 
and put together by I know not what, half-Jews, with but 
little agreement between them ; and which they have never- 
theless published under the names of the apostles of our 
Lord, and have thus attributed to them their own errors and 
their lies"* 

The reader will see by these extracts that the authenticity 
of the Books of the New Testament was denied, and the 
books treated as tales, forgeries, and lies, at the time they 
were voted to be the word of God. But the interest of the 
church, with the assistance of the faggot, bore down the opposi- 
tion, and at last suppressed all investigation. Miracles followed 
upon miracles, if we will believe them, and men were taught 
to say they believed, whether they believed or not. But by 
way of throwing in a thought, the French Revolution has 
excommunicated the church from the power of working 
miracles : she has not been able, with the assistance of all 
her saints, to work one miracle since the revolution began ; 
and as she never stood in greater need than now, we may, 



* I have taken these two extracts from Boulauger's " Life of Paul," 
written in French. Boulanger has quoted them from the -writings of 
Augustine against Fauste to which he refers. 



AGE OF REASON. 133 

without the aid of divination, conclude that all her former 
miracles were tricks and lies.* 

When we consider the lapse of more than three hundred 
years intervening between the time that Christ is said to have 
lived and the New Testament was formed into a book, even 
without the assistance of historical evidence, the exceeding 
uncertainty there is of its authenticity. The authenticity 
of the book of Homer, as far as regards the authorship, is 
much better established than that of the New Testament, 
though Homer is a thousand years the most ancient. It 
was only an exceeding good poet that could have written 
the book of Homer, and therefore few men only could have 
attempted it ; and a man capable of doing it would not 
have thrown away his own fame by giving it to another. 
In like manner, there were but few that could have 
composed Euclid's Elements, because none but an exceeding 
good geometrician could have been the author of that work. 

But with respect to the books of the New Testament, par- 
ticularly such parts as tell us of the resurrection and 
ascension of Christ, any person who could tell a story of an 

* Boulanger, in his " Life of Paul," has collected from the ecclesiastical 
histories, and the writings of the fathers as they are called, several 
matters which show the opinions that prevailed among the different 
sects of Christians at the time the Testament as we now see it was 
voted to bo the word of God. The following extracts are from the 
second chapter of that work : 

" The Marcionists (a Christian sect) assumed that the Evangelists 
were filled with falsities. The Manicheans, who formed a very nume- 
rous sect at the commencement of Christianity, REJECTED AS FALSE ALL 
THE NEW TESTAMENT, and showed other writings quite different that 
they gave for authentic. Tho Corinthians, like- the Marciouists, ad- 
mitted not the Acts of tho Apostles, tho Eucratics, and tho Severians, 
adopted neither the Acts nor tho Epistles of Paul. Chrysostom, in a 
homily which he made upon the Acts of the Apostles, says, that in his 
time, about tho year 400, many people knew nothing either of tho 
author or of the hook. St. Irene, who lived before that time, reports 
that the Valentiniaus, like several other sects of the Christians, accused 
the scriptures of being filled with imperfections, errors and contradic- 
tions. The Ebionites, or Nazarenes, who were the first Christians, 
rejected all the Epistles of Paul, and regarded him as an impostor. 
They report, among other things, that he was originally a Pagan, that 
he came to Jerusalem, where ho lived some time ; and that having a 
mind to marry the daughter of tho high priest, he caused himself to be 
circumcised ; hut that not being able to obtain her, he quarrelled with 
the Jews, and wrote against circumcision, and against the observation 
of the Sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances." 



134 AGE OF REASON. 

apparition, or of a man's walking, could have made such 
books ; for the story is most wretchedly told. The chance, 
therefore, of forgery in the New Testament, is millions to 
one greater than in the case of Homer or Euclid. Of the 
numerous priests or parsons of the present day, bishops and 
all, every one of them can make a sermon, or translate a 
scrap of Latin, especially if it has been translated a 
thousand times before ; but is there any amongst them that 
can write pot try like Homer, or science like Euclid? The 
sum total of a parson's learning, with very few exceptions, 
is a b, ah, and //zc, /UPC, hoc; and their knowledge of science 
is three times one are three ; and this is more than sufficient 
to have enabled them, had they lived at the time, to have 
written all the books of the New Testament, 

As the opportunities of forgery were greater, so also 
was the inducement. A man could gain no advantage by 
writing under the name of Homer or Euclid ; if he could 
write equal to them, it would be better that he wrote under 
his own name ; if inferior, he could not succeed. Pride 
would prevent the former, and impossibility the latter. But 
with re.-pect to such books as compose the New Testament, 
all the inducements were on the side of forgery. The best 
imagined history that could have been made, at the distance 
of two or three hundred years after the time, could not have 
passed for an original under the name of the real wiiter. 
The only chance of success lay in forgery, for the church 
wanted pretence for its new doctrine, and truth and talents 
were out of the question. 

But as it is not uncommon (as before observed) to relate 
stories of persons walking after they are dead, and of ghosts 
and apparitions of such as have fallen by some violent or 
extraordinary means ; and as the people of that day were 
in the habit of believing such things, and of the appear- 
ance of angels, and also of devils, and of their getting into 
peoples' inside, arid shaking them like a fit of an ague, and 
of tbeir being cast out again as if by an emetic. (Mary 
Magdalene, the book of Mark tells us, had brought up, or 
been brought to bed of seven devils) ; it was nothing extra- 
ordinary that some story of this kind should get abroad of 
the person called Jesus Christ, and become afterwards the 
foundation of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John. Each writer told the tale as he heard it, 



AGE OF REASON. 135 

or thereabouts, and gave to his book the name of the saint 
or the apostle whom tradition had given as the eye-witness. 
It is only upon this ground that the contradictions in those 
books can be accounted for ; and if this be not the case, 
they are downright impositions, lies, and forgeries, without 
even the apology of credulity. 

That they had been written by a sort of half-Jews, as 
the foregoing quotations mention, is discernible enough. 
The frequent references made to that chief assassin and 
impostor Moses, and to the men called prophets, establish 
this point, and on the other hand, the church has compli- 
mented the fraud, by admitting the Bible and the Testament 
to reply to each other. Between the Christian-Jew and the 
Christian-Gentile, the thing called a prophesy, and the thing 
prophesied; the type, and the thing typified; the sign, and the 
thing signified, have been industriously rummaged up, and 
fitted together like old locks and picklock keys. The story 
foolishly enough told of Eve and the serpent, and natural 
enough as to the enmity between men and serpents (for the 
serpeut always bites about the heel, because it cannot reach 
higher ; and the man always knocks the serpent about the 
/tend, as the most effectual way to prevent its biting ; *) this 
foolish .-tory, I say, has been made into a prophesy, a type, 
and a promise to begin with ; and the lying imposition of 
Isaiah to Ahaz, That a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, as a 
sign that Ahaz should conquer, when the event was that he 
was defeated (as already noticed in the observations on the 
book of Isaiah), has been perverted, and made to serve as 
winder up. 

Jonah and the whale are also made up into a sign, or 
type. Jonah is Jesus, and the whale is the grave ; for it is 
said (and they have made Christ to say it of himself), Matt, 
xii., verse 40: "For as Jonah was three days and three niyhts 
in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and 
three niahts in the heart of the earth." But it happens 
awkwardly enough that Christ, according to their own 
account, was but one day and two nights in the grave : 
about 36 hours instead of 72 that is, the Friday night, the 
Saturday, and the Saturday night ; for they say he was up 

* ''He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
GENESIS, chapter iii., verse 15. 



136 AGE OK REASOX. 

on the Sunday morning by sunrise, or before. But as this 
fits quite as well as the bite and the kick in Genesis, or the 
virgin and her son in Isaiah, it will pass in the lump of 
orthodox things. Thus much for the historical part of the 
Testament and its evidences. 

Epistles of Paul. The epistles ascribed to Paul, being 
fourteen in number, almost fill up the remaining part of the 
Testament. Whether those epistles were written by the 
person to whom they are ascribed is a matter of no great 
importance, since the writer, whoever he was, attempts to 
prove his doctrine by argument. He does not pretend to 
have been witness to any of the scenes told of the resurrec- 
tion and the ascension : and he declares that he had not 
believed them. 

The story of his being struck to the ground as he was 
journeying to Damascus, has nothing in it miraculous or 
extraordinary ; he escaped with life, and that is more than 
many others have done, who have been struck with lightning ; 
and that he should lose his sight for three days, and be 
unable to eat or drink during that time, is nothing more 
than i,j common in such conditions. His companions that 
were witli him appear not to have suffered in the same 
manner, for they were well enough to lead him the re- 
mainder of the journey ; neither did they pretend to have 
seen any vision. 

The character of the person called Paul, according to the 
accounts given of him, has in it a great deal of violence 
and fanaticism ; he had persecuted with as much heat as he 
preached afterwards; the stroke he had received had 
-changed his thinking, without altering his constitution ; and 
either as a Jew or a Christian, he was the same zealot. 
Such men are never good moral evidences of any doctrine 
they preach. They are always in extremes, as well of action 
as of belief. 

The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument is the 
resurrection of the same body : and he advances this as an 
evidence of immortality. But so much will men differ in their 
manner of thinking, and in the conclusions they draw from 
the same premises, that this doctrine of the resurrection of 
the same body so far from an evidence of immortality, ap- 
pears to me to furnish an evidence against it ; for if I have 
already died in this body, and am raised again in the same 



AGE OF REASON. 137 

body in which I have died, it is presumptive evidence that 
I shall die again. That resurrection no more secures me 
against the repetition of dying, than an ague fit, when past, 
secures me against another. To believe, therefore, in im- 
mortality, I must have a more elevated idea than is contained 
in the gloomy doctrine of the resurrection. 

Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had 
rather have a better body and a more convenient form than 
the present. Every animal in the creation excels us in some- 
thing. The winged insects, without mentioning doves or 
eagles, can pass over more space and with greater ease, in a 
few minutes, than man can in an hour. The glide of the 
smallest fish, in pi'oportiou to its bulk, exceeds us in motion, 
almost beyond comparison, and without weariness. Even 
the sluggish snail can ascend from the bottom of a dungeon, 
where a man, by the want of that ability, would perish ; 
and a spider can launch itself from the top, as a playful 
amusernnct. The personal powers of man are so limited, 
and his heavy frame so little constructed to extensive enjoy- 
ment, that there is nothing to induce us to wish the opinion 
of Paul to be true. It is too little for the magnitude of the 
scene : too mean for the sublimity of the subject. 

But all other arguments apart, the consciousness of existence 
is the only conceivable idea we can have of another life, and 
the continuance of that consciousness is immortality. The 
consciousness of existence, or the knowing that we exist, is 
not necessarily confined to the same form, nor to the same 
matter even in this life. 

"We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case 
the same matter that composed our bodies twenty or thirty 
years ago ; and yet we are conscious of being the same per- 
sons. Even legs and arms, which make up almost half the 
human frame, are not necessary to the consciousness of 
existence. These may be lost or taken away, and the full 
consciousness of existence remain ; and were they to be 
supplied by wings or other appendages, we cannot conceive 
that it could alter our consciousness of existence. In short, 
we know not how much, or rather how little, of our compo- 
sition it is, and how exquisitely fine that little is, that creates 
in us this consciousness of existence ; and all beyond that is 
like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from the 
vegetative speck in the kernel. 



138 AGE OF REASON. 

Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter 
it is that a thought is produced in what we call the mind? 
and yet that thought when produced, as I now produce the 
thought I am writing, is capable of becoming immortal, and 
is the only production of man that h?is that capacity. 

Statues of brass or marble will perish ; and statues made 
in imitation of them are not the same statues, nor the same 
workmanship, any more than the copy of a picture is the 
same picture. But print and reprint a thought a thousand 
times over, and that with materials of any kind ; carve it 
in wood, or engrave it on stone, the thought is eternally and 
identically the same thought in every case. It has a, 
capacity of unimpaired existence, unaffected by change of 
matter, and is essentially distinct, and of a natu"e different 
from everything else that we know or can conceive. If, 
then, the thing produced has in itself a capacity of being 
immortal, it is more than a token that the power that pro- 
duced it, which is the self-same thing as consciousness of 
existence, can be immortal also ; and that as independently 
of the matter it was first connected with, as the thought is 
of the printing or writing it first appeared in. The one idea 
is not more difficult to believe than the other ; and we can 
see that one is true. 

That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on 
the same form or the same matter, is demonstrated to our 
senses in the works of the creation ; as far as our senses are 
capable of receiving that demonstration. A very numerous 
part of the animal creation preaches to us, far better than 
Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their little life re- 
sembles an earth and a heaven : a present and a future 
state ; and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality 
in miniature. 

The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are 
the winged insects, and they are not so originally. They 
acquire that form and that inimitable brilliancy by pro- 
gressive changes. The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm 
of to-day passes in a few days 10 a torpid figure, and a state 
resembling death, and in the next change comes forth, in 
all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. 
No resemblance of the former creature remains ; everything 
is changed ; all his powers are new, and life is to him 
another thing. We cannot conceive that the consciousness 



AGE OF REASON. 139 

of existence is not the samn in this state of the animal as 
before ; why, then, must I believe that the resurrection of 
the same body is necessary to continue to me the conscious- 
ness of existence hereafter ? 

In the former part of the " Age of Reason," I have called 
the creation the true and only real word of God; and this 
instance, or this text, in the book of creation, not only shows 
to us that this thing may be so, but that it is so ; and that 
the belief of a future state is a rational belief founded upon 
facts visible in the creation ; for it is not more difficult to 
believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state and 
form than at present, than that a worm should become a 
butterfly, and quit the dunghill for the atmosphere, if we 
did not know it as a fact. 

As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul, in the loth 
chapter of 1 Corinthians, which makes part of the burial 
service of some Christian sectaries, it is as destitute of 
meaning as the tolling of the bell at the funeral. It explains 
nothing to the understanding ; it illustrates nothing to the 
imagination ; but leaves the reader to find any meaning if 
he can. All flesh (says he) is not the same flesh. There is 
one flesh of men ; another of beasts ; another of fishes ; and 
another of birds. And what then ? nothing. A cook could 
have said as much. There are also (says he) bodies celestial, 
and bodies terrestrial ; the glory of the celestial is one, and 
the glory of the terrestrial is another. And what then ? 
nothing. And what is the difference ? nothing that he has 
told. There is (says he) one glory of the sun, and another 
glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. And 
what then ? nothing ; except that he says that one star 
difftreth from another star in glory instead of distance ; and 
he might as well have told us, that the moon did not shine 
so bright as the sun. All this is nothing better than the 
jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases he does not 
understand, to confound the credulous people who come to 
have their fortunes told. Priests and conjurors are of the 
same trade. 

Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist, and to prove 
his system of resurrection from the principler. of vegetation. 
" Thou fool (says he) that which thousowest is not quickened, 
except it die." To which one might reply, in his own 
language, and say, Thou fool, Paul, that which thou sowest 



140 AGE OV KEASOX. 

is not quickened, except it die not ; for the grain that dies 
in the ground never does, nor can vegetate. It is only the 
living grains that produce the next crop. But the metaphor, 
in any point of view, is no simile. It is succession and not 
resurrection. 

The progress of an animal from one state of being to 
another, as from a worm to a butterfly, applies to the case ; 
but this of the grain does not, and shows Paul to have been 
what he says of others, a fool. 

Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were 
written by him or not is a matter of indifference ; they are 
either argumentative or dogmatical, and as the argument is 
defective, and the dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it 
signifies not who wrote them. And the same may be said 
for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is not upon the 
epistles, but upon what is called the gospel, contained in the 
four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and 
upon the pretended prophesies, that the theory of the Church, 
calling itself the Christian Church, is founded. The epistles 
are dependent upon those, and must follow their fate : for if 
the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all reasoning founded 
upon it as a supposed truth must fall with it. 

We know, from history, that one of the principal leaders 
of this Church, Athanasius, lived at the time the New 
Testament was formed ;* and we know also, from the absurd 
jargon he has left us, under the name of a creed, the 
character of the men who formed the New Testament : and 
we know also, from the same history, that the authenticity 
of the books of which it is composed was denied at the time. 
It was upon the vote of such as Athanasius, that the Testa- 
ment was decreed to be the word of God ; and nothing can 
present to us a more strange idea, than that of decreeing the 
word of God by vote. Those who rest their faith upon such 
authority, put man in the place of God, and have no true 
foundation for future happiness ; credulity, however, is not 
a crime ; but it becomes criminal by resisting conviction. 
It is strangling in the womb of the conscience the efforts it 
makes to ascertain truth. We should never force belief 
upon ourselves in anything. 

* Athanasius died, according to the Church chronology, in the 
year 371. 



AGE OF REASON. 141 

I hero close the subject on the Old Testament and the 
New. The evidence 1 Lave produced, to prove them 
forgeries, is extracted from the books themselves, and acts 
like a two-edged sword, either way. If the evidence be 
denied, the authenticity of the Scriptures is denied with it : 
for it is Scripture evidence ; and if the evidence be admitted, 
the authenticity of the books is disproved. The contradictory 
impossibilities contained in the Old Testament, and in the 
New, put them in the case of a man who swears for and 
against. Either evidence convicts him of perjury, and 
equally destroys reputation. 

Should the Bible and Testament hereafter fall, it is not I 
that have been the occasion. I have done no more than 
extracted the evidence from the confused mass of matter 
with which it is mixed, and arranged that evidence in a point 
of light to be clearly seen and easily comprehended ; and, 
having done this, I leave the reader to judge for himself, as 
I have judged for myself. 



CONCLUSION. 

In the former part of the " Age of Reason," I have 
spoken of the three frauds, mystery, miracle, and prophesy ; 
and as I have seen nothing in any of the answers to that 
work, that in the least affects what I have there said upon 
those subjects, I shall not encumber this Second Part with 
additions that are not necessary. 

