poster. And how do you know that Mofes was not an impostor? For my own part I believe that all are impostors that pretend to hold verbal communication with. the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been impofed upon; but if you think otherwife you have the fame right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must anfwer for it in the fame manner. But all this does not fettle the point, whether the Bible be the word of God, or not. It is therefore neceffary to go a step farther. The

cafe 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 wisdom and goodness of God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of creatiThe refult in these two cafes 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, will have a bad opinion of the Bible.

on.

The Bible represents God to be a changeable, paffionate, vindictive Being; making a world and then drowning it, and afterwards repenting of what he had done and promifing not to do fo again. Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the fun till the butchery fhould be done. But the works of God. in the creation preaches to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we fee nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, paffionate, vindictive God, every thing we there behold impreffes us with a contrary idea; that of unchangeableness, and of eternal order, harmony, aud goodness. The fun and the feasons return at their appointed time, and every thing in the creation proclaims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty power could make, for the Bible fays one thing and the creation fays the contrary. The Bible reprefents God with all the paffions 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, ra

pine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to fay, (1 Sam. chap. 15, v. 3,) "now go and fmite Amalek, 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 fome other impostor, might fay, this is what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor difproved, but in my opinion it is blafphemy to fay, or to believe, that God faid it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolts 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 appear the worfe, is the reafon 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 account it gives of Mofes holding up his hands) had oppofed the Ifraelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Ifraelites were the invaders as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico; and this oppofition by the Amalekites at that time is given as a reason that the men, women, infants, and fucklings, fheep and oxen, camels and affes that were born. four hundred years afterwards fhould be put to death; and to compleat 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 obfervations on this cafe.

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 hear-fay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In the fecond place, this anonymous book fays that this flaughter 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 afcribes cruelty and injustice to God, I therefore reiect the bible as unworthy of credit.

As I have now given you my reafons for believing that. the bible is not the word of God, and that it is a falfhood, 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 fame reafon for believing the Koran it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reafon and truth have nothing to do in the cafe. You believe in the bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the fame accident, and each call the other Infidel. But leaving the prejudice of Education out of the cafe, the unprejudice truth is, that all are infidels who believe falfely of God, whether they draw their Creed from the Bible or from the Koron, 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 permit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I wifh you to know that this anfwer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to fatisfy you, and fome 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.

Profession of faith of a Savoyard Curate, from Rousseau, continued from our last.

It is not in my power to believe that paffive inanimate matter could ever have produced living and fenfible creatures; that a blind fatality fhould be productive of intelligent beings; or, that a caufe, incapable itself of thinking, should produce the faculty of thinking in its effect.

I believe, therefore, that the world is governed by a wife and powerful Will. I fee it, or rather I feel it; and this is of importance for me to know. But is the

world eternal or is it created? Are things derived from one felf-existent principle? or are there two, or more? and what is their effence? Of all this I know nothing, nor do I fee that it is of any confequence I fhould. In proportion as fuch knowledge may become interesting, I will endeavour to acquire it: but, farther than this, I give up all fuch idle difquifitions, which ferve only to make me difcontented with my felf, are useless in practice, and above my understanding.

are.

You will remember, however, that I am not dictating my fentiments to you; but only difplaying what they Whether matter be eternal or only created, whether it have a passive principle or not, certain it is that the whole univerfe is one defign, and fufficiently dif plays one intelligent agent: for I fee no part of this sys tem that is not under regulation, or that does not concur to one and the fame end; viz. that of preferving the prefent established order of things. The Being, whose will is his deed, whofe principle of action is in himself, that Being, in a word, whatever it be, that gives motion to all the parts of the universe and governs all things, I call God.

To this term I annex the ideas of intelligence, power and will, which I have collected from the order of things; and to thefe I add that of goodness, which is a necessary confequence of their union: but I am not at all the wifer concerning the effence of the Being to which I give these attributes: he remains at an equal distance from my fenfes and my understanding: the more I think of him, the more I am confounded; I know of a certainty that he exists, and that his existence is independent of any of his creatures: I know alfo that my existence is dependent on his, and that every thing I know is in the fame fituation with myself. (To be continued.)

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Comments upon the Sacred Writings of the Jews and Christians. Exodus Chapter 5th.

TH

THIS chapter is as strange a piece of revelation as ever was feen; the greater part of it is taken up with a trifling and contemptible altercation between Pharaoh and the Children of Ifrael about making brick. The latter makes most grievous complaints for want of straw, and what the straw had to do with the making of bricks it is hard to fay. If they made use of it for fuel to burn the bricks, they might almost as well have been without it; if they incorporated it with the bricks, it was a strange method of doing the business, and quite different from that of modern times. But all fuch enquiries and objections afide, the question naturally arises in every enquiring mind, where is the religion or revelation of this part of the book? This long converfation between Pharaoh and thofe he held in bondage about the manner and the materials of their work is wholly uninteresting to us, and Mofes and whoever wrote the book of Exodus could furely tell fuch a story as this without being infpired. It is ignorance or fomething worse that induces the christian world to call fuch stuff the word of God. But there is another reflection arifes upon reading this chapter, of a more ferious and impreffive nature. The God of Mofes, it feems, was not very popular either with the Egyptians or his chofen people. Pharaoh rejects the idea of any acquaintance with him-he does not know him at all, for he fays in verfe 2d, of this chap ter, "who is the Lord, that I fhould obey his voice to