kinds of animals, when it is probable that this very inequality of distribution may be the means of producing the greatest sum-total of happiness to the whole system? In exactly the same manner may we reason concerning the acts of God's especial providence. If we consider any one act, such as that of appointing the Jews to be his peculiar people, as unconnected with every other, it may appear to be a partial display of his goodness; it may excite doubts concerning the wisdom or the benignity of his divine nature. But if we connect the history of the Jews with that of other nations from the most remote antiquity to the present time, we shall discover, that they were not chosen so much for their own benefit, or on account of their own merit, as for the general benefit of mankind. To the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Grecians, Romans, to all the people of the earth, they were formerly, and they are still to all civilized nations, a beacon set upon a hill, to warn them from idolatry, to light them to the sanctuary of a God, holy, just, and good. Why should we suspect such a dispensation of being a lie? when, even from the little which we can understand of it, we see that it is founded in wisdom, carried on for the general good, and analogous to all that reason teaches us concerning the nature of God.

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Several things, you observe, are mentioned in the book of the Kings, such as the drying up of Jeroboam's hand, the ascent of Elijah into heaven, the destruction of the children who mocked Elisha, and the resurrection of a dead man, these circumstances being mentioned in the book of Kings, and not mentioned in that of Chronicles, is a proof to you that they are lies. I esteem it a very erroneous mode of reasoning, which from the silence of one author concerning a particular circumstance, infers the want of veracity in another who mentions it. And this observation is still more cogent, when applied to a book which is only a supplement to, or an abridgment of, other books: and under this description the book of Chronicles has been considered by all writers. But though you will not believe the miracle of the drying up of Jeroboam's hand, what can you say to the prophecy which was then delivered concerning the future destruction of the idolatrous altar of Jeroboam? The prophecy is thus written, 1 Kings xiii. 2; "Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee (the altar) shall he offer the priests of the high places." Here is a clear prophecy; the name, family, and office of a particular person, are described in the year 975 (according to the Bible chronology) before Christ. Above 350 years after the delivery of the prophecy, you will find, by consulting the second book of Kings, (chap. xxiii. 15. 16,) this prophecy fulfilled in all its parts.

You make a calculation that Genesis was not written till 800 years after Moses, and that it is of the same age, and you may probably think of the same authority, as Æsop's Fables. You give what you call the evidence of this, the air of a demonstration. "It has but two stages: first, the account of the kings of Edom, mentioned in Genesis, is taken from Chronicles, and therefore the book of Genesis was written after the book of Chronicles: secondly, the book of Chronicles was not begun to be written till after Zedekiah, in whose time Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, 588 years before Christ, and more than 860 years after Moses." Having answered this objection before, I might be excused taking any more notice of it; but as you build much, in this place, upon the strength of your argument, I will shew you its weakness, when it is properly stated. A few verses in the book of Genesis could not be written by Moses; therefore no part of Genesis could be written by Moses :-a child would deny your therefore. Again, a few verses in the book of Genesis could not be written by Moses, because they speak of kings of Israel, there having been no kings of Israel in the time of Moses; and therefore they could not be written by Samuel, or by Solomon, or by any other person who lived after there were kings in Israel, except by the author of the book of Chronicles: this is also an illegitimate inference from your position. Again, a few verses in the book of Genesis are, word for word, the same as a few verses in the book of Chronicles; therefore the author of the book of Genesis must have taken them from Chronicles another lame conclusion! Why might not the author of the book of Chronicles have taken them from Genesis, as he has taken many other genealogies, supposing them to have been inserted in Genesis by Samuel? But where, you may ask, could Samuel, or any other person, have found the account of the kings of Edom? Probably in the public records of the nation, which were certainly as open for inspection to Samuel, and the other prophets, as they were to the author of Chronicles. I hold it needless to employ more time on the subject.

LETTER V.