I have spoken also in the same work upon what is called 
revelation, and have shown the absurd misapplication of that 
term of the books of the Old Testament and the New ; for 
certainly revelation is out of the question in reciting any- 
thing of which man has been the actor, or the witness. 
That which a man has done or seen needs no revelation to 
tell him he has done it, or seen it ; for he knows it already, 
nor to enable him to tell it, or to write it. It is ignorance, 
or imposition, to apply the term revelation in such cases ; 
yet the Bible and Testament are classed under this fraudulent 
description of being all revelation. 

Revelation, then, so far as the term has relation between 
God and man, can only be applied to something which God 



142 AGE OF RE A SOX. 

reveals of his will to man ; but though the power of the 
Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily 
admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet 
the things so revealed (if anything ever was revealed, and 
which, by the bye, it is impossible to prove) is revelation to 
the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to 
another is not revelation ; and whoever puts faith in that 
account puts it on the man from whom the account comes ; 
and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed 
it; or he may be an impostor, and may lie. There is no 
possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth of what lie 
tells : for even the morality of it would be no proof of 
revelation. In all such cases the proper answer would be : 
" When it is revealed to me I will believe it to be a revela- 
tion : but it is not and cannot be incumbent upon me to 
believe it to be revelation before ; neither is it proper that 
I should take the word of a man as the word of God and 
put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which 
I have spoken of revelation in the former part of the " Age 
of Reason," and which, while it reverentially admits revela- 
lation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the 
Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition 
of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of 
pretended revelation. 

But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possi- 
bility of revelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty 
ever did communicate anything to man, by any mode of 
speech, in any language, or by any kind of vision, or ap- 
pearance, or by any means which our senses are capable of 
receiving, otherwise than by the universal display of himself 
in the works of the creation, and by that repugnance we 
feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to good 
ones. 

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruel- 
ties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human 
race, have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or 
revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief 
against the character of the Divinity, the most destructive 
to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever 
was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far 
better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand 
devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine 



AGE OF KEA.SOX. 143- 

of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted 
one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, 
and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of 
God in his mouth, and have credit among us. 

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole 
nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible 
is filled : and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto 
death, and religious wars, that since that time have laid 
Europe in blood and ashes : whence arose they, but from 
this impious thing called revealed religion, and this mon- 
strous belief, that God has spoken to man ? The lies of the 
Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the 
Testament of the othei-. 

Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not esta- 
blished by the sword : but of what period of time do they 
speak ? It was impossible that twelve men could begin 
with the sword ; they had not the power ; but no 
sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently 
powerful to employ the sword, than they did so, and the 
stake and the faggot too ; and Mahomet could not do it 
sooner. By the same spirit that Peter cut off the ear of the 
high priest's servant (if the story be true), he would have cut 
off his head, and the head of his master, had he been able. 
Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the 
Bible, and the Bible was established altogether by the 
sword, and that in the worst use of it : not to terrify, but 
to extirpate. The Jews made no converts, they butchered 
all. The Bible is the sire of the Testament, and both are 
called the word of God. The Christians read both books ; 
the ministers preach from both books ; and this thing called 
Christianity is made up of both. It is, then, false to say 
that Christianity was not established by the sword. 

The only sect that have not persecuted are the Quakers ; 
and the only reason that can be given for it is, that they are 
rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much 
about Jesus Christ, and they call the Scriptures a dead 
letter. Had they called them by a worse name they had 
been nearer the truth. 

It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character 
of the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of 
artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown per- 
secutions thick among mankind, to expel all ideas of revealed 



144 AGE OF REASON. 

religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What 
is it that we have learned from this pretended thing called 
revealed religion ? nothing that is useful to man, and 
everything that is dishonorable to his Maker. What is it 
the Bible teaches us ? rapine, cruelty, and murder. What 
is it the Testament teaches us ? to believe that the 
Almighty committed debauchery -with a woman engaged 
to be married ! and the belief of this debauchery is called 
faith. 

As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and 
thinly scattered in these books,, they make no part of this 
pretended thing, revealed religion. There are the natural 
dictates of conscience, and the bonds by which society is 
held together, and without which it cannot exist ; and are 
nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The 
Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject ; and 
where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. 
The doctrine of not retaliating injuries is much better 
expressed in Proverbs, which is a collection as well from the 
Gentiles as the Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is 
there said, Proverbs xxv., verse 21, "If thine enemy be 
hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, give 
him water to drink."* But when it is said, as in the Testa- 
ment, " If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him 
the other also ; " it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, 
and sinking man into a spaniel. 

Loving enemies, is another dogma of feigned morality, and 
has, besides, no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a 



* According to what is called Christ's sermon on the mount, in the 
book of Matthew, where, among some other good things, a great deal of 
this feigned morality is introduced, it is there expressly said, that the 
doctrine of forbearance, or of not retaliating injuries, was not any part 
of the doctrine of the Jews ; but as this doctrine is found in Proverbs, 
it must, according to that statement, have been copied from the Gentiles, 
from whom Christ had learned it. Those men whom Jewish and 
Christian idolaters have abusively called heathens, had much better 
and clearer ideas of justice and morality, than are to be found in the 
Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish ; or in the New. The answer of 
Solon on the question, "Which is the most perfect popular govern- 
ment?" has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as con- 
taining a maxim of political morality. " That," says he, " where the 
least injury done to the meanest individual is considered as an insult to 
the whole institution." Solon lived about5 ) ) years before Christ. 



AGE OF REASON. 145 

moralist that he does not revenge an injury ; and it is 
equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to 
retaliation ; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: 
but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, 
would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word 
enemies is too vagufi and general to be used in a moral maxim, 
which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. 
If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and pre- 
judice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in 
politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a 
criminal intention ; and it is incumbent upon us, as it con- 
tributes also to our own tranquility, that we put the best 
construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this 
erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the 
other part ; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and 
without a motive, is morally and physically impossible. 

Morality is injured by prescribing to its duties that, in 
the first place, are impossible to be performed : and if they 
could be, would be productive of evil ; or, as before said, 
be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we, would 
be done unto, does not include this strange doctrine of loving 
enemies : for no man expects to be loved himself for his 
crime or for his enmity. 

Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies 
are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act con- 
sistently by so doing ; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and 
it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it 
preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and 
consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality ; yet the man 
does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any 
man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, 
or in the French Revolution ; or that I have, in any case, 
returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man to 
reward a bad action with a good one, or to return good for 
evil ; and wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not 
a duty. It is also absurd to suppose that such doctrine can 
make any part of a revealed religion. We imitate the 
moral character of the Creator by forbearing with each 
Other, for he forbears with all ; but this doctrine would 
imply that he loved man, not in proportion as he was good, 
but as he was bad. 

If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must 



146 AGE OF REASON. 

see there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. 
What is it we want to know ? Does not the creation, the 
universe we behold, preach to us the existence of an 
Almighty power that governs and regulates the whole ? 
And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our 
senses infinitely stronger than anything we can read in a, 
hook that any impostor might make and call the word of 
God ? As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every 
man's conscience. 

Here we are. The existence of an Almighty power is 
sufficiently demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, 
as it is impossible we should, the nature and manner of its 
existence. We cannot conceive how we came here ourselves, 
and yet we know for a fact that we are here. We must 
know also, that the power that called us into being can, if 
he please, and when he pleases, call us to account for the 
manner in which we have lived here: and therefore, without 
seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe 
that he will, for we know beforehand that he can. The proba- 
bility or even possibility of the thing, is all that we ought 
to know ; for if we know it as a fact, we should be the mere 
slaves of terror ; our belief would have no merit, and our 
best actions no virtue. 

Deism, then, teaches us, without the possibility of being 
deceived, all that it is necessary or proper to be known. The 
creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads in the 
hand- writing of the Creator himself, the certainty of his 
existence, and the immutability of his power, and all other 
Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. The probability 
that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to a reflect- 
ing mind, have the influence of belief ; for it is not belief 
or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is 
the state we are in and which it is proper we should be in 
as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher, or 
even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no 
God. 

But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed 
with the strange fable of the Christian creed, and with the 
wild adventures related in the Bible, and of the obscurity 
and obscene nonsense of the Testament, that the mind of 
man is bewildered as in a fog. Viewing all these things in 
a confused mass, he confounds fact with fable ; and as he 



AGE OF REASON. 147 

cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject all. But 
the belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other things, 
and ought not to be confounded with any. The notion of a 
trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God. A 
multiplication of beliefs acts as a division of belief; and in 
proportion as anything is divided it is Aveakened. 

Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form instead 
of fact ; of notion instead of principle ; morality is banished 
to make room for an imaginary thing called faith, and this 
faith has its origin in a supposed debauchery ; a man is 
preached instead of God-: an execution is an object for 
gratitude ; the preachers daub themselves with the blood 
like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire the bril- 
liancy it gives them : they preach a humdrum sermon on 
the merits of the execution : then praise Jesus Christ for 
being executed, and condemn the Jews for doing it. 

A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached 
together, confounds the God of the creation with the imagined 
God of the Christians, and lives as if there were none. 

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented,, 
there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more un- 
edifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more- 
contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity. 
Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too 
inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or pro- 
duces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power it 
serves the purpose of despotism ; and as a means of wealth, 
the avarice of priests ; but so far as respects the good of 
man in general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter. 

The only religion that has not been invented, and that 
has in it evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple 
Deism. It must have been the first, and will probably be 
the last that man believes. But pure and simple Deism- 
does not answer the purpose of despotic governments. They 
cannot lay hold of religion as an engine, but by mixing 
it with human inventions, and making their own authority a 
part ; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but by 
incorporating themselves and their functions with it, and 
becoming, like the government, a party in the system. It 
is this that forms the otherwise mysterious connection 
of Church and State ; the Church humane, and the State 
tyrannic. 

L2 



148 AGE OF REASON 

Were a man impressed as fully and as strongly as he 
ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would 
be regulated by the force of that belief ; he would stand in 
awe of God and of himself, and would not do the thing that 
could not be concealed from either. To give this belief the 
full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it acts alone. 
This is Deism. 

But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, 
one part of God is represented by a dying man, and another 
part, called the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impos- 
sible that belief can attach itself to such wild conceits.* 

It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of 
all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in 
ignorance of the Creator, as it is of government to hold 
man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one 
are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for 
mutual support. The study of theology, as it stands in 
Christian churches, is the study of nothing ; it is founded 
on nothing, it rests on no principles, it proceeds by no 
authorities ; it has no data ; it can demonstrate nothing ; 
and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be 
studied as a science, without our being in possession of the 
principles upon which it is founded ; and as this is not the 
case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of 
nothing. 

Instead, then, of studying theology, as is now done, out of 
the Bible and Testament, the meanings of which books are 
always controverted, and the authenticity of which is dis- 
proved, it is necessary that we refer to the Bible of the 
creation. The principles we discover there are eternal, and 
of divine origin : they are the foundation of all the science 
that exists in the world, and must be the foundation of 
'theology. 

We can know God only through his works. We cannot 
have a conception of any one attribute, but by following 

* The book called the book of Matthew, says, chap, iii., verse 16, 
that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as 
-well have said a goose ; the creatures are equally harmless, and the 
one is as much a nonsensical lie as the other. The second of Acts, 
verses 2 and 3, says that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in the 
shape of cloven tongues perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd 
fltuff is only fit for tales of witches and wizards. 



AGE OF REASON. 149 

some principle that leads to it. We have only a confused 
idea of his power if we have not the means of comprehend- 
ing something of its immensity. We can have no idea of 
his wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in 
which it acts. The principles of science lead to this know- 
ledge ; for the creator of man is the creator of science, and 
it is through that medium that man can see God, as it were, 
face to face. 

Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed with 
the power of vision, to behold at one view, and to contem- 
plate deliberately, the structure of the universe ; to mark 
the movements of the several planets, the cause of their 
varying appearances, the unerring order in which they 
revolve, even to the remotest comet : their connexions and 
dependence on each other, and to know the systems of laws 
established by the Creator, that governs and regulates the 
the whole ; he would then conceive far beyond what any 
church theology can teach him, the power, the wisdom, the 
vastness, the munificence of the Creator ; he would then 
see that all the knowledge man has of science, and that all 
the mechanical arts by which he renders his situation 
comfortable here, are derived from that source; his mind ,. 
exalted by the scene, and convinced by the fact, would 
increase in gratitude as it increased in knowledge : his 
religion or his worship would become united with his im- 
provement as a man ; any employment he followed, that 
had connexion with the principles of the creation, as every- 
thing of agriculture, of science, and of the mechanical art 
has, would teach him more of God, and of the gratitude he 
owes to him, than any theological Christian sermon he now 
hears. Great objects inspire great thoughts ; great munifi- 
cence excites great gratitude : but the grovelling tales and 
doctrines of the Bible and the Testament are fit only to 
excite contempt. 

Though a man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the 
actual scene I have described, he can demonstrate it ; 
because he has a knowledge of the principles upon which the 
creation is constructed. We know that the greatest works 
can be represented in model, and the universe can be repre- 
sented by the same mean*. The same principles by which 
we measure an inch, or an acre of ground, will measure to 
millions in extent. A circle of an inch diameter has the 



150 AGE OF REASON. 

same geometrical properties as a circle that would circum- 
scribe the universe. The same properties of a triangle that 
will demonstrate upon paper the course of a ship will do it 
on the ocean ; and when applied to what are called the 
heavenly bodies, will ascertain to a minute the time of an 
eclipse, though those bodies are millions of miles distant 
from us. This knowledge is of divine origin ; and it is 
from the Bible of the creation that man has learned it, and 
not from the stupid Bible of the church, that teaches man 
nothing.* 

All the knowledge man has of science and machinery, by 
the aid of which his existence is rendered comfortable upon 
earth, and without which he would be scarcely distinguish- 
able in appearance and condition from a common animal, 
comes from the great machine and structure of the universe. 
The constant and unwearied observations of our ancestors, 
upon the movements and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, 
in what are supposed to have been the early ages of the 
world, have brought this knowledge upon earth. It is not 
Moses and the prophets, nor Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, 
that have done it. The Almighty is the great mechanic of 
the creation ; the first philosopher, and original teacher of 
all science. Let us, then, learn to reverence our master, and 
let us not forget the labors of our ancestors. 

Had we at this day no knowledge of machinery, and were 
it possible that man could have a view, as I have before 

* The Bible-makers had undertaken to give us, in the first chapter 
of Genesis, an account of the creation ; and, in doing this, they have 
demonstrated nothing but their ignorance. They make there to have 
been three days and three nights, evenings and mornings, before there 
was a sun; when it is the presence or absence of the sun that is the 
cause of day and night, and what is called his rising and setting that 
of morning and evening. Besides, it is a puerile and pitiful idea to 
suppose the Almighty to say, Let there bo light. It is the imperative 
manner of speaking that a conjuror uses, when he says to his cups and 
balls Presto, begone, and most probably has been taken from it ; as 
Moses and his rod are a conjuror and his wand. Longinus calls this 
expression the sublime; and, by the same rule, the conjuror is 
sublime too, for the manner of speaking is expressively and grammati- 
cally the same. When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see 
not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous. The sublime of critics, 
like some parts of Edmund Burke's " Sublime and Beautiful," is like a 
windmill just visible in a fog, which imagination might distort into a 
flying mountain, or an archangel, or a Hock of wild geese. 



AGE OF KKASOX. 151 

described, of the structure and machinery of the universe, 
he would soon conceive the idea of constructing some at 
least of the mechanical works we now have ; and the idea 
so conceived would progressively advance in practice. Or 
could a model of the universe, such as is called an orrery, 
be presented before him, and put in motion, his mind would 
arrive at the same idea. Such an object, and such a subject, 
would, whilst it improved him in knowledge useful to him- 
self as a man and a member of society, as well as being 
entertaining, afford far better matter for impressing him 
with a knowledge of, and a belief in the Creator, and of 
the reverence and gratitude that man owes to him, than the 
stupid texts of the Bible and Testament, from which, be 
the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid 
sermons can be preached. If man must preach, let him 
preach something that is edifying, and from texts that are 
known to be true. 

The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every 
part of science, whether connected with the geometry of the 
universe, with the systems of animal and vegetable life, or 
with the properties of inanimate matter, is a text as well for 
devotion as for philosophy; for gratitude as for human im- 
provement. It will, perhaps, be said, that if such a revolu- 
tion in the system of religion take place, every preacher 
ought to be a philosopher. Most certainly; and every houie 
of devotion a school of science. 

It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of 
science, and the right use of reason, and setting up an in- 
vented thing called revealed religion, that so many wild and 
blasphemous conceits have been formed of the Almighty. 
The Jews have made him the assassin of the human species, 
to make room for the religion of the Jews. The Christians 
have made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of 
a new religion, to supersede and expel the Jewish religion. 
And to find pretence and admission for the.-e things they 
must have supposed his power or his wisdom imperfect, or 
his will changeable ; and the changeableness of the will is 
the imperfection of the judgment. The philosopher knows 
that the laws of the Creator have never changed, with 
respect either to the principles of science, or the properties 
of matter. "NVhy, then, is it to be supposed they have 
changed with respect to man ? 



152 AGE OF REASON. 

I here close the subject. I have shown in all the fore- 
going parts of this work, that the Bible and Testament are 
impositions and forgeries ; and I leave the evidence I have 
produced in proof of it, to be refuted, if anyone can do it ; 
and I leave the ideas that are suggested in the conclusion 
of the work, to rest on the mind of the reader ; certain as I 
am, that when opinions are free, either in matters of govern- 
ment or religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail 



PART III. 



To the Ministers and Preachers of all denominations of 
Religion. 

It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, 
to detect and expose delusion and error. But nature has 
not given to everyone a talent for that purpose ; and among 
those to whom such a talent is given, there is often a want 
of disposition or of courage to do it. 

