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THE

THEOLOGICAL WORKS

THOMAS PAINE,

SECRETARY TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFA1R3 \P THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

THE MOST COMPLETE EDITION EVER FUBLISHED.

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CONTENTS.

PAOE.
Preface - , * ffi
Age of Reason, Part 1st. • . 15
' " — Part 2d. - ... 68

20i
219 227 273 275 301332329 332

Letter to a Friend ... . 161
 to the Hon. T. Erskine, on the prosecution of
Thomas Williams for publishing the Age of Reason 165
Discourse to the Society of Theophilan thropists
Letter to Camille Jordan - - -
¦ Essay on Dream ....
Examination of passages in the New Testament -
T_hflughts on a future state
Reply to the Bishop of Llandaff
Origin of Free-Masonry ...
Letter to Samuel Adams
 to Andrew A. Dean ...
Miscellaneous Pieces • *
POETICAL.
Song — Hail Great Republic, ----- 3
Boston Patriotic Song, - .... 4
Song — To Columbia, &c. ----- 6
Death of General Wolfe, .... 8
Song — Liberty Tree, ..... 9
Impromptu on Bachelor's Hall, - - - 10
Farmer Short's Dog Porter, ----- 11
Impromptu on a Long-nosed Friend, - - 15
The Snow Drop and Critic, a Dialogue, - - - 16
Address to Lord Howe, - - 18
What is Love?  20
From the Castle in the Air, to the Little Corner of the World, 21
Contentment ; or, if you please, Confession, - - - 23
Lines Extempore, July, 1808, - - - - 24
Letter to George Washington, ... 3
Letters to the Citizens of the United States, - - - 45
Will of Thomas Paine,  93
Epitaph for the Tomb of Paine, by a Friend, - - 96

CONTENTS.
MISCELLANEOUS. Pag*
Case of the Officers of the Excise, - - - 3
Petition to the Board of Excise, - "*
Letter to Dr. Goldsmith, ----- 17
Introduction to the Pennsylvania Magazine, - - - 18
Cupid and Hymen, ------ IS
Anecdote of Lord Malmsbury, - - - - 2*.
Letter to a friend, ------ ao
Mathematical Question proposed, - - - - 24
Description of a new Electrical Machine, - - • %>
New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great, - - 28
Letter to Thomas Clio Rickman, - - - - 30
Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive, - • - 31
Letter to a Friend in Philadelphia, - - - - 36
Letter to Sir George Staunton, on Iron Bridges, - - 38
Preface to General Lee's Memoirs, - - - - 46
To Forgetfulness, ------ 48
Letter to a Gentleman at New York, - - - 55
Essay on the Yellow Fever, - - - - 57
Letter to a Friend, ------ 64
Address and Declaration - 65
On the Construction of Iron Bridges, - - 69
Useful and Entertaining Hints, - - - - - ?5
On the Utility of Magazines, 80
Letter to Elihu Palmer, ----- 85
Communication to the " Citizen," - - - - 86

PREFACE.

Had not religion been made an article of merchandise, and a
class of men set apart to retail it for the benefit of themselves,
the enormous evils that have resulted, would not have occurred.
As it is,' an opposition to the dogmas of a preacher of any de
nomination has a direct tendency, by lowering his tenets in the
estimation of the public, to depreciate the profits of his trade.
In self defence, therefore, he turns upon the assailant, and ap
plies to him names to which he attaches opprobrious meanings,
such as heretic, infidel, &c. Heretic, however, in the literal
sense of the term, means simply a person who entertains an
opinion on doctrinal points of religion contrary to the generally
received opinion, at any particular period. Thus the catholics,
by way of reproach, denominate the protestants heretics, and the
protestants, in their turn, apply the same epithet to universalists
and unitarians. The late Rev. John Mason, to show his strong
disapprobation of the latter sect, went so far as to declare to his
congregation, that he would not disgrace the devil so much as to
compare them to him.
As to the term infidel, all sects are infidels to each other, in
consequence of the discrepance in their respective tenets, which
laymen have taken no more part in forming than in their own
creation. They are made for them by persons who are paid for
their services, and whose interest it is to render them obscure,
that they may require explanation. As well, therefore, might
mankind quarrel about their stature, as about a difference of
opinions in the acquirement of which they have been entirely
passive, and of the truth of which, neither laymen nor their
teachers can have the least possible knowledge.
The whole mystery, as before observed, of the heart burnings
and ill will among Christian sects, arises from having made of
religion a trade ; which has caused a rivalry and contention

IV PREFACE.
among the professors of the art of soul-saving that would dis
grace any other business whatever. It is of course the interest
of every sectarian preacher to draw after him as many hearers
as possible, in order to increase his emoluments ; and the means
naturally suggested to effect this, is to abuse and vilify all other
schemes of salvation but his own.
Thus have religious parties been formed, and deadly animosi
ties engendered and cherished throughout Christendom ever since
the introduction of the Jewish and Christian dogmas ; and the
gibbet and the stake have been appealed to as the ultimate rea
son of fanatics. Well, therefore, might the venerable John
Adams exclaim, as reported by Jefferson, " This would be the
best of worlds, if there were no religion in it."
The only cu^e for the evils of religion, the curse of supersti
tion, which has been entailed upon mankind by an interested
priesthood, is for every one to think for himself, and not pay
others to think for him ; to reassume that common sense with
which nature has endowed him, and of which he has been de
prived by his spiritual teachers.
" We have," says Jefferson, (see Correspondence, vol. iv. p.
322,) " most unwisely committed to the hierophants of our par
ticular superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of
the universe. We have given them stated and privileged days
to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their ora
cles tp the people in mass, and of moulding their minds as wax
in the hollow of their hands. But in despite of their fulminations
against endeavours to enlighten the general mind, to improve
the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use of it,
the liberality of this state will support this institution,* and give
fair play to the cultivation of reason."
The manner in which ministers of the gospel are got up, is
worthy a passing notice. Young men who receive a collegiate
education, are governed in the choice of business, by the advice
of parents, the opinion they entertain of the abilities they pos
sess, or the apparent prospect of the greatest gain in either of
the learned professions, without regard to their religious propen
sities. Those who determine on divinity, in the last year of
their term at college, hold conference meetings, and exercise
themselves in the art of praying, and in disquisitions on religion
Divines thus formed, can readily accommodate their religion
to circumstances. If they find the pulpit overstocked in the
persuasion in which they were educated, they often change their
opinion, and adopt another creed. There are several instances
in this city, of young men, who were educated presbyterians,
becoming episcopal clergymen, in consequence, as they declared
to intimate friends, of that church paying better than the one
they abandoned. Men of liberal education, who have gained
* The University of Charlottesville, in Virginia, of which Mr. Jefferson
was the founder.

PREFACE. V
some knowledge of the frauds of religion, can easier change
their creeds than sincere devotees who are duped by them.
And what does their preaching amount to 1 What is the mighty
boon obtained, as is said, by the excruciating sufferings even of
a God ; the glad tidings trumpeted forth by divines, and hailed
with great joy by their grateful hearers 1 What is it, but that a
very small portion of the human species will be made happy in
another life, and that the remainder will be roasted, in a brim
stone fire, to all eternity ? Are these glad tidings 1 Are they
not rather to be deprecated as the tidings of damnation 1 Shall
human reason be tortured for arguments in proof of a doctrine
so abhorrent to justice and humanity ; so abhorrent to any ration
al idea that can be conceived of a Creator, and of every principle
of right and wrong established among men 1 • The chances in
this lottery of life and death, according to the statements of the
ologians, are at least, a thousand to one against every living soul ;
and yet the scheme is cherished as an infinite benefit to mankind.
And what are the alleged causes that involved the human race
in this shocking predicament ? Why, that a woman in some age
of the world, nobody knows when or where, eat an apple, or
some other fruit, contrary to the commands of her Maker.
" The very head and front of her offending
Hath this extent, no more."
'Upon this pitiful story, the whole foundation of priestcraft is
mid. It is followed up with the sacrifice of a god to atone for
the monstrous offence of poor Eve ; and then comes the great
benefit of the boasted atonement ; which, by the way, is to pro-
cure salvation only for those who had been previously elected
for that purpose ; and who are coerced into the true faith through
the instrumentality of the Holy Ghost, without the least claims
on account of their own merits ; whilst the rest, who could be
no more implicated in the faux pas of the first pair than the
former, are debarred that favour by an absolute decree. " With
out controversy, great is the mystery of godliness."
It is matter of surprise that any person, who believes in the
existence of a Supreme Being, should have the hardihood to at
tribute to him such deliberate cruelty, such pitiful subterfuge,
such palpable mockery of justice ?
All clergymen deem themselves to be numbered among the
elect, and are so considered by their followers ; and that the bulk
of their congregations are doomed to perdition. In this point of
view, it is heart-rending for a man of sense and feeling to wit
ness with what sang froid, and cruel, I had almost said savage
exultation, they expatiate upon the ' tortures of the damned ;
whilst their hearers, as tame and passive as lambs, listen with
reverential awe and respect, and appear to acquiesce in the just
ness oftheir condemnation. In fact, the members of presbyte
rian congregations, in general, would not like their minister if he

PREFACE.

did not preach hell fire as the just reward of their backslidings,
and want of faith and zeal in the cause of Christ ; and in default
thereof, would change him for another more orthodox. As is
required, they profess a willingness to be damned, provided
nevertheless, that the glory of God shall be thereby enhanced.
The following are fair samples of the eternal ding-dong upon
this subject, with which calvinistic divines regale their hearers.
The late Dr. Jonathan Edwards, (whose writings are highly
applauded by the English reviewers, who seem to consider it
their interest to commend those whose aim is to stupify and
besot the minds of the people,) in a sermon on the duration and
torments of hell, says,
" Be entreated to consider attentively how great and awful a
thing Eternity is. Although you cannot comprehend it the more
by considering, yet you may be made more sensible that it is not
a thing to be disregarded. Do but consider what it is to suffer
extreme pain for ever and ever ; to suffer it day and night, from
one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to
another, from one thousand ages to another ; and so adding age
to age, and thousands to thousands, in pain, in wailing and tor
menting, groaning and shrieking, and gnashing your teeth ; with
your souls full of dreadful grief and amazement, with your bodies,
and every member of them, full of racking torture ; without any
possibility of getting ease ; without any possibility of moving
God to pity by your cries ; without any possibility of hiding
yourselves from him ; without any possibility of diverting your
thoughts from your pain ; without any possibility of obtaining
any manner of mitigation, or help, or change for the better.
How dismal will it be, when you are under these racking tor
ments, to know assuredly that you never, never shall be deliver
ed from them." — " The saints in glory will be far more sensible
how dreadful the wrath of God is, and will better understand
how terrible the sufferings of the damned are, yet this will be no
occasion of grief to them, but rejoicing. They will not be sorry
for the damned ; it will cause no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to
them, but, on the contrary, when they see this sight it will occa
sion rejoicing and excite them to joyful praises."
The Rev. Dr. Emmons, of Massachusetts, distinguished for
his piety and biblical knowledge, gives the following lively de
scription of the joys of the elect, contrasted with the sufferings
of the reprobated :
" The happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist in
witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, and among these
it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and
friends on earth.
" One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the
doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is ex
ternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their
torment will be eternally ascending in the view of the vessels of

PREFACE. Vll
mercy, who instead of taking the part of those miserable objects,
will say amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord.
" When the saints shall see how great the misery is from
which God hath saved them, and how great a difference he hath
made between their state, and the state of others who were by
nature, and perhaps by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving
than they, it will give them more a sense of the wonderfulness
of God's grace to them. Every time they look upon the damn
ed, it will excite in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace
of God in making them so to differ. The sight of hell torments
will exalt the happiness ofthe saints for ever."
Dr. Parish, of the same state, in a sermon delivered in the
time of our late war with England, in denunciation of his coun
trymen who rendered it their support, exclaimed, " How will
the supporters of this anti-christian warfare endure their sen
tence, endure their own reflections ; endure the fire that for wer
burns : the worm that never dies ; the hosannas ot neaven. whne
the smoke oftheir torments will ascend Jor ever and ever .'"
Notwithstanding the confidence and apparent self-security in
which presbyterian ministers aniinao/ail upon the vindictive spirit
ofthe Almighty, and the horrors of that hell, which, according tG
them, he has prepared for the reception of the greatest portion
of his creatures, if reliance can be had upon the view taken of
the means necessary for salvation bv the late Bishop Hobart,'
their condensation is inevitable.
The grand panacea for the cure of all evil, and the restoration
of man to the favour of the Deity, seems, with the bishop, to
consist in the due administration cf the rite of baptism. In his
Companion to the Altar, he says :
" In this church, the body which derives nte. strenatn and
salvation from Christ its head, baptism was instituted as tne sa
cred rite of admission. In this regenerating ordinance, fallen
man is born again from a state of condemnation to a state of
grace. He obtains a title to the presence of the Holy Spirit, to
the forgiveness of sins, to all those precious and immortal bless
ings which the blood of Christ purchased." Com. for the Allar,
ed. 1824, p. 186.
" Wherever the gospel is promulgated, the only mode through
which we can obtain a title to those blessings and privileges
which Christ has purchased for his mystical body, the church, is
the sacrament of baptism. Repentance, j'aith, and obedience, will
not of themselves be effectual to our salvation. We may sin
cerely repent of our sins — heartily believe the. Gospel ; we may
walk in the paths of holy obedience : but until we enter , into
covenant with God by baptism, and ratify our vows of allegiance
and duty at the holy sacrament of the Supper — commemorate
the mysterious sacrifice of Christ, we cannot assert any claim to
salvation." Jo. pp. 189—90.

Till PREFACE.
" In order to be effectual, to be acknowledged by God, and
accompanied by his power, they (the sacraments) must be ad
ministered by those who have received a commission for the
purpose from him." — " None can possess authority to adminis
ter the sacraments but those who have received a commission
from the bishops of the church." — " Great is the guilt and im
minent the danger of those who negligently or wilfully continue
in a state of separation from the authorised ministrations of the
church, and participate of ordinances administered by an irregu
lar and invalid authority" — " wilfully rending the peace and unity
of the church, by separating from the administration of its au
thorised priesthood ; obstinately contemning the means which
God has prescribed for their salvation. They are guilty of re
bellion against the almighty Lawgiver and Judge ; they expose
themselves to the awful displeasure of that almighty Jehovah,
who will not suffer his institutions to be contemned, or his au
thority violated, with impunity." 76. pp. 198 — 200 : 203 — 4.
This is all fair as a matter of trade. The rivalry for adher
ents constantly carried on among the various denominations of
Christians, justifies every divine in endeavouring to draw as
many gulls to his shop as possible ; and the end must sanctify
the means.
From this nonsense, advanced even by wise men, with a view
of promoting their interests, it is pleasant to turn to the writings
of philosophers who have not the same inducements.
Thomas Jefferson speaks of religion as every man of common
sense, not under the influence of early impressions before the
mind is capable of distinguishing right from wrong, thinks ; and
as every honourable man, who wishes to benefit his species,
ought to express himself.
The following sentiments are extracted from his correspond
ence with his old revolutionary colleague, John Adams, whose
minds seem in perfect unison on the subject treated of; both
must be actuated by the purest motives of humanity, as no sinis
ter views could possibly be entertained at the late period in which
the letters w«re written.
" I remember to have heard Dr. Priestleysay, that if all Eng
land would candidly examine themselves, and confess, they would
find that unitarianism was really the religion of all. It is too
late in the day ftw men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the
Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three ; and
yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one : to divido
mankind by a single letter into homoousians and homoiousians.
But this constitutes the craft, the power, and the profit of the
priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of factitious reli
gion, and they, would catch no more flies. We should all then,
like the Quakers, live without an order of priests, moralize for
ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothino1 about
what no man can understand nor therefore believe ; for I sup-

PREFACE. fg
pose belief to be the assent pf the mind to an intelligible propo
sition." Vol. iv. p. 205.
" The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrine of Christ
levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explana
tion, saw in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they
might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indis
tinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for
their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence.
The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are
within the comprehension of a child ; but thousands of volumes
have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them ; and
for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.
Their purposes, however, are answered. Plato is canonized ;
and it is bow deemed as impious to question his merits as those
of an apostle of Jesus." Ib. p. 242.
" The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the hap
piness of man. But compare with these the demoralizing dog
mas of Calvin.
" 1. That there are three Gods.^2. That good works, oi the
love of our neighbour, are nothing.rrr-3. That faith is every
thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more
merit in its faith.— -4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
, — 5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals
to be saved, and certain others to be damned ; and that no
crimes of the former can damn them ; no virtues of the latter,
save. " Now, which of these is the tnie and charitable Christian ;
he who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus, or the
impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin 1" lb. p. 349.
*• The wishes expressed in your last favour, that I may con
tinue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, would make
me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his God.
He was indeed an atheist, which I can never be ; or rather his
religion was daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false God,
he- did. The being described in his five points, is not the God
whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the creator and benevo
lent governor of the world ; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It
would be more pardonable to believe in no God at ail, than to
blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin. Indeed, I
think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to atheism by
their general dogma, that, without a revelation, there would not
be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now, one-sixth of
mankind only are supposed to be Christians : the other five-
sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian rev
elation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a God !"
Ib.p. 363.
" The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious reading in
the four words, ' Be just and good,' is that in which all our in
quiries must end ; as the riddles of all the priesthoods end in four

X PREFACE.
more, 'Ubi panis, ibi deus.' " Ib. p. 300. Where there it bread,
there is God. That is, whatever religion is most conducive
to the interests of the clergy, that they will preach. This is
what the professors of every otner kind of business do. If any
community of people should prefer five wheels to a coach, and
would give high prices for such, a coach-maker would act very
unwisely to refuse to accommodate them. The clergy are,
therefore, not so much to blame as the people who take their
quack medicines and pay very dear for them. If praying be of
any service, every one knows what he stands most in need of,
and should therefore prefer his own petitions, instead of paying
others for doing it. And as for moral instruction, there are cer
tainly books enough extant upon that subject, the cost of which
is nothing in comparison to what is paid for oral sermons.
Let the people shake off the shackles with which they are
bound by the existing priestcraft, and profess a manly religion,
founded upon moral virtue alone, divested of all creeds, as the
sure and only foundation of happiness here and hereafter, and
they would soon find teachers enough who would accommodate
themselves to their wishes. In this case, useful, scientific in
struction would form a prominent part of the preacher's duty.
How much more pleasant and satisfactory would such a course
be, than in listening to the eternal repetition of stupid, unintelli
gible dogmas, which can never be of the least possible advan
tage. The religious opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, John Adams, and
a host of wise and good men in Europe and America, differ in no
respect from those of Thomas Paine. Yet he has been singled
out particularly as a mark for the priesthood to aim their most
deadly shafts. This, no doubt, arose from fear that his writings
would prove more destructive to the craft than those of other
liberal writers, on account of the bold, plain common sense which
distinguishes his compositions.
Mr. Paine's natural goodness of heart seems to have rendered
him sceptical in the prevailing religious dogmas, at an early pe
riod. He says, " 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 know which it was, but I well remember, when about
seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read upon the
Redemption, by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon
was ended, I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard ; it
was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had, that
God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to
be under the necessity of doing it. I believed in the same man
ner to this moment."
Of Jesus Christ he speaks in the following terms : " The
morality that he preached and practised was of the most benevo
lent kind ; according to his declarations, in the 25th chapter of

PREFACE. Xl
Matthew, he makes salvation, or the future happiness of man, to
depend entirely upon good works. Here is nothing about pre
destination, that lust which some men have for damning one an
other. Here is nothing about baptism, whether sprinkling or
plunging, nor about any of those ceremonies for which the Chris
tian church has been fighting, persecuting and burning each other,
ever since the Christian church began."
In another part, he says, " My own opinion is, that those whose
lives have been spent in . doing good, and endeavouring to make
their fellow mortals happy, for this is the only way in which we
can serve God, will be happy hereafter : and that the very wicked
will meet with some punishment. This is my opinion. It is
consistent with my idea of God's justice, and with the reason
that God has given me."
Why should Mr. Paine be reprobated for these opinions, and
the clergy, who proclaim the eternal damnation of their species,
be approved of and applauded? The reason is plain. The
clergy " mould the minds of the people like w^x in the hollow of
their hands." They well know, if Paine's principles prevail,
their consequence and high salaries would be at an end. Hence
the outcry against him and those who adopt his opinions. King's,
in the first instance, created a band of priests to tyrannize, over
the mental faculties of man, that they might the more readily
enslave him ; and the American republic imbibed the malady
through a predisposition to infection inherited from their' ances
tors. .The business of life is incorporated with priestcraft, and
whoever takes an honorable part in vindication of truth, is sure to
meet with abuse. The doctrine of let us alone, is the constant
cry of priests, and the fear of censure from the pulpit creates
and fosters the detestable crime of hypocrisy.
The flatteries and respect shown to the clerical character, of
all denominations, has induced some of the profession to adopt a
language towards their opponents truly astonishing. In fact,
many preachers of the Gospel of Christ, seem to consider them
selves licenced calumniators, and that they have a right, by vir
tue of their office, to abuse the whole human race, as enemies to
God and all righteousness.
A few years since, a young preacher of the Methodist connec
tion arrived in this country from England. He laid great claims
to religious endowments, and, in consequence of his pertness
and assurance, was highly caressed by the members of his church.
Emboldened by the attentions he received, in order to show
his zeal for the cause, he had the effrontery, at a tract society
meeting, to express himself in the following terms : " I thank
God, that the bones of Tom Paine have been rooted up, and no
longer disgrace the soil of our country." No man at the meeting,
or in the public prints since, dared to reprove him. As a man of
God, he was deemed to bp privileged to stigmatize the memory

SU PREFACE.
of one who had so powerfully opposed the clerical scheme of
eternal misery.
The same spirit, which dictated the above declaration, is con
spicuous in an article that lately appeared in the New- York
Herald, supposed to be written by an English clergyman of
the Episcopal church. It is entitled, " The Lone Tomb ; a
scene in Westchester county." The object of it was to eulo
gize the virtues of a young woman who died in New-Rochelle,
at the age of nineteen. Thomas Paine, at the mention of whose
name, the clergy were wont to quake, was also dead, and had
been interred in the same village. What a glorious opportunity —
it was irresistible ; and the pious parson improved it to bespatter
the tomb of the great advocate of human rights ; the vindicator
of the justice and goodness of God ; the opponent of the plead
ers for Calvinistic fire and brimstone. And, strange as it may
appear, he found an American printer who was enjoying, in com
mon with his countrymen, the fruits of Paine's revolutionary ser
vices, indiscreet, sr shall I say, base enough to lend his types in
furtherance of the unholy purpose.
The article concludes as follows : " Here is found the delight
ful village where the pious, but persecuted Huguenots, fleeing
from oppressions of bigotry and intolerance, found a quiet and a
happy home ; and where too is still pointed out the consecrated
little enclosure, in which, when the toils and sufferings of this life
were over, they rested from their labors. And here, alas ! that
the place should be known but to be shunned, — here is yet seen
the ruins of the sad and forsaken spot rendered infamous by the
sepulchre of the infidel Paine ! !"
This consistent Christian writer, in persecuting the memory of
Paine, commits the same outrage that he reprobates in others. —
But, in the one case, it regarded pious Huguenots, Calvinists,
who believed in hell-fire ; in the other an infidel, who was en
deavouring to wrest mankind from the clutches of the clergy, and
to render them happy, here and hereafter, by the mere force of
moral virtue. The difference, in the view of a minister of the
gospel, must be enormous indeed. — But where were nine-tenths
of these believing Huguenots, according to their own doctrine,
after their toils and sufferings were over, to rest? In hell, among
glowing embers ! This is a true statement of the case, and I
leave the reader to his own reflections.
I will mention one more instance of clerical charity and for
bearance. A preacher in the Dutch church, corner of Cedar
and Nassau streets, lately gave vent to the following rodomon
tade : —
" A deist, he said, was no man — he unmans himself— he is
an enemy to science — denies all history, and is a rebel to Jil-
mighty God!" The last clause of the sentence the speaker pro
nounced with great energy, raising at the same time both hands
to heavrn. A gentleman, in company with the reporter, who

, preface. xiii
mistook declamation for argument, on leaving the church, observ
ed, that Mr.  was a most powerful preacher ; and probably
this was the opinion of the bulk of the audience. It is, however,
still a mooted case, which is the greatest rebel to God, the deist
who represents him as benevolent, just and merciful ; or the Cal
vinistic divine who clothes him with attributes that would dis
grace a savage 1
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd ;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes :
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."
By the extracts I have made from the writings and speeches of
clergymen, some might be inclined to think them in general a
very wicked class of men ; but this is by no means the case. —
They are like men in other pursuits of life, some good and some
bad. The system is more in fault, than the professors. They
are hired to teach a certain set of dogmas, which they cannot de
part from without bringing ruin upon themselves. Were a pres
byterian parson, for instance, to say to his congregation, that
God was too benevolent and merciful to punish any of them to
all eternity ; that punishments would be graduated to crimes, and
that if their lives were moral, they need be in no fear of incurring
his displeasure on account of their opinions ; the consequence
would be that every old lady imbued with orthodox principles,
and who had an enemy, on earth, that she wished to be roasted
forever, would immediately quit his church. Their daughters
would take the same course, and the men would be compelled to
follow suit. The parson, consequently, would be left, without
hearers, and without bread. Let us not, then, blame the clergy,
but ourselves. Old bigoted schemes of religion must be broken
down, and plain common sense substituted for them ; and this
must be done by laymen — it is not in the power of the clergy to
effect it.
I will here introduce a few appropriate questions, propounded
by the celebrated Voltaire.
• Next to our holy religion, which would be the least excep
tionable ? Would it not be the most simple — that which taught
a great deal of morality and few doctrines — that which tended to
make men virtuous without making them fools — that which did
not impose the belief of things impossible, contradictory, injuri
ous to the deity, and pernicious to mankind ; and which did not
take on itself to threaten, with eternal punishments, all wh» had
common sense ? Would it not be that which did not support its
articles by executioners, and deluge the world with blood, for un
intelligible sophisms ? Would it not be that which taught only
the adoration of one God, of justice, forbearance and humanity?"
After all that Christian divines have said of the intensity and
eternity of hell-fire, to which, according to them, the greater por-

XIV PREFACE.
tion of mankind are doomed, admitting even, for the sake of ar
gument, the authority of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, there
is not a word in those books which designates the terrific place
represented by them. The Hebrew words Scheol and Hades
which have been translated hell, mean nothing more, as every Jew
can. inform us, than the grave. The Gehinnom of the Old Tes
tament and the Gehenna of the New, also translated hell, mean
the valley of Hinnom ; wherein the Israelites sacrificed their chil
dren to the god Moloch ; and where a fire was continually burn
ing to consume the dead bodies of criminals to whom the rite ot
sepulchre was not granted, as well as the filth of Jerusalem.
Moloch was a name given to a representation or emblem of the
sun, which was itself only a symbol of the divinity, inherited by
the Jews from the Egyptians. The fire in the Valley of Hin
nom, for the purposes before mentioned, was first established by
king Josiah about one thousand years after the supposed death of
Moses, and was not suffered to be extinguished. The insects
which subsisted upon the garbage scattered about this valley were,
of course, never extinct ; hence the exclamation, " Where the
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched !"
Tartarus, once mentioned in the New Testament, is pre-emi
nently the hell of the ancient Greeks and Romans, but owes its
origin to Egypt. The burying ground of Memphis, the ancient
capital of Egypt, was on an island called Elyzout, decorated with
beautiful groves and meadows ; to arrive at which it was necessary
to pass a small lake, on whose margin three Judges were station
ed to examine into the characters of the defunct ; if they proved
good, a passport was given by them to the ferry-man, called Cha
ron, to transmit the bodies, otherwise they were cast into a deep
pit, denominated Tartarus; from whence is probably derived the
expression bottomless pit, made use of in the Apocalypse.
The Egyptians had an idea that the soul after death enjoyed or
suffered with the body ; and, in this respect, the contrast betwe^i
Elyzout and Tartarus must, in their eyes, have appeared infinite.
From this custom of the Egyptians have arisen the fables of the
Greeks and Romans of the pleasures enjoyed by those who had
the good fort uno to arrive at Elyzout, or Elysian fields, as they
called it, and the various torments inflicted upon those doomed to
Tartarus. But it is time for mankind to cease to believe in fables ; to
cease to teach, or hear them taught, as sacred truths ; to study
their real predicament in nature, and to regulate their lives ac
cordingly.
EDITOR.

THE

AGE OF REASON.

TART FIRST.

TO MY

FELLOW CITIZENS

OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

I put the following work under your protection. It contains
my opinion upon Religion. You will do mc the justice to re
member, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of
every Man to his opinion, however different that opinion might
be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave
of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself
the right of changing it.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is
Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.
Your affectionate friend and fellow citizen,
THOMAS PAINE.
Luxembourg, (Paris,) Sth Pulviose,
Second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible.
January 2f , 0. S. 1794.

THE
AGE OF REASON.
PART THE FIRST.
BEING AN INVESTIGATION OF TRUE AND
FABULOUS THEOLOGY.

It has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my
.hoiights upon religion ; I am well aware of the difficulties that
attend the subject, and, from that consideration, had reserved it to
a more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last offer
ing 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 might disapprove the
work The circumstance that has now taken place in France of the
total abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of
every thing appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and
compulsive articles of faith, has not only precipitated my inten
tion, but rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest,
in the general wreck of superstition, of false systems of govern
ment, 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
vith all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man
communicates with itself.

12 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
I lelieve in one God, and no more ; and I hope for happiness
beyond this life.
I believe the equality of man ; and I believe that religious duties
consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make
our fellow creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things
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. 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 Protestint church, nor by any church that I know of. My
own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Chris
tian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions,
set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize 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 believ
ing, or in disbelieving ; it consists in professing to believe what
he 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 thitigs he does not be
lieve, 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. Can we conceive any thing 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 ia
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 princi
ples of religion, that until the system of government should be

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 13
changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly
before the world ; but that whenever this should be done, a revo
lution in the system of religion would follow. Human inven
tions and priest-craft 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 pre
tending some special mission from G od, communicated to certain
individuals. The Jews have their Moses ; the Christians their
Jesus Christ, their apostles, and saints ; and the Turks their Ma-
nomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Each of those churches show certain books, which they call reve
lation, or the word of God. The Jews say, that their word of God
was given by God to Moses, face to face ; the Christians say,
that their word of God came by divine inspiration ; and the Turks
say, that their word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel
from Heaven. Each of those churches accuse the other of un
belief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I
proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations 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 ofthe 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 foprth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those
persons. It is revelation 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 any thing a
revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in
writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communi
cation — 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 hands of God, they were

14 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
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 lawgiver, or a
legislator, could 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 hearsay 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 hearsay upon hearsay, 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 the world, and that mythology had prepared the people
for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men
that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the
sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing, 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 hundreds ;
the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful or ob
scene ; 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, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that God
visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it is contra y to every principle
of moral justice.

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 18
It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the
Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of heathen mythology.
A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making
the reputed founder to be celestially 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 canonization of saints ; the
mycologists had gods for every thing ; the Christian Mythologiste
had saints for every thing ; 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 Mythologists, accommodated to the pur
poses 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 vir
tuous 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 philosophers, many years before ; by the Quakers
since ; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been ex
ceeded by any.
Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parent
age, or any thing else ; not a line of what is called the New
Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is alto
gether the work of other people ; and as to the account given ot
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, ex
ceeds every thing that went before it. The first part, that ofthe
miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity ;
and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this ad
vantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not
be detected. They could not be expected to prove it, because
Lt was not one of those things that admitted of proof, and it was

16 THE AGS OF REASON. [PART I
impossible that the person of whom it was told could prove it
himself. But the resurrection of a dead person from the grave, and his
ascension through the air, is a thing very different as to the evi
dence it admits of, to the invisible conception of a child in the
womb. The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have
taken place, admitted of public and occular demonstration, like
that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all
Jerusalem at least. A thing which every body i3 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 evi-
dence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of per
sons, 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 be
lieve without having occular and manual demonstration himself.
So neither will I, 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 lived in the time this
resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say,
it is not true. It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency
to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth ofthe 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 his
torical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He
preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man ; but
he preached also against the corruptions and avarice ofthe Jew
ish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 17
the whole order of 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 apprehensions of the effects
of his doctrine as well as the Jewish priests ; neither is it impro
bable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the
Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the
two, however, this 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
any thing 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 a 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 himself, Mount Etna belches 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 that circum
stance. The Christian Mythologists tell us, that their Satan made war
against the Almighty, who defeated him, and confined him after
wards, not under a mountain, but in a pit. It is here easy to see
that the first fable suggested the idea of the second ; for the fable
of Jupiter and the Giants was told many hundred 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 fabu
lous 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 sequel ofthe

18 AGE OF REASON. [PART I
fable. He is then introduced into the Garden of Eden in tha
shape of a snake or a serpent, and in that shape he enters into
familiar conversation with Eve, who is no way surprised to hear a
snake talk ; and the issue of this tete-a-tete is, that he persuades
her to eat an apple, and the eating of that apple damns all man
kind. After giving Satan this triumph over the whole creation, one
would have supposed that the church Mythologists would have
been kind enough to send him back to the pit : or, if they had not
done this, that they would have put a mountain upon him, (for
they say that their faith can remove a mountain) or have put him
under a mountain, as the former Mythologists had done, to pre
vent 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 beside, and
Mahomet into the bargain. After this, who can doubt the boun
tifulness ofthe 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 the pit — let him out again — given him a triumph
over the whole creation — damned all mankind by the eating of an
apple, these Christian Mythologists bring the two ends of theii
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 every thing that might excite laughter by its ab
surdity, or detestation by its profaneness, and confining ourselves
merely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible to conceive
a story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with
his wisdom, more contradictory to his power, than this story is.
In order to make. for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventois
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 pit, after what they call his fall, but
thev have made that power increase afterwards to infinity. Before

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 19
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. He 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 crea
tion, all the poww 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 ex
hibit 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 place, they were educated
to believe it, and they would have believed any thing else in the
same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusi
astically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love
of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehe
mence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examin
ing into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more
unnatural any thing is, the more is it capable of becoming the ob
ject 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 1 Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery
ofthe 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 1 Or is the
gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can
flatter it but a sacrifice ofthe Creator'

80 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but it
would be paying too great a compliment to their credulity to for
bear it upon that account ; the times and the subject demand it to
be done. The suspicion that the theory of what is called the
Christian church is fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all
countnes ; and it will be a consolation to men staggering under
that suspicion, and doubting .what to believe and what to disbe
lieve, 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 Revela
tion, (which, by the bye, is a book of riddles that requires a revela
tion to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It is, there
fore, proper for us to know who told us so, that we may know
what credit to give to 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 uncertainty to us
whether such ofthe writings as now appear under the name ofthe
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 word of god, and
which should not. They rejected several ; they voted others to
be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha ; and those
books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word
of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people, since calling
themselves Christians, had believed otherwise — for the belief of
the one comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were
that did all this, we know nothing of, they called themselves by
the general name of the Church ; and this is all we know of the
matter. As we have no other external evidence or authority for believ
ing these books to be the word of God, than what I have men
tioned, which is no evidence or authority a all, I come, in the
next place, to examine the internal evidence contained in tbe
books themselves.

PART !•] THE AGE OF REASON. ill
In the former part of this Essay, I have spoken of revelation. 
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 any thing done upon
earth, of which man is himself the actor or the witness ; and
consequently all the historical and anecdotal part of the Bible,
which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and
compass of the word revelation, and, therefore, is not the word of
God. When Sampson ran off with the gate-posts of Gaza, if he ever
did so, (and whether he did or not is nothing to us,) or when he
visited his Delilah, or caught his foxes, or did any thing else, what
has revelation to do with these things ? If they were facts, he
could tell them himself; or his secretary, if he kept one, could
write them, if they were worth either telling or writing ; and if
they were fictious, revelation could not make them true ; and
whether true or not, we are neither the better nor the wiser for
knowing them. When we contemplate the 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 tradition 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, shows it to be traditionary. It begins abruptly : it is no
body that speaks ; it is nobody that hears ; it is addressed to no
body ; it has neither first, second, or third person ; it has every
criterion of being a tradition, it has no voucher. Moses does not
take it upon himself by introducing it with the formality that ha

32 THE AGE OF REASON. fPART **
, 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 Creation, 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 has been world-makers, and the Israelites had as much
right to set up the trade of world-making as any of the rest ; and
as Moses was not an Israelite, he might not choose to contradict
the tradition. The account, however, is harmless ; and this is
more than can be said of many other parts of the Bible.
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous de
baucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting
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 brutalize mankind ; and, for my own part, I
sincerely detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel.
We scarcely meet with any thing, a few phrases excepted, but
what deserves either our abhorence or our contempt, till we come
to the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous pub
lications, 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 knowledge of life,
which his situation excluded him from knowing) are an instructive
table of ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of
the Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those ofthe
American Franklin.
All the remaining parts of the Bible, generally known by the
name ofthe Prophets, are the works of the Jewish poets and
itinerant preachers, who mixed poetry, anecdote, and devotion

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 23
together — and those works still retain the air and style of poetry,
though in translation.*
There is not, throughout the whole book called the Bible, any
word that describes to us what we call a poet, nor any word that
describes what we call poetry. The case is, that the word pro
phet, 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. Were we now
to speak of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the
expression would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous,
and to some people contemptuous, 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.

* As there are many readers who do not see that a composition is poetry,
unless it be in rhyme, it is for their information that I add this note.
Poetry consists principally in two things — imagery and composition. The
composition of poetry differs from that of prose in the manner of mixing long
and short syllables together. Take a long syllable out of a line of poetry, and
put a short one in the room of it, or put a long syllable where a short one
should be, and that line will lose its poetical harmony. It will have an effect
upon the line like that of misplacing a note in a song.
The imagery in those books, called the prophets, appertains altogether to
poetry. It is fictitious, and often extravagant, and not admissible in any other
kind of wiiting than poetry.
To show that these writings are composed in poetical numbers, I will take
ten syllables, as they stand in the book, and make a line of the same numljer
of syllables (heroic measure) that shall rhyme with the last word. It will
.then be seen that the composition of those books is poetical measure. The
instance I shall produce is from Isaiah : —
" Hear, 0 ye heavens, and give ear, 0 earth !"
'Tis God himself that calls attention forth.
Another instance I shall quote is from the mournful Jeremiah, to which
shall add two other lines, for the purpose of carrying out the figure, and
showing the intention of the poet.
" 0! 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.

24 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
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, per
formed 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 ofthe word prophesy, and substituted another meaning in
its place, this alone would be sufficient ; for it is impossible to
use and apply the word prophesy, in the place it is here used and
applied, if we give to it the sense which latter times have affixed
to it. The manner in which it is here used strips it of all religious
meaning, and shows that a man might then be a prophet, or he
might prophesy, as he may now be a poet, or musician, without
any regard to the morality or immorality of his character. The
word was originally a term of science, promiscuously applied to
poetry and to music, and not restricted to any subject upon which
poetry and music might be exercised.
Deborah and Barak are called prophets, not because they pre
dicted any thing, but because they 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 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 ofthe greater and the lesser prophets. They might
as well tell us ofthe greater and the lesser God ; for there cannot
be degrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. —
But there are degrees in poetry, and therefore the phrase is recon-
cileable to the case, when we understand by it the greater and the
lesser poets.
It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any observations
upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The axe
goes at once to the root, by showing that the original meaning of
* As those men who call themselves divines and commentators, are very
foiid of puzzling one another, I leave them to contest the meaning of the first
fart of the phrase, that of an evil spirit of God. I keep to my text — I keep to
the meaning of the word prophesy.

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 20
the word has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences
that have been drawn from those books, the devotional respect
that has been paid to them, and the laboured commentaries that
have been written upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are
not worth disputing about. In many things, however, the wri
tings 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 ofthe word of God.
If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we
must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but
of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any
means or accident whatever, in that which we would honour with
the name of the word of God ; and therefore the word of God
cannot exist in any written or human language.
. The continually progressive change to which the meaning of
words is subject, the want of an universal language which renders
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
the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the
vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in some
thing else.
Did the book, called the Bible, excel in purity of ideas and
expression all the books 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 exist of my being imposed upon.
But when I see throughout the greatest part of this book, scarcely
any thing but a history of the grossest vices, and a collection of
the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot 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 New Testament ! that is, the new will,
as if there could be two wills of the Creator.
Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to estab
lish 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
4

26 THri AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
like manner that every other person is — for the Creator is the
Father of AH.
The first four books, called Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, do
not give a history of the life of Jesus Christ, but only detached
anecdotes of him. It appears from these books, that the whole
time of his being a preacher was not more than eighteen months ;
and it was only during this short time, that those men became ac
quainted 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 em
ployed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably
he was working at his father's trade, which was that of a car-
f penter. It does not apoear that he had any school education, and
the probability is, that he could not write, for his parents were
extremely poor, as appears from their not being able to pay for a
bed when he was born.
J* 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 Chris'
*ounded no new system. He called men to the practice of moni
virtues, and the belief of one God. The great trait in his cha
racter is philanthropy.
The manner in which he was apprehended, shows that he wlj
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 no other
wise betray him than by giving information where he was, and
pointing him out to the officers that went to arrest him ; and the
reason for employing and paying Judas to do this could arise only
from the cause 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,
on the information of. one of his followers, shows that he did not

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 27
intend to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend
lo he 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 any thing else ?
The declaratory sentence which, they say, was passed upon
Adam, in case he eat of the apple, was not, that thou shalt surely
be 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 tac
tics, 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.
The 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 ex
planation, (including with it the natural death of Jesus Christ
as a substitute for the eternal death or damnation 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.
lhat manufacturer of quibbles, St. Paul, if he wrote the books
that bear his name, has helped this quibble on by making another
quibble upon the word Adam. He makes there to be two Adams ;
the one who sins in fact, and suffers by proxy ; the other who sins
by proxy, and suffers in fact. A religion thus interlarded with
quibble, subterfuge, and pun, has a tendency to instruct its pro
fessors 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
' rould have endured, would have been to live. His existence here

28 THE AGE OF REASON. [FART I
was a state of exilement or transportation from Heaven, and the
way back to his original country was to die. — In fine, every thing
in this strange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It
is the reverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into its
inconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion of
it, in order to proceed to something better.
How much, or what parts of the books called the New Testa
ment, 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 correspon
dence. 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 saw 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 ofthe New Testament, except the book 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 probability is at least equal,
whether they are genuine or forged. One thing, however, is
much less equivocal, which is, that out ofthe 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 per
son whose life was humility and poverty.
The invention of purgatory, and of the releasing of souls there
from, by prayers, bought ofthe church with money ; the selling of
pardons, dispensations and indulgencies, are revenue laws, with
out bearing that name or carrying that appearance. But the case
nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the
paroxysm of the crucifixion and the theory deduced therefrom

PART I.j THE AGE OF REASON. 29
which was, that one person could stand in the place of another,
and could perform meritorious services for him. The probability,
therefore, is, that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called
the redemption (which is said to have been accomplished by the
act of one person in the room of another) was originally fabricated
on purpose to bring forward and build all those secondary and
pecuniary redemptions upon ; and that the passages in the books
upon which the idea of theory of redemption is built, have been
manufactured and fabricated for that purpose. Why are we to
give this church credit, when she tells us that those books are
genuine in every part, any more than we give her credit for every
tiling else she has told us ; or for the miracles she says she has
performed 1 That she could fabricate writings is certain, because
she could write ; and the composition of the writings in question,
is of that kind that any body might do it ; and that she did
fabricate them is not more inconsistent with probability, than
that she should tell us, as she has done, that she could and did
work miracles.
Since, then, no external evidence can, at this long distance of
time, be produced to prove whether the church fabricated the doc
trines called redemption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or
against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabrica
ted,) the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which
the thing carries within itself ; and this affords a very strong pre
sumption 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 him
self, and pay it for me ; but if I have committed 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 to do 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, corresponding to that of a
debt, which another person might pay ; and as this pecuniary idea
corresponds again with the system of second redemptions, ob
tained through the means of money given to the church for

30 THR AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
pardons, the probability is, that the same persons fabricated both
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 consolation 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 out-law, as an out-cast, 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 intermediate beings, that he conceives
either a contemptuous disregard for every thing 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 j
he calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill ; and
all the blessings of life, by the thankless name of vanities ; be
despises the choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason;
and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a
system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it
human reason, as if man could give reason to himself..
Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this con
tempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presump
tions ; he finds fault with every thing ; his selfishness is nevei
satisfied ; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on him
self to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government
of the universe ; he prays dicta'orially ; when it is sun-shine, he
prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sun-shine ; he
follows the same idea in every thing 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 1 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 woud 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.

PARTI.) THE AGE OF REASON. 31
Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore inca-
pable 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 seve
ral centuries, (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of phi
losophers and the experience of navigators,) that the earth was flat
like a trencher; and that a man might walk to the end of it.
But how was Jesus Christ to make any thing known to all na
tions ? 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 any thing of
languages, knows that it was impossible to translate from one lan
guage to another, not only without losing a great part of the ori
ginal, but frequently of mistaking the sense ; and besides all this,
the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.
It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any
end, be equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end can
not be accomplished. It is in this, that the difference between
finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man fre
quently fails in accomplishing his ends, from a natural inability of
the power to the purpose ; and frequently from the want of wis
dom to apply power properly. But it is impossible for infinite.
power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth are
always equal to 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 conceptions 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 published or not ; it publishes itself from one end of tbe

32 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
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 im
mensity of the Creation. Do we wat.t to contemplate his wis
dom 1 We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom
prehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his
munificence 1 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 1 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, incomprehensible and I
difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he ar
rives at the belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbe
lieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space
can have no end ; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It
is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal dura
tion 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 iu
itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every
man is an evidence to himself, that he did not make himself;
neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any
of his race ; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself;
and it is the conviction arising from this evidence, that carries us
on, as it were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally
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 any thing ; and, in this case it would be just as
consistent to read even the book called the Bible to a horse as to
a man. How then is it that those people pretend to reject
reason ?
Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey
to us any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and the 19th

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 33
Psalm ; I recollect no other. Those parts are true deislital com
positions ; 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. I insert, in this place, the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into Eng
lish 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 etherial 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 moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listning earth,
Repeats the story of her birth ;
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 this dark terrestrial ball ;
What though no real voice, nor sound,
Amidst their radient 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 is 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 deducing 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 applicable to the
subject I am speaking upon. " Canst thou by searching find ou:
I God T Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection V
5

84 THE AOE OF REASON. [PART I.
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 1 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 con
clusion 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 perfection ?
No ; not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested
in the structure of the Creation that I behold is to me incompre
hensible, but because even this manifestation, great as it is, is
probably but a small display of that immensity of power and wis
dom, by which millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their
distance, were created and. continue to exist.
' It is evident that both of these questions are put to the reason
ofthe person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed;
and it is only by admitting the first question to be answere/
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 dis
covering 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 subject they
dwell upon, that of a man dying i.i 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 ofthe 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 lilies
ofthe field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however,
is far inferior to the allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm ; but

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 35
lt is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspon
dent to the modesty ofthe 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 be
lieve in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up
chiefly of manism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism
as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his
Maker an opaque body, which it caljs 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 turning every thing
upside down, and representing it in reverse ; and among the re
volutions 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 wis
dom 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 concerning God.
It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made,
but in the works or writings that man has made ; and it is not
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 re
proach, 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 the
study and contemplation of the works of Creation, and of the
power and wisdom of God, revealed and manifested in those
works, made a great part of the religious devotion of the times in
which they were written ; and it was this devotional study and
contemplation that led to the discovery of the principles upon
which, what are now called Sciences, are established ; and it is to
the discovery of these principles that almost all the Arts that con
tribute to the convenience of human life, owe their existence.

36 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
Every principal art has some science for its parent, though the
person who mechanically performs the work does not always, and
but very seldom, perceive the connexion.
It is a fraud ofthe Christian system to call the sciences human
invention ; it .s only the application of them that is human. Every
science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unal
terable 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 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 ignorance, 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 and
thing that is eternal and immutable ; and the scientific principles
he employs for this purpose must, and are, of necessity, as eternal
and immutable as the laws by which the heavenly bodies move, or
they could not be used as they are to ascertain the time when, and
the manner how, an eclipse will take place.
The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the fore
knowledge of an eclipse, or of any thing else, relating to the mo
tion of the heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of sci
ence which is called Trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle,
which when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called
Astronomy ; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the
ocean, it is called Navigation ; when applied to the construction
of figures drawn by rule and compass, it is called Geometry ; when
applied to the construction of plans of edifices, it is called Archi
tecture ; when applied to the measurement of any portion of the
surface of the earth, it is called Land-surveying. In fine, it is
the soul of science ; it is an eternal truth ; it contains the mathe
matical 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 there
fore a triangle is an human invention

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 37
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 inde
pendently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn
or thought of by man. Man had no more to do in the formation
of those properties or principles, than he had to do in making the
laws 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 may it be said, he can make the mechanical in
strument called a lever; but the principle, by which the lever acts
is a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if the in
strument did not : it attaches itself to the instrument after it is
made ; the instrument, therefore, can act no otherwise than it
does act ; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it
act otherwise — that which, in all such cases, man calls the effect,
is no other than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the
senses. Since then man cannot make principles, from whence did he
gain a knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not
only to things on earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so
immensely distant from him as all the heavenly bodies are?
From whence, I ask, could he gain that knowledge, but from the
study of the true theology 1
It is the structure of the universe that has taught this know
ledge to man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of
every principle upon which every part of mathematical science is
founded. The offspring of this science is mechanics ; for me
chanics is no other than the principles of science applied practi
cally. The man who proportions the several parts of a mill, uses
the same scientific principles, as if he had the power of construct
ing an universe ; but as he cannot give to matter that invisible
agency, by which all the components parts of the immense ma
chine of the universe have influenced upon each other and act in
motional unison together, without any apparent contact, arid to
which man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and re-
oulsion, he supplies the place of that agency by the humble imi

38 THE AGE OF REASON. [PARJ I.
tation 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 ano
ther 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 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 ofthe
lever describes also a triangle ; and the corresponding sides of
those two triangles, calculated scientifically, or measured geome
trically : and also the sines, tangents, and secants generated from
the angles, and geometrically measured, have the same proportions
to each other, as the different weights 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 pro
duce a mill. Still the case comes back to the same point, which
is, that he did not make the principle that gives the wheels those
powers. That principle is as unalterable as in the former case,
or rather it is the same principle under a different appearance to
the eye.
The power that two wheels, of different magnitudes, have upon
each other, is in the same proportion as if the semi-diameter ofthe
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 knowledge 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

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 39
AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFCIENCE 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 incomprehen
sible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of
Space ? Or of what w*e .s it that this immensity of worlds is visi
ble to man ? What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion,
with Sirius, with the star he calls the north star, with the moving
orbs he has named 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 to waste itself, as it were, on an
immense desert of space glittering with sfiows.
It is only by contemplating what he calls the starry heavens, as
the book and school of science, that he discovers any use in their
being visible to him, or any advantage resulting from his immen
sity of vision. But when he contemplates 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 theo
logy, 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's speak
ing Latin, or a Frenchman's speaking French, or an Englishman's
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

40 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
learn the Greek language, in order that the learning the Greeks
had, might be made known in those nations, by translating the
Greek books of science and philosophy into the mother tongue of
each nation.
The study, therefore, of the Greek language (and inthe 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 obiain the learning the
Greeks had. It made no part of the learning itself; and was so
distinct from it, as to make it exceedingly probable that the per
sons who had studied Greek sufficiently to translate those works,
such, for instance, as Euclid's Elements, did not understand
any of the learning the'works contained.
As there is now nothing new to be learned from the dead lan
guages, all the useful books being already translated, the lan
guages are become useless, and the time expended in teaching
and 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 diffi
culty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any supe
rior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being
dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same
thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best
Greek linguist that now exists, does not understand GreeK so well
as a Grecian ploughman did, or a Grecian milkmaid : and the
same for the Latin, compared with a ploughman or milkmaid of
the Romans ; it would therefore be advantageous to the state of
learning to abolish the study ofthe 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 that is altogether erroneous. The human mind
has a natural disposition to scientific knowledge, and to the things
connected with it. The first and favourite amusement of a child,
even before it begins to play, is that of imitating the works of man,

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 41
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 in
terests itself in the fate of its works with a care that resembles
affection. It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed
by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost
in the linguist.
But the apology 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 01
this kind, the best evidence that can be produced, is the internal
evidence the thing carries with itself, and the evidence of cir
cumstances that unites with it ; both of which, in this case, are
not difficult to be discovered.
Putting then aside, as a matter of distinct consideration, the
outrage offered to the moral justice of God, by supposing him to
make the innocent suffer for the guilty, and also the loose mo
rality and low contrivance of supposing him to change himself into
the shape of a 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 cor
poreal idea of the death of a god — the mythological idea of a
family of gods, and the Christian system of arithmetic, that three
are one, and one is three, are all irreconcilable, not only to the
divine gift of reason, that God hath 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 uni
verse that God has made.
The setters-up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian
system of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progres
sive knowledge that man would gain, by the aid of science, of the
power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure ofthe uni
verse, and in all the works of Creation, would militate against,
and call into question, the truth of their system of faith ; and
therefore it became necessary to their purpose to cut learning
down to a size less dangerous to their project, and this they
6

42 THE AGE OF REASON [PART I.
effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead study ot
dead languages.
They not only rejected the study x>f science out of the Christian
schools, but they persecuted it; and it is only 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
appearance 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, Vigilius 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 moral virtue in
believing that 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
when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed
system of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in
a manner almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an en
tirely different ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad,
become fraught with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is
then that the truth, though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes
an essential, by becoming the criterion, that either confirms by
corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the
reality of the 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
partizans of the Christian system, as if dreading the result, inces
santly 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

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 43
Franklin drawn lightning from the clouds at the same time, it
would have been at the hazard. of expiring for it in flames.
Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals;
but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may
be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the
age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. — There
was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for
many centuries afterwards ; 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 cor
ruption 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 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 back ground of the scene. But the Christian
system laid all waste ; and if we take our stand about the begin
ning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long
chasm, to the times of the ancients, as over a vast sandy desart,
in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile
hills beyond.
* 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 the heathen mythology, and
was so far a species of theism, that it admitted the belief of only one God.
Saturn is supposed to have abdicated 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
increased as fast as the calendar of saints, and the calendars of courts have
increased since.
All the coiruptions that have taken place, in theology and in religion, have
been produced by admitting of what man calls revealed religion. The Mytho
logists pretended to more revealed religion than the Christians 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 Molock to modern predestinarianism,
and the human sacrifices of the heathens to the Christian sacrifice of the Crea
tor, have been produced by admitting of what is called revealed religion, the
most effectual means to prevent all such evils and impositions is, not to admit
of any other revelation tnan that which is manifested in the book of creation,
and to contemplate the creation as the only true and real work of God that
ever did, or ever will exist ; and that every thing else, called the word of God,
is fable and imposition.

44 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
It is an inconsistency scarcely possible to be credited, that any
thing should exist, under the name of a religion, that held it to be
irreligious to study and contemplate the structure of the universe
that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be
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 ofthe downfall of the Pope of Christ
endom. 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 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 in some
degree to almost every other person at one time or other, I shall
state what those ideas were, and add thereto such other 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 exceeding good moral education, and a tolera
ble stock of useful learning. Though I went to the grammar
school,* I did not learn Latin, not only because I had no inclina
tion to learn languages, but because ofthe objection the Quakers
have against the books in which the language is taught. But this
did not prevent me from being acquainted with the subjects of all
the Latin books used in the school.
The natural bent of my mind was to science. I had some

* The same school, Thetford in Norfolk, that the present Counsellor Mil*-
gay went to, and under the same master.

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 45
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 soon 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, ofthe society,
called the Royal Society, then living in the Temple, and an excel
lent astronomer.
I had no disposition for what is called politics. It presented
to my mind no other idea than is contained in the woi ' Jockeyship
When, therefore, I turned my thoughts towards matters of gov
emment, I had to form a system for myself, that accorded with
the moral and philosophic 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 declared them
selves independent, they would not only involve themselves 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 should never have been
known in 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 Janu
ary, 1776. Independence was declared the fourth of July fol
lowing. Any person, who has made observations on the state and pro
gress ofthe human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have
observed, that there are two distinct classes of what are called
Thoughts ; those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and
the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind oftheir 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 that I have. As to the learning
that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a
small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for him
self afterwards. — Every person of learning is finally his own
teacher, the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct

46 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
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 "ntroductory 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 ofthe Son of God. After the ser
mon 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 any other way;
and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I
could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This
was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of
childish levity ; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the
idea I had, that God was too good to do such an action, and also
too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in
the same manner at this moment ; and I moreover believe, that
any system of religion that has any thing in it that shocks the
mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
It seems as if parents ofthe Christian profession were ashamed
to tell their children any thing about the principles oftheir religion.
They sometimes instruct them in morals, and talk to them of the
goodness of what they call Providence ; for the Christian my
thology has five deities— there is God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Na
ture. But the Christian story of God the Father putting his son
to death, or employing people to do it, (for that is the plain lan
guage ofthe story,) cannot be told by a parent to a child ; and to
tell him that it was done to make mankind happier and better, is
making the story still worse, as if mankind could 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 to the pure and Si-nple profession of-
Deism ! The true Deist has but one Deity and his religion

PART I.] THE AGE OF REASON. 47
consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of
the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in every
thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical.
The religion that approaches Bthe nearest of all others to true
Deism, in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by
the Quakers : but they have contracted themselves too much, by
leaving the works of God out of their system. Though I rever
ence 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 permit
ted 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 or
rery,* and conceived an idea of the infinity of space, and the eter
nal divisibility of matter, and obtained, at least, a general know
ledge of what is called natural philosophy, 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 be
lieve otherwise, that is, to believe that God created a plurality ol
worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the
Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous, and scatters
it in the mind hke feathers in the air. The two beliefs cannot be
held together in the same mind ; and he who thinks that he be
lieves both, has thought but little of either.
Though the belief of a plurality of worlds was familar to the an
cients, it is only within the last three centuries that the extent and
dimensions of this globe that we inhabit have been ascertained.- -
•
* 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 uaes of the thing. The orrery has its name from the person who in
vented it. It is a machinery of clock-work, representing the universe in min
iature, 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
Bystem, their relative distances from each other, and their different magni
tudes, are represented as they really exist in what we call the heavens.

48 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
Several vessels, following the tract of the ocean, have sailed en.
tirely round the world, as a man may march in a circle, and come
round by the contrary side ofthe 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 an half to an equatorial degree, and may be sailed
round in the space of about three years.*
A world of this extent may, at first thought, appear to us to be
great ; but if we compare it with the immensity of space in which
it is suspended, like a bubble or balloon in the air, it is infinitely
less, in proportion, than the smallest grain of sand is to the size of
the world, or the finest particle 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 com
posed. It is not difficult to gain some faint idea of the immensity of
space in which this and all the other worlds are suspended, if we
follow a progression of ideas. When we think of the size or
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 upwards 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 immediately renews itself, and asks, what is beyond that
boundary ? and in the same manner, what beyond the next boun
dary 1 and so on till the fatigued imagination returns and says,
there is no end. Certainly, then, the Creator was not pent 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 that we know of to the smallest
insects the naked eye can behold, and from thence to others still
* Allowing a ship to sail on an average, three miles in an hour, she would
sail entirely round die world in less than one year, if she could sau k TaXect
circle ; but she is obliged to follow the course of the ocean

PART 1.1 THE AGE OF REASON. 49
smaller, and totally invisible without the assistance of the micro
scope. 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 room 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, in
stead of making one immense world, extending 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 necessary (not for the sake of those that already
know, but for those who do not) to show what the system of the
universe is. -
That part of the universe uiat is called the solar system (mean
ing the system of worlds to which our earth belongs, and of which
Sol, or in English language, the Sun, is the centre) consists, be
sides the Sun, of six distinct orbs, or planets, or worlds, 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 other sattelites or moons, attend the
planets or worlds to which they severally belong, as may be seen
by the assistance ofthe telescope.
The Sun is the centre, round which those six worlds or planets
revolve at different distances therefrom, and in circles concen
trate to each other. Each world keeps constantly in nearly
the same track round the Sun, and continues, at the same time,
turning round itself, in nearly an upright position, as a top turns
round itself when it is spinning on the ground, and leans a little
sideways. It is this leaning of the earth (23£ degrees) that occasions sum
mer and winter, and the different length of days and nights. If the
earth turned round itself in a position perpendicular to the plane or
level ofthe circle it moves in around the Sun, as a top turns round

50 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I
when it stands erect on the ground, the days and nights would be
always ofthe same length, twelve hours day and twelve hours sight,
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 5 and every time it
goes entirely round the Sun, it makes what we call a year, conse
quently 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 morn
ing 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 in a circle always at that
distance from the Sun, as a top may be supposed 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 that we inhabit, and which is eighty-
eight million miles distant from the Sun, and consequently moves
round in a circle greater than that of Venus. The fourth world
is Mars, he is distant from the Sun one hundred and thirty-four
million miles, and consequently moves round in a circle greater
than that of our earth. The fifth is Jupiter, he is distant from
the Sun five hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and corue
quently moves round in a circle greater than that of Mars. The
sixth world is Saturn, he is distant from the Sun seven hund ed
and sixty-three million miles, and consequently moves round in a
circle that surrounds the circles, or orbits, of aB the otlier worlds
or planets.
The space, .therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space,
that €ur sellar system takes up for the several worlds to perform
* Those who -supposed that the Sun went round the earth every 24 hours,
made the same mistake in idea that a cook would do in faet, that should
make the firego .round the .meat, instead of the meat turning round itself to
wards the fire.

PARI I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 61
their revolutions in round the Sun, is ofthe extent in a straight line
ofthe whole diameter ofthe orbit or cicle, in which Saturn moves
round the Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fif
teen hundred and twenty-six million miles : and its circular extent
is nearly five thousand million ; and its globical content is almost
three thousand five hundred million times three thousand five hun
dred million square miles.*
But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Be
yond 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 distance from each other, and
always in the same place, as the Sun does inthe 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, perfonns its revo
lutions, 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 or
earth and water is left unoccupied.
Having thus endeavoured 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.
* 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 tbe Sun, will come in a straight line between our earth
and the Sun, and will appear to ns about the size of a krgfe pea passing across
the face of the Sun. This happens but twice in about an 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
Sortion of time. As, tnerefore, man could not be able to do these things if he
id not understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolutions
of the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of calculating an
eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point that the knowledge exists ;
and as to a few thousand, or even a few million miles, more or less, it make*
scarcely any sensible difference in such immense distances.

B2 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
It is an idea I have never lost sight of, that all our knowledge
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
iound the Sun.
Had then the quantity of matter which these six worlds con
tain been blended into one solitary globe, the consequence to us
would have been, that either no revolutionary motion would have
existed, or not a sufficiency of 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 contribute 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 organized 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 relates to our system, had been a solitary globe — we can dis
cover 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.
But it is not to us, the inhabitants of this globe, only, that the
benefits arising from a plurality of worlds are limited. The in
habitants of each of the worlds of which our system is composed,
enjoy the same opportunities of knowledge as we do. They be
hold the revolutionary motions of our earth, as we behold theirs.
All the planets 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
school of science, to the inhabitants of their system, as our system
does to us, and in like manner throughout the immensity of space.
Our ideas, not only of the almightiness ofthe 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 01
worlds, so happily contrived as to administer, even by their mo*
lion, hwtruction to man. We see our own earth filled with abund*

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 53
ance ; but we forget to consider how much of that abundance is
owing to the scientific knowledge the vast machinery of the uni
verse 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, walk
ing at the rate of three miles an hour, for twelve hours in the day,
could he keep on in a circular direction, would walk entirely
round in less than two years. Alas ! what is this to the mighty
ocean of space, and the almighty power of the Creator !
From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit,
that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent
on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come
to 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 1 In this case, the person who is irre
verently called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself,
would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world,
in an endless succession of death, 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 sys
tems of faith, and of religion, have been fabricated and set up.
There may be many systems of religion, that so far from being
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 construc
tion of the Christian system of faith, that every evidence the
Heavens afford to man, either directly contradicts it, or renders
it absurd. It is possible to believe, and I always feel pleasure in encourag
ing myself to believe it, that there have been men in the world,
who persuade themselves that, what is called a pious fraud, might
at least under particular circumstances, be productive of some
good. But the fraud being once established, could not afterwards

54 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I
be explained ; for it is with a pious fraud as with a bad action, it
begets a calamitous necessity of going on.
The persons who first preached the Christian system of faith,
and in- some measure combined it with the morality preached by
Jesus Christ, might persuade themselves that it was better than
the heathen mythology that then prevailed. From the first
preachers the fraud went on to the second, and to the third, till the
idea of its being a pious fraud became lost in the belief of its
being true ; and that belief became again encouraged by the
interests of those who made a livelihood by preaching it.
But though such a belief might, by such means, be rendered
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 ot
sciences, if the church- had not some record or tradition, that it
was originally no other than a pious fraud, or did not foresee, that
it could not be maintained against the evidence that the structure
ofthe universe afforded.
Having thus shown the irreconcileable inconsistencies between
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 ofthe three principal means
that have been employed in all ages, and perhaps in all countries,
to impose upon mankind.
Those three means are Mystery, Miracle, and Prophesy. The
two first are incompatible with true religion, and the third ought
always to be suspected.
With respect to mystery, every thing we behold is, in one sense,
a mystery to us. Our own existence is a mystery; the whole
vegetable world is a mystery. We cannot account how it is that
an acorn, when put into the ground, is made to develope 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 seed in the ground. 
We know, therefore, as much as is necessary for us to know ; and
that part of the operation that we do not know, and which if we
did. we could not perform, the Creator takes upon himself ani

PART I.j THE AGE OF REASON. 55
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 mystery or obscurity.
Mystery is the antagonist of truth. It is a fog of human invention,
that obscures truth, and represents 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 the belief of a God, and the practice
of moral truth, cannot have connection with mystery. The belief
of* a God, so far from having any thing of mystery in it, is of all
beliefs the most easy, because it arises to us, as is before obser
ved, out of necessity. And the practice of moral truth, or, in
other words, a practical imitation of the moral goodness of God,
is no other than our acting towards each other as he acts benignly
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 happi
ness 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 every thing
of mystery, and unincumbered with every thing that is mysterious.
Religion, considered as a duty, is incumbent 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 rehgion 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 op systems
of religion incompatible with the word or works of God in the
creation, and not only above, but repugnant to human comprehen
sion, 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 mystery answered this purpose ; and

56 THE AGE OF REASON I PART I.
thus it has happened that religion, which is in itself without
mystery, has been corrupted 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 every thing may be said to b6 a mystery,
so also may it be said that every thing 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 worlds than to make
one. Every thing, therefore, is a miracle, in one sense, whilst
in the other sense, there is no such thing as a miracle. It is
a miracle when compared to our power, and to our comprehen
sion ; 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, bu.t
unless we know the whole extent of those laws, and of what aro
commonly called the powers of nature, we are not able to judge
whether any thing that may appear to us wonderful or miraculous, be
within, or be beyond, or be contrary to, her natural power of acting.
The ascension of a man several miles high into the air, would
have every thing 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 surrounds it. In like manner, extracting
flames or sparks of fire from the human body, as visible as from
a steel struck with a flint, and causing iron or steel to move with
out 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

PART I.J THE ACE OF REASON. 57
who are not acquainted with the subject. The restoring persons
to life, who are to appearance dead, as is practised upon drowned
persons, would also be a miracle, if it were not known that ani
mation is capable of being suspended without being extinct.
Besides these, there are performances by slight 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 deceptions. There is now an
exhibition in Paris of ghosts or spectres, which, though it is not
imposed upon the spectators as a fact, has an astonishing appear
ance. As, therefore, we know not the' extent to which either
nature or art can go, there is no criterion to determine what a
miracle is ; and mankind, in giving credit to appearances, under
the idea of their being miracles, are subject to be continually im
posed upon.
Since then appearances are so capable of deceiving, and things
not real have a- strong resemblance to things that are, nothing can
be more inconsistent than to* suppose that the Almighty would'
make use of means, such as are called miracles, that would sub
ject 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 intended to be supported thereby to be
suspected as a fabulous invention.
. Of all the modes of evidence that ever were intended 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 show-man, 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 and wrote every
word that is herein written ; would any body believe me T Cer-
8

58 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
tainly they would not. Would they believe me a whit the more
if the thing had been a fact ; certainly they would not. Since
then a real miracle, were it to happen, would be subject to the
same fate as the falsehood, the inconsistency becomes the greater,
of 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 given of
such miracle by the person who said he saw it, it raises a ques
tion 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 1 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 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 Ninevah, and to convince the people
that it was true, have cast it up in their sight, ofthe 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
Ninevah, and cast him up in the same public manner, would they
not have believed the whale to have been the devil, and Jonah one
ofhis imps.
The most extraordinary of all the things called miracles, related
in the New Testament, is that ofthe 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 to him all the kingdoms ofthe world. How happened it
that he did not discover America ; or is it only with kingdoms that
nis sooty .highness has any interest 1

PART I.J THE AGE OF REASON. 59
I have too much respect for the moral character of Christ, tc
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 connoisseurs of miracles, as is
sometimes practised upon the connoisseurs of Queen Anne's far-
things, and collectors of relics and antiquities ; or to render the
belief of miracles, ridiculous, by outdoing miracles, as Don Quix-
otte outdid chivalry ; or to embarrass the belief of miracles, by
making it doubtful by what power, whether of God or the Devil,
any thing 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 ofthe 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 ad
mitting the recitals of miracles as evidence of any system of reli
gion being true, they ought to be considered as symptoms of its
being fabulous. It is necessary to the full and upright character
of truth that it rejects the crutch ; and it is consistent with the
character of fable, to seek the aid that truth rejects. Thus much
for mystery and miracle.
As mystery and miracle took charge of the past and the present,
prophesy took charge of the future, and rounded the tenses of
faith. It was not sufficient to know what had been done, but what
would be done. The supposed prophet was the supposed historian
of times to come ; and if he happened, in shooting with a long
bow of a thousand years, to strike within a thousand miles of a
mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make it point-blank ; and if
he happened to be directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the
case of Jonah and Ninevah, that God had repented himself and
changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems make of
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 ofthe word as now used,

60 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I.
is a creature of modern invention ; and it is owing to this change in
the meaning ofthe words, that the flights and metaphors ofthe Jew
ish poets, and pnrases 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
prophecies, and made to bend to explanations, at the will and
whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders and commentators.
Every thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every thing insig
nificant was typical. A blunder would have served as a prophe
cy ; and a dish-clout for a type.
If by a prophet we are to suppose a man, to whom the Almighty
communicated some event that would take place in future, either
there were such men, or there were not. If there were, it is con
sistent to believe that the event so communicated, would be told in
terms that could be understood ; and not related in such a loose
and obscure manner as to be out of the comprehensions 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 prophecy as it is with miracle ; it could not ans
wer the purpose even if it were real. Those to whom a prophecy
should be told, could not tell whether the man prophesied or lied.
or whether it had been revealed to him, or whether he conceited
it ; and if the thing that he prophesied, or intended to prophecy,
should happen, or something like it, among the multitude of things
that are daily happening, nobody could again know whether he
foreknew it, or guessed at it, or whether it was accidental. A pro
phet, therefore, is a character useless and -unnecessary ; and the
safe side of the case is, to guard against being imposed upGn by
not giving credit to such relations.
Upon the whole, mystery, miracle, and prophecy, are appen
dages that belong to fabulous and not to true religion. I hey are
the means by which so many Lo heres ! and Lo theres ! have been
spread about the world, and religion been made into a trade. The
success of one impostor gave encouragement to another, and the
quieting salvo of doing some good by keeping up a pious fraud
protected them from remorse.

PARTI. I THE AGE OF REASON. 61
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.
First — That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in
print, or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for
reasons already assigned. These reasons, among many others,
are the want of an universal language ; the mutability of language ;
the errors to which translations 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 pro
claims 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 crea
tion 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
every thing of persecution and revenge between man and man, and
every thing of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty.
I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I
content myself with believing, even 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 bodv ; and
it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist here
after, 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, there
fore, if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be
believing any thing 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 mean time, let every man
follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and the worship he
prefers. ENP OF THE FIRST FART.

THE
AGE OF REASON.
PART SECOND.

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 reli
gion ; but that I had originally reserved it to a later period in life,
intending it to be the last work I should undertake. The circum
stances, however, which existed in France in the latter end ofthe
year 1793, determined me to delay it no longer. The just and
humane principles of the revolution which philosophy had first
diffused, had been departed from. The 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 commis
sion of all manner of crimes. The intolerant spirit of church
persecutions had transferred itself into politics ; the tribunal,
styled revolutionary, supplied the place of an inquisition ; and the
guillotine and the stake 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
intimations given me, that the same danger was approaching my
self. Under these disadvantages, I began the former part of the Age
of Reason ; I had, besides, neither Bible nor Testament to refer
to, though I was writing against both ; nor could I procure any ;
notwithstanding which, I have produced a work that no Bible be
liever, though writing at his ease, and with a library of church
books about him, can refute. Towards the latter end of Decem
ber of that year, a motion was made and carried, to exclude
foreigners from the convention. There were but two in it,
Anacharsis Cloots and myself; and I saw, I was particularly
pointed at by Bourdon dc l'Oise, in his speech on that motion.

66 PREFACE
Conceiving, after this, that I had but afew 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. 1
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
protection 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 Luxem
bourg, Bennoit, a man of a good heart, showed to me every friend
ship 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 ac
quitted. After I had been in the Luxembourg about three weeks, the
Americans, then in Paris, went in a body to the convention, to
reclaim me as their countryman and friend ; but were answered
by the President, Vader, who was also President ofthe 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 ofthe 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 consci
entious it rial of my own principles.
I was ithen with three chamber comrades, Joseph Vanheule, of
Bruges, Charles Bastini, and Michael Rubyns, of Louvain. The
unceasing and anxious attention of these three friends to me, bv

PREFACE. 67
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 con
venient to them, as men under the English government, that I
express to them my thanks ; but I should reproach myself if I
did not ; and also to the physician of the Luxembourg, Dr.
Markoski. I have some 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
hand-writing of Robespierre, in the following words : —
" Demander que Thomas Paine soit To demand that a decree of accusa-
decrete d'accusation, pour l'interet de tion be passed against Thomas Paine,
l'Amerique autant que de la France." for the interest of America, as well as
of France.
From what cause it was that the intention was not put in exe
cution, I know not, and cannot inform myself; and therefore I
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 unani
mously 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 prin
ciples have been violated, that they are to be abandoned.
I have seen, since I have been at liberty, several publica
tions written, some 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 I can have no objection that
they write on. They will find, however, by this second part,
without its being written as an answer to them, that they
must return to their work, and spin their cobweb over again.
The first is brushed away by accident.
They will now find that I have furnished myself with a
Bible and a Testament ; and I can say also that I have found
ihem to be much worse books than I had conceived. If I

68 PREFACE.
ha\e erred in any thing, in the former part of the Age of
Reason, it has been by speaking better of some parts of those
books than they have deserved.
I observe that all my opponents resort, more or less, to
what they call Scripture Evidence and Bible authority, to help
them out. They are so little masters of the subject, as to
confound a dispute 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.
THOMAS PAINE
October, 1795

THE
AGE OF REASON.
PART THK SECOND.

It has often been said, that any thing may be proved from the
Bible, but before any thing can be admitted as proved by the Bible,
the Bible itself must be proved to be true ; for if the Bible be not
true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and
cannot be admitted as proof of any thing.
It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the
Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the
Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ;
they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each
other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passa
ges therein ; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant
such a thing ; another that it meant directly the contrary ; and a
third, that it means neither one nor the other, but something differ
ent from both ; and this they call understanding the Bible.
It has happened, that all the answers which I have seen to the
former part of the 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 differ
ently, but each understands it best ; and they have agreed in no
thing, but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands
it not. Now instead of wasting their time, and heating themselves in
fractious disputations about doctrinal points drawn from the Bible
these men ought to know, and if they do not, it is civility to inforir

70 the age of reason. [part ii.
them, that the first thing to be understood is, whether there is suf
ficient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God, or
whether there is not 1
There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express
command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every
idea we have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robespierre,
by Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English govern
ment 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 ; lhat they utterly destroyed men, women and chil
dren ; that they left not a soul to breathe ; expressions that tire
repeated over and over again in those books, and that too with
exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are facts 1 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 tra
dition, and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any
other. To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty,
which in their own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are
crimes, as all assassination is, and more especially the assassina
tion 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 un-
believe 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 every thing that is tender, sympa
thizing, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for my
self, if I had no other evidence that the Bible was 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, 1
will in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence, as

PART II. J THE AGE OF REASON 71
even a priest cannot deny ; and show, from tnat 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 au
thenticity of the Bible is as well established as that of any other
ancient book ; as if our belief of the one could become any rule
for our belief of the other.
I know, however, but of one ancient book that authoritatively
challenges universal consent and belief, and that is, Euclid's
Elements of Geometry ;* and the reason is, because it is a book of
self-evident demonstration, entirely independent of its author, and
of every thing relating to time, place and circumstance. The mat
ters contained in that book would have the same authority they
now have, had they been written by any other person, or had the
work been anonymous, 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 other-
with 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, rest, in the first place, upon the
certainty that they were written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel ;
secondly, upon the credit we give to their testimony. We may
believe the first, that is, we may believe the certainty of the
authorship, and yet not the testimony ; in the same manner that
we may believe that a certain person gave evidence upon a case
and yet not believe the evidence that he gave. But if it should be
found, that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel,
were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, and every part of
the authority and authenticity of 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
* Euclia, according to chronological history, lived three hundred years be
fore Christ, and aoout one hundred before Archimedes ; he was of the citv
of Alexandria, in Egypt.

72 THE AOK OF REASON. [PART II.
to face, or that ofthe sun and moon standing still at the command
of a man. The greatest part ofthe 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 essential in the credit we give to any of those works J
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 admired : 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 estima
tion, but an impostor. As to the ancient historians, from Hero
dotus to Tacitus, we credit them as far as they relate things pro
bable and credible, and no further : for if we do, we must believe
the two miracles which Tacitus relates were perfortried by Ves
pasian, 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 mi
racles are quite as well authenticated as the Bible miracles, 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 that we believe things stated in other ancient
writings ; since we believe the things stated in these writings no
further than they are probable and credible, or because they are
self-evident, like Euclid ; or admire them because they are ele
gant, like Homer ; or approve them because they are sedate, like
Plato ; or judicious, like Aristotle.
Having premised these things, I proceed to examine the authen
ticity of the Bible, and I begin with what are called the five books
of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deutero
nomy. 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 hun
dred years afterwards ; that they are no other than an attempted

PART II.J THE AGE OF REASON. 73
history ofthe life of Moses, and ofthe times 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 I will confine my self to this evidence only. —
Where I to refer for proof to any of the ancient authors, whom
the advocates of the Bible call profane authors, they would con
trovert thnt authority, as I 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 be
lieve, or even to suppose, they were written by Moses; for it is alto
gether the style and manner of another person speaking of Moses.
In Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, (for every thing in Genesis is
prior to the times 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 person whose lives and actions they are writing.
1\ may be said that a man may speak of himself in the third per-
son ; 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 speak of him
self in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books,
that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering M^"* truly ridicu
lous and absurd : — for example, Numbers, chap, xii. ver. 3.
" Noio the man Moses was very meek, above all men which were on
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
10

74 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 was without credit, because to boast
of meekness, is the reverse of meekness, 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 in
the act of speaking, and when he has made Moses finish his har-
rangue, he (the writer) resumes his own part, and speaks till he
brings Moses forward again, and at last closes the scene with an
account of the death, funeral, and character of Moses.
This interchange of speakers occurs four times in this book :
from the first verse of the first chapter, to the end of the fifth verse,
it is the writer who speaks ; he then introduces Moses as in the
act of making his harrangue, and this continues to the end of the
40th verse of the fourth chapter ; here the writer drops Moses,
and speaks historically of what was done in consequence of what
Moses, when living, is supposed to have said, and which the
writer has dramatically rehearsed.
The writer opens the subject again in the first verse of the fifth
chapter, though it is only by saying, that Moses called the people
of Israel together ; he then introduces Moses as before, and con
tinues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 26th chap.
ter. He does the same thing at the beginning of the 27th chap
ter ; and continues Moses, as in the act of speaking, to tbe end
of the 28th chapter. At the 29th chapter the writer speaks
again through the whole of the first verse, and the first line
of the second verse, where he introduces Moses for the last time,
and continues him, as in the act of speaking, to the end of the 33d
chapter. The writer having now finished the rehearsal on the part of
Moses, comes forward, and speaks through the whole of the last
chapter ; he begins by telling the reader, that Moses went up to
the top of Pisgj » ; 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, lhe
wnterthen tells us, that Moses was 110 years of age when he

PART II. J THE AGE OF REASON. 75
died— that his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated ;
and he concludes by saying, that there arose not a prophet since
in Israel bke unto Moses, whom, says this anonymous writer, the
Lord knew face to face.
Having thus shown, as far as grammatical evidence applies, that
Moses was not the writer of those books, I wUl, after making a
few observations on die inconsistencies of the writer of the book
of Deuteronomy, proceed to show, from the historical and chro
nological 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 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 obsure, and also in contradiction with
himself, in the account he has given of Moses.
After tolling 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 ke (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 which this writer
lived ; how then should he know that Moses was buried in a
valley in the land of Moab 1 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 tbe death of Moses,
he certainly was not at his funeral ; and on the other hand, it is
impossible that Moses himself could say, that no man knowetn
where the sepulchre is unto this day. To make Moses the speaker,
would be an improvement on the play of a child that hides himseif
and cries nobody can find me ; nobody can find Moses.

76 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
This writer has no where 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 the 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 twentieth 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 5"
but in that of Deuteronomy, the reason given is, that it was the
day on which the children of Israel came out of Egypt, and
therefore, says this commandment, the Lord thy God 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 ofthe other books ; among which is that inhuman
and brutal law, chap. xxi. ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, which authorizes
parents, the father and the mother, to bring their own children to
have them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call stubborn
ness. But priests have always been fond of preaching up Deu
teronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tythes ; and it is from
this book, chap. xxv. ver. 4, they have taken the phrase, and
applied it to tything, that thou shalt 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 chap
ter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines. 0 !
priests ! priests ! ye are willing to be compared to an ox, for the
sake of tythes. Though it is impossible for us to know identically
who the writer of Deuteronomy was, it is not difficult to discover
him 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 chro
nology ; for I mean not to go out ofthe Bible for evidence of any
thing, but to make the Bible itself prove historically and chronolo
gically, that Moses is not the author ofthe books ascribed to him.
It is, therefore, proper that I inform the reader, (such an one at
least as may not have the opportunity of knowing it,) that in the

PART II. J THE 4GE OF REASON. 77
larger Bibles, and also in some smaller ones, there is a series ot
chronology printed in the margin of every page, for the purpose ot
showing how long the historical matters stated in each page hap
pened, or are supposed to have happened, before Christ, and, con
sequently, the distance of time between one historical circum
stance and another.
I begin with the book of Genesis. In the 1.4th chapter of Gene
sis, 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. (ver. 14.)
To show in what manner this expression of pursuing them unto
Dan applies to the case in question, I will refer to two circum
stances, the onQ in America, the other in France. The city
now called New- York, in America, was originally New Amster
dam ; and the town in France, lately called Havre Marat, was
before called Havre de Grace. New Amsterdam was changed to
New-York in the year 1664 ; Havre de Grace to Havre Marat in
1793. Should, therefore, any writing be found, though without
date, in which the name of New- fork should be mentioned, it
would be certain evidence that such a writing could not have been
written before, and must have been written after New Amster
dam 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 that such a writing must have been
written after Havre de Grace became Havre Marat, and conse
quently 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 show that
there was no such place as Dan, till many years after the death of
Moses ; and consequently, that Moses sould 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
ofthe 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.