Ar length you come to two books, Ezra and Nehemiah, which you allow to be genuine books, giving an account of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, about 536 years before Christ: but then you say, "Those accounts are nothing to us, nor to any other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part of the history of their nation; and there is just as much of the Word of God in

those books, as there is in any of the histories of France, or in Rapin's History of England." Here let us stop a moment, and try if from your own concessions it be not possible to confute your argument. Ezra and Nehemiah, you grant, are genuine books; "but they are nothing to us!" The very first verse of Ezra says-the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled : is it nothing to us to know that Jeremiah was a true prophet? Do but grant that the Supreme Being communicated to any of the sons of men a knowledge of future events, so that their predictions were plainly verified, and you will find little difficulty in admitting the truth of revealed religion. Is it nothing to us to know that, five hundred and thirtysix years before Christ, the books of Chronicles, Kings, Judges, Joshua, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Exodus, Genesis, every book the authority of which you have attacked, are all referred to by Ezra and Nehemiah, as authentic books, containing the history of the Israelitish nation from Abraham to that very time? Is it nothing to us to know that the history of the Jews is true? It is every thing to us; for if that history be not true, Christianity must be false. The Jews are the root, we are branches, "graffed in amongst them :" to them pertain the "adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."

The history of the Old Testament has, without doubt, some difficulties in it; but a minute philosopher, who busies himself in searching them out, whilst he neglects to contemplate the harmony of all its parts, the wisdom and goodness of God displayed throughout the whole, appears to me to be like a purblind man, who, in surveying a picture, objects to the simplicity of the design, and the beauty of the execution, from the asperities he has discovered in the canvass and the colouring. The history of the Old Testament, notwithstanding the real difficulties which occur in it, notwithstanding the scoffs and cavils of unbelievers, appears to me to have such internal evidences of its truth, to be so corroborated by the most ancient profane histories, so confirmed by the present circumstances of the world, that if I were not a Christian, I would become a Jew. You think this history to be a collection of lies, contradictions, blasphemies: I look upon it to be the oldest, the truest, the most comprehensive, and the most important history in the world. I consider it as giving more satisfactory proofs of the being and attributes of God, of the origin and end of human kind, than ever were attained by the deepest researches of the most enlightened philosophers.

The exercise of our reason in the investigation of truths respecting the nature of God, and the future expectations of human kind, ıs highly useful; but I hope I shall be pardoned by the metaphysicians in saying, that the chief utility of such disquisitions consists in this-that they bring us acquainted with the weakness of our intellectual faculties. I do not presume to measure other men by my standard; you may have clearer notions than I am able to form, of the infinity of space--of the eternity of duration-of necessary existence of the connection between necessary existence and intelligence, between intelligence and benevolence: you may see nothing in the universe but organized matter; or, rejecting a material, you may see nothing but an ideal world. With a mind weary of conjecture, fatigued by doubt, sick of disputation, eager for knowledge, anxious for certainty, and unable to attain it by the best use of my reason in matters of the utmost importance, I have long ago turned my thoughts to an impartial examination of the proofs on which revealed religion is grounded, and I am convinced of its truth. This examination is a subject within the reach of human capacity : you have come to one conclusion respecting it, I have come to another; both of us cannot be right: May God forgive him that is in an error !

You ridicule, in a note, the story of an angel appearing to Joshua. Your mirth you will perceive to be misplaced, when you consider the design of this appearance; it was to assure Joshua, that the same God who had appeared to Moses, ordering him to pull off his shoes because he stood on holy ground, had now appeared to himself. Was this no encouragement to a man who was about to engage in war with many nations? Had it no tendency to confirm his faith? Was it no lesson to him to obey, in all things, the commands of God, and to give the glory of his conquests to the Author of them, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? As to your wit about pulling off the shoe, it originates, I think, in your ignorance: you ought to have known that this rite was an indication of reverence for the divine presence; and that the custom of entering barefoot into their temples, subsists in some countries to this day.