The world, or more properly speaking, that small part of it 
called Christendom, or the Christian world, has been amused 
for more than a thousand years with accounts of prophesies 
in the Old Testament about the coming of the person called 
Jesus Christ, and thousands of sermons have been preached, 
and volumes written to make man believe it. 

In the following treatise I have examined all the passages 
in the New Testament, quoted from the Old, and called 
prophesies concerning Jesus Christ, and I find no such thing 
as a prophesy of any such person, and I deny there are any. 
The passages all relate to circumstances the Jewish nation 
was in at the time they were written or spoken, and not to 
anything that was or was not to happen in the world several 
hundred years afterwards ; and I have shown what the 
circumstances were, to which the passage apply or refer. I 
have given chapter and verse for everything I have said, 
and have not gone out of the books of the Old and New 
Testament for evidence, that the passages are not prophesies 
of the person called Jesus Christ. 



AGE OF REASON. 153 

The prejudice of unfounded belief often degenerates into 
the prejudice of custom, and becomes, at last, rank hy- 
pocrisy. When men from custom or fashion, or any worldly 
motive, profess or pretend to believe what they do not 
believe, nor can give any reason for believing, they unship 
the helm of their morality, and being no longer honest to 
their own minds, they feel no moral difficulty in being 
unjust to others. It is from the influence of this vice, 
hypocrisy, that we see so many church and meeting-going 
professors and pretenders to religion, so full of trick and 
deceit in their dealings, and so loose in the performance of 
their engagements, that they are not to be trusted further 
than the laws of the country will bind them. Morality has 
no hold on their minds, no restraint on their actions. 

One set of preachers make salvation to consist in believing. 
They tell their congregations, that if they believe in Christ, 
their sins shall be forgiven. This, in the first place, is an 
encouragement to sin, in a similar manner as when a prodi- 
gal young fellow is told his father will pay all his debts, he 
runs into debt the faster, and becomes the more extravagant. 
Daddy, says he, pays all, and on he goes. Just so in the 
other case, Christ pays all, and on goes the sinner. 

In the next place, the doctrine these men preach is not 
true. The Xew Testament rests itself for credibility and 
testimony on what are called prophesies in the Old Testa- 
ment of the person called Jesus Christ ; and if there are no 
such things as prophesies of any such person in the Old 
Testament, the New Testament is a forgery of the councils 
of Nice and Laodicea, and the faith founded thereon, 
delusion and falsehood.* 

Another set of preachers tell their congregations that God 
predestined and selected from all eternity a certain number 
to be saved, and a certain number to be damned eternally. 
If this wore true, the day of judgment is PAST : their preach- 
ing is in vain, and they had better work at some useful 
calling for their livelihood. 

* The councils of Nice and Laodicea were held about 350 years after 
the time Christ is said to have lived ; and the books that now compose 
the Xew Testament were then voted for by YEAS and NAYS, as we now 
vote a law. A great many that were offered had a majority of NAYS, 
and were rejected. This is the way the Xew Testament came into 
being. 



154 AGE OF KEASON. 

This doctrine also, like the former, hath a direct tendency 
to demoralise mankind. Can a bad man be reformed by 
telling him, that if he is one of those who was decreed to be 
damned before he was born, his reformation will do him no 
good ; and if he was decreed to be saved, he will be saved, 
whether he believes it or not? for this is the result of the 
doctrine. Such preaching and such preachers do injury to 
the moral world. They had better be at the plough. 

As in my political works my motive and object have been 
to give man an elevated sense of his own character, and to 
free him from the slavish and superstitious absurdity of 
monarchy and hereditary government ; so in my publica- 
tions on religious subjects, my endeavors have been directed 
to bring man to a right use of the reason that God has 
given him ; to impress on him the great principles of divine 
morality, justice, mercy, and a benevolent disposition to all 
men, and to all creatures, and to inspire in him a spirit of 
trust, confidence, and consolation in his Creator, unshackled 
by the fables of books pretending to be the word of God. 

THOMAS PAINE. 



AN ESSAY ON DREAMS. 

As a great deal is said in the New Testament about dreams, 
it is first necessary to explain the nature of dreams, and to 
show by what operation of the mind a dream is produced 
during sleep. When this is understood, we shall be the 
better enabled to judge whether any reliance can be placed 
upon them ; and, consequently, whether several matters in 
the New Testament related of dreams, deserve the credit 
which the writers of that book, and prietts and commenta- 
tors, ascribe to them. 

In order to understand the nature of dreams, or that 
which passes in ideal vision during a state of sleep, it is first 
necessary to understand the composition and decomposition 
of the human mind. 

The three great faculties of the mind are IMAGINATION, 
JUDGMENT, and MEMORY. Every action of the mind comes 
under one or other of these faculties. In a state of wake- 
fulness, as in the daytime, these three faculties are all active ; 



AGE OF KEASOX. lOO 

but that is seldom the case in sleep, and never perfectly ; 
and this is the cause that our dreams are not so regular and 
rational as our waking thoughts. 

The seat of that collection of powers or faculties that 
constitute what is called the mind, is in the brain. There is 
not, and cannot be, any visible demonstration of this ana- 
tomically, but accidents happening to living persons show it 
to be so. An injury done to the brain by a fracture of the 
skull will sometimes change a wise man into a childish idiot 
a being without mind. But so careful has nature been 
of that sanctum sanctorum of man, the brain, that of all 
the external accidents to which humanity is subject, this 
happens the most seldom. But we often see it happening 
by long and habitual intemperance. 

Whether those three faculties occupy distinct apartments 
of the brain, is known only to the Almighty power that 
formed and organised it. We can see the external effects 
of muscular motion in all the members of the body, though 
its pri/num mobile, or first moving cause, is unknown to man. 
Our external motions are sometimes the effect of intention, 
and sometimes not. If we are sitting and intend to rise, or 
standing and intend to sit or walk, the limbs obey that 
intention as if they heard the order given. But we make a 
thousand motions every day, and that as well waking as 
sleeping, that have no prior intention to direct them. Each 
member acts as if it had a will or mind of its own. Man 
governs the whole when he pleases to govern, but in the 
interims the several parts, like little suburbs, govern them- 
selves without consulting the sovereign. 

But all these motions, whatever be the generating cause, 
are external and visible. But with respect to the brain, no 
ocular observation can be made upon it. All is mystery, 
all is darkness in that womb of thought. 

Whether the brain is a mass of matter in continual rest 
whether it has a vibrating pulsative motion, or a heaving 
and falling motion, like matter in fermentation whether 
different parts of the brain have different m >tions according 
to the faculty employed, be it the imagination, the judgment, 
or the memory, man knows nothing of it. He knows not 
the cause of his own wit : his own brain conceals it from 
him. 

Comparing invisible by visible things, as metaphysical 



156 



AGE OP REASON. 



can sometimes be compared by physical things, the opera- 
tions of these distinct and several faculties have some 
resemblance to the mechanism of a watch. The mainspring, 
which puts all in motion, corresponds to the imagination ; 
the pendulum, or balance, which corrects and regulates that 
motion, corresponds to the judgment ; and the hand and 
dial, like the memory, record the operations. 

Now in proportion to these several faculties sleep, slumber, 
or keep awake, during the continuance of a dream, in that 
proportion will the dream be reasonable or frantic, remem- 
bered or forgotten. 

If there is any faculty in mental man that never sleeps, 
it is that volatile thing, the imagination : the case is 
different with the judgment and memory. The sedate and 
sober constitution of the judgment easily disposes it to rest; 
and as to the memory, it records in silence, and is active 
only when it is called upon. 

That the judgment soon goes to sleep may be perceived 
by our sometimes beginning to dream before we are fully 
asleep ourselves. Some random thought runs in the mind, 
and we start as it were into recollection that we are dreaming 
between sleeping and waking. 

If the judgment sleeps while the imagination keeps awake, 
the dream will be a riotous assemblage of misshapen images 
and ranting ideas ; and the more active the imagination is, 
the wilder the dream will be. The most inconsistent and the 
most impossible things will appear right, because that faculty 
whose province it is to keep order, is in a state of absence. 
The master of the school is gone out, and the boys are in an 
uproar. 

If the memory sleeps, we shall have no other knowledge 
of the dream than that we have dreamt, without knowing 
what it was about. In this case it is sensation, rather than 
recollection, that acts. The dream has given us some sense 
of pain or trouble, and we feel it as a hurt, rather than 
remember it as a vision. 

If memory only slumbers, we shall have a faint remem- 
brance of the dream, and after a few minutes it will some- 
times happen that the principal passages of the dream will 
occur to us more fully. The cause of this is, that the 
memory will sometimes continue slumbering or sleeping after 
we are awake ourselves, and that so fully, that it may and 



AGE OF REASON. 157 

sometimes does happen, that we do not immediately recol- 
lect where we are, nor what we have been about, or what 
we have to do. But when the memory starts into wakeful- 
ness, it brings the knowledge of these things back upon us 
like a flood of light, and sometimes the dream with it. 

But the most curious circumstance of the mind in a state 
of dream, is the power it has to become the agent of every 
person, character, and thing of which it dreams. It carries 
on conversation with several, asks questions, hears answers, 
gives and receives information, and it acts al; these parts 
itself. 

But however various and eccentric the imagination may 
be in the creation of images and ideas, it cannot supply the 
place of memory, with respect to things that are forgotten 
when we are awake. For example, if we have forgotten 
the name of a person, and dream of seeing him, and asking 
him his name, he cannot tell it ; for it is ourselves asking 
ourselves the question. 

But though the imagination cannot supply the place of 
real memory, it has the wild faculty of counterfeiting 
memory. It dreams of persons it never knew, and talks 
with them as if it remembered them as old acquaintances. 
It relates circumstances that never happened, and tells them 
as if they had happened. It goes to places that never 
existed, and knows where all the streets and houses arc, 
as if it had been there before. The scenes it creates often 
appear as scenes remembered. It will sometimes act a dream 
within a dream, and in the delusion of dreaming tell a dream 
it never dreamed, and tell it as if it was from memory. It 
may also be remarked, that the imagination in a dream has 
no idea of time as time. It counts only by circumstances ; 
and if a succession of circumstances pass in- a dream that 
would require a great length of time to accomplish them, it 
will appear to the dreamer that a length of time equal 
thereto has passed also. 

As this is the state of the mind in dream, it may ration- 
ally be said that every person is mad once in every twenty- 
four hours ; for were he to act in the day as he dreams in 
the night, he would be confined for a lunatic. In a state 
of wakefulness, those three faculties being all active, and 
acting in unison, constitute the rational man. In dreams it 
is otherwise, and therefore, that state which is called insanity 




158 AGE OF REASON. 

appears to be no other than a disunion of those faculties, 
and a cessation of the judgment, during wakefnlness, that 
we so often experience during sleep ; and idiotcy, into which 
some persons have fallen, is that cessation of all the faculties 
of which we can be sensible when we happen to wake before 
memory. 

In this view of the mind, how absurd is it to place 
reliance upon dreams, and how much more to make them a 
foundation for religion ! yet the belief that Jesus Christ is 
the Son of God, begotten by the Holy Ghost, a being never 
heard of before, stands on the story of an old man's dream. 
' And behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, in a 
dream, saying Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take 
unto thee Mary thy wife : for that which is conceived in 
her is of the Holy Ghost.' Matthew, chapter i., verse 20. 

After this we have the childish stories of three or four 
other dreams ; about Joseph going into Egypt ; about his 
coming back again ; about this, and about that : and this 
story of dreams has thrown Europe into a dream for more 
than a thousand years. All the efforts that nature, reason, 
and conscience, have made to awaken man from it, have been 
ascribed by priestcraft and superstition to the workings of 
the devil ; and had it not been for the American revolution, 
which by establishing the universal rif/ht of conscience, first 
opened the way to free discussion, and for the French revo- 
lution which followed, this religion of dreams had continued 
to be preached, and that after it had ceased to be believed. 
Those who preached it and did not believe it, still believed 
the delusion necessary. They were not bold enough to be 
honest, nor honest enough to be bold. 

Every new religion, like a new play, requires a new 
apparatus of dress and machinery, to fit the new characters 
it creates. The story of Christ in the New Testament 
brings a new being upon the stage, which it calls the Holy 
Ghost ; and the story of Abraham the father of the Jews, 
in the Old Testament, gives existence to a new order of 
beings it called angels. There was no Holy Ghost before the 
time of Christ, nor angels before the time of Abraham. 
We hear nothing of these winged gentlemen, till more than 
two thousand years, according to the Bible chronology, from 
the time they say the heavens, the earth, and all therein 
were made. After this, they hop about as thick as birds in 



AGE OF REASON. 159 

a grove. The first we hear of pays his addresses to Hagar 
in the wildnerness ; then three of them visit Sarah ; another 
wrestles a fall with Jacob : and these birds of passage, 
having found their way to earth and back, are continually 
coming and going. They eat and drink, and up again to 
heaven. "What they do with the food they carry away in 
their bellies the Bible does not tell us. 

One would think that a system loaded with such gross and 
vulgar absurdities as Scripture religion is, could never have 
obtained credit ; yet we have seen what priestcraft and 
fanaticism could do, and credulity believe. 

From angels in the Old Testament we get to prophets, to 
witches, to seers of visions, and dreamers of dreams, and 
sometimes we are told, as in 1 Samuel, chapter ix., verse 15, 
that God whispers in the ear. At other times we are not 
told how the impulse was given, or whether sleeping or 
waking. In 2 Samuel chapter xxiv., verse 1, it is said, 
" And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, 
and he moved David .against them, to say, Go number Israel 
and Judah" And in 1 Chronicles, chapter xxi., verse 1, 
when the same story is again related, it is said, " And Satan 
stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel" 

Whether this was done sleeping or waking we are not 
told, but it seems that David, whom they call *' a man after 
(Jod's own heart," did not know by what spirit he was 
moved ; and as to the men called inspired penmen, they 
agree so well about the matter, that in one book they say 
that it was God, and in the other that it was the devil. 

Yet this is the trash the church imposes upon the world 
us the word of God ! this is the collection of lies and con- 
tradictions called the Holy Bible ! this is the rubbish called 
revealed religion ! 

The idea that the writers of the Old Testament had of a 
God was boisterous, contemptible, and vulgar. They make 
him the Mars of the Jews, the fighting God of Israel, the 
conjuring God of their priests and prophets. They still tell 
us many fables of him as the Greeks told of Hercules. 

They put him against Pharaoh, as it were* to box with 
him ; and as Moses carries the challenge, they make their 
God to say, insultingly, "I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, 
and upon his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horse- 
men." And that he may keep his word, they make him set 



1GO AGE OF REASON. 

a trap in the Red Sea, in the dead of the night, for Pharaoh, 
his host, and his horses, and drown them as a rat-catcher 
would do so many rats. Great honor indeed ! The story 
of Jack the Giant-killer is better told. 

They match him against the Egyptian magican to conjure 
with him ; and after bad conjuring on both sides (for where 
there is no great contest, there is no great honor), they 
bring him off victorious. The three first essays are a dead 
match ; each party turns his rod into a serpent, the rivers 
into blood, and creates frogs ; but upon the fourth, the God 
of the Israelites obtains the laurel he covers them all over 
with lice ! The Egyptian magicans cannot do the same, 
and this lousy triumph proclaims the victory. 

They make their God to rain fire and brimstone upon 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and belch fire and smoke upon mount 
Sinai, as if he were the Pluto of the lower regions. They 
made him salt up Lot's wife like pickled pork ; they make 
him pass, like Shakespeare's Queen Mab, into the brains of 
their priests, prophets, and prophetesses, and tickle them 
into dreams, and after making him play all kind of tricks, 
they confound him with Satan, and leave us at a loss to 
know what God they meant. 

This is the descriptive God of the Old Testament ; and 
as to the New, though the authors of it have varied the 
scene, they continued the vulgarity. 

Is man ever to be the dupe of priestcraft, the slave of 
superstition? Is he never to have just ideas of his Creator? 
It is better not to believe that there is a God, than to believe 
of him falsely. When we behold the mighty universe that 
surrounds us, and dart our contemplation into the eternity 
of space, filled with innumerable orbs, revolving in eternal 
harmony, how paltry must the tales of the Old and New 
Testaments, profanely called the word of God, appear to 
thoughtful man ! The stupendous wisdom and unerring 
order that reign and govern throughout this wondrous 
whole, and call us to reflection, put to shame the Bible! The 
God of eternity and of all that is real is not the God of 
passing dreams and shadows of man's imagination ! The 
God of truth is not the God of fable ; the belief of a God 
begotten and a God crucified is a God blasphemed. It is 
making a profane use of reason. 

I shall conclude this Essay on Dreams with the two first 



AGE OF REASON. 161 

verses of the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, one of the 
books of the Apocrypha. 

Verse 1, " The hopes of man void of understanding are vain 
and false ! and dreams lift up fools. Whoso regarckth dreams 
is like him that catches at a shadow, and followeth after the 
tuind." 

I now proceed to an examination of the passages in the 
Bible called prophesies of the coming of Christ, and to show 
there are no prophesies of any such persons ; that the 
passages clandestinely styled prophesies are not prophesies, 
and that they refer to circumstances the Jewish nation was 
in at the time they were written or spoken, and not to any 
distance of future time or person. 



AN EXAMINATION OF THE PASSAGES ix TTIE NEW 
TESTAMENT. 

Quoted from the Old, and called Prophesies of the coming of 
Jesus Christ. 

THE passages called prophesies of or concerning Jesus 
Christ in the Old Testament, may be classed under the two 
following heads : 

First, Those referred to in the four books of the New 
Testament called the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John. 

Secondly, Those which Translators and commentators 
have, of their own imagination, erected into prophesies, and 
dubbed with that title at the head of the several chapters of 
the Old Testament. Of these it is scarcely worth while to 
waste time, ink, and paper upon ; I shall, therefore, confine 
myself chiefly to those referred to in the aforesaid four 
books of the New Testament. *Tf I show that these are not 
prophesies of the person called Jesus Christ, nor have refer- 
ence to any such person, it will be perfectly needless to 
combat those which translators or the Church have invented, 
and for which they had no other authority than their own 
imagination. 