79 . THE AGE OF REASON. [PART tf.
To establish this in proof, it is necessary to refer from Genesis i
to the 18th chapter of the book called the book of Judges. It is f
there said (ver. 27) that they (the Danites) come unto Laish to a i
people that were quiet and secure, and they smote them with the
edge ofthe sword (the Bible is filled with murder) and burned tht
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, howbeit the name ofthe city was Laish at the first. I
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 Sampson. The death of Sampson is said to
have happened 1120 years before Christ, and that of Moses 1451
before Christ ; and, therefore, according to the historical arrange
ment, 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, IS, 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 15th, 245 before the 13th, 195 before the 9th, 90 before the
4th, and 15 years before the first chapter. This shows the un
certain and fabulous state of the Bible. According to the chrono
logical arrangement, the taking of Laish, and giving it the name
of Dan, is made to be 20 years after the death of Joshua, who was
the successor of Moses ; and by the historical order as it stands
in the book, it is made to be 306 years after the death of Joshua,
and 331 after that of Moses ; but they both exclude Moses from
being the writer of Genesis, because, according to 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 chrono
logical 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 ofthe
sons and descendents of Esau, who are called Edomites, and also
a list, by name, of the kings of Edom ; in enumerating of which,

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 79
it is said, verse 31, " .find these are the kings that reigned in
Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.'
Now, were any dateless writings to be found, in which, speak
ing of any past events, the writer should say, these things happen
ed before there was any Congress in America, or before there
was any Convention in France, it would be evidence that such
writings could not have been written before, and could only be
written after there was a Congress in America, or a Convention ir
France, as the case might be ; and, consequently, that it could not
be written by any person who died before there was a Congress
in the one country, or a Convention in the other.
Nothing is more frequent, as well in history as in conversation,
than to refer to a fact in the room of a date : it is most natural so
to do, because a fact fixes itself in the memory better than a
date ; secondly, because the fact includes the date, and serves to
excite two ideas at once ; and this manner of speaking by circum
stances implies as positively that the fact alluded to is past, as if
it was so expressed. When a person speaking upon any matter,
says, it was before I was married, or before my son was born, or
before I went to America, or before I went to France, it is abso
lutely understood, and intended to be understood, that he has been
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 whenever such an expression
is found any where, it can only be understood in the sense in
which -only it could have been used.
The passage, therefore, that 1 have quoted — " that these are the
kings that reigned in 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; a.nd, consequently, that 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, im
plies more kings than one, at least it implies two, and this will
carry it to the time of David ; and, if taken in a general sense.
it carries itself through all the time of the Jewish monarchy.
Had we met with this verse in any part of the Bible that pro
fessed to have been written after kings began to reign in Israel, it
would have been impossible not to have seen the application of it.
It happens then that this is the case ; the two books of Chro

SO THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
nicies,' which gave a history of all the kings of Israel, are pro
fessedly, as well as in fact, written after the Jewish monarchy be
gan ; and this verse that I have quoted, and all the remaining
verses of the 36th chapter of Genesis, are, word for word, in the
first cn'apter of Chronicles, beginning at the 43d.verse.
It was with consistency that the writer of the Chronicles could
say, as he has said, 1st Chron. chap. i. ver. 43, These are the kings
that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over the
children of Israel, because he was going to give, and has given a
list of the kings that had reigned in Israel ; but as it is impossible
that the same expression could have been used before that period,
it is as certain as any thing can be proved from historical language,
that this part of Genesis is taken from Chronicles, and that Ge
nesis is not so old as Chronicles, and probably not so old as the
book of Homer, or as JEsop's Fables, admitting Homer to have
been, as the tables of chronology state, contemporary with David
or Solomon, and iEsop to have lived about the end of tha
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 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, with
out the merit of being entertaining ; and the account of men living
to eight and nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the im
mortality of the giants of the Mythology.
Besides, the charactet 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 murdering
and plundering excursions, the account goes on as follows,
Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 13.
"And Moses, and Eleazer the priest, and all the princes ofthe
congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp ; and
Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 81
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from
the battle ; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the
women alive ? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through
the council of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in
the matter of Poor, and there was a plague among the congrega
tion of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the lit
tle ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying
with him ; but all the woman children that have not known a 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.
Aftei this detestable order, follows an account of the plunder
taken, and the manner of dividing it ; and here it is that the pro-
phaneness of priestly hypocrisy increases the catalogue of crimes.
Verse 37, " And the Lord's tribute of the sheep was six hundred
and three score and fifteen ; and the beeves was thirty and six
thousand, of which the Lord's tribute was three score and twelve;
and the asses were thirty thousand, of which the Lord's tribute
was three-score and one ; and the persons were thirty thousand,
of which the Lord's tribute was thirty and two." 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-children consigned to debauchery bv the
order of Moses was thirty-two thousand.
People in general know not what wickedness there is ia1 this
pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition,
they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good ;
they permit themselves not to doubt of it, and they carry tbe ideas
they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book which
11

82 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 Al
mighty ?
But to return to my subject, that of showing that Moses is not
the author ofthe books ascribed to him, and that the Bible is spu
rious. The two instances I have already given would be suffi
cient, without any additional evidence, to invalidate the authen
ticity 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 prophesy can be pleaded. The expressions are in the prefer
tense, and it would be downright idiotism to say that a man could
prophesy in the preter tense.
But there are many other passages scattered throughout those
books that unite in the same point of evidence. It is said in
Exodus, (another ofthe books ascribed to Moses,) chap. xvi. verse
34, " And the children of Israel did eat manna until they came to
a land inhabited; they did eat manna 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 any thing more than a kind of fungus or
small mushroom, or other vegetable substance common to that
part of the country, makes nothing to my argument ; all that I
mean to 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,) dies 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 boo'k of Joshua, after the children of Israel had passed the
river Jordan, and eame unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
Joshua, chap. v. ver. 12. " And the manna ceased on the morrow,
after they had eaten of the old corn of ihe land ; neither had the

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 83
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 Deuterono
my ; 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, ver. 11. " For only Og, king of
Bashan, remained of the race of giants ; behold, his bedstead was
a bedstead of iron ; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Am
mon ? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the
breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." A cubit is 1 foot 9 888-
lOOOths inches ; the length, therefore, of the bed was 16 feet 4
inches, and the breadth 7 feet 4 inches ; thus much for this giant's
bed. Now for the historical part, which, though the evidence is
not so direct and positive, as in the former cases, it is nevertheless
very presumable 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 an ancient relic, and says, is it not in Rabbath (or
Rabbah) of the children of Ammon ? meaning that it is ; for such
is frequently the Bible method of affirming a thing. But it could
not be Moses that said this, because Moses could know nothing
about Rabbah, nor of what was in it. . Rabbah was not a city be
longing to this giant king, nor was it one ofthe 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 four hundred
years after the death of Moses ; for which, see 2 Sam. chap. xii.
ver. 26. " And Joab (David's general) fought against Rabbah
ofthe children of Ammon, and took the royal city."
As I am not undertaking to point out all the contradictions in
time, place and circumstance, that abound in the books ascribed to
Moses, and which prove to a demonstration that those books could
not be written by Moses, nor in the time of Moses : I proceed to
the book of Joshua, and to show that Joshua is not the author of
that book, and that it is anonymous 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 authentici
ty ofthe Bible. False testimony is always good against itself.

84 THE AGE OF REASON. IMPART H.
Joshua, according to the first chapter of Joshua, was '.he imme
diate successor of Moses ; he was, moreover, a military man, which
Moses was not, and he continued as chief of the people of Israel
25 years ; that is, from the time that Moses died, which, according
to the Biole chronology, 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 Josh
ua, it is evidence that Joshua could not be the author ; and also
that the book could not have been written till after the time of the
latest fact which it records. As to the character of the book, it ia
horrid ; it is a military history of rapine and murder, as savage
and brutal as those recorded of his predecessor in villany and
hypocrisy, Moses ; and the blasphemy consists, as in the former
books, in ascribing those deeds to the order of the Almighty.
In the first place, the book of Joshua, as is the case in the pre
ceding books, is written in the third person ; it is the historian of
Joshua that speaks, for it would have been absurd and vain-glorious
that Joshua should say of himself, as is said of him in the last
verse of the sixth chapter, that " his fame was noised throughout
all the country." I now come more immediately to the proof.
In the 24th chapter, ver. 31, it is said, " that Israel served the
Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days ofthe elders lhat over
lived Joshua." Now, in the name of common sense, can it be Josh
ua that relates what people had done after he was dead 1 This ac
count 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 in
tervened between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders
is excluded descriptively and absolutely, and the evidence sub
stantiates that the book could not have been written till after the
death of the last.
But though the passages to which I allude, and which I am going
to quote, do not designate any particular time by exclusion, they
imply a time far more distant from the days of Joshua, than is

L

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 85
contained between the death of Joshua and the death of the elders.
— Such is the passage, chap. x. ver. 14 ; where, after giving an
account thaf. the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the
valley of Atalon, at the command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to
amuse children) the passage says, " And there was no day like
that, before it, nor after it, that the Lord hearkened to the voice of
a man." This tale ofthe sun standing still upon Mount Gibeon, and the
moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself.
Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known /
all over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun .,
did not rise, and the other why it did not set ; and the tradition of -r \ ,/,
it would be universal, whereas there is not a nation in the world ,
that knows any thing about it. But why must the moon stand
still 1 What occasion could there be for moon-light in the day
time, and that too while the sun shined 1 Asa poetical figure, the
whole is well enough ; it is akin to that in the song of Deborah
and Baruk, Tfce stars in their courses fought against Sisera ; but
it is inferior to the figurative declaration of Mahomet, to the per
sons who came to expostulate with him on his going on, Wert
thou, said he, 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 Faux carried his
dark lanthorn, and taken 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 sub- \/
lime 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 signification to the passage,
mean a great length of time : — for example, it would have been
ridiculous to have said so the next day, or the next week, or the
next month, or the next year ; to give, therefore, meaning to the
passage, comparative with the wonder it relates, and the prior time
;t alludes to, it must mean centuries of years ; less, however than

86 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
one would be trifling, and less than two would be barely admis
sible. A distant, but general time, is also expressed in the 8th chap
ter ; where, after giving an account ofthe taking the city of Ai, it
is said, ver. 28th, " And Joshua burned Ai, and made it an heap
for ever, a desolation unto this day;" and again, ver. 29, where,
speaking ofthe king of Ai, whom Joshua had hanged, and buried at
the entering ofthe gate, it is said, " And he raised thereon a great
heap of stones, which remaineth' unto this day," that is, unto the
day or time in which the writer ofthe book of Joshua lived. And
again, in the 10th chapter, where, after speaking ofthe five kings
whom Joshua had hanged 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,
c. xv. ver. 63, " As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the children of Judah could not drive them out ; but the Jebu
sites 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 children 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 consequently with
out authority. I proceed, as before-mentioned, to the book of
Judges. The book of Judges is anonymous on the face of it ; and, there
fore, even the pretence is 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, chap. i. ver 1, Now after the
death of Moses, #c. and this of Judges begins, Now after the
death of Joshua, i}c. This, and the similarity of style between the
two books, indicate that they are the work of the same author, but
who he was, is altogether unknown : the only point that the book
proves is, that the author lived long after the time of Joshua ; for
though it begins as if it followrd immediately after his death, the

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 87
second chapter is an epitome or abstract of the whole book
which, according to the Bible chronology, extends its history
through a space of 306 years ; that is, from the death of Joshua,
1426 years before Christ, to the death of Sampson, 1120 years
before Christ, and only 25 years before Saul went to seek his
father's ass-is, and was made king. But there is good reason
to believe, that it was not written till the time of David, at
least, and that the book of Joshua was not written before the same
time. In the first chapter of Judges, the writer, after announcing the
death of Joshua, proceeds to tell what happened between the chil
dren of Judah and the native inhabitants ofthe land of Canaan.
In this statement, the writer, having abruptly mentioned Jerusa
lem 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 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 15th chapter of Joshua, ver. 63, where it is said, that the Jebu
sites dwell toith the children oj' Judah at Jerusalem at this 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 per
sons ever lived, is already so abundant, 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 an
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 ofthe Jebu
sites. The account of David's taking this city is given in 2
Samuel, chap. v. ver. 4, &c; also in 1 chron. chap. xiv. ver. 4,
&c. There is no mention in any part of the Bible that it was
ever taken before, nor any account that favours such an opinion.
It is not said, either in Samuel or in Chronicles, that they utterly
destroyed men, women, and children ; that they left not a soul to
breathe, as is said of their other conquests ; and the silence here

88 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 Jerusalem at this
day, corresponds to no other time than after the taking 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 slyly 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 conjuror to inquire after lost things.
The writer, in relating this story of Saul, Samuel, and the asses,
does not tell it as a thing that had just then happened, but as an
ancient story in the time this writer lived; for he tells it in the
language or terms used at the time that Samuel lived, which
obliges the writer to explain the story in the terms or language
used in the time the writer lived.
Samuel, in the account given of him, in the first of those books,
chap. ix. is called the seer; and it is by this term that Saul in
quires after him, ver. 11, " And as they (Saul and his servant)
went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out
to draw water ; and they said unto them, Is the seer here ?" Saul
then went according to the direction of these maidens, and met
Samuel without knowing him, and said unto him, ver. 18, " Tell
me, I pray thee, where the seer's house is? and Samuel answered
Saul, and said, J am the seer."
As the writer of the book of Samuel relates these questions and
answers, in the language or manner of speaking used in the time

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 89
they are said to have been spoken ; and as that manner of speak
ing was out of use when this author wrote, he found it necessary,
in order to make the story understood, to explain the terms in
which these questions and answers are spoken ; and he does this
in the 9th verse, where he says, " before-time, in Israel, when a
man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, Come, let us go to
the seer ; for he that is now called a prophet, was before-time
ealled a seer." This proves, as I have before said, that this story
of Saul, Samuel, and the asses, was an ancient story at the time
the book of Samuel was written, and consequently that Samuel
did not write it, and that that book is without authenticity.
But if we go further into those books, the evidence is still more
positive that Samuel is not the writer of them ; for they relate
things that did not happen till several years after the death of
Samuel. Samuel died before Saul; for the 1st Samuel, chap.
xxviii. tells, that Saul and the witch of Endor conjured Samuel up
after he was dead ; yet the history of the matters 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 ofthe first
book of Samuel ; and the chronology affixed to this chapter makes
this to be 1060 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 not written by Samuel.
I have now gone through all the books in the first part of the
Bible, to which the names of persons are affixed, as being the
authors of those books, and which the church, styling itself the
Christian church, have imposed upon the world as the writings of
Moses, Joshua, and Samuel ; and I have detected and proved the
falsehood of this imposition. And now, ye priests, of every des
cription, who have preached and written against the former part
of the Age of Reason, what have ye to say 1 Will ye, with all
12

90 THE AGE OF REASON. fpART II.
this mass of evidence against you, and staring you in the face,
still have the assurance to march into your pulpits, and continue
to impose these books on your congregations, as the works of
inspired penmen, and the word of God, when it is as evident as de
monstration can make truth appear, that the persons who, ye say,
are the authors, are not the authors, and that ye know not who the
authors are. What shadow of pretence have ye now to produce,
for continuing the blasphemous fraud 1 What have ye still to
offer against the pure and moral religion of Deism, in support of
your system of falsehood, idolatry, and pretended revelation 1 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. It is because ye are sunk in the
cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in tbe honour of your
Creator, that ye listen to the horrid tales ofthe Bible, or hear them
with callous indifference. The evidence I have produced, and
shall still produce in the course of this work, to prove that the
Bible is without authority, will, whilst it wounds the stubbornness
of a priest, relieve and tranquillize the minds of millions ; it will
free them from all those hard thoughts of the Almighty which
priest-craft 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. Those books are altogether historical, and are chief
ly 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 em
perors, or Homer's account of the Trojan war. Besides which.
as those works are anonymous, and as we know nothing of the
writer, or of his character, it is impossible for us to know what
degree of credit to give to the matters related therein. Like all
other ancient histories, they appear to be a jumble of fable and
of fact, and of probable and of improbable things ; but which,
distance of time and place, and change of circumstances in the
world, have rendered obsolete and uninteresting.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 91
The chief use I shall make of those books, will be that of com
paring 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 Solomon,
which according to the Bible Chronology, was 1015 years before
Christ ; and the second book ends 588 years before Christ, being
a little after the reign of Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, after
taking Jerusalem, and conquering the Jews, carried captive to
Babylon. The two books include a space of 427 years.
The two book 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 his
tory twice over. The first book of Chronicles (after giving the
genealogy from Adam to Saul, which takes up the first nine chap
ters) 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 52 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, spli'
into two parties, who chose separate kings, and who carried or
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 Caananites, whose
country they had savagely invaded under a pretended gift front
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 suc
cessor, who, after a few years, and sometimes only a few months,
or less, shared the same fate. In the tenth chapter of the second
book of Kings, an account is given of two baskets full of chil
dren's heads, 70 in number, being exoosed at the entrance of the
city; they were the children of Ahab, ani were murdered by

92 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
the orders of Jehu, whom Elisha, the pretended man of God,
had anointed to be king over Israel, on purpose to commit this
bloody deed, and assassinate his predecessor. And in the ac
count of the reign of Manaham, one of the kings of Israel who
had murdered Shallum, who had reigned but one month, it is said,
Kings, chap. xv. ver. 16, that Manaham smote the city of
Tiphsah, because they opened not the city to him, and all the
women that were therein that were with child they ripped up.
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
ofthe world ofthe 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 distinguish
ed themselves above all others, on the face of the known earth,
for barbarity and wickedness. If we will not stubbornly shut
our eyes, and steel our hearts, it is impossible not to see, in
spite of all that long-established superstition imposes upon the
mind, that that flattering appellation of his chosen people is no
other than a lie the priests and leaders of the Jews had invent
ed, to cover the baseness of their own characters ; and which
Christian priests, sometimes as corrupt, and often as cruel,
have professed to believe.
The two books of Chronicles are a repetition of the same
crimes-; but the history is broken in several places, by the author
leaving out the reign of some of their kings ; and in this, as well
as in that of Kings, there is such a frequent transition from kings
of Judah to kings of Israel, and from kings of Israel to kings of
Judah, that the narrative is obscure in the reading. In the same
book the history sometimes contradicts itself; for example, in the
second book of Kings, chap. i. ver. 8, 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 Je-
hoshaphat king of Judah ; and in chap. viii. ver. 16, of the same
book, it is said, and in the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab,
king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, began to
reign • that is, one chapter says Joram of Judah began to
leign in the second year of Joram of Israel ; and the other chap-

PART 11.] THE AGE OF REASON. 93
ter says, that Joram of Israel began to reign in the fifth year of
Joram of Judah.
Several of the most extraordinary matters related in one history,
as having happened during the reign of such and such of their kings
are not to be found in the other, in relating the reign of the same
king ; for example, the two first rival kings, after the death of
Solomon, were Rehoboam and Jeroboam ; and in 1 Kings, chap
xii. and xiii. an account is given of Jeroboam making an offering
of burnt incense, and that a man who is there called a man of God,
cried out against the altar, chap. xiii. ver. 2, " 0 altar ! altar !
thus saith the Lord ; Behold, a child shall be born to the house of
David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of
the high places, and burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall
be burnt upon thee." — Ver. 3, " And it came to pass, when king
Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried
against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar,
saying, Lay hold on him ; and his hand which he put out against
him dried up, so that he could not pull it again to Mm."
One would think that such an extraordinary case as this, (which
is spoken of as a judgment,) happening to the chief of one of the
parties, and that at the first moment ofthe separation ofthe Israel
ite* into two nations, would if it had been true, have been recorded
in both histories. But though men in latter time have believed all
lhat the prophets have said unto them, it does not appear these pro
phets or historians believed each other, they knew each other too
well. A long account also is given in Kings about Elijah. Il runs
through several chapters, and concludes with telling, 2 Kings, .
chap. ii. ver. 11, " And it came to pass, as they (Elijah and Eli
sha) 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 whirlwind into heaven." Hum ! this the author of
Chronicles, miraculous as the story is, makes no mention oi, though
ne mentions Elijah by name ; neither does he say any thing of 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, ver.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,

94 THE A6E OF REASON. [FART II
chap. xiii. that when they were burying a man in the sepulchre,
where Elisha had been buried, it happened that the dead man, as
they were letting him down, (ver. 21,) " touched the bones of Eli
sha, and he (the dead man) revived, and stood upon hisj'eet." The
story does not tell us whether they buried the man notwithstand
ing he revived and stood upon his feet, or drew him up again.
Upon all these stones, 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 ofthe same
kind. But, however tht>se 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 ofthe Bible. Isaiah, who lived in the time of He
zekiah, is mentioned in Kings, and again in Chronicles, when these
historians are speaking of that 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 hinted at; though, according to the
Bible chronology, they lived within the time those histories were
written ; some of them long before, If those prophets, as they
are called, were men of such importance in their day, as the com
pilers 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 any thing 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
ofthe number of years they lived before the books of Kings and
Chronicles were written.

PART II.]

THE AGE OF REASON.

95

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

Names

Isaiah

Years ; Yrs. before)
before j Kings and
Christ. ' Chronicles.
760 172

Observations.
mentioned. mentioned only in
the last c. of Chron
not mentioned.
not mentioned.
not mentioned.
not mentioned.
not mentioned.
not mentioned
see the note.*
not mentioned.
jnot mentioned.
not mentioned.
'not mentioned.

Jeremiah - - 629 41
Ezekiel - - 595 7
Daniel - 607 19
Hosea - - 785 97
Joel - - 800 212
Amos - - 789 199
Obadiah - - 789 199
Jonah - 862 274
Micah - - 750 162
Nahiim - - 713 125
Habakkuk- - 620 38
Zephaniah- - 630 42
?afai. .) after the
Zachariah > KDQ :
Malachi j year 588 j
This table is either not very honourable for the Bible historians,
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 ; anil 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 anv
historian of the present day would treat Peter Pindar.
I have one observation more to make on the book of Chronicles ;
after which I shall pass on to review the remaining books of the
Bible. In my observations on the book of Genesis, I have quoted a
passage from the 36th chapter, verse 31, which evidently refers to
a time, after that kings began to reign over the children of Israel ;
and I have shown that as this verse is verbatim the same as in
Chronicles chap. i. verse 43, where it stands consistently with the
* In 2 Kings, chap. xiv. ver. 25, the name of Jonah is mentioned on account
of the restoration of a tract of land by Jeroboam ; but nothing further is said
of him, nor is any allusion made to the book of Jonah, nor to his expedition
to Ninevah, nor to his encounter with the whale.

96 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 manu
factured 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 passage refers itself, was
not begun to be written until at least eight hundred and sixty
years after the time of Moses. To prove this, we have only to
look into the thirteenth verse of the third chapter of the first book
of Chronicles, where the writer, in giving the 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
Moses, have done it without examination, and without any autho
rity than that of one credulous man telling it to another ; for, so
far as historical and chronological evidence applies, the very first
book in the Bible is not so ancient as the book of Homer, by more
than three hundred years, and is about the same age with iEsop's
Fables. I am not contending for the morality of Homer ; on the con
trary, I think it a book of false glory, tending to inspire immoral
and mischievous notions of honour : 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 dis
order in which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been
put together, and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we
have only to look at the three first verses in Ezra, and the two
last 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

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 97
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.
Ver. 22. Now in the first
year of Cyrus, king of Persia,
that the word of the Lord,
spoken by the mouth of Jere
miah, might be accomplished,
the Lord stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus, king of Persia, that he
made a proclamation throughout
all his kingdom, and put it also
in writing, saying.
23. Thus saith Cyrus, king
of Persia, all the kingdoms of
the earth hath the Lord God
of heaven given me ; and he
hath charged me to build him
an house in Jerusalem, which is
in Judah. Who is there among
you of his people 1 the Lord
his God be with him, and let
him go up.

Three first Verses of Ezra.
Ver. 1. Now in the first year
of Cyrus, king of Persia, that
the word of the Lord, by the
mouth of Jeremiah, might be
fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia,
that he made a proclamation
throughout all his kingdom, and
put it also in writing, saying,
2. Thus saith Cyrus, king of
Persia, The Lord God of hea
ven hath given me all the king
doms of the earth ; and he hath
charged me to build him an
house at Jerusalem, which is in
Judah. 3. Who is there among you
of all his people 1 his God be
with him, and let him go up, to
Jerusalem, which is in Judah,
and build the house of the Lord
God of Israel {he is the God)
ichich is in Jerusalem.
The last verse in Chronicles is broken abruptly, and ends in the
middle of a phrase with the word up, without signifying to what
place. This abrupt break, and the appearance ofthe 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 introduced in the
body ofthe work; such as that, 1 Samuel, chap. xiii. ver. 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." The first part of the verse, that Saul
reigned one year has no sense, since it does not tell us what Saul did, nor say
any thing of what happened at the end of that one year ; and it is, besides,.
mere absurdity to say he reigned one year, when the very next phrase say*
13

9i THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
The only thing that has any appearance of certainty in the
book of Ezra, is the time in which it was written, which was im
mediately after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian cap
tivity, about 536 years before Christ. Ezra (who, according to
the Jewish commentator's, 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 us, nor to any other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part
ofthe history of their nation ; and there is just as much of the
word of God in those books as there is in any of the histories of
France, or Rapin's history of England, or the history of any other
country. But even in matters of historical record, neither of those writers
are to be depended upon. In the second chapter of Ezra, the
writer gives a list of the tribes and families, and of the precise
number of souls of each that returned from Babylon to Jerusalem;
and this enrolment of the persons so returned, appears to have
been one ofthe principal objects for writing the book ; but in this
there is an error, that destroys the intention of the undertaking
he had reigned two ; for if he had reigned two, it was impossible not to have
reigned one.
Another instance.occurs in Joshua, chap. v. where the writer tells us a story
of an angel (for 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 : — Ver. 13, " And it came to pass, when
Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there
stood aman over against him with his sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua
went unto him and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries ?"
Verse 14, " And he said, Nay ; but as the 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 ofthe Lord's host said unto Joshua, Lose 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 humourist, in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from God ; and
the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the story, have told it
as a serious matter. As a story of humour and ridicule, it has a great deal of
point , for it pompcisly 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 Joshua to pull off hu
ishoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches.
It is certain, however, that the Jews did not credit every thing their leaders
told them, as appears from the cavalier manner in which they speak of Moses,
when he was gone into the mount. "As for this Moses, say they, we wot
not what is become of him." Exod. chap. x. xxii. ver. 1.

FART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 99
The wn'.er begins his enrolment in the following manner : —
chap. ii. ver. 3, " The children of Parosh, two thousand one hun
dred seventy and four." Verse 4, " The children of Shephatiah,
three hundred seventy and two." And in this manner he pro
ceeds 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 threescore.
But whoever will take the trouble of casting up the several
particulars, will find that the total is but 29,818 ; so that the error
is 12,542.* What certainty then can there be in the Bible for
any thing ?
Nehemiah, in like manner, gives a list ofthe returned families,
and of the number of each family. He begins as in Ezra, by say
ing, chap. vii. ver. 8, " The children of Parosh, two thousand
three hundred and seventy-two ;" and so on through all the fami
lies. The list differs in several of the particulars from that of
Ezra. In the 66th verse, Nehemiah makes a total, and says, as
Ezra had said, " The whole congregation together was forty and
two thousand three hundred and three score." But the particu
lars of this list make a total but of 31,089, so that the error here is
1 1,271. These writers may do well enough for Bible-makers, but
not for any thing where truth and exactness is necessary. The
next book in course is the book of Esther. If Madam Esther
thought it any honour to offer herself as a kept mistress to Ahasue-
rus, 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
busines! s of ours ; at least, it is none of mine ; besides which the

* Particulars ofthe Families f

'om the second chapi

er of Ezra.

Chap. ii.

Sro't forw.

11,577

Bro't forw.

15,783

Bro't forw.

19.444

Verses 3

2172

Ver. 13

666

Ver. 23

128

Ver. 33

725

4

372

14

2056

24

42

34

345

5

775

15

454

25

743

35

3630

6

2812

16

98

26

621

36

973

7

1254

17

323

27

122

37

1052

8

945

18

112

28

223

38

1247

9

760

19

223

29

52

39

1017

10

642

20

95

30

156

40

74

11

623

21

123

31

1254

41

128

12

1222

22

56
15,783

32

320

42 58 60
Total.

139
392 652

11,577

19,444

29,818

100 THE AGE OF REASON. lpabt u*
story has a great deal the appearance of being fabulous, and is also
anonymous. I pass on to the book of Job.
The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have
hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of
this book ; it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with
the vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and
struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought composi
tion, between willing submission and involuntary discontent ; and
shows man, as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than
he is capable of being. Patience has but a small share in the
character of the person of whom the book treats ; on the contrary,
his grief is often impetuous ; but he still endeavours to keep a
guard upon it, and seems determined, in the midst of accumulat
ing 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, Abe-
nezra and Spinoza, upon this subject ; they both say that the book
of Job carries no internal evidence of being an Hebrew book ;
that the genius of the composition, and the drama of the piece, are
not Hebrew ; that it has been translated from another language
into Hebrew, and that the author ofthe book was a Gentile ; that
the character represented under the name of Satan (which is the
first and only time this name is mentioned in the Bible) does not
correspond to any Hebrew idea ; and that the two 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 tho
production of a mind cultivated in science, which the Jews, so far
from being famous for, were very ignorant of. The allusions to
objects of natural philosophy are frequent and strong, and are of
a different cast to any thing in the books known to be Hebrew.
The astronomical names, Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, are
Greek, and not Hebrew names, and as it does not appear from
any thing that is to be found in the Bible, that the Jews knew any
thing of astronomy, or that they studied it, they had no translation

PART II. J THE AGE OF REASON. 101
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 Gen
tile nations into the Hebrew language, and mix them with their
own, is not a matter of doubt ; the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs
is an evidence of this ; it is there said, ver. 1, The word of king
Lemuel, the prophecy which his mother taught him. This verse
stands as a preface to the proverbs that follow, and which are not
the proverbs of Solomon but of Lemuel ; and this Lemuel was
not one of the kings of Israel, nor of Judah, but of some other
country, and consequently a Gentile. The Jews, however, have
adopted his proverbs, and as they cannot give any account who
the author of the book of Job was, or how they came by the book ;
and as it differs in character from the Hebrew writings, and stands
totally unconnected with every other book and chapter in the
Bible, before it, and after it, it has all the circumstantial evidence
of being originally a book ofthe Gentiles.*
The Bible-makers, and those regulators of time, the Chronolo-
gists, appear to have been at a loss where to place, and how to
dispose of the book of Job ; for it contains no one historical cir
cumstance, 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 oftheir ignorance ; and,
therefore, they have affixed it to the sBra of 1520 years before
Christ which is during the time the Israelites were in Egypt, and
for which they have just as much authority and no more than I
should have for saying it was a thousand years before that period.
The probability, however, is, that it is older than any book in the
* The prayer known by the name of Jlgur's Prayer, in the 30th chapter of
proverbs, immediately preceding the proverbs of Lemuel, and which is the
only sensible, well-conceived, and well-expressed prayer in the Bible, has
much the appearance of being a prayer taken from the Gentiles. The name
of Agur occurs on no other occasion than this ; and he is introduced, together
with the prayer ascribed to him, in the same manner, and nearly in the same
words, that Lemuel and his proverbs are introduced in the chapter that follows.
The first verse of the 30th chapter says, " The words of Agur, the son of Ja-
keh, even the prophecy ;" here the word prophecy is used with the same ap
plication it has in the following chapter of Lemuel, unconnected with any
thing of prediction. The prayer of Agur is in the 8th and 9th verses, " Remove
far from mc vanity and lies ; give me neither riches nor poverty, but 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 any thing but victory, vengeance,
and riches.

102 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
Bible ; and it is the only one that can be read without indignation
or disgust.
We know nothing of what the ancient Gentile world (as it is
called) was before the time of the Jews, whose 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 moral people, and not addicted, like the Jews, to cruelty and
revenge, but of whose profession of faith we are unacquainted. It
appears to have been their custom to personify both virtue and
vice by statues and images, as is done now-a-days both by sta
tuary and 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, 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, Avho 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 icept when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof; for
there they that carried us aivay captive, required of us a song,
saying, sing us one of the songs oj' 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 circumstance ; and the names of
persons have been affixed to the several books, which it was as
impossible they should write, as that a man should walk in pro
cession at his own funeral.
The Book of Proverbs. These, like the Psalms, are a collec
tion, and that from authors belonging to other nations than those

PART II.J THE AGE OF REASON. 103
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 it is said in the 1st verse of the 25th
chapter, " These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men
of Hezekiah, king of Judah, 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
probably, has been the case with Solomon. It appears to have
been the fashion of that day to make proverbs, as it is now to
make jest-books, and father them upon those who never saw them.
The Book of Ecelesiastes, or the Preacher, is also ascribed to
Solomon, and that with much reason, if not with truth. It is writ
ten as the solitary reflections of a worn-out debauchee, such as
Solomon was, who looking back on scenes he can no longer enjoy,
cries out, All is vanity! A great deal of the metaphor and of the
sentiment is obscure, most probably by translation ; but enough
is left to show they were strongly pointed in the original.* From
what is transmitted to us of the 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 pre
tensions to wisdom, discover it beforehand, he merited, unpitied,
the mortification he afterwards endured. In this point of view,
his preaching is unnecessary, because, to know the consequences,
it is only necessary to know the cause. Seven hundred wives,
and three hundred concubines, would have stood in place of the
whole book. It was needless after this to say, that all was vanity
and vexation of spirit ; for it is impossible to derive happiness
from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness.
To be happy in old age, it is necessary that we accustom our
selves to objects that can accompany the mind all the way through
life, and that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere
* Those that look out of the windmo shall be darkened, is an obscure figura
in translation for loss of sight..

104 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART Hi
man of pleasure is miserable in old age ; and the mere drudge in
business is but little better : whereas, natural philosophy, mathe
matical 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 unchange
able, and of divine origin.
Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect, that his
mind was ever young ; his temper ever serene : science, that
never grows grey, was always his mistress. He was never with
out an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become
like an invalid in an hospital waiting for death.
Solomon's Songs are amorous and foolish enough, but whic.
wrinkled fanaticism has called divine. The compilers of tho
Bible have placed these songs after the book of Ecclesiastes ; and
the Chronologists have affixed to them the sera of 1014 years be
fore Christ, at which time Solomon, according to the same chro
nology, was nineteen years of age, and was then forming his
seraglio of wives and concubines. The Bible-makers and the
Chronologists should have managed this matter a little better, and
either have said nothing about the time, or chosen a time less in
consistent with the supposed divinity of those songs ; for Solomon
was then in the honey-moon of one thousand debaucheries.
It should also have occurred to them, that as he wrote, if he
did write, the book of Ecclesiastes, long after these songs, and in
which he exclaims, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit ; that
he included those songs in that description. This is the more
probable, because he says, or somebody for him, Ecclesiastes,
chap. ii. v. 8, " I got me men singers, and women singers, (most
probably to sing those songs,) and musical instruments of all
sorts ; and behold (ver. 11,) all was vanity and vexation of spirit '
The compilers, however, have done their work but by halves ; for
as they have given us the songs, they should have given us the
tunes, that we might sing them.
The books, called the books of the Prophets, fill up all the
remaining parts of the Bible ; they are sixteen in number, begin
ning with Isaiah, and ending with Malachi, of which I have given
you a list in my observations upon Chronicles. Of these sixteen
prophets, all of whom, except the three last, lived within the time

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 105
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 ofthe men called prophets to another part ofthe
work. Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to
Isaiah, will find it one of the most wild and disorderly composi
tions ever put together ; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end ;
and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of 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
excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in the translation)
that kind of composition and false taste, that is properly called
prose run mad.
The historical part begins at the 36th chapter, and is continued
to the end of the 39th chapter. It relates to some matters that
are said to have passed, during the reign of Hezekiah, king of
Judah, at which time Isaiah lived. This fragment of history
begins and ends abruptly ; it has not the least connection with the
chapter that precedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with
any other in the book. It is probable that Isaiah wrote this frag
ment himself, because he was an actor in the circumstances it
treats of; but, except this part, there are scarcely two chapters
that have any connection with each other ; one is entitled, at the
beginning of the first verse, the burden of Babylon ; another, the
burden of Moab ; another, the burden of Damascus ; another, the
burden of Egypt ; another, the burden of the Desart of the Sea ;
another, the burden of the Valley of Vision ; as you would say,
the story ofthe knight ofthe burning mountain, the story of Cin
derella, or the children of the wood, &c. &c.
I have already shown, in the instance of the two last verses of
Chronicles, and the three first in Ezra, that the compilers ofthe
Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with
each other, which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to
destroy the authenticity of any compilation, because it is more
than presumptive evidence that the compilers are ignorant who
the authors were. A very glaring instance of this occurs in the
book ascribed to Isaiah, the latter part of the 44th chapter, and
the beginning of the 45th, so far from having been written by
14

106 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
Isaiah, could only have been written by some person who lived,
at least, an hundred an fifty years after Isaiah was dead.
These chapters are a compliment 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 foundations shall be laid :
thus saith the Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I
have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins
of kings to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates
shall not be shut; I will go before thee, fyc."
What audacity of church and priestly ignorance it is to impose
this book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah, when Isaian,
according to their own chronology, died soon after the death of
Hezekiah, which was 698 years before Christ ; and the decree ot
Cyrus, in favour of the Jews returning to Jerusalem, was, accord
ing to the same chronology, 536 years before Christ ; which was
a distance of time between the two of 162 years. I do not sup
pose 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 name of such authors as best suited their pur
pose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next to
inventing it ; for it was impossible but they must have observed it.
When we see the studied craft of the scripture-makers, in mak
ing 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 are
marked with the barbarous hand of superstitious torture, and forced
into meanings it was impossible they could have. The head of
every chapter, and the top of every page, are blazoned with the
names of Christ and the church, that the unwary reader might
suck in the error before he began to read.
Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, Isaiah, chap. vii.
ver. 14, has been interpreted to mean the person called Jesus
Christ, and his mother Mary, and has been echoed through Christ
endom 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

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 107
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 spuri
ous ; and thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at
once the whole structure of superstition raised thereon ; I will,
however, stop a moment, to expose the fallacious application of
this passage.
Whether Isaiah was playing a trick with Ahaz, king of Judah,
to whom this passage is spoken, is no business of mine ; I mean
only to 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 men
tioned that the Jews were split into two nations, one of which was
called Judah, the capital of which was Jerusalem, and the other
Israel) made war jointly against Ahaz, king of Judah, and marched
their armies towards Jerusalem. Ahaz and his people became
alarmed, and the account says, ver. 2, " Their hearts were movea
as the trees ofthe wood are moved ivith the wind,"
In this situation of things, Isaiah addresses himself to Ahaz, and
assures him in the name of the Lord (the cant phrase of all the
prophets) that these two kings should not succeed against him ;
and to satisfy Ahaz that this should be the case, tells him to ask a
sign. This, the account says, Ahaz declined doing ; giving as a
reason that he would not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah, who
is the speaker, says, ver. 14,." Therefore the Lord himself shall
give you a sign ; behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son ;"
and the 16th verse says, " And before this child shall know to
refuse the evil,, and chuse the good, the land which thou abhorrest
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 chuse
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
Iswah knew of one before-hand ; for. I do not suppose 'hat the

108 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART I*
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,
ver. 2, " 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."
Here then is the whole story, foolish as it is, of this child and
this virgin ; and it is upon the bare-faced perversion of this story,
that the book of Matthew, and the impudence and sordid interests
of priests in latter times, have founded a theory which they call the
gospel ; and have applied this story to signify the person they call
lesus Christ ; begotten, they say, by a ghost, whom they call
holy, on the body of a woman, engaged in marriage, and after
wards married, whom they call a virgin, 700 years after this fool
ish story was told ; a theory which, speaking for myself, I
hesitate not to believe, and to say, is as fabulous and 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 second Chronicles ; and which is, that instead of
these two kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, king of
Judah, as Isaiah had pretended to foretel inthe name ofthe Lord,
they succeeded ; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed ; an 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 pro
phet and impostor Isaiah, and the book of falsehoods that bears
his name. I pass on to the book of
Jeremiah. This prophet, as he is called, lived in the time that
Nebuchadnezzar 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. Every
thing relating to Jeremiah shows him to have been a man of an
equivocal character : in his metaphor of the potter and the clay,
c. 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 14th verse of the viith chapter, it is said, that the child should be
called Immanuel ; but this name was not given to either of the children, other-
wise than as a character which the word signifies. Thut of the prophetess
wns called Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and that of Mary was called Jesus.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 109
In the 7th and 8th verses of that chapter, he makes the Al
mighty to say, " At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation,
and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and
destroy it : if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn
from their evil, I will repent me of the evil that I thought to do
unto them." Here was a proviso against one side of the case :
now for the other side.
Verses 9 and 10, " At what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it do
evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice : then I will repent me
of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them." Here is a
proviso against the other side ; and, according to this plan of pro
phesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the
Almighty might be. This sort of absurd subterfuge, and this
manner of speaking of the Almighty, as one would speak of a
man, is consistent with nothing but the stupidity ofthe Bible.
As to the authenticity of the book, it is only necessary to read
it in order to decide positively, that, though some passages record
ed therein may have been spoken by Jeremiah, he is not the au
thor ofthe 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 some
times in contradiction to each other ; and this disorder runs even
to the last chapter, where the history, upon which the greater part
ofthe book has been employed, begins a-new, and ends abruptly.
The book has all the appearance of being a medley of unconnect
ed anecdotes, respecting persons and things of that time, collected
together in the same rude manner as if the various and contradic
tory accounts, that are to be found in a bundle of newspapers, re
specting persons and things of the present day, were put together
without date, order or explanation. I will give two or three ex
amples 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 seige, and retreated for a time. It may here be proper
to mention, in order to understand this confused history, that Ne
buchadnezzar had besieged and taken Jerusalem, during the reign
of Jehoakim, the predecessor of Zedekiah ; and that it was Nebu-

110 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II
chadnezzar 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 Nebuchadnez
zar. This will in some measure account for the suspicion that
affixes itself to Jeremiah, of being a traitor, and in the interest of
Nebuchadnezzar ; whom Jeremiah calls, in the 43rd chap. ver.
10, the servant of God.
The 11th verse of this chapter, (the 37th,) says, " And it came
to pass, that, when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from
Jerusalem, for fear of Pharaoh's army, that 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 ; and he took Jeremiah the
prophet, saying, Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans ; then Jere
miah said, It is false, I fall 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 re
mained, as is stated in the last verse of this chapter.
But the next chapter gives an account of the imprisonment of
Jeremiah, which has no connexion with this account, but ascribes
his imprisonment to another circumstance, and for which we must
go back to the 21st chapter. It is there stated, ver. 1, that Zede
kiah sent Pashur, the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah, the son of
Maaseiah the priest, to Jeremiah, to enquire of him concerning
Nebuchadnezzar, whose army was then before Jerusalem ; and
Jeremiah said to them, ver. 8, " Thus saith the Lord, Behold I set
before you the way of life, and the way of death ; he that abideth
in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the
pestilence ; but he that goeth out and faileth 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 continuation and event of this
conference ; and this brings us to the first verse of the 38th chap
ter, as I have just mentioned.
The 38th chapter opens with saying, " Then Shapatiah, the son
of Mattan ; Gedaliah, the son of Pashur ; and Jucal, the son of

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. Ill
Shelemiah ; and Pashur, the son of Malchiah ; (here are more
persons mentioned than in the 21st chapter,) heard the words that
Jeremiah spoke unto the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord, He
that remaineth in this city, shall die by the sword, by the famine,
and by the pestilence ; but he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans
shall live ; for he shall have his life for a prey, and shall live ;
(which are the words of the conference,) therefore, (say they to
Zedekiah,) We beseech thee, let us put this man to death, for thus
he weakeneth the hands ofthe 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 ofthe people, but the hurt :"
and at the 6th verse it is said, " Then they took Jeremiah, and put
him into a 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.*
In the next chapter (the 39th) we have another instance of the
disordered state of this book : for notwithstanding the siege of the
* I observed two chapters, 16th and 17th, in the first book of Samuel, that
contradict each other with respect to David, and the manner he became ac
quainted 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, ver. 17," Provide now
a man that can play well, and bring him unto inc." Then answered one ofhis
servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlemite, that is
cunning in playing, and a mighty man, and a man of war, and prudent in mat
ters, 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 jgreatly, and he
became his armour-bearer ; and when the evil spirit of God was upon Saul,
[verse 23] David took his harp, and played with his hand, and Saul was re
freshed, and was well.
But the next chapter [17] gives an account, all different to this, of the man
ner that Saul and David became acquainted. Here it is ascribed to David's
encounter with Goliah, when David was sent by his father to carry provision
to his brethren in the camp. In the 55th verse of this chapter it is said, " And
when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine [Goliah] he said to Abner,
the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth ? And Abner said,
As thy soul liveth, 0 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 unto him, Whose son art thou, thou
young man ? And David answered, " I am the son of thy servant Jesse, the
Bethlemite." These two accounts belie each other, because each of them
supposes Saul and David not to have known each other before. This book.
the Bible, is too ridiculous even for criticism.

112 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
city, by Nebuchadnezzar, has been the subject of several of the
preceding chapters, particularly the 37th and 3Sth, the 39 chap
ter begins as if not a word had been said upon the subject ; and as
if the reader was to be informed of every particular respecting it ;
for it begins with saying, ver. 1, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah,
king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar, king oj
Babylon, awl all his army, against Jerusalem, and besieged it, ij-c.
$c.» But the instance in the last chapter (the 52d) is still more glar
ing ; for though the story has been told over and over again, this
chapter still supposes the reader not to know any thing of it, for
it begins by saying, ver. 1," Zedekiah was one and twenty years old
when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem,
and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah oj
Libnah, (ver. 4.) and it came to pass in ihe ninth year ofhis
reign, in the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against
it, and built forts against it, 6f-c. tj-c."
It is not possible that any one man, and more particularly Jere
miah, 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 every body would suppose that the writer was in a state of
insanity. The only way, therefore, to account for this disorder, is,
that the book is a medley of detached unauthenticated anecdotes,
put together by some stupid book-maker, under the name of Jere
miah ; because many of them refer to him, and to the circum
stances of the times he lived in.
Of the duplicity, and ofthe false predictions of Jeremiah, I shall
mention two instances, and then proceed to review the remainder
of the Bible.
It appears from 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 Zedekiah to surrender
himself to the enemy. " If," says he, (ver. 17,) " thouwilt assuredly
go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live,
Src." Zedekiah was apprehensive that what passed at this con
ference should be known ; and he said to Jeremiah, (ver. 25,)
•'If the princes (meaning those of Judah) hear that I have talked

PART 11.] THE AGE OF REASON. 113
with thee, and they come unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare
unto us now what thou hast said unto the king ; hide it not from
us, and we will not put thee to death ; and also what the king said
unto thee ; then thou shalt say unto them, I presented my suppli
cation before the king ; that he would not cause me to return to
Jonathan's house to die there. Then came all the princes unto
Jeremiah, and asked him, and he told them according to all the
words the king had commanded." Thus, this man of God, as he
is called, could tell a lie, or very strongly prevaricate, when he
supposed it would answer his purpose ; for certainly he did not go
to Zedekiah to make his supplication, neither did he .make it ; he
went because he was sent for, and he employed that opportunity
to advise Zedekiah to surrender himself to Nebuchadnezzar.
In the 34th chapter, is a prophecy of Jeremiah to Zedekiah, in
these words, (ver. 2,) " Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will give
this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it
with fire ; and thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but that thou
shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand ; and thine eyes
shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak
with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon. Yet
hear the word of the Lord ; O Zedekiah, king of Judah, thus
saith the Lord, Thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shalt die
in peace ; and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings
that were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee, and they
will lament thee, saying, Ah, Lord ; for I 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 odours, as at the funeral of
his fathers, (as Jeremiah had declared the Lord himself had
pronounced,) the reverse, according to the 52d chapter, was
the case ; it is there said, (ver. 10,) " That the king of Babylon
slew the sons of Zedekiah before, his eyes : then he put out
the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and carried him
to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death."
What then can we say of these prophets, but that they are
impostors and liars ?
As for Jeremiah, he experienced none of those evils. He was
taken into favour by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave him in charge to
the captain ofthe guard, (chap, xxxix. ver. 12,) " Take him (said.
15

114 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 after
wards to Nebuchadnezzar, and went about prophesying for him
against the Egyptians, who had marched to the relief of Jerusa
lem 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 ofthe 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 ofthe books ascribed to the men called prophets, I shall
not trouble myself much about ; but take them collectively into
the observations I shall offer on the character of the men styled
prophets. In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have said that the
word prophet was the Bible word for poet, and that the flights
and metaphors of Jewish poets have been foolishly erected into
what are now called prophecies. I am sufficiently justified in this
opinion, not only because the books called the prophecies are
written in poetical language, but because there is no word in the
Bible, except it be the word prophet, that describes what we mean
by a poet. I have also said, that the word signifies a performer
upon musical instruments, of which I have given some instances;
such as that of a company of prophets prophesying with psalteries,
with tabrets, with pipes, with harps, &c. and that Saul prophesied
with them, 1 Sam. chap. x. ver. 5. It appears from this passage,
and from other parts in the book of Samuel, that the word prophet
was confined to signify poetry and music ; for the person who
was supposed to have a visionary insight into concealed things,
was not a prophet but a seer,* (1 Sam. chap. ix. ver. 9 ;) and it
was not till after the word seer went out of use (which most pro
bably 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 pro
phesying, 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
* I know not what is the Hebrew word that corresponds to the word seer
in Knglish ; but I observe it is translated into French by La Voyant, from
ihe verb voir to see ; and which means the person who sees, or the seer.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON- 115
call the prophecies ofthe Old Testament, to the times ofthe 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 ofthe time then passing, or very closely connected with it ;
such as the event of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a
journey, or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of
any circumstance then pending, or of any 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
expression, 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 ofthe Christian
church, not that of the Jews ; and the ignorance and the supersti
tion of modern, not that of ancient times, that elevated those poet
ical — musical — conjuring — dreaming — 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 they pro
phesied for or against, according to the party they were with ; as
the poetical and political writers of the present day write in
defence ofthe 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 pro
phets 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 chap, x.) " Art thou the man of God that came
from Judah ? and he said, I am." Then the prophet of the
party of Israel said to him, " I am a prophet also, as thou art,
(signifying of Judah,) arid an angel spake unto me by the word of

116 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART 11,
t he Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee unto 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 o.<"
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 Joram,
king of Israel, had for a while ceased their party animosity, and
entered into an alliance ; and these two, together with the king
of Edom, engaged in a war against the king of Moab. After
uniting, and marching their armies, the story says, they were in great
distress for water, upon which Jehoshaphat, said, " Is there not
here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire ofthe Lord by
him ? and one of the servants of the king of Israel said here is Eli
sha. (Elisha was ofthe party of Judah.) And Jehoshaphat, the
king of Judah, said, The ivord 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 the prophets oj
thy mother. Nay but, said the king of Israel, the Lord hath
called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hands oj
the king of Moab," (meaning because of the distress they were
in for water ;) upon whieh Elisha said, " As the Lord of hosts
liveth before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regarded Je
hoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not look towards thee, nor see
thee." Here is all the venom and vulgarity of a party prophet. —
We have now to see the performance, or manner of prophesying.
Ver. 15. " Bring me," said Elisha, " a minstrel; and it came
to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of ihe Lord came
upon him." Here is the farce of the conjuror. Now for the pro-
phecy: "And Elisha said, (singing most probably to the tunc
he was playing,) Tims saith the Lord, Make this valley full oj
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 conjuror is not famous alike for the same thing

PART II ] THE AGE OF REASON. 117
so neither were those prophets ; for though all of them, at least
those I have spoken of, were famous for lying, some of them ex
celled in cursing. Elisha, whom I have just mentioned, was a chief
in this branch of prophesying ; 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 ofthe
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 ofthe Dragon of Wantley, of whom it is said. —
Poor children three devoured he,
That could not with him grapple ; .
And at one sup he eat them up,
As a man would eat an apple.
There was another description of men called prophets, that
amused themselves with dreams and visions ; but whether by
night or by day, we know not. These, if they were not quite
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 1 that is, were they
written by Ezekiel and Daniel ?
Of this there is no proof; but so far as my own opinion goes,
I am more inclined to believe they were, than that they were not.
My reasons for this opinion are as follow : First, Because those
books do not contain internal evidence to prove they were not writ
ten 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 prove-
able, from the books themselves, as I have already shown, that 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 foolish
ly employed or wasted their time in pretending to expound and
unriddle those books, have 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

118 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II
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 unsafe for them to speak facts or
plain language. We ought, however, to suppose, that the persons
to whom they wrote, understood what they meant, and that it was
not intended any body else should. But these busy commentators
and priests have been puzzling their wits to find out what it was
not intended they should know, and with which they have 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 Dan
iel, would be meditating the recovery of their country, and their
own deliverance, it is reasonable to suppose, that the accounts ot
dreams and visions, with which these books are filled, are no other
than a disguised mode of correspondence, to facilitate those ob
jects : it served them as a cypher, or secret alphabet. If they are
not this, they are tales, reveries, and nonsense ; or, at least, a fan
ciful way of wearing off the wearisomeness of captivity ; but the
presumption is, they were the former.
Ezekiel begins his books by speaking of a vision of cherubims,
and of a wheel within a ioheel, which he says he saw by the river
Chebar, in the land of his captivity. Is it not reasonable to sup
pose, that by the cherubims, he meant the temple at Jerusalem,
where they had figures of cherubims 1 and by a wheel within a
wheel (which, as a figure, has always been understood to signify
political contrivance) the project or means of recovering Jerusa
lem 1 In the latter part of this book, he supposes himself trans-

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 119
ported to Jerusalem, and into the temple ; and he refers Dack to
the vision on the river Chebar, and says, (chap, xliii. ver. 3,) that
this last vision was like the vision on the river Chebar ; which in
dicates, that those pretended dreams and visions had for their ob
ject 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 remote even as the present day,
it shows the fraud or the extreme folly to which credulity or priest
craft can go.
Scarcely any thing can be more absurd, than to suppose that men
situated as Ezekiel and Daniel were, whose country was over-run,
and in the possession of the enemy, all their friends and relations
n captivity abroad, or in slavery at home, or massacred, or in con-
.mual danger of it ; scarcely any thing, 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 hap
pen 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 prophecies, they are false. In
the 29th chapter of Ezekiel, speaking of Egypt, it is said, (ver. 11,)
" No foot of man should pass through it, nor foot of beast should
pass through it ; neither shall it be inhabited for 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
ofthe subject.
In the former part of the Age of Reason I have spoken of Jonah,
and ofthe 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 could swallow ; for if it could swallow Jonah
and the whale, it could swallow any thing.
But, as is already shown in the observations on the book of Job,
«nd of Proverbs, it is not always certain which of the books in the

120 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART Ih
Bible are originally Hebrew or only translations from books ofthe
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 altogether ofthe 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.
Jonah is represented, first, as a disobedient prophet, running
away from his mission, and taking shelter aboard a vessel of the
Gentiles, bound from Joppa to Tarshish ; as if he ignorantly sup
posed, by such a paltry contrivance, he could hide himself where
God could not find him. The vessel is over-taken 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 com
mitted 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 ques
tioned him to know who and what he was ? and he told them he
loas an Hebrew ; and the story implies that he confessed himself
to be guilty. But these Gentiles instead of sacrificing him at
once, without pity or mercy, as a company of 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 endeavoured to save him, though at the risk of
their own lives ; for the account says, " Nevertheless (that is,
though Jonah was a Jew, and a foreigner, and the cause of all their
misfortunes, and the loss of their cargo) the men rowed hard to
bring the boat to land, but they could not, for the sea wrought and
was tempestuous against them." Still, however, they were unwill
ing to put the fate of the lot into execution ; and they cried (says
the account) unto the Lord, saying, " We beseech thee, O Lord,
let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent
blood; for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." Meaning
thereby, that they did not presume to judge Jonah guilty, since
that 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

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 121
represented them to be. But the storm stil. continuing, and the
danger increasing, they put the fate of the lot into execution, and
cast Jonah into the sea ; where, according to the story, a great
fish swallowed him up whole and alive.
We have now to consider Jonah securely housed from the
storm in the fish's belly. Here we are told that he prayed ; but
the prayer is a made-up prayer, taken from various parts of the
Psalms, without any connexion or consistency, 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, " The Lord spake unto
the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon dryland."
Jonah then received a second mission to Ninevah, 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 con
ceive, 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, " Yet
forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown."
We have now to consider this supposed missionary in the
last act of his mission ; and here it is that the malevolent spirit
of a Bible-prophet, or of a predicting priest, appears in all that
blackness of character, that men ascribe to the being they call
the devil.
Having published his predictions, he 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 himself, or to others, but
to wait with malignant impatience, the destruction of Ninevah. 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 first verse of the last chapter, displeased Jonah
exceedingly and he was very angry. His obdurate heart would
rather that all Ninevah should be destroyed, pnd every soul, young
16

l22 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
and old, perish in its ruins, than that his prediction should not
be fulfilled. To expose the character of a prophet still more, a
gourd is made to grow up in the night, that promises him an agree
able shelter from the heat of the sun, in the place to which he is
retired ; and the next morning it dies.
Here the rage of the prophet becomes excessive, and he is
ready to destroy himself. " It is 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, " Doest thou
well to be angry for the gourd ? And Jonah said, I do well to be
angry even unto death ; Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity
on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither modest it
to groio, which came up in a night, and perished in a night ; and
should not I spare Ninevah, that great city, in which are more than
threescore thousand persons, that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left 1"
Here is both the winding up of the satire, and the moral of the
fable. As a satire, it strikes against the character of all the Bible-
prophets, and against all the indiscriminate judgments upon men,
women, and children, with which this lying book, the Bible, is
crowded ; such as Noah's flood, the destruction of the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah, the extirpation of the Canaanites, even to
sucking infants, and women with child, because the same reflec
tion, that there are more than threescore thousand persons that can
not discern between their right hand and their left, meaning young
children, applies to all their cases. It satirizes also the supposed
partiality of the Creator, for one nation more than for another.
As a moral, it preaches against the malevolent spirit of predic
tion ; for as certainly as a man predicts ill, he becomes inclined to
irish it. The pride of having his judgment right, hardens his
heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disap
pointment, 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 persecution. Thus much for the book Jonah.
Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I
have spoken in the former part of the Age of Reason, and already
in this : where I have suid that the word prophet is the Bible wonl

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 123
for poet ; and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many
of which have 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 agreeably to his own views, and imposes that expla
nation upon his congregation as the meamng 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 ; so 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 impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose
of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their
nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.
I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through
a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie ;
and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, pre-
haps, 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 pro
phecies of the Old ; if so, it must follow the fate of its founda
tion. 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 believ
ing that such a woman as Mary, and such a man as Joseph, and
Jesus, existed ; their mere existence is a matter of indifference
about which there is no ground either to believe or to disbelieve
and which comes under the common head of, It may be so ; ana
what then ? The probability, however, is, that there were such
persons, or at least such as resembled them in part of the circum
stances, because almost all romantic stories have been suggested
by some actual circumstance ; as the adventures of Robinson
Crusoe, not a word of which is true, were suggested by the case
of Alexander Selkirk.

124 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
It is not then tv.e existence, or non-existence, of the persons
that I trouble myself about ; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told
in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised
thereon against which I contend. The story, taking it as it is told,
is blasphemously obscene. It gives an account of a young woman
engaged to be married, and while under this engagement, she is,
to speak plain language, debauched by a ghost, under the impious
pretence, (Luke, chap. i. ver. 35,) that " the Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee." 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 of the amorous adventures of Jupi
ter ; and shows, as is already stated in the former part ofthe Age
of Reason, that the Christian faith is built upon the heathen my
thology. As the historical parts of the New Testament, so far as con
cerns 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 contradictions, which, exclusive of the fallacy of the
pretended 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
* Mary, the supposed virgin mother of Jesus, had severil other children,
sons and daughters. See Matt. chap. xiii. 55, 56.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 125
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
truth, but the disagreement pioves falsehood positively
The history of Jesus Christ is contained in the four books as
cribed 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 any thing 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 imposters, or the books
ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered
upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament.
The book of Matthew gives, chap. i. ver. 6, a genealogy by
name from David, up through Joseph, the husband of 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 there to
he forty-three generations ; 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.
Genealogy, according to Genealogy, according to
Matthew. Luke.
Christ Christ
2 Joseph 2 Joseph
3 Jacob 3 Heli
4 Matthan 4 Matthat
5 Eleazer 5 Levi

126

THE AGE OF REASON

Genealogy, acording to
Matthew.
6 Eliud
7 Achim
8 Sadoo
9 Azor
10 Eliakim
11 Abiud
12 Zorobabel
13 Salathiel
14 Jechonias
15 Josias
16 Amon
17 Manasses
18 Ezekias
19 Achaz
20 Joatham
21 Ozias
22 Joram
23 Josaphat
24 Asa
25 Abia
26 Roboam
27 Solomon
2S David*

[part ii
Genealogy, according to
Luke.
6 Melchi
7 Janna
8 Joseph
9 Mattathias
10 Amos
11 Naum
12 Esli
13 Nagge
14 Maath
15 Mattathias
16 Semei
17 Joseph
18 Juda
19 Joanna
20 Rhesa
21 Zorobabel
22 Salathiel
23 Neri
24 Melchi
25 Addi
26 Cosam
27 Elmodam
28 Er
29 Jose
30 Eliezer
31 Jorim
32 Matthat
33 Levi
34 Simeon
35 Juda

* From the birth of David to the birth of Christ is upwards of 1030 years,
and as the life-time 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 108 by 27, which
gives 40 years for each person. As the life-time of man was then but of the
same extent it is now, it is an absurdity to suppose, that 27 following genera
tions 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
I uke gives about twenty-six years for the average age, and this is too much.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 127
Genealogy, according to Genealogy, according to
Matthew. Luke.
36 Joseph
37 Jonan
38 Elakim
39 Melea
40 Menan
41 Mattatha
42 Nathan
43 David
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 oftheir history of Jesus Christ, and of whom, 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, why are we
to believe them in the other 1 If his natural be manufactured,
which it certainly is, why are not we to suppose, that his celestial
genealogy is manufactured also ; and that the whole is fabulous ?
Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness
upon the belief of a story naturally impossible ; repugnant to
every idea of decency ; and related by persons already detected
of falsehood ? 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 ofthe New Testa
ment, as upon those ofthe 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 doubt?
fulness 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,

128 THE AGE OF REASON [FART II.
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 indi
viduals, 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 sup
posed to have done : in fine, that they have been manufactured,
as the books ofthe 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 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 is it, 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
old, belongs altogether to the book of Matthew : not one of the
rest mentions any thing about it. Had such a circumstance 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 into Egypt ; but he forgot to make any provision
for John who was then under two years of age. John, however,
who staid 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 ihe
same words, the written inscription, short as it is, which they tell

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON, 129
us was put over Christ when he was crucified : and besides this,
Mark says, He was crucified at the third hour, (nine in the morn
ing ;) and John says it was the sixth hour, (twelve at noon,*)
The inscription is thus stated in those books.
Matthew — This is Jesus the king of the Jews
Mark The king of the Jews.
Luke This is the king ofthe 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 one of the men, called
'apostles, who appears to have been near the spot, was Peter, and
when he was accused of being one of Jesus' followers, it is said,
(Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 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, " There teas darkness over
all the land from the sixth hour unto the ninth hour — that the veil
of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom— that
there was an earthquake — that the rocks rent— that the graves
opened, that the bodies of many of the saints that slept arose and
came out of their graves after the resurrection, and went into the
holy city and appeared unto many." Such is the account which
this dashing writer ofthe 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 Marls, in detailing the cir-
cumstances of the crucifixion, makes no mention of any earth
quake, nor ofthe 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 circumstances ofthe cruci-
* 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,) chap. xv. 25 ; John chap. xix. ver. 14.
17

130 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
fixion 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 happened ; 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 for
them to have been absent from it ; the opening of the graves and
resurrection ofthe 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 open
ing of the graves is supernatural, 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 conversations of,
he said this, and she said that, are often tediously detailed, while
this most important of all, had it been true, is passed off in a slov
enly manner by a single dash of the pen, and that by one writer
only, and not so much as hinted at by the rest.
It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the
he 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 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 itbey got their dresses ; whether they went to their
former habitations, and reclaimed 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 fallowed their former occupation of preaching 01

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 131
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 more should be said upoii the subject, nor these
saints have any thing to tell us ! Had it been the prophets who
(as we are told) had formerly prophesied of these things, they
must have had a great deal to say. They could have told us
every thing, 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, not an unconverted Jew had remained in
all Jerusalem. Had it been John the Baptist, and the saints of
the time then present, every body would have known them, and
they would have out-preached and out-famed all the other apostles.
But, instead of this, 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 ofthe story.
The tale of the resurrection follows that of the crucifixion ; 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 ap
plication, nor about the sealing, nor the guard, nor the watch ;
and according to theii; 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 the conclusion,
as it serves to detect the fallacy of those books.
The book of Matthew continues its account, and says, (chap.
xxviii. ver. 1,) that at the end ofthe Sabbath, as it began to dawn,
towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary, to s e the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising,
and John says it was dark. Luke gays it was Mary Magdalene
and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women,
that came to the sepulchre ; and John states, that Mary Magda
lene came alone. So well do they agree about their first evi-

132 THE AGE OF REASON. |_PART II
dence! tney all, however, appear to have known most about Mary
Magdalene ; she was a woman of a large acquaintance, and if
was not an ill conjecture that she might be uponjha_slroll.
The book of Matthew goes on to say, (ver. 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 their account, 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. Mark 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 these four books had gone into a court
of Justice to prove an alibi, (for it is ofthe 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 have justly 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
had with the angel sitting upon the stone,) " oehold 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

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 133
priests all the things that were done ; and when they were assem
bled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money
unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, that his disciples came by night,
and stole him away while we slept ; and if this come to the gov
ernor'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
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 pre
tends to treat ; for the expression implies a great length of inter
vening time. It would be inconsistent in us to speak in this man
ner of any thing 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 to ancient time.
The absurdity also ofthe 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 their 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 ofthe matter, such evidence could not be re
ceived ; it will do well enough for Testament evidence, but not
for any thing where truth is concerned.
I come now to that part of the evidence in those books, that
respects the pretended appearance of Christ after this pretended
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, chap, xxviii. ver. 7, " Behold Christ is gone before
you into Galilee, there ye shall see him ; lo, I have told you." And
the same writer at the two next verses, (S, 9,) makes Christ him
self to speak to the same purpose to these women immediately

134 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
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 were Jesus had
appointed them : and, when they saw him, they worshipped him."
But the writer of the book of John tells us a story very differ
ent to this ; for he says, chap. xx. ver. 19, " Then the same day
it evening, being the first day of the week, (that is, the same day
Jiat Christ is said to have risen,) 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 appointment, 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) rose, and that the eleven were there. See Luke, chap.
xxiv. ver. 13, 33.
Now, it is not possible, unless we admit these supposed disci
ples the right of wilful lying, that the writer of these books could
be any ofthe 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 as
sembled 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 de
stroys each other.
The writer ofthe book of Mark says nothing about any meet
ing in Galilee ; but he says, chap. xvi. ver. 12, that Christ, after
his resurrection, appeared in another form to two of 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

PART II. J THE AGE OF REASON. 135
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, threescore furlongs (seven miles and a half) from
Jerusalem, and that Christ, in disguise, went with them, and"staid
with them unto the evening, and supped with them, and then
vanished out of their sight, and re-appeared that same evening, at
the meeting of the eleven in Jerusalem.
This is the contradictory manner in which the evidence of this
pretended re-appearance of Christ is stated ; the only point in
which the writers agree, is the skulking privacy of that re-appear
ance ; 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 are we to assign this skulking 1 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 hun
dred 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 chang
ing 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 ofthe Jews, and of every thing else, must necessa
rily have been out ofthe question : it was that which, if true, was
to seal the whole ; and upon which the reality of the future mis
sion 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
supposing 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

136 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART 11.
be, as I have stated in the former part of the Age 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 1 The writer ofthe
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 this 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 Jeru
salem : he then states the conversation that he says passed at that
meeting ; and immediately after says, (as a school-boy would
finish a dull story,) " So then, after the Lord had spoken unto
them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand
of God;" But the writer of Luke says, that the ascension was
from Bethany ; that he (Christ) led them out as far as Bethany,
and was parted from them there, and was carried up into heaven.
So also was Mahomet : and, as to Moses, the apostle Jude saya,
ver. 9, That Michael and the devil disputed about his body.
While we believe such fables as these, or either of them, we
believe unworthily ofthe 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 circumstances are said
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 expectation of finding, when I began this examination,
and far more so than I had any idea of when I wrote the former nart
of the Age of Reason. I had then neither Bible nor Testament to
refer to, nor could I procure any. My own situation, even as to

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 137
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 advanced in that work are the effect ofthe most . clear and
long-established conviction — that the Bible and the Testament
are impositions upon the world — that the fall of man — the account
of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease
the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all
fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and power of
the Almighty — that the only true religon 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
those 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 ascer
tain negatively that they were not written by the persons to whom
they are ascribed. The contradictions in those books demon
strate 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, consequently, 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 indi
vidually 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 writ
ten by the men called apostles, and also that they are not a
concerted imposition. As to inspiration, it is altogether out ofthe
question ; we may as well attempt to unite truth and falsehood,
as inspiration and contradiction.
If four men are eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses to a scene, they
will, without any concert between them, agree as to time and
place, when and where that scene happened. Their individual
18

138 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
knowledge of the thing, each one knowing it for himself, renders
concert totally unnecessary; the one will not say it was in a
mountain in the country, and the other at a house in town : the
one will not say it was at sun-rise, and the other that it was dark.
For in whatever place it was, at whatever time it was, they
know it equally alike.
And, on the other hand, if four men concert a story, they will
make their separate relations of that story agree, and corrobo
rate with each other to support the whole. That concert supplies
the want of fact in the one case, as the knowledge of the fact
supercedes, in the other case, the necessity of a concert. The
same contradictions, therefore, that prove there has been no con
cert, 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 con
cert. How then have they been written 1
I am not one of those who are fond of believing there is much
of that which is called wilful lying, or lying originally ; except in
the case of men setting up to be prophets, as in the Old Testa
ment : for prophesying is lying professionally. 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 a severe one.
The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead, is the
story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always cre
ate in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been ,
told of the assassination of Julius Ca;sar, not many years before,
and they generally have their origin in violent deaths, or in the ex
ecution of innocent persons. In cases of this kind, compassion
lends its aid, and benevolently stretches the story. It goes on a
little and a little further, 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
another way, till there are as many stories about the ghost and
about the proprietor ofthe ghost, as there are about Jesus Christ
in these four books.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 139
The story of the appearance of Jesus Christ is told wilh that
Strange mixture of the natural and impossible, that distinguishes
legendary tale from fact. He is represented as suddenly coming
in and going out when the doors are shut, and of vanishing out of
sight, and appearing again, as one would conceive of an unsub
stantial 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 him ; but they have
forgotten to provide other clothes for him to appear in afterwards,
or tell to 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 man
tle ; how it happened not to be burnt 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 Testament 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 books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, began to appear, is altogether a matter of uncertainty.
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 exist
ing, 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 ofthe Jews. And even if they were, there is no
possibility of proving the hand writing in either case. At the time
those books were written there was no printing, and consequently
there could be no publication, otherwise than by written copies,
which any man might make or alter at pleasure, and call them
originals. Can we suppose it is consistent with the wisdom ofthe
Almighty, to commit himself and his will to man, upon such pre-

140 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
carious 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 words of God as easily as words
of man.*
About three hundred and fifty years after the time that Christ is
said to have lived, several writings ofthe kind I am speaking of,
were scattered in the hands of divers individuals ; and as the
church had begun to form itself into an hierarchy, or church go
vernment, with temporal powers, it set itself about collecting them
into a code, as we now sec them, called The New 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 estab
lishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror the
means it used : it is consistent to suppose, that the most miracu
lous and wonderful of the writings they had collected stood the
best chance of 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.
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 St. Augustine and Fauste, about the year 400, the latter
says, " The books called the Evangelists have been composed
long after the times of the apostles, by some obscure men,' who,
fearing that the world would not give credit to their relation of
matters of which they could not be informed, have published them
under the names of the apostles ; and which are so full of
* The former part of the Jlgc of Reason has not been published two years,
and there is already an expession in it that is not mine. The 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 the circum
stance, 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 ofthe work, and made me the author of it. Ifthishas
happened within such a short space of time, notwithstanding the aid of print
ing, which prevents the alteration of copies individually ; what may not have
happened in much greater 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, and John.

PART 11.] THE AGE OF REASON. 141
sottishness and discoidant relations, that there is neither agree
ment nor connexion 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 nevertheless 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 opposition, 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, without the aid of dcvination, conclude, that all hei
former miracles were tricks, and lies.f
* I have taken these two extracts from Boulanger's Life of Paul, written m
French ; Boulanger has quoted them from the writings of Augustine against
Fauste, to which lie refers.
¦f 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 be the word of God. The fol
lowing extracts are from the second chapter of that work.
" The Marchionists, (a Christian sect,) assured that the evangelists were
filled with falsities. The Manicheens, Who formed a very numerous sect at the
commencement of Christianity, rejected as false, all the JVew Testament; and
showed other writings quite different that they >gave for authentic. The Co-
rinthians, like .the Marcionists, admitted not the Acts of the Apostles. The
Encratites, and the Sevenians, adopted neither the acts northe Epistles of Paul.
Chrysostome, in a homily which he made upon the Acts of the Apostles, says,
that in his time, about the year 400, many people knew nothing either of the

142 THE AGE OF REASON. |_PART "•
When we consider the lapse of more* than three hundred years
intervening between the time that Christ is said to have lived and
the time the new Testament was formed into a book, we must
see, even without the assistance of historical evidence, the exceed
ing uncertainty there is of its authenticity. The authenticity of
the book of Homer, so far as regards the authorship, is much
better established than that ofthe 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, there
fore, 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, particu
larly such parts as tell us of the resurrection and ascension of
Christ, any person who could tell a story of an apparition, or of a
man's walking, could have made such books ; for the story is
most wretchedly told. The chance, therefore, of forgery in the
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 poetry like Homer, of science like Euclid ; the sum total of
a parson's learning, with very few exceptions, is a 6 06, and hie.
hwc, hoc ; and their knowledge of science is three times one is
three ; and this is more than sufficient to have enabled them, had
they lived at the time, to have written all the books ofthe 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
author or ofthe book. St. Irene, who lived before that tame, reports that the
Valentinians, like several other sects of the Christians, accused the Scriptures
of being filled with imperfections, errors and contrrjictions. The Ebionftes 01
Nazarecns, 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 he lived some time ; and
that having a mind to marry the daughter ofthe high priest, he caused him
self to be circumcised; but that not being able to obtain her, he quarrelled
with the Jews, and wrote against circumcision, and against the observation o'
the sabbath, and against all the legal ordinances."

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 143
would be better that he wrote under his own name ; if inferior, h*»
could not succeed. Pride would prevent the former, and impos
sibility the latter. But with respect to such books as compose the
New Testament, all the inducements were on the side of forgery.
The best immagined 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 writer ; 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 extraor
dinary means ; and as the people of that day were in the habit of
believing such things, and of the appearance of angels, and also
of devils, and of their getting into people's insides, and shaking
them like a fit of an ague, and of their 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 no
thing extraordinary 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, or there
abouts, 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 have been written by a sort of half Jews, as the fore
going quotations mention, is discernable enough. The frequent
references made to that chief assassin and impostor Moses, and
to the men called prophets, establishes this point; and, on. the
other hand, the church has complimented 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 pro
phecy, and the thing prophesied ; the type and the thing typified ;
the sign and the thing signified, have been industriously rum
maged up, and fitted together like old locks and pick-lock keys.
The story foolishly enough told of Eve and the serpent, and
naturally enough as to the enmity between men and serpents, (for
the serpent always bites about the heel, because it cannot reach

144 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
higher ; and the man always knocks the serpent about the head,
as the most effectual way to prevent its biting ;*) this foohsh
story, I say, has been made into a prophecy, a type, and a promise
to begin with ; and the lying imposition of Isaiah to Ahaz, That
a virgin shalt conceive and bear a son, as a si,gn 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 a winder-up.
Jonah and the whale are also made into a si.gn or a type.
Jonah is Jesus, and the whale is the grave : for it is said, (and
they have made Christ to say it of himself,) Matt. chap. x®ii. v. 40,
" For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale'r
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights 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 on the Sunday morning by sun-rise, or before. But as
this fits quite as well as the bile 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 four
teen in number, almost fill up the remaining part of the Testa
ment. 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 resurrection and the ascension ; and he
declares that he had not believed them.
The story of his being struck to the ground as he was journey
ing 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
loose his sight for three days, and be unable to eat or drink du
ring that time, is nothing more than is common in such con
ditions. His companions that were with him appear not to have
suffered in the same manner, for they were well enough to lead
* " It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Genesis, chap.
iii. ver. 15.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON 145
him the remainder of the journey ; neither did they pretend to
have seen any vision.
The character of the person called Paul, according to the ac
counts given of him, has in it a great deal of violence and fana
ticism ; 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 Chris
tian, he was the same zealot. Such men are never good moral
evidences of any doctrine they preach. They are always in ex
tremes, as well of actions as of belief.
The doctrine he sets out to prove by argument, is the resur
rection of the same body : and he advances this as an evidence
of immortality. But so much will men differ in their manner ot
thinking, and in the conclusions they draw from the same pre
mises, that this doctrine of the resurrection of the same body, so
far from being an evidence of immortality, appears to me to fur
nish an evidence against it ; for ifi had already died in this body,
and am raised again in the same 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, there
fore, in immortality, I must have a more elevated idea than is con
tained 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 something. The wing
ed insects, without mentioning doves or eagles, can pass over
more space and with greater ease, in a few minutes, than man can
in an hour. The glide of the smallest fish, in proportion to its
bulk, exceeds us in motion, almost beyond comparison, and with
out weariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend from the bot
tom 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 amusement. The personal powers of man are so limited,
and his heavy frame so little constructed to extensive enjoyment,
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 onlv conceiveable idea we can have of another Ufe, and the
19

146 THE AGE OF REASON.
continuance of that consciousness is immortality. The con
sciousness of existence, or the knowing that we exist, is not
necessarily confined to the same form, nor to the same matter,
even in this life.
We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the
same matter, that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years
ago ; and yet we are conscious of being the same persons. Even
legs and arms, which make up almost half the human frame, are
not necessary to the consciousness of existence. These may
be lost or taken away, and the full consciousness of existence
remain ; and were their place supplied by wings, or other ap
pendages, we cannot conceive that it could alter our consciousness
of existence. In short, we know not how much, or rather how
little, of our composition it is, and how exquisitely fine that little is,
that creates in us this consciousness of existence ; and all be
yond that is like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from
the vegetative speck in the kernel.
Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter it is
that a thought is produced in what we call the mind 1 and yet
that thought when produced, as I now produce the thought I ara
writing, is capable of becoming immortal, and is the only pro
duction of man that has that capacity.
Statues of brass and marble will perish ; and statues made in
imitation of them are not the same statues, nor the same work
manship, 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 nature
different from every thing 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 produced it, which U
the self-same thing as consciousness of existence, can be immor
tal also ; and that is 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
*ame form or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 147
the works of the creation, as far as our senses are capable of re
ceiving that demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal
creation preaches to us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life
hereafter. Their little life resembles an earth and a heaven — a
present and a future state : and comprises, if it may be so ex
pressed, 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 progressive changes.
The slow and creeping caterpillar-worm of to day, passes in a
few days to a torpid figure, and a state resembling death ; and in
the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of
life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance ofthe former creature
remains ; every thing is changed ; all his powers are new, and
life is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the con
sciousness of existence is not the same 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 consciousness of
existence hereafter.
In the former part of the Age of Reason, I have called the
creation the only true and real word of God ; and this instance, of
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 atmos
phere, if we did not know it as a fact.
As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in the 15th 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 terrestial ; the glory of the celestial is one,
and the glory of the terrestial is another." And what then? —
nothing. And what is the difference ? nothing that he has told.

148 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART H
" There is, (says he,) one glory of the sun, and another glory of
the moon, and another glory of the stars." And what then ?^-
nothing ; except that he says that one star differeth from another
star in glory, instead of distance ; and he might as well have told
us, that the moon did not shine so bright as the sun. All this is
nothing better than the jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases
he does not understand, to confound the credulous people who
come to have their fortunes told. Priests and conjurors are of
the same trade.
Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist and to prove his system
of resurrection from the principles of vegetation. " Thou food,
(says he,) that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die."
To which one might reply in his own language, and say, Thou
fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die
not ; for the grain that dies in the ground never does, nor can
vegetate. It is only the living grains that produce the next crop.
But the metaphor, in any point of view, is no simile. It is suc
cession, and not resurrection.
The progress of an animal from one state of being to another,
as from a worm to a butterfly, applies to the case ; but this of a
grain does not, and shows Paul to have been what he says ot
others, a fool.
Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by
him or not, is a matter of indifference ; they are either argumenta
tive 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 prophecies, 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 ofthe 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
* Athanasius died, according to the church chronology, in the year 371.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 149
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
Athanasiis, that the Testament was decreed to be the word , of
God ; and nothing can present to us a more strange idea than;
that of decreeing the word of God by vote. Those who rest their,
faith upon such authority, put man in the place of God, and have
no 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
any thing.
I here close the subject on the Old Testament and the New.
The evidence I have produced to prove them forgeries, is ex
tracted 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 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 the Testament hereafter fall, it is not I
that have been the occasion. I have done no more than extracted
the evidence from that 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 prophecy ; and as I have seen
nothing in any ofthe answers to that work, that inthe least effects
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 revela
tion, and have shown the absurd misapplication of that term to the
books of the Old Testament and the New ; for certainly revela-

150 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART H.
tion is out of the question in reciting any thing of which man has
been the actor or the witness. That which a man has done or seen,
needs no revelation to tell him he has done it, or seen it ; for he
knows it already ; nor to enable him to tell it, or to write it. It is
ignorance, or imposition, to apply the term revelation in such
cases ; yet the Bible and Testament are classed under this frau
dulent 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 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 thing so revealed (if any
thing ever was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to
prove) is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His
account of it to another is not revelation ; and whoever puts faith
in that acccount, puts it in the man from whom the account comes ;
and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it ;
or he may be an impostor, and may lie. There is no possible cri
terion whereby to judge ofthe truth of what he 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 lo me, I will
believe it to be a revelation ; 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, andput
man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I have
spoken of revelation in the former part ofthe Age of Reason; and
which, while it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing,
because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it '
prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes
the wicked use of pretended revelation.
But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of
revelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did com
municate any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any lan
guage, or by any kind of vision, or appearance, or by any means
which our senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than by the
universal display of himself in the works of the creation, and by
that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposi
tion to do good ones.
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and
the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race, have had

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 151
iheir origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It
has been the most dishonorable belief against the character ofthe
Divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and hap
piness 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 doc
trine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one
such imposter 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 monstrous belief, that God has spoken to man ? The lies
ofthe Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the
Testament of the other.
Some Christians pretend, that Christianity was not established
by the sword ; but of what period of time do they speak? It was
impossible that twelve men could begin with the sword ; they had
not the power ; but no sooner were the professors of Christianity
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, Chris
tianity 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 Chris
tianity is made up of both. It is then false to say that Christianity
was not established by the sword.
The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers ; and the
only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists
than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ,
and they call the Scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them
by a worse name, they had been nearer the truth.

152 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART 11.
It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of
lhe Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial
miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick
among mankind, to expel all ideas of revealed religion as a danger
ous 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 every thing that is dishonourable to his Ma
tter. What is it the Bible teaches us ? — rapine, cruelty, and mur
der. 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 those books, they make no part of this pretended thing
revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience,
and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which
it cannot exist ; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all
societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject,
and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous.
The doctrine of not retaliating injuries, is much better expressed
in proverbs, which is a collection as well from the Gentiles as the
Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is there said, Proverbs xxv
ver. 21, " If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; and if
he be thirsty, give him -tiater to drink ;*" but when it is said, as in
the Testament, " 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 moralist, that
he does not revenge an injury ; and it is equally as good in a po
litical sense, for there is no end to retaliation, each retaliates on
* 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 forbear
ance, or of not retaliating injuries, was not any part of the doctrine ofthe Jews;
but as this doctrine is founded in proverbs, it must, according to that state
ment, have been copied from the Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it.
Those men, whom Jewish and Christian idolators have abusively called hea
thens, 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 containing a
maxim of political morality. "That," says he, "where the least Injury dont
to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution."
Solon lived about SOO years before Christ.

PART II. j THE AGE OF REASON. 153
the other, and calls it justice ; but to love in proportion to the in
jury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for crime.
Besides the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a
moral maxim, which ought always to he clear and defined, like a
proverb. If a man be the enemy of another frcim mistake and
prejudice, 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, and it contributes also to
our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing
that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him, makes
no motive for love on the other part ; and to say that we can love
voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impos
sible. Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties, that, in the first
place, are impossible to be performed ; and, if they could be,
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 ex
pects 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 consistently by so
doing ; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypo
crisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own
part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabu
lous 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 Ameri
can 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 Cre
ator 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 see
there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What
is it we want to know ? Does not the creation, the universe we be-
nold, preach to us the existence of an Almighty power that go-
erns and regulates the whole ? And is not the evidence that
20

154 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II
this creation holds out to our senses infinitely stronger than any
thing we can read in a book, that any imposter 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 Almighti power is sufficient
ly demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impos
sible we should, the nature and manner of its existence. We can
not conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a
fact that we are here. We must lyiow 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 ra
tional to believe that he will, for we know before-hand that he can.
The probability, or even possibility ofthe thing is all that we ought
to know ; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves
of terror : our belief would have no merit ; and our best actions
no virtue.
Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of being deceiv
ed, all that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation is
the Bible ofthe Deist. He there reads, in the hand-writing ofthe
Creator himself, the certainty of his existence, and the immutabi
lity of his power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him
forgeries. The probability that we may be called to account
hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief;
for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the
fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we
should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philo
sopher, 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 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 no
tion of a Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God. A
multiplication of beliefs acts as a division of belief : and in pro
portion as any thing is divided it is weakened.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 155
f
Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of forn ., instead of
fact ; of notion, instead of principles ; 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 brilliancy it gives them ; they preach a
humdrum sermon on the merits of the execution ; then praise
Jesus Christ for being executed, and condemn the Jews for do
ing it.
A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached toge
ther, confounds the God ofthe 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 unedifying to man,
more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than
this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossi
ble to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the
heart torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an en
gine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism ; and as a means
of wealth, the avarice of priests ; but so far as respects the good
of man in general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter.
The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it
every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple Deism.
It must have been the first, and will probably be the last that man
believes. But pure and simple Deism does not answer the pur
pose 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.
Were man impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be
with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the
force of that belief; he would stand in awe of God, and of him
self, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from
either. To give this belief the full opportunity of force, it is ne
cessary that it acts alone. This is Deism.