You allow the book of Ezra to be a genuine book; but that the author of it may not escape without a blow, you say, that in matters of record it is not to be depended on ; and as a proof of your assertion you tell us that the total amount of the numbers who returned from Babylon does not correspond with the particulars; and that every child may have an argument for its infidelity, you display the particulars, and shew your own skill in arithmetic, by summing them up. And can you suppose that Ezra, a man of great

earning, knew so little of science, so little of the lowest branch of science, that he could not give his readers the sum-total of sixty particular sums? You know undoubtedly that the Hebrew letters denoted also numbers; and that there was such a great similarity between some of these letters, that it was extremely easy for a transcriber of a manuscript to mistake a for a (or 2 for 20,) a for a (or 3 for 50,) a for (or 4 for 200.) Now what have we to do with numerical contradictions in the Bible, but to attribute them, wherever they occur, to this obvious source of error-the inattention of the transcriber in writing one letter for another that was like it?

I should extend these letters to a length troublesome to the reader, to you and to my self, if I answered minutely every objection you have made, and rectified every error into which you have fallen; it may be sufficient, briefly to notice some of the chief.

The

character represented in Job under the name of Satan, is, you say, “the first and the only time this name is mentioned in the Bible." Now, I find this name, as denoting an enemy, frequently occurring in the Old Testament: thus, 2 Sam. xix. 22, "What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be adversaries unto me?" In the original it is, Satans unto me. Again, 1 Kings, v. 4, "The Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary, nor evil occurrent" — in the original, neither Satan nor evil. I need not mention other places: these are sufficient to shew, that the word Satan, denoting an adversary, does occur in various places of the Old Testament; and it is extremely probable to me, that the root Satan was introduced into the Hebrew and other eastern languages, to denote an adversary, from its having been the proper name of the great enemy of mankind. I know it is an opinion of Voltaire, that the word Satan is not older than the Babylonian captivity; this is a mistake, for it is met with in the hundred and ninth Psalm, which all allow to have been written by David, long before the captivity. Now we are upon this subject, permit me to recommend to your consideration the universality of the doctrine concerning an evil being, who in the beginning of time had opposed himself, who still continues to oppose himself, to the Supreme Source of all good. Amongst all nations, in all ages, this opinion prevailed, that human affairs were subject to the will of the gods, and regulated by their interposition. Hence has been derived whatever we have read of the wandering stars of the Chaldeans, two of them beneficent, and two malignanthence the Egyptian Typho and Osiris, the Persian Arimanius and Oromasdes the Grecian Celestial and Infernal Jove - the Brama and the Zupay of the Indians, Peru

vians, Mexicans-the good and evil principle, by whatever names they may be called, of all other barbarous nations-and hence the structure of the whole book of Job, in whatever light of history or drama it be considered. Now, does it not appear reasonable to suppose, that an opinion so ancient and so universal has arisen from tradition concerning the fall of our first parents; disfigured, indeed, and obscured, as all traditions must be, by many fabulous additions?

The Jews, you tell us, 66 never prayed but when they were in trouble." I do not believe this of the Jews; but that they prayed more fervently when they were in trouble than at other times, may be true of the Jews, and I apprehend is true of all nations and all individuals. But "the Jews never prayed for any thing but victory, vengeance, and riches." Read Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, and blush for your assertion, illiberal and uncharitable in the extreme!

It appears, you observe, "to have been the custom of the heathens to personify both virtue and vice, by statues and images, as is done now-a-days both by statuary and by paintings; but it does not follow from this that they worshipped them, any more than we do." Not worshipped them! What think you of the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up? Was it not worshipped by the princes, the rulers, the judges, the people, the nations, and the languages of the Babylonian empire? Not worshipped them! What think you of the decree of the Roman senate for fetching the statue of the mother of the gods from Pessinum? Was it only that they might admire it as a piece of workmanship? Not worshipped them! "What man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians was a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter ?" Not worshipped them! The worship was universal. "Every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places, which the Samaritans had made: the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech, and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim," 2 Kings, xvii. The heathens are much indebted to you for this your curious apology for their idolatry-for a mode of worship the most cruel, senseless, impure, abominable, that can possibly disgrace the faculties of the human mind. Had this your conceit occurred in ancient times, it might have saved Micah's teraphims, the golden calves of Jeroboam and of Aaron, and quite superseded the necessity of the second commandment! Heathen morality has had its advocates before you the facetious gentle

man who pulled off his hat to the statue of Jupiter, that he might have a friend when heathen idolatry should again be in repute, seems to have had some foundation for his improper humour -some knowledge that certain men, esteeming themselves great philosophers, had entered into a conspiracy to abolish Christianity—some foresight of the consequences which will certainly attend their

success.