I begin with the book called the Gospel according to St. 
Matthew. 

In the first chapter, verse 18, it is said, "Now the birth 

91 



1G2 AGE OF REASON. 

of Jesus Christ was in this wise : When his mother Mary 
was espoused to Jo.-eph, before they came together she was 
found with child by the Holy Ghost." This is going a 
little too fast ; because to make this verse agree with the 
next, it should have said no more than that she was found 
with child ; fur the next verse says, " Then Joseph, her 
husband, being a just man and not willing to make a public 
example, was minded to put her away privily." Conse- 
quently Joseph had found out no more than that she was 
with child, and he knew it was not by himself. 

Verse 20. " And while he thought on these things (that 
is, whether he should put her away privily, or make a public 
example of her) behold, the angel of the Lord appeared 
unto him in a dream (that is, Joseph dreamed that an angel 
appeared unto him), saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear 
not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is con- 
ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring 
forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall 
save his people from their sins." 

Now, without entering into any discussion upon the merits 
or demerits of the account here given, it is proper to observe, 
that it has no higher authority than that of a dream; for it is 
impossible for a man to behold anything in a dream but that 
which he dreams of. I ask not, therefore, whether Joseph 
(if there was such a man) had such a dream or not; because, 
admitting he had, it proves nothing. So wonderful and 
irrational is the faculty of the mind in dreams, that it acts 
the part of all the characters its imagination creates, and 
what it thinks it hears from any of them is no other than 
what the roving rapidity of its own imagination invents. It 
is, therefore, nothing to me what Joseph dreamed of 
whether of the fidelity or infidelity of his wife ; I pay DO 
regard to my own dreams, and I should be weak indeed to 
put faith in the dreams of another. 

The verses that follow those I have quoted are the words 
of the writer of the book of Matthew. " Now (says he) all 
this (that is, all this dreaming and pregnancy), was done 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord, 
saying, 

" Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring 
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, 
being interpreted, is God with us." 



AGE OF REASOX. 1G3 

This passage is in Isaiah, chapter vii., verse 14, and the 
writer of the book of Matthew endeavors to make his readers 
believe that this passage is a prophecy of the person called 
Jesus Christ. It is no such thing and I go to show it is 
not. But it is first necessary that I explain the occasion of 
these words being spoken by Isaiah ; the reader will then 
easily perceive, that so far from their being a prophesy of 
Jesus Christ, they have not the lea.st reference to such a 
person, or to anything that could happen in the time that 
Christ is said to have lived which was about seven hundred 
years after the time of Isaiah. The case is this : 

On the death of Solomon the Jewish nation split into two 
monarchies ; one called the kingdom of Judah, the capital 
of which was Jerusalem ; the other the kingdom of Israel, 
the capital of which was Samaria. The kingdom of Judah 
followed the line of David, and the kingdom of Israel that 
of Saul ; and these two rival monarchies frequently carried 
on fierce wars with each other. 

At the time Ahaz was king of Judah, which was in the 
time of Isaiah, Pekah was king of Israel: and Pekah joined 
himself to Resin, king of Syria, to make war against Ahaz, 
king of Judah; and these two kings marched a confederated 
and powerful army against Jerusalem. Ahaz and his 
people became alarmed at the danger, and " their hearts 
were moved, as the trees of the wood are moved with the 
the wind." Isaiah, chapter vii., verse 2. 

In this perilous situation of things, Isaiah addresses him- 
self to Ahaz, and assures him in the name of the Lord (the 
cant phrase of all the prophets), that these two kings should 
not succeed against him ; and, to assure him that this should 
be the case (the case, however, was directly contrary*), tells 
Ahaz to ask a sign of the Lord. This Ahaz declined doing, 

* 2 Chronicles, chap, xxviii., verso 1. Ahaz was twenty years old when 
ho began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, but he 
did not that which was right in the sight of tho Lord. Verse 5. Where- 
fore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of tho king of 
Syria, and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them 
captives, and brought them to Damascus : and he was also delivered 
into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great 
slaughter. Verse (>. And Pekah, king of Israel, slew in Judah an 
hundred and twenty thousand in one day. Verse 8. And tho children 
of Israel carried away captive of their brethren, two hundred thousand 
women, sons, and daughters. 

M2 



164 AGE OF REASON. 

giving as a reason, that he would not tempt the Lord : upon 
which Isaiah, who pretends to be sent from God, says 
(verse 14) : " Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a 
sign ; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son. 
Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse 
the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall 
know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that 
thou abhorest shall be forsaken of both her kings' meaning 
the king of Israel and the king of Syria, who were marching 
against him. 

Here then is the sign, which was to be the birth of a 
child, and that child a son ; and here also is the time 
limited for the accomplishment of the sign namely, before 
the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 

The thing, therefore, to be a sign of success to Ahaz, 
must be something that would take place before the event 
of the battle then pending between him and the two kings 
could be known. A thing to be a sign must precede the 
thing signified. The sign of rain must be before the rain. 

It would have been mockery and insulting nonsense for 
Isaiah to have assured Ahaz, as a sign that these two kings 
should not prevail against him, that a child should be born 
seven hundred years after he was dead ; and that before the 
child so born should know to refuse the evil and choose the 
good, he Ahaz, should be delivered from the danger he was 
then immediately threatened with. 

But the case is, that the child of which Isaiah speaks,, 
was his own child, with which his wife or his mistress was 
then pregnant ; for he says in the next chapter, verses 2,3: 
" And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the 
priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went 
unto the prophetess ; and she conceived, and bare a son." 
And he says at verse 18 of the same chapter : " Behold, I 
and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs 
and for wonders in Israel." 

It may not be improper here to observe, that the word 
translated a virgin in Isaiah, does not signify a virgin 
in Hebrew, but merely a young woman. The tense also is 
falsified in the translation. Levi gives the Hebrew text of 
the 14th verse of the 7th chapter of Isaiah, and the transla- 
tion in English with it " Behold a young woman is with 
child and beareth a son." The expression, says he, is in the 



AGE OF REASON. 165 

present tense. The translation agrees with the other cir- 
cumstances related of the birth of this child, which was to 
be a sign to Ahaz. But as the true translation could not 
have been imposed upon the world as the prophesy of a 
child to be born seven hundred years afterwards, the 
Christian translators have falsified the original ; and instead 
of making Isaiah to say, Behold, a young ivoman is with 
child and beareth a son they have made him to say, Behold, 
a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. It is, however, only 
necessary for a person to read the 7th and 8th chapters of 
Isaiah and he will be convinced that the passage in question 
is no prophesy of the person called Jesus Christ. I pass 
on to the second passage quoted from the Old Testament by 
the New as a prophesy of Jesus Christ. 

Matthew, chapter ii., verse 1. Now when Jesus was 
born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, 
behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 
saying. Where is he that is born king of the Jews? for 
we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship 
him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was 
troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had 
gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people 
together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. 
And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea; for thus it 
is written by the prophet. And thou Bethlehem, in the 
land of Judea, art not the least among the princes of Judea : 
for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my 
people Israel." This passage is in Micah, chapter v., verse 2. 

I pass over the absurdity of seeing and following a star 
in the daytime, as a man would with a Well-with-the-wisp, 
or a candle or lanthorn, at night ; and also that of seeing 
it in the east when themselves came from the east ; for 
could such a thing be seen at all to serve them for a guide, 
it must be in the west to them. I confine myself solely to 
the passage called a prophesy of Jesus Christ. 

The book of Micah, in the passage above quoted, 
chapter v., verse 2, is speaking of some person, without 
mentioning his name, from whom some great achievements 
were expected ; but the description he gives of this person 
iit the 5th verse proves evidently that it is not Jesus Christ, 
for he says at the 5th verse, " And this man shall be the 
peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land : and 



166 AGE OF REASON. 

when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise 
against him (that is, against the Assyrian) seven shepherds, 
and eight principal men. Verse G, " And they shall waste 
the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod 
in the entrances thereof : thus shall he (the person spoken of 
at the head of the second verse) deliver us from the 
Assyrian when he cometh into our land, and when he 
treadeth within our borders. 

This is so evidently descriptive of a military chief, that 
it cannot be applied to Christ without outraging the cha- 
racter they pretend to give us of him. Besides which, the 
circumstances of the times here spoken of, and those of the 
times in which Christ is said to have lived, are in contra- 
diction to each other. It was the Romans, and not the 
Assyrians, that had conquered and were in the land of Judea, 
and trod in their palaces when Christ was born, and when he 
died ; and so far from his driving them out, it was they 
who signed the warrant for his execution, and he suffered 
under it. 

Having thus shown that this is no prophesy of Jesus 
Christ, I pass on to the third passage quoted from the Old 
Testament by the New as "a prophecy of him. 

This, like the first I have spoken of, is introduced by a 
dream. Joseph dreameth another dream, and dieameth that 
he seeth another angel. The account begins at the 18th 
verse of the 2nd chapter of Matthew : 

' The angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, 
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, ami 
flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : 
for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When 
he arose he took the young child and his mother by night, 
and departed into Egypt ; and was there until the death of 
Herod : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the 
Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called 
my son.' 

This passage is in the book of Hosea, chapter xi., verse 1. 
The words are, ' When Israel was a child, then I loved him, 
and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so 
they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and 
burned incense to graven images.' 

This passage, falsely called a prophesy of Christ, refers 
to the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time 



AGE OF REASON. 1G7 

of Pharaoh, and to the idolatry 'they committed afterwards. 
To make it apply to Jesus Christ, he, then, must be the person 
who ' sacrificed unto Baalim and burnt incense to graven 
images ; for the person called out of Egypt by the collective 
name Israel, and the persons committing this idolatry, are 
the same persons, or the descendants of them. This, then, 
can be no prophesy of Jesus Christ unless they are willing 
to make an idolator of him. I pass on to the fourth passage 
called a prophesy, by the writer of the book of Matthew. 

This is introduced by a story told by nobody but himself, 
and scarely believed by anybody, of the slaughter of all the 
children under two years old, by the command of Herod ; 
a thing which it is not probable could be done by Herod, 
as he only held an office under the Roman Government, 
to which appeals could always be had, as we see in the 
case of Paul. 

Matthew, however, having made or told this story, says, 
chapter ii., verse 17, " Then was fulfilled that which was 
spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a 
voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, 
Rachel weeping for her children, and ivould not be comforted, 
because they were not." 

This passage is in Jeremiah, chapter xxxi., verse 15 ; and 
this verse, when separated from the verses before and after 
it, and which explains its application, might with equal pro- 
priety be applied to every case of wars, sieges, and other 
violences, such as the Christians themselves have often done 
to the Jews, where mothers have lamented the loss of their 
children. There is nothing in the verse taken singly that 
designates or points out any particular application of it, 
otherwise than it points to some circumstances which, at 
the time of writing it, had already happened, and not to a 
thing yet to happen, for the verse is in the preter or past 
tense. I go to explain the case, and show the application 
of the verse. 

Jeremiah lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged, 
took, plundered, and destroyed Jerusalem, and led the Jews 
captive to Babylon. He carried his violence against the 
Jews to every extreme. He slew the sons of King Zede- 
kiah before his face ; he then put out the eyes of Zedckiah, 
and kept him in prison till the day of his death. 

It is of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that 



1G6 AGE OF IlEASON. 

Jeremiah is speaking. Their temple was destroyed, their 
land desolated, their nation and government entirely broken 
up, and themselves, men, women, and children, carried into 
captivity. They had too many sorrows of their own, imme- 
diately before their eyes, to permit them, or any of their 
chiefs, to be employing themselves on things that might, 
or might not, happen in the world seven hundred years 
afterwards. 

It is, as already observed, of this time of sorrow and 
suffering to the Jews that Jeremiah is speaking in the verse 
in question. In the two next verses, the 16th and 17th, he 
endeavors to console the sufferers by giving them hopes, 
and, according to the fashion of speaking in those days, 
assurances from the Lord that their sufferings shall have an 
end, and that their children should return again to their 
own land. But I leave the verses to speak for themselves, 
and the Old Testament to testify against the New. 

Jeremiah, chapter xxxi., verse 15 " Thus saith the Lord, 
a voice was heard in Ramah (it is in the preter tense), 
lamentation and bitter weeping : Rachel weeping for her 
children, refused to be comforted for her children, because 
they were not." 

Verse 16 " Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from 
weeping, and thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be 
rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from 
the land of the enemy." 

Verse 17 " And there is hope in thine end, saith the 
Lord, and thy children shall come again to their own border." 

By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the 
children of which Jeremiah speaks (meaning the people of 
the Jewish nation, scripturally called children of Israel, and 
not mere infants under two years old), and who were to 
return again from the land of the enemy, and come again 
into their own borders, can mean the children that Matthew 
makes Herod to slaughter ? Could those return again from 
the land of the enemy, or how can the land of the enemy be 
applied to them ? Could they come again to their own 
borders ? Good heavens ! how has the world been imposed 
upon by Testament-makers, priestcraft, and pretended pro- 
phesies ! I pass on to the fifth passage called a prophesy of 
Jesus Christ. 

This, like two of the former, is introduced by a dream. 



AGE OF REASON. 169 

Joseph dreamed another dream, and dreameth of another 
angel. And Matthew is again the historian of the dream 
find the dreamer. If it were asked how Matthew could 
know what Joseph dreamed, neither the Bishop nor all the 
Church could answer the question. Perhaps it was Matthew 
that dreamed and not Joseph ; that is, Joseph dreamed by 
proxy, in Matthew's brain, as they tell us Daniel dreamed 
for Nebuchadnezzar. But be this as it may, 1 go on with 
my subject. 

The account of this dream is in Matthew, chapter ii., 
verses 1 ( J to 23 "But when Herod was dead, behold, an 
angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go 
into the land of Israel : for they are dead which sought the 
young child's life. And he arose, and took the young child 
and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But 
when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the 
room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither; not- 
withstanding, being warned of God in a dream (here is 
another dream), he turned aside into the parts of Galilee : 
and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it 
might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets, he 
shall be called a Nazarene." 

Here is good circumstantial evidence that Matthew dreamed, 
for there is no such passage in the Old Testament ; and I 
invite the Bishops and all the priests in Christendom, in- 
cluding those of America, to produce it. 1 pass on to the 
sixth passage called a prophesy of Jesus Christ. 

This, as Swift says on another occasion, is lugged in head 
and shoulders ; it needs only to be seen in order to be hooted 
as a forced and far-fetched piece of imposition. 

Matthew, chapter iv., verse 12 " Now when Jesus had 
heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. 
And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, 
which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulun and 
Nepthalim : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, The land of Zabuluu 
and the land of Nepthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond 
Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles : the people which sat in 
darkness saw great light ; and to them which sat in the 
region and shadow of death light is sprung up." 

I wonder Matthew has not made the cris-cross-row, or 



170 AGE OF RKASON. 

the Christ-cross-now (I know not how the priests spell it) 
into a prophesy. He might as well have done this as 
cut out these unconnected and undescriptive sentences 
from the place they stand in, and dubbed them with that 
title. 

The words, however, are in Isaiah, chapter ix., verses 1 
and 2, as follows : 

" Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as ivas in her 
vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of 
Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards did more 
grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, 
in Galilee of the nations." 

All this relates to two circumstances that had already 
happened at the time these words in Isaiah were written. 
The one, where the land of Zebulun and Naphtali had been 
lightly afflicted, and afterwards more grievously, by the way 
of the sea. 

But, observe, reader, how Matthew has falsified the text. 
He begins his quotation at a part of the verse, where there 
is not so much as a comma, and thereby cuts off everything 
that relates to the first affliction. He then leaves out all 
that relates to the second affliction, and by this means leaves 
out everything that makes the verse intelligible, and reduces 
it to a senseless skeleton of names of towns. 

To bring this imposition of Matthew clearly and im- 
mediately before the eye of the reader, I will repeat the 
verse, and put between brackets [ ] the words he has left out, 
and put in italics those he has preserved. 

[Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in 
her vexation when at first he lightly afflicted] the, land of 
Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, [and did afterwards more 
grievously afflict her] by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in 
Galilee of the nations. 

What gross imposition is it to gut, as the phrase is, a 
verse in this manner, render it perfectly senseless, and then 
puff it off on a credulous world as a prophesy ! I proceed 
to the next verse. 

Verse 2 " The people that walked in darkness have seen 
a great light ; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of 
death, upon them hath the light shined." All this is histori- 
cal and not in the least prophetical. The whole is in the 
preter-tense ; it speaks of things that had been accomplished 



AGE OF REASON. 171 

at the time the words were written, and not of things to be 
accomplished afterwards. 

As, then, the passage is in no possible sense prophetical, 
nor intended to be so, and that to attempt to make it so, is 
not only to falsify the original, but to commit a criminal 
imposition ; it is a matter of no concern to us, otherwise 
than as curiosity, to know who the people were of which the 
passage speaks, that sat in darkness, and what the light was 
that had shined in upon them. 

If we look into the preceding chapter, the 8th, of which 
the 9th is only a continuation, we shall find the writer 
speaking, at the 19th verse, of notches and wizards who peep 
about and mutter, and of people who made application to 
them ; and he preaches and exhorts them against this dark- 
some practice. It is of this people, and of this darksome 
practice, or walking in darkness, that he is speaking at the 
second verse of the 9th chapter; and with respect to the 
light that had shined in upon them, it refers entirely to his own 
ministry, and to the boldness of it, which opposed itself to 
that of the witches and wizards who peeped about and 
muttered. 

Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild, disorderly writer, pre- 
serving in general no clear chain of perception in the arrange- 
ment of his ideas, and consequently producing no defined 
conclusion from them. It is the wildness of his style, the 
confusion of his ideas, and the ranting metaphors he employs, 
that have afforded so many opportunities to priestcraft in 
some cases, and to superstition in others, to impose these 
defects upon the world as prophesies of Jesus Christ. Find- 
ing no direct meaning in them, and not knowing what to 
make of them, and supposing at the same time they were 
intended to have a meaning, they supplied the defect by 
inventing a meaning of their own, and called it his. 1 have, 
however, in this place done Isaiah the justice to rescue him 
from the claws of Matthew, who has torn him unmercifully 
to pieces, and from the imposition or ignorance of priests 
and commentators, by letting Isaiah speak for himself. 

If the words walking in darkness, and light breaking in, 
could in any case be applied prophetically, which they cannot 
be, they would better apply to the times we now live in than 
to any other. The world has walked in darkness for eighteen 
hundred years, both as to religion and government, and it is 



172 AGE OF REASON. 

only since the American Revolution began that light has 
broken in. The belief of one God, whose attributes are 
revealed to us in the book or scripture of the creation, which 
no human hand can counterfeit or falsify, and not in the 
written or printed book which, as Matthew has shown, can 
be altered or falsified by ignorance or design, is now making 
its way among us : and as to government, the light is already 
gone forth ; and whilst men ought to be careful not to be 
blinded by the excess of it, as at a certain time in France, 
when everything was Robespierrean violence, they ought to 
reverence, and even to adore it, with all the firmness and 
perseverance that true wisdom can inspire. 

I pass on to the seventh passage called a prophesy of 
Jesus Christ. 

Matthew, chapter viii., verse 16, ""When the evening 
was come, they brought unto him (Jesus) many that were 
possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his 
word, and healed all that were sick : that it might be ful- 
filled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, 
saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." 

This affair of people being possessed with devils, and of 
casting them out, was the fable of the day when the books 
of the New Testament were written. It had not existence 
at any other time. The books of the Old Testament men- 
tion no such thing ; the people of the present day know of 
no such thing ; nor does the history of any people or country 
speak of such a thing. It starts upon us all at once in the 
book of Matthew, and is altogether an invention of the New 
Testament makers and the Christian church. The book of 
Matthew is the first book where the word devil is mentioned 
as being in the singular number.* We read in some of the 
books of the Old Testament of things called familiar spirits, 
the supposed companions of people called witches and wizards. 
It was no other than the trick of pretended conjurors to 
obtain money from credulous and ignorant people, or the 
fabricated charge of superstitious malignancy against un- 
fortunate and decrepid old age. 

But the idea of a familiar spirit, if we can affix any idea 
to the term, is exceedingly different to that of being 
possessed by a devil. In the one case the supposed familiar 

* The word Devil is a personification of the word evil. 



AGE OF REASON. 175 

spirit is a dexterous agent, that comes and goes, and does as 
he is bidden; in the other, he is a turbulent roaring monster, 
that tears and tortures the body into convulsions. Reader,, 
whoever thou art, put thy trust in thy Creator, make use 
of the reason he endowed thee with, and cast from thee all 
such fables. 

The passage alluded to by Matthew, for as a quotation it 
is false, is in Isaiah, chapter liii., verse 4, which is as 
follows : 

" Surely he (the person of whom Isaiah is speaking) hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." It is in the 
preter-tense. 

Here is nothing about casting out devils, nor curing of 
sicknesses. The passage, therefore, so far from being a 
prophesy of Christ, is not even applicable as a circumstance. 

Isaiah, or at least the writer of the book that bears his 
name, employs the whole of this chapter, the 53rd, in 
lamenting the sufferings of some deceased person, of whom 
he speaks very pathetically. It is a monody on the death 
of a friend ; but he mentions not the name of the person, 
nor gives any circumstance of him by which he can be 
personally known ; and it is this silence, which is evidence 
of nothing, that Matthew has laid hold of to put the name 
of Christ to it ; as if the chiefs of the Jews, whose sorrows 
were then great, and the times they lived in big with danger, 
were never thinking about their own affairs, nor the fate of 
their own friends, but were continually running a wild-goose 
chase into futurity. 

To make a monody into a prophesy is an absurdity. The 
characters and circumstances of men, even in different ages 
of the world, are so much alike, that what is said of one 
may with propriety be said of many ; but this fitness does 
not make the passage into a prophesy : and none but an 
impostor or a bigot would call it so. 

Isaiah in deploring the hard fate and loss of his friend, 
mentions nothing of him but what the human lot of man is 
subject to. All the cases he states of him his persecutions, 
his imprisonment, his patience in suffering, and his per- 
severance in principle, are all within the line of nature ; 
they belong exclusively to none, and may with justness be 
said of many. But if Jesus Christ was the person the 
church represents him to be, that which would exclusively 



174 AGE OF KEASOX. 

apply to him must be something that could not apply to any 
other person ; something beyond the line of nature ; some- 
thing beyond the lot of mortal man ; and there are no such 
expressions in this chapter, nor any other chapter in the 
Old Testament. 

It is no exclusive description to say of a person, as is said 
of the person Isaiah is lamenting in this chapter, " He was 
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth ; 
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep 
before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." 
This may be said of thousands of persons who have suffered 
oppressions and unjust death with patience, silence, and 
perfect resignation. 

Grotius, whom the bishop esteems a most learned man, 
and who certainly was so, supposes that the person of whom 
Isaiah is speaking is Jeremiah. Grotius is led into this 
opinion, from the agreement there is between the description 
given by Isaiah, and the case of Jeremiah, as stated in the 
book that bears his name. If Jeremiah was an innocent 
man, and not a traitor in the interest of i^ebuchaduezzar, 
when Jerusalem was besieged, his case was hard ; he was 
accused by his countrymen, was persecuted, oppressed, and 
imprisoned, and he says of himself (see Jeremiah, chapter xi., 
verse 19), "But as for me, I was like a lamb or an ox that 
is brought to the slaughter." 

I should be inclined to the same opinion with Grotius, 
had Isaiah lived at the time when Jeremiah underwent the 
cruelties of which lie speaks ; but Isaiah died about fifty 
years before : and it is of a person of his own time, whose 
case Isaiah is lamenting in the chapter in question, and 
which imposition and bigotry, more than seven hundred 
years afterwards, perverted into a prophesy of a person they 
call Jesus Christ. 

I pass on to the eighth passage called a prophesy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chapter xii., verse 14 "Then the Pharises 
went out, and held a council against him, how they 
might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew 
himself from thence ; and great multitudes followed him, 
and he healed them all : and charged them that they should 
not make him known. That it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah), the prophet, saying, 



AGE Of KEA3ON. 175 

" Behold my servant whom I have chosen ; my beloved, 
in whom my soul is well pleased : I will put my spirit upon 
him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall 
not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man hear his voice 
in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and 
smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment 
unto victory. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust." 

In the first place, this passage hath not the least relation 
to the purpose for which it is quoted. 

Matthew says that the Pharisees held a council against 
Jesus to destroy him that Jesus withdrew himself that 
great numbers followed him that he healed them and 
that he charged them they should not make him known. 

But the passage Matthew has quoted as being fulfilled by 
these circumstances, does not so much as apply to any one 
of them. It has nothing to do with the Pharisees holding 
a council to destroy Jesus with his withdrawing himself 
with great numbers following him with his healing them 
nor with his charging them not to make him known. 

The purpose for which the passage is quoted, and the 
passage itself, are as remote from each other as nothing 
from something. But the case is, that people have been 
so long in the habit of reading the books called the Bible 
and Testament, with their eyes shut, and their senses locked 
up, that the most stupid inconsistencies have passed on 
them for truth, and imposition for prophesy. The all-wise 
Creator hath been dishonored by being made the author of 
fable, and the human mind degraded by believing it. 

In this passage, as in that last mentioned, the name of 
the person of whom the passage speaks is not given, and 
we are left in the dark respecting him. It is this defect 
in the history that bigotry and imposition have laid hold 
of to call it prophesy. 

Had Isaiah lived in the time of Cyrus, the passage would 
descriptively apply to him. As king of Persia, his autho- 
rity was great among the Gentiles, and it is of such a 
character the passage speaks ; and his friendship to the 
Jews, whom he liberated from captivity, and who might 
then be compared to a bruised reed, was extensive. But 
this description does not apply to Jesus Christ, who had no 
authority among the Gentiles ; and as to his own country- 
men, figuratively described by the bruised reed, it was they 



176 AGE OF REASON. 

who crucified him. Neither can it be said of him that he 
did not cry, and that his voice was not hoard in the street. 
As a preacher it was his business to be heard, and we are 
told that he travelled about the country for that purpose. 
Matthew has given a long sermon, which (if his authority 
is good, but which is much to be doubted, since he imposes 
so much) Jesus preached to a multitude upon a mountain ; 
and it would be a quibble to say that a mountain is not a 
street, since it is. a place equally as public. 

The last verse in the passage (the 4th) as it stands in 
Isaiah and which Matthew has not quoted, says, " He shall 
not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the 
earth, and the isles shall wait for his law." This also 
applies to Cyrus. He was not discouraged, he did not fail, 
he conquered all Babylon, liberated the Jews, and established 
laws. But this cannot be said of Jesus Christ, who, in the 
passage before us, according to Matthew, withdrew himself 
for fear of the Pharisees, and charged the people that fol- 
lowed him not to make it known where he was ; and who, 
according to other parts of the Testament, was continually 
moving about from place to place to avoid being appre- 
hended.* 

* In the second part of the "Age of Reason," I have shown that the 
book ascribed to Isaiah is not only miscellaneous as to matter, but as 
to authorship ; that there are parts in it which could not be written by 
Isaiah, because they speak of things one hundred and fifty years after 
he was dead. The instance I have given of this, in that work, corre- 
sponds with the subject I am upon, at least a little better than Matthew's 
introduction and his quotation. 

Isaiah lived, the latter part of his life, in the time of Hezekiah, and 
it was about one hundred and fifty years from the death of Hezekiah 
to the first year of the reign of Cyrus, when Cyrus published a pro- 
clamation, which is given in the first chapter of the book of Ezra, for 
the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. It cannot be doubted, at least it 
ought not to be doubted, that the Jews would feel an affectionate grati- 
tude for this act of benevolent justice ; and it is natural that they 
would express that gratitude in the customary style, bombastical and 
hyperbolical as it was, which they "used on extraordinary occasions, and 
which was, and still is, in practice with all the eastern nations. 

The instance to which I refer, and which is given in the second part 
of the " Age of Reason," is the last verse of the 44th chapter, and the 
beginning of the 45th, in these words: "That saith of Cyrus. He is my 
shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem, 
Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. 
Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have 



AGE OF REASON. 177 

But it is immaterial to us, at this distance of time, to 
know who the person was : it is sufficient to the purpose I 
am upon, that of detecting fraud and falsehood, to know it 
was not, and to show it was not the person called Jesus 
Christ. 

I pass on to the ninth passage called a prophesy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chapter xxi., verse 1, "And when they drew 
nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto 
the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying 
unto them, Go into the village over against you, and 
straightway ye shall find an ass tied and a colt with her ; 
loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say 
aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them ; 
and straightway he will send them. 

" All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, 
Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon 
an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.'* 

Poor ass ! let it be some consolation amidst all thy 
sufferings, that if the heathen world erected a bear into a 
constellation, the Christian world has elevated thee into a 
prophesy. 

This passage is in Zechariah, chapter ix., verse 9, and is 
one of the whims of friend Zechariah to congratulate his 
countrymen, who were then returning from captivity in 

holden, to suJbdue nations before him : and I will loose the loins of kings, 
to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be 
shut." 

This complimentary address is in the present tense, which shows 
that the things of which Isaiah speaks were in existence at the time of 
writing it ; and, consequently, that the author must have been at least 
one hundred and fifty years later than Isaiah, and that the book which 
bears his name is a compilation. The Proverbs called Solomon's, and 
the Psalms called David's, are of the same kind. The two last verses 
of the second book of Chronicles and three first verses of the chapter of 
Ezra are word for word the same ; which show that the compilers of 
the Bible mixed the writings of difierent authors together, and put 
them under some common head. 

As we have here an instance, in the 44th and 45th chapters, of the 
introduction of the name of Cyrus into a book to which it cannot belong, 
it affords good ground to conclude that the passage in the 42nd chapter, 
in which the character of Cyrus is given without his name, has been 
introduced in like manner, and that the person there spoken of is Cyrus. 

N 



178 AGE OF REASON. 

Babylon, and himself with them, to Jerusalem. It has no 
concern with any other subject. It is strange that apostles, 
priests, and commentators never permit, or never suppose 
the Jews to be speaking of their own affairs. Everything 
in the Jewish books is perverted and distorted into meanings 
never intended by the writers. Even the poor ass must not 
be a Jew- ass, but a Christian-ass. I wonder they did not 
make an apostle of him, or a bishop, or at least make him 
speak and prophesy. He could have lifted up his voice as 
loud as any of them. 

Zechariah, in the first chapter of his book, indulges him- 
self in several whims on the joy of getting back to Jeru- 
salem. He says, at the 8th verse, " 1 saw by night (Zecha- 
riah was a sharp-sighted seer), and behold a man riding on 
a red horse (yes, reader, a red horse), and he stood among 
tho myrtle trees that were in the bottom ; and behind him 
were red horses, speckled, and white" He says nothing 
about green horses, nor blue horses, perhaps because it is 
difficult to distinguish green from blue by night, but a 
Christian can have no doubt they were there, because "faith 
is the evidence of things not seen" 

Zechariah then introduces an angel among his horses, but 
he does not tell us what color the angel was of, whether 
black or white ; whether he came to buy horses, or only to 
look at them as curiosities, for certainly they were of that 
kind. Be this, however, as it may, he enters into conver.-a- 
tion with this angel, on the joyful affair of getting back to 
Jerusalem, and he saith at the 16th verse 

" Therefore, thus saith the Lord ; I AM RETURNED 
to Jerusalem with mercies ; my house shall be built in it, 
saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth 
upon Jerusalem." An expression signifying the rebuilding 
of the city. 

All this, whimsical and imaginary as it is, sufficiently 
proves that it was the entry of the Jews into Jerusalem 
from captivity, and not the entry of Jesus Christ seven 
hundred years afterwards, that is the subject upon which 
Zechariah is always speaking. 

As to the expression of riding upon an ass, which com- 
mentators represent as a sign of humility in Jesus Christ, 
the case is, he never was so well mounted before. The asses 
of those countries are large and well proportioned, and were 



AGE OF REASON. 171) 

anciently the chief of riding animals. Their beasts of 
burden, and which served also for the conveyance of the 
poor, were camels and dromedaries. We read in Judges, 
chapter x., verse 4, that " Jair (one of the judges of Israel), 
had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had 
thirty cities." But commentators distort everything. 

There is besides very reasonable grounds to conclude, 
that this story of Jesus riding publicly into Jerusalem 
accompanied as it is said in Matthew, chapter xxi., 8th and 
9th verses, by a great multitude, shouting and rejoicing, and 
spreading their garments by the way, is altogether a story 
destitute of truth. 

In the last passage called a prophesy that I examined, 
Jesus is represented as withdrawing, that is, running away, 
and concealing himself for fear of being apprehended, and 
charging the people that were with him not to make him 
known. No new circumstances had arisen in the interim to 
change his condition for the better ; yet here he is repre- 
sented as making his public entry into the same city from 
which he fled for safety. The two cases contradict each 
other so much, that if both are not false, one of them at 
least can scarcely be true. For my own part, I do not 
believe there is one word of historical' truth in the whole 
book. I look upon it at best to be a romance; the principal 
personage of which is an imaginary or allegorical character, 
founded upon some tale, and in which the moral is in many 
parts good, and the narrative part very badly and blunder- 
ingly written. 

I pass on to the tenth passage called a prophesy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chapter xxvi., verse 51, "And behold one of 
them which were with Jesus (meaning Peter), stretched out 
his hand and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the 
high priest, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto 
him, Put up again thy sword into its place, for all they that 
take the sword shall perish t>y the sword. Thinkest thou 
that I cannot now pray to my father, and he shall presently 
give me more than twelve legions of angels ? But how then 
shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? In that 
same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as 
against a thief, with swords and staves for to take me ? I 
sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no 

N2 



180 , AGE OF REASON. 

hold on me. But all this was done that the Scriptures of 
the prophets might be fulfilled." 

This loose and general manner of speaking admits neither 
of detection nor of proof. Here is no quotation given, nor 
the name of any Bible author mentioned, to which reference 
can be had. 

There are, however, some high improbabilities against the 
truth of the account. 

First It is not probable that the Jews, who were then a 
conquered people and under subjection to the Romans, 
should be permitted to wear swords. 

Secondly If Peter had attacked the servant of the high 
priest and cut off his ear, he would have been immediately 
taken up by the guard that took up his master, and sent to 
prison with him. 

Thirdly What sort of disciples and preaching apostles 
must those of Christ have been that wore swords ? 

Fourthly The scene is represented to have taken place 
the same evening of what is called the Lord's Supper, which 
makes, according to the ceremony of it, the inconsistency of 
wearing swords the greater. 

I pa?s on to the eleventh passage called a prophesy of 
Jesus Christ. 

Matthew, chapter xxvii., verse 3, " Then Judas, which 
had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, 
repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of 
silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned 
in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, 
what is that to us ? see thou to that. And he cast down the 
pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and 
hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver 
jpieces, and said, it is not lawful for to put them into the 
treasury because it is the price of blood. And they took 
counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury 
strangers in. Wherefore that field was called the field of 
blood unto this day. Then was 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." 