156 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II.
But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one
part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part called
the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief
can attach itself to such wild conceits.*
It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the
other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance ofthe
Creator, as it is of government to hold man in ignorance of his
rights. The systems ofthe one are as false as those ofthe 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 any thing can be studied as a sci
ence, 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 disproved, it is
necessary that we refer to the Bible of the creation. The prin
ciples 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 some principle
that leads to it. We have only a confused idea of his power, if
we have not the means of comprehending something of its im
mensity. 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 knowledge ; 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 contemplate delibe
rately, the structure of the universe ; to mark the movements of
* The book called the book of Matthew, says, chap. iii. ver. 36, that the
Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove. It might as well have said a
eoose ; the creatures are equally harmless, andtheoneisas much a nonsensical
fie as the other. The second of Acts, ver. 2, 3, says, that it descended in a
mighty rushing wind, in the shipe of cloven tongues: perhaps it was cloven
feet. Such absurd stuff is only fit for tales of witches and wizards.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 157
the several planets, the cause of their varying appearances, the
unerring order in which they revolve, even to the remotest comet ;
their connection and dependence on each other, and to know the
system of laws established by the Creator, that governs and regu
lates the whole ; he would then conceive, far beyond what any
church theology can teach him, the power, the wisdom, the vast-
ness, 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 know
ledge ; his religion or his worship would become united with his
improvement as a man ; any employment he followed, that had
connection with the principles ofthe creation, as every thing of
agriculture, of science, and of the mechanical arts, 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 munificence excites great gratitude ;
but the groveling tales and doctrines of the Bible and the Testa
ment are fit only to excite contempt.
Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actual
scene I have described, he can demonstrate it ; because he has a
knowledge ofthe principles upon which the creation is constructed.
We know that the greatest works can be represented in model,
and that the universe can be represented by the same means.
The same principles by which we measure an inch, or an acre of
ground, will measure to millions in extent. A circle of an inch
diameter, has the same geometrical properties as a circle that
would circumscribe the universe. The same properties of a
triangle that will 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 these bodies are millions of miles distant from us. This
knowledge is of divine origin ; and it is from the Bible of the
creation that man has learned it, and not from the stupid Bible of
the church, that teacheth man nothing.*
* The Bible-makers have 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 a sun that is the cause of day and night — and what ia

158 THE AGE OF REASON. [PART II
All the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by the
aid of which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth,
and without which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appear
ance and condition from a common animal, comes from the great
machine and structure of the universe. The constant and un
wearied 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 mas
ter, and not let us forget the labours of our ancestors.
Had we, at this day, no knowledge of machinery, and were it
possible that man could have a view, as I have before described,
of the structure and machinery of the universe, he would soon
conceive the idea of constructing some at least ofthe mechanical
works we now have : and the idea so conceived would progres
sively 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 himself as a man and a member of society, as well as
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 of the 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
called his rising and setting, that of morning and evening. Besides, it is a pue
rile and pitiful idea, to suppose the Almighty to say, "Let there be light." It
is the imperative manner of speaking that a conjurer uses, when he says to his
cups and balls, Presto, be gone — and most probably has been taken from it,
as Moses and his rod are a conjurer and his wand. Longinus calls this ex
pression the sublime ; and by the same rale the conjurer is sublime too ; for
the manner of speaking is expressively and grammatically the same. When
authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on
the ridiculous. The sublime of the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke's
sublime and beautiful, is like a winrj-mill just visible in a fog, which im-
magmation might distort into a flying mountain, or an archangel, or a
flock of wild geese.

PART II.] THE AGE OF REASON. 159
of science, whether connected with the geometry ofthe universe.
with the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the proper
ties of inanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for philo
sophy — for gratitude as for human improvement. It will perhaps
be said, that if such a revolution in the system of religion takes
place, every preacher ought to be a philosopher. — Most certainly •
and every house of devotion a school of science.
It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science,
and the right use of reason, and setting up an invented thing called
revealed religion, that so many wild and blasphemous conceits
have been formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him
the assassin ofthe human species, to make room for the religion of
the Jews. The Christians have made him the murderer of him
self, and the founder of a new religion, to supercede and expel the
Jewish religion. And to find pretence and admission for these
things, they must have supposed his power and his wisdom imper
fect, or his will changeable ; and the changeableness of the will
is the imperfection ofthe judgment. The philosopher knows that
the laws of the Creator have never changed with respect either to
the principles of science, or the properties of matter. Why then
is it to be supposed they have changed with respect to man ?
I here close the subject. I have shown in all the foregoing parts
of this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and
forgeries ; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it
¦vO be refuted, if any one can do it : and I leave the ideas that
are suggested in the conclusion of the work to rest on the mind
of the reader ; certain as I am, that when opinions are free,
either in matters of government or -eligion, truth will finally
and powerfully prevail.
THE END.

A
LETTER; BEING
AN ANSWER TO A FRIEND,
ON THE PUBLICATION OF
THE AGE OF REASON.

PARIS, MAV 12, 1797.
In your letter of the 20th of March, you gave me several quo
tations from the Bible, which you call the word of God, to show
me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and 1 could give you
as many, from the same book, to show that yours are not right ;
consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides
any way, and every way, one chooses to make it.
But by what authority do you call the Bible the word of
God ? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling
it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the
Koran the word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish
Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time
that the person called Jesus Christ is said to have, lived, voted the
books, that now compose what is called the New Testament, to
be the word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we
now vote a law. The Pharisees of the second Temple, after the
Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the
books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the
authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as ca
pable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so,
because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-
interest in the vote they gave. 21

162 LETTER TO A FRIEND.
Tou may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you can
not prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because
you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by
his thoughts, and the same is the case with the word revelation. —
There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more
prove revelation, than you can prove what another man dreams of,
neither can he prove it himself.
It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, hut
how do you know that God spake unto Moses ? Because, you will
say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto
Mahomet, do you believe that too ? No. Why not ? Because,
you will say, you do not believe it ; and so because you do, and
because you don't, is all the reason you can give for believing or
disbelieving, except you will say that Mahomet was an imposter.
And how do you know Moses was not an imposter? For my own
part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal
communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world
has been imposed upon ; but if you think otherwise you have the
same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer
for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point.
whether the Bible be the word of God, or not. It is, therefore, ne
cessary to go a step further. The case then is : —
You form your opinion of God from the account given of him
in the Bible ; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wis
dom and goodness of God, manifested in the structure of the uni
verse, and in all the works of the Creation. The result in these
two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard,
will have a bad opinion of God ; and I, by taking God for my
standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible.
The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vin
dictive being ; making a world, and then drowning it, afterwards
repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again.
Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the
course ofthe sun till the butchery should be done. But the works
of God, in the Creation, preach to us another doctrine. In that
vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable,
passionate, vindictive God, every thing we there behold impresses
us with a contrary idea ; that of unchangeableness and of eternal
order, harmony, and goodness. The sun and the seasons return
at their appointed time, and every thing in the Creation proclaims

LETTER TO A FRIEND. 163
that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book
that any impostor may make, and call the word of God, or the
Creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make, for
the Bible says one thing, and the Creation says the contrary.
The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and
the Creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and
murder ; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That
blood-thirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say,
(1 Sam. chap. xv. ver. 3,) " Now go and smite Amaleck, and
utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and
ass." That Samuel, or some other impostor, might say this, is what,
at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but,
in my opinion, it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said
it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at
the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good,
but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites ap
pear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four
hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus, chap.
17, (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical ac
count it gives of Moses holding up his hands,) had opposed the
Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had
a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the
Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico ; and this opposition by
the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men,
women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses,
that were born four hundred years afterwards, should be put to
death ; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the
chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick
of wood, I will bestow a few observations on this case.
In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of
the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no
other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no
evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says,
that this slaughter was done by the express command of God : but
all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to
the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty

104 LETTER TO A FRIEND.
and injustice to God. I, therefore, reject the Bible as unworthy
of credit.
As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible
is not the word of God, and that it is a falsehood, I have a right
to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary ; but I know
you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe
the Bible, and as the Turks give the same reason for believing
the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and
that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. Tou be
lieve in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe
in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other in
fidel. — But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case,
the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe false
ly of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or
from the Koran, from the Old Testament or from the New,
When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I
have done, (for I do not think you know much about it,) and per
mit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably
believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your
letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion.
It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem,
that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious
belief in God ; for, in my opinion, the Bible is a gross libel
against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it.
THOMAS PAINE.

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE*

DCJOC

Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is
the worst : every other species of tyranny is limited to the world
we live in ; but this attempts a stride beyond the grave, and seeks
to pursue us into eternity. It is there and not here — it is to God
and not to man — it is to a heavenly and not to an earthly tribunal
that we are to account for our belief; if then we believe falsely
and dishonourably of the Creator, and that belief is forced upon
us, as far as force can operate by human laws and human tribu
nals, — on whom is the criminality of that belief to fall ? on those
who impose it, or on those on whom it is imposed ?
A bookseller of the name of Williams has been prosecuted ia
London on a charge of blasphemy, for publishing a book entitled
the Age of Reason. Blasphemy is a word of vast sound, but
equivocal and almost indefinite signification, unless we confine it
to the simple idea of hurting or injuring the reputation of any one,
which was its original meaning. As a word, it existed before
Christianity existed, being a Greek word, or Greek anglofied, as
all the etymological dictionaries will show.
But behold how various and contradictory has been the signifi
cation and application of this equivocal word. Socrates, who
lived more than four hundred years before the Christian era, was
* Mr. Paine has evidently incorporated into this Letter a portion of his an
swer to Bishop Watson's " Apology for the Bible ;" as in a chapter of that
work, treating of the Book of Genesis, he expressly refers to his remarks, in a
preceding part of the same, on the two accounts of the creation contained in
that book ; which is included in this letter.

166 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
convicted of blasphemy, for preaching against the belief of a plu-
lality of gods, and for preaching the belief of one god, and was
condemned to suffer death by poison. Jesus Christ was* convict
ed of blasphemy under the Jewish law, and was crucified. Call
ing Mahomet an impostor would be blasphemy in Turkey ; and
denying the infallibility of the Pope, and the Church, would be
blasphemy at Rome. What then is to be understood by this word
blasphemy ? We see that in the case of Socrates truth was con
demned as blasphemy. Are we sure that truth is not blasphemy
in the present day ? Woe, however, be to those who make it so,
whoever they may be.
A book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by
human laws to be the word of God ; and the disbelief ofiKiis is
called blasphemy. But if the Bible be not the word of God, it ia
the laws and the execution of them that is blasphemy, and not tho
disbelief. Strange stories are told of the Creator in that book
He is represented as acting under the influence of every human
passion, even of the most malignant kind. If these stories are
false, we err in believing them to be true, and ought not to believe
them. It is, therefore, a duty which every man owes to himself,
and leverentially to his Maker, to ascertain, by every possible in
quiry, whether there be sufficient evidence to believe them or not.
My own opinion is, decidedly, that the evidence does not warrant
the belief, and that we sin in forcing that belief upon ourselves and
upon others. In saying this, I have no other object in view than
truth. But that I may not be accused of resting upon bare asser
tion with respect to the equivocal state of the Bible, I will produce
an example, and I will not, pick and cull the Bible for the purpose.
I will go fairly to the case : I will take the two first chapters of
Genesis as they stand, and show from thence the truth of what I
say, that is, that the evidence does not warrant the belief that the
Bible is the word of God.

CHAPTER I.
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was
upon the face of the d >ep ; and the spirit of God moved upon tho
face of the waters.

LETTER TO MR. EIISKINE. 167
3. And God said, Let there be light ; and there was light.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided
the light from darkness.
5. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called
night : and the evening and the morning were the first day.
6. IT And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of
the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament, from the waters which were above the
firmament : and it was so.
8. And God called the firmament heaven ; and the evening and
the morning were the second day.
9. IT And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gather
ed together unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it
was so.
10. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering to
gether of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was good.
11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb,
yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose
seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so.
12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed
after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself,
after his kind : and God saw that it was good.
13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14. IT And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of
the heaven, to divide the day from the night : and let them be for
signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.
15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven,
to give light upon the earth : and it was so.
¦ 16. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars
also. 17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give
light upon the earth,
IS. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide
the light from the darkness ; and God saw that it was good.
19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the
earth in the open firmament of heaven.

iOO LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
21. And God created great whales, and every living creature
that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their
kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and God saw that it
was good.
22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
• 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24. IT And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living crea
ture after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth
after his kind : and it was so.
25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and
cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
after his kind : and God saw that it was good.
26. IT And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish ofthe sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him : male and female created he them.
28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruit
ful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it ; and
have dominion over the fish ofthe sea, and over the fowl ofthe air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29. IT And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb
bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed : to you it shall
be for meat.
30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the
air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there
is life, I have given every green herb for meat : and it was so.
31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it
was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth
.day.

CHAPTER II.
1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the
host of them •

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 169
2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had
made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he
had made.
3. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it : because
that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and
made.

4. IT These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth,
when they were created ; in the day that the Lord God made the
earth and the heavens.
5. And every plant of the field, before it was m the earth, and
every herb ofthe field, before it grew ; for the Lord God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the
whole face of the ground.
7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became
a living soul.
8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward of Eden; and
there he put the man whom he had formed.
9. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every
tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food ; the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil.
10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden : and
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth
the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12. And the gold of that land is good : there is bdellium and
the onyx-stone.
13. And the name of the second river is Gibon : the same is
it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14. And the name of the third river is Heddekel : that is it
which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is
Euphrates. 15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the gar
den of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.
22

170 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every
tree ofthe garden thou mayest freely eat :
17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die.
18. IT And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should
be alone : I will make him an help meet for him.
19. And out ofthe ground the Lord God formed every beast of
the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam,
to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called
every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl ofthe
air, and to every beast of the field ; but for Adam there was not
found an help meet for him.
21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,
and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the
flesh instead thereof.
22. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made
he a woman, and *»r__!ght her unto the man.
23. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of
my flesh ; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out
of man.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and
shall cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one flesh.
25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were
not ashamed.

These two chapters are called the Mosaic account of the crea
tion ; and we are told, nobody knows by whom, that Moses was
instructed by God to write that account.
It has happened that every nation of people has been world
makers ; and each makes the world to begin his own way, as if
they had all been brought up, as Hudibras says, to the trade. There
are hundreds of different opinions and traditions how the world
began.* My business, however, in this place, is only with those
two chapters.
* In this world-making trade, man, of course, has held a conspicuous place ;
and, for the gratification of he curious enquirer, the editor subjoins two ape-

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 171
I begin then by saying, that those two chapters, instead of
containing, as has been believed, one continued account of the
creation, written by Moses, contain two different and con-
cimens of the opinions of learned men, in regard to the manner of his forma
tion, and of his subsequent fall. The first he extracts from the Talmud, a work
containing the Jewish traditions, the rabbinical constitutions, and explication
of the law ; and is of great authority among the Jews. It was composed by
certain learned rabbins, comprehends twelve bulky folios, and forty years are
said to have been consumed in its compilation. In fact, it is deemed to con
tain the whole body of divinity for the Jewish nation. Although the Scrip
tures tell us that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, they do
not explain the manner in which it was done, and these doctors supply the
deficiency as follows : —
"Adam's body was made of the earth of Babylon, his head of the land of
Israel, his other members of other parts of the world. R. Meir thought he
was compact of the earth, gathered out of the whole earth ; as it is written,
thine eyes did see my substance. Now it is elsewhere written, the eyes of the Lord
are over all the earth. R. Aha expressly marks the twelve hours in which his
various parts were formed. His stature was from one end of the world to the
other ; and it was for his transgression that the Creator, laying his hand in
anger on him, lessened him ; for before, says R. Eleazer, with his hand he
reached the firmament. R. Jehuda thinks his sin was heresy ; but R. Isaac
thinks it was nourishing his foreskin."
The Mahometan savans give the following account of the same transac
tion : —
" When God wished to create man, he sent the angel Gabriel to take a
handfull of each of the seven beds which composed the earth. But when
the latter heard the order of God, she felt much alarmed, and requested the
heavenly messenger to represent to God, that as the creature he was about
to form might chance to rebel one day against him, this would be the means
of bringing upon herself the divine malediction. God, however, far from
listening to this request, despatched two other angels, Michael and Azrael,
to execute his will ; but they, moved with compassion, were prevailed upon
again to lay the complaints of the earth at the feet of her author. Then
God confined the execution of his commands to the formidable Azrael
alone, who, regardless of all the earth might say, violently tore from her
bosom seven handfuls from her various strata, and carried them into Arabia,
where the work*of creation was to be completed. As to Azrael, God was so
well pleased with the decisive manner in which he had acted, that he gave
him the office of separating the soul from the body, whence he is called the
Angel of Death.
"Meanwhile, the angels having kneaded this earth, God moulded it with his
own hands, and left it some time that it might get dry. The angels de
lighted to gaze upon the lifeless, but beautiful mass, with the exception of
Eblis, or Lucifer, who, bent upon evil, struck it upon the stomach, which
giving a hollow sound, he said, since this creature will be hollow, it will
often need being filled, and will be, therefore, exposed to pregnant tempta
tions. Upon this, he asked the angels how they would act if God wished to
render them dependent upon this sovereign which he was about to give to the
earth. They readily answered that they would obey ; but though Eblis did
not openly dissent, he resolved within himself that he would not follow their
example. " After the body of the first man had been properly prepared, God animated
it with an intelligent soul, and clad him in splendid and marvellous garments,
suited to the dignity of this favoured being. He now commanded his angels
to fall prostrate before Adam. All of them obeyed, with the exception of
Eblis, who was in consequence immediately expelled from heaven, and his
p.ace given to Adam.
" The formation of Eve from one of the ribs of the first man, is the same as
that recorded in the Bible, as is also the order given to the father of mankind,
not to taste the fruit of a particular tree. Eblis seized this opportunity of re-

172 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
tradictory stories of a creation, made by two different persons,
and written in two different styles of expression. The evidence
that shows this is so clear, when attended to without prejudice,
that, did we meet with the same evidence in any Arabic or Chi
nese account of a creation, we should not hesitate in pronouncing
it a forgery.
I proceed to distinguish the two stories from each other.
The first story begins at the first verse of the first chapter, and
ends at the end of the third verse of the second chapter; for the
adverbial conjunction, THUS, with which the second chapter
begins, (as the reader will see,) connects itself to the last verse of
the first chapter, and those three verses belong to, and make the
conclusion ofthe first story.
The second story begins at the fourth verse of the second
chapter, and ends with that chapter. Those two stories have been
confused into one, by cutting off the three last verses of the first
story, and throwing them to the second chapter.
I go now to show that those stories have been written by two
different persons.
From the first verse of the first chapter to the end of the third
verse ofthe second chapter, which makes the whole of the first
story, the word GOD is used without any epithet or additional
word conjoined with it, as the reader will see : and this style of
expression is invariably used throughout the whole of this story,
and is repeated no less than thirty-five times, viz. " In the begin
ning God created the heavens and the earth, and the spirit of God
venge. Having associated the peacock and the serpent in the enterprise,
they by their wily speeches at length persuaded Adam to become guilty of dis
obedience. But no sooner had they touched the forbidden fruit, than their
garments dropped on the ground, and- the sight of their nakedness covered
them both with shame and with confusion. They made a covering for their
body with fig leaves ; but they were both immediately condemned to labour,
and to die, and hurled down from Paradise.
" Adam fell upon the mountain of Sarendip, in the island of Ceylon, where a
mountain is called by his name to the present day. Eve, being separated
from her spouse in her fall, alighted on the spot where China now stands, and
Eblis fell not far from the same spot. As to the peacock and the snake, the
former dropped in Hindostan and the latter in Arabia. Adam soon feeling
the enormity of his fault, implored the mercy of God, who relenting, sent
down his angels from heaven with a tabernacle, which they placed on the
spot where Abraham, at a subsequent period, built the temple of Mecca.
Gabriel instructed him in the rites and ceremonies performed about the sane
tuary, in order that he might obtain the forgiveness of his offence, and after
wards led him to the mountain of Ararat, where he met Eve, from whom h«
had been now separated above two hundred years."

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 173
moved on the face of the waters, and God said, let there be Hghg
and God saw the light," &c. &c.
But immediately from the beginning of the fourth verse ofthe
second chapter, where the second story begins, the style of
expression is always the Lord God, and this style of expression is
Invariably used to the end of the chapter, and is repeated eleven
times ; in the one it is always God, and never the Lord God,
in the other it is always the Lord God and never God. The first
story contains thirty-four verses, and repeats the single word Gon
thirty-five times. The second story contains twenty -two verses
and repeats the compound word Lord-God eleven times ; this
difference of style, so often repeated, and so uniformly continued,
shows, that those two chapters, containing two different stories,
are written by different persons ; it is the same in all the different
editions of the Bible, in all the languages I have seen.
Having thus shown, from the difference of style, that those two
chapters divided, as they properly divide themselves, at the end of
the third verse of the second chapter, are the work of two differ
ent persons, I come to show, from the contradictory matters they
contain, that they cannot be the work of on e person, and are two
different stories.
It is impossible, unless the writer was a lunatic, without memory,
that one and the same person could say, as is said in the 27th and
28th verses of the first chapter — " So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female
created he them : and God blessed them, and God said unto them, be
fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and
have dominion over the fish ofthe sea, and over the fowls ofthe air,
and every living thing that moveth on ihe face ofthe earth." It is, I
say, impossible that the same person who said this, could afterwards
say, as is said in the second chapter, ver. 5, and there was not a
man to till the ground ; and then proceed in the 7th verse to give
another account ofthe making a man for the first time, and after
wards of the making a woman out of his rib.
Again, one and the same person could not write, as is written in
the 29th verse ofthe first chapter : " Behold I (God) have given
you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of the earth ;
and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree bearing seed, to
you it shall be for meat," and afterwards sav, as is said in the

174 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
second chapter, that the Lord-God planted a tree in the midst of
a garden, and forbad man to eat thereof.
Again, one and the same person could not say, " Thus the
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and
on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ;" and
shortly after set the Creator to work again, to plant a garden, to
make a man and a woman, &c. as is done in the second chapter.
Here are evidently two different stories contradicting each
other. — According to the first, the two sexes, the male and the
female, were made at the same time. According to the second,
they were made at different times : the man first, the woman after
wards. — According to the first story, they were to have dominion
over all the earth. According to the second, their dominion was
limited to a garden. How large a garden it could be, that one
man and one woman could dress and keep in order, I leave to the
prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and Mr. Erskine to determine.
The story ofthe talking serpent, and its tete-a-tete with Eve ; the
doleful adventure called the Fall of Man; and how he was turned
out of this fine garden, and how the garden was afterwards locked
up and guarded by a flaming sword, (if any one can tell what a
flaming sword is,) belonging altogether to the second story. They
have no connexion with the first story. According to the first
there was no garden of Eden ; no forbidden tree : the scene was
the whole earth, and the fruit of all the trees was allowed to be
eaten. In giving this example of the strange state ofthe Bible, it can
not be said I have gone out of my way to seek it, for I have taken
the beginning of the book ; nor can it be said I have made more
of it, than it makes of itself. That there are two stories is as visible
to the eye, when attended to, as that there are two chapters, and
that they have been written by different persons, nobody knows by
whom. If this then is the strange condition the beginning of the
Bible is in, it leads, to a just suspicion, that the other parts are no
better, and consequently it becomes every man's duty to examine
the case. I have done it for myself, and am satisfied that the
Bible is fabulous.
Perhaps I shall be told in the cant-language of the day, as I
have often been told by the Bishop of Llandaff and others ofthe
great and laudable pains, that ma^y pious and learned men have
taken to explain the obscure, and reconcile the contradictory, or

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 175
as they say, the seemingly contradictory passages of the Bible. It
is because the Bible needs such an undertaking, that is one ofthe
first causes to suspect it is not the word of God : this single
reflection, when carried home to the mind, is in itself a volume.
What ! does not the Creator of the Universe, the Fountain of
all Wisdom, the Origin of all Science, the Author of all know
ledge, the God of Order, and of Harmony, know how to write ?
When we contemplate the vast economy of the creation ; when
we behold the unerring regularity of the visible solar system, the
perfection with which all its several parts revolve, and by corres
ponding assemblage, form a whole ; — when we launch our eye
into the boundless ocean of space, and see ourselves surrounded
by innumerable worlds, not one of which varies from its appointed
place — when we trace the power of the Creator, from a mite to
an elephant — from an atom to an universe — can we suppose that
the mind that could conceive such a design, and the power that
executed it with incomparable perfection, cannot write without
inconsistency ; or, that a book so written, can be the work of such
a power ? The writings of Thomas Paine, even of Thomas Paine,
need no commentator to explain, expound, arrange, and re-arrange
their several parts, to render them intelligible — he can relate a
fact, or write an essay, without forgetting in one page what he has
written in an other — certainly then, did the God of all perfec
tion condescend to write or dictate a book, that book would be as
perfect as himself is perfect : the Bible is not so, and it is con
fessedly not so, by the attempts to amend it.
Perhaps I shall be told, that though I have produced one in
stance, I cannot produce another of equal force. One is sufficient
to call in question the genuineness or authenticity of any book that
pretends to be the word of God ; for such a book would, as before
said, be as perfect as its author is perfect.
I will, however, advance only four chapters further into the
book of Genesis, and produce another example that is sufficient to
invalidate the story to which it belongs.
We have all heard of Noah's Flood ; and it is impossible to
think of the whole human race, men, women, children, and infants
(except one family,) deliberately drowning, without feeling a pain
ful sensation ; that heart must be a heart of flint that can contem
plate such a scene with tranquillity. There is nothing in the
ancient mythology, nor in the religion of any people we know of

176 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
upon the globe, that records a sentence of their God, or of
their Gods, so tremendously severe and merciless. If the story
be not true, we blasphemously dishonor God by believing it,
and still more so, in forcing, by laws and penalties, that belief
upon others. I go now to show from the face of the story, that it
carries the evidence of not being true.
I know not if the judge, the jury, and Mr. Erskine, who tried
and convicted Williams, ever read the Bible, ot know any thing
of its contents, and, therefore, I will state the case precisely.
There was no such people as Jews or Israelites, in the time
that Noah is said to have lived, and consequently there was no
such law as that which is called the Jewish or Mosaic Law. It is
according to the Bible, more than six hundred years from the time
the flood is said to have happened, to the time of Moses, and con
sequently the time the flood is said to have happened, was more
than six hundred years prior to the law, called the law of Moses*
even admitting Moses to have been the giver of that law, of which
there is great cause to doubt.
We have here two different epochs, or points of time ; that of
the flood, and that ofthe law of Moses ; the former more than six
hundred years prior to the latter. But the maker ofthe story of
the flood, whoever he was, has betrayed himself by blundering, for
he has reversed the order of the times. He has told the story, as
if the law of Moses was prior to the flood ; for he has made God to
say to Noah, Genesis, chap. vii. ver. 2, " Of every clean beast,
thou shalt take unto thee by sevens, male and his female, and of
beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." This
is the Mosaic law, and could only be said after that law was
given, not before. There was no such things as beasts clean
and unclean in the time of Noah — It is no where said they were
created so. — They were only declared to be so, as meats, by the
Mosaic law, and that to the Jews only, and there was no such
people as Jews in the time of Noah. This is the blundering
condition in which this strange story stands.
When we reflect on a sentence so tremendously severe, as that
of consigning the whole human race, eight persons excepted, to
aeliberate drowning ; a sentence, which represents the Creator in
a more merciless character than any of those whom we call Pa
gans, ever represented the Creator to be, under the figure of any
oftheir deities, we ought at least to suspend our belief of it, on a

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 177
comparison of the beneficent character of the Creator, with the
tremendous severity of the sentence ; but when we see the story
told with such an evident contradiction of circumstances, we
ought to set it down for nothing better than a Jewish fable, told
by nobody knows whom, and nobody knows when.
It is a relief to the genuine and sensible soul of man to find
the story unfounded. It frees us from two painful sensations
at once ; that of having hard thoughts of the Creator, on ac
count of the severity of the sentence ; and that of sympathising
in the horrid tragedy of a drowning world. He who cannot
feel the force of what I mean, is not, in my estimation of cha
racter, worthy the name of a human being.
I have just said there is great cause to doubt, if the law, called
the law of Moses, was given by Moses ; the books called the
books of Moses, which contain, among other things, what is
called the Mosaic law, are put in front of the Bible, in the man
ner of a constitution, with a history annexed to it. Had these
books been written by Moses, they would undoubtedly have
been the oldest books in the Bible, and entitled to be placed
first, and the law and the history they contain, would be fre
quently referred to in the books that follow ; but this is not the
case. From the time of Othniel, the first of the judges, (Judges,
chap. iii. ver. 9,) to the end ofthe book of Judges, which con
tains a period of four hundred and ten years, this law, and those
books, were not in practice, nor known among the Jews, nor
are they so much as alluded to throughout the whole of that
period. And if the reader will examine the 22d and 23d chap
ters of the 3d book of Kings, and 34th chapter 2d Chron. he
will find that no such law, nor any such books, were known in
the time of the Jewish monarchy, and that the Jews were Pa
gans during the whole of that time, and of their judges.
The first time the law, called the law of Moses, made its ap
pearance, was in the time of Josiah, about a thousand years.after
Moses was dead ; it is then said to have been found by accident
The account of this finding, or pretended finding, is given; 2d
Chron. chap, xxxiv. ver. 14, 15, 16, 18 : " Hilkiah the priest
found the book of the law of the Lord, given by Moses,, and
Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found
the book of the law in the house of the Lord, and Hilkiah de
livered the book to Shaphan, and Shaphan carried the book to
23

178 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
the king, and Shaphan told the king, (Josiah,) saying, Hilkiah
the priest hath given me a book."
In consequence of this finding, which much resembles that of
poor Chatterton finding manuscript poems of Rowley, the monk,
in the cathedral church at Bristol, or the late finding of manu
scripts of Shakspeare in an old chest, (two well known frauds,)
Josiah abolished the Pagan religion ofthe Jews, massacred all the
Pagan priests, though' he himself had been a Pagan, as the reader.
will see in the 23d chap. 2d Kings, and thus established in blood,
the law that is there called the law of Moses, and instituted a pass
over in commemoration thereof. The 22d verse, speaking of this
passover, says, " Surely there was not held such a passover from
the clays of the judges, that judged Israel, nor in all the days of
the kings of Israel, nor the kings of Judah ;" and the 25th ver. in
speaking of this priest-killing Josiah, says, "Like unto him, there
was no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart,
and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the
lawofMoses; neither after him arose there any like him." This
verse, like the former one, is a general declaration against all the
preceding kings without exception. It is also a declaration against
all that reigned after him, of which there were four, the whole time
of whose reigning makes but twenty-two years and six months,
before the Jews were entirely broken up as a nation and their
monarchy destroyed. It is, therefore, evident that the law, called
the law of Moses, of which the Jews talk so much, was promul
gated and established only in the latter time of the Jewish monar
chy ; and it is very remarkable, that no sooner had they establish
ed it than they were a destroyed people, as if they were punished
for acting an imposition and affixing the name of the. Lord to
it, and massacreing their former priests under the pretence of
religion. The sum of the history of the Jews is this — they con
tinued to be a nation about a thousand years, they then established
a law, which they called the law ofthe Lord given by Moses, and
were destroyed. This is not opinion, but historical evidence!
Levi the Jew, who has written an answer to the Age of Rea
son, gives a Strang account of the law called the law of Moses.
In speaking of the story ofthe sun and moon standing still, that
¦the Israelites might cut the throats of all their enemies, and hang
all their kings, as told in Joshua, chap, x., he says, " There is also
¦another proof of the reality of this miracle, which is, the appeal

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 179
that the author ofthe book of Joshua makes to the book of Jasher,
"Is not this written in the book of Jasher ? Hence," continues
Levi, " It is manifest that the book commonly called the book of
Jasher, existed, and was well known at the time the book of
Joshua was written ; and pray, Sir," continues Levi, " what book
do you think this was ? why, no other than the law of Moses .'"
Levi, like the Bishop of Llandaff, and many other guess-work
commentators, either forgets or does not know, what there is in
one part of the Bible, when he is giving his opinion upon another
part. I did not, however, expect to find so much ignorance in a Jew,
with respect to the history of his nation, though I might not be
surprised at it in a bishop. If Levi will look into the account
given in the first chap. 2d book of Sam. of the Amalakite slaying
Saul, and bringing the crown and bracelets to David, he will find
the following recital, ver. 15, 17, 18 : " And David called one of
the young men, and said, go near and fall upon him, (the Amala
kite,) and he smote him that he died : and David lamented with
this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son ; also he
bade them teach the children the use of the bow ; — behold it is
written in the book of Jasher." If the book of Jasher were what
Levi calls it, the law of Moses, written by Moses, it is not pos
sible that any thing that David said or did could be written in that
law, since Moses died more than five hundred years before David
was born; and, on the other hand, admitting the book of Jasher
to be the law called the law of Moses ; that law must have been
written more than five hundred years after Moses was dead, or it
could not relate any thing said or done by David. Levi may take
which of these cases he pleases, for both are against him.
I am not going in the course of this letter to write a commentary
on the Bible. The two instances I have produced, and which
are. taken from the beginning of the Bible, show the necessity of
examining it. It is a book that has been read more, and examined
less, than any book that ever existed. Had it come to us an
Arabic or Chinese book, and said to have been a sacred book by
the people from whom it came, no apology would have been made
for the confused and disorderly state it is in. The tales it relates
ofthe Creator would have been censured, and our pity excited for
those who believed them. We should have vindicated the good
ness of God against such a book, and preached up the disbelief of

180 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
it out of reverence to him. Why then do we not act as honourably
by the Creator in the one case as we would do in the other. As
a Chinese book we. would have examined it ; — ought wc not then
to examine it as a Jewish book ? The Chinese are a people who
have all the appearance of far greater antiquity than the Jews, and
in point of permanency, there is no comparison. They are also a
people of mild manners and good morals, except where they have
been corrupted by European commerce. Yet we take, the word
of a restless, bloody-minded people, as the Jews of Palestine
were, when we would reject the same authority from a better
people. We ought to see it is habit and prejudice that have pre
vented people from examining the Bible. Those ofthe church of
England call it holy, because the Jews called it so, and because
custom and certain acts of parliament call it so, and they read it
from custom. Dissenters read it for the purpose of doctrinal
controversy, and are very fertile in discoveries and inventions.
But none of them read if for the pure purpose of information, and
of rendering justice to the Creator, by examining if the evidence it
contains warrants the belief of its being what it is called. Instead
of doing this, they take it blindfolded, and will have it to be the
word of God whether it be so or not. For my own part, my belief
in the perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe, that a
book so manifestly obscure, disorderly, and contradictory, can be
his work. I can write a better book myself. This disbelief in
me proceeds from my belief in the Creator. I cannot pin my faith
upon the say so of Hilkiah, the priest, who said he found it, or any
part of it, nor upon Shaphan the scribe, nor upon any priests; nor
any scribe or man of the law of the present day.
As to acts of parliament, there are some that say there are
witches and wizards ; and the persons who made those acts, (it
was in the time of James the First,) made also some acts which
call the Bible the Holy Scriptures, or Word of God. But acts of
parliament decide nothing with respect to God ; and as these acts
of parliament making were wrong with respect to witches and
wizards, they may also be wrong with respect to the book in
question.* It is, therefore, necessary that the book be examined ;
* It is afflicting to humanity to reflect that, after the blood shed to estab
lish the divinity of the Jewish scriptures, it should have become necessary
to grant a new dispensation, which, through unbelief and conflicting opin
ions respecting its true construction, has cost as great or greater sacrifices
than the former. Catholics, when they had the ascendancy, burnt Proles-

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 181
it is our duty to examine it ; and to suppress the right of examina
tion is sinful in any government, or in any judge or jury. The
Bible makes God to say to Moses, Deut. chap. vii. ver. 2, " And
tants, who, in turn, led Catholics to the stake, and both united in extermina
ting Dissenters. The Dissenters, when , they had the power, pursued the
same course. The diabolical act of Calvin, in the burning of Dr. Servetus,
is an awful witness of this fact. Servetus suffered two hours in a slow fire
before life was extinct. The Dissenters, who escaped from England, had
scarcely seated themselves in the wilds of America, before they began to
exterminate from the territory they had seized upon, all those who did not
profess what they called the orthodox faith. Priests, Quakers, and Adam
ites, were prohibited from entering the territory, on pain of death. By
priests, they meant clergymen of the Roman Catholic, if not also of the
Protestant or Episcopal persuasion. Their own priests they denominated
ministers. These puritans also, particularly in the province of Massachu
setts-Bay, put many persons to death on the charge of witchcraft. There
is no account, however, of their having burned any alive, as was done in
Scotland, about the same period in which the executions took place in Mas
sachusetts-Bay. In England, Sir Matthew Hale, a judge eminent for ex
traordinary piety, condemned two women to death on the same charge.
I doubt, however, if there be any acts of the parliament now in force for
inflicting pains and penalties for denying the scriptures to be the word of
God, as our upright judges seem to rely at this time wholly upon what they
call, the common law, to justify the horrid persecutions which are now car
ried on in England, to the disgrace of a country that boasts so much of its
tolerant spirit.
As the common law is derived from the customs of our ancestors, when
in a rude and barbarous condition, it is not surprising that many of its in
junctions should be opposed to the ideas, which a society in a civilized and
refined state, should deem compatible with justice and right. Accordingly
we find that government has from time to time annulled some of its most
prominent absurdities ; such as the trials by ordeal, the wager of battle in
case of appeal for murder, under a belief that a supernatural power would
interfere to save the innocent-and destroy the guilty in such a combat, &c.
Yet much remains nearly as ridiculous, that requires a further and more
liberal use of the pruning knife.
" In the days of the Stuarts, [A. D. 1670, 22d year of Charles II. See the
Republican, vol. 5, p. 22.] William Penn was indicted at Common Law for
a not and breach of the peace on having delivered his sentiments to a con
gregation of people in Grace-church-street: he told the judge and the jury
that Common Law was an abuse, and no law at all ; and in spite of the
threats, the fines and imprisonments inflicted on his jury, they acquitted him
on this plea. "William Penn found an honest jury."
The introduction, however, of Christianity, as composing a part of this
Common Law, (bad as much of it is,) is proved to be a fraud or misconcep
tion of the old Norman French ; as I shall show by an extract of a letter
from Thomas Jefferson to Major Cartwright, bearing date 5th June, 1824.
For a more full developement of this subject, see Sampson's Anniversary
Discourse, before the Historical Society of New- York. Editor.
Extract from Jefferson's Letter.
" I am glad to find in your book [The English Constitution, produced and
illustrated] a formal contradiction, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of
legislative power ; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated deci
sions, lhat Christianity is a part ofthe common law. The proof of the contrary,
which you have adduced, is incontrovertible : to wit, that the common law
existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans ; at a time when they had
never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character
had ever existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means,
they stole this law in upon us. In a case of ttuare Impedit, in the Year Book,
34 Henry "VI. fo. 28, [Anno' 1458,] a question was made how far the eccle
siastical law ¦« as to be respected in a common law court. And Prisot, Chief

182 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt
smite them, and utterly destroy them, thou shalt make no cover
nant with them, nor show mercy unto them." Not all the priests,
nor scribes, nor tribunals in the world, nor all the authority of
man, shall make me believe that God ever gave such a Robesperi-
an precept as that of showing no mercy ; and consequently it U
impossible that I, or any person who believes as reverentially of
the Creator as I do, can believe such a book to be the word of God.
Justice, gave his opinion in these words : — ' A tiel leis, que iis de saint eglise
ont en ancien scripture, co vient a nous a donner credence : cal ceo Commen
Ley sur quels touts manners leis sont foddes. Et auxy, Sir, nous sumus
obliges de conustre lour ley de saint eglise : et semblablement iis sont obliges
de conustre nostre ley — Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que l'evesque adfait
come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou
auterment nemy,' " (Ste. [" To such laws as they of holy church have in an
cient writing, it behoves us to give credence : for it is that common law upon
which all kinds of law are founded ; and therefore, Sir, are we bound to
know their law of holy church, and in like manner are they obliged to know
our laws. And, Sir, if it should appear now to us, that the bishop had done
what an ordinary ought to do in like case, then we should adjudge it good,
and not otherwise."] — The canons ofthe church anciently were incorporated
with the laws of the land, and of the same authority. See Dr. Henry's
Hist. G. Britain. Editor.
See S. C. Fitzh. abr. qu. imp. 89. Bro. abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch in his 1st Book,
c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes the case, and mis-states it thus: " ' To
such laws of the church as have warrant in Holy Script-are, our law giveth crer
dence,' and cites Prisot ; mistranslating ' ancient Scripture' into ' holy Scrip.
ture ;' whereas Prisot palpably says, 'so such laws as those of holy churclj
have in ancient writing, it is proper for us to give credence ;' to wit — to their
ancient written laws. This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum
of Prisot. "Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of
the common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. "Wingate,
max. 3, and Sheppard, title ' Religion,' in 1675, copies the same mistransla
tion, quoting the Y. B. Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses it in these
words : ' Christianity is parcel of the law of England' — 1 Ventris 293. 3 Keb,
607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings and re-echoings from one to
another, it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of the King vs,
Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether
to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal court at com
mon law. "Wood, therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and say,
'that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law;' and
cites 2 Stra.— Then Blackstone, in 1763, iv. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
that ' Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and Strange,
And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in Evan's case in
1767, says, that 'the essential principles of revealed religion are part ofthe
common law'— thus ingulfing Bible, Testament, and all into the common
law, without citing any authority. And thus we find this chain of authorities
hanging, link by link, one upon another, and all ultimately on one and the
same hook, and that a mistranslation ofthe words 'ancient scripture,' used by
Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot ; "Wingate does th e same ; Sheppard quotes Prisot,
Finch, and Wingate. Hale cites nobody. The court, on Woolston's case,
cites Hale ; Wood cites Woolston's case ; Blackstone quotes Woolston's case
and Hale; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority.
Here I might defy the best read lawyer to produce another scrip of author
ity for this judiciary forgery -, and I might go on farther to show how some
of the Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws the
20th, 21st, 22d, and 23d chapters of Exodus, and the 15th ofthe Acts ofthe
Apostles, from the 23d to the 29th verses; but this would lead my pen, and
your patience too far. What a conspiracy this, between church and state !' "

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 183
There have been, and still are, those, who, whilst they profess
to believe the Bible to be the word of God, affect to turn it into
ridicule. Taking their profession and conduct together, they act
blasphemously ; because they act as if God himself was not to be
believed. The case is exceedingly different with respect to the
Age of Reason. That book is written to show from the Bible it
self, that there is abundant matter to suspect it is not the word of
God, and that we have been imposed upon, first by Jews, and af
terwards by priests and commentators.
Not one of those who have attempted to write answers to the
Age of Reason, have taken the ground upon which only an answer
could be written. The case in question is not upon any point of
doctrine, but altogether upon a matter of fact. Is the book call
ed the Bible the word of God, or is it not ? If it can be proved
to be so, it ought to be believed as such ; if not, it ought not to
be believed as such. This is the true state of the case. The
Age of Reason produces evidence to show, and I have in this let
ter produced additional evidence, that it is not the word of God.
Those who take the contrary side, should prove that it is. But
this they have not done, nor attempted to do, and consequently
they have done nothing to the purpose.
The prosecutors of Williams have shrunk from the point, as the
answerers have done. They have availed themselves of prejudice
instead of proof. If a writing was produced in a court of judica
ture, said to be the writing of a certain person, and upon the rea
lity or non-reality of which, some matter at issue depended, the
point to be proved would be, that such writing was the writing of
such person. Or if the issue depended upon certain words, which
some certain person was said to have spoken, the point to be pro
ved would be, that such words were spoken by such person ; and
Mr. Erskine would contend the case upon this ground. A.certain
book is said to be the word of God. What is the proof that it is
so ? for upon this the whole depends ; and if it cannot be proved
to be so, the prosecution fails for want of evidence.
The prosecution against Williams charges him with publishing
a book, entitled The Age of Reason, which it says, is an impious
blasphemous pamphlet, tending to ridicule and bring into contempt
the Holy Scriptures. Nothing is more easy than to find abusive
words, and English prosecutions are famous for this species of
vulgarity. The charge however, is sophistical ; for the charge.

184 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
as growing out of the pamphlet, should have stated, not as it now
states, to ridicule and bring into contempt the Holy Scriptures,
but to show, that the book called the Holy Scriptures are not
the Holy Scriptures. It is one thing if I ridicule a work as
being written by a certain person; but it is quite a different
thing if I write to prove that such work was not written by
such person. In the first case, I attack the person through
the work ; in the other case, I defend the honor of the person
against the work. This is what the Age of Reason does, and
consequently the charge in the indictment is sophistically stated.
Every one will admit, that if the Bible be not the word of God,
we err in believing it to be his word, and ought not to believe
it. Certainly, then, the ground the prosecution should take,
would be to prove that the Bible is in fact what it is called.
But this the prosecution has not done, and cannot do.
In all cases the prior fact must be proved, before the subse
quent facts can be admitted in evidence. In a prosecution for
adultery, the fact of marriage, which is the prior fact, must be
proved, before the facts to prove adultery can be received. If
the fact of marriage cannot be proved, adultery cannot be proved;
and if the prosecution cannot prove the Bible to be the word of
God, the charge of blasphemy is visionary and groundless.
In Turkey they might prove, if the case happened, that a
certain book was bought of a certain bookseller, and that the
said book was written against the Koran. In Spain and Por
tugal they might prove, that a certain book was bought of a
certain bookseller, and that the said book was written against
the infallibility of the Pope. Under the ancient mythology they
might have proved, that a certain writing was bought of a cer
tain person, and that the said writing was written against the
belief of a plurality of gods, and in the support ofthe belief of
one God. Socrates was condemned for a work of this kind.
All these are but subsequent facts, and amount to nothing, un
less the prior facts be proved. The prior fact, with respect to the
first case, is, Is the Koran the word of God ? With respect to the
second, Is the infallibility of the Pope a truth ? With respect to
the third, Is the belief of a plurality of gods a true belief? and in
like manner with respect to the present prosecution, Is thenook
called the Bible the word of God? If the present prosecution
prove no more than could be proved in any or all of these cases,

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 1S5
it proves only as they do, or as an inquisition would prove ; and
in this view of the case, the prosecutors ought at least to leave
off reviling that infernal institution, the inquisition. The prosecu
tion, however, though it may injure the individual, may promote
the cause of truth ; because the manner in which it has been con
ducted, appears a confession to the world, that there is no evi
dence to prove that the Bible is the word of God. On what au
thority then do we believe the many strange stories that the Bible
tells of God
This prosecution has been carried on through the medium of
what is called a special jury, and the whole of a special jury is
nominated by the master of the crown office. Mr. Erskine vaunts
himself upon the bill he brought into parliament with respect to
trials, for what the government party calls libels. But if in crown
prosecutions, the master of the crown office is to continue to ap
point the whole special jury, which he does by nominating the for
ty-eight persons from which the solicitor of each party is to strike
out twelve, Mr. Erskine's bill is only vapour and smoke. The
root of the grievance lies in the manner of forming the jury, and
to this Mr. Erskine's bill applies no remedy.
When the trial of Williams came on, only eleven ofthe special
jurymen appeared, and the trial was adjourned. In cases where
the whole number do not appear, it is customary to make up the
deficiency by taking jurymen from persons present in court. This,
in the law term, is called a Tales. Why was not this done in this
case 1 Reason will suggest, that they did not choose to depend on
a man accidentally taken. When the trial re-commenced, the
whole ofthe special jury appeared, and Williams was convicted ;
it is folly to contend a cause where the whole jury is nominated by
one ofthe parties. I will relate a recent case that explains a great
deal with respect to special juries in crown prosecutions.
On the trial of Lambert and others, printers and proprietors of
the Morning Chronicle, for a libel, a special jury was struck, on
the prayer ofthe Attorney-General, who used to be called Diabo-
lus Regis, or King's Devil.
Only seven or eight of the special jury appeared, and the Attor
ney General not praying a Tales, the trial stood over to a future
day ; when it was to be brought on a second time, the Attorney-
General prayed for a new special jury, but as this was not admis
sible, the original special jury was summoned. Only eight of them
24

1S6 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
appeared, on which the Attorney-General said, " As I cannot, on
a second trial, have a special jury, I will pray a Tales." Four
persons were then taken from the persons present in court, and
added to the eight special jurymen. The jury went out at two
o'clock to consult on their verdict, and the judge (Kenyon) un
derstanding they were divided, and likely to be some time in mak
ing up their minds, retired from the bench, and went home. At
seven, the jury went, attended by an officer of the court, to the
Judge's house, and delivered a verdict, " Guilty of publishing, but
with no malicious intention." The Judge said, " J cannot record
this verdict : it is no verdict at all." The jury withdrew, and af
ter sitting in consultation till five in the morning, brought in a ver
dict, Not Guilty. Would this have been the case, had they been
all special jurymen nominated by the Master ofthe Crown-office?
This is one ofthe cases that ought to open the eyes of people with
respect to the manner of forming special juries.
On the trial of Williams, the Judge prevented the counsel for
the defendant proceeding in the defence. The prosecution had
selected a number of passages from the Age of Reason, and in
serted them in the indictment. The defending counsel was se
lecting other passages to show, that the passages in the indictment
were conclusions drawn from premises, and unfairly separated
therefrom in the indictment. The Judge said, he did not know
how to act ; meaning thereby whether to let the counsel proceed
in the defence or not, and asked the jury if they wished to hear the
passages read which the defending counsel had selected. The ju
ry said no, and the defending counsel was in consequence silent.
Mr. Erskine then, Falstaff like, having all the field to himself, and
no enemy at hand, laid about him most heroically, and the jury
found the defendant guilty. I know not if Mr. Erskine ran out
of court and hallooed, huzza for the Bible and the trial by jury.
Robespierre caused a decree to be passed during the trial of
Brissot and others, that after a trial had lasted three days, (the
whole of which time, in the case of Brissot, was taken up by the
prosecuting party,) the judge should ask the jury (who were then
a packed jury) if they were satisfied? If the jury said yes, the
trial ended, and the jury proceeded to give their verdict, without
hearing the defence ofthe accused party. It needs no depth of
wisdom to make an application of this case.

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 187
I will now state a case to show that the trial of Williams is not a
trial, according to Kenyon's own explanation of law.
On a late trial in London (Selthens versus Hoossman) on a pol
icy of insurance, one ofthe jurymen, Mr. Dunnage, after hearing
one side ofthe case, and without hearing the other side, got up and
said, ii was as legal a policy ofinsurance'as ever was written. The
Judge, who was the same as presided on the trial of Williams, re
plied, that il was a great misfortune when any gentleman of the ju
ry makes up his mind on a cause before it was finished. Mr. Ers
kine, who in that cause was counsel for the defendant, (in this he
was against the defendant,) cried out, it is worse than a misfortune,
it is a fault. The Judge, in his address to the jury in summing
up the evidence, expatiated upon, and explained the parts which
the law assigned to the counsel on each side, to the witnesses, and
to the Judge, and said, " When all this was done, and not until then,
it was the business of the jury to declare what the justice ofthe case
was ; and that it ivas extremely rash and imprudent in any man to
draw a conclusion before all the premises were laid before them,
upon which that conclusion was to be grounded." According then
to Kenyon's own doctrine, the trial of Williams is an irregular tri
al, tbe verdict an irregular verdict, and as such is not recordable.
As to special juries, they are but modern ; and were instituted
for the purpose of determining cases at law between merchants ;
because, as the method of keeping merchants' accounts differs from
that of common tradesmen, and their business, by lying much in
foreign bills of exchange, insurance, &c, is of a different descrip
tion to that of common tradesmen, it might happen that a common
jury might not be competent to form a judgment. The law that
instituted special juries, makes it necessary that the jurors be
merchants, or of the degree of squires. A special jury in London
is generally composed of merchants ; and in the country, ofmen
called country squires, that is, fox-hunters, or men qualified to
hunt foxes. The one may decide very well upon a case of pounds,
shillings, and pence, or of the counting-house : and the other of
the jockey-club or the chase. But who would not laugh, that be
cause such men can decide such cases, they can also be jurors
upon theology. Talk with some London merchants about scrip
ture, and they will understand you mean scrip, and tell you how
much it is worth at the Stock Exchange. Ask them about theol*
gy, and thay will say they know of no such gentleman lpon

188 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
Change. Tell some country squires of the sun and moon stand
ing still, the one on the top of a hill and the other in a valley, and
they will swear it is a lie of one's own making. Tell them that
God Almighty ordered a man to make a cake and bake it with a
t — d and eat it, and they will say it is one of Dean Swift's black
guard stories. Tell them it is in the Bible, and they will lay a
bowl of punch it is not, and leave it to the parson ofthe parish to
decide. Ask them also about theology, and they will say, they
know of no such an one on the turf. An appeal to such juries
serves to bring the Bible into more ridicule than any thing the au
thor of the Age of Reason has written ; and the manner in which
the trial has been conducted shows, that the prosecutor dares not
come to the point, nor meet the defence ofthe defendant. But all
other cases apart, on what ground of right, otherwise than on the
right assumed by an inquisition, do such prosecutions stand? Re
ligion is a private affair between every man and his Maker, and no
tribunal or third party has a right to interfere between them. It is
not properly a thing of this world ; it is only practised in this world ;
but its object is in a future world ; and it is no .otherwise an ob
ject of just laws, than for the purpose of protecting the equal rights
of all, however various their beliefs may be. If one man choose to
believe the book called the Bible to be the word of God, and another,
from the convinced idea of the purity and perfection of God, com
pared with the contradictions the book contains — from the lascivi-
ousness of some of its stories, like that of Lotgetting drunk and de
bauching his two daughters, which is not spoken of as a crime,
and for which the most absurd apologies are made — from the im
morality of some of its precepts, like that of showing no mercy —
and from the total want of evidence on the case, thinks he ought
not to believe it to be the word of God, each of them has an equal
right ; and if the one has the right to give his reasons for believing
it to be so, the other has an equal right to give his reasons for be
lieving the contrary. Any thing that goes beyond this rule is an
inquisition. Mr. Erskine talks of his moral education; Mr.
Erskine is very little acquainted with theological subjects, if he
does not know there is such a thing as a sincere and religious be
lief that the Bible is not the word of God. This is my belief; it
is the belief of thousands far more learned than Mr. Erskine ; and
it is a belief that is every day increasing. It is not infidelity, aa
Mr. Erskine prophanely and abusively calls it ; it is the direct re

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 189
verse of infidelity. It is a pure religious belief, founded on the
idea ofthe perfection ofthe Creator. If the Bible be the word of
God, it needs not the wretched aid of prosecutions to support it ;
and you might with as much propriety make a law to protect the
sunshine, as to protect the Bible, if the Bible, like the sun, be the
work of God. We see that God takes good care of the Creation
he nas made. He suffers no part of it to be extinguished : and
he will take the same care of his word, if he ever gave one. But
men ought to be reverentially careful and suspicious how they as
cribe books to him as his word, which from this confused condi
tion would dishonor a common scribbler, and against which there
is abundant evidence, and every cause to suspect imposition.
Leave then the Bible to itself. God will take care of it if he has
any thing to do with it, as he takes care ofthe sun and the moon,
which need not your laws for their better protection. As the two
instances I have produced, in the beginning of this letter, from the
Dook of Genesis, the one respecting the account called the Mo
saic account of the Creation, the other of the Flood, sufficiently
show the necessity of examining the Bible, in order to ascertain
what degree of evidence there is for receiving or rejecting it as a
sacred book; I shall not add more upon that subject ; but in order
to show Mr. Erskine that there are religious establishments for
public worship which make no profession of faith of the books
called holy scriptures, nor admit of priests, I will conclude with an
account of a society lately began in Paris, and which is very rapid
ly extending itself.
The society takes the name of Theophilantropes, which would
be rendered in English by the word Theophilanthropists, a word
compounded of three Greek words, signifying God, Love, and
Man. The explanation given to this word is, Lovers of God and
Man, or Adorers of God and Friends of Man, adorateurs de
Dieu et amis des hommes. The society proposes to publish each
year a volume, the first volume is just published, entitled
RELIGIOUS YEAR OF THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS;
OR,
ADORERS OF GOD, AND FRIENDS OF MAN.
Being a collection ofthe discourses, lectures, hymns, and can
ticles, for all the religious and moral festivals of the Theophilan
thropists during the course of the year, whetherin their public tern-

190 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
pies or in their private families, published by the author of tho
Manuel ofthe Theophilanthropists.
The volume of this year, which is the first, contains 214 pages
duodecimo. The following is the table of contents : —
1. Precise history of the Theophilanthropists.
2. Exercises common to all the festivals.
3. Hymn, No. I, God of whom the universe speaks.
4. Discourse upon the existence of God.
5. Ode II. The heavens instruct the earth.
6. Precepts of wisdom, extracted from the book of the Ado
rateurs.
7. Canticle, No. III. God Creator, soul of nature.
8. Extracts from divers moralists, upon the nature of God, and
upon the physical proofs of his existence.
9. Canticle, No. IV. Let us bless at our waking the God who
gives us light.
10. Moral thoughts extracted from the Bible.
11. Hymn, No. V. Father of the universe.
12. Contemplation of nature on the first days of the spring.
13. Ode, No VI. Lord in thy glory adorable.
14. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Confucius.
15. Canticle in praise of actions, and thanks for the works ofthe
creation.
16. Continuation from the moral thoughts of Confucius.
17. Hymn, No. VII. All the universe is full of thy magnificence;
18. Extracts from an ancient sage of India upon the duties of
families.
19. Upon the spring.
20. Moral thoughts of divers Chinese authors.
21. Canticle, No. VIII. Every thing celebrates the glory of the
eternal.
22. Continuation of the moral thoughts of Chinese authors.
23. Invocation for the country.
24. Extracts from the moral thoughts of Theognis.
25. Invocation, Creator of man.
26. Ode, No. IX. Upon Death.
27. Extracts from the book of the Moral Universal, upon happi
ness.
28 Ode, No. X. Suprem - Author of Nature.

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 191
INTRODUCTION.
ENTITLED
PRECISE HISTORY OF THE THEOPHILANTHROPISTS.
" Towards the month of Vendimiaire, of the year 5, (Sept.
1796,) there appeared at Paris, a small work, entitled, Manuel of
the Theoantropophiles, since called, for the sake of easier pro
nunciation. Theophilantropes, (Theophilanthropists,) published
hy C 
" The worship set forth in this Manuel, of which the origin is
from the beginning of the world, was then professed by some fami
lies in the silence of domestic life. But no sooner was the
Manuel published, than some persons, respectable for their know
ledge and their manners, saw, in the formation of a society open
to the public, an easy method of spreading moral religion, and of
leading by degrees great numbers to the knowledge thereof, who
appear to have forgotten it. This consideration ought of itself
not to leave indifferent those persons who know that morality and
religion, which is the most solid support thereof, are necessary to
the maintenance of society, as well as to the happiness of the
individual. These considerations determined the families of the
Theophilanthropists to unite publicly for the exercise of their
worship. " The first society of this kind opened in the month of Nivose,
year 5, (Jan. 1797,) in the street Dennis, No. 34, corner of Lom
bard-street. The care of conducting this society was under
taken by five fathers of families. They adopted, the Manuel of
the Theophilanthropists. They agreed to hold their days of pub
hc worship on the days corresponding to Sundays, but without
making this a hindrance to other societies, to choose such other
day as they thought more convenient. Soon after this, more so
cieties were opened, of which some celebrate on the decadi, (tenth
day,) and others on the Sunday : it was also resolved that the com
mittee should meet one hour each week for the purpose of pre
paring or examining the discourses and lectures proposed for the
next general assembly. That the general assemblies should be
called Fetes (festivals) religious and moral. That those festivals
should be conducted in principle and form, in a manner, as not to
oe considered as the festivals of an exclusive worship ; and thai

192 LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE.
in recalling those who might not be attached to any particular wor
ship, those festivals might also be attended as moral exercises by
disciples of every sect, and consequently avoid, by scrupulous
care, every thing that might make the society appear under the
name of a sect. The society adopts neither rites nor priesthood,
and it will never loose sight of the resolution not to advance any
thing as a society, inconvenient to any sect or sects, in any time
or country, and under any government.
" It will be seen, that it is so much the more easy for the society
to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theo
philanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed,
that their moral is that upon which there has never been the least
dissent ; and that the name they have taken, expresses the double
end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and
love of man.
" The Theophilanthropists do not call themselves the disciples
of such or such a man. They avail themselves of the wise pre
cepts that have been transmitted by writers of all countries and
in all ages. The reader will find in the discourses, lectures,
hymns, and canticles, which the Theophilanthropists have adopted
for their religious and moral festivals, and which they present
under the title of Annee Religieuse, extracts from moralists,
ancient and modern, divested of maxims too severe, or too loosely
conceived, or contrary to piety, whether towards God or towards

Next follow the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists, or things
they profess to believe. These are but two, and are thus expres
sed, les Theophilantropes croient a V 'existence de Dieu, et a I'im-
mortalite de I'ame. The Theophilanthropists believe in the ex
istence of God, and the immortality of the soul.
The Manuel of the Theophilanthropists, a small volume of sixty
pages, duodecimo, is published separately, as is also their ca
techism, which is of the same size. The principles ofthe Theo
philanthropists are the same as those published in the first part
of the Age of Reason in 1793, and in the second part, in 1795.
The Theophilanthropists, as a society, are silent upon all the
things they do not profess to believe, as the sacredness of the
books called the Bible, &c. &c. They profess the immortality
of the soul, but they are silent on the immortality of the body, or

LETTER TO MR. ERSKINE. 193
that which the church calls the resurrection. The author of the
Age of Reason gives reasons for every thing he disbelieves, as well
as for those he believes ; and where this cannot be done with safety,
the government is a despotism, and the church an inquisition.
It is more than three years since the first part of the Age of
Reason was published, and more than a year and a half since the
publication of the second part : the bishop of Llandaff undertook to
write an answer to the second part ; and it was not until after
it was known that the author of the Age of Reason would reply
to the bishop, that the prosecution against the book was set on
foot ; and which is said to be carried on by some clergy of the
English church. If the bishop is one of them, and the object be
to prevent an exposure of the numerous and gross errors he has
committed in his work, (and which he wrote when report said that
Thomas Paine was dead,) it is a confession that he feels the weak
ness of his cause, and finds himself unable to maintain it. In
this case he has given me a triumph I did not seek, and Mr.
Erskine, the herald of the prosecution, has proclaimed it.
THOMAS PAINE.

25

A
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED TO THE SOCIETY OF THEOPHILAN
THROPISTS AT PARIS.

Religion has two principal enemies, Fanaticism and Infidelity
or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be
combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philoso
phy. The existence of a God is the first dogma of the Theophilan
thropists. It is upon this subject that I solicit your attention ; for
though it has been often treated of, and that most sublimely, the
subject is inexhaustible ; and there will always remain something
to be said that has not been before advanced. I go, therefore, to
open the subject, and to crave your attention to the end.
The universe is the Bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is
there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of his ex
istence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or print
ed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of
man's hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the
author of any of them. It must be in something that man could
not make, that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that
something is the universe ; the true Bible ; the inimitable work of
God. Contemplating the universe, the whole system of creation, in
this point of light, we shall discover, that all that which is called
natural philosophy is properly a divine study. It is the study of
God through his works. It is the best study by which we can
arrive at a knowledge of his existence, and the only one by which
we can gain a glimpse ofhis perfection.
Do we want to contemplate his power 1 We see it in the

196 discourse to the society
immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wis
dom ? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom
prehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate
his munificence 1 We see it in the abundance with which he fills
the earth. Dc we want to contemplate his mercy 1 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 written
or printed books, but the scripture called the Creation.
It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and ail
the other sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accom
plishments only ; whereas they should be taught theologically, or
with reference to the Being who is the author of them : for all the
principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or
invent, or contrive principles. He can only discover them ; and
he ought to look through the discovery to the author.
When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an
astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue, or an
highly finished painting, where life and action are imitated, and
habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for
cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the exten
sive genius and talents ofthe artist. When we study the elements
of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation,
we think of Newton. How then is it, that when we study the
works of God in the Creation, we stop short, and do not think of
God ? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those
subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study
of them from the being who is the author of them.
The schools have made the study of theology to consist in the
study of opinions in written or printed books ; whereas theology
should be studied in the works or books of the Creation. The
study of theology in books of opinions has often produced fana
ticism, rancour, and cruelty of temper ; and from hence have pro
ceeded the numerous persecutions, the fanatical quarrels, the re
ligious burnings and massacres, that have desolated Europe. But
the study of theology in the works of the Creation produces a di
rect contrary effect. The mind becomes at once enlightened and
serene ; a copy of the scene it beholds : information and adora
tion go hand in hand ; and all the social faculties become en
larged.

OF theophilanthropists. 197
The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, m teach
ing natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of
generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking
through the works of the Creation to the Creator himself, they
stop short, and employ the knowledge they acquire to create
doubts of his existence. They labour with studied ingenuity to
ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter ;
and jump over all the rest, by saying, that matter is eternal.
Let us examine this subject ; it is worth examining ; for if we
examine it through all its cases, the result will be, that the exist
ence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, will be
discoverable by philosophical principles.
In the first place, admitting matter to have properties, as we see
it has, the question still remains, how came matter by those pro
perties ? To this they will answer, that matter possessed those
properties eternally. This is not solution, but assertion : and to
deny it is equally impossible of proof as to assert it. It is then
necessary to go further ; and, therefore, I say, if there exist a cir
cumstance that is not a property of matter, and without which the
universe, or, to speak in a limited degree, the solar system, com
posed of planets and a sun, could not exist a moment ; all the
arguments of atheism, drawn from properties of matter, and
applied to account for the universe, will be overthrown, and the
existence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, be
comes discoverable, as is before said, by natural philosophy.
I go now to show that such a circumstance exists, and what
it is :
The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sus
tained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and with
out this motion, the solar system could not exist. Were motion
a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing
called perpetual motion would establish itself. It is because
motion is not a property of matter that perpetual motion is an
impossibility in the hand of every being but that of the Creator of
motion. When the pretenders to atheism can produce perpetual
motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.
The natural state of matter, as to place, is a state of rest. Mo
tion, or change of place, is the effect of an external cause acting
upon matter. As to that faculty of matter that is called gravita
tion, it is the influence which two or more bodies have reciprocally

198 DISCOURSE TO THE SOCIETY
on each other to unite and to be at rest. Every thing which has
hitherto been discovered, with respect to the motion of the planets
in the system, relates only to the laws by which motion acts, and
not to the cause of motion. Gravitation, so far from being the
cause of motion to the planets that compose the solar system,
would be the destruction of the solar system, were revolutionary
motion to cease ; for as the action of spinning upholds a top, the
revolutionary motion upholds the planets in their orbits, and pre
vents them from gravitating and forming one mass with the sun.
In one sense of the word, philosophy knows, and atheism says,
that matter is in perpetual motion. But motion here refers to the
state of matter, and that only on the surface of the earth. It is
either decomposition, which is continually destroying the form of
bodies of matter, or re-composition, which renews that matter in
the same or another form, as the decomposition of animal or vege
table substances enter into the composition of other bodies. But
the motion that upholds the solar system is of an entire different
kind, and is not a property of matter. It operates also to an entire
different effect. It operates to perpetual preservation, and to
prevent any change in the state ofthe system.
Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows
it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even
supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system
ofthe universe, or of the solar system, because it will not account
for motion, and it is motion that preserves it. When, therefore,
we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that
without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither mat
ter, nor any, nor all the properties of matter can account ; we are
by necessity forced into the rational and comfortable belief of the
existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls
God. ,
As to that which is c-alled nature, it is no other than the laws by
which motion and action of every kind, with respect to unintel
ligible matter is regulated. And when we speak of looking
through nature up to nature's God, we speak philosophically the
same rational language as when we speak of looking through
human laws up to the power that ordained them.
God is the power or first cause, nature is the law, and matter is
the subject acted upon.

OF THEOPHILANTHROPISTS. 199
But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of
matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account, and yet
it pretends to demonstration. It reasons from what it sees on the
surface of the earth, but it does not carry itself to the solar sys
tem existing by motion. It sees upon the surface a perpetual
decomposition and re-composition of matter. It sees that an oak
produces an acorn, an acorn an oak, a bird an egg, an egg a bird,
and so on. In things of this kind it sees something which it calls
natural cause, but none of the causes it sees is the cause of
that motion which preserves the solar system.
Let us contemplate this wonderful and stupendous system con
sisting of matter and existing by motion. It is not matter in a
state of rest, nor in a state of decomposition or re-composition.
It is matter systematized in perpetual orbicular or circular motion.
As a system that motion is the life of it, as animation is life to an
animal body ; deprive the system of motion, and, as a system, it
must expire. Who then breathed into the system the life of mo
tion ? What power impelled the planets to move, since motion
is not a property of the matter of which they are composed ? If
we contemplate the immense velocity of this motion, our wonder
becomes increased, and our adoration enlarges itself in the same
proportion. To instance only one ofthe planets, that ofthe earth
we inhabit, its distance from the sun, the centre ofthe orbits of all
the planets, is, according to observations of the transit of the
planet Venus, about one hundred million miles f consequently, the
diameter of the orbit, or circle in which the earth moves round the
sun, is double that distance ; and the measure of the circumfe
rence of the orbit, taken as three times its diameter, is six hundred
million miles. The earth performs this voyage in 365 days and
some hours, and consequently moves at the rate of more than one
million six hundred thousand miles every twenty-four hours.
Where will infidelity* where will atheism find cause for this
astonishing velocity of motion, never ceasing, never varying, and
which is the preservation of the earth in its orbit ? It is not by
reasoning from an acorn to an oak, or from any change in the state
of matter on the surface of the earth, that this can be accounted
fot Its cause is not to be found in matter, nor in any thing we
call naturej The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic
who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable diffi
culties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of

200 DISCOURSE TO THE SOCIETY
natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning
to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphy
sical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of
his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom
there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be
charitable. When at first thought we think of a Creator, our ideas appear
to us undefined and confused ; but if we reason philosophically,
those ideas can be easily arranged and simplified. It is a Being
whose power is equal to his will. Observe the nature of the will of
man. It is of an infinite quality. We cannot conceive the possi
bility of limits to the will. Observe on the other hand, how ex
ceedingly limited is his power of acting, compared with the nature
ofhis will. Suppose the power equal to the will, and man would
be a God. He would will himself eternal, and be so. He could
will a creation, and could make it. In this progressive reasoning,
we see inthe nature ofthe will of man, half of that which we con
ceive of thinking of God; add the other half, and we have the
whole idea of a being who could make the universe, and sustain it
by perpetual motion ; because he could create that motion.
We know nothing ofthe capacity ofthe will of animals, but we
unow a great deal ofthe difference of their powers. For example,
how numerous are the degrees, and how immense is the difference
of power from a mite to a man. Since then every thing wc see
below us shows a progression of power, where is the difficulty in
supposing that there is, at the summit of all things, a Being in
whom an infinity of power unites with the infinity of the will.
When this simple idea presents itself to our mind, we have the
idea of a perfect Being that man calls God.
It is comfortable to live under the belief of the existence of an
infinitely protecting power ; and it is an addition to that comfort to
know that such a belief is not a mere conceit of the imagination,
as many of the theories that are called religious are ; nor a belief
founded only on tradition or received opinion, but is a belief dedu
cible by the action of reason upon the things that compose the
system ofthe universe : a belief arising out of visible facts : and
so demonstrable is the truth of this belief, that if no such belief
had existed, the persons who now controvert it, would have been
the persons who would have produced and propagated it, because,,
by beginning to reason, they would have been led on to reason

OF THE0PHIL4.NTHROPISTS. 201
progressively to the end, and, thereby, have discovered that matter
and all the properties it has, will not account for the system of the
universe, and that there must necessarily be a superior cause.
It was the excess to which imaginary systems of religion had
been carried, and the intolerance, persecutions, burnings, and
massacres, they occasioned, that first induced certain persons to
propagate infidelity ; thinking, that upon the whole it was better
not to believe at all, than to believe a multitude of things and com
plicated creeds, that occasioned so much mischief in the world.
But those days are past : persecution has ceased, and the antidote
then set up against it has no longer even the shadow of an apology.
We profess, and we proclaim in peace, the pure, unmixed, com
fortable, and rational belief of a God, as manifested to us in the
universe. We do this without any apprehension of that belief be
ing made a cause of persecution as other beliefs have been, or of
suffering persecution ourselves. To God, and not to man, are all
men to account for their belief.
It has been well observed at the first institution of this society
that the dogmas it professes to believe, are from the commence
ment ofthe world ; that they are not novelties, but are confessedly
the basis of all systems of religion, however numerous and con
tradictory they may be. All men in the outset ofthe religion they
profess are Theophilanthropists. It is impossible to form any
system of religion without building upon those principles, and
therefore, they are not sectarian principles, unless we suppose a
sect composed of all the world.
I have said in the course of this discourse, that the study of na
tural philosophy is a divine study, because it is the study of the
works of God in the Creation. If we consider theology upon this
ground, what an extensive field of improvement in things both
divine and human opens itself before us. All the principles of
science are of divine origin. It was not man that invented the
principles on which astronomy, and every branch of mathematics
are founded and studied. It was not man that gave properties of
the circle and triangle. Those principles are eternal and immu
table. We see in them the unchangeable nature of the Divinity.
We see in them immortality, an immortality existing after the ma
terial figures that express those properties are dissolved in dust.
The society is at present in its infancy, and its means are small;
but I wish to hold in view the subject I allude to, and instead of
26

202 DISCOURSE TO THE SOCIETY, &C.
teaching the philosophical branches of learning as ornamental ac
complishments only, as they have hitherto been taught, to teach
them in a manner that shall combine theological knowledge with
scientific instruction ; to do this to the best advantage, some in
struments will be necessary for the purpose of explanation, of
which the society is not yet possessed. But as the views ofthe so
ciety extend to public good, as well as to that ofthe individual, and
as its principles can have no enemies, means may be devised to
procure them.
If we unite to the present instruction, a series of lectures on the
ground I have mentioned, we shall, in the first place, render theo
logy the most delightful and entertaining of all studies. In the
next place we shall give scientific instruction to those who could
not otherwise obtain it. The mechanic of every profession will
there be taught the mathematical principles necessary to render
him a proficient in his art. The cultivator will there see develop
ed, the principles of vegetation : while, at the same time, they
will be led to see the hand of God in all these things.

LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN,
ONE OF THE JODNCIL OF FIVE HUNDRED,
OCCASIONED BY HIS REPORT ON THE PRIESTS
PUBLIC WORSHIP, AND THE BELLS.

Citizen Representative,
As every thing in your report, relating to what you call worship,
connects itself with the books called the Scriptures, I begin with
a quotation therefrom. It may serve to give us some idea of the
fanciful origin and fabrication of those books. 2 Chronicles, chap.
xxxiv. ver. 14, &c. " Hilkiah; the priest, found the book of the
law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah, the priest, said
to Shaphan, the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the
house of the Lord, and Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.
And Shaphan, the scribe, told the king, (Josiah,) saying, Hilkiah,
the priest, hath given me a book."
This pretended finding was about a thousand years after the
time that Moses is said to have lived. Before this pretended
finding, there was no such thing practised or known in the world
as that which is called the law of Moses. This being the case,
there is every apparent evidence, that the books called the books of
Moses (and which make the first part of what are called the Scrip
tures) are forgeries contrived between a priest and a limb of the
law,* Hilkiah, and Shaphan, the scribe, a thousand years after
Moses is said to have been dead.
Thus much for the first part of the Bible. Every other part
is marked with circumstances equally as suspicious. We ought,
* It happens that Camille Jordan is a limb of the law.

204 LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN.
therefore, to be reverentially careful how we ascribe books os his
word, of which there is no evidence, and against which there is
abundant evidence to the contrary, and every cause to suspect
imposition. In your report you speak continually of something by the name
of worship, and you confine yourself to speak of one kind only.
as if there were but one, and that one was unquestionably true.
The modes of worship are as various as the sects are numer
ous ; and amidst all this variety and multiplicity there is but one
article of belief in which every religion in the world agrees. That
article has universal sanction. It is the belief of a God, or whs
the Greeks described by the word Theism, and the Latins by that
of Deism. Upon this one article have been erected all the differ
ent super-structures of creeds and ceremonies continually warring
with each other that now exists or ever existed. But the men
most and best informed upon the subject of theology, rest them
selves upon this universal article, and hold all the various super
structures erected thereon to be at least doubtful, if not altogether
artificial. The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every
man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to
interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each
other. But since religion has been made into a trade, the practi
cal part has been made to consist of ceremonies performed by
men called priests ; and the people have been amused with cere
monial shows, processions, and bells.* By devices of this kind
true religion has been banished ; and such means have been found
out to extract money even from the pockets of the poor, instead
of contributing to their relief.
* The precise date of the invention of bells cannot be traced. The ancients,
it appears from Martial, Juvenal, Suetonius and others, had an article named
tintinuabula, (usually translated bell,) by which the Romans were summoned
to their baths and public places. It seems most probable, that the description
of bells now used in churches, were invented about the year 400, and generally
adopted before the commencement of the seventh century. Previous to their
invention, however, sounding brass, and sometimes basins, were used ; and to
the present day the Greek church have boards, or iron plates, full of holes,
which they strike with a hammer, or mallet, to summsn the priests and others
to divine service. W» may also remark, that in our own country, it was the
custom in monasteries to visit every person's cell early in the morning, and
knock on the door with a similar instrument, called the wakening mallet-
doubtless no very pleasing intrusion on the slumbers of the Monks.
But, th.e use of bells having been established, it was found that devils were
terrified at the sound, and slunk in haste away ; in consequence of which it
was thought necessary to bavtize them in a solemn manner, which appears W

LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 205
No man ought to make a living by religion. It is dishonest
so to do. Religion is not an act that can be performed by proxy.
One person cannot act religion for another. Every person must
perform it for himself: and all that a priest can do is to take from
him, he wants nothing but his money, and then to riot in the spoil
and laugh at his credulity.
The only people, as a professional sect of Christians, who pro
vide for the poor of their society, are people known by the name
of Quakers. Those men have no priests. They assemble quietly
in their places of meeting, and do not disturb their neighbours with
shows and noise of bells. Religion does not unite itself to show
and1 noise. True religion is without either. Where there is
both there is no true religion.
The first object for inquiry in all cases, more especially in mat
ters of religious concern, is TRUTH. We ought to inquire into
the truth of whatever we are taught to believe, and it is certain
that the books called the Scriptures stand, in this respect, in
more than a doubtful predicament. They have been held in exis
tence, and in a sort of credit among the common class of people,
by art, terror, and persecution. They have little or no credit
among the enlightened part, but they have been made the means
have been first done by Pope John XII. A. D. 9G8. A record of this practice
still exists in the Tom of Lincoln, and the great Tom at Oxford, &c.
Having thus laid the foundation of superstitious veneration, in the hearts of
the common people, it cannot be a matter of surprise, that they were soon used
at rejoicings, and high festivals in the church (for the purpose of driving away
any evil spirit which might be in the neighborhood), as well as on the arrival
of any great personage, on which occasion the usual fee was one penny.
One other custom remains to be explained, viz. tolling bell on the occasion of
any person's death, a custom which, in the manner now practised, is totally
different from its original institution. It appears to have been used as early
as the 7th century, when bells were first generally used and to have been de
nominated the soul bell, (as it signified the departing of the soul,) as also, the
passing bell. Thus Wheatly tells us, " Our church, in imitation of the Saints
of former ages, calls in the Minister and others who are at hand, to assist their
brother in his last extremity ; in order to this, she directs a bell should be toll
ed when any one is passing out of this life." Durand also says — " When any
one is dying, bells must be tolled, that the people may put up their prayers for
him ; let this be done twice for a woman, and thrice for a man. If for a cler
gyman, as many times as he had orders ; and, at the conclusion, a peal on all
the bells, to distinguish the quality of the person for whom the people are to
put up their prayers." — From these passages, it appears evident that the bell
was to be tolled before a person's decease rather than after, as at the present
day.; and that the object was to obtain the prayers of all who heard it, for the
repose ofthe soul oftheir departing neighbour. At first, when the tolling took
place after the person's decease, it was deemed superstitious, and was partially
disused, which was found materially to affect the revenue of the church.
The priesthood having removed the objection, bells were again tolled, upon
payment of the customary fees. English Paper.