It is an error, you say, to call the Psalms, the Psalms of David. This error was observed by St Jerome, many hundred years before you were born: his words are "We know that they are in an error who attribute all the Psalms to David."— You, I suppose, will not deny, that David wrote some of them. Songs are of various sorts; we have hunting songs, drinking songs, fighting songs, love songs, foolish, wanton, wicked songs; if you will have the "Psalms of David to be nothing but a collection from different song-writers," you must allow that the writers of them were inspired by no ordinary spirit; that this is a collection incapable of being degraded by the name you give it; that it greatly excels every other collection in matter and in manner. Compare the book of Psalms with the odes of Horace or Anacreon, with the hymns of Callimachus, the golden verses of Pythagoras, the choruses of the Greek tragedians, (no contemptible compositions any of these,) and you will quickly see how greatly it surpasses them all, in piety of sentiment, in sublimity of expression, in purity of morality, and in rational theology.

Do you

As you esteem the Psalms of David a songbook, it is consistent enough in you to esteem the Proverbs of Solomon a jest-book. There have not come down to us above eight hundred of his jests. If we had the whole three thousand which he wrote, our mirth would be extreme. Let us open the book, and see what kind of jests it contains. Take the very first as a specimen :- "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction." perceive any jest in this? The fear of the Lord! What Lord does Solomon mean? He means that Lord who took the posterity of Abraham to be his peculiar people-who redeemed that people from Egyptian bondage by a miraculous interposition of his powerwho gave the law to Moses-who commanded the Israelites to exterminate the nations of Canaan. Now, this Lord you will not fear; the jest says, you despise wisdom and instruction. Let us try again :-" My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother." If your heart has been ever touched by parental feelings, you will see no jest in this. Once more- My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." These are the three first proverbs in Solo

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mon's "jest-book." If you read it through, it may not make you merry; I hope it will make you wise; that it will teach you, at least, the beginning of wisdom-the fear of that Lord whom Solomon feared. Solomon, you tell us, was witty jesters are sometimes witty; but though all the world, from the time of the Queen of Sheba, has heard of the wisdom of Solomon, his wit was never heard of before. There is a great difference, Mr Locke teaches us, between wit and judgment, and there is a greater between wit and wisdom. Solomon was wiser than Ethan the Ezahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol." These men, you may think, were jesters; and so you may call the seven wise men of Greece; but you will never convince the world that Solomon, who was wiser than them all, was nothing but a witty jester. As to the sins and debaucheries of Solomon, we have nothing to do with them but to avoid them; and to give full credit to his experience, when he preaches to us his admirable sermon on the vanity of every thing but piety and virtue.

Isaiah has a greater share of your abuse than any other writer in the Old Testament, and the reason of it is obvious-the prophecies of Isaiah have received such a full and circumstantial completion, that, unless you can persuade yourself to consider the whole book (a few historical sketches excepted) " "as one continued bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning," you must of necessity allow its divine authority. You compare the burden of Babylon, the burden of Moab, the burden of Damascus, and the other denunciations of the prophet against cities and kingdoms, to the "story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain, the story of Cinderella," &c. I may have read these stories, but I remember nothing of the subjects of them. I have read also Isaiah's burden of Babylon, and I have compared it with the past and present state of Babylon, and the comparison has made such an impression on my mind, that it will never be effaced from my memory. I shall never cease to believe that the Eternal alone-by whom things future are more distinctly known than past or present things are by man-that the eternal God alone could have dictated to the prophet Isaiah the subject of the burden of Babylon.