This is a most bare-faced piece of imposition. The pas- 
gage in Jeremiah which speaks of the purchase of a field, has 



AGE OF SEASON. 181 

no more to do with the case to which Matthew applies it, than 
it has to do with the purchase of lands in America. I will 
recite the whole passage : 

Jeremiah, chapter xxxii., verse 6, "And Jeremiah said, 
The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Behold Hana- 
meel the son of Shallum, thine uncle, shall come unto thee, 
saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth : for the right 
of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanameel mine uncle's 
son came to me in the court of the prison, according to the 
word of the Lord, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray 
thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Ben- 
jamin ; for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemp- 
tion is thine ; buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this was 
the word of the Lord. And I bought the field of Hanameel 
mine uncle's son, that ivas in Anathoth, and weighed him 
the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I sub- 
scribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and 
weighed him the money in the balances. So I took the 
evidence of the purchase, both that which was seal according 
to the law and custom, and that which was open ; and I 
gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, the son of 
Neriah the son of Masseiah, in the sight of Hanameel mine 
uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that sub- 
scribed the book of the purchase, before all the Jews that 
sat in the court of the prison and I charged Baruch before 
them, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of 
Israel ; take those evidences, this evidence of the purchase, 
both which is sealed, and this evidence which is open ; and 
put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many 
days for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; 
houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in 
this land.' 

I forbear making any remark on this abominable imposi- 
tion of Matthew. The thing glaringly speaks for itself. It 
is priests and commentators that I rather ought to censure, 
for having preached falsehood so long, and kept people in dark- 
ness with respect to those impo:-itions. I am not contending 
with these men upon points of doctrine, for I know that 
sophistry has always a city of refuge. I am speaking of 
facts ; for wherever a thing called a fact is a falsehood, the 
faith founded upon it is delusion, and the Doctrine raised 
upon it not true. Ah, reader, put thy trust ia thy Creator, 



182 AGE OF REASON. 

find thou wilt be safe; but if thou trustest to the book 
called the Scriptures, thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable 
and falsehood. But I return to my subject. 

There i.s, among the whims and reveries of Zechariah, 
mention made of thirty pieces of silver given to a potter. 
They can hardly have been so stupid as to mistake a potter 
for a field ; and if they had, the passage in Zechariah has 
no more to do with Jesus, Judas, and the field to bury 
strangers in, than that already quoted. I will recite the 
passage. 

Zechariah, chapter xi., verse 7 : " And I will feed the 
flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I 
took unto me two staves ; the one I called Beauty, and the 
other I called Bands, and I fed the flock. Three shepherds 
also I cut off in one month ; and my soul loathed them, and 
their souls also abhorred me. Then said I, I will not feed 
you ; that that dieth, let it die ; and that that is to be cut 
off, let it be cut off ; and let the rest eat everyone the flesh 
of another. And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it 
asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made 
with all the people. And it was broken in that day ; and 
so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it 
was the word of the Lord. 

"And I said unto them, if ye think good give me my 
price ; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price 
thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it 
unto the potter : a goodly price that I was prised at of them. 
And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them unto 
the potter in the house of the Lord. 

" Then I cast asunder mine other staff even Bands, that 
I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel."* 

* Whiston, in his Essay on the Old Testament, say* that the passage 
of Zechariah, of which I have spoken, was, in the copies of the Bible of 
the first century, in the book of Jeremiah, from whence, says he, it was 
taken and inserted without coherence, in that of Zechariah. Well, let 
it be so, it docs not make the ease a whit the better for the New Testa- 
ment : but it makes the case a great deal the worse for the Old. Be- 
cause it shows, as I have mentioned respecting some passages in a book 
ascribed to Isaiah, that the works of different authors have been so 
mixed and confo'.mcled together, they cannot now be discriminated, 
except where they are historical, chronological, or biographical, as is 
the interpolation in Isaiah. It is the name of Cyrus, inserted where it 
could not be inserted, as he was not in existence till 150 years after 



AGK OF REASON. 183 

There is no making either head or tail of this incoherent 
gibberish. His two staves, one called Beauty and the other 
Jjauds, is so much like a fairy tale, that 1 doubt if it had 
any other origin. There is, however, no part that has the 
least relation to the case stated in Matthew ; on the contrary, 
it is the reverse of it. Here the thirty pieces of silvsr, what- 
ever it was for, is called a yoodly price ; it was as much as 
the thing was worth, and according to the language of the 
day, was approved of by the Lord, and the money given to 
the potter in the house of the Lord. Jn the case of Jesus 
and Judas as stated in Matthew, the thirty pieces of silver 
were the price of blood ; the transaction was condemned by 
the Lord, and the money, when refunded, was refused 
admittance into the treasury. Everything in the two cases 
is the reverse of each other. 

Besides this, a very different and direct contrary account 
to that of Matthew is given of the affair of Judas, in the 
book called the Acts of the Apostles. According to that book 
the case is, that so far from Judas repenting and returning 
the money, and the high priest buying a field with it to 
bury strangers in, Judas kept the money and bought a field 
with it for himself ; and instead of hanging himself as 
Matthew says, that he fell headlong and burst asunder. 

Some commentators endeavor to get over one part of the 

the time of Isaiah, that detects the interpolation and the blunder 
with it. 

Winston was a man of great literary learning, and, what is of much 
higher degree, of deep scientific learning. He was one of the best and 
most celebrated mathematicians of his time, for which he was made 
Professor of Mathematics of the University of Cambridge. He wrote 
so much in defence of the Old Testament, and of what he calls pro- 
phecies of Jesus Christ, that at last he began to suspect the truth of tho 
Scriptures and wrote against them; for it is only those who examine 
them, that see the imposition. Those who believe them most are those 
who know least about them. 

Whistou, after writing so much in T.e'ence of the Scriptures, was at 
last prosecuted for writing against them. It was this that gave occa- 
sion to Swift, in his ludicrous epigram on Ditton and Whiston, each of 
which set up to find out tho longitude, to call oue good master Ditton, 
and the other wicked Will Whiston. I3ut as Swiit was a great asso- 
ciate with the Freethinkers of those days, such as Bolingbroke, Pope, 
and others, who did not believe the books called the Scriptures, there is 
no certainty whether he wittily called him wicked for defending the 
Scriptures, or for writing against them. The known character of Swift 
decides for the former. 



184 AGE OP REASON. 

contradiction by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged 
himself first and the rope broke. 

Acts, chapter i., verse 16: "Men and brethren, this 
Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy 
Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning 
Judas, which was a guide to them that took Jesus. (David 
says not a word about Judas) ; verse 17, for he (Judas) was 
numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry." 

Verse 18 : " Now this man purchased a field with the 
reward of iniquity, and falling headlong he burst asunder 
in the midst, and his bowels gushed out/' Is it not a species 
of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, 
when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities. 

I pass on to the twelfth passage called a prophesy of Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew, chapter xxvii., verse 35 : " And they crucified 
him and parted his garments, casting lots ; that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. They parted my 
garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast 
lots." This expression is in the 22nd Psalm, verse 18. The 
writer of that Psalm (whoever he was, for the Psalms are 
a collection, and not the work of one man) is speaking of 
himself and of his own case, and not that of another. He 
begins this Psalm with the words which the New Testament 
writers ascribed to Jesus Christ " My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? " words which might be uttered 
by a complaining man without any great impropriety, but 
very improperly from the mouth of a reputed God. 

The picture which the writer draws of his own situation, 
in this Psalm is gloomy enough. He is not prophesying but 
complaining of his own hard case. He represents himself 
as surrounded by enemies and beset by persecutions of eveiy 
kind ; and by way of showing the inveteracy of his perse- 
cutors, he says, at the 18th verse, " They parted my gar- 
ments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." 

The expression is in the present tense ; and is the same 
as to say, They pursue me to the clothes upon my back, and 
dispute how they shall divide them. Besides, the word 
vesture does not always mean clothing of any kind, but 
property, or rather the admitting a man to or investing him 
with property ; and as it is used in this Psalm distinct from 
the word garment, it appears to be used in this sense. But 



AGE OF REASON 185 

Jesus had no property ; for they make him say of himself, 
" The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, 
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." 

But be this as it may, if we permit ourselves to suppose 
the Almighty would condescend to tell, by what is called 
the spirit of prophesy, what could come to pass in some 
future age of the world, it is an injury to our own faculties, 
and to our ideas of his greatness, to imagine it would be 
about an old coat, or an old pair of breeches, or about any- 
thing which the common accidents of life, or the quarrels 
that attend it, exhibit every day. 

That which is within the power of man to do, or in his 
will not to do, is not a subject for prophesy even if there 
were such a thing, because it cannot carry with it any 
evidence of divine power or divine interposition. The ways 
of God are not the ways of men. That which an Almighty 
power performs or wills, is not within the circle of human 
power to do or to control. But any executioner and his 
assistants might quarrel about dividing the garments of a 
sufferer, or divide them without quarrelling, and by that 
means fulfil the thing called a prophesy, or set it aside. 

In the passages before examined, I have exposed the 
falsehood of them. In this I exhibit its degrading mean- 
ness, as an insult to the Creator, and an injury to human 
reason. 

Here end the passages called prophesies by Matthew. 

Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ 
expired on the cross, the rocks rent, the graves opened, and 
the bodies of many of the saints arose ; and Mark says, 
there was darkness over the land from the sixth hour until 
the ninth. They produce no prophesy for this ; but had 
these things been facts, they would have been a proper 
subject for prophesy, because none but an Almighty power 
could have inspired a foreknowledge of them, and afterwards 
fulfilled them. Since, then, there is no such prophesy, but 
a pretended prophesy of an old coat, the proper deduction 
is, there were no such things, and that the book of Matthew 
is fable and falsehood. 

I pass on to the book called the Gospel according to St. 
Mark. 



186 AGE OF REASON. 

THE BOOK OF MARK. 

There are but few passages in Mark called prophesies ; 
and but few in Luke and John. Such as there are I shall 
examine, and also such other passages as interfere with 
those cited by Matthew. 

Mark begins his book by a passage which he puts into the 
shape of a prophesy, Mark, chapter L, verse 1. " The 
beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Sou of God ; 
as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger 
before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." 
(Malachi, chapter iii., verse 1.) The passage in the original 
is in the first person. Mark makes this passage to be a pro- 
phesy of John the Baptist, said by the Church to be a fore- 
runner of Jesus Christ. ' But if we attend to the verses that 
follow this expression, as it stands in Malachi, and to the 
first and fifth verses of the next chapter, we shall see that 
this application of it is erroneous and false. 

Malachi having said at the first verse, " Behold, I will 
send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before 
me," says at the second verse, " But who may abide the day 
of his coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth ? 
for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." 

This description can have no reference to the birth of 
Jesus Christ, and consequently none to John the Baptist. 
Jt is a scene of fear and terror that is here described, and 
the birth of Christ is always spoken of as a time of joy and 
glad tidings. 

Malachi, continuing to speak on the same subject, explains 
in the next chapter what the scene is of which he speaks in 
the verses above quoted, and who the person is whom he 
calls the messenger. 

" Behold," says he, chapter iv., verse 1, " the day cometh, 
that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, and all 
that do wickedly, shall be stubble ; and the day that cometh 
shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall 
leave them neither root nor branch." 

Verse 5, " Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet 
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the 
Lord." 

By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance, Mark 
has made Elijah into John the Baptist, and Malachi's 



AGE OF REASON. 187 

description of the day of judgment into the birthday of 
Christ, I leave the Bishop to settle. 

Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chapter, 
confounds two passages together, taken from different books 
of the Old Testament. The second verse, " Behold, I send 
my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way 
before thee" is taken, as I have said before, from Malachi. 
The third verse, which says, " The voice of one crying in the 
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths 
straight" is not in Malachi, but in Isaiah, chapter xl., verse 3. 
Winston says, that both these verses were originally in Isaiah. 
If so, it is another instance of the disordered state of the 
Bible, and corroborates what I have said with respect to the 
name and description of Cyrus being in the book of Isaiah, 
to which it cannot chronologically belong. 

The words in Isaiah, chapter xi., verse o, The voice of him 
that cricth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make his paths straight, are in the present tense, and conse- 
quently not predictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures 
which the Old Testament authors frequently used. That it 
is merely rhetorical and metaphorical, may be seen at the 
Gth verse : " And the voice said, Cry; and he said, What 
shall I cry? All flesh is grass." This is evidently nothing 
but a figure ; for flesh is not grass, otherwise than a figure ; 
or metaphor, where one thing is put for another, Besides 
which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory to 
be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose. 

I pass on to the eleventh chapter. 

In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jeru- 
salem upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplish- 
ment of a prophesy, as Matthew has done ; for he says 
nothing about a prophesy. Instead of which, he goes on 
the other tack, and in order to add new honors to the ass, he 
makes it to be a miracle ; for he says, verse 2, it was a colt 
whereon never man sat ; signifying thereby, that as the ass 
had not been broken, he consequently was inspired into good 
manners, for we do not hear that he kicked Jesus Christ off. 
There is not a word about his kicking in all the four 
Evangelists. 

I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon 
a jackass, to the loth chapter. 

At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting 



188 AGE OF REASON. 

Chrisfs garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no 
prophesy to it as Matthew does. He rather speaks of it as 
a thing then in practice with executioners, as it is at this 
day. 

At the 28th verse of the same chapter, Mark speaks of 
Christ being crucified between two thieves : that, says he, 
The Scriptures might be fulfilled which saitk, And he ivas num- 
bered ivith the transgressors. The same thing might be said 
of the thieves. The expression is in Isaiah, chapter liii., 
verse 12. Grotius applies it to Jeremiah. But the case has 
happened so often in the world, where innocent men have 
been numbered with transgressors, and is still continually 
happening, that it is absurdity to call it a prophesy of any 
particular person. All those whom the church calls martyrs 
were numbered with transgressors. All the honest patriots 
who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of Robe- 
spierre, were numbered with transgressors ; and if he him- 
self had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his 
own hand-writing, had befallen me ; yet 1 suppose the 
bishop will not allow that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas 
Paine. 

These are all the'passages in Mark which have any refer- 
ence to prophecies. 

Mark concludes his book by making Jesus to say to his 
disciples, chapter xvi., verse 15, " Go ye into all the world 
and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth 
and is baptised shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned (fine Popish stuff this). And these signs 
shall follow them that believe : In my name shall they cast 
out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 
take up serpents : and if they drink any deadly thing, it 
shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and 
they shall recover." 

Now the bishop, in order to know if he has all this saving 
and wonder-working faith, should try those things upon 
himself. He should take a good dose of arsenic, and, if he 
please, I will send him a rattle-snake from America ! As 
for myself, as I believe in God, and not at all in Jesus 
Christ, nor in the books called the Scriptures, the experi- 
ment does not concern me. 

I pass on to the book of Luke. 



AGE OF REASON. 189 

THE BOOK OF LUKE. 

There are no passages in Luke called prophecies, except- 
ing those which relate to the passages I have already 
examined. 

Luke speaks of Maiy being espoused to Joseph, but he 
makes no reference to the passages in Isaifh, as Matthew 
does. He also speaks of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon 
a colt, but he says nothing about a prophesy. He speaks of 
John the Baptist, and refers to the passage in Isaiah of which 
I have already spoken. 

At the 13th chapter, verse 31, he says "The same day 
there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him 
(Jesus), Get thee out, and depart hence, for Herod will kill 
thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, 
Behold I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to- 
morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." 

Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in 
Egypt, and makes Joseph to return with the child on the 
news of Herod's death, who had sought to kill him. Luke 
makes Herod to be living and to seek the life of Jesus after 
Jesus was thirty years of age ; for he says, chapter iii., 
verse 23, " And Jesus himself began to be about thirty 
years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph." 

The obscurity in which the historical part of the New 
Testament is involved with some respect to Herod, may 
afford to priests and commentators a plea, which to some 
may appear plausible, but to none satisfactory, that the 
Herod of which Matthew speaks, and the Herod of which 
Luke speaks, were different persons.. Matthew calls Herod 
a king ; and Luke, chapter iii., verse 1, calls Herod tetrarch 
(that is, governor) of Galilee. But there could be no such 
person as a King Herod, because the Jews and their country 
were then under the dominion of the Roman emperors, who 
governed them by tetrarchs or governors. 

Luke, chapter ii., makes Jesus to be born when Cyrenius 
was governor of Syria, to which government Judea was 
annexed ; and according to this, Jesus was not born in 
the time of Herod. Luke says nothing about Herod seeking 
the life of Jesus when he was born ; nor of his destroying 
the children under two years old; nor of Joseph fleeing 
with Jesus into Egypt ; nor of his returning from thence. 



190 AGE OF REASON. 

On the contrary, the book of Luke speaks as if the pel-son 
it calls Christ, had never been out of Judea, and that Herod 
sought his life after he commenced preaching, as is before 
stated. I have already shown that Luke, in the book called 
the Acts of the Apostles (which commentators ascribe to 
Luke), contradicts the account in Matthew, with respect to 
Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, that 
Judas returned the money, and that the high priests bought 
with it a field to bury strangers in. Luke says, that Judas 
kept the money, and bought a field with it for himself. 

As it is impossible the wisdom of God should err, so it is 
impossible those books could have been written by divine 
inspiration. Our belief in God and his unerring wisdom 
forbids us to believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously 
happy in the total disbelief of it. 

There are no other passages called prophecies in Luke than 
those I have spoken of. I pass on to the book of John. 

THE BOOK OF JOHN. 

John, like Mark and Luke, is not much of a prophesy- 
monger. He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for 
Jesus's clothes, and some other trifles, of which I have 
already spoken. 

John makes Jesus to say, chapter v., verse 46, " For had 
ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote 
of me." The book of the Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, 
chapter iii., verse 22, " For Moses truly said unto the 
fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto 
you, of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear in 
all things whatsoever he shall say unto you." 