206 LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN.
of encumbering the world with a numerous priesthood, who have
fattened on the labour of the people, and consumed the sustenance
that ought to be applied to the widows and the poor.
It is a want of feeling to talk of priests and bells whilst so many
infants are perishing in the hospitals, and aged and infirm poor in
the streets, from the want of necessaries. The abundance that
France produces is sufficient for every want, if rightly applied ;
but priests and bells, like articles of luxury, ought to be the least
articles of consideration.
We talk of religion. Let us talk of truth ; for that which is not
truth, is not worthy the name of religion.
We see different parts of the world overspread with different
books, each of which, though contradictory to the other, is said by
its partisans, to be of divine origin, and is made a rule of faith and
practice. In countries under despotic governments, where in
quiry is always forbidden, the people are condemned to believe
as they have been taught by their priests. This was for many
centuries the case in France : but this link in the chain of slavery,
is happily broken by the revolution ; and, that it may never be
rivetted again, let us employ a part ofthe liberty we enjoy in scru
tinizing into the truth. Let us leave behind us some monument,
that we have made the cause and honour of our Creator an object
of our care. If we have been imposed upon by the terrors of
government and the artifice of priests in matters of religion, let us
do justice to our Creator by examining into the case. His name
is too sacred to be affixed to any thing which is fabulous ; and it is
our duty to inquire whether we believe, or encourage the people
to believe, in fables or in facts.
It would be a project worthy the situation we are in, to invite
in inquiry of this kind. We have committees for various objects ;
and, among others, a committee for bells. We have institutions,
academies, and societies for various purposes ; but we have none
for inquiring into historical truth in matters of religious concern.
They show us certain books which they call the Holy Scrip
tures, the word of God, and other names of that kind ; but we
ought to know what evidence there is for our believing them to be
so, and at what time they originated and in what manner. We
know that men could make books, and we know that artifice and
superstition could give them a name ; could call them sacred.
But we ought to be careful that the name of our Creator be not

LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 207
abused. Let then all the evidence with respect to those books be
made a subject of inquiry. If there be evidence to warrant our
belief of them, let us encourage the propagation of it : but if
not, let us be careful not to promote the cause of delusion
and falsehood.
I have already spoken of the Quakers — that they have no priests,
no bells — and that they are remarkable for their care of the poor
of their society. They are equally as remarkable for the educa
tion of their children. I am a descendant of a family of that pro
fession ; my father was a Quaker ; and I presume I may ne
admitted an evidence of what I assert. The seeds of good prin
ciples, and the literary means of advancement in the world, are
laid in early life. Instead, therefore, of consuming the substance
of the nation upon priests, whose life at best is a life of idleness,
let us think of providing for the education of those who have not
the means of doing it themselves. One good schoolmaster ts oi
more use than a hundred priests.
If we look back at what was the condition of France under the
ancient regime, we cannot acquit the priests of corrupting the mo
rals of the nation. Their pretended celibacy led them to carry de
bauchery and- domestic infidelity into every family where they
could gain admission ; and their blasphemous pretensions to for
give sins, encouraged the commission of them. Why has rne
Revolution of France been stained with crimes which the Revo
lution of the United States of America was not ? Men are phvsi-
cally the same in all countries ; it is education that makes them
different. Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other
class of men can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance.
I come now to speak more particularly to the object of your
report. You claim a privilege incompatible with the constitution ana
with rights. The constitution protects equally, as it ought to do
every profession of religion ; it gives no exclusive privilege to
any. The churches are the common property of all the people ;
they are national goods, and cannot be given exclusively to anv
one profession, because the right does not exist of giving to any
one that which appertains to all. It would be consistent with
right fnat the churches be sold, and the money arising therefrom
be invested as a fund for the education of children of poor parents
of every profession, and, if more than sufficient for this purpose,

208 LETTER TO CAMLLIE JORDAN.
that the surplus be appropriated to the support of the aged poor.
After this, every profession can erect its own place of worship, if
it choose — support its own priests, if it choose to have any — or
perform its worship without priests, as the Quakers do.
As to bells, they are a public nuisance. If one profession is
to have bells, and another has the right to use the instruments of
the same kind, or any other noisy instrument. Some may choose
to meet at the sound of cannon, another at toe beat of drum,
another at the sound of trumpets, and so on, until the whole be
comes a scene of general confusion. But if we permit ourselves
to think of the state of the sick, and the many sleepless nights
and days they undergo, we shall feel the impropriety of increasing
their distress by the noise of bells, or any other noisy instruments.
Quiet and private domestic devotion neither offends nor incom
modes any body ; and the constitution has wisely guarded against
the use of externals. Bells come under this description, and
public processions still more so — Streets and highways are for the
accommodation of persons following their several occupations,
and no sectary has a right to incommode them — If any one has,
every other has the same ; and the meeting of various and con- '
traditory processions would be tumultuous. Those who formed
the constitution had wisely reflected upon these cases ; and,
whilst they were careful to reserve the equal right of every one,
they restrained every one from giving offence, or incommoding
another. Men who, through a long and tumultuous scene, have lived in
retirement as you have done, may think, when they arrive at
power, that nothing is more easy than to put the world to rights in
an instant ; they form to themselves gay ideas at the success of
their projects ; but they forget to contemplate the difficulties that
attend them, and the dangers with which they are pregnant.
Alas ! nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self. Did all men
think, as you think, or as you say, your plan would need no ad
vocate, because it would have no opposer ; but there are millions
who think differently to you, and who are determined to be neither
the dupes nor the slaves of error or design.
It is your good fortune to arrive at power, when the sunshine of
prosperity is breathing forth after a long and stormy night. The
firmness of your colleagues, and of those you have succeeded—
fhe unabated energy of the Directory, and the unequalled bravery

LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 209
of the armies of the Republic, have made the way smooth and
easy to you. If you look back at the difficulties that existed
wnen the constitution commenced, you cannot but be confounded
with admiration at the difference between that time and now. At
that moment the Directory were placed like the forlorn hope of an
army, but you were in safe retirement. They occupied the post
of honourable danger, and they have merited well of their country.
You talk of justice and benevolence, but you begin at the
wrong end. , The defenders of your country, and the deplorable
state of the poor, are objects of prior consideration to priests
and bells and gaudy processions.
You talk of peace, but your manner of talking of it embarrasses
the Directory in making it, and serves to prevent it. Had yqu
been an actor in all the scenes of government from its commence
ment, you would have been too well informed to have brought for
ward projects that operate to encourage the enemy. When you
arrived at a share in the government, you found every thino- tend
ing to a prosperous issue. A series of victories unequalled in the
world, and in the obtaining of which you had no share, preceded
your arrival. Every enemy but one was subdued ; and that one,
(the Hanoverian government of England,) deprived of every
hope, and a bankrupt in all its resources, was sueing for peace.
In such a state of things, no new question that might tend to agi
tate and anarchize the interior, ought to have had place ; and the
project you propose, tends directly to that end.
Whilst France was a monarchy, and under the government of
those things called kings and priests, England could always defeat
her ; but since France has RISEN TO BE A REPUBLIC,
the Government of England crouches beneath her, so great
is the difference between a government of kings and priests, and
that which is founded on the system of representation. But,
could the government of England find a way, under the sanction
of your report, to inundate France with a flood of emigrant priests,
she would find also the way to domineer as before ; she would re
trieve her shattered finances at your expence, and the ringing of
bells would be the tocsin of your downfall.
Did peace consist in nothing but the cessation of war, it would
not be difficult ; but the terms are yet to be arranged ; and those
terms will be better or worse, in proportion as France and her
councils be united or divided. That the government of England
27

210 LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN.
counts much upon your report, and upon others of a similar ten
dency, is what the writer of this letter, who knows that govern
ment well, has no doubt. You are but new on the theatre of go
vernment, and you ought to suspect yourself of misjudging ; the
experience of those who have gone before you, should be of some
service to you.
But if, in consequence of such measures as you propose, you
put it out of the power of the Directory to make a good peace,
and to accept of terms you would afterwards reprobate, it is your
selves that must bear the censure.
You conclude your report by the following address to your col
leagues : —
" Let us hasten, representatives of the people ! to affix to these
tutelary laws the seal of our unanimous approbation. All our fel
low-citizens will learn to cherish political liberty from the enjoy
ment of religious liberty : you will have broken the most power
ful arm of your enemies ; you will have surrounded this assembly
with the most impregnant rampart — confidence, and the people's
love. O ! my colleagues ! how desirable is that popularity which
is the offspring of good laws ! What a consolation it will be to us
hereafter, when returned to our own fire-sides, to hear from the
mouths of our fellow-citizens, these simple expressions — Bles
sings reward you, men of peace ! you have restored to us our tem
ples — our ministers — ihe liberty oj' adoring ihe God of our fa
thers : you have recalled harmony to our families — morality to our
hearts : you have made us adore ihe legislature and respect all
its laws!"
Is it possible, citizen representative, that you can be serious in
this address ? Were the lives of the priests under the ancient re
gime such as to justify any thing you say of them ? Where not all
France convinced of their immorality ? Were they not considered
as the patrons of debauchery and domestic infidelity, and not as
the patrons of morals ? What was their pretended celibacy but
perpetual adultery ? What was their blasphemous pretentions to
forgive sins, but an encouragement to the commission of them,
and a love for their own ? Do you want to lead again into Fiance
all the vices of which they have been the patrons, and to over
spread the republic with English pensioners ! It is cheaper to cor
rupt than to conquer ; and the English government, unable to

LETTER TO CAMILLE JORDAN. 211
conquer ; will stoop to corrupt. Arrogance and meanness, though
in appearance opposite, are vices of the same heart.
Instead of .concluding in the manner you have done, you ought
rather to have said,
" 0 ! my colleagues ! we are arrived at a glorious period — a
period that promises more than we could have expected, and all
that we could have wished. Let us hasten to take into consider
ation the honours and rewards due to our brave defenders. Let
us hasten to give encouragement to agriculture and manufactures,
that commerce may reinstate itself, and our people have employ
ment. Let us review the condition of the suffering poor, and
wipe tirom our country the reproach of forgetting them. Let us
devise means to establish schools of instruction, that we may
banish the ignorance that the ancient regime of kings and priests
had spread among the people. — Let us propagate morality, un
fettered by superstition — Let us cultivate justice and benevo
lence, that the God of our fathers may bless us. The helpless
infant and the aged poor cry to us to remember them — Let not
wretchedness be seen in our streets — Let France exhibit to the
world the glorious example of expelling ignorance and misery
together. " Let these, my virtuous colleagues, be the subject of our care,
that, when we return among our fellow-citizens, they may say,
Worthy representatives ! you have done well. You have done jus
tice and honour to our brave defenders. You have encouraged
agriculture — cherished our decayed manufactures — given new life
to commerce, and employment to our people. You have removed
from our country the reproach of forgetting the poor — You have
caused the cry of the orphan to cease — You have wiped the tear
from the eye of the suffering mother — You have given comfort to
the aged and infirm — You have penetrated inlo~tlve gloomy recesses
of wretchedness, and have banished it. Welcome among us, ye
brave and virtuous representatives ! and may your example be
foUowed by your successors !"
THOMAS PAINE.
Parts, 1797.

AN
EXAMINATION
OP THE
PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT,
aUOTED FROM THE OLD,
AND CALLED
PROPHECIES CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
AN ESSAY ON DREAM,
ALSO,
CONTAINING TBE
CONTRADICTORY DOCTRINES BETWEEN MATTHEW AND MARK ;
AUD 117
PRIYATE THOUGHTS ON A FUTURE STATE.

PREFACE.

TC THE MINISTERS AND PREACHERS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS
OF RELIGION.

It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to de
tect and expose delusion and error. But nature has not given to
every one a talent for the purpose ; and among those to whom
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 Prophecies in the
Old Testament, about the coming ofthe person called Jesus Christ,
and thousands of sermons have been preached, and volumes writ
ten, to make man believe it.
In the following treatise I have examined all the passages in
the New Testament, quoted from the Old, and called prophecies
concerning Jesus Christ, and I find no such thing as a prophecy of
any such person, and I deny there are any. The passages all re
late to circumstances the Jewish nation was in at the time they
were written or spoken, and not to any thing that was or was not
to happen in the world several hundred years afterwards ; and I
have shown what the circumstances were, to which the passages
apply or refer. I have given chapter and verse for every thing I
have said, and have not gone out ofthe books of the Old and New
Testament for evidence that the passages are not prophecies ofthe
person called Jesus Christ.

218 PREFACE
The prejudice of unfounded belief, often degenerates into the
prejudice of custom, and becomes, at last, rank hypocrisy. When
men, from custom or fashion, or any worldly motive, profess or
pretend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any rea
son for believing, they unship the helm oftheir morality, and being
no longer honest to their own minds, they feel no moral difficulty
in beintr unjust to others. It is from the influence of this vice,
hypocrisy, that we see so many Church and Meeting-going pro
fessors and pretenders to religion, so full of trick and deceit in
their dealings, and so loose in the performance of their engage
ments, 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 encourage
ment to sin, in a similar manner as when a prodigal 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 New Testament rests itself for credulity and testimony on
what are called prophecies in the Old Testament, ofthe person
called Jesus Christ ; and if there are no such thing as prophecies
of any such person in the Old Testament, the New Testament is
a forgery of the councils of Nice and Laodocia, and tne faith
founded thereon, delusion and falsehood.*
Another set of preachers tell their congregations that God pre
destinated and selected from all, eternity, a certain number to be
saved, and a certain number to be damned eternally. If this were
true, the day of Judgment is fast : their preaching is in vain,
and they had better work at some useful calling for their liveli
hood. This doctrine, also, like the former, hath a direct tendency to
demoralize mankind. Can a bad man be reformed by telling him,
* The councils of Nice and Laodocia were held about 350 years after the
time Christ is said to have lived ; and the books that now compose the New
Testament, were then voted for by teas and nays, as we now vote a law. A
great many that were offered had a majority of nays,, and were rejected. Thi»
is the way the New Testament came into being.

PREFACE 217
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 de
creed to be saved, he will be saved whether he believes it or not ;
for this is the result of the doctrine. Such preaching, and such
preachers, do injury to the moral world. They had better be at
the plough.
As in my political works my motive and object have been to
give man an elevated sense of his own character, and free him
from the slavish and superstitious absurdity of monarchy and
hereditary government, so in my publications on religious subjects
my endeavours have been directed to bring man to a right use of
tne 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, unshack-
ied by the fables of books pretending to be ihe word cf God.
THOMAS PAINE.

28

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 dream, 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 the several matters in the New Testament related of
dreams deserve the credit which the writers of that book and
priests and commentators ascribe to them.
In order to understand the nature of dreams, or of 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 ofthe mind are imagination, judge
ment and memory. Every action of the mind comes under one
or the other of these faculties. In a state of wakefulness, as in the
day-time, these three faculties are all active ; but that is seldom
the case in sleep, and never perfectly : and this is the cause that
our dreams are not so regular and rational as our waking thoughts.
The seat of that collection of powers or faculties, that consti
tute what is called the mind, is in the brain. There is not, and
cannot be, any visible demonstration of this anatomically, but ac
cidents happening to living persons, show it to be so. An injury
done to the brain by a fracture ofthe 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 sub
ject, this happens the most seldom. But we often see it happen
ing by long and habitual intemperance.

220 AN ESSAY ON DREAM.
Whether those three faculties occupy distinct apartments ofthe
brain, is known, only to that Almighty power that formed and
organized it. We can see the external effects of muscular motion
m all the members of the body, though its primum mobile, or first
moving cause, is unknown to man. Our external motions are
sometimes the effect of intention, and sometimes not. If we are
sitting and intend to rise, or standing and intend to set, or to walk,
the limbs obey that intention as if they heard the order given. But
we make a thousand motions every day, and that as well waking
as sleeping, that have no prior intention to direct them. Each
member acts as ifit had a will or mind of its own. Man governs
the whole when he pleases to govern, but in the interims the sev
eral parts, like little suburbs, govern themselves without consulting
the sovereign.
But all these motions, whatever be the generating cause, are
external and visible. But with respect to the brain, no ocular
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 mo
tion, like matter in fermentation ; whether different parts of the
brain nave different motions according to the faculty that is em
ployed, be it the imagination, the judgment, or the memory, man
knows nothing of it. He knows not the cause ot his own wit. His
own brain conceals it from him.
Comparing invisible by visible things, as metaphysical can
sometimes be compared to physical things, the operations of those
distinct and several faculties have some resemblance to the me
chanism of a watch. The main spring 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 as these several faculties sleep, slumber, 01
keep awake, during the continuance of a dream, in that proportion
the dream will be reasonable or frantic, remembered 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 judg
ment and memory. The sedate and sober constitution of tho
judgment easily disposes it to rest ; and as to the memoiy, it
-ecords in silence, and is active only when it is called upon.

AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 221
That the judgment soon goes to sleep mayjje perceived by our
sometimes beginning to dream before we are fully asleep our
selves. Some ranuom 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 whilst the imagination keeps awake, the
dream will be a riotous assemblage of mis-shapen images and ran
ting 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 oi 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 remembrance
of the dream, and after a few minutes it will sometimes happen
that the principal passages of the dream will occur to us more
fully. The cause of this is, that the memory will sometimes con
tinue slumbering or sleeping after we are awake ourselves, and
that so fully, that it may, and sometimes does happen, that we do
not immediately recollect where we are, nor what we have been
about, or have to do. But when the memory starts into 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 conversa
tion with several, asks questions, hears answers, gives and receives
information, and it acts all these parts itself.
But however various and eccentric the imagination may be in the
creation of images and ideas, it cannot supply the place of memo
ry, 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

222 AN ESSAY ON DREAM
dreams of persons it never knew, and talks with them as if it re
membered them as old acquaintances. It relates circumstances
that nevei happened, and tells them as if they had happened. It
goes to places that never existed, and knows where all the streets
and houses are, as if it had been there before. The scenes it cre
ates 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 ifit 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 suc
cession 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 rationally be
said that every person is mad once in twenty-four hours, for were
he to act in the day as he dreams in the night, he would be con
fined for a lunatic. In a state of wakefulness, those three facul
ties being all alive, and acting in union, constitute the rational
man. In dreams it is otherwise, and, therefore, that state which is
called insanity, appears to be no other than a disunion of those
faculties, and a cessation of the judgment during wakefulness, that
we so often experience during sleep ; and idiocity, into which
some persons have fallen, is that cessation of all the faculties of
which we can be sensible when we happen to wake before our
memory. In this view ofthe mind, how absurd is it to place reliance upon
dreams, and how much more absurd to make them a foundation
for religion ; yet the belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
begotten by the Holy Ghost, a being never hoard of before, stands
on the story of an old man's dream. " And behold the angel oj
the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son
of David, fear not thou to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that
hich is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." — Matt. chap. 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 awak
en man from it, have been ascribed by priestcraft and superstition

AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 223
to the workings of the devil, and had it not been for the American
revolution, which, by establishing the universal right 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 neces
sary. 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 dresses 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 ofthe Jews, in the Old Testament, gives ex
istence to a ne.w order of beings it calls 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 tbey say the heavens, the earth, and all therein were
made : — After this, they hop about as thick as birds in a grove : —
The first we hear of, pays his addresses to Hagar in the wilder
ness ; 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, the Bible does not tell us. — Perhaps they do as the
birds do. * * *
One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vul
gar 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 some
times we are told, as in 2 Sam. chap. ix. ver. 15, that God whis
pers in the ear — At other times we are not told how the impulse
was given, or whether sleeping or waking — In 2 Sam. chap. xxiv.
ver. 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 Chro. chap. xxi. ver. 1, when the
same story is again related, it is said, " and Satan stood up
against Israel, and moved David to number Israel."

224 AN ESSAY ON DREAM.
Whether this was done sleeping or waking, we are not told, but
it seems that David, whom they call " a man after God'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.
The idea that writers of the Old Testament had of a God was
boisterous, contemptible, and vulgar. — They make him the Mars
ofthe Jews, the fighting God of Israel, the conjuring God oftheir
Priests and Prophets. — They tell as many fables of him as the
Greeks told of Hercules. * * * *
They make their God to say exultingly, " J will get me honour
upon Pharoah and upon his Host, upon his Chariots and upon his
Horsemen." — And that he may keep his word, they make him set
a trap in the Red Sea, in the dead of the night, for Pharoah, his
host, and his horses, and drown them as a rat-catcher would do
so many rats — Great honour indeed ! the story of Jack the giant-
killer is better told !
They pit him against the Egyptian magicians to conjure with
him, 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 magicians can
not 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 was the Pluto of the lower regions. They make him salt up
Lot's wife like pickled pork ; they make him pass like Shak
speare's Queen Mab into the brain 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 have
continued the vulgarity.
Is man ever to be the dupe of priestcraft, the slave of supersti
tion? Is he never to have just ideas of his Creator? Isitbettei
not to belief there is a God, than to believe of him falsely. When
we behold the mighty universe that surrounds us, and dart our con
templation into the eternity of space, filled with innumerable orbs

AN ESSAY ON DREAM. 225
revolving in eternal harmony, how paltry must the tales of the
Old and New Testaments, prophanely called the word of God,
appear to thoughtful man ! The stupendous wisdom and unerring
order, that reign and govern throughout this wondrous whole, and
call us to reflection, put to shame the Bible ! — The God of eterni
ty 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 Dream with the two first verses
of the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, one of the books of the
Aptocrypha. " The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain and false;
and dreams lift up fools — Whoso regardeth dreams is dke him
that catcheth at a shadow, and followeth after the ivind."
I now proceed to an examination of the passages in the Bible,
called prophecies of the coming of Christ, and to show there are
no prophecies of any such person. That the passages clandes
tinely styled prophecies are not prophecies, 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. * Mr. Paine must have been in an ill humour when he wrote the passage
inclosed in crotchets, commencing at page 223 : and probably on reviewing it,
and discovering exceptionable clauses, was induced to reject the whole, as it
does not appear in the edition published by himself. But having obtained the
original in the hand writing of Mr. P. and deeming some of the remarks wor
thy of being preserved, I have thou^'li ."'roper to restore the passage, with the
exception ofthe objectional parts.— ill/, i ja.

29

AK
EXAMINATION
- OF THE
PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT,
QUOTED FROM THE OLD, AND CALLED PROPHECIES OF THE COMINQ OP
JESUS CHRIST.
[This work was first published by Mr. Paine, at New-York,
in 1S07, and was the last of his writings edited by himself. It is
evidently extracted from his answer to the bishop of Llandaff, or
from his third part of the Age of Reason, both of which it appears
by his will, he left in manuscript. The term, " The Bishop,"
occurs in this examination six times without designating what
bishop is meant. Of all the replies to his second part of the Age
of Reason, that of bishop Watson was the only one to which he
paid particular attention ; and he is, no doubt, the person nere
alluded to. Bishop Watson's apology for the Bible had been
published some years before Mr. P. left France, and the latter
composed his answer to it, and also his third part of the Age of
Reason, while ia that country.
When Mr. Paine arrived in America, and found that liberal
opinions on religion were in disrepute, through the influence of
hypocrisy and superstition, he declined publishing the entire ofthe
works which he had prepared ; observing that " An author might
lose the credit he had acquired by writing too much." He how
ever gave to the public the examination before us, in a pamphlet
form. But the apathy which appeared to prevail at that time in
regard to religious inquiry, fully determined him to discontinue
the publication of his theological writings. In this case, taking
only a portion of one of the works before mentioned, he chose a
title adapted to the particular part selected.]

223 EXAMINATION OF
The passages called Prophecies of, or concerning, Jesus Christ,
in the Old Testament, may be classed under the two following
heads : —
First those referred to in tho Ajr books of the New Testa
ment, called the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. Secondly, those which translators and commentators have, of
their own imagination, erected into prophecies, and dubbed with
that title at the head of the several chapters of the Old Testament.
Of these it is scarcely worth while to waste time, ink, and paper
upon ; I shajl, therefore, confine myself chiefly to those referred
to in the aforesaid four books of the New Testament. If I show
that these are not prophecies of the person called Jesus, Christ,
nor have reference to any such person, it will be perfectly need
less 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 chap. ver. 18, it is said, " Now the birth of Jesus
Christ was in this loise ; when his mother Mary was espoused to
Joseph, 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 ; for the next verse says,
" Then Joseph her husband being a just man, and not willing to
make her a public example, ivas minded to put her away privily."
— Consequently Joseph had found out no more than that she was
with child, and he knew it was not by himself.
V. 20. " And while he thought of 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 to 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 ivhich is conceived in her is ofthe Holy Ghost. Md
she shall bring forth a son and 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

the prophecies 229
impossible for a man to behold any thing 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 admit
ting he had, it proves nothing. So wonderful and rational is the
faculty of the mind in dreams, that it acts the part of all the cha
racters 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 no regard to my own dreams, and I should be weak indeed to
put faith in the dreaws 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 this pregnancy) was done that il
might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the Prophet,
saying, " Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a
son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being in
terpreted, is, God with us."
This passage is in Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 14, and the writer of
the book of Matthew endeavours 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 ne
cessary 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 prophecy of Jesus Christ, they have not the least
reference to such a person, or any thing that could happen in the
time that Christ is said to have lived — which was about seven
hundred years afler the time of Isaiah. The case is this ;
On the death of Solomon the Jewish nation split into two mon
archies : 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 against each
other. At the time Ahaz was king of Judah, which was in the time of
Isaiah, Pekah was king of Israel ; and Pekah joined himself to
Rezin, king of Syria, to make war against Ahaz, king of Judah •-
and these two kings marched a confederated and powerful army

230 examination of
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 wind." Isaiah, chap. vii. ver. 3.
In this perilous situation of things, Isaiah addressed himself to
Ahaz, and assures him, in the name of the Lord, (the cant phrase
of all the prophets) that these two kings should not succeed
against him ; and, to assure him that this should be the case, (the
case was however directly contrary*) tells Ahaz to ask a sign of
the Lord. This Ahaz declined doing, giving as a reason, that he
would not tempt the Lord ; upon which Isaiah who pretends to
be sent from God, says, ver. 14, " TherefoftT 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 which thou abhorrest
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 accom
plishment of the sign, namely, before the child should know to re
fuse the evil and choose the good.
The thing; therefore, to be a sign of success to Ahaz, must be
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. * Chron. chap, xxviii. ver. 1st. Jlhas was twenty years old when he began
to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, but he did not that which was
right in the sight of the Lord. — ver. 5. Wherefore the Lord his God delivered
him into the hand of the king of Syria, and they smote him, and carried away
a great multitude of them ,captive 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. Ver. 6. And Pekah (king of Israel) slew in Judah an hundred and twenty
thousand in one day. — ver. 8. And the children of Israel carried away captive oj
their brethren two hundred thousand women, sons, and daughters.

the prophecies. 231
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, v. 2, " 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
bear a son ;" and he says, at ver. 18 of the same chapter, " Be
hold 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 trans
lated a virgin in Isaiah, does not signify a virgin in Hebrew, but
merely a young woman. The tense also is falsified in the trans
lation. Levi gives the Hebrew text of the 14th ver. of the 7th
chap, of Isaiah, and the translation in English with it — " Behold
a young woman is with child and beareth a son." The expres
sion, says he, is in the present tense. This translation agrees with
the other circumstances 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 a prophecy 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 woman is with child and beareth a son — they make
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 chap
ters of Isaiah, and he will be convinced that the passage in ques
tion is no prophecy ofthe person called Jesus Christ. I pass on
to the second passage quoted from the Old Testament by the New,
as a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 1. " Now when Jesus was born in
Bethlehem of Judah, in the days of Herod the king, behold there
came wise men from the east to Jerusalem — saying, where is he
that is bom king of the Jews 1 for we have seen his star in the
east, and are come to worship him. When Herod, the king,
heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him
— and when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of
the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be
born — and they said unto him in Bethlehem, in the land of Ju
dea : 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, chap. 5. ver. 2.

examination of
I pass over the absurdity of seeing and following a star in the
day-time, as a man would a Will with the wisp, or a candle and
lantern at night ; and also that of seeing it in the east, when them
selves 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 con
fine myself solely to the passage called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. The book of Micah, in the passage above quoted, chap. v. ver.
2, is speaking of some person without mentioning his name from
whom some great achievements were expected ; but the descrip
tion he gives of this person at the 5th verse, proves evidently
that it is not Jesus Christ, for he" says at the 5th ver. " and this
man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our
land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise
up against him (that is, against the Assyrian) seven shepherds
and eight principal men — v. 6. And they shall waste the land of
Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod on the entrance
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 can
not be applied to Christ without outraging the character they pie-
tend to give us of him. Besides which, the circumstances of the
times here spoken of, and those of the times in which Christ is
said to have lived, are in contradiction to each other. It was the
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 prophecy of Jesus Christ. I
pass on to the third passage quoted from the Old Testament by
the New, as a prophecy of him.
This, like the first I have spoken of, is introduced by a dream.
Joseph dreameth another dream, and dreameth that he seeth
another angel. The account begins at the 13th v. of 2d chap, of
Matthew. " The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, sayr
ing, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into
Egypt, and be thou there \mtil I bring thee word : For Herod will

THE PROPHECIES. 233
seek the life of 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 oj' Egypt I have called my son."
This passage is in the book of Hosea, chap. xi. ver. 1. The
words are, " When Israel was a child then I loved him and called
my son out of Egypt — As they called them, sr» they went from them,
they sacrificed unto Baalam and burnt incense to graven images."
This, passage falsely called a prophecy of Christ, refers to the
children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of Pharoah,
and to the idolatory they committed afterwards. To make it
apply to Jesus Christ, he must then be the person who sacrificed
unto Baalam and burnt incense to graven images, for the person
called out of Egypt by the collective name, Israel, and the per
sons committing this idolatory, are the same persons, or the
descendants from them. This, then, can be no prophecy of Jesus
Christ, unless they are willing to make an idolator of him. I pass
on to the fourth passage, called, a prophecy by the writer of the
book of Matthew.
This is introduced by a story, told by nobody but himself, and
scarcely believed by any body, of the slaughter of all the children
under two years old, by the command of Herod. A thing which
it is not probable should 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 his story, says, chap.
ii. v. 17. — " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jere
miah, the prophet, saying, — In Ramah was there a voice heard,
lamentation, weeping and great mourning ; Rachael weeping fo"
her children, and toould not be comforted because they were not."
This passage is in Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 1 5, and this verse
when separated from the verses before and after it, and which ex
plains its application, might, with equal propriety, be applied to
every case of wars, sieges, and other violences, such as the
Christians themselves have often done to the Jews, where mo
thers have lamented the loss of their children. There is nothing
in the verse, taken singly, that designates or points out any particu
lar application of it', otherwise than it points to some circum
stances which, at the time of writing it, had already happened,
30

234 examination of
and not to a thing yet to happen, for the verse is in the prefer or
past tense. I go to explain the case and show the application
ofthe 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 ex
treme. He slew the sons of king Zedekiah before his face, he
then put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and kept him in prison till the
day of his death.
It is of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jere
miah is speaking. Their temple was destroyed, their land deso
lated, their nation and government entirely broken up, and them
selves, men, women and children, carried into captivity. They
had too many sorrows of their own, immediately 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 hun
dred 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 endeavours to console
the sufferers by giving them hopes, and, according to the fashion
of speaking in those days, assurances from the Lord, that their suf
ferings should have an end. and that their children should return
again to their own children. But I leave the verses to speak for
themselves, and the Old Testament to testify against the New.
Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15. — " Thus saith the Lord, a voice
was heard in Ramah (it is in the preter tense) lamentation and
bitter weeping : Rachael, weeping for her children because they
were not."
Verse 16. — " Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weep
ing, and thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be rewarded,
said the Lord, and they shall comt again from the land of th.ti
enemy." Verse 17. — " And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord
that thy children shall come again to their own border."
By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the children
of which Jeremiah speaks, (meaning the people of the Jewish na
tion, scripturally called children of Israel, and not mere infants un
der 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

THE PROPHECIES. 235
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 prophecies. I
pass on to the fifth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
This, like two ofthe former, is introduced by. dream. Joseph
dreamed another dream, and dreameth of another Angel. And
Matthew is again the historian of the dream and 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, I go
on with my subject.
The account of this dream is in Matthew, chap. ii. verse 19. —
" But when Herod was dead, behold an angel ofthe Lord appear
ed in a dream to Joseph in Egypt — Saying, arise, and take the
young child and its 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 befalfilled which
was spoken by the prophets. — He shall be called-a Nazarine."
Here is good circumstantial evidence, that Matthew dreamed,
for there is no such passage in all the Old Testament ; and I in
vite the bishop and all the priests in Christendom, including those
of America, to produce it. I pass on to the sixth passage, called
a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
This, as Swift says on another occasion, is lugged in head and
shoulders ; it need only to be seen in order to be hooted as a forced
and far-fetched piece of imposition.
Matthew, chap. iv. v. 12. " Now when Jesus heard that John
was cast into prison, he depa«ted into Galilee — and leaving Naza
reth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea
coast, in the borders of Zebulon and Nephthalim — That it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, say-

236 EXAMINATION OF
mg, The land of Zebulon and the land of Nepthalim, by the ivay
ofthe sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles — the people
which sat in darkness saiv great light, and to them which sat in
the region and shadow of death, light is springing upon them."
I wonder Matthew has not made the cris-cross-row, or thechrist-
cross-row (I know not how the priests spell it) into a prophecy.
He might as well have done this as cut out these unconnected
and undescriptive sentences from the place they stand in and
dubbed them with that title.
The words, however, are in Isaiah, chap. ix. verse 1, 2, as fol
lows : —
" Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vex
ation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon
and the land of Nephthali, and afterwards did more grievously
afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan in Galilee ofthe
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 Zebulon and Nephthali had been lightly afflicted, and
afterwards more grievously by the way ofthe sea.
But observe, reader, how Matthew has falsified the text. He
begins his quotation at a part of the verse where there is not so
much as a comma, and thereby cuts off every thing that relates
to the first affliction. He then leaves out all that relates to the
second affliction, and by this means leaves out every thing that
makes the verse intelligible, and reduces it to a senseless skeleton
of names of towns.
To bring this imposition of Matthew clearly and immediately
before the eye of the reader, I will repeat the verse, and put be
tween crotchets the words he has Iteft out, and put in Italics those
he has preserved.
[Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vex
ation when at the first he lightly afflicted] the land of Zebulon and
ihe land of Nephthali, [and did afterwards more grievously afflict
her] by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee ofthe 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 prophecy. I proceed to the next verse.
Ver. 2. " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great
light ; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon

THE PROPHECIES. 237
them hath the light shined." All this is historical, and not in the
least prophetical. The whole is in the prefer tense : it speaks of
things that had been accomplished at the time the words were writ
ten, and not of things to be accomplished afterwards.
As then the passage is in no possible sense prophetical, nor in
tended to be so, and that to attempt to make it so, is not only to
falsify the original, but to commit a criminal imposition ; it is mat
ter 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 shined in upon them.
If we look into the preceding chapter, the Sth, of which the 9th
is only a continuation, we shall find the writer speaking, at the
19th verse, of" witches and wizards ivho peep about and mutter,"
and of people who made application to them ; and he preaches and
exhorts them against this darksome practice. It is of this people,
and of this darksome practice, or walking in darkness, that he is
speaking at the 2d 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 ot
the witches and wizards ivho peeped about and muttered.
Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild disorderly writer, preserving
in general no clear chain of perception in the arrangement of his
ideas, and consequently producing no defined conclusions 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 those defects upon the world as prophecies ot
Jesus Christ. Finding no direct meaning in them, and not know
ing what to make of them, and supposing at the same time they
were intended to have a meaning, they supplied the defect by in
venting a meaning of their own, and called it his. I have, how
ever, 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 only since the Ame-

238 EXAMINATION OF
rican Revolution began that light has brcikeh in. The belief of
one God, whose attributes are revealed to us in the book or scrips
ture ofthe creation, which no human hand can counterfeit or falsi
fy, 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 al
ready 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
every thing was Robespierean 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 prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap. viii. ver. 16. " When the evening was come,
they brought unto him (Jesus) many that were possessed with
devils, and he cast out the spirit with his word, and healed all that
were sick. — That it might be fulfilled whieh was spoken by Esaias
(Isaiah) the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities, and bare
our sicknesses.
This affair of people being possessed by 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 ofthe old Testament mention no such thing ; the peo
ple of the present day know of no such thing ; nor does the histo
ry 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 inven
tion of the New Testament-makers and the Christian church.
The book of Matthew is the first book where the word Devil is
mentioned.* We read in some of the books of the Old Testa
ment 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 ig
norant people, or the fabricated charge of superstitious malignancy
against unfortunate and decrepid old age.
But the idea of a familar 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 familar spirit is a dexterous
agent, that comes and goes and does as he is bidden ; in the
* The word devil is a personification of tne word evil.

THE PROPHECIES. 239
other, he is a turb jlent roaring monster, that tears and tortures
the body into convulsions. Reader, whoever thou art, put thy
trust in thy Creator, make use ofthe 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, chap. liii. ver. 4, which is as follows :
" Surely he (the person of whom Isaiah is speaking of) hath
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." It is in the prefer
tense. Here is nothing about casting out devils, nor curing of sick
nesses. The passage, therefore, so far from being a prophecy 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 53d, in lamenting the suf
ferings of some deceased persons, 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 dan
ger, 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 prophecy is an absurdity. The char
acters and circumstances of men, even in different ages of the
world, are so much alike, that what is said of one may with pro
priety be said of many ; but this fitness does not make the
passage into a prophecy ; and none but an impostor or a bigot
would call it so.
Isaiah, in deploring the hard fate and loss of his friend, men
tions nothing of him but what the human lot of man is subject to.
All the cases he states of him, his persecutions, his imprisonment,
his patience in suffering, and his perseverance in principle, are all
within the line of nature : they belong exclusively to none, and
may with justness be said of many. But if Jesus Christ was the
person the church represents him to be, that which would exclu
sively 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

240 EXAMINATION OF
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 his shearers is
dumb, so he opened not his mouth." This may be said of thou
sands 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 Nebuchadnezzar, when Jerusalem was besieged his case was
hard ; he was accused by his countrymen, was persecuted, op
pressed, and imprisoned, and he says of himself, (see Jeremiah,
chap. ii. ver. 19,) " But as for me, I was like a lamb or an ox that
is brought to the slaughter."
I should be inclined to the same opinion with Grotius, had
Isaiah lived at the time when Jeremiah underwent the cruellies of
which he speaks ; but Isaiah died about fifty years before ; and it
is of a person ofhis 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 prophecy of
a person they call Jesus Christ.
I pass on to the eighth passage called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap, xii. ver. 14. " Then the Pharisees went out
and held a council against him, how they might destroy him — But
when Jesus knew it he withdrew himself; and great numbers fol
lowed him and he healed them all — and he charged them that they
should not make him known ; That it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying,
" Behold my servant whom I have chosen ; my beloved in
whom 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 smoaking flax shall he not quench, til-

THE PROPHECIES. 241
he .sends 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 follow
ing 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 incon
sistencies have passed on them for truth, and imposition for pro
phecy. The all-wise Creator has been dishonoured by be
ing made the author of fable, ana the human mind degraded by
believing it. ,,.
In this passage as in that last mentioned, the name ofthe per
son 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 prophecy.
Had Isaiah lived in the time of Cyrus, the passage would
descriptively apply to him. As king of Persia, his authority was
great among the Gentiles, and it is of such a character the pas
sage speaks ; and his friendship for 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 countrymen, figuratively described by the bruised
reed, it was they who crucified him. Neither can it be said of
him that he did not cry, and that his voice was not heard in the
street. As a preacher it was his business to be heard, and we
are told that he travelled about the country for that purpose.
Matthew has given a long sermon, which (if his authority is good*
31

242 EXAMINATION OF
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, with
drew himself for fear of the Pharisees, and charged the people
that followed him not to make it known where he was ; and who,
according to other parts of the Testament, was continually mov
ing from place to place to avoid being apprehended.*

* In the second part of the Age of Reason, I have shown that the book as
cribed 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, corresponds 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 Gyrus published a proclamation, 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 gratitude for this act of benevolent Justice, and it is natural
they would express that gratitude in the customary style, bombastical and hy
perbolical 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 &nd sliall.per-
form all my pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem thou shalt be built, and to the
Temple, thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord lo his anointed, to
Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him; and I will
loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates
shall not be shut."
This complementary address is in the present tense, which shows that the
things of which it speaks were in existence at the time of writing it ; and con
sequently 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 ofthe same
kind. The two last verses ofthe second book of Chronicles, and the three-first
verses of the first chapter of Ezra, are word for word the same ; which show
that the compilers of the Bible mixed the writings of different authors toge
ther, and put them under some common head.
As we have here an instance in the 44th and 45th chapters of the introduc
tion of the name of Cyrus into a book to which if cannot belong, it. affords good
ground to conclude, that the passage in the 42d chapter, in which the character
of Cyrus is given without his name, has been introduced in Hke manner, and
that the person there spoken of is Cyrus.

THE PROPHECIES. 243
But it is immaterial to us, at this distance of time, to know
who the pel son was : it is sufficient to the purpose I am upon,
that of detecting fraud and falsehood, to know who it was not,
and to show it was not the person called Jesus Christ.
I pass on to the ninth passage called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap. xxi. v. 1. " And when they drew nigh unto
Jerusalem, and were come to Bethpage, unto the mount of Olives,
then Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying unto them, go into the
village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied,
and a colt with her, loose them and bring them unto me — and if
any man say ought to you, ye shall say, the Lord hath need of
them, and straitway 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 tlue, meek, and stiting 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 prophecy.
This passage is in Zechariah, chap. ix. ver 9, and is one ofthe
whims of friend Zechariah to congratulate his countrymen, who
were then returning from captivity in Babylon, and himself with
them, to Jerusalem. It has no concern with any other subject.
It is strange that apostles, priests, and commentators, never per
mit, or never suppose, the Jews to be speaking of their own
affairs. Every thing in the Jewish books is perverted and dis
torted 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 prophecy. He could have lifted up his voice as
loud as any of them.
Zechariah, in the first chapter of his book, indulges himself in
several whims on the joy of getting back to Jerusalem. He
says at the 8th, verse, "I saw by night (Zechariah was a sharp-
sighted seer) and behold a man setting on a red horse, (yes,
reader, a red horse,) and he stood among the myrtle trees that were
in the bottom, and behind him were red horses speckled and white."
He says nothing about green horses, nor blue horses, perhaps be
cause it is difficult to distinguish green from blue by night, but a

244 EXAMINATION OF
Christian can have no doubt they were there, because "faith it
the evidence of things not seen."
Zechariah then introduces an angel among his horses, but he
does not tell us what colour the angel was of, whether black or
white, nor whether he came to buy horses, or only to look at them
as curiosities, for certainly they were of that kind. Be this how
ever as it may, he enters into conversation with this angel, on the
joyful affair of getting back to Jerusalem, and he saith at the 16th
verse, " Therefore, thus saith the Lord, J am returned to Jerusa
lem with mercies ; my house shall be built in it saith the Lord of
hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. " Au
expression signifying the rebuilding the city.
All this, whimsical and imaginary as it is, sufficiently proves that
it was the entry of the Jews into Jerusalem from captivity, and
not the entry of Jesus Christ, seven hundred years afterwards,
that is the subject upon which Zechariah is always speaking.
As to the expression of riding upon an ass, which commentators
represent as a sign of humility in Jesus Christ, the case is, he ne
ver was so well mounted before. The asses of those countries
are large and well-proportioned, and were anciently the chief of
riding animals. Their beasts of burden, and which served *lso
for the conveyance of the poor, were camels and dromedaries.
We read in judges, chap. x. ver. 4, that " Jair, (one ofthe Judges
of Israel,) had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they
had thirty cities." But commentators distort every thing.
There is besides very reasonable grounds to conclude that this
story of Jesus riding publicly into Jerusalem, accompanied, as it
is said at the 8th and 9th verses, by a great multitude, shouting
and rejoicing, and spreading their garments by the way, is altoge
ther a story destitute of truth.
In the last passage called a prophecy that I examined, Jesus is
represented as withdrawing, that is, running away, and concealing
himself for fear of being apprehended, and charging the people
that were with him not to make him known. No new circum
stance had arisen in the interim to change his condition for the
better ; yet here he is represented as making his public entry into
the same city from which he had fled for safety. The two cases
contradict each other so much, that if both are not false, one of
them at least can scarcely be true. For my own part, I do not
believe there is one word of historical truth in the whole boo*

THE PROPHECIES. 245
[ 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 narra
tive part very badly and blunderingly written.
f pass on to the tenth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap. xxvi. ver. 51. " And behold one of them which
was with Jesus (meaning Peter) stretched out his hand, and drew
his sword, and struck a servant ofthe high priest, and smote off
his ear. Then said Jesus unto him ; Put up again thy sword into
its place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword. 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 Jesus said to the multitudes, are ye come out
as against a thief, with swords and with staves for to take me 1 I
sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no bold 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 ttien a con
quered 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 hinj.
Thirdly — What sort of disciples and preaching apostles must
those of Christ have been that wore swords ?
Fourthly — This scene is represented to have taken place the
same evening of what is called the Lord's supper, which makes,
according to the ceremony of it, the inconsistency of wearing
swords the greater.
I pass on to the eleventh passage called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 3. " Then Judas, which had be
layed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented him-

246 EXAMINATION OF
self, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief
p"iests 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 thirty pieces of silver, and departed,
and went and hanged himself — And the chief priests took the sil
ver pieces and said, it is not lawful to put them in the treasury,
because it is the price of blood — And they took counsel and
bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in — Where
fore that field is called the field of blood unto this day. Then
was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, say
ing, 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 barefaced piece of imposition. The passage
in Jeremiah which speaks of the purchase of a field, has no more
to do with the case to which Matthew applies it, than it has to do
with the purchase of lands in America. I will recite the whole
passage :
Jeremiah, chap, xxxii. v. 6. " And Jeremiah said, the word
of the Lord came unto me, saying — Behold Hanamiel, 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 Hanamiel 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 coun
try of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is thine, and the re
demption is thine ; buy it for thyself. Then I knew this was the
word of the Lord — And I bought the field of Hanamiel mine
uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money,
even seventeen shekels of silver — and I subscribed the evidence
and sealed it, and took witnesses and weighed him the money in
balances. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that
which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that whicj
was open — and I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch,
the son of Neriah, the son of Maasaeiath, in the sight of Hanamiel
mine uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses that sub
scribed, 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 these evidences, this evidence
of the purchase both which is sealed, and this evidence which is

THE PROPHECIES. 247
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 imposition 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 darkness with re
spect to those impositions. 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 the thing called a
fact is a falsehood, the faith founded upon it is delusion, and the
doctrine raised upon it not true. Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy
Creator, and thou 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 is among the whims and reveries of Zechariah, mention
made of thirty pieces of silver given to a potter. They can
hardly have been so stupid as to mistake a potter for a field : and
if they had, the passage in Zechariah has no more to do with
Jesus, Judas, and the field to bury strangers in, than that already
quoted. I will recite the passage.
Zechariah, chap. xi. ver. 7. " And I will feed the flock of
slaughter, even you, 0 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 soul also abhorred me. — Then
said I, I will not feed you ; that which diefh, let it die ; and that
which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every
one 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 who 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 sil
ver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly
price that I was prized at of them ; and I took the thirty pieces of
silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

248 EXAMINATION OF
" When I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that i
might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel."*
There is no making either head or tail of this incoherent gib
berish. • His two staves, one called Beauty and the other Bands,
is so much like a fairy tale, that I doubt ifit 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 silver, whatever it was for, is called a goodly
price, it was as much as the thing was worth, and according to the
language ofthe day, was approved of by the Lord, and the money
given to the potter in the house ofthe Lord. In the case of Jesus
and Judas, as stated in Matthew, the thirty pieces of silver were
the price of blood ; the transaction was condemned by the Lord,
and the money when refunded, was refused admittance into the
Treasury. Every thing in the two cases is the reverse of each
other. Besides this, a very different and direct contrary account to that
of Matthew, is given ofthe 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
* Whiston, in his Essay on the Old Testament, says, that the passage of
Zechariah of which I have spoken, was in the copies of the Bible of the first
century, in the book of Jeremiah, from whence, says he, it was taken and in
serted without coherence, in that of Zechariah — well, let it be so, it does not
make the case a whit the better for the 'New Testament; but it makes the
case a great deal the worse for the Old. Because it shows, as I have mentioned
respecting some passages in a book ascribed to Isaiah, that the works ofdifl'erent
authors have been so mixed and confounded together, they cannot now be dis
criminated, except where they are historical, chronological, or biographical, as
in the interpolation in Isaiah. It is the name ofCyrus inserted where it could not
be inserted, as he was not in existence till one hundred and fifty years after the
time of Isaiah, that detects the interpolation and the blunder with it.
Whiston was a man of great literary learning, and what is of much higher
degree, of deep scientific learning. He was one of the best and most celebra
ted mathematicians ofhis time, for which he was made professor of mathema
tics ofthe University of Cambridge. He wrote somucti in defence of the Old
Testament, and of what he calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, that at last he be
gan to suspect the truth of the 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.
Whiston, after writing so much in defence of the Scriptures, was at last pro
secuted for writing against them. It was this that gave occasion to Swift, in his
ludicrous epigram on Ditton and Whiston, each of which set up to find out the
longitude, to call the one good master Ditton and the other, wicked Witt Whis
ton. But as Swift was a great associate with the Freethinkers of those days,
such as Bolingbroke, Pope, and others, who did not believe the book called the
scriptures, there is no certainty whether he wittily called him wicked for defend
ing the scriptures, or for writing against them. The.known character of Swift
decides f.i r the former.

THE PROPHECIES 249
money and bought a field with it for himself; and instead of hang
ing himself, as Matthews says, he fell headlong and burst asunder
— some commentators endeavour to get over one part ofthe con
tradiction by ridiculously supposing that Judas hanged himself
first and the rope broke.
Acts, chap. i. ver. 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,) ver.
17, for he (Judas) was numbered among us and obtained part of
our ministry."
Ver. IS. " Now this man purchased a field with the reioardof
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 con
tradictions and absurdities.
I pass on to the twelfth passage called a prophecy of Jesus
Christ. Matthew, chap, xxvii. ver. 35. " And they crucified him, and
parted his garments, casting lots ; that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among
them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." This expression
is in the 22d Psalm, ver. 18. The writer of that Psalm (whoever
he was, for the Psalms are a collection and not the work of one
man) is 'speaking of himself and his own case, and not that of ano
ther. He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Tes
tament 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 impro
perly 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 prophecying, but complain
ing of his own hard case. He represents himself as surrounded
by enemies, and beset by persecutions of every kind ; and by way
of showing the inveteracy of his persecutors, he says, at the 18th
verse, " They parted my garments 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 even to the clothes upon my back,
and dispute how they shall divide them ; besides, the word vesture
does not always mean clothing of any kind, but property, or rather
32

250

EXAMINATION OF

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 lo
be used in this sense. But 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 Al
mighty would condescend to tell, by what is called the spirit of
prophecy, what could come to pass in some future age ofthe world,
it is an injury to our own faculties, and to our ideas ofhis great
ness, to imagine that 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 in tho power of man to do, or in his will not to
do, is not a subject fol prophecy, 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 controul. But any executioner
and his assistants might quarrel about dividing the garments of a
sufferer, or divide them without quarelling, and by that means ful
fil the thing called a prophecy or set it aside.
In the passage before examined, I have exposed the falsehood
of them. In this I exhibit its degrading meanness, as an insult to
the Creator and an injury to human reason.
Here end the passages called prophecies by Matthew.
Matthew concludes his book by saying, that when Christ 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 prophecy for this ; but had these things been facts, they would
have been a proper subject for prophecy, because none but an
almighty power could have inspired a fore-knowledge of them,
and afterwards fulfilled them. Since then there is no such prophe
cy, but a pretended prophecy 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

THE PROPHECIES. 251
THE BOOK OF MARK.
There are but few passages in Mark called prophecies ; 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 Mat
thew. Mark begins his book by a passage which he puts in the shape
of a prophecy. Mark, chap. 1, verse 1. — " The beginning ofthe
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God — As it is written in the
prophets, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall
prepare the way before thee." Malachi, chap, iii, verse 1. The
passage in the original is in the first person. Mark makes this
passage to be a prophecy of John the Baptist, said by the Church
to be" a forerunner 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 aoplica-
tion 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 1 for he is like a refiner's fire,
and like fuller's soap."
This description can have no reference to the birth of Jesus
Christ, and consequently none to John the Baptist. It is a scene
of fear and terror that is here described, and the birth of Christ is
always spoken of as a time of joy and glad tidings.
Malachi, continuing to speak on the same subject, explains in
the next chapter what the scene is of which he speaks in the
verses above quoted, and whom the person is whom he calls the
messenger. " Behold," says he, chap. iv. verse 1, " the day cometh that shall
Dum like an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly,
shall be stubble ; and the day cometh that 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 ofthe great and dreadful day ofthe Lord."
By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance Mark has
made Elijah into John the Baptist, and Malachi's description of

252 EXAMINATION OF
the day of judgment into the birth day of Christ, I leave to the
Bishop to settle.
Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chapter, con
founds two passages together, taken from different books of the
Old Testament. The second verse, " Behold I send my messen
ger before thy face, which shall prepare the way before me," 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 ofthe Lord, make his path straight," is not in Malachi,
but in Isaiah, chap, xi, verse 3. Whiston 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 wbich it cannot chronologically belong.
The words in Isaiah,»chap. xl. verse 3. " The voice of him
that cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
his path straight," are in the present tense, and consequently 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 6th 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 as a figure or metaphor, where one thing is put for another.
Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory
to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose.
I pass on to the eleventh chapter.
In this chapter, Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem
upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplishment of a pro
phecy, as Matthew' has done ; for he says nothing about a prophe
cy. 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, ver. 2, it was " a colt whereon never man sat ;" signi
fying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he consequent
ly was inspired into good manners, for we do not hear that he
kicked Jesus Christ off. There is not a word about his kicking
:n all the four Evangelists.
I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon a
jack-ass, to the 1 5th chapter.
At the 24th verse of this chapter Mark speaks of parting
Christ's garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no

THE PROPHECIES. 253
prophecy 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 scrip
tures might be fulfilled which saith, and he was numbered-with the
transgressors." The same thing might be said of the thieves.
This expression is in Isaiah, chap. liii. ver. 12 — Grotius applies
it to Jeremiah. But the case has happened so often in the world,
where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and
is still continually happening, that it is absurdity to call it a pro
phecy of any particular person. All those whom the church
call martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest
patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of
Robespierre, were numbered with transgressors ; and if himself
had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his own hand
writing, had befallen me ; yet I suppose the bishop will not allow
that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas Paine.
These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference
to prophecies.
Mark concludes his book by making Jesus say to his disciples,
chap. xvi. ver. 15, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gos
pel to every creature ; he that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned, (fine Popish stuff
this,) and these signs shall fellow them that believe ; in my name
they shall cast out devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ;
they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it
shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they
shall recover."
Now, the bishop, in order to know if he has all this saving and
wonder-working faith, should try those things upon 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 experiment does not concern me.
I pass on to 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 Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he make3
no references to the passage in Isaiah, as Matthew does. He
speaks also of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he

254 EXAMINATION OF
says nothing about a prophecy. 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 per
fected." 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 ba
living, and to seek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of
age : for he says, chap. iii. v. 23, " And Jesus began to be
about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Jo
seph." The obscurity in which the historical part of the New Testa
ment is involved with 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. Mat
thew calls Herod a king; and Luke, chap. iii. v. 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 gov
erned then by Tetrarchs or Governors.
Luke, chap. 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 ofhis re
turning from thence. On the contrary, the book of Luke speaks
as if the person it calls Christ had never been out of Judea, and
that Herod sought his life after he commenced preaching, as is be
fore 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
snoney, and that the high priests bought with it a field to bury

THE PROPHECIES. 255
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 im
possible those books should have been written by divine inspira
tion. Our belief in God, and his unernng wisdom, forbids us to
believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously happy in the total dis
belief 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 prophecy-monger.
He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus' clothes, and
some other trifles, of which I have already spoken.
John makes Jesus to say, chap. v. ver. 46, " For had ye be
lieved Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me."
The book of the Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, chap. iii. ver.
22, " For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet shall the
Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me,
him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shalt say unto you."
This passage is in Deuteronomy, chap, xviii. ver. 15. They
apply it as a prophecy of Jesus. What impositions ! The per
son 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 re
lated in those books, is as follows : —
Moses was grown old and near to his end, and in order to pre
vent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had no settled sys
tem 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 :
Numbers, chap, xxvii. ver. 12. " And the Lord said unto Mo
ses, get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I
have given unto the children of Israel — and when thou hast seen
it, thou also shall be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy bro
ther is gathered, ver. 15. And Moses spake unto the Lord, say

256 EXAMINATION OF
ing, 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 that have no shepherd — And the Lord said unto 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 honour upon him, that all the con
gregation ofthe children of Israel may be obedient — ver. 22, and
Moses did as the Lord commanded, and he took Joshua, and set him
before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation ; and he
laid hands upon him, and gave him charge as the Lord command
ed by the hand of Moses."
I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth, or the conjura
tion here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses like unto
himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is Joshua, and that it
is an imposition in John to make the case into a prophecy of Jesus,
But the prophecy-mongers were so inspired with falsehood, that
they never speak truth.*
* Newton, Bishop of Bristol in England, published a work in three volumes,
entitled, " Dissertations on the Prophecies." The work is tediously written and
tiresome to read. He strains hard to make every passage into a prophecy that
suits his purpose. — Among others, he makes this expression of Moses, " the
Lord shall raise thee up a prophet like unto me," into a prophecy of Chris..
who was not born, according to the Bible chronologies, till fifteen hun ..red and
fifty-two years after the time of Moses, whereas it was an immediate successe
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 prophecy
of Christ, has entirely omitted the account in the bock 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 per
son. Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hear-say, and
inserts them without either examination or reflection, and the more extraor
dinary and incredible they are, the better he likes them.
In speaking ofthe walls of Babylon, (volume the first, page 263,) he makes
a quotation from a traveller of the name of Tavernur, 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 im
possibility of their being used or even made. A brick ten feet square, and
three feet thick, contains three hundred cubic feet, and allowing a cubic foot
of brick to be only one hundred pounds, each of the Bishop's bricks would
weigh thirty thousand pounds ; and it would take about thirty cart loads of
clay (one horse carts) to make one brick.
But his account of the stones used in the building of Solomon's temple, (vol
ume 2d, page 211,) far exeeeds his bricks of ten feet square in the walls oJ
Babylon ; these are but brick-bats compared to them.

THE PROPHECIES. 257
I pass to the last passage in these fables of the Evangelists
called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.
John, having spoken of Jesus expiring on the cross between two
thieves, says, chap. xix. verse 32.' " Then came the soldiers and
brake the legs ofthe first (meaning one ofthe thieves) and of the
other which was crucified with him. But when they came tc
Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs —
verse 36, for these things were done that the Scripture 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 with the ass he rode upon to Jerusalem ; — nor
yet so much, if a roasted jack-ass, like a roasted he-goat, might be
eaten at a Jewish passover. It might be some consolation to an
ass to know that though his bones might be picked, they would
not be broken. I go to state the case.
The book of Exodus, in instituting the Jewish passover, in
which they were to eat a he-lamb or a he-goat, says, chap, xii,

The stones ^ays he) employed in the foundation, were in magnitude 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 this Bishop) was worthy of such foundations. There were some stones,
says he, of the whitest marble forty-five cubits long, five cubits high, and six
cubits broad. • These are the dimensions this Bishop has given, which in
measure of twelve inches to a foot, is 78 feet nine inches long, 10 feet 6 inches
broad, and 8 feet three 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
fravity of martale to water is as 2 1-2 is to one. The weight, therefore, of a cu-
ic foot of marble is 556 pounds, which, multiplied by 7,234, the number of cubic
feet in one of those stones, makes the weight 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 one such stone on the ground ; how then were they to
be lifted into the building by human hands ? .
' 'The bishop may talk of faith removing mountains, but all the faith of all the
Bishops that ever lived could not remove one of those stones and their bodily
strength given in.
This Bishop also tells of great guns used by the Turks at the taking of Con
stantinople, one of which, he says, was drawn by seventy yoke of oxen, and by
two thousand men. Vol. 3d, page 117.
The weight of a cannon that carries a ball of 43 pounds, which is the largest
cannon that are cast, weighs 8000 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, that required seventy yoke of oxen
to draw it. This Bishop beats Gulliver.
When men give up the use of the divine gift of reason in writing on any sub
ject, be it religious or any thing else, there are no bounds to their extravagance,
no limit to their absurdities.
The three volumes which this Bishop has written on what he calls the pro
phecies, contain above 1290 pages, and he says in vol. 3, page 117, " / have sbt-
died brevity." This is as marvellous as the Bishop's great gun.
33

258 EXAMINATION OF
verse 5. " Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male ofthe first
year ; ye shall take it from the sheep or from the goats."
The book, after stating some ceremonies to be used in killing
and dressing it, (for it was to be roasted, not boiled,) says, ver. 43,
" And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, this is the ordinance
ofthe passover : there shall no stranger eat thereof; but every
man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circum
cised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner shall not eat
thereof. In one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not carry
forth ought of the flesh thereof abroad, out of the house; neither
shalt thou break a bone thereof."
We here see that the case as it stands in Exodus is a ceremony
and not a prophecy, and totally unconnected with Jesus's bones,
or any part of him.
John, having thus filled up the measure of apostolic fable, con
cludes his book with something that beats all fable; for he says
at the last verse, " And there are also many other things which
Jesus did, the which if they could be written every one, I suppose
that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be
written." This is what in vulgar life is called a thumper ; that is, not only
a lie, but a lie beyond the line of possibility ; besides which it is
an absurdity, for if they should be written in the world, the world
would contain them. — Here ends the examination ofthe passages
called prophecies.

I have now, reader, gone through and examined all the passages
which the four books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, quote
from the Old Testament and call them prophecies of Jesus Christ.
When I first 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 of 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 ofthe
person they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out a sentence from
some passage ofthe Old Testament and call it a prophecy of that
case. But when the words thus cut out are restored to the place
thev are taken from, and read with the words before and after

the prophecies. 259
them, they give the lie to the New Testament. A short instance
or two of this will suffice for the whole.
They make Joseph to dream of an angel, who informs him that
Herod is dead, and tells him to come with the child out of Egypt.
They then cut out a sentence from the book of Hosea, " Out of
Egypt have I called my Son," and apply it as a prophecy in that
case. The words " And called my Son out of Egypt," are in the
Bible ; — but what of that ? They are only part of a passage, and
not a whole passage, and stand immediately connected with other
words, which show they refer to the children of Israel coming out
of Egypt in the time of Pharoah, and to the idolatry they com
mitted afterwards.
Again, they tell us that when the soldiers came to break the
legs of the crucified persons, they found Jesus was already dead,
and, therefore, did not break his. They then, with some alteration
of the original, cut out a sentence from Exodus, " a bone of him
shall not be broken," and apply it as a prophecy of that case.
The words " Neither shall ye break a bone thereof," (for they
have altered the text,) are in the Bible — but what of that? They
are, as in the former case, only part of a passage, and not a whole
passage, and when read with the words they are immediately
joined to, show it is the bones 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 prophecies of those cases ; and that so far from
his being the Son of God, he did not exist even as a man — that he
is merely an 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
ofthe 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, contradictions, and absurdi
ties, which are to be met with in almost every page ofthe Old and
New Testament, all the priests of the present day, who supposed
themselves capable, would triumphantly show their skill in criti
cism, and cry it down-as a most glaring imposition. But since the

2C0 EXAMINATION OF
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 have 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 strictness, in
order to know if it has a well founded claim to that title or not,
and whether we are or are not imposed upon : for as no poison is
so dangerous as that which poisons the physic, so no falsehood is
so fatal as that which is made an article of faith. ,
This examination becomes, more necessary, because when the
New Testament was written, I might say invented, the art of print
ing 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 was in the hands 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
Testament as they pleased, and call them prophecies, with very
little danger of being detected. Besides which, the terrors and
inquisitorial fury ofthe church, like what they tell us ofthe flaming
sword that turned every way, stood sentry over the New Testa
ment ; and time, which brings every thing 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 prophecies with the whole
passages in the Old Testament from whence they are taken.
Why then do they not make the same examination at this time, as
they would make had the New Testament 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 prophecies 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. But if he had done so, those would have been the
only circumstances respecting him that would have differed from

THE PROPHECIES. 261
the common lot of man ; and, consequently, the only case that
would apply exclusively to him, as prophecy, would be some pas
sage in the Old Testament that foretold such things of him. But
.there is not a passage in the Old Testament that speaks of a per
son, who, after being crucified, dead, and buried, should rise from
the dead,, and ascend into heaven. Our prophecy-mongers supply
the silence the Old Testament guards upon such things, by telling
us of passages they call prophecies, 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 lan
guage fjill and intelligible. I deal not in hints and intimations. I
have several reasons for this : First, that I may be clearly under
stood. Secondly, that it may be seen I am in earnest. And third
ly, because it is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with com
plaisance. I will close this treatise with a subject I have already touched
upon in the First Part °f tne Age of Reason.
' The world has been amused with the term revealed religion, and
the generality of priests apply this term to the books called the
Old and New Testament. The Mahometans apply the same term
to the Koran. There is no man that believes in revealed religion
stronger than I do ; but it is not the reveries of the Old -and New
Testament, nor of the Koran, that I dignify with that sacred title.
That which is revelation to me, exists in something which no hu
man 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. man to know of
his Creator.
Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the
immensity ofhis 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 tp 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 t

262

EXAMINATION OF

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 ofthe Age of Reason, I called the Crea
tion the true revelation of God to man, I did not know that any
other person had expressed the same idea. But I lately met
with the writings of Doctor Conyers Middleton, 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
a 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 my
thology, as it stood in the latter times of the Greeks and Romans.
He attacked without ceremony the miracles which the church pre
tend to perform : and in one of his treatises, he calls the creation
a revelation. The priests of England of that day, in order to de
fend their citadel by first defending its out- works, attacked him for
attacking the Roman ceremonies ; and one of them censures him
for calling the creation a revelation — he thus replies to him :
" One of them," says he, " appears to be scandalized by the
title of revelation which I have given to that discoveiy which God
made of himself in the visible works ofhis creation. Tet 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
Jay. It was this by which the first notice of him was revealed
to the inhabitants of the earth, and by which alone it has been kept
up ever since among the several nations of it. From this the
reason of man was enabled to trace out his nature and attributes,
and, by a gradual deduction of consequences, to learn his own
nature also, with all the duties belonging to it, which relate either

THE PROPHECIES. 26S
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 can
not 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 passage above
recited, (meaning the passage on which they had attacked him,)
being desirous to excite the readers 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-crea
tures, 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 discovered to man, so that
grand discovery furnished new light towards tracing out the rest
and made all the inferior subjects of human knowledge more
easily discoverable to us by the same method.
" I had another view likewise in the same passage, and appli
cable to the same end, of giving the reader a more enlarged
notion of the question in dispute, who, by turning his thoughts to
reflect on the works of the Creator, as they are manifested to us
in this fabric of the world, could not fail to observe, that they are
all of them great, noble, and suitable to the majesty of his nature,
carrying with them the proofs of their origin, and showing them
selves 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 interpositions
so confidently affirmed to us by the primitive fathers, can rea
sonably be thought to make 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 ofhis govern
ment 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

264 EXAMINATION OF
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 cruelty, and the poor
martyr to expire in a miserable death. When these things, I say,
are brought to the original test, and compared with the genuine
and indisputable works of the Creator, how minute, how trifling,
how contemptible must they be ? — and how incredible must it be
thought, that for the instruction of his church, God should employ
ministers so precarious, unsatisfactory, and inadequate, as the
estacies 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 oftheir studies and writings.
" Cicero has given us a short abstract of it in a fragment still
-emaining from one of his books on government, which 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
antagonists." " The true law, (says Cicero,) is right reason conformable tc
the nature of things, constant, eternal, diffused through all, which
ca'lls'us to duty by commanding — deters us from sin by forbid
ding ; which never loses its influence with the good, nor ever
preserves it with the wicked. This law cannot be over-ruled by
any other, nor abrogated in whole or in part ; nor can we be ab
solved from it either by the senate or by the people ; nor are we to
seek any other comment or interpreter of it but himself; nor can
therebe one law at Rome and another at Athens — one now and an
other 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, enacter of this
law ; and whoever will not obey it must first renounce himself
and throw off the nature of man ; by doing which, he will suffer

THE PROPHECIES. 265
the greatest punishments, though he should, escape all the other
torments which are commonly believed to be prepared for the
wicked." Here ends the quotation from Cicero. '
" Our Doctors (continues Middleton) perhaps will look on this
as rank deism ; but let them call it what they will, I shall ever
avow and defend it as the fundamental, essentia], and vital part of
all true religion." Here ends the quotatioafrom, 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 df
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 un
changeable order of his creation, and the immutability of his la\V.
" There cannot," says Cicero, " be. one law now, and another here
after ; but ihe 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 one age ofthe
world, and another law, called the New Testament, given in an
other age ofthe 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. . In
stead of reposing his faith on books, by whatever name they may
De called, whether Old Testament or New, he fixes the creation
as the great original standard by which every other thing called the
the word, or work of God, is to be tried. In this we have an
indisputable scale, whereby to measure every word or work im
puted to him. If the thing so imputed carries not in itself the
evidence of the same Almightiness of power, of the same unerr
ing truth and wisdom, and the same unchangeable order in all its
parts, as are visibly demonstrated to our senses, and inoompre-
34 ... .

266 EXAMINATION OF
hensible by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the universe,
that word or that work is not of God. Let then the two books
called the Old and New Testament be tried by this rule, and the
result will be, that the authors of them, whoever they were, will be
convicted of forgery.
The invariable principles, and unchangeable order, which regu-
'ate 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, besides the num
berless, 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, chap. 14, ver. 9, " And if the prophet be
deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I, the Lord have deceived
that prophet." And at the 20th chap. ver. 25, he makes God in
speaking of the children of Israel to say " Wherefore I gave them
statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could
not live."
This, so far from being the word of God, is horrid blasphemy
against him. Reader put thy confidence in thy God, and put no
trust in the Bible.
The same Old Testament, after telling us that God created the
heavens and the earth in six days, makes the same almighty power
and eternal wisdom employ itself in giving directions how a priest's
garment should be cut, and what sort of stuff they should be made
of, and what their offerings should be, gold, and silver, and brass,
and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair,
and rams' skins died red, and badger skins, &c. chap. xxv. ver. 3 ;
and in one of the pretended prophecies I have just examined,
God is made to give directions how they sbould kill, cook, and eat
a he-lamb or a he-goat. And Ezekiel, chap. iv. to fill up the
measure of abominable absurdity, makes God to order him to take
" wheat, and. barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches,
and make a loaf or a cake thereof, and bake it with human dung
and eat it ;" but as Ezekiel complained that this mess was too
strong for his stomach, the matter was compromised from man's
dung to cow dung, Ezekiel, chap. iv. Compare all this ribaldry,
blasphemously called the word of God, with the Almighty power
that created the universe, and whose eternal wisdom directs and
governs all its mighty movements, and we shall be at a loss to find
name sufficiently contemptible for it.

THE PROPHECIES. 267
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 multitude,
and that he would give them the land of Canaan as their inheri
tance 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 ofthe promise was to begin, according to that
book, by four hundred years of bondage and affliction. Genesis,
chap. xv. ver. 13. "And God said unto Abraham, know of a
surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs,
and shall serve them, and they shall afflict ihem four hundred
years." This promise, then, to Abraham, and his seed forever, to
inherit the land of Canaan, had it been a fact, instead of a fable,
was to operate, in the commencement of it, as a curse upon all
the people and their children, and their children's children for four
hundred years.
But the case is, the Book of Genesis was written after the bond
age in Egypt had taken place ; and in order to get rid of the dis
grace of the Lord's chosen people, as they called themselves, be
ing in bondage to the Gentiles, they make God to be the author of
it, and annex it as a condition to a pretended promise ; as if
God, in making that promise, had exceeded his power in perform
ing 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 senti
ments of Cicero, the result will be, that the human mind has de
generated by believing them. Man in a state of grovelling super
stition, from which he has not courage to rise, looses the energy
ofhis mental1 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

26t? EXAMINATION OF
standaid 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
falsei, 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 ori
gin, 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 end to be obtained ; and, therefore, are de
rogatory to the Almightiness of his power, and the eternity of his
wisdom. .. ... ... ,j
TheNew Testfi'men.t.ts.]jpposes. that; God sent his Son upon
earth to make a new covenant with man ; which the church calls
the covenant 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 no^this
faith should, to. use the words of the New Testament, be
DAMNED.
Nowi 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 lhat 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 imme
diately over the whole earth, in a manner suitable to the Almighti
ness, of, his diyine; nature, and. with evidence that would not leave
.man in doubt ';¦ for it isalways incumbent upon us, in all cases, to
believe lhat the Almighty always acts, not by imperfect means as
imperfect 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 com
parison between this and. the Almighty powerand wisdom of God
demonstrated to our senses in the visible creation; goes on.
The Old Testament tells us that God created th* 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

THE PROPHECIES. 269
unitedlj with Almighty wisdom, to produce an immense work,
that of the creation of the universe and every thing therein, in a
short time.
Now as the eternaj salvation of man is of much greater impor
tance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, as the New
Testament tells us, on man's knowledge of, and belief in the per
son called Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows from our 'belief in
the goodness and justice of God, and our knowledge of his al
mighty power and wisdom, as demonstrated in the creation, that
all this, if true, would be made known to all parts of the world,
in as little time at least, as was employed'in making the world.
To suppose the Almighty would pay greater regard and attention
to the creation and organization 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 pretended
salvation by a knowledge of, and a belief in Jesus Christ went on,
coiftpared 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 fo*ty 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 aserts,
was thirty years old before he began to preach what they call his
mission. Millions of souls died in the mean time without know
ing it. Fourthly; it was above three hundred years from that
time before the book called the New Testament was compiled
into a written copy, before which time there was no'such book.
Fifthly ; it was above a thousand years after that, before it could
be circulated ; 'because neither Jesus nor his apostles had know
ledge of, or were inspired with the art of printing : and, conse
quently, as the means for making it universally known did not
exist, the means were not equal to the end, and, therefore, it is
not the work of God.
I will here subjoin the nineteenth Psalm, which is truly deisti-
cal, to show how universally and instantaneously the works ot

270 EXAMINATION OF THE PROPHECIES.
God make themselves known, compared with this pretended sal
vation 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 chamber for the sun. Which is 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 neaven,
and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing md 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 il ; wnereas,
though it is now almost two thousand years since, as thev tell us,
Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the
earth know any thing of it, and among those who do, the wiser
part do not believe it.
I have now reader gone through all the passages called orophe-
cies of Jesus Christ, and shown there is no such thing.
I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared
the several circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Mid
dleton wisely says, God has made to us of his Power and Wisdom
in the structure of the universe, and by which every thing ascrib
ed to him is to be tried. The result is, that the story of Christ
has not one trait, either in its character, or in the means employed,
that bears the least resemblance to the power and wisdom of God,
as demonstrated in the creation of the universe. All the means
are human means, slow, uncertain, and inadequate to the accom
plishment of the end proposed, and, therefore, the whole is a fabu
lous 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 believes in
THE STORY OF CHRIST IS AN INFIDEL TO GoD.
THOMAS PAINE.

APPENDIX

CONTRADICTORY DOCTRINES IN THE
MEW TESTAMENT,

BETWEEN

MATTHEW AND MARK.

oc^oc

In the New Testament, Mark, chap. xvi. ver. 16, it is said
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; he that be
lieveth not shall be damned." This is making salvation, or, in
other words, the happiness of man after this life, to depend entire
ly on believing, or on what Christians call faith.
But the 25th chapter of The Gospel according to Matthew
makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doctrine to The
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 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 right
eous and the unrighteous, mataphorically called the sheep and the
goats. To the one part called the righteous, or the sheep, it says,
" Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the beginning of the world — for I was an hungered and
ye gave me meat — 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."

272 APPENDIX.
" Then shall the righteous answer him, 5aying, Lord, when saw
we thee'an hungered-and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in, or naked and
clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick and in prison, and came
unto thee ?
" And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto
you in as much as ye have done it unto one ofthe least of these my
brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Here is nothing about believing in Christ — nothing about that
phantom of the imagination called Faith. The works here spo
ken of, are works of humanity and benevolence, or, in other words,
an endeavour to make God's creation happy. Here is nothing
about preaching and making long prayers, as if God must be dic
tated to by man ; nor about 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.
Ifit be asked, why do not priests preach the doctrine contained
in this chapter ? The answer is easy ; — they are not fond o.
practising it themselves. It does not answer for their trade.
They had rather get than give. Charity with them begins ana
ends at home.
Had it been said, Come ye blessed, ye have been liberal in pay
ing the preachers ofthe word, ye have contributed largely towards
building churches and meeting-houses, there is not a hired priest
in Christendom but would have thundered it continually in the ears
ofhis congregation. But as it is altogether on good works done
to men, the priests pass over it in silence, and they will abuse me
for bringing it into notice.
THOMAS PAINE.

PRIVATE THOUGHTS
ON A
FUTURE STATE.

I have said, in the first part of the Age of Reason, that " I hope
for happiness after this life." This hope is comfortable to me,
and I presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with
respect to a future state.
I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he will
dispose of me after this life consistently with his justice and good
ness. 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 obligation 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 de
cide which he will do.
The book called the New Testament, which I hold to be fabu
lous and have shown to be false, gives an account in the 25th
chapter of Matthew, of what is there called the last day, or the day
of judgment. The whole world, according to that account, is
divided into two parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, figurative
ly 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 ever
lasting 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 numerous degrees
of character, running imperceptibly one into the other, in such a
35

274 APPENDIX
manner that no fixed point of division can be found in either
That point is no where, or is every where. The whole world
might be divided into two parts numerically, but not as to moral
character ; and, therefore, the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep
and goats can be divided, whose difference is marked by their ex
ternal 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 #like.
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.
My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in
doing good, and endeavouring to make their fellow-mortals happy,
for this is the only way in which we can serve God, will be happy
hereafter : and that the very wicked will meet with some punish
ment. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea o'
God's justice, and with the reason that God has given me.
THOMAS PAINE.

EXTRACT FROM A REPLY

BISHOP OF LLANDAFF.

— DC+DO-
[This extract from Mr. Pain's reply to Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, was
given by him, not long before his death; to Mrs. Palmer, widow of Elihu Pal
mer. He retained the work entire, and, therefore, must have transcribed this
part, which was unusual for him to do. Probably he had discovered errors,
which he corrected in the copy. Mrs. Palmer presented it to the editor of a.
periodical work, entitled the Theophilanthropist, published in New-York, in
which it appeared in 1810.]

GENESIS.
The bishop says, " the oldest book in the world is Genesis."
This is mere assertion ; he offers no proof of it, and I go to con
trovert it, and to show that the book of Job, which is not a Hebrew
book, but is a book of the Gentiles, translated into Hebrew, is
much older than the book of Genesis.
The book of Genesis means the book of Generations ; to which
are prefixed two chapters, the first and second, which contain two
different costnoganies, that is, two different accounts ofthe creation
of the world, written by different persons, as I have shown in the
preceding part of this work.*
The first cosmogany begins at the first verse of the first chap
ter, and ends at the end ofthe third verse of the second chapter ;
for the adverbial conjunction thus, with which the second chapter
begins, shows those three verses to belong to the first chapter.
The second cosmogany begins at the fourth verse of the second
chapter, and ends with that chapter.
In the first cosmogany the name of God is used, without any
* See Letter to Erskine, page 165,

276 reply to the bishop.
epithet joined to it, and is repeated thirty-five times. In the second
cosmogany it is always the Lord God, which is repeated eleven
times. These two different styles of expression show these two
chapters to be the work of two different persons, and the contra
dictions they contain, show they cannot be the work of one and the
same person, as I have already shown.
The third chapter, in which the style of Lord God is continued
in every instance, except in the supposed conversation between
the woman and the serpent (for in every place in that chapter
where the writer speaks, it is always the Lord God) shows this
chapter to belong to the second cosmogany.
This chapter gives an account of what is called the fall of man,
which is no other than a fable borrowed from, and constructed
upon the religion of Zoroaster, or the Persians, or the annual pro
gress ofthe sun through the twelve signs ofthe Zodiac. It is the
fall of the year, the approach and evil of winter, announced by the
ascension ofthe autumnal constellation ofthe serpent ofthe Zodi
ac, and not the moral fall of man that is the key of the allegory,
and of the fable in Genesis borrowed from it.
The fall of man in Genesis, is said to have been produced by
eating a certain fruit, generally taken to be an apple. The fall of
the year is the season for the gathering and eating the new apples
of that year. The allegory, therefore, holds with respect to the
fruit, which it would not have done had it been an early summer
fruit It holds also with respect to place. The tree is said to
have been placed in the midst of the garden. But why in the
midst ofthe garden more than in any other place ? The situation
of the allegory gives the answer to this question, which is, that
the fall of the year, when apples and other autumnal fruits are ripe,
and when days and nights are of equal length, is the mid-season
between summer and winter.
It holds also with respect to clothing, and the temperature of
the air. It is said in Genesis, chap. iii. ver. 21. " Unto Adam
and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed
them." But why are coats of skins mentioned ? This cannot be
understood as referring to any thing of the nature of moral evil.
The solution of the allegory gives again the answer to this ques
tion, which is, that the evil of winter, which follows the fall of the
year, fabulously called in Genesis the fall of man, makes warm
clothing necessary.

OF LLANDAFF. 277
But of these things I shall speak fully when I comfc in another
part to treat of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it
with the modern religion of the New Testament.* At present, I
shall confine myself to the comparative antiquity of the books of
Genesis and Job, taking, at the same time, whatever I may find in
my way with respect to the fabulousness of the book of Genesis ;
for if what is called the fall of man, in Genesis, be fabulous or alle
gorical, that which is called the redemption, in the New Testament,
cannot be a fact. It is morally impossible, and impossible also in
the nature of things,, that moral good can redeem physical evil. I
return to the bishop.
If Genesis be, as the bishop asserts, the oldest book in the
world, and, consequently, the oldest and first written book of the
Bible, and if the extraordinary things related in it, such as the cre
ation of the world in six days, the tree of life, and of good and
evil, the story of Eve and the talking serpent, the fall of man and
his being turned out of Paradise, were facts, or even believed by
the Jews to be facts, they would be referred to as fundamental
matters, and that very frequently, in the books of the Bible that
were written by various authors afterwards ; whereas, there is not
a book, chapter, or verse of the Bible, from the time Moses is
said to have written the book of Genesis, to the book of Malachi,
the last book in the Bible, including a space of more than a thou
sand years, in which there is any mention made of these things,
or any of them, nor are they so much as alluded to. How will
the bishop solve this difficulty, which stands as a circumstantial
contradiction to his assertion ?
There are but two ways of solving it :
First, that the book of Genesis is not an ancient book ; that it
has been written by some (now) unknown person, after the return
ofthe Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about a thousand years
after the time that Moses is said to have lived, and put as a pre
face or introduction to the other books, when they were formed
into a cannon in the time of the second temple, and, therefore, not
having existed before that time, none of these things mentioned
in it could be referred to in those books.
Secondly, that admitting Genesis to have been written by
Moses, the Jews did not believe the things stated in it to be true,
and, therefore as they could not refer to them as facts, they would
* Not published.

