Comments upon the Sacred Writings of the Jews and Christians. Exodus Chapter 7.

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ND I will harden Pharoah's heart, and multiply my figns and wonders in the land of Egypt." Ye learned believers in revelation, will you be fo kind as to tell us what good it did to multiply all thefe figns and wonders—when the fame power by which they were wrought was exerted in hardening Pharoah's heart in fuch a manner that the wonders fhould be incapable of producing any effect? This is God verfus God again, as we formerly mentioned in the cafe of the ferpent, Genefis, chapter third-Here alfo is another flagrant departure from the principles of theifm; we had occafion once before to notice the abominable profanity of charging God with hardening the heart of man; it is in fact making God author of thofe crimes which refult from fuch hardnefs of heart; it is charging the wicked actions of man upon the creator himself. The monatheilm of the Jews is entitled to no refpect; becaufe fimplicity of effence is tarnished with duplicity of character, and loaded with immoral attributes which would difgrace even a common man. It is aftonishing that thofe believers in revealed religion, who pretend to be the only true friends of God, and who also believe that God is friend to nobody but themselves, fhould fetupa fyftem of ethics with external purity proclaimed upon the face of the record—that is upon the record of their own affertions, while every thing effentially contained in this fyftem places the Supremie Creator in a state of acrimonious hoftility against morals,

truth and philofophy. The fentiment fhould become impreffive upon the human mind that a total want of all theological conceptions ought to be preferred to the indulgence of ideas which tarnifh the immortal glory of the Supreme Being, and fink him to a level with the meaneft of his creatures; to harden the heart of man is to make it wicked-moral obduracy is a moral crime-benevolence and juftice are important qualities; they are the diftinguishing properties of intellectual beings, and if in thefe the Jewish God was deficient, he and his biogra phers have forfeited all claim to the juft approbation of pofterity. The fact is that Mofes, or the authors of the five first books of the Old Teftament, created a monsterformed upon the model of their own paffions, partaking of their own vices, enlifted in their own quarrels, and no better than themfelves. Let thofe who are weak or wicked enough to worship fuch a being be permitted to go on in their dulufion, provided they do not trouble the peace of fociety; but men attached to the religion of nature will adore only that pure and immortal Being whose effence is interwoven with the vaft fabric of the universe! Before him we bow with refpect-The phantoms of an. tiquity will perish with the touch of reafon.

COMMUNICATION.

The following reflections, written last winter, were occafioned by certain expreffions in fome of the public papers, against Deifm, and the writings of Thomas Paine on that fubject.

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was the cry of the people of Ephesus;* and the cry of "our holy religion" has been the cry of fuperstition in fome instances, and of hyprocify in others, from that day to this.

The Bramin, the follower of Zoroastor, the Jew, the Mahomentan, the church of Rome, the Greek church, the Protestant church, split into feveral hundred contradictory fectaries, preaching, in fome instances, damna

*Acts, c. 19, v. 28.

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tion against each other, all cry out, "our holy reli gion." The Calvanist who damns children of a fpan long to hell to burn for ever for the glory of God (and this is called christianity), and the Univerfalist who preaches that all fhall be faved and none fhall be damned, (and this alfo is called christanity) boasts alike of their holy religion and their Christian faith. Something more, therefore, is neceffary than mere cry and wholefale affertion, and that fomething is TRUTH; and as enquiry is the road to truth, he that is oppofed to enquiry 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 fcrutinized more than other books to fee if it bear evidence of being what it is called. Our reverence to God, demands that we do this, lest we afcribe to God what is not his, and our duty to ourfelves demands it lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of falvation on a false foundation. It is not our calling a book holy that makes it fo, any more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name. Enquiry, therefore, is neceffary in order to arrive at Truth. But enquiry must have fome principle to proceed on, fome standard to judge by, fuperior to human authority.

When we furvey the works of creation, the revolutions of the planetary fystem, and the whole economy of what is called nature, which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to matter, we fee unerring order and univerfal harmony reigning throughout the whole. No one part contradicts another. The fun does not run against the moon, nor the moon against the fun, nor the planets against each other-Every thing keeps its appointed time and place. This harmony in the works of God is fo obvious, that the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipfes, is as fenfible of it as the philofophical astronomer. He fees the God of order in every part of the vifible 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-fay or do His opinion is like a feather in the fcale compared with the standard that God himfelf has fet 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 ecclefiastical councils. Thefe have been fo contradictory that they have often rejected in one council what they had voted to be the word of God in another, and admitted what had been before rejected. In this state of uncertainty in which we are, and which is rendered still more un certain by the numerous contradictory fectaries that have fprung up fince the time of Luther and Calvin, what is man to do? The anfwer is eafy. Begin at the rootBegin with the Bible itself. Examine it with the utmost. strictnefs. It is our duty fo to do. Compare the parts with each other, and the whole with the harmonious magnificent order that reigns throughout the vifible univerfe, and the refult will be, that if the fame Almighty wisdom that created the univerfe, dictated alfo the bible, the bible will be as harmonious and as magnificent in all its parts, and in the whole, as the univerfe is. But if instead of this, the parts are found to be difcordant, contradicting in one place what is, said in another, (as in 2 Sam. chap. 24, v. 1st. and the 1st. Chron, chap. 21, v. 1st, where the fame action is afcribed to God in one book and to Satan in the other), abounding alfo in idle and obfcene stories, and reprefenting the Almighty as a paffionate whimfical 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 fuch a book, that it is not the word of God, and that to call it fo is to difhonour his name. The Quakers who are a people more moral and regular in their conduct than the people of other fectaries, and generally allowed so to be, do not

hald the bible to be the word of God. They call it abistory of the times, and a bad history it is, and alfo a history of bad men and of bad actions, and abounding with bad examples.

dispute has been about Is the Bible the word point is established no

For feveral centuries past the doctrines. It is now about fact. of God or is it not? for until this doctrine drawn from the bible can afford real confolation to man, and he ought to be careful he does not mistake delufion for truth. This is a cafe that concerns all men

alike.

There has always existed in Europe, and also in America, fince its establishment, a numerous defcription 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 themfelves into an established fociety, but are to be found in all the fectaries 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 can be given to man, because it is derived immediately from the Deity. It is not an artificial name like Epifcopalian, Prefbyterian, &c but is a name of facred fignification, and to revile it is to revile the name of God.

Since then there is fo much doubt and uncertainty about the bible, fome afferting, 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 of the world that it fhould. A better time cannot offer than whilst the government, patronizing no one fect or opinion in preference to another, protects equally the rights of all; and certainly every man muft fpurn the idea of an ecclefiaftical tyranny engroffing the rights of the prefs and holding it free only for itself.

Whilft the terrors of the Church and the tyranny of the state hung like a pointed fword over Europe, men were commanded to believe what the church told them or go . to the ftake. All enquiries into the authenticity of the