This passage is in Deuteronomy, chapter xviii., verse 15. 
They apply it as a prophesy of Jesus. What impositions ! 
The person spoken of in Deuteronomy, and also in Numbers 
where the same person is spoken of, is Joshua, the minister 
of Moses, and his immediate successor, and just such another 
Robespierrean character as Moses is represented to have 
been. The case, as related in those books, is as follows : 

Moses was grown old and near to his end ; and in order 
to prevent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had 
no settled system of government, it was thought best to 
nominate a successor to Moses while he was yet living. This 
was done, as we are told, in the following manner : 



AGE OF REASON. 191 

Numbers, chapter xxvii., verse 12, " And the Lord said 
unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see 
the laud which I have given unto the children of Israel. 
And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered 
unto ihy people, as Aaron, thy brother, was gathered." 
Verse 15, " And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, Let 
the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over 
the congregation, which may go out before them, and which 
may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and 
which may bring them in ; that the congregation of the 
Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And* the 
Lord said uuto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a 
man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him ; 
and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the 
congregation ; and give him a charge in their sight. And 
thou shalt put some of thine honor upon him, that all the 
congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient." 
Verse 22, " And Moses did as the Lord commanded him : 
and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, 
and before all the congregation, and he laid his hands upon 
him, and gave him a charge, as the Lord commanded by the 
hand of Moses." 

I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth or the 
conjuration here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses 
like unto himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is 
Joshua and that it is an imposition in John to make the case 
into a prophesy of Jesus. But the prophesy-mongers were 
so inspired with falsehood that they never speak truth." * 

* Newton, Bishop of Bristol, in England, published a work in three 
volumes, entitled "Dissertations on the Prophesies." The work ia 
tediously written and tiresome to read. He strains hard to make every 
passage into a prophesy that suits his purpose. Among others, he 
makes this expression of Moses, "The Lord shall raise thee up a pro- 
phet like unto me," into a prophesy of Christ, who was not born, accord- 
ing to the Bible chronologies, till fifteen hundred and fifty-two years 
after the time of Moses, whereas it was an immediate successor to 
Moses, who was then near his end, that is spoken of in the passage 
above quoted. 

This bishop, the better to impose this passage on the world as a 
prophesy of Christ, has entirely omitted the account in the book of 
Numbers which I have given at length word for word, and which 
shows, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the person spoken of by 
Moses is Joshua, and no other person. 

Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hear- 



192 AGE OF REASON. 

I pass on to the last passage in these fables of the Evange- 
lists, called a prophesy of Jesus Christ. 

John having spoken of Jesus expiring on the cross 
between two thieves, says, chapter xiv., verse 32 : " Then 
came the soldiers and break the legs of the first (meaning 
one of the thieves) and of the other which was crucified 
with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he 
was dead already, they break not his legs (verse 36), for these 
things were done that the Scriptures should be fulfilled, A. 
bone of him shall not be broken." 

THe passage here referred to is in Exodus, and has no 
more to do with Jesus than the ass he rode upon to Jeru- 
salem ; nor yet so much, if a roasted jackass, like a roasted 
he-goat, might be eaten at a Jewish passover. It might be 
some consolation to an ass to know, that though his bones 
might be picked they would not be broken. I go to state 
the case. 

say, and inserts them without examination or reflection, and the more 
extraordinary and incredible they are the better he likes them. 

In speaking of the walls of Babylon (volume the first, page 2G3), he 
makes a quotation from a traveller of the name of Tavernier, whom he 
calls (by way of giving credit to what he says) a celebrated traveller, 
that those walls were made of burnt brick, ten feet square and three 
feet'thick. If Newton had only thought of calculating the weight of 
such a brick, he would have seen the impossibility of their being used 
or even made. A brick ten feet square, and three feet thick, contains 
300 cubic feet ; and allowing a cubic foot of brick to be only one 
hundred pounds, each of the bishop's bricks would weigh thirty thou- 
sand pounds ; and it would take about thirty cart loads of clay (one- 
horse carts) to make one brick. 

But this account of the stones used in the building of Solomon's 
temple (vol. ii., page 211), far exceeds his bricks of ten feet square in 
the walls of Babylon ; these are but brick-bats compared to them. 

The stones (says he) employed in the foundation, were in magnitudo 
forty cubits, that is above sixty feet, a cubit (says he), being somewhat 
more than one foot and a half (a cubit is one foot nine inches), and the 
superstructure (says the bishop) was worthy of such foundations. 
There are some stones, says he, of the whitest marble, forty-five cubits 
long, five cubits high, and six cubits broad. These are the dimensions 
this bishop has given, which in measure of twelve inches to a foot, is 
78 feet 9 inches long, 10 feet 6 inches broad, and 8 feet 3 inches thick, 
and contains 7,234 cubic feet. I now go to demonstrate the imposition 
of this bishop. 

A cubic foot of water weighs sixty-two pounds and a half the 
specific gravity of marble to water is as 2 is to one. The weight, 
therefore, of a cubic foot of marble ia 156 pounds, which, multiplied by 
7,234, the number of cubic feet in one of those stones, 'makes the weight 



AGE OF REASON. 193 

The book of Exodus, in instituting the Jewish passover, 
in which they were to eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, says, 
chapte^ xii., verse 5 : " Your lamb be without blemish, a 
male of the first year ; ye shall take it from the sheep or 
from the goats." 

The book after stating some ceremonies to be used in 
killing and dressing it (for it was to be roasted, not boiled) 
says, verse 43 : " And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, 
This is the ordinance of the passover : there shall no 
stranger eat thereof ; but every man's servant that is bought 
for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he 
eat thereof, a foreigner and hired servant shall not eat 
thereof. In one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not 
carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house, 
neither shall ye brake a bone thereof." 

We here see that the case as it stands in Exodus is a 
ceremony and not a prophesy, and totally unconnected with 
Jesus's bones, or any part of him. 

John having thus filled up the measure of apostolic fable, 
concludes his book with something that beats all fable ; for 
he says in the last verse : " And there are many other things 
which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every- 
one / suppose that even the world itself could not contain the 
books that should be ivritten" 



of it to be 1,128,504 pounds, which is 503 tons. Allowing, then, a horse 
to draw about half-a-ton, it will require a thousand horses to draw ona 
such stone on the ground ; how, then, were they to be lifted into the 
biiilding by human hands ? 

The bishop may talk of faith removing mountains, but all the faith 
of all the bishops that ever lived could not remove one of those stonee, 
and their bodily strength given in. 

This bishop also tells of great guns used by the Turks at the taking 
of Constantinople, one of which he says was drawn by seventy yoke of 
oxen, and by two thousand men. Vol. iii., page 117. 

The weight of a cannon that carries a ball of 48 pounds, which 
is the largest cannon that is cast, weighs 8,000 pounds, about three 
tons and a half, and may be drawn by three yoke of oxen. Any- 
body may now calculate what the weight of the bishop's great gun 
must be, th;it required seventy yoke of oxen to draw it. The bishop 
beats Gulliver. 

When men give up the use of the divine gift of reason in writing on 
any subject, be it religious or anything else, there are no bounds to 
their extravagance, no limit to their absurdities. 

The three volumes whiuh this bishop has written on what he calls 
the prophesies, contain about 1,200 pages, and he pays in vol. iii., pa^e 
117, "I have studied brevity." This is as marvellous as the bishop's 
great gun. 

O 



19-t AGE OF REASON 

This is what in vulgar life is called a thumper that is, 
not only a lie, but a lie beyond the line of possibility ; 
besides which, it is an absurdity, for if they should be 
written in the world, the world would contain them. Here 
ends the examination of passages called prophesies. 



I have now, reader, gone through and examined all the 
passages which the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John, quote from the Old Testament, and call them 
prophesies of Jesus Christ. When I first sat down to this 
examination, I expected to find cause for some censure, but 
little did I expect to find them so utterly destitute of truth, 
and all pretensions to it, as I have shown them to be. 

The practice which the writers of those books employ is 
not more false than it is absurd. They state some trifling 
case of the person they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out 
A sentence from some passage of the Old Testament, and 
call it a prophesy of that case. But when the words thus 
cut out are restored to the place they are taken from, and 
read with the words before and after them, they give the lie 
to the New Testament. A short instance or two of this will 
suffice for the whole. 

They make Joseph to dream of an angel, who informs 
him that Herod is dead, and tells him to come with the child 
out of Egypt. They then cut out a sentence from the book 
of Hosea, " Out of Egypt have I called my Son," and apply 
it as a prophesy in that case. 

The words : " And called my Son out of Egypt," are in 
the Bible ; but what of that ? They are only part of a 
passage, and not a whole passage, and stand immediately 
connected with other words, which show that they refer to 
the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of 
Pharaoh, and to the idolatry they committed afterwards. 

Again, they tell us that the soldiers came to break the 
legs of the crucified persons, they found that Jesus was 
already dead, and therefore did not break his. They then, 
with some alteration of the original, cut a sentence from 
Exodus, " A bone of him shall not be broken," and apply 
it as a prophesy of that ca>e. 

The words, " Neither shall ye brake a bone thereof " (for 
they have altered the text), are in the Bible ; but what of 
that? They are, as in the former case, only part of a 
passage, and not a whole passage ; and, when read with 
the words they are immediately joined to, show it is the 



AGE OF REASON. 195 

Taones of a he-lamb or a he-goat of which the passage 
speaks. 

These repeated forgeries and falsifications create a, well- 
founded suspicion, that all the cases spoken of concerning 
the person called Jesus Christ are made cases, on purpose to 
lug in, and that very clumsily, some broken sentences from 
the Old Testament, and apply them as prophesies of those 
cases ; and that so far from his being the Son of God he did 
not exist even as a man that he is merely an imaginary 
or allegorical character, as Apollo, Hercules, Jupiter, and 
all the deities of antiquity were. There is no history written 
at the time Jesus Christ is said to have lived that speaks of 
the existence of such a person, even as a man. 

Did we find in any other book pretending to give a 
system of religion, the falsehoods, falsifications, contradic- 
tions, and absurdities, which are to be met with in almost 
every page of the Old and New Testament, all the priests of 
the present day who supposed themselves capable, would 
triumphantly show their skill in criticisms and cry it down 
as a most glaring imposition. But since the books in 
question belong to their own trade and profession, they, or 
at least many of them, seek to stifle every inquiry into them, 
and abuse those who hav the honesty and the courage to 
do it, 

When a book, as is the case with the Old and New Testa- 
ment, is ushered into the world under the title of being the 
Word of God, it ought to be examined with the utmost strict- 
ness, in order to know if it has a well-founded claim to that 
title or not, and whether we are, or are not, imposed upon ; 
for as no poison is so dangerous as that which poisons the 
physic, so no falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an 
article of faith. 

This examination becomes more necessary, because when 
the New Testament was written, I might say invented, the 
art of printing was not known, and there were no other 
copies of the Old Testament than written copies. A written 
copy of that book would cost about as much as six hundred 
common printed Bibles now cost. Consequently the books 
were in the hands but of very few persons, and these chiefly 
of the Church. This gave an opportunity to the writers of 
the New Testament to make quotations from the Old Te>ta- 
ment as they pleased, and call them prophesies, with very 
little danger of being detected. Besides which, the terrors 
and inqui.-itorial fury of the Church, like what they tell us 

02 



196 AGE OK REASON. 

of tLe flaming sword that turned every way, stood sentry 
over the New Testament ; and time, which brings everything 
else to light, has served to thicken the darkness that guards 
it from detection. 

Were the New Testament now to appear for the first 
time, every priest of the present day would examine it line 
by line, and compare the detached sentences it calls pro- 
phesies with the whole passages in the Old Testament, from 
whence they are taken. Why, then, do they not make the 
same examination at this time, as they would make had the 
New Testament never appeared before ? If it be proper 
and right to make it in one case, it is equally proper and 
right to do it in the other case. Length of time can make no 
difference in the right to do it at any time. But, instead of 
doing this, they go on as their predecessors went on before 
them, to tell the people there are prophesies of Jesus Christ, 
when the truth is, there are none. 

They tell us that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended 
into heaven. It is very easy to say so ; a great lie is as 
easily told as a little one. B\it if he had done so, those 
would have been the only circumstances respecting him that 
would have differed from the common lot of man ; and, 
consequently, the only case that would apply exclusively to 
him, as prophesy, would be some passage in the Old Testa- 
ment that foretold such things of him. But there is not a 
passage in the Old Testament that speaks of a person who, 
after being crucified, dead, and buried, should rise from the 
dead, and ascend into heaven. Our prophesy-mongers 
supply the silence of the Old Testament guards upon such 
things, by telling us of passages they call prophesies, and 
that falsely so, about Joseph's dream, old clothes, broken 
bones, and such-like trifling stuff. 

In writing upon this, as upon every other subject, I speak 
a language full and intelligible. I deal not in hints and 
intimations. I have several reasons for this. First, that I 
may be clearly understood. Secondly, that it may be seen 
I am in earnest ; and, thirdly, because it is an affront to 
truth to treat falsehood with complaisance. 

I will close this treatise with a subject I have already 
touched upon in the first part of the " Age of Reason." 

The world has been amused with the term revealed 
religion, and the generality of priests apply this term to the 
books called the Old and New Testament. The Mahometans 
apply the same term to the Koran. There is no man that 



AGE OF REASON. 197 

believes in revealed religion stronger than I do ; but it is 
not in the reveries of the Old and New Testament, nor of 
the Koran, that I dignify with that sacred title. That 
which is revelation to me exists in something which no 
human mind can invent, no human hand can counterfeit 
or alter. 

The word of God is the Creation we behold ; and this 
word of God revealeth to man all that is necessary for him 
to know of his Creator. 

Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the 
immensity of his creation. 

Do we want to contemplate his wisdom ? We see it in 
the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole 
is governed. 

Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it 
in the abundance with which he fills the earth. 

Do we want to contemplate his mercy ? We see it in his 
not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. 

Do we want to contemplate his will, so far as it respects 
man ? The goodness he shows to all is a lesson for our 
conduct to each other. 

In fine, Do we want to know what God is ? Search not 
the book called the Scripture, which any human hand might 
make, or any impostor invent ; but the Scripture called the 
Creation. 

When, in the First Part of the "Age of Reason," I 
called the Creation the true revelation of God to man, I 
did not know that any other person had expressed the same 
idea. But I lately met with the writings of Dr. Conyers 
Middle! on, published the beginning of last century, in which 
he expresses himself in the same manner with respect to the 
Creation, as I have done in the " Age of Reason." 

He was principal librarian of the University of Cambridge 
in England, which furnished him with extensive opportunities 
of reading, and necessarily required he should be well 
acquainted with the dead as well as the living languages. 
He was a man of strong original mind ; had the courage to 
think for himself, and the honesty to speak his thoughts. 

He made a journey to Rome, from whence he wrote letters 
to show that the forms and ceremonies of the Romish 
Christian church were taken from the degenerate state of 
the heathen mythology, as it stood in the latter times of the 
Greeks and Romans. He attacked without ceremony the 
miracles which the church pretended to perform ; and in 



198 AGE OF REASON. 

one of his treatises he calls the Creation a revelation. The 
priests of England of that day, in order to defend their 
citadel by first defending its out-works, attacked him for 
attacking the Romish ceremonies ; and one of them censures 
him for calling Creation a revelation. He thus replies to him : 

" One of them," says he, " appears to be scandalised by 
the title of revelation, which I have given to that discovery 
which God made of himself in the visible works of his 
Creation. Yet it is no other than what the wise in all ages 
have given to it, who consider it as the most authentic and 
indisputable revelation which God has ever given of himself, 
from the beginning of the world to this day. It was this 
by which the first notice of him was revealed to the inhabi- 
tants of the earth, and by which alone it has been kept up 
ever since among the several nations of it. From this the 
reason of man was enabled to trace out his nature and 
attributes, and, by a gradual deduction of consequences, to 
learn his own nature also, with all the duties belonging to 
it which relate either to God or to his fellow-creatures. 
This constitution of things was ordained by God as an 
universal law or rule of conduct to man the source of all 
his knowledge the test of all truth, by which all subsequent 
revelations which, are supposed to have been given by God 
in any other manner must be tried, and cannot be received 
as divine any further than as they are found to tally and 
coincide with this original standard. 

" It was this divine law which I referred to in the pas- 
sage above recited (meaning the passage on which they had 
attacked him), being desirous to excite the reader's attention 
to it, as it would enable him to judge more freely of the 
argument I was handling. For by contemplating this law, 
he would discover the genuine way which God himself has 
marked out to us for the acquisition of true knowledge : 
not from the authority or reports of our fellow-creatures, 
but from the information of the facts and material objects 
which, in his providential distribution of worldly things, he 
hath presented to the perpetual observation of our senses. 
For as it was from these that his existence and nature, 
the most important articles of all knowledge, were first dis- 
covered to man, so that grand discovery furnished new light 
towards tracing out the rest, and made all the inferior sub- 
jects of human knowledge more easily discoverable to us by 
the same method. 

" I had another view likewise in the same passages, and 



AGE OF REASON. 199 

applicable to the same end, of giving the reader a more en- 
larged notion on the question in dispute, who, by turning 
his thoughts, to reflect on the works of the Creator, as they 
are manifested to us in this fabric of the world, could not 
fail to observe, that they are all of them great, noble, and 
suitable to the majesty of his nature, carrying with them 
the proofs of their origin, and showing themselves to be the 
production of an all-wise and almighty Being ; and by 
accustoming his mind to these sublime reflections, he will 
be prepared to determine whether those miraculous inter- 
positions so confidently affirmed to us by the primitive 
Fathers can reasonably be thought to make a part in the 
grand scheme of the divine administration, or whether it be 
agreeable that God, who created all things by his will, and 
can give what turn to them he pleases by the same will, 
should, for the particular purposes of his government and 
the services of the Church, descend to the expedient of visions 
and revelations, granted sometimes to boys for the instruc- 
tion of the elders, and sometimes to women to settle the 
fashion and length of their veils, and sometimes to pastors 
of the Church to enjoin them to ordain one man a lecturer, 
another a priest ; or that he should scatter a profusion of 
miracles around the stake of a martyr, yet all of them vain 
and insignificant, and without any sensible effect, either of 
preserving the life, or easing the sufferings of the saint ; or 
even of mortifying his persecutors who were always left to 
enjoy the full triumph of their crue ty, and the poor martyr 
to expire in a miserable death. When these things, I say, 
are brotisht to the original test, and compared with the 
genuine and indisputable works of the Creator, how minute, 
how trifling, how contemptible must they be ! and how 
incredible must it be thought, that for the instruction of his 
church God should employ ministers ?o precarious and un- 
satisfactory and inadequate, as the ecstacies of women and 
boys, and the visions of interested priests, which were 
derided at the very time by men of sense to whom they were 
proposed ! 