278 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
not refer to them as fables. The first of these solutions goes
against the antiquity of the book, and the second against its au
thenticity, and the bishop may take which he pleases.
But, be the author of Genesis whoever he may, there is abun
dant evidence to show, as well from the early Christian writers, as
from the Jews themselves, that the things stated in that book were
not believed to be facts. Why they have been believed as facts
since that time, when better and fuller knowledge existed on the
case, than is known now, can be accounted for only on the impo
sition of priestcraft.
Augustine, one of the early champions of the Christian church,
acknowledges in his City of God, that the adventure of Eve and
the serpent, and the account of Paradise, were generally consider
ed as fiction, or allegory. He regards them as allegory himself,
without attempting to give any explanation, but he supposes that
a better explanation might be found than those that had been
offered. Origen, another early champion of the church, says, " What
man of good sense can ever persuade himself that there were a
first, a second, and a third day, and that each of these days had a
night when there were yet neither sun, moon, nor stars. What
man can be stupid enough to believe that God acting the part of
a gardener, had planted a garden in the east, that the tree of life
was a real tree, and that its fruit had the virtue of making those
who eat of it live for ever ?"
Marmonides, one of the most learned and celebrated of the
Jewish Rabbins, who lived in the eleventh century (about seven
or eight hundred years ago) and to whom the bishop refers in his
answer to me, is very explicit, in his book entitled More Neba-
chhn., upon the non-reality of the things stated in the account of
the Creation in the book of Genesis.
" We ought not (says he) to understand, nor take according to
the letter, that which is written in the book of the Creation, nor to
have the same ideas of it with common men ; otherwise, our an
cient sages would not have recommended, with so much care, to
conceal the sense of it, and not to raise the allegorical veil which
envelopes the truths it contains. The book of Genesis, taken ac
cording to the letter, gives the most absurd and the most extrava
gant ideas of the Divinity. Whoever shall find out the sense of
it, ought to restrain himself from divulging it. It is a maxim

OF LLANDAFF. 279
which. aU our sages repeat, and above all with respect to the work
of six days. It may happen that some one, with the aid he may
borrow from others, may hit upon the meaning of it. In that case
he ought to impose silence upon himself; or if he speak of it, he
ought to speak obscurely, .and in an enigmatical manner, as I do
myself, leaving the rest to be found out by those who can under
stand," This is, cerfainly, a very extraordinary declaration of Marmon-
ides, taking all the parts of it.
First, he declares, that the account of the Creation in the book
of Genesis is not a fact ; that to believe it to be a fact, gives the
most absurd and the most extravagant ideas ofthe Divinity.
Secondly, that it is an allegory.
Thirdly, that the allegory has a concealed secret.
Fourthly, that whoever can find the secret ought not to teU it.
lt is this last part that is the most extraordinary. Why all this,
care ofthe Jewish Rabbins, to prevent what they call the conceal
ed meaning, or the secret, from being known, aiid, if known, to
prevent any of their people from telling it ? It certainly must bei
something which the Jewish nation are afraid or ashamed the world
should know. It must be something personal to them as a peo
ple, and not a secret of a divine nature, which the more it is known,
the more it increases the glory of the Creator, and the gratitude]
and happiness of man. It is not God's secret, but their own, they
are keeping. I go to unveil the secret.
The case is, the Jews have stolen their cosmogany, that is,
their account ofthe Creation, from the cosmogany ofthe Persians,
contained in the book of Zoroaster, the Persian lawgiver, and
brought it with them when they returned from captivity by the be
nevolence of Cyrus, King of Persia ; for it is evident, from the
silence of all the books ofthe Bible upon the subject ofthe Crea
tion, that the Jews had no cosmogany before that time. If they
had a cosmogany from the time of Moses, some of their judges
who governed during more than four hundred years, or of their
kings, the Davids and Solomons of their day, who governed nearly
fiv hundred years, or oftheir prophets and psalmists, who lived
m the mean time, would have mentioned it. It would, either as
fact or fable, have been the grandest of all subjects for a psalm.
It would have suited to a tittle the ranting, poetical genius of
Isaiah, or served as a cordial to the gloomy Jeremiah? But not

2S0 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
one word nor even a whisper, does any ofthe Bible authors give
upon the subject.
To conceal the theft, the Rabbins of the second temple have
oublished Genesis as a book of Moses, and have enjoined secresy
to all their people, who, by travelling, or otherwise, might happen to
discover from whence the cosmogany was borrowed, not to tell it.
The evidence of circumstances is often unanswerable, and there
is no other than this which I have given, that goes to the whole of
the case, and this does.
Diogenes Laertius, an ancient and respectable author, whom
the Bishop, in his answer to me, quotes on another occasion, has
a passage that corresponds with the solution here given. In speak
ing of the religion of the Persians, as promulgated by their priests
or magi, he says, the Jewish Rabbins were the successors oftheir
doctrine. Having thus spoken on the plagarism, and on the non-
reality of the book of Genesis, I will give some additional evi
dence that Moses is not the author of that book.
Eben-Ezra, a celebrated Jewish author, who lived about seven
hundred years ago, and whom the bishop allows to have been a
man of great erudition, has made a great many observations, too
numerous to be repeated here, to show that Moses was not, and
could not be, the author of the book of Genesis, nor any ofthe five
books that bear his name.
Spinosa,. another learned Jew, who lived about a hundred and
thirty years ago, recites, in his treatise on the ceremonies of the
Jews, ancient and modern, the observations of Eben-Ezra, to
which he adds many others, to show that Moses is not the author
of these books. He also says, and shows his reasons for saying
it, that the Bible did not exist as a book, till the time of the Mac
cabees, which was more than a hundred years after the return of
the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
In the second part of the Age of Reason, I have, among other
things, referred to nine verses in the 36th chapter of Genesis, be
ginning at the 31st verse, " These are the kings that reigned in
Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel,"
which it is impossible could have been written by Moses, or in the
time of Moses, and could not have been written till after the Jew
kings began to reign in Israel, which was not till several hundred
years after the time of Moses.
The bishop allows this, and says " I think you say true." But

OF LLANDAFF. 281
he theiv quibbles, and says, that a small addition to a book does not
destroy either the genuineness or authenticity of the whole book
This is priestcraft. These verses do not stand in the book as an
addition to it, but as making a part of the whole book, and which
it is impossible that Moses could write. The bishop would rejec:
the antiquity of any other book if it could be proved from the
words of the book itself that a part of it could not have been writ
ten till several hundred years after the reputed author of it was
dead. He would call such a book a forgery. I am authorised,
therefore, to call the book of Genesis a forgery.
Combining, then, all the foregoing circumstances together re
specting the antiquity and authenticity of the book of Genesis, a
conclusion will naturally follow therefrom ; those circumstances
are, First, that certain parts of the book cannot possibly have been
written by Moses, and that the other parts carry no evidence of
having been written by him.
Secondly, the universal silence of all the following books ofthe
Bible, for about a thousand years, upon the extraordinary things
spoken of in Genesis, such as the creation of the world in six days
— the garden of Eden — the tree of knowledge — the tree of life —
the story of Eve and the serpent — the fall of man, and his being
turned out of this fine garden, together with Noah's flood, and the
tower of Babel.
Thirdly, the silence of all the books ofthe Bible upon even the
name of Moses, from the book of Joshua until the second book of
Kings, which was not written till after the captivity, for it gives an
account of the captivity, a period of about a thousand years.
Strange that a man who is proclaimed as the historian of the Cre
ation, the privy-counsellor and confident of the Almighty — the
legislator of the Jewish nation, and the founder of its religion ;
strange, I say, that even the name of such a man should not find
a place in their books for a thousand years, if they knew or believed
any thing about him, or the books he is said to have written.
Fourthly, the opinion of some ofthe most celebrated ofthe Jew
ish commentators, that Moses is not the author of the book of
Genesis, founded on the reasons given for that opinion.
Fifthly, the opinion of the early Christian writers, and of the
great champion of Jewish literature, Marmonides, that the book
of Genesis is not a book of facts. 36

282 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
Sixthly, the silence imposed by all the Jewish Rabbins, and by
Marmonides himself, upon the Jewish nation, not to speak of any
thing they may happen to know, or discover, respecting the cos
mogany (or creation of the world) in the book of Genesis.
From these circumstances the following conclusions offer---
First, that the book of Genesis is not a book of fa,cts.
Secondly, that as no mention is made throughout the Bible of
any of the extraordinary things related in Genesis, that it has not
been written till after the other books were written, and put as a
preface to the Bible. Every one knows that a preface to a book,
though it stands first, is the last written.
Thirdly, that the silence imposed by all the Jewish Rabbins,
and by Marmonides upon the Jewish nation, to keep silence upon
every thing related in their cosmogany, evinces a secret, they are
not willing should be known. The secret, therefore, explains itself
to be, that when the Jews were in captivity in Babylqn and
Persia, they became acquainted with the cosmogany of the.
Persians, as registered in the Zend-Avesta, of Zoroaster, the
Persian lawgiver, which, after their return from captivity, they
manufactered and modelled as their own, and anti-dated it by giv
ing to it the name of Moses. The case admits of no other ex
planation. From all which it appears that the book of Genesis,
instead of being1 the oldest book in the ivorld, as the bishop calls
it, has been the last written book of the Bible, and that the cos
mogany it contains, has been manufactured.
On the Names in the Book of Genesis.
Every thing in Genesis serves as evidence or symptom, that tho
oook has been composed in some late period ofthe Jewish nation.
Even the names mentioned in it serve to this purpose.
Nothing is more common or more natural, than to name the
children of succeeding generations, after the names of those who
had been celebrated in some former generation. This holds good
with respect to all the people, and all the histories we know of,
and it does not hold good with the Bible. There must be some
cause for this.
This book of Genesis tells us of a man whom it calls Adam,
and of his sons Abel and Seth ; of Enoch, who lived 365 years (it
is exactlv the number of days in a year,) and that then God took

OF LLANDAFF. 283
him up. It has the appearance of being tiken from some allegory
of the Gentiles on the commencement and termination of the
year, by the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the
Zodiac, on which the allegorical religion of the Gentiles was
founded. It tells us of Methuselah who lived 969 years, and of a long
train of other names in the fifth chapter. It then passes on to a
man whom it calls Noah, and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet :
then to Lot, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and his sons, with which
the book of Genesis finishes.
All these, according to the account given in that book, were the
most extraordinary and celebrated of men. They were, more
over, heads of families. Adam was the father of the world.
Enoch, for his righteousness, was taken up to heaven. Methuse
lah lived to almost a thousand years. He was the son of Enoch,
the man of 365, the number of days in a year. It has the ap
pearance of being the continuation of an allegory on the 365 days
of a year, and its abundant productions. Noah was selected from
all the world to be preserved when it was drowned, and became
the second father of the world. Abraham was the father of the
faithful multitude. Isaac and Jacob were the inheritors of his
fame, and the last was the father of the twelve tribes.
Now, if these very wonderful men and their names, and the
book that records them, had been known by the Jews, before the
-Babylonian captivity, those names would have been as common
among the Jews before that period as they have been since. We
now hear of thousands of Abrahams, Isaacs, and Jacobs among
the Jews, but there were none of that name before the Babylonian
captivity. The Bible does not mention one, though from the time
that Abraham is said to have lived, to the time of the Babylonian
captivity, is about 1400 years.
How is it to be accounted for, that there have been so many
thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews of the
names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob since that period, and
not one before ? It can be accounted for but one way, which
is that before the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had no such
books as Genesis, nor knew any thing of the names and persons
it mentions nor of the things it relates, and that the stories in
it have been manufactured since that time. From the Arabic

284 reply to the bishop
name flrahim (which is the manner the Turks write that name
to this day) the Jews have most probably manufactured their
Abraham. I will advance my observations a point further, and speak of the
names of Moses and Aaron, mentioned for the first time in the
book of Exodus. There are now, and have continued to be from
the time of the Babylonian captivity, or soon after it, thousands
of Jews of the names of Moses and Aaron, and we read not of
any of that name before that time. The Bible does not mention
one. The direct inference from this is, that the Jews knew of no
such book as Exodus, before the Babylonian captivity. In fact,
that it did not exist before that time, and that it is only since the
book has been invented, that the names of Moses and Aaron have
been common among the Jews.
It is applicable to the purpose, to observe, that the picturesque
work, called Mosaic-work, spelled the same as you would say the
Mosaic account of the creation, is not derived from the word
Moses but from Muses, (the Muses,) because of the variegated
and picturesque pavement in the temples dedicated to the Muses.
This carries a strong implication that the name Moses is drawn
from the same source, and that he is not a real but an allegorical
person, as Marmonides describes what is called the Mosaic ac
count of the Creation to be.
I will go a point still further. The Jews now know the book
of Genesis, and the names of all the persons mentioned in the first
ten chapters of that book, from Adam to Noah : yet we do not
hear (I speak for myself) of any Jew of the present day, of the
name of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah,* Shem,
Ham, or Japhet, (names mentioned in the first ten chapters,) though
these were, according to the account in that book, the most ex
traordinary of all the names that make up the catalogue of
the Jewish chronology.
The names the Jews now adopt, are those that are mentioned
in Genesis after the tenth chapter, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, &c.
How then does it happen, that they do not adopt the names found
in the first ten chapters ? Here is evidently a line of division
drawn between the first ten chapters of Genesis, and the temain-
ing chapters, with respect to the adoption of names. There
* Noah is an exception ; there are of that name among the Jews. — Editor-

> OF LLANDAFF. 285
must be some cause for this, and I go to offer a solution of the
problem. The reader will recollect the quotation I have already made
from the Jewish Rabbin, Marmonides, wherein he says, " We
ought not to understand nor to take according to the letter tha
which is written in the book of the Creation. It is a maxim (says
he) which all our sages repeat above all, -with respect to the work
of six days."
The qualifying expression above all, implies there are other
parts of the book, though not so important, that ought not to be
understood or taken according to the letter, and as the Jews do
not adopt the names mentioned in the first ten chapters, it appears
evident those chapters are included in the injunction not to take
them in a literal sense, or according to the letter ; from which it
follows, that the persons or characters mentioned in the first ten
chapters, as Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and so on to
Noah, are not real but fictitious or allegorical persons, and, there
fore, the Jews do not adopt their names into their families. If they
affixed the same idea of reality to them as they do to those that
follow after the tenth chapter, the names of Adam, Abel, Seth, &c.
would be as common among the Jews of the present day, as are
those of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron.
In the superstition they have been in, scarcely a Jew family
would have been without an Enoch, as a presage of his going to
heaven as ambassador for the whole family. Every mother who
wished that the days of her son might be long in the land would
call him Methuselah ; and all the Jews that might have to traverse
the ocean would be named Noah, as a charm against shipwreck
and drowning.
This is domestic evidence against the book of Genesis, which
joined to the several kinds of evidence before recited, show the
book of Genesis not to be older than the Babylonian captivity,
and to be fictitious. I proceed to fix the character and antiquity
of the book of
JOB.
The book of Job has not the least appearance of being a book
of the Jews, and though printed among the books of the Bible,
does not belong to it. There is no reference in it to any Jewish

286 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
law or ceremony. On the contrary, all the internal evidence 1.
contains shows it to be a book of the Gentiles, either of Persia or
Chaldea. The name of Job does not appear to be a Jewish name.
There is no Jew of that name in any of the books of the Bible
neither is there now that I ever heard of. The country where Job
is said or supposed to have lived, or rather where the scene ofthe
drama is laid, is called Uz, and there was no place of that name
ever belonging to the Jews. If Uz is the same as Ur, it was in
Chaldea, the country of the Gentiles.
The Jews can give no account how they came by this book, not
who was the author, nor the time when it was written. Origen, in
his work against Celsus, (in the first ages of the Christian church,)
says, that the book of Job is older than Moses. Eben-Ezra, the
Jewish commentator, whom (as I have before said) the bishop al
lows to have been a man of great erudition, and who certainly
understood his own language, says, that the book of Job has
been translated from another language into Hebrew. Spinosa,
another Jewish commentator of great learning, confirms the
opinion of Eben-Ezra, and says moreover, " Je crois que Job
etait Gentie ;* I believe that Job was a Gentile.
The bishop, (in his answer to me,) says, " that the structure of
the whole book of Job, in whatever light of history or drama it be
considered, is founded on the belief that prevailed with the Per
sians and Chaldeans, and other Gentile nations, of a good and
an evil spirit."
In speaking of the good and evil spirit of the Persians, the
bishop writes them Arimanius and Oromasdes. I will not dis
pute about the orthography, because I know that translated names
are differently spelled in different languages. But he has never
theless made a capital error. He has put the Devil first ; for
Arimanius, or, as it is more generally written, Ahriman, is the
evil spirit, and Oromasdes or Ormusd the good spirit. He has
made the same mistake in the same paragraph, in speaking of the
good and evil spirit of the ancient Egyptians Osiris and Typho,
he puts Typho before Osiris. The error is just the same as if the
bishop in writing about the Christian religion, or in preaching a
sermon, were to say the Devil and God. A priest ought to know
* Soinosa on the ceremonies of the Jews, page 296, published in French at
Amsterdam, 1678.

OF LLANDAFF. 287
nis own trade better. We agree, however, about the structure of
the book of Job, that it is Gentile. I have said in the second part
of the Age of Reason, and given my reasons for it, that the
drama of it is not Hebrew.
From the testimonies I have cited, that of Origen, who, about
fourteen hundred years ago, said that, the book of Job was more
ancient than Moses, that of Eben-Ezra, who, in his commentary
on Job, says, it has been translated from another language (and
consequently from a Gentile language) into Hebrew ; that of
Spinosa, who not only says the same thing, but that the author of
it was a Gentile ; and that of the bishop, who says that the
structure of the whole book is Gentile. It follows then in the
first place, that the book of Job is not a book of the Jews
Originally. Then, in order to determine to what people or nation any book
of religion belongs, we must compare it with the leading dogmas
and precepts of that people or nation ; and, therefore, upon the
bishop's own construction, the book of Job belongs either to the
ancient Persians, the Chaldeans, or the Egyptians ; because the
structure of it is consistent with the dogma they held, that of
a good and evil spirit, called in Job, God and Satan, existing as
distinct and separate beings, and it is not consistent with any
dogma ofthe Jews.
The belief of a good and an evil spirit, existing as distinct and
separate beings, is not a dogma to be found in any ofthe books of
the Bible. It is not till we come to the New Testament that we
hear of any such dogma. There the person called the Son of
God, holds conversation with Satan on a mountain, as familiarly
as is represented in the drama of Job. Consequently the bishop
cannot say, in this respect, that the New Testament is founded
upon the Old. According to the Old, the God of the Jews was
the God of every thing. All good and evil came from him. Ac
cording to Exodus it was God, and not the Devil, that hardened
Pharoah's heart. According to the book of Samuel, it was an
evil spirit from God that troubled Saul. And Ezekiel makes God
to say, in speaking of the Jews, " I gave them the statutes that
were not good, and judgments by which they should not live."
The Bible describes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
such a contradictory manner, and under such a two fold character,
there would be no knowing when he was in earnest and when in

288 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
irony ; when to believe, and when not. As to the precepts, prin
ciples, and maxims, in the book of Job, they show that fhe people,
abusively called the heathen in the books of the Jews, had the
most sublime ideas ofthe Creator, and the most exalted devotion
al morality. It was the Jews who dishonoured God. It was the
Gentiles who glorified him. As to the fabulous personifications
introduced by the Greek and Latin poets, it was a corruption of
the ancient religion of the Gentiles, which consisted in the adora
tion of a first cause of the works of the creation, in which
the sun was the great visible agent.
It appears to have been a religion of gratitude and adoration,
and not of prayer and discontented solicitation. In Job we find
adoration and submission, but not prayer. Even the ten com
mandments enjoin not prayer. Prayer has been added to devo
tion, by the church of Rome, as the instrument of fees and per
quisites. All prayers by the priests of the Christian church,
whether public or private, must be paid for. It may be right,
individually, to pray for virtues, or mental instruction, but not for
things. It is an attempt to dictate to the Almighty in the gbvern-
ment ofthe world. But to return to the book of Job.
As the book of Job decides itself to be a book of the Gentiles,
the next thing is to find out to what particular nation it belongs,
and lastly, what is its antiquity.
As a composition, it is sublime, beautiful, and scientific : full of
sentiment, and abounding in grand metaphorical description. As
a drama, it is regular. The dramatis personoe, the persons per
forming the several parts, are regularly introduced, and speak
without interruption or confusion. The scene, as I have before
said, is laid in the country ofthe Gentiles, and the unities, though
not always necessary in a drama, are observed here as strictly as
the subject would admit.
In the last act, where the Almighty is introduced as speaking
from the whirlwind, to decide the controversy between Job and
his friends, it is an idea as grand as poetical imagination can con
ceive. What follows of Job's future prosperity does not belong
to it as a drama. It is an epilogue of the writer, as the first verses
of the first chapter, which gave an account of Job, his country
and his riches, are the prologue.
The book carries the appearance of being the work of some of
the Persian Magi, not only because the structure of it corresponds

OF LLANDAFF. 289
to the dogmas of the religion of those people, as founded by Zo
roaster, but from the astronomical references in it to the constel
lations of the zodiac and other objects in the heavens, of which the
sun, in their religion called Mithra, was the chief. Job, in des
cribing the power of God, (Job ix. v. 27,) says, "Who command-
eth the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars — who alona
spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves ofthe sea
— who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of
the south." All this astronomical allusion is consistent with the
religion of the Persians.
Establishing then the book of Job, as the work of some of the
Persian, or Eastern Magi, the case naturally follows, that when the
Jews returned from captivity, by the permission of Cyrus, king of
Persia ; they brought this book with them : had it translated into
Hebrew, and put into their scriptural canons, which were not form
ed till after their return. This will account for the name of Job
being mentioned in Ezekiel, (Ezekiel, chap. xiv. v. 14,) who was
one of the captives, and also for its not being mentioned in any
book said or supposed to have been written before the captivity.
Among the astronomical allusions in the book, there is ono
which serves to fix its antiquity. It is that where God is made to
say to Job, in the style of reprimand, " Canst thou bind the sweet
influences of Pleiades." (Chap, xxxviii. ver. 31.) As the ex
planation of this depends upon astronomical calculation, I will, for
the sake of those who would not otherwise understand it, endeav
our to explain it as clearly as the subject will admit.
The Pleiades are a cluster of pale, milky stars, about the size of
a man's hand, in the constellation Taurus, or in English, the Bull.
It is one of the constellations of the zodiac, of which there are
twelve, answering to the twelve months ofthe year. The Pleiades
are visible in the winter nights, but not in the summer nights, be
ing then below the horizon.
The zodiac is an imaginary belt or circle in the heavens, eigh
teen degrees broad, in which the sun apparently makes his annual
course, and in which all the planets move. When the sun appears
to our view to be between us and the group of stars forming such
or such a constellation, he is said to be in that constellation. Con
sequently the constellation he appears to be in, in the summer, are
directly opposite to those he appeared in in the winter, and the
same with respect to spring and autumn.
37

290 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
The zodiac, besides being divided into twelve constellations, is
also, like every other circle, great or small, divided into 360 equal
parts, called degrees ; consequently each constellation contains
30 degrees. The constellations ofthe zodiac are generally called
signs, to distinguish them from the constellations that are placed
out ofthe zodiac, and this is the name I shall now use.
The precession ofthe equinoxes is the part most difficult to ex
plain, arid it is on this that the explanation chiefly depends.
The equinoxes correspond to the two seasons ofthe year when
he sun makes equal day and night.

The following is a disconnected part of the same work, and is now (1S24)
first published.

SABBATH, OR SUNDAY.
The seventh day, or more properly speaking the period of seven
days, was originally a numerical division of time and nothing
more ; and had the bishop been acquainted with the history of as
tronomy, he would have known this. The annual revolution ofthe
earth makes what we call a year.
The year is artificially divided into months, the months into
weeks of seven days, the days into hours, &c. The period of
seven days, like any other of the artificial divisions ofthe year, is
only a fractional part thereof, contrived for the convenience of
countries. It is ignorance, imposition, and priest-craft, that have called it
otherwise. They might as well talk ofthe Lord's month, of the
Lord's week, of the Lord's hour, as of the Lord's day. All time
is his, and no part of it is more holy or more sacred than another.
It is, however, necessary to the trade of a priest, that he should
preach up a distinction of days.
Before the science of astronomy was studied and carried to the
degree of eminence to which it was by the Egyptians and Chalde
ans, the people of those times had no other helps, than what com-

OF LLANDAFF. 291
mon observation ofthe very visible changes ofthe sun and moon
afforded, to enable them to keep an account of the progress of
time. As far as history establishes the point, the Egyptians were
the first people who divided the year into twelve months. Hero
dotus, who lived above two thousand two hundred years ago, and
is the most ancient historian whose works have reached our time,
says, they did this by the knowledge they had ofthe stars. As to
the Jews, there is not one single improvement in any science or
in any scientific art, that they ever produced. They were the
most ignorant of all the illiterate world. If the word ofthe Lord
had come to them, as they pretend, and as the bishop professes to
believe, and that they were to be the harbingers of it to the rest of
the world ; the Lord would have taught them the use of letters, and
the art of printing ; for without the means of communicating the
word, it could not be communicated ; whereas letters were the in
vention of the Gentile world ; and printing of the modern world.
But to return to my subject —
Before the helps which the science of astronomy afforded, the
people as before said, had no other, whereby to keep an account
ofthe progress of time, than what the common and very visible
changes of the sun and moon afforded. They saw that a great
number of days made a year, but the account of them was too tedi
ous, and too difficult to be kept numerically, from one to three
hundred and sixty-five ; neither did they know the true time of a
solar year. It, therefore, became necessary, -for the purpose of
marking the progress of days, to put them into small parcels, such
as are now called weeks ; and which consisted as they now do of
seven days. By this means the memory was assisted as it is with
us at this day ; for we do not say of any thing that is past, that it
was fifty, sixty, or seventy days ago, but that it was so many
weeks, or, if longer time, so many months. It is impossible to
keep an account of time without helps of this kind.
Julian Scaliger, the inventer ofthe Julian period of 7,980 years,
produced by multiplying the cycle of the moon, the cycle of the
sun, and the years of an indiction, 19, 2S, 15, into each other :
says, that the custom of reckoning by periods of seven days was
used by the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the people of
India, the Arabs, and by all the nations of the east.
In addition to what Scaliger says, it is evident that in Britain, in
Germany, and the north of Europe, they reckoned by periods of

292 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
seven days, long before the book called the bible, was known in
those parts ; and, consequently, that they did not take that mode of
reckoning from any thing written in that book.
That they reckoned by periods of seven days is evident from
their having seven names and no more for the several days ; and
which have not the most distant relation to any thing in the book of
Genesis, or to that which is called the fourth commandment.
Those names are still retained in England, with no other altera
tion than what has been produced by moulding the Saxon and Da
nish languages into modern English.
1. Sun-day from Sunne the sun, and dag, day, Saxon. Sondag,
Danish. The day dedicated to the sun.
2. Monday, that is, njoonday, from Mona, the moon, Saxon.
Moano, Danish. Day dedicated to the moon.
3, Tuesday, that is Tuis-co's-day. The day dedicated to the
Idol Tuisco.
4. Wednes-day, that is Woden's-day. The day dedicated to
Woden, the mars of the Germans.
5. Thursday, that is, Thor's-day dedicated to the Idol Thor.
6. Friday, that is Friga's-day. The day dedicated to Friga
the Venus of the Saxons.
Saturday from Seaten (Saturn) an Idol of the Saxons ; one of
the emblems representing time, which continually terminates and
renews itself: The last day ofthe period of seven days. When
we see a certain mode of reckoning general among nations totally
unconnected, differing from each other in religion and in govern
ment, and some of them unknown to each other, vve may be certain
that it arises from some natural and common cause, prevail
ing alike over all, and which strikes every one in the same manner.
Thus all nations have reckoned arithmetically by tens, because the
people of all nations have ten fingers. If they had more or less
than ten, the mode of arithmetical reckoning would have followed
that number, for the fingers are a natural numeration table to all
the world. I now come to show why the period of seven days
is so generally adopted.
Though the sun is the great luminary of the world, and the ani
mating cause of all the fruits of the earth, the moon by renewing
herself more than twelve times oftener than the sun, which does
it but once a year, served the rustic world as a natural almanac,
as the fingers served it for a numeration table. All the world could

OF LLANDAFF. 293
see the moon, her changes, and hermonthly revolutions ; and theit
mode of reckoning time, was accommodated as nearly as could
possibly be done in round numbers, to agree with the changes of
that planet, their natural almanac.
The moon performs her natural revolution round the earth in
twenty-nine days and a half. She goes from a new moon to a half
moon, to a full moon, to a half moon gibbous or convex, and then
to a new moon again. Each of these changes is performed in
seven days and nine hours; but seven days is the nearest division
in round numbers that could be taken ; and this was sufficient to
suggest the universal custom of reckoning by periods of seven
days, since it is impossible to reckon time without some stated
period. How the odd hours could be disposed of without interfering
with the regular periods of seven days, in case the ancients recom
menced a new Septenary period with every new moon, required no
more difficulty than it did to regulate the Egyptian Calender after
wards of twelve months of thirty days each, or the odd hour in the
Julian Calender, or the odd days and hours in the French Calen
dar. In all cases it is done by the addition of complementary
days ; and it can be done in no otherwise.
The bishop knows that as the Solar year does not end at the
termination of what we call a day, but runs some hours into the
next day, as the quarters of the Moon runs some hours beyond
seven days ; that it is impossible to give the year any fixed num
ber of days, that will not in course of years become wrong, and
make a complimentary time necessary to keep the nominal year
parallel with the solar year. The same must have been the case
with those who regulated time formerly by lunar revolutions.
They would have to add three days to every second moon, or in
that proportion, in order to make the new moon and the new
week commence together like the nominal year and the solar year
Diodorus of Sicily, who, as before said, lived before Christ was
born, in giving an account of times much anterior to his own,
speaks of years, of three months, of four months, and of six months.
These could be of no other than years composed of lunar revolu
tions, and, therefore, to bring the several periods of seven days, to
agree with such years there must have been complementary days.
The moon was the first almanac the world knew ; and the only
one which the face of the heavens afforded to common spectators.

294 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
Her changes and her revolutions have entered into all the Calen
ders that have been known in the known world.
The division of the year into twelve months, which, as before
shown, was first done by the Egyptians, though arranged with as
tronomical knowledge, had reference to the twelve moons, or more
properly speaking, to the twelve lunar revolutions that appear in
the space of a solar year ; as the period of seven days had refer
ence to one revolution of the moon. The feasts of the Jews were,
and those of the Christian church still are, regulated by the moon.
The Jews observed the feasts of the new moon and full moon, and,
therefore, the period of seven days was necessary to them.
All the feasts ofthe Christian church are regulated by the moon.
That called Easter goyerns all the rest, and the moon governs
Easter. It is always the first Sunday after the first full moon
that happens after the vernal Equinox, or 21st of March.
In proportion as the science of astronomy was studied and im
proved by the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and the solar year regu
lated by astronomical observations, the custom of reckoning by
lunar revolutions became of less use, and in time discontinued.
But such is the harmony of all parts of the machinery of the
universe, that a calculation made from the motion of one part will
correspond with the motion of some other.
The period of seven days deduced from the revolution of the
moon round the earth, corresponded nearer than any other period
of days would do to the revolution of the earth round the sun.
Fifty-two periods of seven days make 364, which is within one
day and some odd hours of a solar year ; and there-is no other pe
riodical number that will do the same, till we come to the number
thirteen, which is too great for common use, and the numbers before
seven are too small. The custom, therefore, of reckoning by
periods of seven days, as best suited to the revolution of the
moon, applied with equal convenience to the solar year, and be
came united with it. But the decimal division of time, as regulated
by the, French Calendar, is superior to every other method.
There is no part ofthe Bible that is supposed to have been writ
ten by persons who lived before the time of Josiah, (which was a
thousand years after the time of Moses,) that mentions anything
about the sabbath as a day consecrated to that which is called the
fourth commandment, or that the Jews kept any such day. Had
any such day been kept, during the thousand years of which I am

OF LLANDAFF 295
speaking, it certainly would have been mentioned frequently ; and
that it should never be mentioned, is strong, presumptive, and cir
cumstantial evidence that no such day was kept. But mention is
often made of the feasts of the new-moon, and of the full-moon ;
for the Jews, as before shown, worshipped the moon ; and the
word sabbath was applied by the Jews to the feasts of that planet,
and to those of their other deities. It is said in Hosea, chap. 2,
verse 11, in speaking ofthe Jewish nation, " And I will cause all
her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new-moons, and her sab
baths, and all her solemn feasts." Nobody will be so foolish as
to contend that the sabbaths here spoken of are Mosaic sabbaths.
The construction of the verse implies they are lunar sabbaths, or
sabbaths of the moon. It ought also to be observed that Hosea
lived in the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, about seventy years before
the time of Josiah, when the law called the law of Moses is said
to have been found ; and, consequently, the, sabbaths that Hosea
speaks of are sabbaths of the Idolatry.
When those priestly reformers, (impostors I should call them,)
Hilkiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, began to produce books under the
name of the books of Moses, they found the word sabbath in use :
and as to the period of seven days, it is, like numbering arithmeti
cally by tens, from time immemorial. But having found them in
use, they continued to make them serve to the support of their
new imposition. They trumped up a story of the creation being
made in six days, and ofthe Creator resting on the seventh, to suit
with the lunar and chronological period of seven days ; and they
manufactured a commandment to agree with both. Impostors
always work in this manner. They put fables for originals, and
causes for effects.
There is scarcely any part of science, or any thing in nature,
which those impostors and blasphemers of science, called priests,
as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, per
verted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and false
hood. Every thing wonderful in appearance, has been ascribed
to angels, to devils, or to saints. Every thing ancient has some
legendary tale annexed to it. The common opperations of nature
have not escaped their practice of corrupting every thing.

296 REPLY TO THE BISHOP
FUTURE STATE.
The idea of a future state was an universal idea to all nations
except the Jews. At the time and long before Jesus Christ and
the men called his disciples were born, it had been sublimely
treated of by Cicero in his book on old age, by Plato, Socrates,
Xenophon, and other of the ancient theologists, whom the abu
sive Christian church calls heathen. Xenophon represents the
elder Cyrus speaking after this manner ; —
" Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart from you,
I shall be no more : but remember that my soul, even while I
lived among you, was invisible to you ; yet by my actions you
were sensible it existed in this body. Believe it therefore existing
still, though it be still unseen. How quickly would the honors of
illustrious men perish after death, if their souls performed nothing
to preserve their fame? For my own part, I could never think
that the soul, while in a mortal body, lives, but when departed from
it dies ; or that its consciousness is lost, when it is discharged
out of an unconscious habitation. But when it is freed from all
corporeal alliance, it is then that it truly exists."
Since then the idea of a future existence was universal, it may
be asked, what new doctrine does the New Testament contain?
I answer, that of corrupting the theory of the ancient theologists,
Dy annexing to it the heavy and gloomy doctrine of the resurrec
tion of the body.
As to the resurrection of the body, whether the same body or
another, it is a miserable conceit, fit only to be preached to man
as an animal. It is not worthy to be called doctrine. — Such an
idea never entered the brain of any visionary but those of the
Christian church ; — yet it is in this that the novelty of the !New
Testament consists. All the other matters serve but as props to
this, and those props are most wretchedly put together.

MIRACLES.
The Christian church is full of miracles. In one ofthe churches
of Brabant, they show a number of cannon balls, which, they say,

OF LLANDAFF. 297
the virgin Mary in some former war, caught in her muslin apron
as they came roaring out of the cannon's mouth, to prevent their
hurting the saints of her favourite army. She does no such feats
now-a-days. Perhaps the reason is, that the infidels have taken
away her muslin apron. They show also, between Montmatre
and the village of St. Dennis, several places where they say St.
Dennis stopt with his head in his hands after it had been cut off
at Montmatre. The Protestants will call those things lies ; and
where is the proof that all the other things called miracles are not
as great lies as those.
[There appears to be an omission here in the copy, j
Christ, say those Cabalists, came in the fulness of time. And
pray what is the fulness of time? The words admit of no idea.
They are perfectly Cabalistical. Time is a word invented to de
scribe to our conception a greater or less portion of eternity.
It may be a minute, a portion of eternity measured by the vibration
of a pendulum of a certain length ; — it may be a day, a year, a
hundred, or a thousand years, or any other quantity. Those por
tions are only greater or less comparatively.
The word fulness applies not to any of them. The idea of
fulness of time cannot be conceived. A woman with child and
ready for delivery, as Mary was when Christ was born, may be
said to have gone her full time ; but it is the woman that is full,
not time.
It may also be said figuratively, in certain cases, that the times
are full of events ; but time itself is incapable of being full of itself.
Ye hypocrites ! learn to speak intelligible language.
It happened to be a time of peace when they say Christ was
born ; and what then ? There had been many such intervals :
and have been many such since. Time was no fuller in any of
them than in the other. If he were he would be fuller now than
he ever was before. If he was full then he must be bursting now.
But peace or war have relation to circumstances, and not to
time ; and those Cabalists would be at as much loss to make out
any meaning to fulness of circumstances, as to fulness of time ;
and if they could, it would be fatal ; for fulness of circumstances
would mean, when there are no more circumstances to happen ;
and fulness of time when there is no more time to follow.
38

29S REPLY TO THE BISHOP
Christ, therefore, like every other person, was neither in the
fulness of one nor the other.
But though we cannot conceive the idea of fulness of time, be
cause we cannot have conception of a time when there shall be no
time ; nor of fulness of circumstances, because we cannot con
ceive a state of existence to be without circumstances ; we can
often see, after a thing is past, if any circumstance, necessary to
give the utmost activity and success to that thing, was wanting at
the time that thing took place. If such a circumstance was want
ing, we may be certain that the thing which took place, was not a
thing of God's ordaining ; whose work is always perfect, and his
means perfect means. They tell us that Christ was the Son of
God ; in that case, he would have known every thing ; and he
came upon earth to make known the will of God to man through
out the whole earth. If this had been true, Christ would have
known and would have been furnished with all the possible means
of doing it ; and would have instructed mankind, or at least his
apostles, in the use of such of the means as they could use them
selves to facilitate the accomplishment of the mission ; conse
quently he would have instructed them in the art of printing, for
the press is the tongue of the world ; and without which, his or
their preaching was less than a whistle compared to thunder.
Since, then, he did not do this, he had not the means necessary to
the mission ; and consequently had not the mission.
They tell us in the book of Acts, chap, ii, a very stupid story of
the Apostles' having the gift of tongues ; and cloven tongues of fire
descended and sat upon each of them. Perhaps it was this story
of cloven tongues that gave rise to the notion of slitting Jackdaws
tongues to make them talk. Be that however as it may, the gift
ot tongues, even ifit were true, would be but of little use without
the art of printing. I can sit in my chamber, as I do while writing
this, and by the aid of printing, can send the thoughts I am writing
through the greatest part of Europe, to the East Indies, and over
all North America, in a few months. Jesus Christ and his apos
ties could not do this. They had not the means, and the want of
means detects the pretended mission.
There are three modes of communication. Speaking, writing
and printing. The first is exceedingly limited. A man's voice
can be heard but a few yards of distance : and his person can be
but in one place.

OF LLANDAFF. 299
Writing is much more extensive ; but the thing written cannot
be multiplied but at great expense, and the multiplication will be
slow and incorrect. Were there no other means of circulating
what priests call the word of God (the Old and New Testament)
than by writing copies) those copies could not be purchased at less
than forty pounds sterling each ; consequently, but few people
could purchase, them, while the writers could scarcely obtain a
livelihood by it. But the art of printing changes all the cases, and
opens a scene as vast as the world. It gives to man a sort of
divine attribute. It gives to him mental omnipresence. He can
be every where and at the same instant ; for wherever he is read
he is mentally there..
The case applies not only against the pretended mission of
Christ and his apostles, but against every thing that priests call
the word of God, and against all those who pretend to deliver it ;
for had God ever delivered any verbal word, he would have taught
the means of communicating it. The one without the other is
inconsistent with the wisdom we conceive of the Creator.
The third chapter of Genesis, verse 21, tells us that God made
coats of skins and cloathed Adam and Eve. It was infinitely
more important that man should be taught the art of printing, than
that Adam should be taught to make a pair of leather breeches, or
his wife a petticoat.
There is another matter, equally striking and important, that
connects itself with those observations against this pretended word
of God, this manufactured book, called Revealed Religion.
We know that whatever is of God's doing is unalterable by man
beyond the laws which the Creator has ordained. We cannot
make a tree grow with the root in the air and the fruit in the ground ;
we cannot make iron into gold nor gold into iron ; we cannot
make rays of light shine forth rays of darkness, nor darkness shine
forth light. If there were such a thing, as a word of God, it would
possess the same properties which all his other works do. It would
resist destructive alteration. But we see that the book which
they call the word of God has not this property. That book says,
Genesis chap. 1, verse 27, "So God created man in his own
image ;" but the printer can make it say, So man created God in
his own image. The words are passive to every transposition of
them, or can be annihilated and others put in their places. This
is not the case with any thing that is of God's doing ; and, there-

300 REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF.
fore, this book, called the word of God, tried by the same universal
rule which every otheri of God's works within our reach can be
tried by, proves itself to be a forgery.
The bishop says, that "miracles are proper proofs of a divine
mission." Admitted. But we know that men, and especially
priests, can tell lies and call them miracles. It is therefore neces
sary, that the thing called a miracle be proved to be true, and also
to be miraculous ; before it can be admitted as proof of the thing
called revelation.
The bishop must be a bad logician not to know that one doubt
ful thing cannot be admitted as proof that another doubtful thing
is true. It would be like attempting to prove a liar not to be a
liar, by the evidence of another, who is as great a liar as himself.
Though Jesus Christ, by being ignorant of the art of printing,
shows he had not the means necessary to a divine mission, and
consequently had no such mission ; it does not follow that if he
had known that art, the divinity of what they call his mission would
be proved thereby, any more than it proved the divinity of the man
who invented printing. Something, therefore, beyond printing,
even if he had known it, was necessary as a miracle, to have
proved that what he delivered was the word of God ; and this was
that the book in which that word should be contained, which is
now called the Old and New Testament, should possess the mirac
ulous property, distinct from all human books, of resisting altera
tion. This would be not only a miracle, but an ever existing and
universal miracle ; whereas, those which they tell us of, even if
they had been true, were momentary and local ; they would leave no
trace behind, after the lapse of a few years, of having ever existed ;
but this would prove, in all ages and in all places, the book to be
divine and not human ; as effectually, and as conveniently, as
aquafortis proves gold to 'be gold by not being capable of acting
upon it ; and detects all other metals and all counterfeit composi
tion, by dissolving them. Since then the only miracle capable of
every proof is wanting, and which every thing that is of a divine
origin possesses ; all the tales of miracles with which the Old and
New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and
fools to believe.

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY

= OjOC

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.
This tract is a chapter belonging to the third part of the Age of
Reason, as will be seen by the references made in it to preced
ing articles, as forming a part of the same work. It was culled
from the writings of Mr. Paine, after his death, and published in a
mutilated state, by Mrs. Bonneville, his executrix. Passages hav
ing a reference to the Christian religion she erased, with a view,
no doubt, of accommodating the work to the prejudices of bigotry,
These, however, have been restored from the original manuscript,
excepting a few lines which were rendered illegible.
The masonic society had committed nothing to print until the
year 1722, when Doctor Anderson's book of constitutions, &c. was
ordered by the Grand Lodge to be printed. Since that time the
masons have .published many works respecting the fraternity, all of
which, through design or want of information, tend to obscure
and embarrass the subject ; and as the society had adopted the
custom ofthe priests ofthe ancient Britons, called Druids, to keep
their proceedings an entire secret, mankind in general, including
the greater portion of the brethren themselves, have remained in
utter ignorance in regard to its establishment and original intention.
Various speculations therefore continue to be made respecting the
origin of the society, and its views at the time of its formation ;
and Mr. Paine among the rest, with all his sagacity, has suffered
himself to be most egregiously deceived by such writings of the
masons as had fallen into his hands. These writers, in giving an
account of the society, take up the history of architecture as far
back as any record of it has survived the wreck of time. Where-
ever they can trace in history, whether true or fabulous, any ac
count of noble and grand structures, they presumptuously pro
nounce them to have been raised by their society. The pyramids
of Egypt, the tower of Babel, whose existence is doubted, and So
lomon's temple, about which there has probably been much lying,

302 PREFACE.
are all claimed by them. For what is this ridiculous parade, but
to make the uninitiated, as well as their own members, few of whom
know any thing about it, wonder at the astonishing antiquity of
the institution ? Would not the advice of Pope apply in this case 1
" Go ! and pretend your family is young,
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long."
If the antiquity of a sect or society proved its utility, or that it
was founded in correct principles ; the religion taught by the an
cient Egptians priests, or Judaism, ought to be preferred to Chris
tianity. There is no possible use to be derived from deception upon
this subject. The masonic society is undoubtedly very ancient ;
having commenced, in the city of York, in England, in the early
part ofthe tenth century ofthe Christian era ; and from thence it
spread into other parts of Europe. It was formed by men who
had some knowledge of rude architecture, such as it was at that
day, and working masons ; and had no other view than improve
ment in the art or craft of masonry. Which their writers dignify
with the title of royal craft, because some oftheir Kings have con
descended to become members of the society, for the purpose, no
doubt, of flattering their subjects to persevere in improvements iii
the art of building ; which was useful to them, as they always
stand in need of palaces, castles, and churches. The society is
composed of free men, none others are admitted, hence the term,
free masons. At first there were but three degrees, apprentice ;
fellow-craft, that is, one who had served an apprenticeship, and
was entitled to wages as a journeyman ; and master-mason. The
latter degree entitled its possessor to contract for building on his
own account. It was not until the beginning of the eighteenth
century, that any one, according to the regulations of the society,
could be admitted a member, who did not labour at the trade of
masonry, or knew something of architecture ; although, perhaps,
through favour, some were smuggled in who had very little or no
knowledge of that art.*

* The author of this Preface, although he has thrown considerable light up
on the subject, has been himself deceived by masonic writers in respect to the
origin ofthe existing society of Freemasons ; which is entirely speculative, ana
was instituted at the time when, he says, persons not being masons by trade
were first admitted as members, viz. in the early part of the eighteenth centuiy.
Late writers have shown, that the first Lodge ever established upon the exiisfr

PREFACE. 303
As to the mysteries of the craft, so much talked of, they are of
the same nature as those of carpentry, or any other trade ; and
consist in a knowledge of the art of masonry ; which was thought
much more of at the time the society was instituted, than at the
present day. The trifling rights and ceremonies, which the ma
sons borrowed from the ancient Druids, are mere allegories, and
symbolical signs and words, serving as a medium of secrecy, by
means of which the members of the society are enabled to recog
nize each other.
There is no more propriety in prefixing the term free to mason
ry, than there is to carpentry, smithery, or to any other trade.
It is inapplicable to any art or trade ; although it may be applied to
the professors of it. At the time the free masons' society was first
instituted in England there were in that kingdom both free men
and slaves in all the mechanical trades then in use. Doctor Hen
ry, in his history of Great Britain, giving an account ofthe differ
ent ranks of people, &c. from 449 to 1066, after stating that
slavery had been in some degree meliorated, observes, " But after
all these mitigations of the severities of slavery, the yoke of servi
tude was still very heavy, and the greater part of the labourers,
mechanics, and common people, groaned under that yoke at the
conclusion of this period."
All the writers upon this subject, who are members of the so
ciety, endeavour to conceal the origin and object of it. For what
reason it is dificult to imagine, except it be to keep the world in
amazement respecting it. Or, perhaps, their pride induces them
to contemn the humble, though laudable and useful purposes for
which the institution was formed. Enough, however, has appeared
in the old records which they have published to establish the view
I have taken of it, and which, when I commenced this preface, I
intended to have inserted ; but finding they would extend to too
ing speculative plan, was formed in London, in 1717; and that a similar society
was formed in Scotland, in 1736. These two lodges soon began to quarrel
about precedency ; each endeavouring to prove its priority by existing records
of the humble mechanical societies of labouring masons, which had been es
tablished in both kingdoms many centuries before. The Yorkites, in England,
it is believed, produced the oldest documents : both societies, however, continu
ed to grant dispensations for forming lodges in foreign countries.
From these two sources all the Freemason societies, upon the present es
tablishment, owe their origin. Nothing ofthe kind ever existed in Europe, or
any other quarter ofthe world, previously to 1717. Although ostensibly found
ed upon a society of real working masons, nothing is now taught in it, nor ever
has been, of that art, or any other art or science. — Ed.

304

PREFACE.

great a length, I am under the necessity of omitting them. I will,
however, make a few extracts from the old charges of the Free and
Accepted Masons, collected from their old records, at the com
mand of the Grand Master, by James Anderson, D. D. Ap
proved by the grand Lodge, and ordered to be printed in the first
edition ofthe book of constitutions, on March 25, 1722.
" Concerning God and religion. A mason is obliged, by his
tenure, to obey the moral law ; and if he rightly understands the
art, he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irreligious libertine.
But though in ancient times masons were charged in every coun
try to be ofthe religion of that country or nation, whatever it was,
yet it is now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that
religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular opinions
to themselves ; that is, to be good men and true, or men of honor
and honesty, by whatever denominations or persuasions they may
be distinguished ; whereby masonry becomes the centre of union,
and the means of conciliating true friendship among persons, that
must have remained at a perpetual distance.*
" Of lodges. A lodge is a place where masons assemble and
v» 3rh : hence that assembly, or duly organized society of masons;
is called a lodge ; and every brother ought to belong to one, and
to be subject to its By-Laws and the general regulations.
" The persons admitted members of a lodge, must be good and
true men, free-born, and of mature and discreet age, no bond
men, no women, no .immoral or scandalous men, but of good
report. " Of apprentices. Candidates may know, that no master should
take an apprentice, unless he has sufficient employment for him,
and unless he be a perfect youth, having no maim or defect in his
body, that may render him incapable of learning the art, of serv
ing his master's lord, and of being made a brother, and then a
fellow-craft in due time, even after he has served such a term of
* "William Preston, past master of the lodge of antiquity, in his illustrations
of masonry, makes the following remarks on the same subject. " The spirit
of the fulminating priest will be tamed ; and a moral brother, though of a dif
ferent persuasion, engage his esteem ; for mutual toleration in religious opin
ions is one of the most distinguishing and valuable characteristics of the craft.
As all religions teach morality, if a brother be found to act the part of a truly
honest man, his private speculative opinions are left to God and himself. Thus
through the influence of masonry, which is reconcilable to the best policy, all
those disputes which imbitter life, and sour the tempers of men, are avoided."

PREFACE. 305
years, as the custom of the country directs ; and that he shoNila
be descended of honest parents.
" Ofthe management of the craft in working. All masons shall
work honestly on working days, that they may live creditably on
holy days ; and the time appointed by the law ofthe land, or con
firmed by custom, shall be observed.
" The most expert of the fellow-craftmen shall be chosen, or
appointed the master or overseer of the lord's work ; who is to
be called master by those that work under him. The craftsmen
are to avoid all ill language, and to call each other by no disoblig
ing name, but brother or fellow ; and to behave themselves cour
teously within and without the lodge.
" The master, knowing himself to be able of cunning, shall un
dertake the lord's work as reasonably as possible, and truly dis-
pend his goods as if they were his own ; nor give more wages to
any brother or apprentice, than he really may deserve.
" Both the master and the masons receiving their wages justly,
shall be faithful to the lord, and honestly finish their work, whe
ther task or journey ; nor put the work to task that hath been
accustomed to journey.
" None shall discover envy at the prosperity of a brother, nor
supplant him, or put him out of his work, if he be capable to
finish the same ; for no man can finish another's work so much to
the lord's profit, unless he be thoroughly acquainted with the de
signs and draughts of him that began it.
" When a fellow-craftsman is chosen warden of the work under
the master, he shall be true both to master and fellows, shall care
fully oversee the work in the master's absence, to the lord's profit ;
and his brethren shall obey him.
" All masons employed, shall meekly receive their wages with
out murmuring or mutiny, and not desert the master till the work is
finished. " A younger brother shall be instructed in working, to prevent
spoiling the materials for want of judgment, and for increasing
and continuing of brotherly love.
" All the tools used in working shall be approved by the Grand
Lodge. "No labourer shall be employed in the proper work of masonry ;
nor shall Free Masons work with those that are not Free, without
39

306 PREFACE.
an urgent necessity ; nor shall they teach labourers and unaccept
ed masons, as they should teach a brother or fellow.
" Of behaviour in the Lodge while constituted. If any complaint
be brought, the brother found guilty shall stand to the award and
determination of the lodge, who are the proper and competent
judges of all such controversies, (unless you carry it by appeal to
the Grand Lodge,) and to whom they ought to be referred, unless
a lord's work be hindered the mean while, in which case a par
ticular reference may be made ; but you must never go to law
about what concerneth masonry, without an absolute necessity ap
parent to the lodge.
': F'tirmiour in presence of strangers not masons. You shall be
cautious in your words and carriage, that the most penetrating
stranger shall not be able to discover or find out what is not pro
per to De intimated ; and sometimes you shaii divert a discourse,
and manage it prudently for the honour of the worshipful fra
ternity. "Behaviour at home, and in your neighbourhood. You are to act
as becomes a moral and wise man ; particularly, not to let your
family, friends, and neighbours know the concerns of the Lodge,
&c, but wisely to consult your own honour, and that of the an
cient brotherhood. You must also consult your health, by not
continuing together too late, or too long from home, after lodge
hours are past, d.nu oy avoiding of gluttony and drunkenness that
your families be not neglected or injured, nor you disabled from
working. " Behaviour toioards a strange brother. You are cautiously to
examine him, in such a method as prudence shall direct you, that
you may not be imposed upon by an ignorant false pretender,
whom you are to reject with contempt and derision, and beware of
giving him any hints of knowledge.
" But if you discover him to be a true and genuine brother, you
are to respect him accordingly ; and if he is in want, you must
relieve him if you can, or else direct him how he may be relieved;
you must employ him some days, or else recommend him to be
employed. But you are not charged to do beyond your ability,
only to prefer a poor brother that is a good man and true, Defore
any other poor people in the same circumstances."
All the old charges have a reference to Free Masons in the ca
ipacity of labourers, and as " good men and true," and, no doubt,

PREFACE. 307
had a beneficial effect. But the substance has been lost sight of,
and the skeleton, or shadow, only retained. The mummery of the
Druidical priests, with infinite additions of the same cast, is cher
ished as the desideratum of knowledge, calculated to complete the
sum of human happiness and perfection. The corruptions of the
Society seem to have kept pace with those of the Christian reli
gion. It is at this day as different to what it was, as the Christian
ity now professed is to the religion taught by Jesus Christ. In his
time there were no Doctors of Divinity — Right Reverend Fathers
in God, nor their Holinesses the Popes. Neither were there in
the Society of Free Masons, at its commencement, any Grand
Secretaries — Grand Treasurers — Knights of Malta — Captain
Generals — Generalissamos — Most Excellent Scribes — Most Ex
cellent High Priests — Most Excellent Kings, &c. &c* To
which might now, perhaps, very appropriately be added, Grand
bottle holder and cork drawer.
The admission into the society of kings, princes, noblemen,
bishops, and doctors in divinity, as patrons of the institution, has
probably been the cause of so great change. These men, it may
be presumed, brought much of their consequence with them into
the Lodge, and were, no doubt, addressed in a manner suitable
to their supposed dignity in other stations. At any rate, by what
ever means these high sounding titles may have been introduced,
they appear ridiculous when applied to members of an institution
founded for such purpose as that of the Masonic Society, and
ought to be abandoned.
It is difficult, at this time, for members of the Society, or any
body else, to say what benefit is to be derived from the magical
arts pretended to be practised in the Lodges. The mystic rites
and ceremonies ofthe Egyptian priests, handed down to the Druids
by Pythagoras ; the miraculous stories related of the ancient
Jews ; and the legendary tales of Roman Catholic superstition,
fruitful sources of imposition, have been ransacked to find subjects
for new degrees to be tacked to the Society of Free Masons. I
have in my possession a list of forty-three degrees in what is
called Free Masonry ; one of which is the order of the Holy
Ghost. * This is true, if reference • be made to what it was, when under the manage
ment of the real masons, the operatives previously to the year 1717.

308

PREFACE.

If, as here represented, all this, mystical nonsense has been ob
truded into the Society, it may be asked, why do men of sense
attach themselves to it ? I answer, many retire from it after taking
two or three degrees ; some have political or other sinister views
which retain them ; and, furthermore, most men are fond of dis
tinction in some wiy. Any man, of common understanding, by
being punctual at the meetings, and paying strict attention to the
ceremonies, may become a Warden, that is, overseer, or some
other grand office, even that of Most Worshipful Grand Master;
and in the mean time, keep mounting up the ladder, from mystery
to mystery, till he arrives at the forty-third degree of perfection :
which, however, in my opinion, cannot be of the least possible ad
vantage to him here or hereafter, any further than the consequence
it may give him. As to those who serve inthe ranks, they probably
consider themselves sufficiently honored by being hailed as broth
ers by those whom they think their superiors, and permitted to
parade the streets with ribbands and white aprons, to the amaze
ment of the profane vulgar.
Notwithstanding the remarks I have made, I am by no means
inimical to the Masonic Society ; for I believe it to be a liberal,
social institution, in which persons of the most opposite opinions
on religious and political subjects associate in the utmost harmony.
By these friendly meetings, it is to be presumed, that party spirit,
both in politics and religion, loses much of its asperity among the
members ; and that those, who otherwise might have entertained
hostile feelings towards each other, become friends. In this point
of view, the Society deserves to be held in the highest estimation ;
for however laudable zeal may be in a just cause, when carried to
excess, so as to excite personal ill-will towards others of contrary
opinions, it degenerates into its kindred vice, leading to hatred
and persecution. No good reason can be given why men of the
same or similar societies should entertain greater partiality for one
another, than for others of their fellow-men, any further than their
merits when known may deserve ; and to this it is generally limit
ed among men of sense : still, in consequence of the obligations
by which Masons are bound to each other, and a sort of bigotry
in many, this partiality has had its good effects in mitigating tho
evils of war ; and, for men who travel, a diploma from a Lodge
has passed as a letter of recommendation in foreign countries.

PREFACE. 309
As a charitable institution, the Masonic Society ought to be
neld in high consideration. The relief it grants to its members
and their families in distress, is very considerable. But, unfortu
nately, as I am told, its means are very much exhausted by ex
penses incurred for refreshments at the regular meetings. If
each member were required to pay for what he consumes at those
meetings, the society, in consequence of its numbers, by its in
come arising from annual contributions, fees of initiation, &c,
would be enabled to do more in charity, perhaps, than any private
society in existence.
As to what Mr. Paine has said upon this abstruse subject, I take
the liberty of observing, that, in my opinion, notwithstanding the
talents he has bestowed upon it, and the interest he has given to
it, his remarks, made doubtless in the utmost sincerity, are calcu
lated to perplex and embarrass readers not conversant in these
matters, as much as those of any other author, whose design was
to involve it in unintelligible mystery.
"In thoughts more elevate, he reasor.ed high,
But found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost"

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.

It is always understood that Free-Masons have a secret which
they carefully conceal ; but from every thing that can be collected
from their own accounts of Masonry, their real secret is no other
than their origin, which but few of them understand ; and those
who do, envelope it in mystery.
The Society of Masons are distinguished into three classes or
degrees. 1st. The entered apprentice. 2d. The Fellow-Craft.
3d. The Master Mason.
The entered apprentice knows but little more of Masonry, than
the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words, by which
Masons can recognize each other, without being discovered by
a person who is not a Mason. The fellow-craft is not much bet
ter instructed in Masonry, than the entered apprentice. It is
only in the Master Mason's lodge, that whatever knowledge re
mains ofthe origin of Masonry is preserved and concealed.
In 1730, Samuel Pritchard, member of a constituted lodge in
England, published a treatise entitled Masonry Dissected; and
made oath before the Lord Mayor of London, that it was a true
copy. " Samuel Pritchard maketh oath that the copy hereunto annex
ed is a true and genuine copy in every particular."
In his work he has given the catechism, or examination, in
question and answer, of the apprentices, the fellow-craft, and the
Master Mason. There was no difficulty in doing this, as it is
mere form.
In his introduction he says, " the original institution of Mason
ry consisted in the foundation of the liberal arts and sciences, but

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 311
more especially in Geometry, for at the building of the tower of
Bable, the art and mystery of Masonry was first introduced, and
from thence handed down by Euclid, a worthy and excellent ma-
thematichn of the Egyptians ; and he communicated it to Hiram,
the M^" Mason concerned in building Solomon's Temple in
Jerasa.o.ii. Besides the absurdity of deriving Masonry from the building of
Babel, where, according to the story, the confusion of languages
prevented the builders understanding each other, and consequent
ly of communicating any knowledge they had there, is a glaring
contradiction in point of chronology in the account he gives.
Solomon's Temple was built and dedicated 1004 years before
the Christian era ; and Euclid, as may be seen in the tables of
chronology, lived 277 years before the same era. It was there
fore impossible that Euclid could communicate any thing to
Hiram, since Euclid did not live till 700 years after the time of
Hiram. In 1783, Captain George Smith, inspector of the Royal Artil
lery Academy at Woolwich, in England, and Provincial Grand
Master of Masonry for the county of Kent, published a treatise
entitled, The Use and Abuse of Free-Masonry.
In his chapter ofthe antiquity of Masonry, he makes it to be co
eval with creation. " When," says he, " the sovereign architect
raised on Masonic principles the beauteous globe, and commanded
that master science, Geometry, to lay the planetary world, and to
regulate by its laws the whole stupendous system in just unerring
proportion, rolling round the central sun."
" But," continues he, " I am not at liberty publicly to undraw
the curtain, and thereby to descant on this head ; it is sacred, and
will ever remain so ; those who are honoured with the trust will
not reveal it, and those who are ignorant of it cannot betray it."
By this last part ofthe phrase, Smith means the two inferior class
es, the fellow-craft and the entered apprentice, for he says, in the
next page ofhis work, " It is not every one that is barely initiated
into Free-Masonry that is entrusted with all the mysteries thereto
belonging; they are not attainable as things of course, nor by every
capacity." The learned, but unfortunate Doctor Dodd, Grand Chaplain of
Masonry, in his oration at the dedication of Free-Mason's-Hall,
London, traces Masonry through a variety of stages. Masons,

312 ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
says he, are well informed from their own private and interior re-
cords, that the building of Solomon's Temple is an important era,
from whence they derive many mysteries of their art. " Now
(says he,) be it remembered that this great event took place above
1000 years before the Christian era, and consequently more than
a century before Homer, the first of the Grecian Poets, wrote ;
and above five centuries before Pythagoras brought from the east
his sublime system of truly masonic instruction to illuminate our
western world,
" But, remote as this period is, we date not from thence the
commencement of our art. For though it might owe to the wise
and glorious King of Israel, some of its many mystic forms and
hieroglyphic ceremonies, yet certainly the art itself is coeval with
man, the great subject of it.
" We trace," continues he, " its footsteps in the most distant,
the most remote ages and nations ofthe world. We find it amongst
the first and most celebrated civilizers ofthe East. We deduce it
regularly from the first astronomers on the plains of Chaldea, to
the wise and mystic kings and priests of Egypt, the sages of
Greece, and the philosophers of Rome."
From these reports and declarations of Masons of the highest
order in the institution, we see that Masonry, without publicly de
claring so, lays claim to some divine communication from tha
Creator, in a manner different from, and unconnected with, the
book which the Christians call the Bible ; and the natural result
from this is, that Masonry is derived from some very ancient re
ligion, wholly independent of, and unconnected with that book.
To come then at once to the point, Masonry (as I shall show
from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of
Masonry) is derived, and is the remains ofthe religion ofthe an
cient Druids ; who, like the magi of Persia and the priests of
Heliopolis in Egypt, were priests of the sun. They paid worship
to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisi
ble first cause, whom they stiled, Time without limits.
The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same
common origin, both are derived from the worship ofthe sun ; the
difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a
parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man whom
they call Christ, in the place of the sun, and pay him the, same

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 313
adoration which was originally paid to the sun, as I have shown in
the chapter on the origin of the Christian religion.*
In Masonry many of the ceremonies of the Druids are preserv
ed in their original state, at least without any parody. With them
the sun is still the sun ; and his image in the form ofthe sun, is
the great emblematical ornament of Masonic Lodges and Masonic
dresses. It is the central figure on their aprons, and they wear it
also pendant on the breast in their lodges, and in their processions.
It has the figure of a man, as at the head of the sun, as Christ is
always represented.
At what period of antiquity, or in what nation, this religion was
first established, is lost in the labyrinth of unrecorded times. It is
generally ascribed to the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians and
Chaldeans, and reduced afterwards to a system regulated by the
apparent progress of the sun through the twelve signs of zodiac by
Zoroaster the lawgiver of Persia, from whence Pythagoras brought
it into Greece. It is to these matters Dr. Dodd refers in the pas
sage already quoted from his oration.
The worship ofthe sun, as the great visible agent of a great in
visible first cause, time without limits, spread itself over a consi
derable part of Asia and Africa, from thence to Greece and Rome,
through all ancient Gaul, and into Britain and Ireland.
Smith, in his chapter on the antiquity of Masonry in Britain,
says, that " notwithstanding the obscurity which envelopes masonic
history in that country, various circumstances contribute to prove
that Free-Masonry was introduced into Britain about 1030 years
before Christ." '
It cannot be Masonry in its present state that Smith here alludes
to.. The Druids flourished in Britain at the period he speaks of,
and it is from them that Masonry is descended. Smith has put
the child in the place of the parent.
It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conversation,
that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he
intends to conceal, and this is the case with Smith, for in the same
chapter he says, " The Druids, when they committed any thing to
writing, used the Greek alphabet, and I am bold to assert that the
most perfect remains of the Druid's rites and ceremonies are
* Referring to an unpublished portion of the work of which this chapter
forms a part.
40

314 ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
preserved inthe customs and ceremonies of the Masons tnat are to
be found existing among mankind. " My brethren" says he, " may
be able to trace them with greater exactness than I am at liberty
to explain to tbe public."
This is a confession from a Master Mason, without intending it
to be so understood by the public, that Masonry is the remains of
the religion of the Druids ; the reasons for the Masons keeping
this a secret I shall explain in the course of this work.
As the study and contemplation of the Creator in the works of
the creation, of which the sun, as the great visible agent of that
Being, was the visible object of the adoration of Druids, all their
religious rites and ceremonies had reference to the apparent pro
gress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and his
influence upon the earth. The Masons adopt the same practices.
The roof of their temples or lodges is ornamented with a sun, and
the floor is a representation of the variegated face of the eaHlh,
either by carpeting or by Mosaic work.
Free-Masons' Hall, in Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn
Fields, London, is a magnificent building, and cost upwards of
12,000 pounds sterling. Smith, in speaking of this building, says
(page 152.) " The roof of this magnificent hall is, in all proba
bility the highest piece of finished architecture in Europe. In the
centre of this roof, a most resplendent sun is represented in burn
ished gold, surrounded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, with
thei respective characters :
f Aries =£= Libra
8 Taurus TH Scorpio
II Gemini t Sagittarius
55 Cancer VC? Capricornus
6X Leo £? Aquarius
Tt£ Virgo 3€ Pisces
After giving this description, he says, " The emblematical mean
ing of the sun is well known to the enlightened and inquisitive
Free-Mason ; and as the real sun is situated in the centre of the
universe, so the emblematical sun is the centre of real Masonry.
We all know continues he, that the sun is the fountain of light, the
source of the seasons, the cause of the vicissitudes of day and
night, the parent of vegetation, the friend of man ; hence the sci
entific Free-Mason only knows the reason why the sun is placed
in the centre of this beautiful hall."

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 315
The Masons, in order to protect themselves from the persecu
tion of the Christian church, have always spoken in a mystical
manner of the figure of the sun in their lodges, or, like the astron
omer Lalande, who is a mason, been silent upon the subject. It is
their secret, especially in Catholic countries, because the figure of
the sun is the expressive criterion that denotes they are descended
from the Druids, and that wise, elegant, philosophical, religion, was
the faith opposite to the faith of the gloomy Christian church.
The lodges of the Masons, if built for the purpose, are con
structed in a manner to correspond with the apparent motion of
the sun. They are situated East and West. The master's place
is always in the East. In the examination of an entered appren
tice, the master, among many other questions, asks him,
Q. How is the lodge situated ?
A. East and West.
Q. Why so ?
A. Because all churches and chapels are, or ought to be so.
This answer, which is mere catechismal form, is not an answer
to the question. It does no more than remove the question a point
further, which is, why ought all churches and chapels to. be so ?
But as the entered apprentice is not initiated into the Druidical
mysteries of Masonry, he is not asked any questions to which a
direct answer would lead thereto.
Q. Where stands your master ?
A. In the East.
Q. Why so ?
A. As the sun rises in the East, and opens the day, so the master
stands in the East, (with his right hand upon his left breast, being
a sign, and the square about his neck,) to open the lodge, and set
his men at work.
Q. Where stand your wardens ?
A. In the West.
Q. What is their business ?
A. As the sun sets in the West to close the day, so the ward
ens stand in the West, (with their right hands upon their left breasts
being a sign, and the level and plumb rule about their necks,) to
close the lodge, and dismiss the men from labour, paying them
their wages.
Here the name of the sun is mentioned, but it is proper to ob
serve, that in this place it has reference only to labour or to tho

816 5RIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
time of labour, and not to any religious Druidical rite or ceremony,
as it would have with respect to the situation of lodges East and
West. I have already observed in the chapter on the origin of
the Christian religion, that the situation of churches East and
West is taken from the worship of the sun, which rises in the east,
and has not the least reference to the person called Jesus Christ.
The Christians never bury their dead on the North side of a
church ;* and a Mason's Lodge always has, or is supposed to
have, three windows which are called fixed lights, to distinguish
them from the moveable lights of the sun and the moon. The
master asks the entered apprentice,
Q. How are they (the fixed lights) situated ?
A. East, West, and South.
Q. What are their uses ?
A. To light the men to and from their work.
Q. Why are there no lights in the North ?
A. Because the sun darts no rays from thence.
This, among numerous other instances, shows that the Christian
religion, and Masonry, have one and the same common origin, the
ancient- worship of the sun.
The high festival ofthe Masons is on the day they call St. John's
day ; but every enlightened Mason must know that holding their
festival on this day has no reference to the person called St. John ;
and that it is only to disguise the true cause of holding it on this
* This may have been the case formerly, but I believe, at present, very lit
tle attention is paid to the position of burying grounds in respect to churches.
In regard to " the situation of Churches east and west," I find the rule was ob
served as late as the time of building Saint Paul's Cathedral, which was finish
ed in 1697. William Presten, in giving a description of this edifice, in his Illus-
'rations of Masonry, says, " A strict regard to the situation of this Cathedral,
due east and west, has given it an oblique appearance with respect to Ludgate-
street in front ; so that the great front gate in the surrounding iron rails, being
made to regard the street in front, rather than the church to which it belongs,
the statue of queen Ann, that is exactly in the middle of the west front, is
thrown on one side the straight approach from the gate to the church, and gives
an idea ofthe whole edifice being awry." In 1707, Sir Christopher Wren, the
Architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, in a letter addressed to a joint commissioner
with himself for building fifty churches in addition to others already built, to sup
ply the place of those destroyed by the conflagration of 1666, observes, "I could
wish that all the burials in churches should be disallowed, which is not only
unwholesome, but the pave*nents can never be kept even, nor pews upright;
and f the Church-yard is close about the church, this also is inconvenient. It
will be enquired, where then shall be the burials ? I answer in cemeteries
seated in the out-skirts of the town. As to the situation of the churches, I
should propose they be brought as forward as possible into the larger and more
open streets. Nor are we, I think, too nicely to observe East and West in the
position, unless it falls out properly." See Anderson's Book of Constitutions
of the Free-Masons. — Editor.

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 317
day, that they call the day by that name. As there were Masons,
or at least Druids, many centuries before the time of St. John, if
such person ever existed, the holding their festival on this day
must refer to some cause totally unconnected with John.
The case is, that the day called St. John's day, is the 24th of
June, and is what is called Midsummer-day. The sun is then ar
rived at the summer solstice ; and, with respect to his meridional
altitude, or height at high noon, appears for some days to be of the
same height. The astronomical longest day, like the shortest day,
is not every year, on account of leap year, on the same numerical
day, and therefore the 24th of June is always taken for Midsum
mer-day ; and it is in honor of the sun, which has then arrived at
his greatest height, in our hemisphere, and not any thing with
respect to St. John, that this annual festival ofthe Masons, taken
from the Druids, is celebrated on Midsummer-day.
Customs will often outlive the remembrance oftheir origin, and
this is the case with respect to a custom still practised in Ireland,
where the Druids flourished at the time they flourished in Britain.
On the eve of Saint John's day, that is, on the eve of Midsummer
day, the Irish light fires on the tops ofthe hills. This can have no
reference to St. John ; but it has emblematical reference to the
sun, which on that day is at his highest summer elevation, and
might in common language be said to have arrived at the top of
the hill.
As to what Masons, and books of Masonry, tell us of Solomon's
Temple at Jerusalem, it is no wise improbable that some masonic
ceremonies may have been derived from the building of that tem
ple, for the worship ofthe sun was in practice many centuries be
fore the temple existed, or before the Israelites came out of Egypt.
And we learn from the history ofthe Jewish Kings, 2 Kings, chap.
xxii. xxiii. that the worship of the sun was performed by the Jews
in that temple. It is, however, much to be doubted, ifit was done
with the same scientific purity and religious morality, with which it
was performed by the Druids, who, by all accounts that historically
remain of then, were a wise, learned, and moral class of men.
The Jews, on the contrary, were ignorant of astronomy, and of
science in general, and if a religion founded upon astronomy, fell
into their hands, it is almost certain it would be corrupted. We
do not read in the history of the Jews, whether in the Bible or
elsewhere, that they were the inventors or the improvers of any

318 ORIGIN OF FREE MASONRY.
one art or science. Even in the building of this temple, the Jews
did not know how to square and frame the timber for beginning
and carrying on the work, and Solomon was obliged to send to
Hiram, King of Tyre, (Zidon) to procure workmen ; " for thou
knowest, (says Solomon to Hiram, 1 Kings, chap. v. ver. 6.) that
there is~not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto
the Zidonians." This temple was more properly Hiram's temple
than Solomon's, and if the Masons derive any thing from the
building of it, they owe it to the Zidonians and not to the Jews.-
But to return to the worship of the sun in this temple.
It is said, 2 Kings, chap, xxiii. ver. 8. " And king Josiah put
down all the idolatrous priests that burned incense unto the sun,
the moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven." — And it is said
at the 11th ver. " and he took away the horses that the kings of
Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the
Lord, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire, ver. 13, and
the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the
right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of
Israel had builded for Astoreth, the abomination of the Zido
nians (the very people that built the temple) did the king defile.
Besides these things, the description that Josephus gives of the
decorations of this temple, resembles on a large scale those of a
Mason's Lodge. He says that the distribution of the several
parts ofthe temple of the Jews represented all nature, particularly
the parts most apparent of it, as the sun, the moon, the planets, the
zodiac, the earth, the elements ; and that the system of the world
was retraced there by numerous ingenious emblems. These, in all
probability, are, what Josiah, in his ignorance, calls the abomina
tions of the Zidonians.* Every thing, however, drawn from this
temple,-}" and applied to Masonry, still refers to the worship ofthe
* Smith, in speaking of a Lodge, says, when the Lodge is revealed to an en
tering Mason, it discovers to him a representation of the world ; in which, from
the wonders of nature, we are led to contemplate her great Original, and wor
ship him from his mighty works ; and we are thereby also moved to exercise
those moral and social virtues which become mankind as the servants of the
great Architect of the world.
f It may not be improper here to observe, that the law called the law of
Moses could not have been in existence at the time of building this temple.
Here is the likeness of things in heaven above and in the earth beneath. And
we read in 1 Kings, chap. 6, 7, that Solomon made cherubs and cherubims. that
he carved all the walls of the house round about with cherubims and palm-
trees, and open flowers, and that he made a molten sea, placed on twelve oxen,
and the ledges of it were ornamented with lions, oxen, and cherubims ; all this
is contrary to the law, called the law of Moses.

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 319
sun, however corrupted or misunderstood by the Jews, and, con
sequently, to the religion ofthe Druids.
Another circumstance, which shows that Masonry is derived
from some ancient system, prior to, and unconnected with, the
Christian religion, is the chronology, or method of counting time,
used by the Masons in the records of their lodges. They make
no use of what is called the Christian era ; and they reckon their
months numerically, as the ancient Egyptians did, and as the
Quakers do now. I have by me, a record of a French lodge,
at the time the late Duke of Orleans, then Duke de Chartres, was
Grand Master of Masonry in France. It begins as follows :
•' Le trentieme jour due sixieme mois de Van de la V. L. cinq, mil
sept cent soixante trois ;" that is, the thirteenth day of the sixth
month of the year of the venerable Lodge, five thousand seven
hundred and seventy-three. By what I observe in English books of
Masonry, the English Masons use the initials A. L. and not V. L.
By A. L. they mean in the year of the Lodge,* as the Christians
by A. D. mean in the year of our Lord. But A. L. like V. L.
refers to the same chronological era, that is, to the supposed time
of the creation. In the chapter on the origin of the Christian
religion, I have shown that the cosmogany, that is, the account of
the creation, with which the book of Genesis opens, has been taken
and mutilated from the Zend-Avista of Zoroaster, and is fixed as
a preface to the Bible, after the Jews returned from captivity in
Babylon, and that the rabbins of the Jews do not hold their account
in Genesis to be a fact, but mere allegory. The six thousand
years in the Zend-Avista, is changed or interpolated into six days
in the account of Genesis. The Masons appear to have chosen
the same period, and perhaps to avoid the suspicion and persecu
tion ofthe church, have adopted the era of the world, as the era of
Masonry. The V. L. of the French, and A. L. of the English
Mason, answer to the A. M. Anno Mundi, or year of the world.
Though the Masons have taken many of their ceremonies and
hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians, it is certain they have
not taken their chronology from thence. If they had, the church
would soon have sent them to the stake ; as the chronology of
*V. L. used bv French Masons, are the initials of Vraie Lumiere, true light ;
and A. L. used by the English, are the initials of Anno Lucie, in the year of
light. Eut, as in both cases, as Mr. Paine observes, reference is had to the sup
posed time of the creation, his mistake is of no consequence. — Editor.

320

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.

the Egyptians, like that of the Chinese, goes many thousand
years beyond the Bible' chronology.
The religion of the Druids, as before said, was the same as the
religion ofthe ancient Egyptians. The priests of Egypt were the
professors and teachers of science, and were styled priests of
Heliopolis,, that is, ofthe city ofthe sun. The Druids in Europe,
who were the same order of men, have their name from the Teu
tonic or ancient German language ; the Germans being anciently
called Teutones. The word Druid signifies a ivise man. In
Persia they were called magi, which signifies the same thing.
" -EgyP^ " says Smith, " from whence we derive many of our
mysteries, has always borne a distinguished rank in history, and
was once celebrated above all others for its antiquities, learning,
opulence and fertility. In their system, their principal hero-gods,
Osiris and Isis, theologically represented the Supreme Being and
universal nature ; and physically the two great celestial lumi
naries, the sun and the moon, by whose influence all nature was
actuated. The experienced brethren of the society, (says Smitn
in a note to this passage) are well informed what affinity these
symbols bear to Masonry, and why they are used in all Masonic
Lodges." In speaking ofthe apparel of the Masons in their Lodges, part
of which, as we see in their public processions, is a white leathei
apron, he says, " the Druids were apparelled in white at the time
of their sacrifices and solemn offices. The Egyptian priests ol
Osiris wore snow-white cotton. The Grecian and most othei
priests wore white garments. As Masons, we regard the princi
ples of those who were the first worshipers of the true God, imi
tate their apparel, and assume the badge of innocence.
" The Egyptians," continues Smith, " in the earliest ages con
stituted a great number of Lodges, but with assiduous care kept
their secrets of Masonry from all strangers. These secrets have
been imperfectly handed down to us by tradition only, and ought
to be kept undiscovered to the labourers, craftsmen, and appren
tices, till by good behaviour and long study, they become better
acquainted in geometry and the liberal arts, and thereby qualified
for Masters and Wardens, which is seldom or ever the case with
English Masons."
Under the head of Free-Masonry, written by the astronomer
Lalande, in the French Encyclopedia, I expected from his great

ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY. 82l
knowledge in astronomy, to have found much information on the
Origin of Masonry ; for what connection can there be between
any institution and the sun and twelve signs of the zodiac, if there
be not something in that institution, or in its origin, that has refer
ence to astronomy. Every thing used as an hieroglyphic, has
reference to the subject and purpose for which it is used ; and we
are not to suppose the Free-Masons, among whom are many very
learned and scientific men, to be such idiots as to make use of
astronomical signs without some astronomical purpose.
But I was much disappointed in my expectation from Lalande.
In speaking of the origin of Masonry, he says, "L' origine de la
maconnerie seperd, comme tant d'autres dans I'obscurite des temps;"
that is, the origin of Masonry, like many others, loses itself in the
obscurity of time. When I came to this expression, I supposed
Lalande a Mason, and on enquiry found he was. This passing
over saved him from the embarrassment which Masons are under
respecting the disclosure oftheir origin, and which they are sworn
to conceal. There is a society of Masons in Dublin who take
the name of Druids ; these Masons must be supposed to have a
reason for taking that name.
I come now to speak of the cause of secrecy used by the
Masons. The natural source of secrecy is fear. When any new religion
over-runs a former religion, the professors of the new become the
persecutors of the old. We see this in all the instances that his
tory brings before us. When Hilkiah the priest, and Shaphan the
scribe, in the reign of King Josiah, found, or pretended to find, the
law, called the law of Moses, a thousand years after the time of
Moses, and it does not appear from the 2d book of Kings, chap
ters 22, 23, that such law was ever practiced or known before the
time of Josiah, he established that law as a national religion, and
put all the priests of the sun to death. When the Christian reli
gion over-ran the Jewish religion, the Jews were the continual
subjects of persecution in all Christian countries. When the
Protestant religion in England over-ran the Roman Catholic reli
gion, it was made death for a Catholic priest to be found in Eng
land. As this has been the case in all the instances we have any
knowledge of, we 'are obliged to admit it with respect to the case
in question, and that when the Christian religion over-ran the reli
gion ofthe Druids in Italy, ancient Gaul, Britain, and Ireland, the
41

322 ORIGIN OF FREE-MASONRY.
Druids became the subjects of persecution. This would naturally
and necessarily oblige such of them as remained attached to their
original religion to meet in secret, and under the strongest injunc
tions of secrecy. Their safety depended upon it. A false bro
ther might expose the lives of many of them to destruction ; and
from the remains of the religion of the Druids, thus preserved,
arose the institution, which, to avoid the name of Druid, took that
of Mason, and practised, under this new name, the rights and
ceremonies of Druids.

LETTER

SAMUEL ADAMS,

»*«

My dear and venerable friend,
I received with great pleasure your friendly and affectionate
letter of Nov. 30th, and I thank you also- for the frankness of it.
Between men in pursuit of truth, and whose object is the happi
ness of man both here and hereafter, there ought to be no reserve.
Even error has a claim to indulgence, if not to respect, when it is
believed to be truth. I am obliged to you for your affectionate
remembrance of what you style my services in awakening the pub
lic mind to a declaration of independence, and supporting it after
it was declared. I also^ like you, have often looked back on those
times, and have thought, that if independence had not been de
clared at the time it was, the public mind could not have been
brought up to it afterwards. It will immediately occur to you,
who were so intimately acquainted with the situation of things rt
that time, that I allude to the black times of seventy-six ; for thou-ga
I know, and you my friend also know, they were no other than the
natural consequences of the military blunders of that campaign
the oountry might have viewed them as proceeding from a natural
inability to support its cause against the enemy, and have sunk un
der the despondency of that misconceived idea. This was the
impression against which it was necessary the country should be
strongly animated.

324 LETTER TO
I now come to the second part of your letter, on which I shall
be as frank with you as you are with me.. " But (say youy when
I heard you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt
myself much astonished," &c. What, my good friend, do you
call believing in God infidelity ? for that is the great point mention
ed in the Age of Reason against all divided beliefs and allegori
cal divinities. The Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) not only ac
knowledges this, but pays me some compliments upon it, in his
answer to the second part of that work. " There is (says he) a
philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas, when speaking of
the Creator of the Universe."
What then, (my much esteemed friend, for I do not respect
you the less because we differ, and that perhaps not much, in re
ligious sentiments,) what, I ask, is the thing called infidelity ? If
we go back to your ancestors and mine, three or four hundred
years ago', for we must have fathers, and grandfathers or we should
not have been here, we shall find them praying to saints and vir
gins, and believing in purgatory and transubstantiation ; and there
fore, all of us are infidels according to our forefather's belief.
If we go back to times more ancient we shall again be infidels ac
cording to the belief of some other forefathers.
The case, my friend, is, that the world has been overrun with
fable and creed of human invention, with sectaries of whole
nations against other nations, and sectaries of those sectaries in
each of them against each other. Every sectary, except the
Quakers, have been persecutors. Those who fled from perse
cution, persecuted in their turn, and it is this confusion of creeds
that has filled the world with persecution, and deluged it with
blood. Even the depredation on your commerce by the Barbary
powers, sprang from the crusades of the church against those
. powers. It was a war of creed against creed, each boasting of
God for its author, aud reviling each other with the name of in
fidel. If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do
• not believe as I believe, and this is all that it proves.
There is, however, one point of union wherein all religions
meet, and that is in the first article of every man's creed, and
of every nation's creed, that has any creed at .all, I believe in
God. Those who rest here, and there are millions who do, can
not be wrong as far as their creed goes. Those who choose to go
further may be wrong, for it is impossible that all can be right,

SAMUEL ADAMS. 325
since there is so much contradiction among them. The first,
therefore, are, in my opinion, on the safest side.
I presume you are so far acquainted with ecclesiastical history
as"to know, and the bishop who has answered me has been obliged
to acknowledge the fact, that the Books that compose the New
Testament, were voted by yeas and nays to be the Word of God,
as you now vote a law, by the Popish Councils of Nice and Lao
docia, about fourteen hundred and fifty years ago. With respect
to the fact there is no dispute, neither do I mention it for the sake
of controversy. This vote may appear authority enough to some,
and not authority enough to others. It is proper, however, that
eyery body should know the fact.
With respect to the Age of Reason, which you so much con
demn, and that, I believe, without having read it, for you say only
that you heard of it, I will inform you of a circumstance, because
you cannot know it by other means.
I have said in the first page of the first part of that work, that
it had long been my intention to publish my thoughts upon re
ligion, but that I had reserved it to a later time of life. I have
now to inform you why I wrote it, and published it at the time I
did. In the first place, I saw my life in continual danger. My
friends were falling as fast as the guillotine could cut their heads
off, and as I expected every day the same fate, I resolved to be
gin my work. I appeared to myself to be on my death bed* for
death was on every side of me, and I had no time to lose.
This accounts for my writing at the time I did, and so nicely did
the time and intention meet, that I had not finished the first part of
the work more than six hours before I was arrested and taken to *
prison. Joel Barlow was with me, and knows the fact.
In the second place, the people of France were running head
long into atheism, and I had the work translated and published in
their own language, to stop them in that career, and fix them to the
first article (as I have before said) of every man's creed, who has
any creed at all, / believe in God. I endangered my own life, in
the first place, by opposing in the Convention the executing of the
king, and labouring to show they were trying the monarch and not
the man, and that the crimes imputed to him were the crimes of
the monarchial system ; and endangered it a second time by
opposing atheism, and yet some of your priests, for I do not be-

326 LETTER TO
lieve that all are perverse, cry out, in the war-whoop of monarchial
priest-craft, what an infidel! what a wicked man is Thomas
Paine ! They might as well add, for he believes in God, and is
against shedding blood.
But all this war-ivhoop of the pulpit has some concealed object.
Religion is not the cause, but is the stalking horse. They put it
forward to conceal themselves behind it. It is not a secret that
there has been a party composed of the leaders of the Federalists,
for I do not include all Federalists with their leaders, who have
been working by various means for several years past, to over
turn the Federal Constitution established on the representative
system, and place government in the new world on the corrupt
system of the old. To accomplish this a large standing army was
necessary, ahd as a pretence for such an army, the danger of a
foreign invasion must be bellowed forth, from the pulpit, from the
press, and by their public orators.
I am not of a disposition inclined to suspicion. It is in its na
ture a mean and cowardly passion, and upon the whole, even admit
ting error into the case, it is better, I am sure it is more generous
to be wrong on the side of confidence, than on the side of sus
picion. But I know as a fact, that the English Government dis
tributes annually fifteen hundred pounds sterling among the Pres
byterian ministers in England, and one hundred among those of
Ireland ;* and when I hear of the strange discourses of some of
your ministers and professors of colleges I cannot, as the Qua
kers say, find freedom in my mind to acquit them. Their anti-re
volutionary doctrines invite suspicion, even against one's will, and
in spite of one's charity to believe well of them.
As you have given me one Scripture phrase, I will give you
another for those ministers. It is said in Exodus chapter xxiii,
verse 28, " Thou shalt not revile the Gods, nor curse the ruler of
thy people." But those ministers, such I mean as Dr. Emmons,
curse ruler and people both, for the majority are, politically, the
people, and it is those who have chosen the ruler whom they curse.
As to the first part of the verse that of not reviling the Gods,
it makes no part of my Scripture : I have but one God.

* There must undoubtedly be a very gross mistake in respect to the amount
said to be expended ; the sums intended to be expressed were probably fifteen
hundred thousand, and one hundred thousand pounds. — Editor.

SAMUEL ADAMS. 327
Since I began this letter, for I write it by piecemeals as I have
leisure, I have seen the four letters that passed between you and
John Adams. In your first letter you say. " Let divines and
philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavours to re
novate the age, by inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and
love of the Deity and universal philanthropy." Why, my dear
friend, this is exactly my religion, and is the whole of it. That
you may have an idea that the Age of Reason (for I believe you
have not read it) inculcates this reverential fear and love of the
Deity, I will give you a paragraph from it.
" Do we want to contemplate his power 1 We see it in the im
mensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his wis
dom ? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incom
prehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his
munificence 1 We see it in the abundance with which he fills the
earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy 1 We see it in his
not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful."
As I am fully with you in your first part, that respecting the
Deity, so am I in your second, that of universal philanthropy ;
by which I do not mean merely the sentimental benevolence of
wishing well, but the practical benevolence of doing good. We
cannot serve the Deity in the manner we serve those wno cannot
do without that service. He needs no services from us. We can
add nothing to eternity. But it is in our power to render a service
acceptable to him, and that is, not by praying, but by endeavouring
to make his creatures happy. A man does not serve God when
he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve ; and as to hiring
or paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is in
my opinion an abomination. One good school-master is of more
use and of more value than a load of such parsons as Dr.
Emmons, and some others.
You, my dear and much respected friend, are now far in the
vale of years ; I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I
have a good state of health and a happy mind : I take care of
both, by nourishing the first with temperance, and the latter with
abundance. This I believe you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
Tou will see by my third letter to the citizens of the United States,
that I have Deen exposed to, and preserved through many dan
gers ; but, instead of buffeting the Deity with prayers, as if I dis-

328 LETTER TO SAMUEL ADAMS.
trusted him, or must dictate to him, I reposed myself on his pro
tection : and you, my friend, will find, even in your last moments,
more consolation in the silence of resignation than in the mur-
muring wish of prayer.
In every thing which you say in your second letter to John
Adams, respecting our rights as men and citizens in this world, I
am perfectly with you. On other points we have to answer to our
Creator and not to each other. The key of heaven is not in the
keeping of any sect, nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by
any. Our relation to each other in this world is, as men, and the
man who is a friend to man and to his rights, let his religious
opinions be what they may, is a good citizen, to whom I can give,
as I ought to do, and as every other ought, the right hand of fellow
ship, and to none with more hearty good will, my dear friend, than
to you.
THOMAS PAINE.
Federal City, Jan. 1, 1803.