The latter part of the forty-fourth, and the beginning of the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, are, in your opinion, so far from being written by Isaiah, that they could only have been written by some person who lived at least an hundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. These chapters, you go on, are a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity above one hundred and fifty years after the

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death of Isaiah ;" and is it for this, Sir, that you accuse the Church of audacity, and the priests of ignorance, in imposing, as you call it, this book upon the world as the writing of Isaiah ? What shall be said of you, who, either designedly or ignorantly, represent one of the most clear and important prophecies in the Bible as an historical compliment, written above an hundred and fifty years after the death of the prophet? We contend, Sir, that this is a prophecy and not a history; that God called Cyrus by his name, declared that he should conquer Babylon, and described the means by which he should do it, above one hundred years before Cyrus was born, and when there was no probability of such an event. Porphyry could not resist the evidence of Daniel's prophecies, but by saying that they were forged after the events predicted had taken place. Voltaire could not resist the evidence of the prediction of Jesus concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, but by saying that the account was written after Jerusalem had been destroyed; and you, at length, (though, for aught I know, you may have had predecessors in this presumption,) unable to resist the evidence of Isaiah's prophecies, contend that they are bombastical rant, without application, though the application is circumstantial; and destitute of meaning, though the meaning is so obvious that it cannot be mistaken; and that one of them is not a prophecy, but an historical compliment written after the event. We will not, Sir, give up Daniel and St Matthew to the impudent assertions of Porphyry and Voltaire, nor will we give up Isaiah to your assertion. Proof, proof is what we require, and not assertion. We will not relinquish our religion, in obedience to your abusive assertion respecting the prophets of God. That the wonderful absurdity of this hypothesis may be more obvious to you, I beg you to consider that Cyrus was a Persian, had been brought up in the religion of his country, and was probably addicted to the Magian superstition of two independent beings, equal in power, but different in principle, one the author of light and of all good, the other the author of darkness and all evil. Now is it probable that a captive Jew, meaning to compliment the greatest prince in the world, should be so stupid as to tell the prince that his religion was a lie? "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I the Lord ¦ do all these things."

But if you will persevere in believing that the prophecy concerning Cyrus was written after the event, peruse the burden of Babylon; was that also written after the event? Were the Medes then stirred up against Babylon? Was Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees, then overthrown, and

become as Sodom and Gomorrah? Was it then uninhabited? Was it then neither fit for the Arabian's tent nor the shepherd's fold? Did the wild beasts of the desert then lie there? Did the wild beasts of the islands then cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces? Were Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, the son and the grandson, then cut off? Was Babylon then become a possession of the bittern, and pools of water? Was it then swept with the besom of destruction, so swept that the world knows not now where to find it?

I am unwilling to attribute bad designs, deliberate wickedness, to you or to any man. I cannot avoid believing, that you think you have truth on your side, and that you are doing service to mankind in endeavouring to root out what you esteem superstition. What I blame you for is this, that you have attempted to lessen the authority of the Bible by ridicule more than by reason; that you have brought forward every petty objection which your ingenuity could discover, or your industry pick up from the writings of others; and without taking any notice of the answers which have been repeatedly given to these objections, you urge and enforce them as if they were new. There is certainly some novelty, at least, in your manner, for you go beyond all others in boldness of assertion, and in profaneness of argumentation. ingbroke and Voltaire must yield the palm of scurrility to Thomas Paine.

Bol

Permit me to state to you what would, in my opinion, have been a better mode of proceeding; better suited to the character of an honest man, sincere in his endeavours to search out truth. Such a man, in reading the Bible, would, in the first place, examine whether the Bible attributed to the Supreme Being any attributes repugnant to holiness, truth, justice, goodness; whether it represented him as subject to human infirmities; whether it excluded him from the government of the world, or assigned the origin of it to chance, and an eternal conflict of atoms. Finding nothing of this kind in the Bible, (for the destruction of the Canaanites by his express command, I have shewn not to be repugnant to his moral justice,) he would, in the second place, consider that the Bible being, as to many of its parts, a very old book, and written by various authors, and at different and distant periods, there might probably occur some difficulties and apparent contradictions in the historical part of it. He would endeavour to remove these difficulties, to reconcile these apparent contradictions by the rules of such sound criticism as he would use in examining the contents of any other book; and if he found that most of them were of a trifling nature, arising from short additions inserted into the text as explanatory and