" That this universal law (continues Middleton, meaning 
the law revealed in the works of the Creation) was actually 
revealed to the heathen world long before the gospel was 
known, we learn from all the principal sages of antiquity, 
who made it the capital subject of their studies and writings. 

" Cicero (says Middleton) has given us a short abstract 
of it in a fragment still remaining from one of his books on 



200 AGE OF REASON. 

government, which (says Middleton) I shall here transcribe 
in his own words, as they will illustrate my sense also in the 
passages that appear so dark and dangerous to my antagonist. 

" ' The true law (it is Cicero who speaks) is right reason 
conformable to the nature of things, constant, eternal, 
diffused through all, which calls us to duty by commanding, 
deters us from sin by forbidding ; which never loses its 
influence with the good, nor ever preserves it with the 
wicked. This law cannot be overruled by any other, nor 
abrogated in whole or in part ; nor can we be absolved 
from it either by the senate or by the people, nor are we to 
seek any other comment or interpreter of it but itself ; nor 
can there be one law at Rome, and another at Athens one 
now and another hereafter ; but the same eternal immutable 
law comprehends all nations, at all times, under one common 
master and governor of all GOD. He is the inventor, 
propounder, enaotor of this law ; and whoever will not 
obey it must fir.-t renounce himself and throw off the nature 
of man ; by doing which he will suffer the greatest punish- 
ments, though he should escape all the other torments which 
are commonly believed to be prepared for the wicked.' 
Here ends the quotation from Cicero. 

" Our doctors (continues Middleton) perhaps will look on 
this as RANK DEISM : but, let them call it what they will, I 
shall ever avow and defend it as the fundamental, essential, 
and vital part of all true religion." Here ends the quota- 
tion from Middleton. 

I have here given the reader two sublime extracts from 
men who lived in ages of time far remote from each other, 
but who thought alike. Cicero lived before the time in 
which they tell us Christ was born. Middleton may be 
called a man of our own time, as he lived within the same 
century with ourselves. 

In Cicero we see that vast superiority of mind, that 
sublimity of right reasoning and justness of ideas which 
man acquires, not by studying Bibles and Testaments, and 
the theology of schools built thereon, but by studying the 
Creator in the immensity and unchangeable order of his 
Creation, and the immutability of his law. There cannot, 
says Cicero, be one law now, and another hereajter, but the 
same eternal, immutable law comprehends all nations at all 
times, under one common master and governor of all GOD. 
But according to the doctrine of schools which priests have 
set up, we see one law, called the Old Testament, given in 



AGE OF REASON. 201 

one age of the world, and another law, called the New 
Testament, given in another age of the world. As all this 
is contradictory to the eternal, immutable nature, and the 
unerring and unchangeable wisdom of God, we must be 
compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and 
the new law, called the Old and the New Testament, to be 
impositions, fables, and forgeries. 

In Middleton we see the manly eloquence of an enlarged 
mind, and the genuine sentiments of a true believer in his 
Creator. Instead of reposing his faith on books, by what- 
ever name they may be called, whether Old Testament or 
New, he fixes the Creation as the great original standard by 
which every other thing called the word or work of God is to 
be tried. In this we have an indisputable scale whereby to 
measure every word or work imputed to him. If the thing 
so imputed carries not in itself the evidence of the same 
almightiness of power, of the same unerring truth and 
wisdom, and the same unchangeable order in all its parts, 
as are visibly demonstrated to our senses, and comprehensible 
by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the universe, 
that word or that work is not of God. Let, then, the books 
called the Old and New Testament be tried by this rule, 
and the result will be that the authors "of them, whoever 
they were, will be convicted of forgery. 

The invariable principles and unchangeable order which 
regulate the movements of all the parts that compose the 
universe, demonstrate, both to our senses and our reason, 
that its Creator is a God of unerring truth. But the Old 
Testament, beside the numberless absurd and bagatelle 
stories it tells of God, represents him as a God of deceit, 
a God not to be confided in. Ezekiel makes God to say, 
chapter xiv., veise 9 : " And if the prophet be deceived when 
he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that pro- 
phet." And at the 20th chapter, verse 25, he makes God, 
in speaking of the children of Israel, to say, ""Wherefore 1 
gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments 
whereby they should not live." This, so far being the word 
of God, is horrid blasphemy against him. Eeader, put thy 
confidence in thy God, and put no trust in the Bible. 

The same Old Testament, after telling us that God created 
the heavens and the earth in six days, makes the same 
almighty power and eternal wisdom employ itself in giving 
directions how a priest's garments should be cut, and what 
sort of stuff they should be made of, and what their offerings 



202 AGE OF HE A SON. 

should be gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, 
and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins 
dyed red, and badgers' skins, &c., chapter xxv,, verse 3 ; and 
in one of the pretended prophesies I have just examined, 
God is made to give directions how they should kill, cook, 
and eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, And Ezekiel, chapter iv., 
to fill up the measure of abominable absurdity, makes God 
to order him to take " wheat, and barley, and beans, and 
lentils, and millet, and fitchets, and make thee bread thereof, 
and bake it with human dung and eat it ; " but as Ezekiel 
complained that this mass was too strong for his stomach, 
the matter was compromised from men's dung to cow-dung, 
Ezekiel, chapter iv. Compare all this ribaldry, blasphem- 
ously called the Word of God, with the Almighty power 
that created the universe, and whose eternal wisdom directs 
and governs all its mighty movements, and we shall be at a 
loss to find a name sufficiently contemptible for it. 

In the promises which the Old Testament pretends that 
God made to his people, the same derogatory ideas of him 
prevail. It makes God to promise to Abraham, that his 
seed should be like the stars in heaven and the sand on the 
sea shore for the multitude, and that he would give them 
the land of Canaan as their inheritance for ever. But 
observe, reader, how the performance of this promise was to 
begin and then ask thine own reason, if the wisdom of God, 
whose power is equal to his will, could, consistently with 
that power and that wisdom, make such a promise. 

The performance of the promise was to begin, according 
to that book, by 400 years of bondage and affliction. 
Genesis, chapter xv., verse 13. " And God said unto 
Abraham, Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a 
stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, 
and they shall afflict them 400 years." This promise, then, 
to Abraham and his seed for ever to inherit the land of 
Canaan, had it been a fact instead of a fable, was to operate 
in the commencement of it, as a curse upon all the people 
and their children, and their children's children for 400 
years. 

But the case is, the book of Genesis was written after 
the bondage in Egypt had taken place ; and, in order to get 
rid of the disgrace of the Lord's chosen people, as they call 
themselves, being in bondage to the Gentiles, they make 
God to be the author of it, and annex it as a condition to a 
pretended promise ; as if God, in making that promise, had 



AGE OF REASON. 203 

exceeded his power in performing it, and, consequently, his 
wisdom in making it, and was obliged to compromise with 
them for one half, and with the Egyptians, to whom they 
were to be in bondage, for the other half. 

Without degrading my own reason by bringing those 
wretched and contemptible tales into a comparative view 
with the Almighty power and eternal wisdom which the 
Creator hath demonstrated to our senses in the creation of 
the universe, I will confine myself to say, that if we compare 
them with the divine and forcible sentiments of Cicero, the 
result will be, that the human mind has degenerated by 
believing them. Man, in a state of grovelling superstition, 
from which he has not courage to rise, loses the energy of 
his mental powers. 

I will not tire the^reader with more observations^ on the 
Old Testament. 

As to the New Testament, if it be brought and tried by 
that standard, which, as Middleton wisely says, God has 
revealed to our senses of his Almighty power and wisdom in 
the creation and government of the visible universe, it will 
be found equally as false, paltry, and absurd as the Old. 

Without entering, in this place, into any other argument, 
that the story of Christ is of human invention, and not of 
divine origin, I will confine myself to show that it is 
derogatory to God, by the contrivance of it ; because the 
means it supposes God to use are not adequate to the 
Almightiness of his power and the eternity of his wisdom. 

The New Testament supposes that God sent his Son upon 
earth to make a new covenant with man, which the church 
calls the convenant of Grace, and to instruct mankind in a 
new doctrine, which it calls faith, meaning thereby, not faith 
in God, for Cicero and all true Deists always had and 
always will have this but faith in the person called Jesus 
Christ, and that whoever had not this faith should, to use 
the words of the New Testament, be DAMNED. 

Now, if this were a fact, it is consistent with that attribute 
of God called his goodness, that no time should be lost in 
letting poor unfortunate man know it : and as that goodness 
was united to Almighty power, and that power to Almighty 
wisdom, all the means existed in the hand of the Creator to 
make it known immediately over the whole earth, in a 
manner suitable to the Almightiness of his divine nature, 
and with evidence that would not leave man in doubt ; for 
it is always incumbent upon us, in all cases, to believe that 



J04 AGE OF REASON. 

the Almighty always acts, not by imperfect means, as im- 
perfect man acts, but consistently with his Almightiness. 
It is this only that can become the infallible criterion by 
which we can possibly distinguish the works of God from 
the works of man. 

Observe now, reader, how the comparison between this 
supposed mission of Christ, on the belief or disbelief of 
which they say man was to be saved or damned observe, 
I say, how the comparison between this and the Almighty 
power and wisdom of God demonstrated to our senses in the 
visible creation, goes on. 

The Old Testament tells us that God created the heavens 
and the earth, and everything therein, in six days. The 
term six days, is ridiculous enough when applied to God ; 
but leaving out that absurdity, it contains the idea of 
Almighty power acting unitedly with Almighty wisdom, to 
produce an immense work, that of the creation of the 
universe and everything therein, in a short time. 

Now, as the eternal salvation of man is of much greater 
importance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, 
as the New Testament tells us, on man's knowledge of and 
belief in the person called Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows 
from our belief in the goodness and justice of God, and our 
knowledge of his Almighty power and wisdom, as demon- 
strated in the creation, that ALL THIS, if true, would be made 
known to all parts of the world, in as little time, at least, as 
was employed in making the world. To suppose the 
Almighty would pay greater regard and attention to the 
creation and organisation of inanimate matter, than he would 
to the salvation of innumerable millions of souls, which 
himself had created " as the image of himself" is to offer an 
insult to his goodness and his justice. 

Now, observe, reader, how the promulgation of this pre- 
tended salvation by a knowledge of and a belief in Jesus 
Christ went on, compared with the work of creation. 

In the first place, it took longer time to make a child than 
to make the world, for nine months were passed away and 
totally lost in a state of pregnancy : which is more than 
forty times longer time than God employed in making the 
world, according to the Bible account. Secondly, several 
years of Christ's life were lost in a state of human infancy : 
but the universe was in maturity the moment it existed. 
Thirdly, Christ, as Luke asserts, was thirty years old before 
he began to preach what they call his mission : millions of 



AGE OF REASON. 205 

souls died in the meantime without knowing it. Fourthly, 
it was above 300 years from that time before the book called 
the New Testament was compiled into a written copy, before 
which time there was no such book. Fifthly, it was above 
a thousand years after that, before it could be circulated, 
because neither Jesus nor his apostles had knowledge of, or 
were inspired with the art of printing : and consequently, 
as the means for making it universally known did not exist, 
the means were not equal to the end, and therefore it is not 
the work of God. 

I will here subjoin the 19th Psalm, which is truly 
Deistical, to show how universally and instantaneously the 
works of God make themselves known, compared with this 
pretended salvation by Jesus Christ. 

Psalm 19th "The heavens declare the glory of God; 
and the firmament showeth his handy-work. Day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. 
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not 
heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and 
their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a 
tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out 
of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his 
circuit unto the ends of it ; and there is nothing hid from 
the heat thereof." 

Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been 
inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters 
that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had 
known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have 
believed it ; whereas, though it is now almost 2,000 years 
since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a 
twentieth part of the people of 'the earth know anything of 
it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it. 

I have n >w, reader, gone through all the passages called 
the prophesies of Jesus Christ, and shown there is no such 
thing. 

I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and com- 
pared the several circumstances of it with that revelation, 
which, as Middletou wisely says, God has made to of his 
power and wisdom in the structure of the universe, and by 
which everything ascribed to him is to be tried. The result 
is, that the story of Christ has not one trait, either in its 
character, or in the means employed, that bears the least 
resemblance to the power and wisdom of God, as demon- 



206 AGE OF REASON. 

strated in the creation of the universe. All the means are 
human means, slow, uncertain, and inadequate to the accom- 
plishment of the end proposed ; and therefore the whole is a 
fabulous invention, and undeserving of credit. 

The priests of the present day profess to believe it. They 
gain their living by it, and they exclaim against something 
they call infidelity. I will define what it is. HE THAT BE- 
LIEVES IN THE STORY OF CHRIST IS AN INFIDEL TO GOD. 



CONTRADICTORY DOCTRINES BETWEEN 
MATTHEW AND MARK. 

In the New Testament, Mark, chapter xvi., verse 16, it 
is said, " He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved ; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned." This is making 
salvation, or, in other words, the happiness of man after 
this life, to depend entirely on believing, or on what Chris- 
tians call faith. 

But the 25th chapter of The Gospel according to Matthew 
makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doctrine to 
The Gospel according to Mark ; for it makes salvation or the 
future happiness of man, to depend entirely on good works ; 
and those good works are not good works done to God, for 
he needs them not, but good works done to man. 

The passage referred to in Matthew is the account there 
given of what is called the last day, or the day of judgment, 
where the whole world is represented to be divided into two 
parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, metaphorically 
called the sheep and the goats. 

To the part, called the righteous, or the sheep, it says, 
" Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world : for I was 
an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, 
and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was 
in prison, and ye came unto me. 

" Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, 
when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee ? or thirsty, 
and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and 
took thee in ? or naked, and clothed thee ? Or when saw 
we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee ? 

" And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, 
I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 



AGE OF REASON. 207 

Here is nothing about believing in Christ nothing about 
that phantom of the imagination called faith. The works 
here spoken of are works of humanity and benevoleuce, 
or, in other words, an endeavor to make God's creation 
happy. Here is nothing about preaching and making long 
prayers, as if God must be dictated to by man : nor abouc 
building churches and meetings, nor hiring priests to pray 
and preach in them. Here is nothing about predestination, 
that lust which some men have for damning one another. 
Here is nothing about baptism, whether by sprinkling or 
plunging ; nor about any of those ceremonies for which the 
Christian church has been fighting, persecuting, and burning 
each other, ever since the Christian church began. 

If it be asked, Why do not the priests preach the doctrine 
contained in this chapter ? the answer is easy they are not 
fond of practising it themselves. It does not answer for 
their trade. They had rather get than give. Charity with 
them begins and ends at home. 

Had it been said, Come, ye blessed ; ye have been liberal 
in paying the preachers of the word, ye have contributed 
largely towards building churches and meeting-houses, there 
is not a hired priest in Christendom but would have thun- 
dered it continually in the ears of his congregation. But as 
it is altogether on good works done to men, the priests pass 
it over in silence, and they will abuse me for bringing it into 
notice. 



PEIVATE THOUGHTS OF A FUTURE STATE. 

I HAVE said, in the first part of the " Age of Eeason," that 
" I hope for happiness after this life." This hope is com- 
fortable to me, and I presume not to go beyond the comfort- 
able idea of hope, with respect to a future state. 

I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, that he will 
dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice arid 
goodness. I leave all these matters to him as my Creator 
and friend, and I hold it to be presumption in man to make 
an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us 
hereafter. 

I do not believe, because a man and a woman make a 
child, that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obli- 
gation of keeping the being so made in eternal existence 
hereafter. It is in his power to do so, or not to do so, and 
it is not in our power to decide which he will do. 



208 AGE OF REASON. 

The book called the New Testament, which I hold to be 
fabulous, and have shown to be false, gives an account, in 
the 25th chapter of Matthew, of what is there called th& 
last day, or the day of judgment. The whole world, accord- 
ing to the account, is divided into two parts, the righteous 
and the unrighteous, figuratively called the sheep and the 
goats. They are then to receive their sentence. To the 
one, figuratively called the sheep, it says, "Come, ye blessed 
of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world." To the other, figuratively 
called the goats, it says, ' Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." 

Now the case is, the world cannot be thus divided the 
moral world, like the physical world, is composed of nume- 
rous degrees of character, running imperceptibly one into 
another, in such a manner that no fixed point of division 
can be found in either, that point is nowhere or is every- 
where. The whole world might be divided into two parts, 
numerically, but not as to moral character ; and therefore 
the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be 
divided, whose difference is marked by their external figure, 
is absurd. All sheep are still sheep ; all goats are still 
goats ; it is their physical nature to be so. But one part of 
the world are not all good alike, nor the other part all 
wicked alike. There are some exceedingly good ; others 
exceedingly wicked. There is another description of men 
who cannot be ranked with either the one or the other. 
They belong neither to the sheep nor the goats ; and there 
is still another description of them, who are so very insigni- 
ficant both in character and conduct, as not to be worth the 
trouble of damning or saving, or of raising from the dead. 

My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent 
in doing good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals 
happy for this is the only way in which we can serve God 
will be happy hereafter ; and that the very wicked will 
meet with i-ome punishment. But those who are neither 
good nor bad, or are not too insignificant for notice, will be 
dropped entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with 
my idea of God's justice, and with the reason that God has 
given me, and I gratefully know he has given me a large 
share of that divine gift. 

THE END. 



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