EXTRACT FROM A
LETTER TO ANDREW A. DEAN-

Respected Friend,
I received your friendly letter, for which I am obliged to you. It
is three weeks ago to day (Sunday, Aug. 15,) that I was struck
with a fit of an apoplexy, that deprived me of all sense and mo
tion. I had neither pulse nor breathing, and the people about me
supposed me dead. I had felt exceedingly well that day, and had
just taken a slice of bread and butter, for supper, and was going to
bed. The fit took me on the stairs, as suddenly as if I had been
shot through the head ; and I got so very much hurt by the fall,
that I have not been able to get in and out of bed since that day,
otherwise than being lifted out in a blanket, by two persons ; yet
all this while my mental faculties have remained as perfect as I
ever enjoyed them. I consider the scene I have passed through
as an experiment on dying, and I find that death has no terrors for
me. As to the people called Christians, they have no evidence
that their religion is true.f There is no more proof that the Bible
is the word of God, than that the Koran of Mahomet is the word
of God. It is education makes all the difference. Man, before
he begins to think for himself, is as much the child of habit in
Creeds as he is in ploughing and sowing. Yet creeds, like opinions,
prove nothing.
* Mr. Dean rented Mr. Paine's farm at New Rochelle.
f Mr. Paine's entering upon the subject of religion on this occasion, it may
be presumed was occasioned by the following passage in Mr. Dean's letter to
him, viz :
" I have read with good attention your manuscript on dreams, and examin
ation on the prophecies in the Bible. I am now searching the old prophecies,
and comparing the same to those said to be quoted in the New Testament. 1
eonfess the comparison is a matter worthy of our serious attention ; I know not
the result till I finish ; then, if you be living, I shall communicate the same to
you ; I hope to be with you soon."
42

830 LETTEIi TO MR. DEAN.
Where is the evidence that the purson called Jesus Christ is the
begotten Son of God ? The case admits not of evidence either
•o our sense? or our mental faculties : neither has God given to
man any talent by which such a thing is comprehensible. It can
not therefore be an object for faith to act upon, for faith is nothing
more than an assent the mind gives to something it sees cause t<
believe is fact. But priests, preachers, and fanatics, put imagina
tion in the place of faith, and it is the nature of the imagination to
believe without evidence.
If Joseph the carpenter dreamed, (as the book of Matthew,
chap. 1st, says he did,) that his betrothed wife, Mary, was with
child, by the Holy Ghost, and that an angel told him so ; I am not
obliged to put faith in his dream, nor do I put any, for I put no
faith in my own dreams, and I should be weak and foolish indeed
to put faith in the dreams of others.
The Christian religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its
articles. It puts the Creator in an inferior point of view, and
places the Christian D§vil above him. Il is he, according to the
absurd story in Genesis, that outwits the Creator, in the garden
of Eden, and steals from him his favorite creature, man, and, at
last, obliges him to beget a son, and put that son to death, to get
man back again, and this the priests of the Christian religion, call
redemption. Christian authors exclaim against the practice of offering tip hu
man sacrifices, which, they say, is done in some countries ; and
those authors make those exclamations without ever reflecting that
their own doctrine of salvation is founded on a human sacrifice.
They are saved, they say, by the blood of Christ. The Christian
religion begins with a dream and ends with a murder.
As I am now well enough to sit up some hours in the day,
though not we'll enough to get up without help, I employ myself as
I have always done, in endeavouring to bring man to the right use
of the reason that God has given him, and to direct his mind im
mediately to his Creator, and not to fanciful secondary beings
called mediators, as if God was superannuated or ferocious.
As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the
word of God. It is a book of lies and contradiction, and a history
of bad times and bad men. There is but a few good characters
in the whole book. The fable of Christ and his twelve apostles,
which is a parody on the sun and the twelve signs of the Zodiac,

LETTER TO MR. DEAN. 331
copied from the ancient religions of the eastern world, is the least
hurtful part. Every thing told of Christ has reference to the sun.
His reported resurrection is at sunrise, and that on the first day of
the week ; that is, on the day anciently dedicated to the sun, and
from thence called Sunday ; in latin Dies Solis, the day of the
sun ; as the next day, Monday, is Moon-day. But there is no room
in a letter to explain these things.
While man keeps to the belief of one God, his reason unites
with his creed. He is not shocked with contradictions and horrid
stories. His bible is the heavens and the earth. He beholds his
Creator in all his works, and every thing he beholds inspires him
with reverence and gratitude. From the goodness of God to all,
he learns his duty to his fellow-man, and stands self-reproved
when he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor.
But when he multiplies his creed with imaginary things, of
which he can have neither evidence nor conception, such as the
tale of the garden of Eden, the talking serpent, the fall of man,
the dreams of Joseph the carpenter, the pretended resurrection
and ascension, of which there is even no historical relation, for no
historian of those times mentions such a thing, he gets into the
pathless region of confusion, and turns either frantic or hypocrite.
He forces his mind, and pretends to believe what he does not be
lieve. This is in general the case with the metbodists. Their
religion is all creed and no morals.
I have now my friend given you afac simile of my mind on the
subject of religion and creeds, and my wish is, that you make this
letter as publicly known as you find opportunities of doing.
Yours, in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.
N. Y Aug. 1806.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

EXTRACTED FROM THE " PROSPECT, OR VIEW OF THE MORAL
WORLD," A PERIODICAL WORK, EDITED AND PUBLISHED BI
ELIHU PALMER, AT NEW-YORK, IN THE YEAR 1804.

The following fugitive pieces were written by Mr. Paine occa
sionally to pass off an idle hour, and communicated for the Pros
pect, to aid his friend, Mr. Palmer, in support of that publication.
Perhaps, in some cases, it may appear that the same ideas have
been expressed in his other works ; but, if so, the various points
of view, in which they are here placed, it is presumed, will no,
fail to give an interest to these miscellaneous remarks.
The same signatures are continued as were subscribed to the
original communications.

REMARKS ON R. HALL'S SERMONS.
[The following piece, obligingly communicated by Mr. Paine, for
the Prospect, is full of thai acuteness of mind, perspicuity of
expression, and clearness of discernment for ivhich this excellent
author is so remarkable in all his writings.]
Robert Hall, a protestant minister in England, preached and
published a sermon against what he calls " Modern infidelity.'' A
copy of it was sent to a gentleman in America, with a request for
his opinion thereon. That gentleman sent it to a friend of his in
New- York, with the request written on the cover — and this last
sent it to Thomas Paine, who wrote the following observations on
the blank leaf at the end of the sermon.
The preacher ofthe foregoing sermon speaks a great deal about
infidelity, but does not define what he means by it. His harangua
is a general exclamation. Every thing, I suppose, that is not in

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 333
his ci eed is infidelity with him, and his creed is infidelity with me.
Infidelity is believing falsely. If what christians believe is not
true, it is the christians that are the infidels.
The point between deists and christians is not about doctrine,
but about fact — for if the things believed by the christians to be
facts, are not facts, the doctrine founded thereon falls of itself.
There is such a book as the Bible, but is it a fact that the bible is
revealed religion ? The christians cannot prove it is. They put
tradition in place of evidence, and tradition is not proof. Ifit
were, the reality of witches could be proved by the same kind of
evidence. The bible is a history ofthe times of which it speaks, and history
is not revelation. The obscene and vulgar stories in the bible
are as repugnant to our ideas ofthe purity of a divine Being, as the
horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to him, are repugnant to
our ideas ofhis justice. It is the reverence ofthe Deists for the
attributes ofthe Deity, that causes them to reject the bible.
Is the account which the christian church gives of the person
called Jesus Christ, a fact or a fable ? Is it a fact that he was be
gotten by the Holy Ghost 1 The christians cannot prove it, for the
case does not admit of proof. The things called miracles in the
bible, such, for instance, as raising the dead, admitted, if true, of
occular demonstration, but the story of the conception of Jesus
Christ in the womb is a case beyond miracle, for it did not admit
of demonstration. Mary, the reputed mother of Jesus, who musi.
be supposed to know best, never said so herself, and all the evi
dence of it is, that the book of Matthew says, that Joseph dreamed
an angel told him so. Had an old maid of two or three hundred
years of age, brought forth a child, it would have been much bet
ter presumptive evidence of a supernatural conception, than Mat
thew's story of Joseph's dream about his young wife.
Is it a fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, and
how is it proved? If a God he could not die, and as a man he
could not redeem, how then is this redemption proved to be fact ?
It is said that Adam eat ofthe forbidden fruit, commonly called an
apple, and thereby subjected himself and all his posterity for ever
to eternal damnation. This is worse than visiting the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations.
But how was the death of Jesus Christ to affect or alter the case 1 —
Did God thirst for blood ? If so, would it not have been better to

334 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
have crucified Adam at once upon the forbidden tree, and made a
new man ? Would not this have been more creator like than re
pairing the old one 1 Or, did God, when he made Adam, suppos
ing the story to be true, exclude himself from the right of mak
ing another 1 Or impose on himself the necessity of breeding from
the old stock 1 Priests should first prove facts, and deduce doc
trines from them afterwards. But, instead of this, they assume
every thing and prove nothing. Authorities drawn from the bible
are no more than authorities drawn from other books, unless it can
be proved that the bible is revelation.
This story of the redemption will not stand examination. That
man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple, by
committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of
religion ever set up. Deism is perfect purity compared with this.
It is an established principle with the quakers not to shed blood —
suppose, then, all Jerusalem had been quakers when Christ lived,
there would have been nobody to crucify him, and in that case, if
man is redeemed by his blood, which is the belief of* the church,
there could have been no redemption — and the people of Jerusa
lem must all have been damned, because they were too good to
commit murder. The christian system of religion is an outrage
on common sense. Why is man afraid to think 1
Why do not the christians, to be consistent, make saints of Ju
das and Pontius Pilate, for they were the persons who accom
plished the act of salvation. The merit of a sacrifice, if there can
be any merit in it, was never in the thing sacrificed, but in the per
sons offering up the sacrifice — and, therefore, Judas and Pontius
Pilate ought to stand first on the calendar of saints.
THOMAS PAINE.

OF THE WORD RELIGION,
AND OTHER WORDS OP UNCERTAIN SIGNIFICATION.

The word religion is a word of forced application when used
with respect to the worship of God. The root of the word is the
latin verb ligo, to tie or bind. From ligo, comes religo, to tie or
bind over again, or make more fast — from religo, comes the

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 335
substantive religio, which, with the addition of n makes the Englisn
substantive religion. The French use the word properly — when
a woman enters a convent she is called a noviciat, that is, she is
upon trial or probation. When she takes the oath, she is called a
religieuse, that is, she is tied or bound by that oath to the perform
ance of it. We use the word in the same kind of sense when we
say we will religiously perform the promise that we make.
But the word, without referring to its etymology, has, in the
manner it is used, no definitive meaning, because it does not desig
nate what religion a man is of. There is the religion of the Chi
nese, of the Tartars, ofthe Bramins, ofthe Persians, ofthe Jews,
of the Turks, &c.
The word Christianity is equally as vague as the word religion.
No'two sectaries can agree what it is. It is a lo here and lo there.
The two principal sectaries, Papists and Protestants, have often
cut each other's throats about it : — The Papists call the Protest
ants heretics, and the Protestants call the Papists idolaters. The
minor sectaries have shown the same spirit of rancour, but, as the
civil law restrains them from blood, they content themselves with
preaching damnation against each other.
The word protestant has a positive signification in the sense it is
used. It means protesting against the authority ofthe Pope, and
this is the only article in which the protestants agree. In every
other sense, with respect to religion, the word protestant is as
vague as the word christian. When we say an episcopalian, a
presbyterian, a baptist, a quaker, we know what those persons are,
and what tenets they hold — but when we say a christian, we know
he is not a Jew nor'a Mahometan, but we know not if he be a
trinitarian or an anti-trinitarian, a believer in what is called the im
maculate conception, or a disbeliever, a man of seven sacraments,
or Of two sacraments, or of none. The word christian describes
what a man is not, but not what he is.
The word Theology, from Theos, the Greek word for God, and
meaning the study and knowledge of God, is a word, that strictly
speaking, belongs to Theists or Deists, and not to the christians.
The head of the christian church is the person called Christ — but
the head ofthe church of the Theists, or Deists, as they are more
commonly called, from Deus, the latin word for God, is God him
self, and therefore the word Theology belongs to that church which
has Theos, or God, for its head, and not to the christian church

336 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
which has the person called Christ for its head. Their technical
word is Christianity, and they cannot agree what Christianity is.
The words revealed religion, and natural religion, require also
explanation. They are both invented terms, contrived by the
church for the support of priest-craft. With respect to the first,
there is no evidence of any such thing, except in the universal
revelation that God has made of his power, his wisdom, his good
ness, in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of crea
tion. We have no cause or ground from any thing we behold in
those works, to suppose God would deal partially by mankind, and
reveal knowledge to one nation and withhold it from another, and
then damn them for not knowing it. The sun shines an equal
quantity of light all over the world — and mankind in all ages and
countries are endued with reason, and blessed with sight, to read
the visible works of God in the creation, and so intelligent is this
Jook that he that runs may read. We admire the wisdom of the
ancients, yet they had no bibles, nor books, called revelation.
They cultivated the reason that God gave them, studied him in his
works, and arose to eminence.
As to the Bible, whether true or fabulous, it is a history, and
history is not revelation. If Solomon had seven hundred wives,
and three hundred concubines, and if Samson slept in Delilah's
lap, and she cut his hair off, the relation of those things is mere
history, that needed no revelation from heaven to tell it ; neither
does it need any revelation to tell us that Samson was a fool for
his pains, and Solomon too.
As to the expressions so often used in the Bible, that the word
of the Lord came to such an one, or such an one, it was the
fashion of speaking in those times, like the expression used by a
quaker, that the spirit moveth him, or that used by priests, that they
have a call. We ought not to be deceived by phrases because
they are ancient. But if we admit the supposition that God would
condescen! to reveal himself in words we ought not to believe it
would be in such idle and profligate stories as are in the Bible, and
it is for this reason, among others which our reverence to God in
spires, that the Deists deny that the book called the bible is the
word of God, or that it is revealed religion.
With respect to the term natural religion, it is, upon the face o*
it, the opposite of artificial religion, and it is impossible for any
man to be certain that what is called revealed, religion, is not arti-

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 337
ficial. Man has the power of making books, inventing stories
of God, and calling them revelation, or the word of God. The
Koran exists as an instance that this can be done, and we must be
credulous indeed to suppose that this is the only instance, and Ma
homet the only impostor. The Jews could match him, and the
church of Rome could overmatch the Jews. The Mahometans
believe the Koran, the Christians believe the Bible, and it is edu
cation makes all the difference.
Books, whether Bibles or Korans, carry no evidence of being
the work of any other power than man. It is only that which man
cannot do that carries the evidence of being the work of a superior
power. Man could not invent and make a universe — he could not
invent nature, for nature is of divine origin. It is the laws by
which the universe is governed. When, therefore, we look through
nature up to nature's God, we are in the right road of happiness,
but when we trust to books as the word of God, and confide in
Ihem as revealed religion, we are afloat on the ocean of uncer
tainty, and shatter into contending factions. The term, therefore,
natural religion, explains itself to be divine religion, and the term
revealed religion involves in it the suspicion of being artificial.
To show the necessity of understanding the meaning of words,
I will mention an instance of a minister, I believe of the epis-
coDalian church of Newark, in Jersey. He wrote and published a
book, and entitled it, " An Antidote to Deism." An antidote to
Deism, must be Atheism. It has no other antidote — for what can
be an antidote to the belief of a God, but the disbelief of God.
Under the tuition of such pastors, what but ignorance and false.
information can be expected. T. P.

OF CAIN AND ABEL.

The story of Cain and Abel is told in the fourth chapter of Ge
nesis ; Cain was the elder brother, and Abel the younger, and
Cain killed Abel. The Egyptian story of Typhon and Osiris,
and the Jewish story, in Genesis, of Cain and Abel, have the ap
43

338 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
pearance of being the same story differently told, and that it came
originally from Egypt.
In the Egyptian story, Typhon and Osiris are brothers ; Ty
phon is the elder, and Osiris the younger, and Typhon kills Osiris.
The story is an allegory on darkness and light ; Typhon, the elder
brother,.is darkness, because darkness was supposed to be more
ancient than light : Osiris is the good light who rules during the
summer months, and brings forth the fruits of the earth, and is
the favourite, as Abel is said to have been, for which Typhon
hates him ; and when the winter comes, and cold and darkness
overspread the earth, Typhon is represented as having killed
Osiris out of malice, as Cain is said to have killed Abel.
The two stories are alike in their circumstances and their event,
and are probably but the same story ; what corroborates this opin
ion, is, that the fifth chapter of Genesis historically contradicts
the reality of the story of Cain and Abel in the fourth chapter, for
though the name of Seth, a son of Adam, is mentioned in the
fourth chapter, he is spoken of in the fifth chapter as if he was
the first born of Adam. The chapter begins thus : —
" This is the book ofthe generations of Adam. In the day that
God created man, in the likeness of God created he him. Male
and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their
name Adam in the day when they were created. And Adam lived
an hundred and thirty years and begat a son, in his own likeness
and after his own image, and called his name Seth." The rest of
the chapter goes on with the genealogy.
Any body reading this chapter, cannot suppose there were any
sons born before Seth. The chapter begins with what is called the
creation of Adam, and calls itself the book of the generations of
Adam, yet no mention is made of such persons as Cain and Abel ;
one thing, however, is evident on the face of these two chapters,
which is, that the same person is not the writer of both ; the most
blundering historian could not have committed himself in such a
manner. Though I look on every thing in the first ten chapters of Gene
sis to be fiction, yet fiction historically told should be consistent
whereas these two chapters are not. The Cain and Abel of Gene
sis appear to be no other than the ancient Egyptian story of Ty
•phon and Osiris, the darkness and the light, which answered very
well as an allegory without being believed as a fact.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 339

THE TOWER OF BABEL.

The story of the tower of Babel is told in the eleventh chapter
of Genesis. It begins thus : — " And the whole earth (it was but
a very little part of it they knew) was of one language and of one
speech. — And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east,
that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
— And they said one to another, go to, let us make brick and burn
them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone, and slime had they
for mortar. — And they said go to, let us build us a city, and a tow
er whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name,
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face ofthe whole earths — And
the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the chil
dren of men builded. — And the Lord said, behold the people is
one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do,
and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have
imagined to do. — Go to, let us go down and there confound their
language, that they may not understand one another's speech. —
So (that is, by that means) the Lord scattered them abroad from
thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off building the
city." This is the story, and a very foolish inconsistent story it is. In
the first place, the familiar and irreverend manner in which the
Almighty is spoken of in this chapter, is offensive to a serious
mind. As to the project of building a tower whose top should
reach to heaven, there never could be a people so foolish as to
have such a notion ; but to represent the Almighty as jealous of
the attempt, as the writer ofthe story has done, is adding prophan-
ation to folly, " Go to," says the builders, " let us build us a tower
whose top shall reach to heaven." " Go to," says God, " let us
go down and confound their language." This quaintness is inde
cent, and the reason given for it is worse, for, " now nothing will
be restrained from them which they have imagined to do." This
w representing the Almighty as jealous oftheir getting into heaven.

340 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES
The story is too ridiculous, even as a fable, to account for th* di
versity of languages in the world, for which it seems to have beei
intended. As to the project of confounding their language for the purpose
of making them separate, it is altogether inconsistent ; because
instead of producing this effect, it would, by increasing their diffi
culties, render them more necessary to each other, and cause them
to keep together. Where could they go to better themselves ?
Another observation upon this story is, the inconsistency of it
with respect to the opinion that the bible is the word of God given
for the information of mankind : for nothing could so effectually
prevent such a word being known by mankind as confounding faeir
language. The people, who after this spoke different languages,
could no more understand such a word generally, than the builders
of Babel could understand one another. It would have been ne
cessary, therefore, had such word ever been given or intended to
be given, that the whole earth should be, as they say it was at first,
of one language and of one speech, and that it should never have
been confounded.
The case, however, is, that the bible will not bear examination in
any part of it, which it would do ifit was the word of God. Those
who most believe it are those who know least about it, and priests
always take care to keep the inconsistent and contradictory parts
out of sight. T. P.

Of the religion of Deism compared with the Christian Religion,
and the superiority of the former over the latter

Every person, of -whatever religious denomination he may be, is
a Deist in the first article ofhis Creed. Deism, from the Latin
word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first
article of every man's creed.
It is on this article, universally consented to by all mankind, that
the Deist builds his church, and here he rests. Whenever we
step aside from this article, by mixing it with articles of human in
vention, we wonder into a labyrinth of uncertainty and fable and

miscellaneous pieces. 341
become exposed to every kind of imposition by pretenders to reve
lation. The Persian shows the Zendavista of Zoroaster, the law
giver of Persia, and calls it the divine law ; the Bramin shows the
Shaster, revealed, he says, by God to Brama, and given to him out
of a cloud ; the Jew shows what he calls the law of Moses, given,
he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai ; the Christian shows a col
lection of books and epistles, written by nobody knows who, and
called the New Testament ; and the Mahometan shows the Koran,
given, he says, by God to Mahomet : each of these calls itself
revealed religion, and the only true word of God, and this the fol
lowers of each profess to believe from the habit of education, and
each believes the others are imposed upon.
But when the divine gift of reason begins to expand itself in the
mind and calls man to reflection, he then reads and contemplates
God in his works, and not in the books pretending to be revelation
The Creation is the bible of the true believer in. God. Every
thing in this vast volume inspires him with sublime ideas of the
Creator. The little and paltry, and often obscene, tales ofthe bible
Sink into wretchedness when put in comparison with this mighty
work. The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called
niracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle
than the Creation itself, and his own existence.
There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is
not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems
have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repug
nant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in
order to force himself to believe them. But in Deism our reason
and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure
of the Universe, and every thing we behold in the system of the
creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of
a God, and at the same time proclaim his attributes. It is by the
exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in
his works, and imitate him in his ways. When we see his care
and goodness extended over all his creatures, it teaches us our
duty towards each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to him.
It is by forgetting God in his works, and running after the books
of pretended revelation that man has wandered from the straight
path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of
doubt and the dupe of delusion.
Except in the first article in the Christian creed, that of believing

342 miscellaneous pieces.
in God, there is not an article in it but fills the mind with doubt,
as to the truth of it, the instant man begins to think. Now every
article in a creed that is necessary to the happiness and salvation
of man, ought to be as evident to the reason and comprehension of
man as the first article is, for God has not given us reason for the
purpose of confounding us, but that we should use it for our own
happiness and his glory.
The truth of the first article is proved by God himself, and is
universal ; for the creation is of itself demonstration of the exist
ence of a Creator. But the second article, that of God's begetting
a son, is not proved in like manner, and stands on no other autho
rity than that of a tale. Certain books in what is called the New
Testament tell us that Joseph dreamed that the angel told him so.
(Matthew chap 1. ver. 20.) " And behold the Angel ofthe 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 con
ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." The evidence upon this ar
ticle bears no comparison with the evidence upon the first article
and therefore is not entitled to the same credit, and ought not
to be made an article in a creed, because the evidence of it is de
fective, and what evidence there is, is doubtful and suspicious.
We do not believe the first article on the authority of books,
whether called Bibles or Korans, nor yet on the visionary authori
ty of dreams, but on the authority of God's own visible works in
the creation. The nations who never heard of such books, nor of
such people as Jews, Christians, or Mahometans, believe the exist
ence of a God as fully as we do, because it is self evident. The
work of man's hands is a proof of the existence of man as fully as
his personal appearance would be. When we see a watch, wo
have as positive evidence of the existence of a watch-maker, as
if we saw him ; and in like manner the creation is evidence to our
reason and our senses of the existence of a Creator. But there
is nothing in the works of God that is evidence that he begat a son,
nor any thing in the system of creation that corroborates such an
idea, and, therefore, we are not authorized in believing it.
But presumption can assume any thing, and therefore it makes
Joseph's dream to be of equal authority with the existence of God,
and to help it on calls it revelation. It is impossible for the mind
of man in its serious moments, however it may have been entang
led by education, or beset by priest-craft, not to stand still and

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 343
doubt upon the truth of this article and of its creed. But this is
not all.
The second article of the Christian creed having brought the
son of Mary into the world, (and this Mary, according to the chro
nological tables, was a girl of only fifteen years of age when this
son was born,) the next article goes on to account for his being
begotten, which was, that when he grew a man he should be put to
death, to expiate, they say, the sin that Adam brought into the
world by eating an apple or some kind of forbidden fruit.
But though this is the creed of the church of Rome, from
whence the protestants borrowed it, it is a creed which that church
has manufactured of itself, for it is not contained in, nor derived
from, the book called the New Testament. The four books cal
led the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which give,
or pretend to give, the birth, sayings, life, preaching, and death of
Jesus Christ, make no mention of what is called the fall of man ;
nor is the name of Adam to be found in any of those books, which
it certainly would be if the writers of them believed that Jesus was
begotten, born, and died for the purpose of redeeming mankind
from the sin which Adam had brought into the world. Jesus never
speaks of Adam himself, of the Garden of Eden, nor of what is
called the fall of man.
But the Church of Rome having set up its new religion which it
called Christianity, and invented the creed which it named the
apostles' creed, in which it calls Jesus the only son of God, con
ceived by the Holy Ghost, and born ofthe Virgin Mary, things of
which it is impossible that man or woman can have any idea, and
consequently no belief but in words ; and for which there is no au
thority but the idle story of Joseph's dream in the first chapter of
Matthew, which any designing imposter or foolish fanatic might
make. It then manufactured the allegories in the book of Genesis,
into fact, and the allegorical tree of life and the tree of knowledge
into real trees, contrary to the belief of the first christians, and for
which there is not the least authority in any of the books of the
New Testament ; for in none of them is there any mention made
of such place as the Garden of Eden, nor of any thing that is said
to have happened there.
But the church of Rome could not erect the person called Jesus
into a Saviour of the world without making the allegories in the
book of Genesis into fact, though the New Testament, as before

344 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
observed, gives no authority for it. All at once the allegorical
tree of knowledge became, according to the church, a real tree, the
fruit of it real fruit, and the eating of it sinful. As priest-craft was
always the enemy of knowledge, because priest-craft supports
itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consist
ent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real
sin. ,
The church of Rome having done this, it then brings forward
Jesus the son of Mary as suffering death to redeem mankind from
sin, which Adam, it says, had brought into tbe world by eating the
fruit ofthe tree of knowledge. But as it is impossible for reason
to believe such a story, because it can see no reason for it, nor
have any evidence of it, the church then tells us we must not re
gard our reason but must believe, as it were, and that through thick
and thin, as if God had given man reason like a plaything, or a
rattle, on purpose to make fun of him. Reason is fhe forbidden
tree of priest-craft, and may serve to explain the allegory of the
forbidden tree of knowledge, for we may reasonably suppose' the
allegory had some meaning and application at the time it was in
vented. It was the practice ofthe eastern nations to convey their
meaning by allegory, and relate it in the manner of fact. Jesus
followed the same method, yet nobody ever supposed the allegory
or parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the prodigal sun, the
ten virgins, &c. were facts. Why then should the tree of know
ledge, which is far more romantic in idea than the parables in the
New Testament are, be supposed to be a real tree.* The answer
to this is, because the church could not make its new fangled sys
tem, which it called Christianity, hold together without if. To
have made Christ to die on account of an allegorical tree would
have been too bare-faced a fable.
But the account, as it is given of Jesus in the New Testament, ¦
even visionary as it is, does not support the creed of the church
that he died for the redemption of the world. According to that
account he was crucified and buried on the Friday, and rose again
in good health on the Sunday morning, for we do not hear that he
was sick. This Cannot be called dying, and is rather making fun

* The remark of the Emperor julien, on the story of The tree of Kn0wled,g6
Js worth observing. " If,"said he, " there ever had been, or could be, a Tree of
Knowledge, instead of God forbidding man to eat thereof, it would be that of
whi'-h he would order him to eat the most."

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 345
of death than suffering it. There are thousands of men and women
also,- who if they could know they should come back again in good
lealth in about thirty-six hours, would prefer such kind of death
for the sake of the experiment, and to know what the other side of
the grave was. Why then should that which would be only a voy
age of curious amusement to us be magnified into merit and suf
fering in him 1 If a God he could not suffer death, for immortality
cannot die, and as a man his death could be no more than the
death of any other person.
The belief of the redemption of Jesus Christ is altogether an
invention of the church of Rome, not the doctrine of the New
Testament. What the writers of the New Testament attempted
to prove by the story of Jesus is the resurrection ofthe same body
from the grave, which was the belief of the Pharisees, in opposition
to the Sadducees (a sect of Jews) who denied it. Paul, who was
brought up a Pharisee, labours hard at this point, for it was the
creed of his own Pharisaical church. The XV chap. 1st of Corin
thians is full of supposed cases and assertions about the resurrec
tion of the same body, but there is not a word in it about redemp
tion. This chapter makes part of the funeral service of the Epis
copal church. The dogma ofthe redemption is the fable of priest
craft invented since the time the NewTestament was compiled, and
the agreeable delusion of it suited with the depravity of immoral
livers. When men are taught to ascribe all their crimes and vices to
the temptations ofthe Devil, and to believe that Jesus, by his death,
rubs all off and pays their passage to heaven gratis, they become
as careless in morals as a spendthrift would be of money, were he
told that his father had engaged to pay off all his scores. It is a
doctrine, not only dangerous to morals in this world, but to our
happiness in the next world, because it holds out such a cheap
easy, and lazy way of getting to heaven as has a tendency to in
duce men to hug the delusion of it to their own injury.
But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is
at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt
the truth of the Christian Religion, and well they may, for it is too
fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability,
and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man.
His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its
articles are proved, or can be proved. He may believe that such
a person ?s is called Jesus (for Christ was not his name) was
44

346 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
born and grew to be a man, because it is no more than a natural
and probable case. But who is to prove he is the son of God,
that he was begotten by the Holy Ghost 1 Of these things
there can be no proof ; and that which admits not of proof,
and is against the laws of probability; and the order of nature
which God himself has established, is not an object for belief.
God has not given man reason to embarrass him, but to prove
his being imposed upon.
He may believe that Jesus was crucified, because many others
were crucified, but who is to prove he was crucified for the sins of
the world ? This article has no evidence, not even in the New
Testament ; and if it had where is the proof that the New Tes
tament, in relating things neither probable nor proveable, is to be
believed as true 1 When an article in a creed does not admit of
proof nor of probability, the salvo is to call it revelation ; but this
is only putting one difficulty in the place of another, for it is as
impossible to prove a thing to be revelation as it is to prove that
Mary was gotten with child by the Holy Ghost.
Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian
religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles
that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the
Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure and sublimely
simple. It believes in God and there it rests. It honours reason
as the choicest gift of God to man, and the faculty by which he is
enabled to contemplate the power, wisdom and goodness of the
Creator displayed in the creation ; and reposing itself on his
protection, both here and hereafter, it avoids all presumptuous
beliefs, and rejects, as the fabulous inventions of men, all books
pretending to revelation.
T P.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 347

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, STYLING
ITSELF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

The New-York Gazette ofthe 16th (August) contains the follow
ing article — " On Tuesday, a committee of the Missionary
Society, consisting chiefly of distinguished Clergymen, had an
interview, at the City Hotel, wilh the chiefs of the Osage tribe
of Indians, now in this City, (New-York) to whom they pre
sented a Bible, together with an Address, the object of which
¦was, to inform them that this good book contained the will
and laws ofthe GREAT SPIRIT."

It is to be hoped some humane person will, on account of our
people on the frontiers, as well as of the Indians, undeceive them
with respect to the present the Missionaries have made them, and
which they call a good book, containing, they say, the will and
laws of the GREAT SPIRIT. Can those Missionaries suppose
that the assassination of men, women, and children, and sucking
infants, related in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c. and
blasphemously said to be done by the command of the Lord, the
Great Spirit, can be edifying to our Indian neighbours, or advan
tageous to us ? Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare
as the Indians themselves carry on, that of indiscriminate destruc
tion, and against which humanity shudders ; can the horrid exam
ples and vulgar obscenity, with which the Bible abounds, improve
the morals or civilize the manners of the Indians ? Will they learn
sobriety and decency from drunken Noah and beastly Lot ; or will
their daughters be edified by the example of Lot's daughters 1
Will the prisoners they take in war be treated the better by their
knowing the horrid story of Samuel's hewing Agag in pieces like
a block of wood, or David's putting them under harrows of iron !
Will not the shocking accounts of the destruction of the Cana-

348 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
anites, when the Israelites invaded their countiy, suggest the idea
that we^may serve them in the same manner, or the accounts stir
them up to do the like to our people on the frontiers, and then
justify the assassination by the Bible the Missionaries have given
them 1 Will those Missionary Societies never leave off doing
mischief? In the account which this missionary committee give of their
interview, they make the chief of the Indians to say, that, " as
neither he nor his people could read it, he begged that some good
white man might be sent to. instruct them."
It is necessary the General Government keep a strict eye over
those Missionary Societies, who, under the pretence of instructing
the Indians, send spies into their country to find out the best lands.
No society should be permitted to have intercourse with the Indian
tribes, nor send any person among them, but with the knowledge
and consent of the Government. The present administration
has brought the Indians into a good disposition, and is improving
them in the moral and civil comforts of life ; but if these self-
created societies be suffered to interfere, and send their specula
ting Missionaries among them, the laudable object of government
will be defeated. Priests, we know, are not remarkable for doing
any thing gratis ; they have in general some scheme in every thing
they do, either to impose on the ignorant, or derange the opera
tions of government.
A FRIEND TO THE INDIANS.

OF THE SABBATH DAY OF CONNECTICUT

The word Sabbath, means rest, that is, cessation from laboui ;
but the stupid Blue Laws* of Connecticut make a labour of rest,
for they oblige a person to sit still from sun-rise to sun-se* on a
Sabbath day, which is hard work. Fanaticism made those laws.)
* They Wire called Blue Laws because they were originally printed on btuj
paper.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 349
and hypocrisy pretends" to reverence them, for where &uch laws
prevail hypocrisy will prevail also.
One of those laws says, " No person shall run on a Sabbath-
day, nor walk in his garden, nor elsewhere, but reverently to and
from meeting." These fanatical hypocrites forgot that God dwells
not in temples made with hands, and that the earth is full of his
glory. One of the finest scenes and subjects of religious con
templation is to walk into the woods and fields, and survey the
works ofthe God ofthe Creation. The wide expanse of heaven,
the earth covered with verdure, the lofty forest, the waving corn,
the magnificent roll of mighty rivers, and the murmuring melody
ofthe cheerful brooks, are scenes that inspire the mind with grati
tude and delight : but this the gloomy Calvinist of Connecticut,
must not behold on a Sabbath-day. Entombed within the walls
of his dwelling, he shuts from his view the temple of creation.
The sun shines no joy to him. The gladdening voice of nature
calls on him in vain. He is deaf, dumb, and blind to every thing
around him that God has made. Such is the Sabbath-day of Con
necticut. From whence could come this miserable notion of devotion ?
It comes from the gloominess of the Calvinistic creed. If men
love darkness rather than light, because their works are evil, the
ulcerated mind of a Calvinist, who sees God only in terror, and
sits brooding over the scenes of hell and damnation, can have no
j»y in beholding the glories of the creation. Nothing in that
mighty and wondrous system accords with his principles or his
devotion. He sees nothing there that tells him that God created
millions on purpose to be damned, and that the children of a span
long are born to burn forever in- hell. The creation preaches a
different doctrine to this. We there see that the care and good
ness of God is extended impartially over all the creatures he has
made. The worm of the earth shares his protection equally with
the elephant of the desert. The grass that springs beneath our
feet grows by his bounty as well as the cedars of Lebanon. Every
thing in the Creation reproaches the Calvinist with unjust ideas of
God, and disowns the hardness and ingratitude of his principles.
Therefore he shuns the sight of them on a Sabbath-day.
AN ENEMY TO CANT AND IMPOSITION.

350 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT.

Archbishop Tillotson says, " The difference between the style
of the Old and New Testament is so very remarkable, that one of
the greatest sects iu the primitive times, did, upon this very ground,
found their heresy of two Gods, the one evil, fierce, and cruel,
whom they called the God of the Old Testament ; the other good;
kind, and merciful, whom they called the God of the New Testa
ment ; so great a difference is there between the representations
that are given of God in the books of the Jewish and Christian
Religion, as to give, at least, some colour and pretence to an ima
gination of two Gods." Thus far Tillotson.
But the case was, that as the Church had picked out several
passages from the Old Testament, which she most absurdly and
falsely calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, (whereas there is no pro
phecy of any such person, as any one may see by examining the
passages and the cases to which they apply,) she was under the
necessity of keeping up the credit ofthe Old Testament, because
if that fell the other would soon follow, and the Christian system
of faith would soon be at an end. As a book of morals, there are
several parts of the New Testament that are good ; but they are
no other than what had been preached in the Eastern world seve
ral hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, the Chi
nese philosopher, who lived five hundred years before the time of
Christ, says, acknowledge thy benefits by the return of benefits but
never revenge injuries.
The clergy in Popish countries were cunning enough to know,
that if the Old Testament was made public, the fallacy of the
New, with respect to Christ, would be detected, and they pro
hibited the use of it, and always took it away wherever they found
it. The Deists, on the contrary, always encouraged the reading
it, that people might see and judge for themselves, that a book so
full of contradictions and wickedness, could not be the word of
God, and that we dishonour God by ascribing it to him.
A TRUE DEIST.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 351

Hints towaras forming a Society for inquiring into the truth or
falsehood oj' ancient history, so far as history is connected with
systems of religion ancient and modem.

It has been customary to class history into three divisions, dis
tinguished by the names of Sacred,- Profane, and Ecclesiastical.
By the first is meant the Bible ; by the second, the history of
nations, of men and things ; and by the third, the history of the
church and its priesthood.
Nothing is more easy than to give names, and, therefore, mere
names signify nothing unless they lead to the discovery of some
cause for which that name was given. For example, Sunday is
the name given to the first day of the week, in the English lan
guage, and it is the same in the Latin, that is, it has the same
meaning, (Dies solis,) and also in the German, and in several other
languages. Why then was this name given to that day 1 Because it
was the day dedicated by the ancient world to the luminary, which
in English we call the Sun, and, therefore, the day Sun-day, or the
day of the Sun ; as in the like manner we call the second day
Monday, the day dedicated to the Moon.
Here the name Sunday, leads to the cause of its being called
so, and we have visible evidence of the fact, because we behold
the Sun from whence the name comes ; but this is not the case when
we distinguish one part of history from another by the name of
Sacred. All histories have been written by men. We have no
evidence, nor any cause to believe, that any have been written by
God. That part of the Bible called the Old Testament, is the
history of the Jewish nation, from the time of Abraham, which be
gins in the 11th chap, of Genesis, to the downfall of that nation
by Nebuchadnezzar, and is no more entitled to be called sacred
than any other history. It is altogether the contrivance of priest
craft that has given it that name. So far from its being sacred,
it has not the appearance of being true in many of the things it
relates. It must be better authority than a book, which any im
postor might make, as Mahomet made the Koran, to make a
thoughtful man believe that the sun and moon stood still, or that

352 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
Moses and Aaron turned the Nile, which is larger than the Dela-
waie, into blood, and that the Egyptian magicians did the same.
These things have too much the appearance of romance to be be-
'leved for fact.
It would be of use to inquire, and ascertain the time, when that
part ofthe Bible called the Old Testament first appeared. From
all that can be collected there was no such book till after the Jews
returned from captivity in Babylon, and that it is the work of the
Pharisees of the Second Temple. How they came to make the
19th chapter ofthe 2d book of Kings, and the 37th of Isaiah, word
for word alike, can only be accounted for by their having no plan
to go by, and not knowing what they were about. The same is
the case with respect to the last verses in the 2d book of Chro
nicles, and the first verses in Ezra, they also are word for word
alike, which shows that the Bible has been put together at rand&m.
But besides these things there is great reason to believe we have
been imposed upon, with respect to the antiquity ofthe Bible, and
especially with respect to the books ascribed to Moses. Herodo
tus, who is called the father of history, and is the most ancient
historian whose works have reached to our time, and who travelled
into Egypt, conversed with the priests, historians, astronomers,
and learned men of that country, for the purpose of obtaining all
the information of it he could, and who gives an account of the
ancient state of it, makes no mention of such a man as Moses,
though the Bible makes him to have been the greatest hero there,
nor of any one circumstance mentioned in the book of Exodus,
respecting Egypt, such as turning the rivers into blood, the dust
into lice, the death of the first born throughout all the land of
Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and
all his host, things which could not have been a secret in Egypt,
and must have been generally known, had they been facts ; and,
therefore, as no such things were known in Egypt, nor any such
man as Moses, at the time Herodotus was there, which is about
two thousand two hundred years ago, it shows that the account of
these things in the books ascribed to Moses is a made story of later
times, that is, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
captivity, and that Moses is not the author of the books ascribed
to him.
With respect to the cosmogony, or account of the creation, in
the first chapter of Genesis, ofthe Garden of Eden in the second

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 351
chapter, and of what is called the fall of man in the third chapter,
there is something concerning them we are not historically ac
quainted with. In none of the books of the Bible, after Genesis,
are any of these things mentioned, or even alluded to. How is tnis
to be accounted for 1 The obvious inference is, that either they
were not known, or not believed to be facts, by the writers ofthe
other books ofthe Bible, and that Moses is not the author ofthe
chapters where these accounts are given.
The next question on the case is, how did the Jews come by
these notions, and at what time were they written.
To answer this question we must first consider what the state of
the world was at the time the Jews began to be a people, for the
Jews are but a modern race compared with the antiquity of other
nations. At the time there were, even by their own account, but
thirteen Jews or Israelites in the world, Jacob and his twelve sons,
and four of these were bastards, the nations of Egypt, Chaldea,
Persia, and Tndia, were great and populous, abounding in learning
and science, particularly in the knowledge of astronomy, of which
the Jews were always ignorant. The chronological tables men
tion, that eclipses were observed at Babylon above two thousand
years before the Christian era, which was before there was a single
Jew or Israelite in the world.
All those ancient nations had their cosmogonies, that is, their
accounts how the creation was made, long before there was such
people as Jews or Israelites. An account of these cosmogonies
of India and Persia, is given by Henry Lord, Chaplain to the East
India Company, at Surat, and published in London in 1630. The
writer of this has seen a copy of the edition of 1630, and made ex
tracts from it. The work, which is now scarce, was dedicated
by Lord to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
We know that the Jews were carried captive into Babylon, by
Nebuchadnezzar, and remained in captivity several years, when
they were liberated by Cyrus, king of Persia. During their cap
tivity they would have had an opportunity of acquiring some know
ledge ofthe cosmogony ofthe Persians, or at least of getting some
ideas how to fabricate one to put at the head of their own history
after their return from captivity. This will account for the cause,
for some cause there must have been, that no mentionTnor refer
ence is made to the cosmogony in Genesis in any of the books of
45

354 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
the Bible, supposed to have been written before the captivity, nor
is the name of Adam to be found in any of those books.
The books of Chronicles were written after the return of tne
Jews from captivity, for the third chapter of the first book gives a
list of all the Jewish kings from David to Zedekiah, who was car
ried captive into Babylon, and to four generations beyond the time
of Zedekiah. In the first verse of the first chapter of this book
the name of Adam is mentioned, but not in any book in the Bible,
written before that time, nor could it be, for Adam and Eve are
names taken from the cosmogony of the Persians. Henry Lord,
in his book, written from Surat, and dedicated, as I have already
said, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, says, that in the Persian
cosmogony, the name of the first man was Adamoh, and of the
woman Hevah.* From hence comes the Adam and Eve of the
book of Genesis. In the cosmogony of India, of which I shall
speak in a future number, the name ofthe first man was Pourous,
and ofthe woman Parcoutee. We want a knowledge of the San
scrit language of India to understand the meaning of the names,
and I mention it in this place, only to show that it is from the cos
mogony of Persia, rather than that of India, that the cosmogony in
Genesis has been fabricated by the Jews, who returned from cap
tivity by the liberality of Cyrus, king of Persia. There is, however
reason to conclude, on the authority of Sir William Jones, who
resided several years in India, that these names were very expres
sive in the language to which they belonged, for in speaking of
this language, he says, (see the Asiatic researches,) " The Sanscrit
language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure ; it
is more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and
more exquisitely refined than either."
These hints, which are intended to be continued, will serve to
show that a society for inquiring into the ancient state ofthe world,
and the state of ancient history, so far as history is connected with
systems of religion ancient and modern, may become a useful and
instructive institution. There is good reason tojbelieve we have
been in great error, with respect to the antiquity ofthe Bible, as
well as imposed upon by its contents. Truth ought to be the ob
.ject of every man ; for without truth there can be no real happiness
* In an English edition of the Bible, in 1583, the first woman is calltl He-
vaa Editor of the Prospect.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 35.5
to a thoughtful mind, or any assurance of happiness hereafter. It
is the duty of man to obtain all the knowledge he can, and then
make the best use of it. T. P.

==+»=

TO MR. MOORE, OF NEW-YORK,

COMMONLY CALLED

BISHOP MOORE.

I have read in the newspapers your account of the visit you
made to the unfortunate General Hamilton, and of administering
to him a ceremony of your church which you call the Holy Com
munion. I regret the fate of General Hamilton, and I so far hope with
you that it will be a warning to thoughtless man not to sport away
the life that God has given him ; but with respect to other parts of
your letter I think it very reprehensible, and betrays great ignorance
of what true religion is. But you are a priest, you get your living
by it, and it is not your worldly interest to undeceive yourself.
After giving an account of your administering to the deceased
what you call the Holy Communion, you add, " By reflecting on
this melancholy event let the humble believer be encouraged ever
to hold fast that precious faith which is the only source of true con
solation in the last extremity of nature. Let the infidel be per
suaded to abandon his opposition to the Gospel."
To show you, sir, that your promise of consolation from scrip
ture has no foundation to stand upon, I will cite to you one of the
greatest falsehoods upon record, and which was given, as the re
cord says, for the purpose, and as a promise, of consolation.
In the epistle called " the First Epistle of Paul to the Thessalo
nians," (chap. 4,) the writer consoles the Thessalonians as to the
case of their friends who were already dead. He does this by in
forming them, and he does it he says, by the word ofthe Lord, (a

356 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
most notorious falsehood,) that the general resurrection of the dead
and the ascension ofthe living, will be in his and their days ; tha*.
their friends will then come to life again ; that the dead in Christ
will rise first. — " Then we (says he, v. 17) which are alive ant
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to mee
the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord — where
fore comfort one another with these words."
Delusion and falsehood cannot be carried higher than they are
in this passage. You, sir, are but a novice in the art. The words
admit of no equivocation. The whole passage is in the first per
son and the present tense, " We which are alive." Had the wri
ter meant a future time, and a distant generation, it must have
been in the third person and the future tense. " They who shall
then be alive." I am thus particular for the purpose of nailing
you down to the text, that you may not ramble from it, nor put
other constructions upon the words than they will bear, which
priests are very apt to do.
Now, sir, it is impossible for serious man, to whom God has
given the divine gift of reason, and who employs that reason to
reverence and adore the God that gave it, it is, I say, impossible
for such a man to put confidence in a book that abounds with fable
and falsehood as the New Testament does. This passage is but
a sample of what I could give you.
You call on those whom you style " infidels," (and they in re
turn might call you an idolater, a worshipper of false gods, a
preacher of false doctrine,) " to abandon their opposition to the
Gospel." Prove, sir, the Gospel to be true, and the opposition
will cease of itself ; but until you do this (which we know you can
not do) you have no right to expect they will notice your call. If
by infidels you mean Deists, (and you must be exceedingly ignor
ant of the origin of the word Deist, and know but little of Deus, to
put that construction upon it,) you will find yourself over-matched
if you begin to engage in a controversy with them. Priests may
dispute with priests, and sectaries with sectaries, about the mean
ing of what they agree to call scripture, and end as they began ;
but when you engage with a Deist you must keep to fact. Now,
sir, you cannot prove a single article of your religion to be true,
and we tell you so publicly. Do it, if you can. The Deistical
article, the belief of a God, with which your creed begins, has been
borrowed by your church from the ancient Deists, and even this

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 357
article you dishonour by putting a dream-begotten phantom* which
vou call his son, over his head, and treating God as if he was super-
anuated. Deism is the only profession of religion that admits of
worshipping and reverencing God in purity, and the only one on
which the thoughtful mind can repose with undisturbed tranquillity.
God is almost forgotten in the Christian religion. Every thing,
even the creation, is ascribed to the son of Mary.
In religion, as in every thing else, perfection consists in simpli
city. The Christian religion of Gods within Gods, like wheels
within wheels, is like a complicated machine that never goes right,
and every projector in the art of Christianity is trying to mend it.
It is its defects that have caused such a number and variety of
tinkers to be hammering at it, and still it goes wrong. In the vi
sible world no time-keeper can go equally true with the sun ; and
in like manner, no complicated religion can be equally true with
the pure and unmixed religion of Deism.
Had you not offensively glanced at a description of men whom
you call by a false name, you would not have been troubled nor
honored with this address ; neither has the writer of it any desire
or intention to enter into controversy with you. He thinks the
temporal establishment of your church politically unjust and offen
sively unfair ; but with respect to religion itself, distinct from
temporal establishments, he is happy in the enjoyment ofhis own?
and he leaves you to make the best you can of yours.
A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CHURCH
* The first chapter of Matthew, relates that Joseph, the betrothed husband
of Mary, dreamed that the angel told him that his intended bride was with
child by the Holy Ghost. It is not every husband, whether carpenter or
priest, that can be so easily satisfied, for lo ! it was a dream. Whether Mary
was in a dream when this was done we are not told. It is, however, a comical
story. There is no woman living can understand it.

358

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

TO JOHN MASON,
One of the Ministers of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, of New-
York, with remarks on his account of the visit he made to the
late General Hamilton.
" Come now, let us reason together saith the Lord." This is
one of the passages you quoted from your Bible, in your conver
sation with General Hamilton, as given in your letter, signed with
vour name, and published in the Commercial Advertiser, and
other New- York papers, and I re-quote the passage to show that
your text and your Religion contradict each other.
It is impossible to reason upon things not comprehensible by
reason ; and, therefore, if you keep to your text, which priests
seldom do, (for they are generally either above it, or below it, or
forget it,) you must admit a religion to which reason can apply,
and this certainly is not the Christian religion.
There is not an article in the Christian religion that is cog
nizable by reason. The Deistical article of your religion, the
belief of a God, is no more a Christian article, than it is a Maho
metan article. It is an universal article, common to all religions,
and which is held in greater purity by Turks than by Christians ;
but the Deistical church is the only one which holds it in real
purity ; because that church acknowledges no co-partnership with
God. It believes in him solely ; and knows nothing of Sons,
married Virgins, nor Ghosts. It holds all these things to be the
fables of priest-craft.
Why then do you talk of reason, or refer to it, since your reli
gion has nothing to do with reason, nor reason with that. You
tell people as you told Hamilton, that they must have faith !
Faith in what ? You ought to know that before the mind can
have faith in any thing, it must either know it as a fact, or see
cause to believe it on the probability of that kind of evidence that
is cognizable by reason ; but your religion is not within either
of these cases ; for, in the first place, you cannot prove it be
fact ; and in the second place, you cannot support it by reason,
not only because it is not cognizable by reason, but because
it is contrary to reason. What reason can there be in sup
posing, or believing, that God put himself lo death, to satisfy

miscellaneous pieces. 359
himself, and be revenged on the Devil on account of Adam ; for
tell the story which way you will it comes to this at last.
As you can make no appeal to reason in support of an unrea
sonable religion, you then (and others of your profession) bring
yourselves off by telling people, they must not believe in reason
but in revelation. This is the artifice of habit without reflection.
It is putting words in the place of things ; for do you not see that
when you tell people to believe in revelation, you must first prove
that what you call revelation, is revelation ; and as you cannot do
this, you put the word which is easily spoken, in the place of the
thing you cannot prove. You have no more evidence that your
Gospel is revelation, than the Turks have that their Koran is reve
lation, and the only difference between them and you is, that they
preach their delusion and you preach yours.
In your conversation with General Hamilton, you say to him,
" The simple truths of the Gospel which require no abstruse in
vestigation, but faith in the veracity of God, who cannot lie, are
best suited to your present condition."
If those matters you call " simple truths," are what you call
them, and require no abstruse investigation, they would be so ob
vious that reason would easily comprehend them ; yet the doc
trine you preach at other times is, that the mysteries ofthe Gospel
are beyond the reach of reason. If your first position be true, that
they are simple truths, priests are unnecessary, for we do not
want preachers to tell us the sun shines ; and if your second be
true, the case, as to effect, is the same, for it is waste of money to
pay a man to explain unexplainable things, and loss of time to
listen to him. That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your
argument, because it is no proof that priests cannot, or that the
Bible does not. Did not Paul lie when he told the Thessalonians
that the general resurrection of the dead would be in his life-time,
and that he should go up alive along with them into the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thes. chap. 4. ». 27.
You spoke of what you call, " the precious blood vf Christ."
This savage style of language belongs to the priests of the Chris
tian religion. The professors of this religion say they are shock*
ed at the accounts Of human sacrifices of which they read in the
histories of some countries. Do they not see that their own
religion is founded on a human sacrifice, the blood of man, of
which their priests talk like so many butchers. It is no wonder

360 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
the Christian religion has been so bloody in its effects, for it began
in blood, and many thousands of human sacrifices have since been
offered on the altar of the Christian religion.
It is necessary to the character of a religion, as being true, and
immutable as God himself is, that the evidence Of it be equally
the same through all periods of time and circumstance. This is
not the case with the Christian religion, nor with that of the Jews
that preceded it, (for there was a time and that within the know
ledge of history, when these religions did not exist,) nor is it the
case with any religion we know of but the religion of Deism. In
this the evidences are eternal and universal. — " The heavens de
clare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work,
— Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth
knowledge."* But all other religions are made to arise from
some local circumstance, and are introduced by some temporary
trifle which its partizans call a miracle, but of which there is no
proof but the story of it.
The Jewish religion, according to the history of it, began in a
wilderness, and the Christian religion in a stable. The Jewish
books tell us of wonders exhibited upon mount Sinai. It happen
ed that nobody lived there to contradict the account. The Chris
tian books tell us of a star that hung over the stable at the birth of
Jesus. There is no star there now, nor any person living that
saw it. But all the stars in the heavens bear eternal evidence to
the truth of Deism. It did not begin in. a stable, nor in a wilder
ness. It began every where. The theatre of the universe is the
place of its birth.
As adoration paid to any being but GOD himself is idolatary,
the Christian religion by paying adoration to a man, born of a
woman, called Mary, belongs to the idolatrous class of religions,
consequently the consolation drawn from it is delusion. Between
you and your rival in communion ceremonies, Dr. Moore of the
* This Psalm (19) which is a Deistical Psalm, is so much in the mannei of
some parts ofthe book of Job, (which is not a book of the Jews, and does not
belong to the bible,) that it has the appearance of having been translated into
Hebrew from the same language in wruch the book of Job was originally writ
ten, and brought by the Jews from Chaldea or Persia, when they returned
from captivity. The contemplation of the heavens made a great part of the
religious devotion of the Chaldeans and Persians, and their religious festivals
were regulated by the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zo
diac. But the Jews knew nothing about the Heavens, or they would not
have told the foolish story of the sun's standing still upon a hill, and the moon
in a vj Uey. What could they want the moon for in the day time.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 361
Episcopal church, you have, in order to make yourselves appear
of some importance, reduced General Hamilton's character to
that of a feeble minded man, who in going out of the world want
ed a passport from a priest. Which of you was first or last ap
plied to for this purpose is a matter of no consequence.
The man, sir, who puts his trust and confidence in God, that
leads a just and moral life, and endeavours to do good, does not
trouble himself about priests when his hour of departure comes,
nor permit priests to trouble themselves about him. They are in
general mischievous beings where character is concerned ; a con
sultation of priests is worse than a consultation of physicians.
' A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CONGREGATION.

ON DEISM, AND THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS
PAINE.

The following reflections, written last winter, were occasioned
by certain expressions in some of the public papers against Deism
and the writings of Thomas Paine on that subject.
" Great is Diana ofthe Ephesians," was the cry of the people
of Ephesus ;* and the cry of " our holy religion," has been the
cry of superstition in some instances, and of hypocrisy in others,
from that day to this.
The Brahmin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the Maho
metan, the church of Rome, the Greek church, the protestant
church, split ihto several hundred contradictory sectaries, preach
ing, in some instances, damnation against each other, all cry out,
" our holy religion." The Calvinist, who damns children of a
span long to hell to burn for ever for the glory of God, (and this
is called Christianity,) and the Universalist, who preaches that all
shall be saved and none shall be damned, (and this also is called
Christianity,) boasts alike of their holy religion and their Christian
faith. Something more, therefore, is necessary than mere cry
and wholesale assertion, and that something is TRUTH ; and as
* Acts, chap. xix. ver. 28.
46

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
inquiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not a
friend to truth.
The God of Truth is not the God of fable ; when, therefore
any book is introduced into the world as the word of God, and
made a ground-work for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more
than other books to see ifit bear evidence of being what it is cal
led. Our reverence to God demands that We do this, lest we as
cribe to God what is not his, and our duty to ourselves demand it
lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false
foundation. It is not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any
more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name.
Inquiry, therefore, is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But
inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to
judge by, superior to human authority.
When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of the
planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature,
which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to mat
ter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning through
out the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does
not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the
planets against each other. Every thing keeps its appointed time
and place. This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that
the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipsss, is as
sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God
of order in every part of the visible universe.
Here, then, is the standard to which every thing must be brought
that pretends to be the work or word of God, and by this standard
it must be judged, independently of any thing and every thing that
man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the scale com
pared with the standard that God himself has set up.
It is, therefore, by this standard, that the Bible, and all other
books pretending to be the word of God, (and there are many of
them in the world,) must be judged, and not by the opinions of men
or the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. These have been so
contradictory, that they have often rejected in one council wnat
they had voted to be the word, of God in another ; and admitted
what had been before rejected. In this state of uncerta'inty in
which we are, and which is rendered still more jncertain by the
numerous contradictory sectaries that have sprung up since the
time of liUther and Calvin, what is man to do ? The answer is

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 363
easy. Begin at the root — begin with the Bible itself. Examine it
with the utmost strictness. It is our duty so to do. Compare the
parts with each other, and the whole with the narmonious, magni
ficent order that reigns throughout the visible universe, and the
result will be, that if the same almighty wisdom that created the
universe, dictated also the Bible, the Bible will be as harmonious
and as magnificent in all its parts, and in the whole, as the uni
verse is. But if, instead of this, the parts are found to be discor
dant, contradicting in one place what is said in another, (as in 2
Sam. chap. xxiv. v. 1, and 1 Chron. chap. xxi. ver. 1, where the
same action is ascribed to God in one book and to Satan in the
other,) abounding also in idle and obscene stories, and represent
ing the Almighty as a passionate, whimsical Being, continually
changing his mind, making and unmaking his own works as if he
did not know what he was about, we may take it for certainty that
the Creator of the universe is not the author of such a book, that
it is not the word of God, and that to call it so is to dishonour his
name. The Quakers, who are a people more moral and regular in
their conduct than the people of other sectaries, and generally al
lowed so to be, do not hold the Bible to be the word of God. They
call it a history ofthe times, and a bad history it is, and also a history
of bad men and of bad actions, and abounding with bad examples.
For several centuries past the dispute has been about doctrines.
It is now about fact. Is the Bible the word of God, or is it not ?
for until this point is established, no doctrine drawn from the Bible
can afford real consolation to man, and he ought to be careful he
does not mistake delusion for truth. This is a case that con
cerns all men alike.
There has always existed in Europe, and also in America, since
its establishments, a numerous description of men, (I do not here
mean the Quakers,) who did not, and do not believe the Bible to
be the word of God. These men never formed themselves into
an established society, but are to be found in all the sectaries that
exist, and are more numerous than any, perhaps equal to all, and
are daily increasing. From Deus, the latin word for God, they
have been denominated Deists, that is, believers in God. It is the
most honourable appellation that can be given to man, because it
is derived immediately from the Deity. It is not an artificial name
like episcopalian, presbyterian, &c. but is a name of sacred signi
fication, and to revile it is to revile the name of God. i

'64 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
Since then there is so much doubt and uncertainty about tho
Bible, some asserting, and others denying it to be the word of God,
it is best that the whole matter come out. It is necessary, for the
information ofthe world, that it should. A better time cannot of
fer than whilst the government, patronizing no one sect or opinion
in preference to another, protects equally the rights of all ; and
certainly every man must spurn the idea of an ecclesiastical
tyranny, engrossing the rights of the press, and holding it free only
for itself.
Whilst the terrors of the church, and the tyranny of the slate,
hung like a pointed sword over Europe, men were commanded to
believe what the church told them, or go to the stake. All in
quiries into the authenticity of the Bible were shut out by the in
quisition. We ought, therefore, to suspect, that a great mass of
information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into the
world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of church and
state, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which
ought to be known.
The Bible has been received by the protestants on the authority
of the church of Rome, and on no other authority. It is she that
has said it is the word of God. We do not admit the authority of
that church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufac
tured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins, its amphibious
doctrine of transubstantiation, &c. ; and we ought to be watchful
with respect to any book introduced by her, or her ecclesiastical
councils, and called by her the word of God : and the more so,
because it was by propagating that belief and supporting it by fire
and faggot, that she kept up her temporal power. That the belief
of the Bible does no good in the world, may be seen by the irregu
lar lives of those, as well priests as laymen, who profess to believe
it to be the word of God, and the moral lives of the Quakers who
do not. It abounds with too many ill examples to be made a rule
for moral life, and were a man to copy after the lives of some of
its most celebrated characters, he would come to the gallows.
Thomas Paine has written to show that the Bible is not the
word of God, that the books it contains were not written by the
persons to whom they are ascribed, that it is an anonymous book,
and that we have no authority for calling it the word of God, or for
saying it was written by inspired penmen, since we do not know
who the writers were. This is the opinion not only of Thomas

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 365
Paine, but of thousands and tens of thousands ofthe most respect
able characters in the United States and in Europe. These men
have the same right'to their opinions as others have to contrary
opinions, and the same right to publish them. Ecclesiastical
tyranny is not admissible in the United States.
With respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine are re
markable for purity and benevolence ; and though he often enli
vens them with touches of wit and humour, he never loses sight of
the real solemnity of his subject. No man's morals, either with
respect to his Maker, himself, or his neighbour, can suffer by the
writings of Thomas Paine.
It is now too late to abuse Deism, especially in a country where
the press is free, or where free presses can be established. It is a
religion that has God for its patron and derives its name from him.
The thoughtful mind of man, wearied with the endless contentions
of sectaries against sectaries, doctrines against doctrines, and
priests against priests, finds its repose at last in the contemplative
belief and worship of one God and the practice of morality, for as
Pope wisely says,
" He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."

OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Address to the believers in the book called the Scriptures.

The New Testament contains twenty-seven books, of which
four are called Gospels ; one called the Acts of the Apostles ;
fourteen called Epistles of Paul ; one of James ; two of Peter ;
throe of John ; one of Jude ; and one called the Revelation.
None of those books have the appearance of being written by
the persons whose names they bear, neither do we know who the
authors were. They come to us on no other authority than the
church of Rome, which the Protestant Priests, especially those of
New England, call the Whore of Babylon. This church appoint
ed sundry councils to be held, to compose creeds for the people,
and to regulate church affairs. Two of the principal of these
councils were that of Nice, and of Laodocia, (names ofthe places
where the councils were held,) about three hundred and fifty years

366 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
after the time that Jesus is said to have lived. Before this time
there was no such book as the New Testament. But the church
could not well go on without having something to show, as the
Persians showed the Zendavista, revealed, they say, by God to
Zoroaster ; the Bramins of India, the Shaster, revealed, they say,
by God to Bruma, and given to him out of a dusky cloud ; the
Jews, the books they call the Law of Moses, given they say also
out of a cloud on Mount Sinai ; the church set about forming a
code for itself out of such materials as it could find or pick up.
But where they got those materials, in what language they were
written, or whose hand writing they were, or whether they were
originals or copies, or on wha't authority they stood we know noth
ing of, nor does the New Testament tell us. The church was
resolved to have a New Testament, and as after the lapse of more
than three hundred years, no hand-writing could be proved or dis
proved, the church, who like former impostors, had then gotten
possession of the state, had every thing its own way. It invented
creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed
the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were
presented, it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles,
as we now find them arranged.
Of those called Gospels, above forty were presented, each pre
tending to be genuine. Four only were voted in, and entitled,
the Gospel according to St. Matthew — the Gospel according to
St. Mark — the Gospel according to St. Luke — the Gospel ac
cording to St. John.
This word according, shows that those books have not been
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but according to some
accounts or traditions, picked up concerning them. The word
according means agreeing with, and necessarily includes the idea
of two things, or two persons. We cannot say, The Gospel writ
ten by Matthew according to Matthew ; but we might say, the
the Gospel of some other person according to what was reported
to have been the opinion of Matthew. Now we do not know
who those other persons were, nor whether what they wrote ac
corded with any thing that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John might
have said. There is too little evidence, and too much contrivance,
about those books to merit credit.
The next book after those called Gospels, is that called the Acts
of the Apostles. This book is anonymous ; neither do the coun.-

MISCELLANEOUS FIECES. 367
cils that compiled or contrived the New Testament tell us how
they came by it. The church, to supply this defect, say it was
written by Luke, whjch shows that the church and its priests have
not compared that called the Gospel according to St. Luke, and
the Acts together, for the two contradict each other. The book
of Luke, chap. 24, makes Jesus ascend into heaven the very same
day that it makes him rise from the grave. The book of Acts,
chap. i. v. 3, says, that he remained on the earth forty days after
his crucifixion. There is no believing what either of them says.
The next to the book of Acts is that entitled. " The Epistle of
Paul the. Apostle* to the Romans." This is not an Epistle, or let
ter written by Paul or signed by him. It is an Epistle, or letter,
written by a person who signs himself Tertius, and sent, as it is
said at the end, by a servant woman called Phebe. The last chap
ter, v. 22, says. " I Tertius, who wrote this Epistle, salute you."
Who Tertius or Phebe were, we know nothing of. The Epistle
is not dated. The whole of it is written in the first person, and
that person is Tertius, not Paul. But it suited the church to
ascribe it to Paul. There is nothing in it that is interesting ex
cept it be to contending and wrangling sectaries. The stupid
metaphor of the potter and the clay is in the 9th chap.
The next book is entittled " The first Epistle of Paul the Apos
tle, to the Corinthians." This, like the former, is not an Epistle
written by Paul, nor signed by him. Thevconclusion of the Epis
tle says, " The first epistle to the Corinthians was written from
Philippi, by Stephenas and Fortunatus, and Achaicus and Timo
theus." The second epistle entitled, " The second epistle of
Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians," is in the same case with the
first. The conclusion of it says, " It was written from Philippi,
a city of Macedonia, by Titus and Lucas.
A question may arise upon these cases, which is-, are these per
sons the writers of the epistles originally, or are they the writers
and attestors of copies sent to the councils who compiled the code
or canon of the New Testament ? If the epistles had been dated
this question could be decided ; but in either of the cases the
evidences of Paul's hand writing and of their being written by him
* According to the criterion of the church, Paul was not an apostle ; that
appellation being given only to those called the twelve. Two sailors belong
ing to a man of war, got into a dispute upon this point, whether Paul was an
apostle or not, and they agreed to refer it to the boatswain, who decided very
rjmonically that Paul was an acting apostle but not rated.

368 miscellaneous pieces.
is wanting, and, therefore, there is no authority for calling them
Epistles of Paul. We know not whose Episles they were, nor
whethei they are genuine or forged.
The next is entitled, " The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Galatians." It contains six short chapters. But short as the epis
tle is, it does not carry the appearance of being the work or com
position of one person. The fifth chapter, ver. 2, says, " If ye
be circumcised Christ shall avail you nothing." It does not say
circumcision shall profit you nothing, but Christ shall profit you
nothing. Yet in the sixth chap. v. 15, it says, " For iu Christ
Jesus neither circumcision ayaileth any thing nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature." These are not reconcileable passages, nor
can contrivance make them so. The conclusion of the epistle
says, it was written from Rome, but it is not dated, nor is there any
signature to it, neither do the compilers of the New Testament
say how they came by it. We are in the dark upon all these
matters. The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Ephesians." Paul is not the writer. The conclusion of it says,
" Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Tychicus."
The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Philippians." Paul is not the writer. The conclusion of it says,
" It was written to the Philippians from Rome by Epaphroditus."
It is not dated. Query, were those men who wrote and signed
those Epistles journeymen Apostles, who undertook to write in
Paul's name, as Paul is said to have preached in Christ's name !
The next is entitled, " the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Colossians." Paul is not the writer. Doctor Luke is spoken of
in this Epistle as sending his compliments. " Luke, the beloved
physician and Demas greet you." Chap. iv. v. 14. It does not
say a word about his writing any Gospel. The conclusion of the
Epistle says, " Written from Rome to the Collossians, by Tychi
cus and Onesimus."
The next is entitled, " The first and the second Epistles of Paul
the Apostle, to the Thessalonians." Either the writer of these
Epistles was a visionary enthusiast, or a direct impostor, for he
tells the Thessalonians, and, he says, he tells them by the word of
the Lord, that the world will be at an end in his and their time ;
and after telling them that those who are already dead shall rise,
he adds, chapter 4, verse 17, " Then we which are alive and

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 369
remain shall be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord." Such detected
lies as these, ought to fill priests with confusion, when they preach
such books to be the word1 of God. These two Epistles are said
in the conclusion. of them, to be written from Athens. They are
without date or signatures.
The next four Epistles are.private letters. Two of them are to
Timothy, one to Titus, and one to Philemon. Who they were,
nobody knows.
The first to Timothy, is said to be written from Laodicea. It is
without date or signature. The second to Timothy, is said to be
written from Rome, and is without date or signature. The Epistle
to Titus is said to be written from Nicopolis in Macedonia. It is
without date or signature. The Epistle to Philemon is said to be
written from Rome by Onesimus. It is without date.
The last Epistle ascribed to Paul is entitled, " The Epistle of
Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews," and is said in the conclusion
to be written from Italy, by Timothy. This Timothy (according
to the conclusion of the Epistle called the second Epistle of Paul
to Timothy) was bishop of the church of the Ephesians, and con
sequently this is not an Epistle of Paul.
On what slender cob-web evidence, do the priests and profes
sors ofthe Christian religion hang their faith ! The same degree
of hearsay evidence, and that at third and fourth hand, would not,
in a court of justice, give a man title to a cottage, and yet the
priests of this profession presumptuously promise their deluded
followers the kingdom of Heaven. A little reflection would teach
men that those books are not to be trusted to ; that so far from
there being any proof they are the word of God, it is unknown who
the writers of them were, or at what time they were written, within
three hundred years after the reputed authors are said to have lived.
It is not the interest of priests, who get their living by them,
to examine into the insufficiency ofthe evidence upon which those
books were received by the popish councils who compiled the New
Testament. The cry ofthe priests that the church is in danger, is the cry of
men who do not understand the interest of their own craft, for
instead of exciting alarms and apprehensions for its safety, as they
expect, it excites suspicion that the foundation is not sound, and
tha' it is necessaiy to take down and build it on a surer founda-
47

370 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
tion. Nobody fears for the safety of a mountain, but a hillock of
sana may be washed away ! Blow then, 0 ye priests, " the Trum
pet in Zion." for the Hillock is in danger.
DETECTOR— P.

COMMUNICATION.
The cnurch tells us that the books ofthe Old and New Testa
ment are divine revelation, and without this revelation we could
not have true ideas of God.
The Deist, on the contrary, say, that those books are not divine
revelation, and that were it not for the light of reason, and the reli
gion of Deism, those books, instead of teaching us true ideas of God,
would teach us not only false but blasphemous ideas of him.
Deism teaches us that God is a God of truth and justice
Does the Bible teach the same doctrine 1 It does not.
The Bible sajjs, (Jeremiah, chap. 20, verses 5, 7,) that God is a
deceiver. " 0 Lord (says Jeremiah) thou hast deceived me, and
I was deceived. Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed."
Jeremiah not only upbraids God with deceiving him, but in
chap. 4, verse 9, he upbraids God with deceiving the people of
Jerusalem. " Ah ! Lord God, (says he,) surely thou hast greatly
deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ye shall have peace,
whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul."
In chap. 15, verse 8, the Bible becomes more impudent, and
calls God in plain language^ a liar. " Wilt thou, (says Jeremiah)
to God,) be altogether unto me as a liar and as waters that fail."
Ezekiel chap. 14, verse 9, makes God to say — " If the prophet
be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord hath deceived
¦that prophet." AH this is downright blasphemy.
The prophet Micaiah, as he is called, 2 Chron. chap. 18, verse
18, tolls another blasphemous story of God. — " I saw, says he, the
Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing on
his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, who shall en
tice Ahab, king of Israel, to go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead ? And
one spoke after this manner, and another after that manner. Then
there came out a spirit (Micaiah does not tell us where he came
from) and stood before the Lord, (what an impudent fellow this

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 371
spirit was,) and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto
him, wherewith 1 and he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit
in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said thou shalt
entice him, and thou shalt also prevail ; go out and do even so.
We often hear of a gang of thieves plotting to rob and murder a
man, and laying a plan to entice him out that they may execute
their design, and we always feel shocked at the wickedness of such
wretches ; but what must we think of a book that describes the
Almighty acting in the same manner, and laying plans in heaven
to entrap and ruin mankind. Our ideas of his justice and good
ness forbid us to believe such stories, and, therefore, we say that a
lying spirit has been in the mouth of the writers ofthe books of the
Bible. T. P.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PROSPECT.
In addition to the judicious remarks in your 12th number, on
the absurd story of Noah's flood, in the 7th chapter of Genesis, I
send you the following :
The 2d verse makes God to say unto Noah, " Of every clean
beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female,
and of every beast that are not clean, by two, the male and his
¦ female." Now, there was no such thing as beasts clean and unclean in
the time of Noah. Neither were there any such people as Jews
or Israelites at that time, to whom that distinction was a law. The
law, called the law of Moses, by which a distinction is made,
beasts clean and unclean, was not until several hundred
years after the time that Noah is said to have lived. The story,
" therefore, detects itself, because the inventor forgot himself, by
making God make use of an expression that could not be used at
the time. The blunder is of the same kind, as if a man in telling
a story about America a hundred years ago, should quote an ex
pression from Mr. Jefferson's inaugural speech as if spoken by
him at that time.
My opinion of this story is the same as what a man once said
to another, who asked him in a drawling tone of voice, " Do you
believe the account about No-ah?" The other replied in the same
»one of voice, ah-no. T. P.

372 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.*

The following publication, which has appeared in several news
papers in different parts of the United States, shows in the most
striking manner the character and effects of religious fana
ticism, and to what extravagant lengths it will carry its unruly
and destructive operations. We give it a place in the Prospect,
because we think the perusal of it will be gratifying to our sub
scribers ; and, because, by exposing the true character of such
frantic zeal, we hope to produce some influence upon the rea
son of man, and induce him to rise superior to such dreadful
illusions. The judicious remarks at the end of this account
were communicated to us by a very intelligent and faithful friend
to the cause of Deism.
Extract from a Letter of the Rev. George Scott, of MiU Creek, Washington
County, Pennsylvania, to Col. William M'Farran, of Mount Bethel, North
ampton County, P. dated November 3, 1802.
My Dear Friend,
We have wonderful times here. God has been pleased to visit
this barren corner with abundance ofhis grace. The work began
in a neighbouring congregation, at a sacramental occasion, about
the last of September. It did not make its appearance in my con
gregation till the first Tuesday of October. After society in the
.night, there appeared an evident stir among the young people, but
nothing of the appearance of what appeared afterwards. On Sa
turday evening following we had society.but it was dull throughout.
On Sabbath-day one cried out, but nothing else extraordinary ap
peared. — That evening I went part of the way to the Raccoon
Congregation, where the sacrament ofthe supper was administered;
* It becomes necessary to insert Mr. Scott's letter, for the due understanding
ofthe comments made upon it, by Mr. Paine. It has also in itself much in
terest, as exhibiting a true picture of the awful condition in which priestcraft
has involved human nature, by inculcating " the doctrines of our fallen state
by nature, and the way of recovering through Christ." A more childish and
besotted dogma, I will venture to say, was never taught in the most barbarous
nation that ever existed in the world. — Ed.

miscellaneous pieces. 373
but on Monday morning a very strong impression of duty con
strained me to return to my congregation in the Flats, where the
work was begun. We met in the afternoon at the meeting-house
where we had a warm society. In the evening we removed to a
neighbouring house, where we continued in society till midnight ;
numbers were falling all the time of society. — After the people
were dismissed, a considerable number staid and sung hymns, till
perhaps two o'clock in the morning, when the work began to the
astonishment of all. Only five or six were left able to take care
of the rest, to the number perhaps of near forty. — They fell in all
directions, on benches, on beds, and on the floor. Next morning
the people began to flock in from all quarters. One girl came
early in the morning, but did not get within one hundred yards of
the house before she fell powerless, and was carried in. We could
not leave the house, and, therefore, continued society all that day
and all that night, and on Wednesday morning I was obliged to
leave a number of them on the spot. On Thursday evening we
met again, when the work was amazing ; about twenty persons lay
to all appearance dead for near two and a half hours, and a great
number cried out with sore distress. — Friday I preached at Mill
Creek. Here nothing appeared more than an unusual solemnity.
That evening we had society, where great numbers were brought
under conviction, but none fell. On sabbath-day I preached at
Mill Creek. This day and evening was a very solemn time but
none fell. On Monday I went to attend presbytery, but return
ed on Thursday evening to the Flats, where society was ap
pointed, when numbers were struck down. On Saturday evening
we had society, and a veiy solemn time — about a dozen persons
lay dead three and a half hours by the watch. On sabbath a num
ber fell, and we were obliged to continue all night in society, as we
had done every evening we had met before. On Monday a Mr.
Hughes preached at Mill Creek, but nothing extraordinary appear
ed, only a great deal of falling. We concluded to divide that even
ing into two societies, in order to accommodate the people. Mr.
H. attended the one and I the other. Nothing strange appeared
where Mr. H. attended ; but where I attended God was present
in the most wonderful manner. I believe there was not one pre
sent but was more or less affected. A considerable number fell
powerless, and two or three, after laying some time, recovered
with joy, and spoke near half an hour. One, especially, declared

374 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
in a surprising manner the wonderful view she had of the person
character, and offices of Christ, with such accuracy of language,
that I was astonished to hear it. Surely this must be the work of
Gad ! On Thursday evening we had a lively society, but not much
falling down. On Saturday we all went to the Cross Roads, and
attended a sacrament. Here were, perhaps, about 4000 people
collected. The weather was uncomfortable ; on the Sabbath-day
it rained, and on Monday it snowed. We had thirteen ministers
present. The exercises began on Saturday, and continued on
night and day with little or no intermission. Great numbers fell ;
to speak within bounds, there were upwards of 150 down at one
time, and some of them continued three or four hours with but lit
tle appearance of life. Numbers came to, rejoicing, while others
were deeply distressed. — The scene was wonderful ; the cries of
the distressed, and the agonising groans, gave some faint represen
tation of the awful cries and the bitter screams which will no doubt
be extorted from the damned in hell. But what is to me the most
surprising, of those who have been subjects among my people
with whom I have conversed, but three had any terrors of hell dur
ing their exercise. The principal cry is, O how long have I reject
ed Christ ! 0 how often have I embrued my hands in his precious
blood ! 0 how often have I waded through his precious blood by
stifling conviction ! O this dreadful hard heart ! O what a dreadful
monster sin is ! It was my sin that nailed Jesus to the cross, &c.
The preaching is various ; some thunder the terrors ofthe law
—others preach the mild invitation of the gospel. For my part,
since the work began, I have confined myself chiefly to the doc
trines of our fallen state by nature, and the way of recovery through
Christ ; opening the way of salvation ; showing how God can be
just and yet be the justifier of them that believe, and also the na
ture of true faith and repentance ; pointing out the difference be
tween true and false religion, and urging the invitations of the gos
pel in the most engaging manner that I am master of, without any
strokes of terror. The convictions and cries appear to be, per
haps, nearly equal under all these different modes of preaching, but
it appears rather most when we preach on the fulness and freeness
of salvation.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 375

REMARKS BY MR. PAINE.
In the fifth chapter of Mark, we read a strange story of the
Devil getting into the swine after he had been turned out of a man,
and as the freaks ofthe Devil in that story and the tumble-down
descriptions in this are very much alike ; the two stories ought to
go together.
" And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the
country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, immediately there met him out ofthe tombs a man with an un
clean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs ; and no man
could bind him, no, not with chains : because that he had been
often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been
plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces ; neither
could any man tame him. And always night and day, he was in
the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with
stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped
him, and cried with a loud voice, and said, what have I to do with
thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God 1 1 adjure thee by God,
that thou torment me not. (For he said unto him, come out ofthe
man, thou unclean spirit.) And he asked him, what is thy name ?
and he answered, saying, my name is Legion : for we are many.
And he besought him much that he would not send them away out
ofthe country. Now there was there, nigh unto the mountains, a
great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him,
saying, send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And
forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went
out, and entered into the swine ; and the herd ran down a vio
lently steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand,)
and were choaked in the sea."
The force ofthe imagination is capable of producing strange ef
fects. — When animal magnetism began in France, which was while
Doctor Franklin was minister to that country, the wonderful ac
counts given of the wonderful effects it produced on the persons
who were under the operation, exceeded any thing related in the
foregoing letter from Washington County. They tumbled down
fell into trances, roared and rolled about like persons supposed to
be bewitched. The government, in order to ascertain the fact, or
detect the imposition, appointed a committee of physicians to in-

376 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
quire into the case, and Doctor Franklin was requested to accom
pany them, which he did.
The committee went to the operator's house, and the persons
on whom an operation was to be performed were assembled.
They were placed in the position in which they had been when
under former operations, and blind-folded. In a little time they
began to show signs of -agitation, and in the space of about two
hours they went through all the frantic airs they had shown before ;
but the case was, that no operation was performing upon them,
neither was the operator in the room, for he had been ordered out
of it by the physicians ; but as the persons did not know this, they
supposed him present and operating upon them. It was the effect
of imagination only. Doctor Franklin, in relating this account to
the writer of this article, said, that he thought the government might
as well have let it gone on, for that as imagination sometimes pro
duced disorders it might also cure some. It is fortunate, however,
that this falling down and crying out scene did not happen in New
England a centuiy ago, for ifit had the preachers would have been
hung for witchcraft, and in more ancient times the poor falling
down folks would have been supposed to be possessed of a devil,
like the man in Mark, among the tombs. The progress that rea
son and Deism make in the world, lessen the force of supenslition,
and abate the spirit of persecution.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 377
THE STRANGE STORY OP
KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM,
Numbers, chap, xvi., accounted for.

Old ballads sing of Chevey Chase,
Beneath whose rueful shade,
Full many a valiant man was slain,
And many a widow made.
But I will tell of one much worse,
That happ'd in days of yore ;
All in the barren wilderness,
Beside the Jordan shore.
Where Moses led the children forth,
Call'd chosen tribes of God,
And fed them forty years with quails,
And ruled them with a rod.
A dreadful fray once rose among
These self named tribes of I am ;
Where Korah fell, and by his side
Fell Dathan and Abiram.
An earthquake swallowed thousands up,
And fire came down like stones,
Which slew their sons and daughters all,
Their wives and little ones.
"Twas all about old Aaron's tythes
This murdering quarrel rose ;
For tythes are worldly things of old,
That lead from words to blows.
48

378 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
A Jew of Venice has explained,
In the language of his nation,
The manner how this fray began,
Of which here is translation.
There was a widow old and poor,
Who scarce herself could keep ;
Her stock of goods was very small,
Her flock one single sheep.
And when her time of shearing came,
She counted much her gains ;
For now, said she, I shall be blest
With plenty, for my pains.
When Aaron heard the sheep was shear'd
And gave a good increase,
He straitway sent his tything man
And took away the fleece.
At this the weeping widow went
To Korah to complain,
And Korah he to Aaron went
In order to explain.
But Aaron said, in such a case
There can be no forbearing,
The law ordains that thou shalt give
The first fleece of thy shearing.
When lambing time was come about,
This sheep became a dam ;
And bless'd the widow's mournful heart,
By bringing forth a lamb.
When Aaron heard the sheep had young,
He staid till it was grown,
Then he sent his tything man,
And took it for his own.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 379
Again the weeping widow went
To Korah with her grief,
But Aaron said, in such a case
There could be no relief.
For in the holy law 'tis writ,
That whilst thou keep'st the stock,
Thou shalt present unto the Lord
The firstling of thy flock.
The widow then, in deep distress,
And having nought to eat,
Against her will she killed the sheep,
To feed upon the meat.
When Aaron heard the sheep was killed,
He sent and took a limb ;
Which by the holy law, he said,
Pertained unto him ;
For in the holy law 'tis writ,
That when thou kill'st a beast,
Thou shalt a shoulder and a breast
Present unto the priest.
The widow then, worn out with grief,
Sat down to mourn and weep ;
And in a fit of passion said,
The devil take the sheep.
Then Aaron took the whole away,
And said, the laws record
That all and each devoted thing
Belongs'unfo the Lord.
The widow went among her kin,
The tribes of Israel rose ;
And all the widows, young and old,
Pull'd Aaron by the nose.

380 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
But Aaron called an earthquake up,
And fire from out the sky ;
And all the consolation is—
The Bible tells a lie.

A COMMENTARY ON
THE EASTERN WISE MEN,
Travelling to Bethlehem, guided by a Star, to see the little Jesus
in a Manger, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, c. xxii.

Three pedlars travelling to a fair,
To see the fun and what was there,
And sell their merchandize ;
They stopp'd upon the road to chat,
Refresh and ask of this and that,
That they might be more wise.
" And pray," the landlord says to them,
" Whence go ye, sirs?" " To Bethlehem,"
The citizens replied.
" You're merchants, sirs," to them said he,
" We are," replied the pedlars three,
" And eastern men beside."
" I pray, what have you in your packs,
If worth the while I will go snacks,"
To them quoth Major Domo ;
" We've buckles, buttons, spectacles,
And every thing a merchant sells,"
Replied the travelling trio.
" These things are very well," said he,
" For beaux and those who cannot see,
Much further than their knuckles ;

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 381
But Bethlehem's fair's for boys and girls,
Who never think of spectacles,
And cannot buy your buckles."
" I have a pack of toys," quoth he,
"A travelling merchant left with me,
Who could not pay his score,
And you shall have them on condition
You sell them at a cheap commission,
And make the money sure."
" There's one of us will stay in pawn,
Until the other two return,
If you suspect our faith," said they ;
The landlord thought this was a plan
To leave upon his hands the man,
And therefore he said " Nay."
They truck'd however for the pack,
Which one of them took on his back,
And off the merchants travelled.
And here the tale the apostles told
Of wise men and their gifts of gold,
Will fully be unravelled.
The star in the east that shines so bright,
As might be seen both day and night,
If you will credit them,
lt was no other than a sign
To a public house where pedlars dine,
In East Street, Bethlehem.
These wise men were the pedlars three,
As you and all the world may see,
By reading to the end ;
For commentators have mistakoBrtv^ IL-
In paraphrasing on a book
They did not understand.

382 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
Our travellers coming to a house,
Scarce fit to entertain a mouse,
Enquired to have a room.
The landlord said he was not able,
To give them any but a stable,
So many folks were come.
" I pray, who have you here," say they,
" And how much money must we pay ?
For we have none to spare."
" Why there's one Joseph and a wench,
Who are to go before the bench,
About a love, affairs
" Some how or other, in a manger,
A child exposed to every danger
Was found, as if 'twas sleeping.
The girl she swears that she's a maid,
So says the man, but I'm afraid
On me will fall the keeping.
" Now if you'll set your wits about
To find this knotty matter out,
I'll pay whate'er it may be."
Then on the traveling pedlars went,
To pay their birthday compliment,
And talk about the baby.
They then unpack'd their pack of toys,
Some for show and some for noise,
But mostly for the latter ;
One gave a rattle, one a whistle,
One a trumpet made of gristle,
To introduce the matter.
One squeaked away, the other blew,
The third played on the rattle too,
To keep the bantling easy ;

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES

Hence this story comes to us,
Of which some people make such fuss,
About the eastern Magi.

THE TALE OF THE MONK AND JEW
VERSIFIED.

An unbelieving Jew one day
Was skating o'er the icy way,
Which being brittle let him in,
Just deep enough to catch his chin ;
And in that woful plight he hung,
With only power to move his tongue.
A brother skater near at hand,
A Papist born in foreign land,
With hasty strokes directly flew
To save poor Mordecai the Jew —
But first, quoth he, I must enjoin
That you renounce your faith for mine ;
There's no entreaties else will do,
'Tis heresy to help a Jew 
" Forswear mine fait ! No ! Cot forbid!
Dat would be fery base indeed,
Come never mind such tings as deeze,
Tink, tink, how fery hard it freeze.
More coot you do, more coot you be,
Vat signifies your fait to me.
Come tink agen, how cold and vet,
And help me out von little bit."
By holy mass, 'tis hard, I own,
To see a man both hang and drown,
And can't relieve him from his pligh
Because he is an Israelite ;
The church refuses all assistance,
Beyond a certain pale and distance;

38* MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.
Is praying for your soui my friend.
"Pray for mine soul, ha! ha! you make me laugh,
You petter help me out py half:
Mine soul I farrant vill take care,
To pray for her own self my tear ;
So tink a little now for me, '
'Tis I am in de hole, not she."
The church forbids it, friend, and saith
That all shall die who have no faith.
" Veil, if I must pelieve, I must,
But help me out von little first."
No, not an inch without Amen.
That seals the whole — " Veil, hear me den,
I here renounce for coot and all,
De race of Jews both great and small ;
'Tis de varst trade peneath the sun,
Or varst religion ; dat's all vun.
Dey cheat, and get deir living py't.
And lie, and swear de lie is right.
I'll co to mass as soon as ever
I get to toder side de river.
So help me out, dow Christian friend,
Dat I may do as I intend."
Perhaps you do intend to cheat,
If once you get upon your feet.
' " No, no, I do intend to be
A Christian, such a one as dee."
For, thought the Jew, he is as much
A Christian man as I am such.
The bigot Papist joyful hearted
To hear the heretic converted,
Replied to the designing Jew,
This was a happy fall for you :
You'd better die a Christian now,
For if you live you'll break your vow.
Then said no more, but in a trice
Popp'd Mordecai beneath the ice.
ATLANTICUS.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CASE OF THE OFFICERS OF EXCISE; WITH RE
MARKS ON THE QUALIFICATIONS OF OFFICERS,
AND ON THE NUMEROUS EVILS ARISING TO THE
REVENUE, FROM THE INSUFFICIENCY OF THE
PRESENT SALARY; HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO THE
MEMBERS OF BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

Introduction.
As a design among the Excise officers throughout the kingdom
is on foot, for an humble application to parliament next session, to
have the state of their salaries taken into consideration ; it has been
judged not only expedient, but highly necessary, to present a state
oftheir case, previous to the presentation oftheir petition.
There are some cases so singularly reasonable, that the more
they are considered, the more weight they obtain. It is a strong
evidence both of simplicity and honest confidence, when petitioners
in any case ground their hopes of relief on having their case fully
and perfectly known and understood.
Simple, as this subject may appear at first, it is a matter, in my
humble opinion, not unworthy a parliamentary' attention. It is a
subject interwoven with a variety of reasons from different causes.
New matter will arise on every thought. If the poverty of the
officers of Excise, if the temptations arising from their poverty, if
the qualifications of persons to be admitted into employment, if
the security ofthe revenue itself, are matters of any weight, then I
am conscious that my voluntary services in this business, will pro
duce some good effect or other, either to the better security of the
revenue, the relief of the officers, or both.
When a year's salary is mentioned in the gross, it acquires a
degree of consequence from its sound, which it would not if sepa
rated into daily payments, and if the charges attending the receiving,

4 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
and other unavoidable expenses were considered with it. Fifty
pounds a year, and one shilling and nine pence farthing a day,
carry as different degrees of significancy with them, as my Lord's
steward, and the steward's laborer ; and yet an outride officer in
the Excise, under the name of fifty pounds a year, receives for
himself no more than one shilling and nine pence farthing a day.
After tax, charity, and sitting expenses are deducted, there re
mains very little more than forty-six pounds ; and the expenses of
horse keeping, in many places, cannot be brought under fourteen
pounds a year, besides the purchase at first, and the hazard of life,
which reduces it to thirty-two pounds per annum, or one shilling
and nine pence farthing a day.
I have spoken more particularly of the outrides, as they are by
far the most numerous, being in proportion to the foot walk as
eight is to five throughout the kingdom. Yet in the latter, the
same misfortunes exist ; the channel of them only is altered. The
excessive dearness of house rent, the great burthen of rales and
taxes, and the excessive price of all necessaries of life, in cities and
large trading towns, nearly counterbalances the expenses of horse
keeping. Every office has its stages of promotions, but the pecu
niary advantages arising from a foot walk are so inconsiderable,
and the loss of disposing of effects, or the charges of removing
them to any considerable distance, so great, that many outride offi
cers with a family remain as they are, from an inability to bear the
loss, or support the expense.
The officers resident in the cities of London and Westminster,
are exempt from the particular disadvantages of removals. This
seems to be the only circumstance which they enjoy superior to
their country brethren. In every other respect they lie under the
same hardships, and suffer the same distresses.
There are no perquisites or advantages in the least annexed to
the employment. A few officers who are stationed along the coast,
may sometimes have the good fortune to fall in wilh a seizure of
contraband goods, and that frequently at the hazard of their lives:
but the inland officers can have no such opportunities. Besides,
the surveying duty in the excise it is so continual, that without
remissness from the real business itself, there is no time to seek
after them. With the officers of the customs it is quite otherwise,
their whole time and care being appropriated to that service, and
their profits are in proportion to their vigilance.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 5
If the increase of money in the kingdom is one cause of the high
price of provisions, the case of the Excise officers is peculiarly pitia
ble. No increase comes to them — they are shut out from the gene
ral blessing — they behold it like a map of Peru. The answer of
Abraham to Dives is somewhat applicable to them, " There is a
great gulf fixed."
To the wealthy and humane, it is a matter worthy of concern,
that their affluence should become the misfortune of others. Were
the money in the kingdom to be increased double, the salary would
in value be reduced one half. Every step upwards, is a step
downwards with them. Not to be partakers of the increase would
be a little hard, but to be sufferers by it exceedingly so. The me
chanic and the laborer may in a great measure ward off the distress,
by raising the price of their manufactures or their work, but the
situation of the officers admit of no such relief.
Another consideration in their behalf, (and which is peculiar to
the Excise,) is, that as the law of their office removes them far
from their natural friends and relations, it consequently prevents
those occasional assistances from them, which are serviceably felt
in a family, and which even the poorest, among the poor, enjoys.
Most poor mechanics, or even common laborers, have some rela
tions or friends, who. either out of benevolence or pride, keep their
children from nakedness, supply them occasionally with perhaps
half a hog, a load of wood, a chaldron of coals, or something or
other, which abates the severity of their distress ; and yet those
men thus relieved, will frequently earn more than the daily pay of
an Excise officer.
Perhaps an officer will appear more reputable with the same pay,
than a mechanic or laborer. The difference arises from sentiment,
not circumstances. A something like reputable pride makes all
the distinction, and the thinking part of mankind well knows, that
none suffer so much as they who endeavor to conceal their neces
sities. The frequent removals which unavoidably happen in the Excise,
are attended with such an expense, especially where there is a
family, as few officers are able to support. About two years ago,
an officer with a family, under orders for removing, and rather
embarrassed in circumstances, made his application to me, and
from a conviction of his distress, I advanced a small sum, to enable
him to proceed. He ingenuously declared, that without the assist-

6 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
ance of some friend, he should be driven to do injustice to his
creditors, and compelled to desert the duty of his office. He has
since honestly paid me, and does as well as the narrowness of such
circumstances can admit of.
There is one general allowed truth, which will always operate
in their favor ; which is, that no set of men, under his Majesty,
earn their salary with any comparison of labor and fatigue, with
that of the officers of Excise. The station may rather be called a
seat of constant work, than either a place or an employment. Even
in the different departments of the general revenue, they are un
equalled in the burthen of business ; a riding officer's place in the
customs, whose salary is sixty pounds a year, is ease to theirs ; and
the work in the window light duty, compared with the Excise, is
lightness itself; yet their salary is subject to no tax, they receive
forty-nine pounds twelve shillings and six pence, without deduction.
The inconveniences which affect an Excise officer, are almost
endless ; even the land tax assessment upon their salaries, which,
though the government pays, falls often with hardship upon them.
The place of their residence, on account of the land tax, has, in
many instances, created frequent contentions between parishes, in
which the officer, though the innocent and unconcerned cause f the
quarrel, has been the greater sufferer.
To point out particularly the impossibility of an Excise officer
supporting himself and family, with any proper degree of credit
and reputation, on so scanty a pittance, is altogether unnecessary.
The times, the voice of general want, are proofs themselves.
Where facts are sufficient, arguments are useless ; and the hints
which I have produced, are such as affect the officers of Excise
differently to any other set of men. A single man may barely
live ; but as it is not the design of the legislature, or the Hon.
Board of Excise, to impose a state of celibacy on them, the con
dition of much the greater part is truly wretched and pitiable.
Perhaps it may be said, why do the Excise officers complain t
They are not pressed into the service, and may relinquish it when
they please ; if they can mend themselves why don't they 1 Alas !
what a mockery of pity would it be, to give such an answer to an
honest, faithful, old officer in the Excise, who had spent the prime
of his life in the service, and was become unfit for any thing else !
The time limited for an admission into an Excise employment, is
between twenty-one and thirty years of age, the very flower of

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 7
*
life. Every other hope and consideration are then given up, and
the chance of establishing themselves in any other business, be
comes in a few years not only lost to them, but they become lost
to it.
" There is a tide in the affairs of men, which if embraced, leads
on to fortune — that neglected, all beyond is misery or want."
When we consider how few in the Excise arrive at any com
fortable eminence, and the date of life when such promotions only
can happen, the great hazard there is of ill, rather than good for
tune in the attempt, and that all the years antecedent to that is a
state of mere existence, wherein they are shut out from the common
chance of success in any other way : a reply like that can be only
a derision of their wants. It is almost impossible, after any long
continuance in the Excise, that they can live any other way. Such
as are of trades, would have their trades to learn over again ; and
people would have but little opinion of their abilities in any calling,
who had been ten, fifteen, or twenty years absent from it. Every
year's experience gained in the Excise, is a year's experience
lost in trade ; and by the time they become wise officers, they be
come foolish workmen.
Were the reasons for augmenting the salary grounded only on
the charitableness of so doing, they would have great weight with
the compassionate. But there are auxiliaries of such a powerful
cast, that in the opinion of policy, they obtain the rank of originals.
The first is truly the case of the officers, but this is rather the case
of the revenue.
The distresses in the Excise are so generally known, that num
bers of gentlemen, and other inhabitants in places where officers
are resident, have generously and humanely recommended their
case to the members of the hon. house of commons: and numbers
of traders of opulence and reputation, well knowing that the poverty
of an officer may subject him to the fraudulent designs of some
selfish persons under his survey, to the great injury of the fair
trader, and trade in general, have, from principles of generosity
and justice, joined in the same recommendation.

8 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
Thoughts on the corruption of principles, and on the numerous
evils arising to the revenue, from the too great poverty of the
officers of Excise.
It has always been the wisdom of government, to consider the
situation and circumstances of persons in trust. Why are large
salaries given in many instances, but to proportion it to the trust,
to set men above temptation, and to make it even literally worth
their while to be honest? The salaries of the judges have been
augmented, and their places made independent even of the crown
itself, for the above wise purposes.
Certainly there can be nothing unreasonable in supposing there
is such an instinct as frailty among the officers of Excise, in
common with the rest of mankind ; and that the most effectual
method to keep men honest is to enable them to Hire so. The
tenderness of conscience is too often overmatched by tne sharpness
of want ; and principle, like charity, yields with just reluctance
enough to excuse itself. There is a powerful rhetoric in necessity,
which exceeds even a Dunning or a Wedderburne. No argument
can satisfy the feelings of hunger, or abate the edge of appetite.
Nothing tends to a greater corruption of manners and principles,
than a too great distress of circumstances ; and the corruption is
of that kind, that it spreads a plaster for itself: like a viper, it
carries a cure, though a false one, for its own poison. Agur,
without any alternative, has made dishonesty the immediate conse
quence of poverty, " Lest I be poor and steal." A very little
degree of that dangerous kind of philosophy, which is the almost
certain effect of involuntary poverty, will teach men to believe, that
to starve is more criminal than to steal, by as much as every species
of self murder exceeds every other crime ; that true honesty is
sentimental, and the practice of it dependent upon circumstances.
If the gay find it difficult to resist the allurements of pleasure, the
great the temptations of ambition, or the miser the acquisition of
wealth, how much stronger are the provocations of want and po
verty? The excitements to pleasure, grandeur, or riches, are
mere " shadows of a shade," compared to the irresistible necessities
of nature. " Not to be led into temptation," is the prayer of divinity
itself; and to guard against, or rather to prevent, such insnaring
situations, is one of the greatest heights of human prudence: in
private life it is partly religious ; and in a revenue sense, it is
truly political.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 9
The rich, in ease and affluence, may think I have drawn an un
natural portrait ; but could they descend to the cold regions of
want, the circle of polar poverty, they would find their opinions
changing with the climate. There are habits of thinking peculiar
to different conditions, and to find them out is truly, to study man
kind. That the situation of an Excise officer is of this dangerous kind,
must be allowed by every one who will consider the trust unavoid
ably reposed in him, and compare the narrowness of his circum
stances with the hardship of the times. If the salary was judged
competent an hundred years ago, it cannot be so now. Should it
be advanced, that if the present set of officers are dissatisfied with
the salary, that enow may be procured, not only for the present
salary, but for less ; the answer is extremely easy. The question
needs only to be put ; it destroys itself. Were two or three thou
sand men to offer to execute the office without any salary, would
the government accept them ? No. Were the same number to
offer the same service for a salary less than can possibly support
them, would the government accept them? Certainly not; for
while nature, in spite of law or religion, makes it a ruling principle
not to starve, the event would be this, that as they cofild not live
on the salary, they would discretionally live out of the duty.
Quere, whether poverty has not too great an influence now?
Were the employment a place of direct labor, and not of trust, then
frugality in the salary would be sound policy : but when it is con
sidered that the greatest single branch of the revenue, a duty
amounting to near five millions sterling, is annually charged by a
set of men, most of whom are wanting even the common necessa
ries of life, the thought must, to every friend to honesty, to every
person concerned in the management of the public money, be
strong and striking. Poor and in power, are powerful temptations ;
I call it power, because they have it in their power to defraud.
The trust unavoidably reposed in an Excise officer is so great, that
it would be an act of wisdom, and perhaps of interest, to secure
him from the temptations of downright poverty. To relieve their
wants would be charity, but to secure the revenue by so doing,
would be prudence. Scarcely a week passes at the office but some
detections are made of fraudulent and collusive proceedings. The
poverty of the officers is the fairest bait for a designing trader that
can possibly be ; such introduce themselves to the officei under the

10 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
common plea of the insufficiency of tho salary. Every considerate
mind must allow, that poverty and opportunity corrupt many afl
honest man. I am not at all surprised that so many opulent and
reputable traders have recommended the case ofthe officers to the
good favor of their representatives. They are sensible of the
pinching circumstances ofthe officers, and ofthe injury to trade in
general, from the advantages which are taken of them. The wel
fare of the fair trader, and the security of the revenue, are so
inseparably one, that their interest or injuries are alike. It is the
opinion of such whose situation give them a perfect knowledge in
the matter, that the revenue suffers more by the corruption of a
few officers in a country, than would make a handsome addition to
the salary of the whole number in the same place.
I very lately knew an instance where it is evident, on compari
son of the duty charged since, that the revenue suffered by one
trader, (and he not a very considerable one,) upwards of one hun
dred and sixty pounds per annum for several years ; and yet the
benefit to the officer was a mere trifle, in consideration of the trader's.
Without doubt the officer would have thought himself much happier
to have received the same addition another way. The bread of
deceit is a bread of bitterness ; but alas ! how few in times of want
and hardship are capable of thinking so : objects appear under new
colors, and in shapes not naturally their own ; hunger sucks in the
deception, and necessity reconciles it to conscience.
The commissioners of Excise strongly enjoin, that no officer ac
cept any treat, gratuity, or, in short, lay himself under any kind of
obligation to the traders under their survey : the wisdom of such an
injunction is evident; but the practice of it, surrounded with
children and poverty, is scarcely possible ; and such obligations,
wherever they exist, must operate, directly or indirectly, to the
injury of the revenue. Favors will naturally beget their likenesses,
especially where the return is not at our own expense.
I have heard it remarked, by a gentleman whose knowledge in
excise business is indisputable, lhat there are numbers of officers
who are even afraid to look into an unentered room, lest they should
give offence. Poverty and obligation tie up the hands of office,
and give a prejudicial bias to the mind.
There is another kind of evil, which, though it may never amount
to what may be deemed criminality in law, yet it may amount to
what is much worse in effect, and that is, a constant and perpetual

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 11
leakage in the revenue : a sort of gratitude in the dark, a distant
•requital for such civilities as only the lowest poverty would accept,
and which are a thousand per cent, above the value of the civility
received. Yet there is no immediate collusion ; the trader and
officer are both safe ; the design, if discovered, passes for error.
These, with numberless other evils, have all their origin in tha
poverty of the officers. Poverty, in defiance of principle, begets a
degree of meanness that will stoop to almost any thing. A thou
sand refinements of argument may be brought, to prove, that the
practice of honesty will be still the same, in the most trying and
necessitous circumstances. He who never was an hungered man
may argue finely on the subjection ofhis appetite ; and he who never
was distressed, may harangue as beautifully on the power of princi
ple. But poverty, like grief, has an incurable deafness, which
never hears ; the oration loses all its edge ; and " To be, or not to
be," becomes the only question.
There is a striking difference between dishonesty arising from
want of food, and want of principle. The first is worthy of com
passion, the other of punishment. Nature never produced a man
who would starve in a well stored larder, because the provisions
were not his own : but he who robs it from luxury of appetite de
serves a gibbet.
There is another evil which the poverty of the salary produces,
and which nothing but an augmentation can remove ; and that is,
negligence and indifference. These may not appear of such dark
complexion as fraud and collusion, but their injuries to the revenue
are the same. It is impossible that any office of business can be
regarded as it ought, where this ruinous disposition exists. It re
quires no sort of argument to prove, that the value set upon any
place or employment, will be in proportion to the value of it ; and
that diligence or negligence will arise from the same cause. The
continual number of relinquishments and discharges always happen
ing in the Excise, are evident proofs of it.
Persons first coming into the Excise, form very different notions
of it, to what they have afterwards. The gay ideas of promotion
soon expire ; continuance of work, the strictness of the duty, and
the poverty of the salary, soon beget negligence and indifference :
the course continues for a while, the revenue suffers, and the officer
is discharged : the vacancy is soon filled up, new ones arise to
produce the same mischief, and share the same fate.

12 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
What adds still more to the weight of this grievance is, that this
destructive disposition reigns most among such as are otherwise the
most proper and qualified for the employment ; such as are neither
fit for the Excise, or any thing else, are glad to hold in by any
means : but the revenue lies at as much hazard from their want of
judgment, as from the others' want of diligence.
In private life, no man would trust the execution of any important
concern, to a servant who was careless whether he did it or not,
and the same rule must hold good in a revenue sense. The com
missioners may continue discharging every day, and the example
will have no weight while the salary is an object so inconsiderable,
and this disposition has such a general existence. Should it be
advanced, that if men will be careless of such bread as is in their
possession, they will still be the same were it better; I answer that,
as the disposition I am speaking of is not the effect of natural
idleness, but of dissatisfaction in point of profit, they would not
continue the same. A good servant will be careful of a good place,
though very indifferent about a bad one. Besides, this spirit of in
difference, should it procure a discharge, is no way affecting to
their circumstances. The easy transition of a qualified officer to a
compting house, or at least a school master, at any time, as it na
turally supports and backs his indifference about the Excise, so it
takes off all punishment from the order whenever it happens.
I have known numbers discharged from the Excise, who would
have been a credit to their patrons and the employment, could they
have found it worth their while to have attended to it. No man
enters into the Excise with any higher expectations than a compe
tent maintenance ; but not to find even that, can produce nothing
but corruption, collusion, and neglect.
Remarks on the qualification of Officers.
In employments where direct labor only is wanted, and trust
quite out ofthe question, the service is merely animal or mechanical.
In cutting a river, or forming a road, as there is no possibility of
fraud, the merit of honesty is of but little weight. Health, strength,
and hardiness, are the laborer's virtues. But where property de
pends on the trust, and lies at the discretion of the servant, the
judgement of the master takes a different channel, both in the choice
and the wages. The honest and dissolute have here no comparison
of merit. A known thief may be trusted to gather stones ; but a

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 13
steward ought to be proof against the temptations of uncounted
gold. The Excise is so far from being of the nature of the first, that it
is all, and more than can commonly be put together in the last :
it is a place of poverty, of trust, of opportunity, and temptation.
A compound of discords, where the more they. harmonize, the more
they offend.
To be properly qualified for the employment, it is not only ne
cessary that the person be honest, but that he be sober, diligent,
and skilful ; sober, that he may be always capable of business ;
diligent, that he may be always in his business ; and skilful, that he
may be able to prevent or detect frauds against the revenue. The
want of any of these qualifications is a capital offence in the Excise.
A complaint of drunkenness, negligence, or ignorance, is certain
death by the laws of the board. It cannot then be all sorts of per
sons who are proper for the office. The very notion of procuring
a sufficient number for even less than the present salary, is so des
titute of every degree of sound reason, that it needs no reply. The
employment, from the insufficiency of the salary, is already become
so inconsiderable in the general opinion, that persons of any capa
city or reputation will keep out of it ; for where is the mechanic, or
even the laborer, who cannot earn at least Is. 9^d. per day? It
certainly cannot be proper to take the dregs of every calling, and
to make the Excise the common receptacle for the indigent, the
ignorant, and the calamitous.
A truly worthy commissioner, lately dead, made a public offer, a
few years ago, of putting any of his neighbors' sons into the Excise;
but though the offer amounted almost to an invitation, one only,
whom seven years apprenticeship could not make a tailor, accepted
it; who, after a twelvemonth's instruction, was ordered off, but in
a few days finding the employment beyond his abilities, he prudently
deserted it, and returned home, where he now remains in the
character of an husbandman.
There are very few instances of rejection even of persons
who can scarce write their own names legibly ; for as there is
neither law to compel, nor encouragement to excite, no other can
be had than such as offer, and none will offer who can see any
other prospect of living. Every one knows that the Excise is a
Dlace of labor, not of ease; of hazard, not of certainty ; and that
downright poverty finishes the character.

14 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
It must strike every considtrate mind, to hear a man with a large
family, faithful enough to declare, that he cannot support himself
on the salary with that honest independency he could wish. There
is a great degree of affecting honesty in an ingenuous confession.
Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes
the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms
like a knell.
Ofiate years there has been such an admission of improper and
unqualified persons in the Excise, that the office is not only become
contemptible, but the revenue insecure. Collectors, whose long
services and qualifications have advanced them to that station,
are disgraced by the wretchedness of new supers continually.
Certainly some regard ought to be had to decency, as well as
merit. These are some of the capital evils which arise from the wretch
ed poverty of the salary. Evils they certainly are ; for what can
be more destructive in a revenue office, than corruption, collusion,
neglect, and ill qualifications.
Should it be questioned whether an augmentation of salary would
remove them, I answer, there is scarce a doubt to be made of it.
Human wisdom may possibly be deceived in its wisest designs; but
here, every thought and circumstance establishes the hope. They
are evils of such a ruinous tendency, that they must, by some
means or other, be removed. Rigor and severity have been tried
in vain ; for punishment loses all its force where men expect and
disregard it.
Of late years, the board of Excise has shown an extraordinary
tenderness in such instances as might otherwise have affected the
circumstances of their officers. Their compassion has greatly
tended to lessen the distresses of the employment ; but as it cannot
amount to a total removal of them, the officers of Excise throughout
the kingdom have (as the voice of one man) prepared petitions to
be laid before the honorable house of commons on the ensuing
parliament. An augmentation of salary, sufficient to enable them to live
honestly and competently, would produce more good effect than all
the laws of the land can enforce. The generality of such frauds
as the officers have been detected in, have appeared of a nature as
remote from inherent dishonesty as a temporary illness is from an
incurable disease. Surrounded with want, children, and despair,

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 15
what can the husband or the father do ? No laws compel like na
ture — no connections bind like blood.
With an addition of salary, the Excise would wear a new aspect,
and recover its former constitution. Languor and neglect would
give place to care and cheerfulness. Men of reputation and abili
ties would seek after it, and finding a comfortable maintenance
would stick to it. The unworthy and incapable would be rejected,
the power of superiors be reestablished, and laws and instructions
eceive new force. The officers would be secured from the temp
tations of poverty, and the revenue from the evils of it ; the cure
would be as extensive as the complaint, and new health outroot the
present corruptions.
THOMAS PAINE.

16 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

PETITION TO THE BOARD OF EXCISE.

Honorable Sirs :
In humble obedience to your honors' letter of discharge, bearing
date August 29, 1765, I delivered up my commission, and since
that time have given you no trouble.
I confess the justice of your honors' displeasure, and humbly beg
leave to add my thanks for the candor and lenity which you at that
unfortunate time indulged me with.
And though the nature of the report and my own confession cut
off all expectations of enjoying your honors' favor then, yet I
humbly hope it has not finally excluded me therefrom ; upon which
hope I humbly presume to intreat your honors to restore me.
The time I enjoyed my former commission was short and unfor
tunate — an officer only a single year. No complaint of lhe least
dishonesty, or intemperance, ever appeared against me ; and if I
am so happy as to succeed in this my humble petition. I will en
deavor that my future conduct shall as much engage your honors'
approbation, as my former has merited your displeasure.
I am your honors' most dutiful
humble servant,
THOMAS PAINE.
London, July 3, 1766.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 17
LETTER TO DR. GOLDSMITH.

Honored Sir:
Herewith I present you with the case of the officers of Excise.
A compliment of this kind from an entire stranger may appear
somewhat singular ; but the following reasons and information will,
I presume, sufficiently apologize. I act myself in the humble
station of an officer of Excise, though somewhat differently circum
stanced to what many of them are, and have been the principal
promoter of a plan for applying to parliament this session for an
increase of salary. A peliiion for this purpose has been circulated
through ever}' part of the kingdom, and signed by all the officers
therein. A subscription of three shillings per officer is raised,
amounting to upwards of £500, for supporting the expenses. The
Excise officers in all cities and corporate towns, have obtained let
ters of recommendation from the electors to the members in their
behalf, many or most of whom have promised their support. The
enclosed case we have presented to most of the members, and shall
to all, before the petition appear in the house. The memorial be
fore you, met with so much approbation white in manuscript, that
I was advised to print 4000 copies : 3000 of which were subscribed
for the officers in general, and the remaining 1000 reserved for
presents. Since the delivering tbem I have received so many
letters of thanks and approbation for the performance, that were I
not rather singularly modest, I should insensibly become a little
vain. Thi. literary fame of Dr. Goldsmith has induced me to pre
sent one to him, such as it is. It is my first and only attempt, and
even now I should not have undertaken it, had I not been particu
larly applied fo by some of my superiors in office. I have some
few questions «o trouble Dr. Goldsmith with, and should esteem his
company for oi hour or two, to partake of a bottle of wine, or any
thing else, ac4 apologize' for this trouble, as a singular favor con
ferred on His unknown
Humble servant and admirer,
THOMAS PAINE.
Excise Coffee House,
Broad Street, Dec. 21, 1772.
P. S. Slmll take the liberty of waiting on you in a day or two.

18 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE.

To the Public.
The design of this work has been so fully expressed in the
printed proposals, that it is unnecessary to trouble the reader now
with a formal preface ; and instead of that vain parade with which
publications of this kind are introduced to the public, we shall con
tent ourselves with soliciting their candor, till our more qualified
labors shall entitle us to their praise.
The generous and considerate will recollect, that imperfection is
natural to infancy ; and that nothing claims their patronage with a
better grace than those undertakings which, besides their infant
state, have many formidable disadvantages to oppress them.
We presume it is unnecessary to inform our friends that we en
counter all the inconveniences which a Magazine can possibly start
with. Unassisted by imported materials, we are destined to create,
what our predecessors, in this walk, had only to Compile. And
the present perplexities of our affairs have rendered it somewhat
difficult for us to procure the necessary aids.
Thus encompassed with difficulties, the first number of The
Pennsylvania Magazine entreats a favorable reception ; of which
we shall only say, like the snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren
season, and contents itself with foretelling, that Choicer flowers
are preparing to appear.
Philadelphia, January 24, 1775

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 19

FOR THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE.

Cupid and Hymen. An Original.
As the little amorous deity was one day winging his way over a
village in Arcadia, he was drawn by the sweet sound of the pipe
and tabor, to descend and see what was the matter. The gods
themselves are sometimes ravished with the simplicity of mortals.
The groves of Arcadia were once the country seats ofthe celestials,
where they relaxed from the business of the skies, and partook of
the diversions of the villagers. Cupid being descended, was charm
ed with the lovely appearance of the place. Every thing he saw
had an air of pleasantness. Every shepherd was in his holyday
dress, and every shepherdess was decorated with a profusion of
flowers. The sound of labor was not heard among them. The
little cottages had a peaceable look, and were almost hidden with
arbors of jessamine and myrtle. The way to the temple was strewed
with flowers, and enclosed with a number of garlands and green
arches. " Surely," quoth Cupid, " here is a festival today. I'll
hasten and inquire the matter."
So saying, he concealed his bow and quiver, and took a turn
through the village: As he approached a building. distinguished
from all the rest by the elegance of its appearance, he heard a
sweet confusion of voices mingled with instrumental music. " What
is the matter," said Cupid to a swain who was sitting under a syca
more by the way-side, and humming a very melancholy tune, "why
are you not at the feast, and why are you so sad ?" " I sit here,
answered the swain, " to see a sight, and a sad sight 'twill be."
" What is it," said Cupid, " come tell me, for perhaps I can help
you." " I was once happier than a king," replied the swain, " and
was envied by all the shepherds of the place, but now every thing
is dark and gloomy, because" — " Because what ?" said Cupid —
" Because I am robbed of my Ruralinda ; Gothic, the lord of the
manor, hath stolen her from me, and this is to be the nuptial day."
"A wedding," quoth Cupid, " and I know nothing of it ! vou

20 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
must be mistaken, shepherd, I keep a record of marriages, und no
such thing has come to my knowledge ; 'tis no wedding, I assure
you, if I am not consulted about it." " The lord of the manor,"
continued the shepherd, " consulted nobody but Ruralinda's mother,
and she longed to see her fair daughter the lady of the manor : he
hath spent a deal of money to make all this appearance, for money
will do any thing ; I only wait here to see her come by, and then
farewell to the hills and dales." Cupid bade him not be rash, and
left him. " This is another of Hymen's tricks," quoth Cupid to
himself, " he hath frequently served me thus, but I'll hasten to bim,
and have it out with him." So saying, he repaired to the mansion.
Every thing there had an air of grandeur rather than of joy, sump
tuous but not serene. The company were preparing to walk in
procession to the temple. The lord of the manor looked like the
father of the village, and the business he was upon gave a foolish
awkwarkness to his age and dignity. Ruralinda smiled, because
she would smile, but in that smile was sorrow. Hymen with a
torch faintly burning on one side only stood ready to accompany
them. The gods when they please can converse in silence, and in
that language Cupid began on Hymen.
" Know; Hymen," said he, " that I am your master. Indulgent
Jove gave you to me as a clerk, not as a rival,. much less a superior.
'Tis my province to form the union, and yours to witness it. But
ofiate you have treacherously assumed to set up for yourself. 'Tis
true you may chain couples together like criminals, but you cannot
yoke them like lovers ; besides you are such a dull fellow when I
am not with you, that you poison the felicities of life. You have
not a grace but what is borrowed from me. As well may the moon
attempt to enlighten the earth without the sun, as you to bestow
happiness when 1 am absent. At best you are but a temporal and
a temporary god, whom Jove has appointed not to bestow, but to
secure happiness, and restrain the infidelity of mankind. But as
sure yourself that I'll complain of you to the synod."
"This is very high indeed," replied Hymen, "to be called to an
account by such a boy of a god as you are. You are not of such
importance in the world as your vanity thinks ; for my own part I
have enlisted myself with another master, and can very well do
without you. Plutus* and I are greater than Cupid ; you may
complain and welcome, for Jove himself descended in a silver
* God of riches.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 21
shower and conquered : and by the same power the lord of the
manor hath won a damsel, in spite of all the arrows in your quiver."
Cupid, incensed at this reply, resolved to support his authority,
and expose the folly of Hymen's pretensions to independence. As
the quarrel was carried on in silence, the company were not inter
rupted by it. The procession began to set forward to the temple,
where the ceremony was to be performed. The lord of the manor
led the beautiful Ruralinda like a lamb devoted to the sacrifice
Cupid immediately despatched a petition for assistance to his mothe
on one of the sun-beams, and the same messenger returning in an
instant, informed him that whatever he wished should be done. He
immediately cast the old Lord and Ruralinda into one of the most
extraordinary sleeps ever known. They continued walking in the
procession, talking to each other, and observing every ceremony
with as much order as if they had been awake ; their souls had in
a manner crept from their bodies, as snakes creep from their skin,
and leave a perfect appearance of themselves behind. And so
rapidly does imagination change the landscape of life, that in the
same space of time which passed over while they were walking to
the temple, they both ran through, in a strange variety of dreams,
seven years of wretched matrimony. In which imaginary time,
Gothic experienced all the mortification which age wedded to youth
must expect ; and she all the infelicity which such a sale and sacri
fice of her person justly deserved.
In this state of reciprocal discontent they arrived at the temple :
Cupid still continued them in their slumber, and in order to expose
the consequences of such marriages, he wrought so magically on the
imaginations of them both, that he drove Gothic distracted at the
supposed infidelity of his wife, and she mad with joy at the supposed
death of her husband; and just as the ceremony was about to be
performed, each of them broke out into such passionate soliloquies,
as threw the whole company into confusion. He exclaiming, she
rejoicing; he imploring death to relieve him, and she preparing to
bury him; gold, quoth Ruralinda, may be bought too dear, but the
grave has befriended. The company believing them mad, convey
ed them away, Gothic to his mansion, and Ruralinda to her cottage.
The next day they awoke, and being grown wise without loss of
time, or the pain of real experience, they mutually declined pro
ceeding any farther. The old Lord continued as he was, and ge
nerously bestowed a handsome dowry on Ruralinda, who was soon

22 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
after wedded to the young shepherd, that had so piteously bewailed
the loss of her. The authority of Cupid was reestablished, and
Hymen ordered never more to appear in the village, unless Cupid
introduced him. Esoi\

ANECDOTE OF LORD MALMSBURY WHEN MINISTER
AT PARIS.

New Rochelle, April 26, 1806.
Mr- Duane,
I see, by the English papers, that some conversations have lately
taken place in Parliament in England, on the subject of repealing
the act that incorporated the members elected in Ireland with the
Parliament elected in England, so as to form only one Parliament.
As England could not domineer Ireland more despotically than
it did through the Irish Parliament, people were generally at a loss,
(as well they might be,) to discover any motive for that union, more
especially as it was pushed with unceasing activity against all oppo
sition. The following anecdote, which was known but to few per
sons, and to none, I believe, in England, except the former minister,
will unveil the mystery.
" When Lord Malmsbury arrived in Paris, in the time of the
Directory Government, to open a negociation for a peace, his cre
dentials ran in the old style of " George, by the grace of God, of
Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king" — Malmsbury was in
formed that although the assumed title of king of France, in his
credentials, would not prevent France opening a negociation, yet
that no treaty of peace could be concluded until that assumed title
was renounced. Pit then hit on the Union Bill, under which the
assumed title of king of France was discontinued."
THOMAS PAINE.

miscellaneous letters and essays. 23

TO A FRIEND.

New Rochelle, Jan. 16, 1805.
Esteemed Friend,
1 have received two letters from you, one giving an account of
your taking Thomas to Mr. Fowler, the other dated Jan. 12 ; I
did not answer the first, because I hoped to see you the next Sa
turday or the Saturday after. What you heard of a gun being
fired into the room is true ; Robert and Rachel were both gone out
to keep Christmas Eve, and about eight o'clock at night the gun
was fired ; I ran immediately out, one of Mr. Dean's boys with me,
but the person that had done it was gone ; I directly suspected
who it was, and hallowed to him by name, that he was discovered.
I did this that the party who fired might know I was on the watch.
I cannot find any ball, but whatever the gun was charged with
passed through about three or four inches below the window, making
a hole large enough for a finger to go through ; the muzzle must
have been very near, as the place is black with the powder, and
the glass of the window is shattered to pieces. Mr. Shule, after
examining the place, and getting what information could be had,
issued a warrant to take up Derrick, and after examination commit
ted him. He is now on bail (five hundred dollars) to take his trial
at the Supreme Court in May next. Derrick owes me forty-eight
dollars, for which I have his note, and he was to work it out in
making stone fence, which he has not even begun, and besides this
1 have to pay forty-two pounds eleven shillings, for which I had
passed my word for him at Mr. Pelton's store. Derrick borrowed
the gun under pretence of giving Mrs. Bayeaux a Christmas gun.
He was with Purdy about two hours before the attack on the house
was made, and he came from thence to Dean's half drunk, and
brought with him a bottle of rum, and Purdy was with him when he
was taken up. Yours, in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.

24 miscellaneous letters and essays.

A MATHEMATICAL QUESTION PROPOSED.

Mr. Aitken :
•Wherever the arts and sciences have been cultivated, a particu
lar regard has been deservedly paid to the study of Mathematics.
A practice has long prevailed among mathematicians of real disser
vice to the science. When they have propounded questions in
periodical publications of this kind, they have generally made choice
of such as had nothing to recommend them, but their difficulty of
solution, and in which they seem rather to have aimed at victory
over their cotemporary rivals, than the advancement of knowledge.
It were to be wished, indeed, that all questions might be suppress
ed, but such as may be applicable to some useful purpose in life.
The following question, I hope, is of that class. If you should be
of the same opinion, your sticking it in a niche in your Magazine,
will oblige Your humble servant, P.
In surveying a piece of land I found the dimensions as follows:
1 side N. 25° 30' E. 100 pers.
2  S. 84° 30' E. 60
3  S. 36° 0' E. 96
4  S. 26° 15' W. 85
5  N. 59° 30' W. 140 to the place of beginning.
But upon calculating the contents from a table of difference of
latitude and departure, I found I had made some error in the field ;
for my Northings and Southings, Eastings and Westings, were not
exactly equal. Now supposing this error to have been equally
contracted in every part of the survey, both from the inaccuracy of
taking the bearings and lengths ofthe boundary lines, (which is the
most probable supposition,) it is required to correct this error, and
tell the contents of this piece of land without making a resurvey.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 25
FOR THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE.
See the Plate.

Description of a new Electrical Machine, with Remarks.
There is no place where the study of electricity has received
more improvement than in Philadelphia: but inthe construction
of the machines the European philosophers have rather excelled.
The opportunity of getting glasses blown or made in what form
they please, and the easiness of finding artists to execute any new
or improved invention, are perhaps the reasons ofthe difference.
I look on a globe to be the worst form for a glass that can be
used, because when in motion you cannot touch any great part of
its surface, without having the cushion concave, which, if it is, will
be very apt to press unequally ; a circumstance which ought to be
guarded against.
The cylinder is an improvement on the globe, because nearly all
the surface may be touched, and that equally, by a plain cushion;
yet both these forms exclude us from the inside, and only one or
two cushions can be applied outside.
Those machines whose glasses are planes, and revolve vertically,
excite stronger than any other I have yet seen ; as there are not,
I believe, any in this part of the world, and .is tho construction is
a late one, I have added a description thereof, that if the glass can
be procured, any gentleman inclined to have them, may easily get
the other parts executed.
Let A B represent a board of convenient length and breadth,
into which I insert the upright pillar, B C, which must be cut down
the middle, or two single ones must be joined, so as to receive the
glass plate, D E F G, and also a thin cushion on each side, between
the glass plate and the insides of the pillar. In the centre of the
pillar, and on each side thereof, insert the arms, D E H I F G, so
that the plate may go down between the whole. The cushions are
thin pieces of board or brass, covered loosely with red leather, and
stuffed, and slipped in on each side between the plate and the arms,

26 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
so that the plate may turn between the eight cushions on each side
of it.* The arms are generally thinned away as far as the cushions
go, to receive them the more conveniently ; and in the back of each
cushion is a brass pin at each end, and which lodge in a notch in
the pillar, and prevent their being displaced by the motion of the
glass ; for the cushion should be made to take out, to be cleaned, &c.
K L is a phial, and in order to have it ready, a circle is cut in
the board, A B, to receive it. In the top of the phial is a wood
stopper, M N, round the edge of which is glued a piece of woollen
cloth to make il fix tight. Into the wood stopper, insert the brass
stem, O P, to the end of which is fixed a chain, P Q. The con
ductor, R S, is a brass tube, which screws on the stem, O P, to
which is fixed eight branches, though four are only represented in
the plate, to avoid confusion, the branches terminate in points, di
rected in the spaces in the glass plate between the cushions, and col
lecting the fire from thence, convey it by means of the conductor
and chain to the receiver, K L. The glass plate is turned by a
winch made fast to an axis, which goes through the plate and pil
lars, (I presume that a square hole struck through the centre of the
plate while it is hot, at the time of making it,) and the better to fas
ten tbe plate on the axis, a piece of wood, the size of a small saucer,
is cemented to each side of the plate at the centre, and the axis
passes through the whole.
If the coating comes to the bottom of the receiver, there needs
no chain round it, to carry off the fire that will unavoidably steal
down the outside, that being supplied by the phial being in contact
with the board, the board with the table it stands on, &c. ; but
this communication must by some means be cut off, in order to
charge the phial on the outside, which the machine that I saw was
not supplied with. Any non-conducting body interposed between
the phial and board will supply that defect.
This is an exact description, as far as my memory can recollect,
of that which I saw. I think the plate was about eighteen inches
diameter, and about two-tenths of an inch in thickness, and had a
greenish cast.t A less plate requires fewer arms.
I am inclined to think, but I offer it only as a conjecture, that if
* The cushions are represented as fixed between the plate and the arms,
by the figures 1, 2, 3, 4.
+ I think if a cylinder was cut open while hot, and flexiblo in making, and
Bpread on a plane surface, it would be sufficient for the purpose. Glass
excites the stronger by not being too smooth

miscellaneous letters AND ESSAYS. 27
additional branches were fixed to those represented in the figure,
and brought over the edge of the glass, and pointed to the other
side in the same manner as the first set does, a greater if not a
double quantity of fire would be collected. My reasons are,
I. That the friction being on both sides equal, the quantity of
matter excited on each side, may be supposed to be equal like
wise. 2. That as glass is not pervadeable by electrical matter, the
union of the two quantities cannot be effected that way.
3. That as glass will not conduct on its surface, the edge of the
plate will act as a barrier between the two quantities.
Perhaps endeavoring to charge two phials from the different
sides of the plate at one time, will best demonstrate this point.
ATLANTICUS.
Philadelphia, January 10.

28 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

NEW ANECDOTES OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

In one of those calm and gloomy days, which have a strange
effect in disposing the mind to pensiveness, I quitted the busy town
and withdrew into the country. As I passed towards the Schuylkill,
my ideas enlarged with the prospect, and sprung from place to place
with an agility for which nature hath not a simile. Even the eye
is a loiterer, when compared with the rapidity of the thoughts.
Before I could reach the ferry I had made the tour of the creation,
and paid a regular visit to almost every country under the sun ;
and while I was crossing the river, I passed the Styx and made
large excursions into the shadowy regions ; but my ideas relanded
with my person, and taking a new flight inspected the state of
things unborn ; this happy wildness of imagination makes a man
a lord of the world, and discovers to him the value and the vanity
of all its passions. Having discharged the two terrestial Charons,
who ferried me over the Schuylkill, I took up my staff and walked
into the woods. Every thing conspired to hush me into a pleasing
kind of melancholy, the trees seemed to sleep, and the air hung
round me with such unbreathing silence, as if listening to my very
thoughts. Perfectly at rest from care or business, I suffered my
ideas to pursue their own unfetterred fancies ; and in less time than
what is required to express it in, they had again passed the Styx
and toured round many miles into the new country.
As the servants of great men always imitate their masters abroad,
so my ideas, habiting themselves in my likeness, figured away with
all the consequence of the person they belonged to ; and calling
themselves when united i" and me wherever they went, brought me,
on their return, the following anecdotes of Alexander ; viz.
Having a mind to see in what manner Alexander lived in the
Plutonian world, I crossed the Styx, (without the help of Charon,
for the dead only are his fare,) and enquired of a melancholy look
ing shade who was sitting on the banks of the river, if he could
give me any account of him ; yonder he comes, replied the shade,
get out of the way or you'll be run over. Turning myself round I
saw a grand equipage rolling towards me which filled the whole

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 29
avenue. Bless me ! thought I, the gods still continue this man in
his insolence and pomp ! The chariot was drawn by eight horses in
golden harness, and the whole represented his triumphal return,
after he bad conquered the world. It passed me with a splendor
I had not seen before, and shined so luminously up into the country,
that I discovered innumerable shades sitting under the trees, which
before were invisible. As there were two persons in tbe chariot
equally splendid, I could not distinguish which was Alexander, and
on requiring that information of the shade who still stood by, he
replied, Alexander is not there. Did you not, continued I, tell me
that Alexander was coming, and bid me get out ofthe way? Yes,
answered the shade, becuse he was the fore horse on the side next
to us. Horse ! I mean Alexander the Emperor, I mean the same,
replied the shade, for whatever he was on ihe other side of the
water is nothing now, he is a horse here ; and not always that,
for when he is apprehensive that a good licking is intended for
him, he watches his opportunity to roll out of the stable in the
shape of a piece of dung or in any other disguise he can escape.
On this information I turned instantly away, not being able to bear
the thoughts of such astonishing degradation notwithstanding the
aversion I have to his character. But curiosity got the better of
my compassion, and having a mind to see what sort of a figure the
conqueror ofthe world cut in the stable, I directed my flight thither.
He was just returned with the rest of the horses from the journey,
and the groom was rubbing him down with a large furze bush, but
turning himself round to get a still larger and more prickly one that
was newly brought in, Alexander catched the opportunity, and in
stantly disappeared, on which I quitted the place, lest I should be
suspected of stealing him. When I had reached the banks of the
river, and was preparing to take my flight over, I perceived that I
had picked up a bug among the Plutonian gentry, and thinking it
was needless to increase the breed on this side the water, was going
to dispatch it, when the little wretch screamed out, Spare Alexan
der the Great. On which I withdrew the violence I was offering
to his person, and holding up the emperor between my finger and
thumb, he exhibited a most contemptible figure of the downfall of
tyrant greatness. Affected with a mixture of concern and compas
sion (which he was always a stranger to) I suffered him to nibble
on a pimple that was newly risen on my hand, in order to refresh
him ; after which I placed him on a tree to hide him, but a tom-tit

30 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
coming by, chopped him up with as little ceremony as he put whole
kingdoms to the sword. On which I took my flight, reflecting with
pleasure that I was not Alexander the Great.
Esop.

TO THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN.

New York, March 8, 1803.
My DEAR FRIEND,
Mr. Munroe, who is appointed Minister Extraordinary to France,
takes charge of this, to be delivered to Mr. Este, banker, in Paris,
to be forwarded to you.
I arrived at Baltimore on the 30th October, and you can have
no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New
Hampshire to Georgia, (an extent of 1500 miles,) every newspaper
was filled wilh applause or abuse.
My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends,
and is now worth six thoqsand pounds sterling, which put in the
funds will bring me four hundred pounds sterling a year.
Remember me in friendship and affection to your wife and family,
and in the circle of our friends.
I am but just arrived here, and the minister sails in a few hours,
so that I have but just time to write you this. If he should not sail
this tide, I will write to my good friend Colonel Bosville, but in
any case, I request you to wait on him for me.
Yours, in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 31

REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF
LORD CLIVE.

Ah ! The tale is told — the scene is ended — and the curtain falls.
As an emblem of the vanity of all earthly pomp, let his monument
be a globe, but be that globe a bubble ; let his effigy be a man
walking round it in his sleep ; and let Fame, in the character of a
shadow, inscribe his honors on the air.
I view him but as yesterday on the burning plains of Plassey,*
doubtful of life, health, or victory. I see him in the instant when
" To be or not to be," were equal chances to a human eye. To be
a lord or a slave, to return loaded with the spoils, or remain min
gled with the dust of India. Did necessity always justify the se
verity of a conqueror, the rude tongue of censure would be silent,
and however painfully he might look back on scenes of horror, the
pensive reflection would not alarm him. Though his feelings suf
fered, his conscience would be acquitted. The sad remembrance
would move serenely, and leave the mind without a wound. But
oh, India! thou loud proclaimer of European cruelties ! thou bloody
monument of unnecessary deaths ! be tender in the day of inquir}',
and show a Christian world thou canst suffer and forgive.
Departed from India, and loaded with plunder, I see him doubling
the Cape and looking wistfully to Europe. I see him contemplating
on years of pleasure, and gratifying his ambition with expected
honors. I see his arrival pompously announced in every newspa
per, his eager eye rambling through the crowd in quest of homage,
and his ear listening lest an applause should escape him. Happily
for him he arrived before his fame, and the short interval was a
time of rest. From the crowd I follow him to court, I see him en
veloped in the sunshine of sovereign favor, rivalling the great in
honors, the proud in splendor, and the rich in wealth. From the
court I trace him to the country; his equipage moves like a camp;
*Battle of Plassey, in the East Indies, where Lord Clive, at that time
Colonel Clive, acquired an immense fortune, and from which place his
title is taken.

32 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
every village bell proclaims his coming ; the wondering peasants
admire his pomp, and his heart runs over with joy.
But, alas! (not satisfied with unaccountable thousands) I accom
pany him again to India. I mark the variety of countenances
which appear at his landing — Confusion spreads the news — every
passion seems alarmed — the wailing widow, the crying orphan, and
the childless parent remember and lament ; the rival Nabobs court
his favor ; the rich dread his power — and the poor his severity.
Fear and terror march like pioneers before his camp — murder and
rapine accompany it — famine and wretchedness follow it in the rear.
Resolved on accumulating an unbounded fortune, he enters into
all the schemes of war, treaty, and intrigue. The British sword
is set up for sale ; the heads of contending Nabobs are offered at
a price, and the bribe taken from both sides. Thousands of men
or money are trifles in an Indian bargain. The field is an empire,
and the treasure almost without end. Tbe wretched inhabitants
are glad to compound for offences never committed, and to pur
chase at any rate the privilege to breathe ; while he, the sole lord
of their lives and fortunes, disposes of either as he pleases, and
prepares for Europe.*
Uncommon fortunes require an uncommon date of life to enjoy
them in. The usual period is spent in preparing to live : and un-
* In April, 1773, a Committee of the House of Commons, under the name
of the Select Committee, were appointed by the House to inquire into the
East India affairs, and the conduct of the several Governors of Bengal
The Committee having gone through the examination, General Burgoyne,
the chairman, prefaced their report to the House, informing them, "That
the reports contained accounts shocking to human nature, that the most in
famous designs had been carried into execution by perfidy and murder. He
recapitulated the wretched situation of the East Indian princes, who held
their dignities on the precarious condition of being the highest bribers. No
claim, however just on their part, he said, could be admitted without being
introduced with enormous sums of rupees, nor any prince suffered to reign
long, who did not quadrate with this idea ; and that Lord Clive, over and
above the enormous sums he might with some appearance of justice lay claim
to, had obtained others to which he could have no title. He (General Bur
goyne) therefore moved, "That it appears to this house, that Robert Lord
Clive, baron of Plassey, about the time of deposing Surajah Dowla, Nabob
of Bengal, and establishing Meer Jaffierin his room, did, through the influ
ence of the power with which he was intrusted, as member of the Select
Committee in India, and Commander in Chief of the British forces there,
obtain and possess himself of two lacks and 80,000 rupees, as member of the
Select Committee ; a further sum of two lacks of rupees, as Commander in
Chief; a further sum of 16 lacks of rupees, or more, under the denomination
of private donations; which sums, amounting together to 20 lacks and 80.
000 rupees, were of the value, in English money, of £234,000, and that in
so doing, the said Robert Lord Clive abused the powers with which he was
intrusted, to the evil example of the servants of the public."

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 33;
less nature prolongs the time, fortune bestows her excess of favors
in vain.
The Conqueror of the East having nothing more to expect from
the one, has all his court to make to the other. Anxiety for wealth
gives place to anxiety for life ; and wisely recollecting that the sea
is no respecter of .persons, resolves on taking his route to Europe by
land. Little beings move unseen, or unobserved, but he engrosses
whole kingdoms in his march, and is gazed at like a comet. The
burning desart, the pathless mountains, and the fertile valleys, are
in their turns explored and passed over. No material accident dis
tresses his progress, and England once more receives the spoiler.
How sweet is rest to the weary traveller ; the retrospect heightens
the enjoyment ; and if the future prospect be serene, the days of
ease and happiness are arrived. An uninquiring observer might
have been inclined to consider Lord Clive, under all these agree
able circumstances, one, whose every care was over, and who had
nothing to do but sit down and say, Soul take thine ease, thou hast
goods laid up in store for many years.
The reception which he met with on his second arrival, was in
every instance equal, and in many, exceeded, the honors of the
first. It is the peculiar temper of the English to applaud before
they think. Generous of their praise, they frequently bestow it
unworthily : but when once the truth arrives, the torrent stops, and
rushes back again with the same violence.* Scarcely had the echo
* Lord Clive, in the defence which he made in the House of Commons,
against the charges mentioned in the preceding note, very positively insists
on his innocence, and very pathetically laments his situation ; and after in
forming the House of the thanks which he had some years before received,
for Ihe same actions which they are now endeavoring to censure him for,
he says,
"After such certificates as these, Sir, am I to be brought here like a crimi
nal, and the very best part of my conduct construed into crimes against the
state ? Is this the reward that is now held out to persons who have perform
ed such important services to their coumtry ? Ifit is, Sir, the futuro conse
quences that will attend the execution of any important trust, committed
to the persons who have the care of it, will be fatal indeed ; and I am sure
the noble Lord upon the treasury bench, whose great humanity and abilities
I revere, would never have consented to the resolutions that passed the other
night, if he had thought on the dreadful consequences that would attend
them. Sir, I cannot say that I either sit or rest easy, when I find that all I
have in the world is likely to be confiscated, and that no one will take my
security for a shilling. These, Sir, are dreadful apprehensions to remain.
under, and I cannot but look upon myself as a bankrupt. I have not any
thing left whieh I can call my own, except my paternal fortune, of £500
per annum, and which has been in tho family for ages past. But upon this.
I am contented to live, and perhaps I shall find more real content of mi nd
and happiness than in the trembling affluence of an unsettled fortune. But.
w

ii-i MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
of applause ceased upon the ear, than the rude tongue of censure
took up the tale. The newspapers, fatal enemies to ill-gotten
wealth, began to buz a general suspicion of his conduct, and the
inquisitive public soon refined it into particulars. Every post gave
a stab to his fame — a wound to his peace — and a nail to his coffin.
Like spectres from the grave, they haunted him in every company,
and whispered murder in his ear. A life chequered with uncommon
varieties is seldom a long one. Action and care will in time wear
down the strongest frame, but guilt and melancholy are poisons of
quick despatch.
Say, cool deliberate reflection, was the prize, though abstracted
from the guilt, worthy of the pains ? Ah ! no. Fatigued with vic
tory he sat down to rest, and while he was recovering breath, he lost
it. A conqueror more fatal than himself beset him, and revenged
the injuries done to India.
As a cure for avarice and ambition let us take a view of him in
his latter years. — Ha ! what gloomy being wanders yonder ? How
visibly is the melancholy heart delineated on his countenance. He
mourns no common care — his very steps are timed to sorrow — he
trembles with a kind of mental palsy. Perhaps it is some broken
hearted parent, some David mourning for his Absalom, or some
Heraclitus weeping for the world. I hear him mutter something
about wealth — perhaps he is poor, and hath not wherewithal to hide
his head. Some debtor started from his sleepless pillow, to rumi
nate on poverty, and ponder on the horrors of a jail. Poor man!
I'll to him and relieve him. Ha! 'tis Lord Clive himself ! Bless
me, what a change ! He makes, I see, for yonder cypress shade, a
fit scene for melancholy hearts ! I'll watch him there and listen to
his story.
Lord Clive. " Can I but suffer when a beggar pities me. Ere
Sir, I must make one more observation, that, if the definition of the Hon.
Gentleman, [General Burgoyne,] and of this House, is that the state, as ex
pressed in these resolutions, is, quo ad hoc, the Company, then, Sir, every
farthing lhat I enjoy is granted to me. But to be called, after sixteen years
have elapsed, to account for my conduct in this manner, and after an unin
terrupted enjoyment of my property, to be questioned and considered as
obtaining it unwarrantably, is hard indeed ! and a treatment I should not
think the British Senate capable of. But if it should be the case, I have a
conscious innocence within me, that tells me my conduct is irreproachable.
Frangas, non ftectes. They may take from me what I have ; they may, as
they think, make me poor, but I will be happy ! I mean not this as my defence.
My defence will be made at the bar; and before I sit down, I have one re
quest to make to the House, that when they come to decide upon my honor,
they will not forget their own.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 35
while I heard a ragged wretch, who every mark of poverty had on,
say to a sooty sweep, Ah, poor Lord Clive ! while he the negro-
colored vagrant, more mercifully cruel, curst me in my hearing.
" There was a time when fortune, like a yielding mistress, courted
me with smiles — she never waited to be told my wishes, but studied
to discover them, and seemed not happy to herself, but when she
had some favor to bestow. Ah ! little did I think the fair enchant
ress would desert me thus ; and after lavishing her smiles upon me,
turn my reproacher, and publish me in folio to the world. Volumes
of morality are dull and spiritless compared to me. Lord Clive is
himself a treatise upon vanity, printed on a golden type. The
most unlettered clown writes explanatory notes thereon, and reads
them to his children. Yet I could bear these insults could I but
bear myself. A strange unwelcome something hangs about me.
In company I seem no company at all. The festive board appears
to me a stage, the crimson colored port resembles blood— each glass
is strangely metamorphosed to a man in armour, and every bowl
appears a Nabob. The joyous toast is like the sound of murder,
and the loud laugh are the groans of dying men. The scenes of
India are all rehearsed, and no one sees the tragedy but myself.
Ah ! I discover things which are not, and hear unuttered sounds.
" O peace, thou sweet companion of the calm and innocent ?
Whither art thou fled ? here take my gold, and all the world calls
mine, and come thou in exchange. O thou, thou noisy sweep, who
mixeth thy food with soot and relish it, who canst descend from
lofty heights and walk the humble earth again, without repining at
the change, come teach thy mystery to me. Or thou, thou ragged
wandering beggar, who, when thou canst not beg successfully, wil.
pilfer from the hound, and eat the dirty morsel sweetly ; be thou
Lord Clive, and I will beg, so I may laugh like thee.
" Could I unlearn what I've already learned — unact what I've
already acted — or would some sacred power convey me back to
youth and innocence, I'd act another part — I'd keep within the
vale of humble life, nor wish for what the world calls pomp.
" But since this cannot be,
And only a few days and sad remain for me,
I'll haste to quit the scene ; for what is life;*
When every passion ofthe soul's at strife?" Atlanticus.
* Some time before his death, he became very melancholy— sufy'ect to
strange imaginations — and was found dead at last.

36 MISCELLANEOUS letters and essays.

TO A FRIEND IN PHILADELPHIA.

Paris, March 16, 1719.
I leave this place to-morrow for London ; I go expressly for
the purpose of erecting an iron bridge, which Messrs. Walkers, of
Rotheram, Yorkshire, and I have constructed, and is now ready
for putting together. It is an arch of one hundred and ten feet
span, and five feet high, from the chord line. It is as portable as
common bars of iron, and can be put up and taken down at plea
sure, and is, in fact, rendering bridges a portable manufacture.
With respect to the French revolution, be assured that every
thing is going on right. Little inconveniences, the necessary con
sequences of pulling down and building up, may arise ; but even
these are much less than ought to have been expected. Our friend,
the Marquis, is like his patron and master, General Washington,
acting a great part. I take over with me to London, the key of
the Bastile, which the Marquis intrusts to my care as his present to
General Washington, and which I shall send by the first American
vessel to New York. It will be yet some months before the new
Constitution will be completed, at which time there is to be a pro
cession, and I am engaged to return to Paris to carry the Ameri
can flag.
In England, the ministerial party oppose every iota of reforma
tion : the high beneficed clergy and bishops cry out that the church
is in danger ; and all those who were interested in the remains of
the feudal system, join in the clamor. I see very clearly that the
conduct of the British government, by opposing reformation, will
detach great numbers from the political interests of that country ;
and that France, through the influence of principles and the divine
right of men to freedom, will have a stronger party in England than
she ever had through the Jacobite bugbear of the divine right of
kings in the Stuart line.
I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America. It is the
country from whence all reformation must originally spring. I
despair of seeing an abolition of the infernal traffic in negroes.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 37
We must push that matter further on your side of the water. I
wish that a few well instructed, could be sent among their brethien
in bondage ; for until they are enabled to take their own part,
nothing will be done. I am,
With many wishes for your happiness,
Your affectionate friend,
THOMAS PAINE.

38

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

TO SIR GEORGE STAUNTON, BART.

SlR,-^- As I know you interest yourself in the success of the useful arts,
and are a member of the society for the promotion thereof, I do
myself the pleasure to send you an account of a small experiment
I have been making at Messrs. Walkers' iron works at this place.
You have already seen the model I constructed for a bridge of a
single arch, to be made of iron, and erected over the river Schuyl
kill, at Philadelphia ;' but as the dimensions may have escaped
your recollections, I will begin with stating those particulars.
The vast quantity of ice and melted snow at the breaking up of
the frost in that part of America, render it impracticable to erect a
bridge on piers. The river can conveniently be contracted to four
hundred feet, the model, therefore, is for an arch of four hundred
feet span ; the height of the arch in the centre, from the chord
thereof, is to be about twenty feet, and to be brought off on the
top, so as to make the ascent about one foot in eighteen or twenty.
The judgment of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, has been
given on the principles and practicability of the construction. The
original, signed by the Academy, is in my possession ; and in which
they fully approve and support the design. They introduce their
opinion by saying,
" II est sur que lors qu'on pense au projut d'une arche en fer de
400 pieds d'overture, et aux effets qui peuvent resulter d'une arche
d'une si vaste etondue, il est difficile de ne pas 61ever des doutes
sur le succes d'une pareille enterprise, par les difficulty qu'elle
presente au premiere apenju. Mais si telle est la disposition des
parties, et la maniere dont elles sont reunis qu'il result de cet as
semblage un tout tres ferme et tr6s solide, alors on n'aura plus les
memes doutes sur la reussite de ce projet."*
* It is certain that when such a project as that of making an iron arch of four
hundred feet span is thought of, and when we consider the effects resulting
from an arch of such vast magnitude, it would be strange if doubts were not
raised as to the success of such an enterprize, from the difficulties which at
first present themselves. But if such be the disposition of the various parts,

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 39
The Academy then proceed to state the reasons on which their
judgment is founded, and conclude with saying,
" Nous concluons de tout ce que nous venons d'exposer que Ia
pont de fer de M. Paine est ingenieusement imaging, que la con
struction en est simple, solide, et propre a lui donner la force ne-
cessaire pour r6sister aux effets resultans de sa charge, et qu'il merite
qu'on en tente l'execution. Enfin, qu'il pourra fournira un nouvel
exemple de Papplication d'un m6tal dont on n'a pas jusqu' ici fait
assez d'usage en grand, quoique dans nombre d'occasions il est peu
' e"tre employ^ avec plus grand succes."*
As it was my design- to pass some time in England before I re
turned to America, I employed part of it in making the small essay
1 am now to inform you of.
My intention, when I came to the iron works, was to raise an
arch of at least two hundred feet span, but as it was late in the fall
of last year, the season was too far advanced to work out of doors,
and an arch of that extent too great to be worked within doors,
and as I was unwilling to lose time, I moderated my ambition with
a little common sense, and began wiih such an arch as could be
compassed within some of the buildings belonging to the works.
As the construction of the American arch admits, in practice, any
species of curve with equal facility, I set off in preference to all
others, a catenarian arch of ninety feet span, and five feet high.
Were this arch converted into an arch of a circle, the diameter of
its circle, would be four hundred and ten feet. From the ordinates
of the arch taken from the wall where the arch was struck, I pro
duced a similar arch on the floor whereon the work was to be fitted
and framed, and there was something so apparently just when the
work was set out, that the looking at it promised success.
You will recollect that the model is composed of four paralle.
arched ribs, and as the number of ribs may be increased at pleasure
to any breadth an arch sufficient for a road way may require, and
the arches to any number the breadth of a river may require, the
and the method of uniting them, that the collective body should present a
whole both firm and solid, we should then no longer have the same doubts of
the success ofthe plan.
* We conclude from what we have just remarked that Mr. Paine's Plan.
of an Iron Bridge is ingeniously imagined, that the construction of it is sim
ple, solid, and proper to give it the necessary strength for resisting the effects
resulting from its burden, and that it is deserving of a trial. In short, it
may furnish a new example of the application of a metal, which has not hith
erto been used in any works on an extensive scale, although on many occa
sions it is employed with the greatest success.

40 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
construction of one rib would determine for the whole ; because if
one rib succeeded, all the rest of the work, to any extent, is a
repetition. In less time than I expected, and before the winter set in, I had
fitted and framed the arch, or properly the rib, completely together
on the floor ; it was then taken in pieces and stowed away during
the winter, in a corner of a work shop, used in the mean time by
the carpenters, where it occupied so small a compass as to be hid
among the shavings, and though the extent of it is nhlety feet, the
depth of the arch at the centre two feet nine inches, and the depth
at the branches six feet, the whole of it might, when in pieces, be
put in an ordinary stage wagon, and sent to any part of England.
I returned to the works in April, and began to prepare for erect
ing ; we chose a situation between a steel furnace and a workshop,
which served for butments. The distance between those buildings
was about four feet more than the span of the arch, which we filled
up with chumps of wood at each end. I mention this as I shall
have occasion to refer to it hereafter.
We soon ran up a centre to turn the arch upon, and began our
erections. Every part fitted to a mathematical exactness ; the rais
ing an arch of this construction is different to the method of raising
a stone arch. In a stone arch they begin at the bottom, on the ex
tremities of the arch, and work upwards, meeting at the crown. In
this we began at the crown, by a line perpendicular thereto, and
worked downward each way. It differs likewise in another respect.
A stone arch is raised by sections of the curve, each stone being
so, and this by concentric curves. The effect likewise of the arch
upon the centre is different, for as stone arches sometimes break
down the centre by their weight, this, on the contrary, grew lighter
on the centre as the arch increased in thickness, so much so, that
before the arch was completely finished, it rose itself off the centre
the full thickness of the blade of a knife from one butment to the
other, and is, I suppose, the first arch of ninety feet span that ever
struck itself.
I have already mentioned that the spaces between the ends of
the arches and the butments were filled up with chumps of wood,
and those rather in a damp state ; and though we rammed them as
close as we could, we could not ram them so close as the drying
and the weight of the arch, or rib, especially when loaded, would be
capable of doing ; and we had now to observe the effects which the

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 41
yielding and pressing up of the wood, and which corresponds to the
giving way of the butments, so generally fatal to stone arches, would
have upon this.
We loaded the rib with six tons of pig iron, beginning at the
centre, and proceeding both ways, which is twice the weight of the
iron in the rib, as I shall hereafter more particularly mention. This
had not the least visible effect on the strength of the arch, but it
pressed the wood home, so as to gain in three or four days, together
with the drying and shrinking of the wood, above a quarter of an
inch at each end, and consequently the chord or span of the arch
was lengthened above half an inch. As this lengthening was more
than double the feather of the keystone in a stone arch of these
dimensions, such an alteration at the butment would have endanger
ed the safety of a stone arch, while it produced on this no other
than the proper mathematical effect. To evidence this, I had re
course to the cord still swinging on the wall from which the curve
of the arch was taken. I set the cord to ninety feet span, and five
feet for the height of the arch, and marked the curve on the wall.
I then removed the ends of the cords horizontally something more
than a quarter of an inch at each end. _ The cord should then de
scribe the exact catenarian curve which the rib had assumed by the
same lengthening at the butments ; that is, the rising of the cord
should exactly correspond to the lowering of the arch, which it did
through all their corresponding ordinates. The cord had risen
something more than two inches at the centre, diminishing to
nothing each way, and the arch had descended the same quantity,
and in the same proportion. I much doubt whether a stone arch,
could it be constructed as flat as this, could sustain such an altera
tion ; and, on the contrary, I see no reason to doubt but an arch on
this construction and dimensions, or corresponding thereto, might
be let down to half its height, or as far as it would descend, with
safety. I say, "as far as it would descend," because the construc
tion renders it exceedingly probable that there is a point beyond
which it would not descend, but retain itself independent of but
ments ; but this cannot be explained but by a sight of the arch itself.
In four or five days, the arch having gained nearly all it could
gain on the wood, except what the wood would lose by a summer's
drying, the lowering of the arch began to be scarcely visible. The
weight still continues on it, to which I intend to add more; and
there is not the least visible effect on the perfect curvature or

42 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
strength of the arch. The arch having thus gained nearly a solid
bearing on the wood and the butments, and the days beginning to
be warm, and the nights continuing to be cool, I had now to ob
serve the effects of the contraction and expansion of the iron.
The Academy of Sciences at Paris, in their report on the prin
ciples and construction of this arch, stale these effects as a matter
of perfect indifference to the arch, or to the butments, and the ex
perience establishes the truth of their opinion. It is probable the
Academy may have taken, in part, the observations of M. Peronnet,
architect to the King of France, and a member of the Academy,
as some ground for that opinion. From the observations of M.
Peronnet, all arches, whether of stone or brick, are constantly
ascending or descending by the changes of the weather, so as to
render the difference perceptible by taking a level, and that all
stone and brick buildings do the same. In short, that matter is
never stationary, with respect to its dimensions, but when the atmos
phere is so ; but that as arches, like the tops of houses, are open to
*the air, and at freedom to rise, and all their weight in all changes
of heat and cold is the same, their pressure is very little or nothing
•affected by it.
I hung a thermometer to the arch, where it has continued several
days, and by what I can observe it equals, if not exceeds, the ther
mometer in exactness.
In twenty-four hours it ascends and descends two and three-tenths
of an inch at the centre, diminishing in exact mathematical propor
tion each way ; and no sooner does an ascent or descent of half a
hair's breadth appear at the centre, but it may be proportionally
discovered through the whole span of ninety feet. I have affixed
an index which multiplies ten times, and it can as easily be multipli
ed an hundred times : could I make a line of fire on each side the
arch, so as to heat it in the same equal manner through all its parts,
as the natural air does, I would try it up to blood heat. I will not
attempt a description of the construction ; first, because you have
already seen the model ; and, secondly, that I have often observed
that a thing may be so very simple as to baffle description. On
this head I shall only say, that I took the idea of constructing it
from a spider's web, of which it resembles a section, and I naturally
supposed, that when Nature enabled that insect to make a web, she
taught it the best method of putting it together.
Another idea I have taken from Nature is, that of increasing the

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 43
strength of matter by causing it to act over a larger space than it
would occupy in a solid state, as is evidenced in the bones of ani
mals, quills of birds, reeds, canes, &c, which, were they solid with
the same quantity of matter, would have the same weight with a
much less degree of strength.
I have already mentioned that the quantity of iron in this rib is
three tons ; that an arch of sufficient width for a bridge is to be
composed of as many ribs as that width requires ; and that the
number of arches, if the breadth of a river requires more than one,
may be multiplied at discretion.
As the intention of this experiment was to ascertain, first, the
practicability of the construction, and secondly, what degree of
strength any given quantity of iron would have when thus formed
.into an arch, I employed in it no more than three tons, which is as
small a quantity as could well be used in the experiment. It has
already a weight of six tons constantly lying on it, without any ef
fect on the strength or perfect curvature of the arch. What greater
weight it will bear cannot be judged of; but taking even these as
data, an arch of any strength, or capable of bearing a greater
weight than can ever possibly come upon any bridge, may be easily
calculated. The river Schuylkill, at Philadelphia, as I have already mention
ed, requires a single arch of four hundred feet span. The vast
quantities of ice render it impossible to erect a bridge on piers, and
is the reason why no bridge has been attempted. But great scenes
inspire great ideas. The natural mightiness of America expands
the mind, and it partakes of the greatness it contemplates. Even
the war, with all its evils, had some' advantages. It energized in
vention and lessened the catalogue of impossibilities. At the con
clusion of it every man returned to his home to repair the ravages
it bad occasioned, and to think of war no more. As one amongst
thousands who had borne a share in that memorable revolution, I
returned with them to the reenjoyment of quiet life, and, that I
might not be idle, undertook to construct a bridge of a single arch
for this river. Our beloved General had engaged in rendering
another river, the Patowmac, navigable. The quantity of iron I
had allowed in my plan for this arch was five hundred and twenty
tons, to be distributed into thirteen ribs, in commemoration of the
Thirteen United States, each rib to contain forty tons ; but although
strength is the first object in works of this kind, I shall, from the

44 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
success of this experiment, very considerably lessen the quantity
of iron I had proposed.
The Academy of Sciences, in their report upon this construction,
say, " there is one advantage in the construction of M. Paine's
bridge that is singular and important, which is, that the success of
an arch to any span can be determined before the work be under
taken on the river, and with a small part of the expense of the
whole, by erecting part on the ground."
As to its appearance, I shall give you an extract of a letter from
a gentlemen in the neighborhood, member in the former parlia
ment for this county, who, in speaking of the arch, says, " In point
of elegance and beauty, it far exceeds my expectations, and it is
certainly beyond any thing I ever saw." I shall likewise mention
that it is much visited and exceedingly admired by the ladies, who,
though they may not be much acquainted with mathematical princi
ples, are certainly judges of taste.
I shall close my letter with a few other observations, naturally
and necessarily connected with the subject.
That, contrary to the general opinion, the most preservative
situation in which iron can be placed is within the atmosphere of
water, whether it be that the air is less .saline and nitrous than that
which arises from the filth of streets, and the fermentation of the
earth, I am not undertaking to prove ; I speak only of fact, which
any body may observe by the rings and bolts in wharfs and other
watery situations. I never yet saw the iron chain affixed to a well-
bucket consumed or injured by rust; and I believe it is impossible
to find iron exposed to the open air in' the same preserved condi
tion as that which is exposed over water.
A method of extending the span and lessening the height of arches
has always been the desideratum of bridge architecture. But it
has other advantages. It renders bridges capable of becoming a
portable manufacture, as they may, on this construction, be made
and sent to any part of the world ready to be erected ; and at the
same time that it greatly increases the magnificence, elegance, and
beauty of bridges, it considerably lessens their expense, and their
appearance by re-painting will be ever new; and as they may be
erected in all situations where stone bridges can be erected, they
may, moreover, be erected in certain situations, where, on account
of ice, infirm foundations in the beds of rivers, low shores, and va
rious other causes, stone bridges cannot be erected. The last con-

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 45
venience, and which is not inconsiderable, that I shall mention is,
that after they are erected, they may very easily be taken down
without any injury to the materials of the construction, and be re-
erected elsewhere. I am, sir,
Your much obliged,
And obedient humble servant,
THOMAS PAINE.

46 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

PREFACE TO GENERAL LEE'S MEMOIRS.

The following Memoirs and Letters of the late Major-General
Lee have been in the possession of the Editor since the year 1786.
They were transmitted from America to England by the gentleman
whose name is subscribed to the Memoirs, and who was a member
of Congress for the state of Georgia, for the purpose of publica
tion. In their manuscript state they have been seen by several
persons in England, who expressed a strong desire of putting them
to press, which the avocations of the person to whom they were
entrusted, and his not being acquainted with such undertakings, had
caused him to neglect.
As the subject of Revolutions is again renewed by what has oc
curred in France, it is presumed, that whatever relates to the Mo
ther-Revolution, that of America, will, at least, afford entertainment
to the curious, and contribute to increase the general stock of his
torical knowledge.
The reader may expect to find, in almost every thing that relates
to General Lee, a great deal of the strong republican character.
His attachment to principles of liberty, without regard to place,
made him the citizen of the world rather than of any country ;
and from his earliest youth to the end of his career, this general
trait in his character may be traced.
So little of the courtier had he about him, that he never descend
ed to intimate any thing. Whatever he spoke or wrote was in the
fullest style of expression, or strong figure. He used to say to Mr.
Paine, the author of Common Sense, in America, and since of
Rights of Man, in England, (of whose writings he was a great
admirer,) that " he burst forth upon the world like Jove in thun
der;" and this strength of conception, so natural to General Lee,
had it not been mixed with a turn equally as strong for satire, and
too much eccentricity of temper, would have rendered his converr
sation perpetually entertaining.
Though the Memoirs and every letter in this publication are
most faithfully printed from the copy transmitted from America,

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 47
the Editor has omitted many whole letters, and also his trial be
fore the court-martial, as not sufficiently interesting to balance the
expense to which they would have extended the work. But if
any of the particular friends or relations of General Lee should be
desirous of seeing them, they may be indulged with the opportun
ity, by leaving a line at the publisher's, directed to the
EDITOR.
London, Feb. 1792.;

48 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

TO FORGETFULNESS.

From " the Castle in the Air," to " the Little Corner of the
World."
Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear herself
flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent and silent god
dess, Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is never thought of: yet
we owe her much. She is the goddess of ease, though not of
pleasure. When the mind is like a room hung with black, and every corner
of it crowded with the most horrid images imagination can create,
this kind speechless goddess of a maid, Forgetfulness, is following
us night and day with her opium wand, and gently touching first one,
and then another, benumbs them into rest, and at last glides them
away with the silence of a departing shadow. It is thus the tor
tured mind is restored to the calm condition of ease, and fitted for
happiness. How dismal must the picture of life appear to the mind in that
dreadful moment, when it resolves on darkness, and to die ! One
can scarcely believe such a choice was possible. Yet how many of
the young and beautiful, timid in every thing else, and formed for
delight, have shut their eyes upon the world, and made the waters
their sepulchral bed ! Ah ! would they in that crisis, when life and
death are both before them, and each within their reach, would ihey
but think, or try to think, that Forgetfulness will come to their re
lief, and lull them into ease, they could stay their hand, and lay hold
of life. But there is a necromancy in wretchedness that entombs
the mind, and increases the misery, by shutting out every ray ol
light and hope. It makes the wretched falsely believe they will be
wretched ever. It is the most fatal of all dangerous delusions ; and
it is only when this necromantic night-mare of the mind begins to
vanish, by being resisted, that it is discovered to be but a tyrannic
spectre. All grief, like all things else, will yield to the obliterating
power of time. While despair is preying on the mind, time and

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 49
its effects are preying on despair; and certain it is, the dismal
vision will fade away, and Forgetfulness, with her sister Ease, will
change the scene. Then let not the wretched be rash, but wait,
painful as the struggle may be, the arrival of Forgetfulness ; for it
will certainly arrive.
I have twice been present at the scene of attempted suicide.
The one a lov^-distracted girl in England, the other of a patriotic
friend in France ; and as the circumstances of each are strongly
pictured in my memory, I will relate them to you. They will ih
some measure corroborate what I have said of Forgetfulness.
About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in England, and on
a visit at the house of a widow lady, Mrs. E  , at a small vil
lage in the fens of that county. It was in summer; and one eve
ning after supper, Mrs. E  and myself went to take a turn in
the garden. It was about eleven o'clock, and to avoid the night air of
the fens, we were walking in a bower, shaded over with hazel bushes.
On a sudden, she screamed out, and cried "Lord! look, look!"
I cast my eyes through the openings of the hazel bushes, in the
direction she was looking, and saw a white shapeless figure, without
head or arms, moving along one of the walks at some distance from
us. I quitted Mrs. E  , and went after it. When I got into the
walk where the figure was, and was following it, it took up another
walk. There was a holly bush in the corner of the two walks,
which, it being night, I did not observe ; and as I continued to step
forward, the holly bush came in a straight line between me and the
figure, and I lost sight of it ; and as I passed, along one walk, and
the figure the other, the holly bush still continued to intercept the
view, so as to give the appearance that the figure had vanished.
When I came to the corner of the two walks, I caught sight of it
again, and coming up with it, I reached out my hand to touch it;
and in the act of doing this, the idea struck me, will my hand pass
through the air, or shall I feel any thing ? Less than a moment
would decide this, and my hand rested on the shoulder of a human
figure. I spoke, but do not recollect what I said. It answered in
a low voice, " Pray let me alone." I then knew who it was. It
was a young lady who was on a visit to Mrs. E  , and who, when
we sat down to supper said she found herself extremely ill, and
would go to bed. I called to Mrs. E  , who came, and I said to
her, " It is Miss N  " Mrs. E  said, " My God ! I hope
you are not going to do yourself any hurt ;" for Mrs. E  sus-

50 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
pected something. She replied with pathetic melancholy, " Life
has not one pleasure for me." We got her into the house, and
Mrs. E  took her to sleep with her.
The case was, the man whom she expected to be married to, had
forsaken her, and when she heard he was to be married to another,
the shock appeared to her to be too great to be borne. She had
retired, as I have said, to her room, and when she supposed all the
family were gone to bed, (which would have been the case, if Mrs.
E  and I had not walked into the garden,) she undressed her
self, and tied her apron over her head ; which descending below
her waist, gave her the shapeless figure I have spoken of.
Aided by the obscurity of almost midnight, and with this and a
white under petticoat and slippers, for she had taken out her buckles,
and put them at the servant maid's door, I suppose as a keepsake,
she came down stairs, and was going to drown herself in a pond at
the bottom of the garden, towards which she was going when Mrs.
E  screamed out. We found afterwards, that she had heard
the scream, and that was the cause of her changing her walk.
By gentle usage, and leading her into subjects that might, without
doing violence to her feelings, and without letting her see the di
rect intention of it, steal her as it were from the horror she was in,
(and I felt a compasionate, earnest disposition to do it, for she was
a good girl,) she recovered her former cheerfulness, and was after
wards a happy wife, and the mother of a family.
The other case, and the conclusion in my next.
In Paris, in 1793, 1 had lodgings in the Rue Fauxbourg, St. Denis,
No. 63. They were the most agreeable, for situation, of any I ever
had in Paris, except that they were too remote from the Conven
tion, of which I was then a member. But this was recompensed by
their being also remote from the alarms and confusion into which
the interior of Paris was then often thrown. The news of those
things used to arrive to us, as if we were in a state of tranquility in
the country. The house, which was enclosed by a wall and gate
way from the street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm house,
and the court yard was like a farm yard, stocked with fowls, ducks,
turkies, and geese ; which, for amusement, we used to feed out of
the parlor window on the ground floor. There were some hutches
for rabbits, and a sty with two pigs. Beyond, was a garden of
more than an acre of ground, well laid out, and stocked with ex-

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 51
cellent fruit trees. The orange, apricot, and greengage plum, were
the best I ever tasted ; and it is the only place where I saw the
wild cucumber. The place had formerly been occupied by some
curious person.
My apartments consisted of three rooms ; the first, for wood, wa
ter, &c, with an old fashioned closet chest, high enough to hang up
clothes in ; the next was the bed room ; and beyond it tbe sitting
room, which looked into the garden through a glass door ; and on
the outside there was a small landing place railed in, and a flight of
narrow stairs almost hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which
1 could descend into the garden, without going down stairs through
the house. I am trying by description to make you see the place
in your mind, because it will assist the. story I have to tell ; and
which I think you can do, because you once called upon me there
on account of Sir  , who was then, as I was soon afterwards,
in arrestation. But it was winter when you came, and it is a sum
mer scene I am describing. # # # #
I went into my chamber to write and sign a certificate for them,*
which I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release.
Just as I had finished it a man came into my room dressed in the
Parisian uniform of a captain, and spoke to me in good English,
and with a good address. He told me that two young men, English
men, were arrested and detained in the guard house, and that the
section, (meaning those who represented and acted for the section,)
had sent him to ask me if I knew them, in which rase they would
be liberated. This matter being soon settled between us, he talked
to me about the Revolution, and something about the "Rights of
Man," which he had read in English; and at parting offered me in
a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you think the
man was that offered me his services ? It was no other than the
public executioner Samson, who guillotined the king, and all who
were guillotined in Paris ; and who lived in the same section, and
in the same street with me.
# * * #
As to myself, I used to find some relief by walking alone in the
garden after dark, and cursing with hearty good will, the authors of
that terrible system that had turned the character of the Revolution
I had been proud to defend.
- Mr. Paine here alludes to two friends who were under arrest. Ed.

52 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my
appearance ; because I found it impossible to join in their tremend
ous decrees, and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My hav
ing voted and spoken extensively, more so than any other member,
against the execution ofthe king, had already fixed a mark upon
me: neither dared any of my associates inthe Convention to trans
late and speak in French for me, any thing I might have dared to
have written. * # * _ •
Pen and ink were then of no use to me : no good could be done
by writing, and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might
have written for my private amusement, as anecdotes of the tiroes,
would have been continually exposed to be examined, and tortured
into any meaning that the rage of party might fix upon it; and as
to softer subjects, my heart was in distress at the fate of my friends,
and my harp hung upon the weeping willows.
As it was summer, we spent most of our time in the garden, and
passed it away in those childish amusements that. serve to keep re
flection from the mind, such as marbles, scotch hops, battledores,
&c, at which we were all pretty expert.
In this retired manner we remained about six or seven weeks,
and our landlord went every evening into the city to bring us the
news of the day, and the evening journal.
I have now, my " Little Corner of the World," led you on, step
by step, to the scene that makes the sequel to this narrative, and I
will put that scene before your eyes. You shall see it in description
as I saw it in fact.* * * * * ,
He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a pass
port was obtained for him and Mr. Choppin : they received it late
in the evening, and set off the next morning for Basle before four,
from which place I had a letter from them, highly pleased with their
escape from France, into which they had entered with an enthusi
asm of patriotic devotion. Ah, France ! thou hast ruined the cha
racter of a Revolution virtuously begun, and destroyed those who
produced it. I might almost say like Job's servant, " and I only
am escaped."
Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at the gate,
* The second instance of attempted suicide is omitted from motives of
personal delicacy. Mr. Paine's letter is continued, as it contains an account
of his mode of life before he was sent to prison, &c. Ed.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 53
and looking out of the window of the bedroom, I saw the landlord
going with the candle to the gate, which he opened, and a guard
with musquets and fixed bayonets entered. I went to bed again,
and made up my mind for prison, for I was then the only lodger.
It was a guard to take up  , but, I thank God, they
were out of their reach.
The guard came about a month after in the night, and took away
the landlord, Georgeit ; and the scene in the house finished with
the arrestation of myself. This was soon after you called on me,
and sorry I was it was not in my power to render to  the
service that you asked.
I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your expectation,
in relating the case of  , landed back on the shore of life, by
the mistake of the pilot, who was conducting him out ; and pre
served afterwards from prison, perhaps a worse fate, without know
ing it himself.
You say a story cannot be too melancholy for you. This is in
teresting and affecting, but not melancholy. It may raise in your
mind a sympathetic sentiment in reading it ; and though it may
start a tear of pity, you will not have a tear of sorrow to drop on
the page. # * * #
Here, my contemplative correspondent, let us stop and look back
upon the scene. The matters here related being all facts, are
strongly pictured in my mind, and in this sense, Forgetfulness does
not apply. But facts and feelings are distinct things, and it is
against feelings that the opium wand of Forgetfulness draws us into
ease. Look back on any scene or subject that once gave you dis
tress, for all of us have felt some, and you will find, that though
the remembrance of the fact is not extinct in your memory, the
feeling is extinct in your mind. You can remember when you had
felt distress, but you cannot feel that distress again, and perhaps
will wonder you felt it then. It is like a shadow that loses itself
by light.
It is often difficult to know what is a misfortune : that which we
feel as a great one today, may be the means of turning aside our
steps into some new path that leads to happiness yet unknown. In
tracing the scenes of my own life, I can discover that the condition
I now enjoy, which is sweet to me, and will be more so when I get
to America, except by the loss of your society, has been produced,

54 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
in the first instance, in my being disappointed in former projects.
Under that iiripenetrable veil, Futurity, we know not what is con
cealed, and the day to arrive is hidden from us. Turning then our
thoughts to those cases of despair that lead to suicide, when, "the
mind," as you say, " neither sees nor hears, and holds counsel only
with itself; when the very idea of consolation would add to the tor
ture, and self destruction is its only aim," what, it may be asked,
is the best advice, what the best relief; I answer seek it not in
reason, for the mind is at war with reason, and to reason against
feelings is as vain as to reason against fire : it serves only to tor
ture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All reasoning with
ourselves in such cases acts upon us like the reason of another per
son, which, however kindly done, serves but to insult the misery we
suffer. If Reason could remove the pain, Reason would have pre
vented it. If she could not do the one, how is she to perform the
other 1 In all such cases we must look upon Reason as dispossess
ed of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires herself to
a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of Despair rules alone.
All that Reason can do is to suggest, to hint a thought, to sign i IV a
wish, to cast now and then a kind of bewailing look, to hold up,
when she can catch the eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope ;
and though dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in
the humble station of a handmaid.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 55

TO A GENTLEMAN AT NEW YORK.

Sir, New Rochelle, March 20, 1806.
I will inform you of what I know respecting General Miranda,
with whom I first became acquainted, at New York, about the year
1783. He is a man of talents and enterprize, a Mexican by birth,
and the whole of his life has been a life of adventures.
I went to Europe from New York, in April, 1787, Mr. Jefferson
was then minister from America to France, and Mr. Littlepage, a
Virginian, (whom John Jay knows,) was agent for the king of Po
land, at Paris.
Mr. Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary talents, and I
first met with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at dinner. By his inti
macy with the king of Poland, to whom also he was chamberlain,
he became well acquainted with the plans and projects of the
Northern Powers of Europe. He told me of Miranda's getting
himself introduced to the Empress Catherine of Russia, and obtain
ing a sum of money from her, four thousand pounds sterling ; but
it did not appear to me what the object was for which the money
was given ; it appeared as a kind of retaining fee.
After I had published the first part of the " Rights of Man," in
England, in the year 1791, 1 met Miranda at the house of Turnbull
and Forbes, merchants, Devonshire square, London. He had been
a little time before this in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to the
affair of Nootka Sound, but I did not at that time know it; and I will,
in the course of this letter, inform you how this connection between
Pitt and Miranda ended ; for I know it of my own knowledge.
I published the second part of the " Rights of Man," in London, in
February, 1792, and I continued in London till I was elected a mem
ber of the French Convention, in September of that year; and
went from London to Paris to take my seat in the Convention, which
was to meet the 20th of that month ; I arrived at Paris on^he 19th.
After the Convention met, Miranda came to Paris, and was ap
pointed general of the French army, under General Dumourier;
but as the affairs of that army went wrong in the beginning of the
year 1793, Miranda was suspected, and was brought under arrest

56 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
to Paris, to take his trial. He summoned me to appear to his
character, and also a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the
house of Turnbull and Forbes. 1 gave my testimony as I believed,
which was, that his leading object wus, and had been, the emanci
pation of his country, Mexico, from the bondage of Spain ; for I
did not, at that time, know of his engagements with Pitt. Mr.
Christie's evidence went to show that Miranda did not come to
France as a necessitous adventurer ; but believed he came from
public spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of money in
the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. The house of Turnbull and
Forbes was then in a contract to supply Paris with flour. Miranda
was acquitted.
A few days after his acquittal lie came to see me, and in a few
days afterwards I returned his visit. He seemed desirous of satis
fying me that he was independent, and that he had money in the
hands of Turnbull and Forbes. Ho did not tell me of his affair
with old Catherine of Russia, nor did I tell him that I knew of it.
But he entered into conversation with respect to Nootka Sound,
and put into my hands several letters of Mr. Pitt's to him on that
subject ; amongst which was one that 1 believe he gave me by mis
take, for when I had opened it, and was beginning to read it, he
put forth his hand and said, " O, that is not the letter I intended ;"
but as the letter was short, 1 soon got through it, and then returned
it to him without making any remarks upon it.
The dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound was then compro
mised ; and Pitt compromised with Miranda, for his services, by
giving him twelve hundred pounds sterling, for this was the contents
of the letter.
Now if it be true that Miranda brought with him a credit upon
certain persons in New York, for sixty thousand pounds sterling, it
is not difficult to suppose from what quarter the credit came ; for
the opening of any proposals between Pitt and M randa was already
made by the affair of Nootka Sound.
Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Munroe arrived there as minis
ter ; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted with him, I caution
ed Mr. Monroe against him, and told him of the affair of Nootka
Sound, and the twelve hundred pounds.
You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter
and with my name to it.
THOMAS PAINE.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 57

THE CAUSE OF THE YELLOW FEVER, AND THE
MEANS OF PREVENTING IT, IN PLACES NOT YET
INFECTED WITH IT, ADDRESSED TO THE BOARD
OF HEALTH IN AMERICA.

A great deal has been written respecting the Yellow Fever.
First, with respect to its causes, whether domestic or imported.
Secondly, on the mode of treating it.
What I am going to suggest in this essay, is to ascertain some
point to begin at, in order to arrive at the cause, and for this pur
pose some preliminary observations are necessary.
The Yellow Fever always begins in the lowest part of a popu
lous mercantile town near the water, and continues there, without
affecting the higher parts. The sphere, or circuit it acts in, is small,
and it rages most where large quantities of new ground have been
made by banking out the river, for the purpose of making wharfs.
The appearance and prevalence of the Yellow Fever in these
places, being those where vessels arrive from the West Indies, has
caused the belief that the Yellow Fever was imported from thence:
but here are two cases acting in the same place ; the one, the con
dition of the ground at the wharfs, which being new made on tha,
muddy and filthy bottom of the river, is different from the natural'
condition of the ground in the higher parts of the city, and conse
quently subject to produce a different kind of effluvia or vapor : the
other case, is the arrival of vessels from the West Indies.
In the State of Jersey, neither of these cases has taken place ;
no shipping arrive there, and consequently there have been no em
bankments for the purpose of wharfs, and the Yellow Fever has
never broke out in Jersey. This, however, does not decide the
point, as to the immediate cause of the fever, but it shows that this
species of fever is not common to the country in its natural state ;
and, I believe the same was the case in the West Indies, before
embankments began, for the purpose of making wharfs, which al
ways alter the natural condition of the ground ; no old history, that
I know of, mentions such a disorder as the Yellow Fever.

58 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
A person seized with the Yellow Fever in an affected part of the
town, and brought into the healthy part, or into the country, and
among healthy persons, does not communicate it to the neighbor
hood, or to those immediately around him ; why then are we to
suppose it can be brought from the West Indies, a distance of more
than a thousand miles, since we see it cannot be carried from one
town to another, nor from one part of a town to another, at home?
Is it in the air? this question on the case, requires a minute ex
amination. In the first place, the difference between air and wind
is the same as between a stream of water and a standing water.
A stream of water is water in motion, and wind is air in motion.
In a gentle breeze, the whole body of air, as far as the breeze ex
tends, moves at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour; in a high
wind, at the rate of seventy, eighty, or an hundred miles an hour :
when we see the shadow of a cloud gliding on the surface of the
ground, we see the rate at which the air moves, and it must be a
good trotting horse that can keep pace with the shadow, even in a
gentle breeze ; consequently, a body of air, that is in and over any
place of the same extent as the affected part of a city may be,
will, in the space of an hour, even at the moderate rate I speak of,
be moved seven or eight miles to leeward, and its place, in and
over the city, will be supplied by a new body of air coming from a
healthy part, seven or eight miles distant the contrary way, and
then on in continual succession. The disorder, therefore, is not in
the air, considered in its natural state, and never stationary. This
leads to another consideration of the case.
An impure effluvia, arising from some cause in the ground, in the
manner that fermenting liquors produce an effluvia near their sur
face that is fatal to life, will become mixed with the air contiguous
to it, and as fast as that body of air moves off, it will impregnate
every succeeding body of air, however pure it may be when it ar
rives at the place.
The result from this state of the case, is, that the impure air, or
vapor, lhat generates the Yellow Fever, issues from the earth, that
is, from the new made earth, or ground raised on the muddy and
filthy bottom of the river ; and which impregnates every fresh body
of air that comes over the place, in like manner as air becomes
heated when it approaches or passes over fire, or becomes offensive
in smell, when it approaches or passes over a body of corrupt ve
getable or animal matter in a state of putrefaction.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 59
The muddy bottom of rivers contains great quantities of impure
and often inflammable air, (carburetted hydrogen gas,) injurious to
life ; and which remains entangled in the mud till let loose from
thence by some accident. This air is produced by the dissolution
and decomposition of any combustible matter falling into the water
and sinking into the mud, of which the following circumstance will
serve to give some explanation.
In the fall of the year that New York was evacuated, (1783,)
General Washington had his head quarters at Mrs. Berrian's, at
Rocky Hill, in Jersey, and I was there : the Congress then sat at
Prince Town. We had several times been told, that the river, or
creek, that runs near the bottom of Rocky Hill, and over which
"there is a mill, might be set on fire, for that was the term the coun
try people used, and as General Washington had a mind to try the
experiment, General Lincoln, who was also there, undertook to
make preparation for it against the next evening, November 5th.
This was to be done, as we were told, by disturbing the mud at the
bottom of the river, and holding something in a blaze, as paper or
straw, a little above the surface of the water.
Colonels Humphries and Cob were at that time Aide de Camps
of General Washington, and those two gentlemen and myself got
into an argument respecting the cause; their opinion was, that on
disturbing the bottom of the river, some bituminous matter arose to
the surface, which took fire when the light was put to it ; I, on ihe
contrary, supposed that a quantity of inflammable air was let loose,
which ascended through the water, and took fire above the surface.
Each party held to his opinion, and the next evening the experi
ment was to be made.
A scow had been stationed in the mill dam, and General Wash
ington, General Lincoln, and myself, and I believe Colonel Cob,
(for Humphries was sick,) and three or four soldiers with poles, were
put on board the scow: General Washington placed himself at one
end of the scow, and I at the other ; each of us had a roll of cart
ridge paper, which we lighted and held over the water, about two
or three inches from the surface, when the soldiers began disturbing
the bottom of the river with their poles.
As General Washington sat at one end of the scow, and I at the
other, I could see better any thing that might happen from his light,
than 1 could from my own, over which I was nearly perpendicular.
When the mud at the bottom was disturbed by the poles, the air

60 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
bubbles rose fast, and I saw the fire take from General Washing
ton's light and descend from thence to the surface of the water,
in a similar manner, as when a lighted candle is held so as to touch
the smoke of a candle just blown out, the smoke will take fire, and
the fire will descend and light up the candle. This was demonstra
tive evidence, that what was called setting the river on fire, was
setting the inflammable air on fire, that arose out of the mud.
I mentioned this experiment to Mr. Rittenhouse of Philadelphia
the next time I went to that city, and our opinion on the case, was
that the air or vapor that issued from any combustible matter,
(vegetable or otherwise,) that underwent a dissolution and decom
position of its parts, either by fire or wafer in a confined place, so
as not to blaze, would be inflammable, and would become flame
whenever it came in contact with flame.
In order to determine if this was the case, we filled up the breech
of a gun barrel about five or six inches wilh saw dust, and the up
per part with dry sand to the top, and after spiking up the touch
hole, put the breech into a smith's furnace, and kept it red hot, so
as to consume the saw dust ; the sand of consequence would pre
vent any blaze. We applied a lighted candle to the mouth of the
barrel; as the first vapor that flew off would be humid, it extin
guished the candle ; but after applying the candle three or four
times, the vapor that issued out began to flash ; we then tied a
bladder over the mouth of the barrel, which the vapor soon filled,
and then tying a string round the neck of the bladder, above the
muzzle, took the bladder off.
As we could not conveniently make experiments upon the vapor,
while it was in the bladder, the next operation was, to get it into a
phial; for this purpose, we took a phial of about three or four
ounces, filled it with water, put a cork slightly into it, and introducing
it into the neck of the bladder, worked the cork out, by getting
hold of it through the bladder, into which the water then emptied
itself, and the air in the bladder ascended into the phial; we then
put the cork into the phial, and took it from the bladder. It was
now in a convenient condition for experiment.
We put a lighted match into the phial, and the air or vapor in it
blazed up in the manner of a chimney on fire ; we extinguished it
two or three times, by stopping the mouth of the phial ; and putting
the lighted match to it again it repeatedly took fire, till the vapor
was spent, and the phial became filled with atmospheric air.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 61
These two experiments, that in which some combustible substance
(branches and leaves of trees) had been decomposed by water, in
the mud ; and this, where the decomposition had been produced by
fire, without blazing, shows that a species of air, injurious to life,
when taken into the lungs, may be generated from substances,
which, in themselves, are harmless.
It is by means similar to these, that charcoal, which is made by
fire without blazing, emits a vapor destructive to life. I now come
to apply these cases, and the reasoning deduced therefrom, to ac
count for the cause of the Yellow Fever.*
First : — The Yellow Fever is not a disorder produced by the
climate naturally, or it would always have been here in the hot
months ; the climate is the same now, as it was fifty or a hundred
years ago ; there was no Yellow Fever then, and it is only within the
last twelve years, that such a disorder has been known to America.
Secondly : — The low grounds on the shores of the rivers, at the
cities, where the Yellow Fever is annually generated, and continues
about three months without spreading, were not subject to that dis
order in their natural state, orthe Indians would have forsaken them ;
whereas, they were the parts most frequented by the Indians in all
seasons of the 3'ear, on account of fishing. The result from these
cases is, that the Yellow Fever is produced by some new circum
stance not common to the country in its natural state, and the ques
tion is, what is that new circumstance?
It may be said, that every thing done by the white people, since
their settlement in the country, such as building towns, clearing
lands, levelling hills, and filling vallies, is a new circumstance, but
the Yellow Fever does not accompany any of these new circum
stances. No alteration made on the dry land produces the Yellow
Fever, we must therefore look to some other new circumstance,
and we now come to those that have taken place between wet and
dry, between land and water.
The shores ofthe rivers at New York, and also at Philadelphia,
have on account of the vast increase of commerce, and for the
sake of making wharves, undergone great and rapid alterations from
their natural state, within a few years ; and it i.s only in such parts
of the shores where those alterations have taken place that the
* The author does not mean to infer that the inflammable air, or carburetted
hydrogen gas, is the cause of the Yellow Fever ; but that perhaps it enters
into some combination with miasm generated in low grounds, which pro-
duces the disease

62 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
Yellow Fever has been produced. The parts where little or no
alteration has been made, either on the East or North River, and
which continue in their natural state, or nearly so, do not produce
the Yellow Fever — the fact therefore points to the cause.
Besides several new streets gained from the river by embankment,
there are upwards of eighty new wharfs made since the war, and
the much greater part within the last ten or twelve years; the con
sequence of which has been, that great quantities of filth or com
bustible matter deposited in the muddy bottom of the river conti
guous to the shore, and which produced no ill effect while exposed
to the air, and washed twice every twenty-four hours by the tide
water, have been covered over several feet deep with new earth,
and pent up, and the tide excluded. It is in these places, and in
these only, that tho Yellow Fever is produced.
Having thus shown, from tbe circumstances of the case, that the
cause of the Yellow Fever is in the place where it makes its ap
pearance, or rather, in the pernicious vapor issuing therefrom, I go
to show a method of constructing wharfs, where wharfs are yet tp
be constructed, as on the shore on the East River, at Corlder's
Hook, and also on the North River, that will not occasion tbe Yel
low Fever, and which may also point out a method of removing it
from places already infected with it. Instead, then, of embanking
out the river and raising solid wharfs of earth on the mud bottom
of the shore, the better method would be to construct wharfs on
arches, built of stone ; the tide will then flow in under the arch, by
which means the shore, and the muddy bottom, will be washed and
kept clean, as if they were in their natural state without wharfs.
When wharfs are constructed on the shore lengthways, that is
without cutting the shore up into slips, arches can easily be turned,
because arches joining each other lengthways, serve as butments to
each other, but when the shore is cut up into slips there can be no
butments ; in this case wharfs can be formed on stone pillars, or
wooden piles planked over on the top. In either of these cases,
the space underneath will be commodious shelter or harbor for
small boats, which can come in and go out always, except at low
water, and be secure from storms and injuries. This method, be
sides preventing the cause of the Yellow Fever, which 1 think it will,
will render the wharfs more productive than the present method,
because of the space preserved within the wharf.
I offer no calculation of the expense of constructing wharfs on

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 63
arches or piles ; but on a general view, I believe they will not be
so expensive as the present method. A very great part of the ex
pense of making solid wharfs of earth, is occasioned by the car
riage of materials, which will be greatly reduced by the methods
here proposed, and still more so were the arches to be constructed
of cast iron blocks. I suppose that one ton of cast iron blocks
would go as far in the construction of an arch, as twenty tons of
stone. If, by constructing wharfs in such a manner, that the tide water
can wash the shore and bottom ofthe river contiguous to the shore,
as they are washed in their natural condition, the Yellow Fever
can be prevented from generating in places where wharfs are yet
to be constructed, it may point out a method of removing it, at
least by degrees, from places already infected with it, which will be,
by opening the wharfs in two or three places in each, and letting
the tide water pass through ; the parts opened can be planked over,
so as not to prevent the use of the wharf.
In taking up and treating this suhject, I have considered it as
belonging to natural philosophy, rather than medicinal art; and
therefore I say nothing about the treatment of the disease, after it
takes place; I leave that part to those whose profession it is to
study it.
THOMAS PAINE.
New York, June 27, 1806.

64 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.

TO A FRIEND.

New Rochelle, July 9, 1S04.
Fellow Citizen,
As the weather is now getting hot in New York, and lhe people
begin to get out of town, you maj' as well come up here and help
me to settle my accounts with the man who lives on the place.
You will be able to do this better than I shall, and in the mean
time I can go on with my literary works, without having my mind
taken off by affairs of a different kind. I have received a packet
from Governor Clinton, enclosing what I wrote for. If you come
up by the stage, you will stop at the post office, and they will direct
you the way to the farm. It is only a pleasant walk. I send a
piece for the Prospect ; if the plan mentioned in it is pursued, it
will open a way to enlarge and give establishment to the deistical
church ; but of this and some other things, we will talk when you
come up, and the sooner the better. Yours in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.
I have not received any newspapers, nor any numbers of the
Prospect, since I have been here.
Bring my bag up with you.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 65

ADDRESS AND DECLARATION.

At a select Meeting of the Friends of Universal Peace and Li
berty, held at the Thatched House Tavern, St. James's Street,
August 20, 1791 , the following Address and Declaration to our
Fellow Citizens was agreed on and ordered to be published.
Friends and Fellow Citizens,
At a moment like the present, when wilful misrepresentations
are industriously spread by the partizans of arbitrary power, and
the advocates of passive obedience and court government, we think
it incumbent on us to declare to the world our principles, and the
motives of our conduct.
We rejoice at the glorious event of the French Revolution.
If it be asked — What is the French Revolution to us ?
We answer, (as it has been already answered in another place,*)
It is much to us as men : much to us as Englishmen.
As men we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five millions of our
fellow men. We rejoice in the prospect which such a magnificent
example opens to the world. We copgratulate the French nation
for having laid the axe to the root of tyranny, and for erecting go
vernment on the sacred hereditary rights of man — Rights which
appertain to all, and not to any one more than to another. We
know of no human authority superior to that of a whole nation j
and we profess and proclaim it as our principle that every nation
has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to constitute and es
tablish such government for itself as best accords with its disposi
tion, interest, and happiness.
As Englishmen we also rejoice, because we are immediately in
terested in the French Revolution.
Without enquiring into the justice on either side of the reproach
ful charges of intrigue and ambition, which the English and French
Courts have constantly made on each other, we confine ourselves
to this observation : — That if the Court of France only was m.
* Declaration of the Volunteers of Belfast.

66 miscellaneous letters and essays.
fault, and the numerous wars which have distressed both countries,
are chargeable to her alone, that Court now exists no longer ; and
the cause and the consequence must cease together. The French,
therefore, by the revolution they have made, have conquered for
us as well as for themselves ; if it be true that their Court only
was in fault, and ours never.
On this state of the case, the French Revolution concerns us
immediately. We are oppressed with a heavy national debt, a bur
then of taxes, and an expensive administration of government, be
yond those of any people in the world. We have also a very
numerous poor ; and we hold that the moral obligation of providing
for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of
supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition, and
intrigue. We believe there is no instance to be produced but in England,
of seven millions of inhabitants, which make but little more than
one million of families, paying yearly seventeen millions of taxes.
As it has always been held out by all administrations that the
restless ambition of the Court of France rendered this expense
necessary to us for our own defence, we consequendy rejoice as
men deeply interested in the French Revolution, for that Court, as
we have already said, exists no longer ; and consequently the same
enormous expenses need not continue to us.
Thus rejoicing, as we sincerely do, both as men and Englishmen,
as lovers of universal peace and freedom, and as friends to our own
national prosperity, and a reduction of our public expenses, we
cannot but express our astonishment that any part, or any members
of our own government, should reprobate the extinction of that
very power in France, or wish to see it restored, to whose influence
they formerly attributed (whilst they appeared to lament) the enor
mous increase of our own burthens and taxes. What, then, are
they sorry that the pretence for new oppressive taxes, and the oc
casion for continuing many ofthe old taxes, will be at an end? If
so, and if it is the policy of courts and of court governments, to
prefer enemies to friends, and a system of war to that of peace, as
affording more pretences for places, offices, pensions, revenue, and
taxation, it is high time for the people of every nation to look with
circumspection to their own interests.
Those who pay the expense, and not those who participate in the
emoluments arising from it, are the persons immediately interested

miscellaneous letters and essays. 67
in inquiries of this kind. We are a part of that national body, on
whom this annual expense of seventeen millions falls ; and we con
sider the present opportunity of the French Revolution as a most
happy one for lessening the enormous load under which this nation
groans. If this be not done, we shall then have reason to conclude,
that the cry of intrigue and ambition against other courts, is no
more than the common cant of all courts.
We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a
government, desirous of being called free, should prefer connection
with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe. We know
of none more deserving this description than those of Turkey and
Prussia, and the whole combination of German despots. Separated
as we happily are by nature, from the tumults of the Continent, we
reprobate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice (and that too at
a great expense) the blessings of our natural situation. Such sys
tems cannot have a national origin.
If we are asked, what government is? — We hold it to be nothing
more than a national association, and we hold that to be the
best which secures to every man his rights, and promotes the great
est quantity of happiness with the least expense.
We live to improve, or we live in vain ; and therefore we admit
of no maxims of government or policy on the mere score of anti
quity, or other men's authority, the old whigs or the new.
We will exercise the reason with which we are endued, or we
possess it unworthily. As reason is given at all times, it is for the
purpose of being used at all times.
Among the blessings which the French Revolution has produced
to that nation, we enumerate the abolition of the feudal system of
injustice and tyranny on the 4th of August, 1789. Beneath the
feudal system all Europe has long groaned, and from it England is
not yet free. Game laws, borough tenures, and tyrannical mono
polies of numerous kinds, still remain amongst us ; but rejoicing as
we sincerely do, in the freedom of others, till we shall happily ac
complish our own, we intended to commemorate this prelude to the
universal extirpation of the feudal system, by meeting on the anni
versary of that day (the 4th of August) at the Crown and Anchor.
From this meeting we were prevented by the interference of cer
tain unnamed and skulking persons with the master of the Tavern,
who informed us, that on their representations he could not receive
us. Let those who live by, or countenance feudal oppressions,

68 miscellaneous letters and essays.
take the reproach of this ineffectual meanness and cowardice to
themselves. They cannot stifle the public declaration of our
honest, open, and avowed opinions.
These are our principles, and these our sentiments. They em
brace the interest and happiness of the great body of the nation of
which we are a part. As to riots and tumults, let those answer for
them, who, by wilful misrepresentations, endeavor to excite and pro
mote them ; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and to lose
the great cause of public good in the outrages of a misinformed mob.
We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid.
We have nothing to apprehend from the poor ; for we are pleading
their cause. And we fear not proud oppression, for we have truth
on our side. We say, and we repeat it, that the French Revolution
opens to the world an opportunity in which all good citizens must
rejoice — that of promoting the general happiness of man. And
that it moreover offers to this country in particular, an opportunity
of reducing our enormous taxes.
These are our objects, and we will pursue them.
J. HORNE TOOKE, Chairman.

ON THE
CONSTRUCTION OF IRON BRIDGES.
As bridges, and the method of constructing them, are becom
ing objects of great importance throughout the United States, and
as there are at this time proposals for a bridge over the Delaware,
and also a bridge beginning to be erected over the Schuylkill at
Philadelphia, I present the public with some account of the con
struction of iron bridges.
The following memoir on that subject, written last winter at the
federal city, was intended to be presented to congress. But as
the session would necessarily be short, and as several of its mem
bers would be replaced by new elections at the ensuing session, it
was judged better to let it lie over. In the mean time, on account
of the bridges now in contemplation, or began, I give the memoir
the opportunity of appearing before the public, and the persons
concerned in those works.
THOMAS PAINE.
Bordentown, New-Jersey, June, 1803.
TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
I have deposited in the office of the secretary of state, and
under the care of the patent office, two models of iron bridges ;
the one in paste-board, the other cast in metal. As they will show,
by inspection, the manner of constructing iron bridges, I shall not
take up the time of congress with a description of them.
My intention in presenting this memoir to congress, is to put
the country in possession of the means and of the right of making
use of the construction freely ; as I do not intend to take any
patent right for it.
As America abounds in rivers that interrupt the land communi
cation, and as by violence of floods, and the breaking up of the
ice in the spring, the bridges depending for support from the bot
tom of the river, are frequently carried away, I turned my

70 ON THE CONSTRUCTION
attention, after the revolutionary war was over, to find a method
of constructing an arch, that might, without rendering the height
inconvenient or the ascent difficult, extend at once from shore to
shore, over rivers of three, four, or five hundred feet, and proba
bly more.
The principle I took to begin with, and work upon, was that
the small segment of a large circle was preferable to the great
segment of a small circle. The appearance of such arches, and
the manner of forming and putting the parts together, admit of
many varieties, but the principle will be the same in all. The
bridge architects that I conversed with in England denied the
principle, but it was generally supported by mathematicians, and
experiment has now established the fact.
In 1786, I made three models, partly at Philadelphia, but
mostly at Bordentown in the state of New-Jersey. One model
was in wood, one in cast iron, and one in wrought iron connected
with blocks of wood, representing cast iron blocks, but all on the
same principle, that of the small segment of a large circle.
I took the last mentioned one with me to France in 1787, and
presented it to the academy of sciences at Paris for their opinion
of it. The academy appointed a committee of three of their
own body — Mons. Le Roy, the abbe Bossou, and Mons. Borda.
The first was an acquaintance of Dr. Franklin, and of Mr.
Jefferson, then minister at Paris. The two others were celebrated
as mathematicians. I presented it as a model for a bridge of a
single arch of 400 feet span over the river Schuylkill at Philadel
phia. The committee brought in a report which the academy
adopted — that an arch on the principle and construction of the
model, in their opinion, might be .extended 400 feet, the extent
proposed. In September of the same year, I sent the model to Sir Joseph
Banks, president of the Royal Society in England, and soon after
went there myself.
In order to ascertain the truth of the principle on a larger scale,
than could be shown by a portable model of five or six feet in
length, I went to the iron foundery of Messrs. Walkers, at
Rotherham, county of Yorkshire, in England, and had a complete
rib of 90 feet span and 5 feet of height from the cord line to the
centre of the arch, manufactured and erected. It was a segment
of a circle of 410 feet diameter ; and until this was done, no

OF IRON BRIDGES. 71
experiment on a circle of such an extensive diameter had ever
been made in architecture, or the practicability of it supposed.
The rib was erected between a wall of a furnace belonging to
the iron works, and the gable end of a brick building, which serv
ed as butments. The weight of iron in the rib, was three tons,
and we loaded it with double its weight in pig iron. I wrote to
Mr. Jefferson, who was then at Paris, an account of this experi
ment ; and also Sir Joseph Banks in London, who in his answer
to me says — " I look for many other bold improvements from your
countrymen, the Americans, who think with vigor, and are not
fettered with the trammels of science before they are capable of
exerting their mental faculties to advantage." On the success of
this experiment, I entered into an agreement with the iron-
founders at Rotherham to cast and manufacture a complete bridge,
to be composed of five ribs of 210 feet span, and 5 feet of height
from the cord line, being a segment of a circle 610 feet diameter,
and send it to London, to be erected as a specimen for establish
ing a manufactory of iron bridges, to be sent to any part of the
world. The bridge was erected at the village of Paddington, near Lon
don, but being in a plain field, where no advantage could be taken
of butments without the expense of building them, as in the
former case, it served only as a specimen of the practicability of
a manufactory of iron bridges. It was brought by sea, packed in
the hold of a vessel, from the place where it was made ; and
after standing a year was taken down, without injury to any of its
parts, and might be erected any where else.
At this time my bridge operations became suspended. Mr.
Edmund Burke published his attack on the French revolution and
the system of representative government, and in defence of gov
ernment by hereditary succession, a thing which is in its nature an
absurdity, because it is impossible to make wisdom hereditary ;
and therefore, so far as wisdom is necessary in a government, it
must be looked for where it can be found. Sometimes in one
family ; sometimes in another. History informs us that the son
of Solomon was a fool. He lost ten tribes out of twelve.*
There are those in later times who lost thirteen.
The publication of this work by Mr. Burke, absurd in its prin
ciples and outrageous in its manner, drew me, as I have said, from
* 2 Chron. chap. 10.

7'2 ON THE CONSTRUCTION
my bridge operations, and my time became employed in defend
ing a system then established and operating in America, and which
I wished to see peaceably adopted in Europe — I therefore ceased
my work on the bridge to employ myself on the more necessary
work, Rights of Man, in answer to Mr. Burke.
In 1792, a convention was elected in France for the express
purpose of forming a constitution on the authority of the people,
as had been done in America, of which convention I was elected
a member. I was at this time in England, and knew nothing of
my being elected till the arrival of the person who was sent
officially to inform me of it.
During my residence in France, which was from 1792 to 1802,
an iron bridge of 236 feet span, and 34 of height from the cord
line, was erected over the river near Wear at the town of Sunder
land, in the county of Durham in England. It was done chiefly
at the expense of the two members of parliament for that county,
Milbanke and Burdon.
It happened that a very intimate friend of mine, Sir Robert
Smith (who was also an acquaintance of Mr. Monroe, the Ameri
can minister, and since of Mr. Livingston) was then at Paris.
He had been a colleague in parliament, with Milbanke, and sup
posing that the persons who constructed the iron bridge at
Sunderland, had made free with my model, which was at the iron
works where the Sunderland bridge was cast, he wrote to Mil
banke on the subject, and the following is that gentleman's answer.
" With respect to the iron bridge over the river Wear at Sun
derland, it certainly is a work well deserving admiration, both for
its structure and utility, and I have good grounds for saying that
the first idea was suggested by Mr. Paine's bridge exhibited at
Paddington. What difference there may be in some part of the
structure, or in the proportion of wrought and cast iron, I cannot
pretend to say, Burdon having undertaken to build the bridge, in
consequence of his having taken upon himself whatever the ex
pense might be beyond between three and four thousand pounds
sterling, subscribed by myself and some other gentlemen. But
whatever the mechanism might be, it did not supersede the neces
sity of a centre.* (The writer has here confounded a centre
* It is the technical term, meaning the boards and numbers which form the
arch upon which the permanent materials are laid ; when a bridge is finished
the workmen say they are ready to strike centre, that is to take down tho
scaffolding.

OF IRON BRIDGES. 73
with a scaffolding) which centre (continues the writer) was
esteemed a very ingenious piece of workmanship, and taken from
a plan sketched out by Mr. Nash, an architect of great merit, who
had been consulted in the outset of the business, when a bridge
of stone was in contemplation.
" With respect therefore to any gratuity to Mr. Paine, though
ever so desirous of rewarding the labors of an ingenious man, I
do not feel, how, under the circumstances already described, I
have it in my power, having had nothing to do with the bridge after
Jie payment of my subscription, Mr. Burdon then becoming
accountable for the whole. But if you can point out any mode,
according to which it would be in my power to be instrumental in
procuring him any compensation for the advantages the public
may have derived from his ingenious model, from which certainly
the outline of the bridge at Sunderland was taken, be assured it
will afford me very great satisfaction.*
RA. MILBANKE."
The year before I left France, the government of that country
had it in contemplation to erect an iron bridge over the river Seine,
at Paris. As all edifices of public construction came under the
cognizance of the minister of the interior, — (and as their plan
was to erect a bridge of five iron arches of one hundred feet span
each, instead of passing the river with a single arch, and which was
going backward in practice, instead of forward, as there was
already an iron arch of 230 feet in existence) I wrote the minister
of the interior, the citizen Chaptal, a memoir on the construction
of iron bridges. The following is his answer.
The minister of the interior to the citizen Thomas Paine.
I have received, citizen, the observations that you have been so
good as to address to me upon the construction of iron bridges.
They will be of the greatest utility to us, when the new kind of
construction goes to be executed for the first time. With pleasure,
I assure you, citizen, that you have rights of more than one kind
to the thankfulness of nations, and I give you, cordially, the par
ticular expression of my esteem. f
CHAPTAL.
* The original is in my possession.
\ The original, in French, is in my possession.
W

74 ON THE CONSTRUCTION
A short time before I left France, a person came to me from
London with plans and drawings for an iron bridge of one arch
over the river Thames at London, of 60 ; feet span, and sixty
feet of height from the cord line. The subject was then before
a committee of the house of commons, but I know not the pro
ceedings thereon.
As this new construction of an ai ch for bridges, and the prin
ciples on which it is founded, originated in America, as the
documents I have produced sufficiently prove, and is becoming
an object of importance to the world, and to no part of it more
than to our own country, on account of its numerous rivers, and
as no experiment has been made in America to bring it into
practice, further than on the model I have executed myself, and
at my own expense, I beg leave to submit a proposal to congress
on the subject, which is,
To erect an experiment rib of about 400 feet span, to be the
segment of a circle of at least 1000 feet diameter, and to let it
remain exposed to public view, that the method of constructing
such arches may be generally known.
It is an advantage peculiar to the construction of iron bridges,
that the success of an arch of a given extent and height, can be
ascertained without being at the expense of building the bridge ;
which is, by the method I propose, that of erecting an experiment
rib on the ground where advantage can be taken of two hills for
butments. I began in this manner with the rib of 90 feet span, and 5 feet
of height, being a segment of a circle of 410 feet diameter.
The undertakers of the Sunderland bridge began in the same
manner. They contracted with the iron-founder for a single rib,
and finding it to answer, had five more manufactured like it, and
erected into a bridge consisting of six ribs, the experiment rib
being one. But the Sunderland bridge does not carry the princi
ple much further into practice than had been done by the rib of 90
feet span and 5 feet in height, being, as before said, a segment of
a circle of 410 feet diameter ; the Sunderland bridge being 206
feet span and 34 feet of height, gives the diameter ofthe circle of
which it is a segment, to be 444 feet, within a few inches, which is
but a larger segment of a circle of 30 feet more diameter.
The construction of those bridges does not come within the
hne of any established practice of business. The stone architect

USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS. 75
can derive but little from the theory or practice of his art that
enters into the construction of an iron bridge ; and the iron-
founder, though he may be expert in moulding and casting the
parts, when the models are given him, would be at a loss to pro
portion them, unless he was acquainted with all the lines and
properties belonging to a circle.
If it should appear to congress that the construction of iron
bridges will be of utility to the country, and they should direct
hat an experiment rib be made for that purpose, I will furnish the
proportions for the several parts of the work, and give my atten
dance to superintend the erection of it.
But, in any case, I have to request, that this memoir may be put
on the journals of congress, as an evidence hereafter, that this
new method of constructing bridges originated in America.
THOMAS PAINE.
Federal city, Jan. 3, 1803.
N. B. The two models mentioned in the memoir, will, I ex
peet, arrive at Philadelphia, by the next packet, from the federal
city, and will remain for some time in Mr. Peale's museum.

3>e+>c

USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS.*
"The real value of a thing,
Is as much money as 'twill bring."
In the possession of the Philadelphia Library Company is a
cabinet of fossils,")" with several specimens of earth, clay, sand,
&c. with some account of each, and where brought from.
I have always considered these kind of researches as produc
tive of many advantages, and in a new country they are particu
larly so. As subjects for speculation, they afford entertainment
* Published in the Pennsylvania magazine, Feb. 1775.
t In the catalogue it is called a collection of American fossils, &c but a
considerable part of them are foreign ones. I presume that the collector, in
order to judge the better of such as he might discover here, made first a col
lection of such foreign ones whose value were known, in order to compare
by : as his design seems rather bent towards discovering the treasures of
America than merely to make a collection.

76 USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS.
to the curious ; but as objects of utility they merit a closer atten .
tion. The same materials which delight the fossilist, enrich the
manufacturer and the merchant. While the one is scientifically
examining their structure and composition, the others, by industry
and commerce, are transmuting them to gold. Possessed of the
power of pleasing, they gratify on both sides ; the one con
templates their natural beauties in the cabinet, the others, their
re-created one in the coffer.
'Tis by the researches of the virtuoso that the hidden parts of
the earth are brought to light, and from his discoveries of its
qualities, the potter, the glassmaker, and numerous other artists,
are enabled to furnish us with their productions. Artists, con
sidered merely as such, would have made but a slender progress,
had they not been led on by the enterprising spirit of the curious.
I am unwilling to dismiss this remark without entering my protest
against that unkind, ungrateful and impolitic custom of ridiculing
unsuccessful experiments ; and informing those unwise or over-
wise pasquinaders, that half the felicities they enjoy, sprung origi
nally from generous curiosity.
Were a man to propose, or set out to bore his lands, as a car
penter does a board, he might probably bring on himself a shower
of witticisms ; and though he could not be jested at for building
castles in the air, yet many magnanimous laughs might break
forth at his expense, and vociferously predict the explosion of a
mine in his subterraneous pursuits. I -am led to this reflection
by the present domestic state of America, because it will un
avoidably happen, that before we can arrive at that perfection of
things which other nations have acquired, many hopes will fail
many whimsical attempts will become fortunate, and many
reasonable ones end in air and expense. The degree of im
provement which America has already arrived at, is unparallelec
and astonishing, but 'tis miniature to what she will one day boast
of, if heaven continue her happiness. We have nearly one whole
region yet unexplored : I mean the internal region of the earth.
By industry and tillage we have acquired a considerable know
ledge of what America will produce, but very little of what it con
tains. The bowels of the earth have been only slightly inquired
into : we seem to content ourselves with such parts of it as are
absolutely necessary, and cannot well be imported, as brick,
stone, &c, but have gone very little further, except in the article

USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS. 77
of iron. The glass and the pottery manufactures are yet very
imperfect, and will continue so, 'till some curious researcher finds
out the proper material.
Copper, lead, and tin articles valuable both in their simple
state, and as being the component parts of other metals (viz.
brass and pewter) are at present but little known throughout the
continent in their mineral form : yet I doubt not, but very valu
able mines of them, are daily travelled over in the western parts
of America. Perhaps a few feet of surface conceal a treasure
sufficient to enrich a kingdom.
The value of the interior part of the earth, like ourselves, can
not be judged certainly of by the surface ; neither do the cor
responding strata lie with the unvariable order of the colors of
the rainbow, and if they ever did, which I do not believe, age and
misfortune have now broken in upon their union ; earthquakes,
deluges, and volcanoes have so disunited and re-united them, that
in their present state they appear like a world in ruins — yet the
ruins are beautiful ; the caverns, museums of antiquity.
Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sul
len, rude, and niggardly at home : return the visit, and she admits
you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an
antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in
antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste
of receiving visitants in her dressing-room : she locks and bolts
up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only re
solved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide
the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of
Adam. He that would view nature in her undress, and partake
of her internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a
robber, if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to
the cavern — the external earth makes no proclamation of the in
terior stores, but leaves to chance and industry, the discovery of
the whole. In such gifts as nature can annually re-create, she is
noble and profuse, and entertains the whole wcrld with the interest
of her fortunes ; but watches over the capita] with the care of a
miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth, in caves
of utter darkness; and hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps,
mould in the chests, like the riches of a necromancer's cell. It
must be very pleasant to an adventurous speculist to make ex
cursions into these Gothic regions ; and in his travels he may

78 USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS.
possibly come to a cabinet locked up in some rocky vault, whose
treasures shall reward his toil, and enable him to shine on his
return, as splendidly as nature herself.
By a small degree of attention to the order and origin of things,
we shall perceive, that though the surface of the earth produces
us the necessaries of life, yet 'tis from the mine we extract the
conveniences thereof. Our houses would diminish to wigwams,
furnished in the Indian style, and ourselves resemble the building,
were it not for the ores of the earth. Agriculture and manufac
tures would wither away for want of tools and implements, and
commerce stand still for want of materials. The beasts of the
field would elude our power, and the birds of the air get beyond
our reach. Our dominion would shrink to a narrow circle ; and
our mind itself, partaking of the change, would contract its pros
pects, and lessen into almost animal instinct. Take away but
the single article of iron, and half the felicities of life fall with it.
Little as we may prize this common ore, the loss of it would cut
deeper than the use of it : and by the way of laughing off misfor
tunes 'tis easy to prove, by this method of investigation, that an
iron age is better than a golden one.
Since so great a portion of our enjoyments is drawn from the
mine, it is certainly an evidence of our prudence to inquire and
know what our possessions are. Every man's landed property
extends to the surface of the earth. Why then should he sit
down contented with a part, and practise upon his estate those
fashionable follies in life, which prefer the superfice to the solid ?
Curiosity alone, should the thought occur conveniently, would
move an active mind to examine (though not at the bottom) at
least to a considerable depth.
The propriety and reasonableness of these internal inquiries
are continually pointed out to us by numberless occurrences.
Accident is almost every day turning out some new secret from
the earth. How often has the ploughshare or the spade broken
open a treasure, which for ages, perhaps for ever, had lain but just
beneath the surface 1 And though every estate have not mines of
gold or silver, yet they may contain some strata of valuable earth,
proper for manufactures ; and if they have not those, there is a
great probability of their having chalk, marl, or some rich soil
proper for manure, which only requires to be removed to the
surface.

USEFUL AND ENTERTAINING HINTS. 79
I have been informed of some land in England being raised to
four times its former value by the discovery of a chalk or marl
pit, in digging a hole to fix a post in ; and in embanking a meadow
in the Jerseys, the laborers threw out with the soil, a fine blue
powdered earth, resembling indigo, which, when mixed with oil,
was used for paint. — I imagine this vein is now exhausted.
Many valuable ores, clays, &c. appear in such rude forms in
their natural state, as not even to excite curiosity, much less
attention. A true knowledge of their different value can only be
obtained by experiment : as soil proper for manure, they may be
judged of by the planter ; but as matter, they come under the
inquiry of the philosopher — this leads me to reflect with inexpressi
ble pleasure, on the numberless benefits arising to a community,
by the institution of societies for promoting useful knowledge.
The American Philosophical Society, like the Royal Society in
England, by having public spirit for its support, and public good
for its object, is a treasure we ought to glory in. Here the defec
tive knowledge of the individual is supplied by the common stock.
Societies, without endangering private fortunes, are enabled to
proceed in their inquiries by analysis and experiment : but indi
viduals are seldom furnished with conveniencies for so doing, and
generally rest their opinion on reasonable conjecture.
I presume that were samples of different soils from different
parts of America, presented to the society for their inspection and
examination, it would greatly facilitate our knowledge of the
internal earth, and give a new spring both to agriculture and
manufactures. These hints are not intended to lament any loss of time, or
remissness in the pursuit of useful knowledge, but to furnish mat
ter for future studies ; that while we glory in what we are, we
may not neglect what we are to be.
Of the present state we may justly say, that no nation under
heaven ever struck out in so short a time, and with so much spirit
and reputation, into the labyrinth of art and science ; and that, not
in the acquisition of knowledge only, but in the happy advantages
flowing from it. The world does not at this day exhibit a parallel,
neither can history produce its equal.
ATLANTICUS.

ON THE UTILITY OF MAGAZINES.*
In a country whose reigning character is the love of science, it
13 somewhat strange that the channels of communication should
continue so narrow and limited. The weekly papers are at
present the only vehicles of public information. Convenience
and necessity prove that the opportunities of acquiring and com
municating knowledge, ought always to enlarge with the circle of
population. America has now outgrown the state of infancy :
her strength and commerce make large advances to manhood, and
science in all its branches has not only blossomed, but even ripen
ed on the soil. The cottages as it were of yesterday have grown
to villages, and villages to cities ; and while proud antiquity, like
a skeleton in rags, parades the streets of other nations, their
genius, as if sickened and disgusted with the phantom, comes
hither for recovery.
The present enlarged and improved state of things gives every
encouragement which the editor of a new magazine can reason
ably hope for. The failure of former ones cannot be drawn as a
parallel now. Change of times adds propriety to new measures.
In the early days of colonization, when a whisper was almost suf
ficient to have negociated all our internal concerns, the publishing
even of a newspaper would have been premature. Those times
are past ; and population has established both their use and their
credit. But their plan being almost wholly devoted to news and
commerce, affords but a scanty residence to the muses. Their
path lies wide of the field of science, and has left a rich and
unexplored region for new adventurers.
It has always been the opinion of the learned and curious, that
a magazine when properly conducted, is the nursery of genius ;
* First published in the Pennsylvania Magazine, Jan. 1775.

ON THE UTILITY OP MAGAZINES. 81
and by constantly accumulating new matter, becomes a luna of
market for wit and utility. The opportunities which it afforas to
men of abilities to communicate their studies, kindle up a spirit of
invention and emulation. An unexercised genius soon contracts
a kind of mossiness, which not only checks its growth, but abates
its natural vigor. Like an untenanted house it falls into decay,
aud frequently ruins the possessor.
The British magazines at their commencement, were the re
positories of ingenuity : they are now the retailers of tale and
nonsense. From elegance they sunk to simplicity, from sim
plicity to folly, and from folly to voluptuousness. The Gentle
man's, the London, and the Universal Magazines, bear yet some
marks of their originality; but the Town and Country, the
Covent-Garden, and Westminster are no better than incentives to
profligacy and dissipation. They have added to the dissolution
of manners, and supported Yenus against the Muses.
America yet inherits a large portion of her first-imported virtue.
Degeneracy is here almost a useless word. Those who are con
versant with Europe, would be tempted to beheve that even the
air of the Atlantic disagrees with the constitution of foreign
vices ; if they survive the voyage, they either expire on their
arrival, or linger away in an incurable consumption. There is a
happy something in the climate of America, which disarms them
of all their power both of infection and attraction.
But while we give no encouragement to the importation of
foreign vices, we ought to be equally carefully not to create any.
A vice begotten might be worse than a vice imported. The lat
ter, depending on favor, would be a sycophant ; the other, by
pride of birth would be a tyrant : to the one we should be dupes,
to the other slaves.
There is nothing which obtains so- general an influence over the
manners and morals of a people as the press ; from that, as from
a fountain, the streams of vice or virtue are poured forth over a
country : and of all publications, none are more calculated to
improve or infect than a periodical one. All others have their rise
and their exit ; but this renews the pursuit. Ifit has an evil ten
dency, it debauches by the power of repetition ; if a good one, it
obtains favor by the gracefulness of soliciting it. Like a lover,
it courts its mistress with unabated ardor, nor gives up the pursuit
without a conquest. x

82 ON THE UTILITY Of MAGAZINES.
The two capital supports of a magazine are utility and enter
tainment : the first is a boundless path, the other an endless
spring. To suppose that arts and sciences are exhausted sub
jects, is doing them a kind of dishonor. Tho divine mechanism
of creation reproves such folly, and shows us by comparison, the
imperfection of our most refined inventions. I cannot beheve
that this species of vanity is peculiar to the present age only. I
have no doubt but that it existed before the flood, and even in the
wildest ages of antiquity. 'Tis folly we have inherited, not
created ; and the discoveries which every day produce, have
greatly contributed to dispossess us of it. Improvement and the
world will expire together: and till that period arrives,, w© may
plunder the mine, but can never exhaust it ? That " we have
found out every thing," has been the motto of every age., Let
our ideas travel a little into antiquity, and we shall find larger: por
tions of it than now : and so unwilling were our ancestors to de
scend from this mountain of perfection, that when any new dis
covery exceeded the common standard, the discoverer was
believed to be in alliance with the devil. It was not the ignorance
of the age only, but the vanity of it, which rendered it dangerous
to be ingenious. The man who first planned and erected a
tenable hut, with a hole for the smoke to pass, and the light to
enter, was perhaps called an able architect, but he who first im
proved it with a chimney, could be no less than a prodigy ; yet
had the same man been so unfortunate as to have embellished it
with glass windows, he might probably have been burnt for a
magician. Our fancies "would be highly diverted could we look
back, and behold a circle of original Indians haranguing on the
sublime perfection of the age : yet 'tis not impossible but future
times may exceed us almost as much as we have exceeded them.
I would wish to extirpate the least remains of this impolitic
vanity. It has a direct tendency to unbrace the nerves of inven
tion, and is peculiarly hurtful to young colonies. A magazine can
never want matter in America if the inhabitants will do justice to
their own abilities. Agriculture and manufactures owe much of
their improvement in England, to hints first thrown out in some of
their magazines. Gentlemen whose abilities enabled them to
make experiments, frequently chose that method of communica
tion, on account of its convenience. And why should not the
same spirit operate in America 1 I have no doubt of seeing, in a

ON THE UTILITY OF MAGAZINES. 83
little time, an American magazine full of more useful matter
than I ever saw an English one : because we are not exceeded in
abilities, have a more extensive field for inquiry, and, whatever
may be our political state, our happiness will always depend' upon
ourselves. Something useful will always arise from exercising the inven
tion, though perhaps, like the witch of Endor, we shall raise up a
being we did not expect. We owe many of our noblest dis
coveries more to accident than wisdom. In quest of a pebble we
have found a diamond, and returned enriched with the treasure.
Such happy accidents give additional encouragement to the mak
ing experiments ; and the convenience which a magazine affords,
of collecting and conveying them to the public, enhances their
utility. Where this opportunity is wanting, many little inventions,
the forerunners of improvement, are suffered to expire on the spot
that produced them ; and, as an elegant writer beautifully ex
presses on another occasion,
" They waste their sweetness on the desert air."
In matters of humor and entertainment there can be no reason
to apprehend a deficiency. Wit is naturally a volunteer, delights
in action, and under proper discipline is capable of great execu
tion. 'Tis a perfect master in the art of bush-fighting ; and
though it attacks with more subtilty than science, has often de
feated a whole regiment of heavy artillery. — Though I have rather
exceeded the line of gravity in this description of wit, I am
unwilling to dismiss it without being a little more serious. — 'Tis a
qualification which, like the passions, has a natural wildness that
requires governing. Left to itself, it soon overflows its banks,
mixes with common filth, and brings disrepute on the fountain.
We have many valuable springs of it in America, which at present
run purer streams, than the generality of it in other countries.
In France and Italy, 'tis froth highly fomented : in England it has
much of the same spirit, but rather a browner complexion.
European wit is one of the worst articles we can import. It has
an intoxicating power with it, which debauches the very vitals of
chastity, and gives a false coloring to every thing it censures or
defends. We soon grow fatigued with the excess, and withdraw
like gluttons sickened with intemperance. On the contrary, how
happily are the sallies of innocent humor calculated to amuse and

84 ON THE UTILITY OF MAGAZINES.
sweeten the vacancy of business ! We enjoy the harmless luxury
without surfeiting, and strengthen the spirits by relaxing them.
The press has not only a great influence over our manners and
morals, but contributes largely to our pleasures ; and a magazine
when properly enriched, is very conveniently calculated for this
purpose. Volumnious works weary the patience, but here we are
invited by conciseness and variety. As I have formerly received
much pleasure from perusing these kind of publications, I wish
the present success ; and have no doubt of seeing a proper
diversity blended so agreeably together, as to furnish out an olio
worthy of the company for whom it is designed.
I consider a magazine as a kind of bee-hive, which both allures
the swarm, and provides room to store their sweets. Its division
into cells, gives every bee a province of its own ; and though
they all produce honey, yet perhaps they differ in their taste for
flowers, and extract with greater dexterity from one than from
another. Thus, we are not all philosophers, all artists, nor
all poets.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS. 85
TO ELIHU PALMER.

Paris, February 21, 1802,
Dear Friend, since the Fable of Christ.
I received, by Mr. Livingston, the letter you wrote to me, and
ihe excellent work [the Principles of Nature] you have published.
I see you have thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your
thoughts in a strong and clear style. The hinting and intimating
manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind,
produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be
bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must
be shocked into it Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and
they will begin to think.
There is an intimate friend of mine, Colonel Joseph Kirkbridge
of Bordentown, New Jersey, to whom I would wish you to send
your work. He is an excellent man, and perfectly in our senti
ments. You can send it by the stage that goes partly by land
and partly by water, between New York and Philadelphia, and
passes through Bordentown.
I expect to arrive in America in May next. I have a third
part of the Age of Reason to publish when I arrive, which, if I
mistake not, will make a stronger impression than any thing I
have yet published on the subject. *
I write this by an ancient colleague of mine in the French
Convention, the citizen Lequinio, who is going Consul to Rhode
Island, and who waits while I write. Yours in friendship,
THOMAS PAINE.

THOMAS PAINE AT 70.
[From Travels in the IT. S. of America in 1806, 7, and 9, 10, and 11,
hy John Mellish.]
I continued in New York, transacting various mercantile business, until
the 25th of September ; during which time I again called on Thomas
Paine, in company with his friend, formerly mentioned. Paine was still
at the house of Mrs. Palmer, but his leg had got much better, and he was
in good spirits. News had arrived that morning that peace had been con
cluded between France and England ; but Paine said, he did not believe
it ; and again affirmed, that while the present form of government lasted
in England, there would be no peace. The government was committed
3jn a war system, and would prosecute it as long as they could command

86 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS AND ESSAYS.
the means. He then turned up a newspaper, which had recently been
established at New York, and, after reading several paragraphs, he ob.
served that he could not understand what the editor was driving at. He
pretended to be a great friend of Britain, and yet he was constantly
writing against peace, and the best interests of the country ; and in place
of being guided by the plain dictates of common sense, he aimed at flowery,
embellished language, and glided away into the airy regions of speculative
nonsense, more like a madman than the editor of a newspaper. After a
good deal of general conversation, we took our leave.
A few days after this, his friend handed me a piece in MS., intended for
the newspapers ; and requested me to copy it, and keep the original; and
as Paine has made a great noise in the world, I shall here insert it, as a
relic of an extraordinary political character, and as a very good specimen
of the acuteness of his mind, and his turn for wit, at the advanced age
of 70. FOR THE CITIZEN.
" It must be a great consolation to poor Mr.  's friends, if he
has any, to hear that his insanity increases beyond all hopes of a
recovery. His case is truly pitiable ; he works bard at the trade
of mischief-making ; but he is not a good hand at it, for the case
is, the more he labors, the more he is laughed at, and his malady
increases with every laugh.
" In his paper of Thursday, September 18th, the spirit of pro
phecy seizes him, and he le^ps from the earth, gets astride of a
cloud, and predicts universal darkness to the inhabitants of this
lower world.
" Speaking of the rumors of peace between France and Eng
land, he says, ' we will not believe it till we see it gazetted (mean
ing in the London Gazette), and then,' says he, ' we will aver, that
the sun which dawns upon that event will be the darkest that ever
rose since the transgression of our first parents brought sin into the
world.' This is the first time we ever heard of the sun shining
darkness. But darkness or light, sense or nonsense, sunshine or
moonshine, are all alike to a lunatic. He then goes on : ' In a
continuance,' says he, ' of war only can Britain look for salvation.
That star once distinguished, all will be darkness and eternal night
over the face of the creation.' The devil it will ! And pray,
Mr.  , will the moon shine darkness too 1 and will all the stars
twinkle darkness 1 If that should be the case, you had better sell
your press, and set up tallow-chandlei There will be more
demand for candles than for newspapers, when those dark days
come. " But as you are a man that write for a livelihood, and I sup
pose you find it hard work to rub on, I would advise you, as a
friend, not to lay out all your cash upon candle-making, for my
opinion is, that, whether England make peace or not, or whether
she is conquered or not conquered, the sun will rise as glorious,
and shine as bright on that day, as if no such trifling things had
happened." It appeared in the sequel, that Paine was correct in his opinion, and
the editor was gratified in his wish — there was no peace.

THE

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, &C.

or

THOMAS PAINE,

SECRETARY TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, AUTHOR OF
"COMMON SENSE," "THE CRISIS,"
"RIGHTS OF MAN," &c.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, &c.

SONG.

Tune — Rule Britannia.

Hail great Republic of the world,
Which rear'd, which rear'd her empire in the west,
Where fam'd Columbus', Columbus' flag unfurl'd,
Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest ;
Be thou forever, forever great and free,
The land of Love, and Liberty !
Beneath thy spreading, mantling vine,
Beside, beside each flowery grove and spring,
1 "'here thy lofty, thy lofty mountains shine,
riay all thy sons and fair ones sing,
Be thou forever, &c
From thee, may hellish Discord prowl,
With all, with all her dark and hateful train ;
And whilst thy mighty, thy mighty waters roll,
May heaven descended Concord reign.
i Be thou forever, &c.
Where'er the Atlantic surges lave,
Or sea, or sea the human eye delights,
There may thy starry, thy starry standard wave,
The Constellation of thy Rights !
Be thou forever, &c.
May ages as they rise proclaim,
The glories, the glories of thy natal day ;

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
And states from thy, from thy exalted name,
Learn how to rule, and to obey.
Be thou forever, &c
Let Laureate make their birthdays known,
Or how, or how war's thunderbolts are hurl'd;
'Tis ours the charter, the charter ours alone,
To sing the birthday of a world !
Be thou forever, forever, great and free,
The land of Love and Liberty !

THE BOSTON PATRIOTIC SONG.
Tune — Anacreon in Heaven.
Ye Sons of Columbia who bravely have fought,
For those rights which unstain'd from your sires have descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought,
And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended ;
Mid the reign of mild peace,
May your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece.
And ne'er may the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.
In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world,
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion ;
The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd,
To increase the legitimate power of the ocean ;
But should pirates invade,
Though in thunder array'd,
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.
The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway,
Had justly ennobled our nation in story,
Till the dark clouds of fiction obscured our bright day,
And envelop'd the sun of American glory ;

MISCELLANEOUS rOEMS, ETC. 5
But let traitors be told,
Who their country have sold,
And barter'd their God, for his image in gold,
That ne'er shall the sons, &c.
While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood,
And society's base threats with wide dissolution;
May Peace like the dove, who return'd from the flood,
Find an Ark of abode in our mild Constitution ;
But tho' peace is our aim,
Yet the boon we disclaim,
If bought by our Sovereignty, Justice, or Fame.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.
'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms,
Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision !
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms,
We're a World by ourselves, and disdain a division ;
While with patriot pride,
To our laws we're allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide ;
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.
Our mountains are crown'd with imperial oak,
Whose roots like our Liberty ages have nourish'd,
But long e'er the nation submits to the yoke,
Not a tree shall be left on the soil where it flourish'd.
Should invasion impend,
Every grove would descend,
From the hill tops they shaded, our shores to defend.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.
Let our patriots destroy vile anarchy's worm,
Lest our Liberty's growth should be check'd by corrosion,
Then let clouds thicken round us, we heed not the storm,
Our earth fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion,
Foes assail us in vain,
Tho' their fleets bridge the main,
For our altars, and claims, with our lives we'll maintain.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

6 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
Should the tempest of war overshadow our land,
Its bolts can ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder;
For unmoved at its portals would Washington stand
And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder.
His sword from its sleep,
In its scabbard would leap,
And conduct with its point every flash to the deep.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c
Let Fame, to the world, sound America's voice,
No intrigue can her sons from their government sever ;
Its wise regulations and laws are their choice,
And shall flourish till Liberty slumber forever.
Then unite heart and hand,
Like Leonidas' band ;
And swear by the God of the ocean and land,
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

SONG.

Tune — Anacreon in Heaven.

To Columbia, who gladly reclined at her ease,
On Atlantic's broad bosom, lay smiling in peace,
Minerva flew hastily, sent from above,
And addrest her this message from thundering Jove :
Rouse, quickly awake,
Your Freedom's at stake,
Storms arise, your renown'd Independence to shake,
Then lose not a moment, my aid I will lend,
If your sons will assemble your Rights to defend.
Roused Columbia rose up, and indignant declared,
That no nation she had wrong'd, and no nation she fear'd,
That she wished not for war, but if war were her fate,
She would rally up souls independent and great.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS ETC.
Then tell mighty Jove,
That we quickly will prove,
We deserve the protection he'll send from above ;
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend,
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend.
Minerva smiled cheerfully as she withdrew,
Enraptured to find her Americans true,
" For," said she, " our sly Mercury ofttimes reports,
That your sons are divided" — Columbia retorts,
" Tell that vile god of thieves,
His report but deceives,
And we care not what madman such nonsense believes,
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend,
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend."
Jove rejoiced in Columbia such union to see,
And swore by old Styx she deserved to be free ;
Then assembled the Gods, who all gave consent.
Their assistance if needful her ill to prevent ;
Mars arose, shook his armor,
And swore his old Farmer
Should ne'er in his country see aught that could harm her,
For ne'er should the sons of America bend,
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend.
Minerva resolved that her iEgis she'd lend,
And Apollo declared he their cause would defend,
Old Vulcan an armor would forge for their aid,
More firm than the one for Achilles he made.
Jove vow'd he'd prepare,
A compound most rare,
Of courage and union, a bountiful share ;
And swore ne'er shall the sons of America bend,
But their Rights and their Freedom most firmly defend.
Ye sons of Columbia, then join hand in hand,
Divided we fall, but united we stand ;
'Tis ours to determine, 'tis ours to decree,
That in peace we will live Independent and Free ;

8 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
And should from afar
Break the horrors of war,
We'll always be ready at once to declare,
That ne'er will the sons of America bend,
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend.

THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE*

In a mouldering cave, wnere the wretched retreat,
Britannia sat wasted with care ;
She mourn'd for her Wolfe, and exclaim'd against fate
And gave herself up to despair.
The walls of her cell she had sculptured around
With the feats of her favorite son ;
And even the dust, as it lay on the ground,
Was engraved with the deeds he had done.
The sire of the Gods, from his crystalline throne,
Beheld the disconsolate dame,
And moved with her tears, he sent Mercury down,
And these were the tidings that came.
Britannia forbear, not a sigh nor a tear
For thy Wolfe so deservedly loved,
Your tears shall be changed into triumphs of joy,
For thy Wolfe is not dead but removed.
The sons of the East, the proud giants of old,
Have crept from their darksome abodes,
And this is the news as in Heaven it was told,
They were marching to war with the Gods ;
• This Song was written immediately after the death of General Wolfe.
At this time a prize was offered for the best Epitaph on that celebrated hero.
Mr. Paine entered the list among other competitors, hut his matter growing
too long for an Epitaph, and assuming another shape, he entitled it an Ode;
and it was so published in the Gentleman's Magazine. It was. soon after
set to music, became a popular song, and was sung at the Anacreontic and
other societies. — Ed.

MISCELLANEOUS FOEMS, ETC.
A council was held in the chambers of Jove,
And this was their final decree,
That Wolfe should be called to the armies above,
And the charge was entrusted to me.
To the plains of Quebec with the orders I flew,
He begg'd for a moment's delay ;
He cry'd, Oh! forbear, let me victory hear,
And then thy command I'll obey.
With a darksome thick film 1 encompass'd his eyes,
And bore him away in an urn,
Lest the fondness he bore to his own native shore,
Should induce him again to return.

LIBERTY TREE,
A Song, written early in the American Revolution.

Tune — Gods ofthe Greeks.

In a chariot of light, from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came,
Ten thousand celestials directed her way,
And hither conducted the dame.
A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourished and bore ;
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came,
For freemen like brothers agree ;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.
T

10 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,
Their bread in contentment they ate,
Unvexed with the troubles of silver or gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar, they Old England supplied,
And supported her power on the sea :
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honor of Liberty Tree,
But hear, 0 ye swains, ('tis a tale most profane,)
How all the tyrannical powers,
King, commons, and lords, are uniting amain,
To cut down this guardian of ours.
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Thro' the land let the sound of it flee :
Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer,
In defence of our Liberty Tree.

IMPROMPTU ON
BACHELORS' HALL,
At Philadelphia, being destroyed by Lightning, 1775.

Fair Venus so often was miss'd from the skies,
And Bacchus as frequently absent likewise,
That the synod began to inquire out the reason,
Suspecting the culprits were plotting of treason.
At length it was found they had open'd a ball
At a place by the mortals call'd Bachelors' Hall ;
Where Venus disclosed every fun she could think of,
And Bacchus made nectar for mortals to drink of.
Jove, highly displeas'd at such riotous doings,
Sent Time to reduce the whole building to ruins ;
But Time was so slack with his traces and dashes,
That Jove in a passion consumed it to ashes.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC. 11

FARMER SHORT'S DOG, PORTER, A TALE.

The following story, ridiculous as it is, is a fact. A farmer at New
Shpreham, near Brighthelmstone, having voted at an election for a member
of parliament contrary to the pleasure of three neighboring justices, they
took revenge on his dog, which they caused to be hanged, for .starting a
hare upon, the high road.

Three justices (so says the tale)
Once met upon the public, weal.
For learning, law, and parts profound,
Their fame was spread the country round ;
Each by his wondrous art could tell
Of things as strange as Sydrophel 5
Or by the help of sturdy ale,
So cleverly could tell a tale,
That half the gaping standers by
Would laugh aloud ; the rest would cry.
Or by the help of nobler wine,
Would knotty points so nice define,
That in an instant right was wrong,
Yet did not hold that station long,
For while they talk'd of wrong and right,
The question vanish'd out of sight.
Each knew by practice where to turn
To every powerful page In Burn,
And could by help of note and book
Talk law like Littleton and Coke.
Each knew by instinct when and where
A farmer caught or kill'd a hare ;
Could tell of any man had got
One hundred pounds per ann. or not;
Or what was greater, could divine
If it was only ninety-nine.
For when the hundred wanted one,
They took away the owner's gun.

12 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
Knew by the leering of an eye
If girls had lost their chastity,
And if they had not — would divine
Some way to make their virtue shine.
These learned brothers being assembled,
(At which the country feared and trembled,)
A warrant sent to bring before 'em,
. One Farmer Short, who dwelt at Shoreham,
Upon a great and heavy charge,
Which we shall here relate at large,
That those who were not there may read,
In after days, the mighty deed :
Viz.
" That he, the 'foresaid Farmer Short,
Being by the devil moved, had not
One hundred pounds per annum got;
That having not (in form likewise)
The fear of God before his eyes,
By force and arms did keep and cherish,
Within the aforesaid town and parish,
Against the statute so provided,
A dog. And there the dog abided.
That he, this dog, did then and there,
Pursue, and take, and kill a hare ;
Which treason was, or some such thing,
Against our sovereign lord the king."
The constable was bid to jog,
And bring the farmer — not the dog.
But fortune, whose perpetual wheel
Grinds disappointment sharp as steel,
On purpose to attack the pride
Of those who over others ride,
So nicely brought the matter round,
That Farmer Short could not be found,
Which plunged the bench in so much doubt,
They knew not what to go about.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC. 13
But after pondering pro and con,
And mighty reasonings thereupon, .
They found, on opening of the laws,
That he, the dog aforesaid, was
By being privy to the fact,
Within the meaning of the act,
And since the master had withdrawn,
And was the Lord knows whither gone,
They judged it right, and good in law,
That he, the dog, should answer for
Such crimes as they by proof could show,
Were acted by himself and Co.
The constable again was sent,
To bring the dog ; or dread the event.
Poor Porter, right before the door,
Was guarding of his master's store ;
And as the constable approach'd him,
He caught him by the leg and broach'd him ;
Poor Porter thought (if dogs can think)
He came to steal his master's chink.
The man, by virtue of his staff,
Bid people help ; not stand and laugh ;
On which a mighty rout began;
Some blamed the dog, and some the man.
Some said he had no business there,
Some said he had business every where.
At length the constable prevail'd,
And those who would not help were jail'd ;
And taking Porter by the collar,
Commanded all the guards to follow.
The justices received the felon,
With greater form than I can tell on,
And quitting now their wine and punch,
Began upon him all at once.
At length a curious quibble rose,
How far the law could interpose,

14 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
For it was proved, and rightly too,
That he, the dog, did not pursue
The hare with any ill intent,
But only folio w'd by the scent ;
And she, the hare, by running hard,
Thro' hedge and ditch, without regard,
Plunged in a pond, and there was drown'd,
And by a neighboring justice' found ;
Wherefore, though he the hare annoy'd,
It can't be said that he destroy'd ;
It even can't be proved he beat her,
And " to destroy," must mean " to eat her."
Did you e'er see a gamester struck,
With all the symptoms of ill luck?
Or mark the visage which appears,
When even Hope herself despairs?
So look'd the bench, and every brother
Sad pictures drew of one another ;
Till one more learned than the rest
Rose up, and thus the court address'd :
" Why, gentlemen, I'll tell ye how,
Ye may clear up this matter now,
For I am of opinion strong
The dog deserves, and should be hung.
I'll prove it by as plain a case,
As is the nose upon your face.
" Now if, suppose, a man, or so,
Should be obliged, or not, to go
About, or not about, a case,
To this, or that, or t'other place ;
And if another man, for fun,
Should fire a pistol (viz.) a gun,
And he, the first, by knowing not
That he, the second man, had shot,
Should nndesign'dly meet the bullet,
Against the throat, (in Greek) the gullet,
And get such mischief by the hit
As should unsense him of bis wit,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS', ETC. 15
And if that, after that he died,
D'ye think the other mayn't be tried 1
Most sure he must, and hang'd, because
He fired his gun against the laws:
For 'tis a case most clear and plain,
Had A not shot, B had not been slain :
So had the dog not chased the hare,
She never had been drown'd — that's clear."
This logic, rhetoric, and wit,
.8,0 nicely did the matter hit,
That Porter — tho' unheard, was cast,
And in a halter breathed his last.
The justices adjourned to dine,
And whet their logic up with wine.

IMPROMPTU ON
A LONG NOSED FRIEND*
Paris, 1800.

Going along the other day,
Upon a certain plan ;
I met a nose upon the way,
Behind it was a man.
I called unto the nose to stop,
And when it had done so,—
The man behind it — he came up,
They made Zenobio.
• Count Zenobio.

16 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
THE SNOWDROP AND CRITIC,
A DIALOGUE.

To the Editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775.
Sir— I have given your very modest " Snow Drop"* what, I think,
Shakspeare calls — " a local habitation and a name ;" that is, I have
made a poet of him, and have sent him to take possession of a
page in your next Magazine : here he comes, disputing with a critic
about the propriety of a prologue.
Enter Critic and Snow Drop.
critic.
Prologues to magazines! — the man is mad,
No magazine a prologue ever had ;
But let us hear what new and mignty things
Your wonder working magic fancy brings.
snow drop.
Bit by the muse in an unlucky hour,
I've left myself at home, and turn'd a flower,
And thus disguised came forth to tell my tale,
A plain white Snow Drop gathered from the vale ;
I come to sing that summer is at hand,
The summer time of wit, you'll understand ;
And that this garden of our Magazine,
Will soon exhibit such a pleasing scene,
That even critics shall admire the show,
If their good grace will give us time to grow ;
Beneath the surface of the parent earth,
We've various seeds just struggling into birth ;
* Introduction to Magazine, No. 1. — See p. 18, Miscellaneous Letters
and Essays.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC. 17
Plants, fruits, and flowers, and all the smiling race,
That can the orchard or the garden grace ;
Our numbers,. Sir, so vast and endless are,
That when in full complexion we appear,
Each eye, each hand, shall pluck what suits its taste,
And every palate shall enjoy a feast;
The Rose and Lily shall address the fair,
And whisper sweetly out, " My dears, take care ;
With sterling worth, the Plant of Sense shall rise,
And teach the curious to philosophize ;
The keen eyed wit shall claim the Scented Briar,
And sober cits the Solid Grain admire ;
While generous juices sparkling from the Vine,
Shall warm the audience till they cry — divine !
And when the scenes of one gay month are o'er,
Shall clap their hands, and shout — encore ! encore .

All this is mighty fine ! but prithee, when
The frost returns, how fight you then your men ?
SNOW DROP.
I'll tell you, sir ! we'll garnish out the scenes
With stately rows of hardy Evergreens,
Trees that will bear the frost, and deck their tops
With everlasting flowers, like diamond drops,
We'll draw, and paint, and carve, with so much skill,
That wondering wits shall cry, diviner still !
CRITIC.
Better, and better, yet! but now suppose,
Some critic wight, in mighty verse or prose,
Should draw his gray goose weapon, dipt in gall,
And mow ye down, Plants, Flowers, Trees, and alL
SNOW DROP.
Why, then we'll die like Flowers of sweet Perfume,
And yield a fragrance even in the tomb !

18 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.

AN ADDRESS TO LORD HOWE.

At the time the following lines were written, Lord Howe was Command.
er in chief of the British forces in the American revolutionary War. Mr.
Paine also addressed to him the second number of "The Crisis," dated at
Philadelphia, Jan. 13, 1777; in which he remarks, "Your avowed object
here, is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon, and enslave ; and the ravages of
your army through the Jerseys, have been marked with as much barbarism
as if you had openly professed yourself the prince of ruffians ; not even the
appearance of humanity has been preserved, either on the march Or on the
retreat of your troops. In a folio general order book, belonging to colonel
Rhol's battalion, taken at Trenton, and no w in possession of the council of
safety of this state, the following barbarous order is frequently repeated,
1 His Excellency, the Commander in Chief, orders, that all inhabitants who
shall be found in arms, not having an officer with them, shall be immediately
taken and hung up' ! How many you may thus have privately sacrificed
we know not, and the account can only be settled in another world."

The rain pours down, the city looks forlorn,
And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn ;
Close by my fire, with door and window fast,
And safely shelter'd from the driving blast,
To gayer thoughts I bid a day's adieu,
To spend a scene of solitude with you.
So oft has black revenge engross'd the care
Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare ;
So oft has guilt, in all her thousand dens,
Call'd for the vengeance of chastising pens ;
That while I fain would ease my heart on you,
No thought is left untold, no passion new.
From flight to flight the mental path appears,
Worn with the Steps of near six thousand years,
And flll'd throughout with every scene of pain,
From George the murderer down a murderous Cain.
Alike in cruelty, alike in hate,
In guilt alike, but more alike in fate,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
Cursed supremely for the blood they drew,
Each from the rising world, while each was new.
Go, man of blood ! true likeness of the first,
And strew your blasted head with homely dust :
In ashes sit — in wretched sackcloth weep,
And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep.
Go haunt the tombs, and single out the place
Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace.
Go spell the letters on some mouldering urn,
And ask if he who sleeps there can return.
Go count the numbers that in silence lie,
And learn by study what it is to die ;
For sure your heart, if any heart you own,
Conceits that man expires without a groan ;
That he who lives receives from you a grace,
Or death is nothing but a change of place:
That peace is dull, that joy from sorrow springs,
And war the most desirable of things.
Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind,
This spot of death — this cockpit of mankind !
Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain ?
Why cries the orphan ? — " Oh ! my father's slain !
Why hangs the sire his paralytic head,
And nods with manly grief? — " My son is dead !"
Why drops the tear from off the sister's cheek,
And sweetly tells the misery she would speak ?
Or why, in sorrow sunk, does pensive John
To all the neighbors tell, " Poor master's gone !"
Oh ! could I paint the passion that I feel,
Or point a horror that would wound like steel,
To thy uhfeeling, unrelenting mind,
I'd send destruction and relieve mankind.
You that are husbands, fathers, brothers, all
The tender names which kindred learn to call ;
Yet like an image carved in massy stone,
You bear the shape, but sentiment have none ;
Allied by dust and figure, not with mind,
You only herd, but live not with mankind.

19

20 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS?: ETC.
Since then no hopes to civilize remain,
And mild Philosophy has preached in vain,
One prayer is left, which dreads no proud reply,
That he who made you breathe will make you die.

TO SIR ROBERT SMITH.

Paris, 1800.
As I will not attempt to rival your witty description of Love, (in
which you say, " Love is like paper, with a fool it is wit, with a
wit it is folly," &c.) I will retreat to sentiment, and try if I can
match you there : and that 1 may start with a fair chance, I will
begin with your own question,
WHAT IS LOVE?
'Tis that delightful transport we can feel, »
Which painters cannot paint, nor words reveal, >
Nor any art we know of — can conceal. )
Canst thou describe the sunbeams to the blind,
Or make him feel a shadow with his mind ?
So neither can we by description show
This first of all felicities below.
When happy Love pours magic o'er the soul,
And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll ;
When Contemplation spreads her rainbow wings,
And every flutter some new rapture brings ;
How sweetly then our moments glide away,
And dreams repeat the raptures of the day :
We live in ecstacy, to all things kind,
For Love can teach a moral to the mind.
But are there not some other marks that prove,
What is this wonder of the soul, call'd Love?

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC. 21
O yes, there are, but of a different kind,
The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind.
Some jealous fury throws her poison'd dart,
And rends in pieces the distracted heart.
When Love's a tyrant, and the soul a slave,
No hopes remain to thought, but in the grave;
In that dark den, it sees an end to grief,
And what was once its dread, becomes relief.
What are the iron chains that hands have wrought ?
The hardest chains to break are those of thought,
Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind,
Nor play with torture — or a tortured mind.

Mr. Paine, while in prison in Paris, corresponded with a lady, under the
signature pf " The Castle in the Air," while she addressed her letters from
" The Little Corner of the World." For reasons which he knew not, their
intercourse was suddenly suspended, and for some time he believed his fair
friend to be in obscurity and distress. Many years afterwards, however, he
met her unexpectedly at Paris, in affluent circumstances, and married to Sir
Robert Smith. The following is a copy of one of these poetical effusions.

FROM
THE CASTLE IN THE AIR,
TO
THE LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD

In the region of clouds, where the whirlwinds arise,
My Castle of Fancy was built ;
The turrets reflected the blue from the slues,
And the windows with sunbeams were gilt.
Sir— The rainbow sometimes, in its beautiful state,
Enamell'd the mansion around ;

22 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
And the figures that fancy in clouds can create,
Supplied me with gardens and ground.
I had grottoes, and fountains, and orange tree groves,
I had all that enchantment has told ;
1 had sweet shady walks, for the Gods and their Loves,
I had mountains of coral and gold.
But a storm that I felt not, had risen and roll'd,
While wrapp'd in a slumber I lay ;
And when I look'd out in the morning, behold
My Castle was carried away.
It pass'd over rivers, and vallies, and groves,
The world it was all in my view ;
I thought of my friends, of their fates, of their loves,
And often, full often of you.
At length it came over a beautiful scene,
That nature in silence had made ;
The place was but small, but 'twas sweetly serene,
And chequer'd with sunshine and shade.
I gazed and I envied with painful goodwill,
And grew tired of my seat in the air ;
When all of a sudden my Castle stood still,
As if some attraction was there.
Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down,
And placed me exactly in view,
When who should I meet in this charming retreat,
This corner of calmness, but you.
Delighted to find you in honor and ease,
I felt no more sorrow, nor pain ;
But the wind coming fair, I ascended the breeze,
And went back with my Castle again.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC.
CONTENTMENT ; OR, IF YOU PLEASE, CON
FESSION.

To Mrs. Barlow, on her pleasantly telling the author, that after
writing against the superstition of the Scripture religion, he was
setting up a religion capable qf more bigotry and enthusiasm,
and more dangerous to its votaries — that of making a religion
of Love. O could we always live and love,
And always be sincere,
I would not wish for heaven above,
My hqaven would be here.
Though many countries I have seen,
And more may chance to see,
My Little Corner ofthe World*
Is half the world to me ;
The other half, as you may guess,
America contains.;
And thus, between them, I possess
The whole world for my pains.
I'm then contented with my lot,
I can no happier be ;
For neither world, I'm sure, has got
So rich a man as me.
Then send no fiery chariot down
To take me off from hence,
But leave me on my heavenly ground —
This prayer is common-sense.
Let others choose another plan,
I mean no fault to find ;
The true theology of man
Is happiness of mind.
* Lady Smith

24 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, ETC*

LINES EXTEMPORE. July, 1808.

Quick as the lightning's vivid flash,
The poet's eye o'er Europe rolls ;
Sees battles rage — hears tempests crash,
And dims at horror's threat'ning scowls.
Mark ambition's ruthless king,
With crimson'd banners scath the globe ;
While trailing after conquest's wing,
Man's fest'ring wounds his demons probe.
Pall'd with streams of reeking gore,
That stain the proud imperial day ;
He turns to view the western shore,
Where freedom holds her boundless sway.
'Tis here her sage triumphant sways,
An empire in the people's love,
'Tis here the sovereign will obeys,
No KING but He who rules above.