says not a word about Judas) ver. 17, for he (Judas) was numbered among us and obtained part of our ministry.'

"Ver. 18.

Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and his bowels gushed out." Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

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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 fufilled 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. xviii. The writer of that Psalm, (whoever he was, for the Psalms are a collection and not the work of one man) is speaking of himself and of his own case, and not of that of another. He begins this Psalm with the words which the New Testament writers ascribed to Jesus Christ. 6 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me❞—words which might be uttered by a complaining man without any great impropriety, but very improperly from the mouth of a reputed God.

"The picture which the writer draws of his own situation in this Psalm is gloomy enough. He is not prophecying, but complaining of his own hard case. He represents himself as surrounded by enemies and beset by persecutions of every kind; and by way of shewing 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 cloathing of any kind, but property, or rather the admitting a man to, or investing him him with property; and as it used in this Psalm distinct from the word garment, it appears to 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 Almighty would condescend to tell, by what is called the spirit of prophecy, what could come to pass in some future age of the world, it is an injury to our own faculties, and to our ideas of his greatness, to imagine it would be about an old coat, or an old pair of breeches, or about any thing which the common accidents of life, or the quarrels that attend it, exhibit every day.

That which is within the power of man to do, or in his will not to do, is not a subject for 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 quarrelling, and by that means fulfil the thing called a prophecy, or set it aside.

"In the passages 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 a 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 prophecy, but a pretended prophecy of an old coat, the proper deduction is there were no such things.

66 I pass on to the book called the Gospel according to St. Mark.

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 Matthew.

"Mark begins his book by a passage which he puts in the shape of prophecy. Mark, chap. i. ver. 1.- The beginning of the 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 thy way before thee." Malachi, chap. iii. ver. 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 capter, we shall see that this application of it is erroneous and false. "Malachi having said at the first verse, "Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare thy way before me," says at the second verse, But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.'

"This description can have no reference to the birth of Jesus Christ, and consequently none to John the Baptist. 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.

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Malachi, continuing to speak on the same subject, explains in the next chapter what the scene is of which he speaks in the verses above quoted, and who the is whom he calls the messenger.

person "Behold,' says he, chap. iv. ver. 1, the day cometh that shall burn 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.'

"Ver. 5. Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.'

"By what right, or by what imposition or ignorance Mark has made Elijah into John the Baptist, and Malachi's description of the day of judgement into the birth day of Christ, I leave to the Bishop to settle

The

Mark, in the second and third verses of his first chapter, confounds two passages together, taken from different books of the Old Testament. second verse, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy 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 of the Lord, make his path straight.' is not in Malachi, but in Isaiah, chap. x. ver. 3. Whiston says, that both these verses were originally in Isaiah. If so, it is another instance of the disordered state of the Bible, corroborates what I have said with respect to the name and description of Cyrus being in the book of Isaiah, to which it cannot chronologically belong.

"The words in Isaiah, chap. xi. ver. 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 ond metaphorical, may be seen at the 6th verse. And the voice said, cry; and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is gruss.' This is evidently nothing but a figure, for flesh is not grass; otherwise than a figure or metaphor, where one thing is put for another. Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose.

"I pass on to the eleventh chapter.

"In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplishment of a prophecy, as Matthew has done; for he says nothing about a prophecy. Instead of which, he goes on the other tack, and in order to add new honours to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle; for he says, ver. 2, it was "a colt whereon man never sat;" signifying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he consequently was inspired into good manners.

"I pass on to the 15th chapter.

"At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting Christ's garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no 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 scriptures 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 prophecy of any particular person. All those whom the church calls martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of 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. reference to pro

"These are all the passages in Mark which have any phecies.

"I pass on to the book of Luke.

"There are no passages in Luke called prophecies excepting those which relate to the passages I have already examined.

"Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes no reference to the passage in Isaiah, as Matthew does, He speaks also of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he 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 perfected.'

"Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in Egypt, and makes Joseph to return with the child on the news of Herod's death, who had sought to kill him. Luke makes Herod to be living and to seek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of age; for he says chap. iii. v. 23

'And Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed the son of Joseph.

"The obscurity in which the historical part of the New Testament is involved with respect to Herod, may afford to priests and commentators a plea, which to some may appear plausible, but to none satisfactory, that the Herod of which Matthew speaks, and the Herod of which Luke speaks, were different persons, Matthew calls Herod a king; and Luke, 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 governed 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 of his returning 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 before stated. I have already shewn that Luke, in the book called the Acts of the Apostles, (which commentators ascribe to Luke) contradicts the account in Matthew with respect to Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. Matthew says, that Judas returned the money, and that the high priests bought with it a field to bury strangers in. Luke says, that Judas kept the money and bought a field with it for himself.

"As it is impossible the wisdom of God should err, so it is impossible those books could have been written by divine inspiration. Our belief in God, and his unerring wisdom, forbids us to believe it. As for myself, I feel religiously happy in the total disbelief of it.

There are no other passages called prophecies in Luke than those I have spoken of. I pass on to the book of John.

THE BOOK OF JOHN.

“JOHN, like Mark and Luke, is not much of a prophecy-monger. He speaks of the ass, and the casting lots for Jesus's clothes, and some other trifles, of which I have already spoken.

For had ye believed

The book of the For Moses truly said

"John makes Jesus to say, chap. v. ver. 46, Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me?' Acts, in speaking of Jesus, says, chap. iii. ver. 22, unto the fathers, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you!"

"This passage is in Deuteronomy, chap. xviii. ver, 15. They apply it as a prophecy of Jesus. What impositions! The person spoken of in Deuteronomy, and also in Numbers where the same person is spoken of, is in Joshua, the minister of Moses, and his immediate successor, and just such another Robespierrean character as Moses is represented to have been. The case, as related in those books, is as follows:

"Moses was grown old and near to his end, and in order to prevent confusion after his death, for the Israelites had no settled system of government; it was thought best to nominate a successor to Moses while he was yet living. This was done, as we are told, in the following manner:

"Numbers xxvii. 12. And the Lord said unto Moses, get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israeland when thou hast seen it, thou also shall be gathered unto thy people as Aaron thy brother is gathered, ver. 15. And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregationWhich 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, and that all the congregation of the 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 commanded by the hand of Moses.' I have nothing to do, in this place, with the truth, or the conjuration here practised, of raising up a successor to Moses like unto himself. The passage sufficiently proves it is Joshua, and that it is an imposition in John to make the case into a prophecy of Jesus. But the prophecy-mongers were so inspired with falsehood, that they never speak truth *.

"I pass on 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. ver. 32, Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first (meaning one of the thieves) and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legsver. 36, for these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, ' A bone of him shall not be broken.'

*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 Christ, who was not born, according to the Bible chronologies, till fifteen hundred and fifty-two years after the time of Moses, whereas it was an immediate successor to Moses, who was then near his end, that is spoken of in the passage above quoted.

This Bishop, the better to impose this passage on the world as a prophecy of Christ, has entirely omitted the account in the book of Numbers, which I have given at length word for word, and which shews, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the person spoken of by Moses, is Joshua, and no other person.

Newton is but a superficial writer. He takes up things upon hear-say, and inserts them without either examination or reflection, and the more extraordinary and incredible they are, the better he likes them.

In speaking of the walls of Babylon, (volume the first, page 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 impossibility of their being used, or even made. A brick ten feet square, and three feet thick, contains 300 cubic feet, and allowing a cubic foot of brick to be only one hundred pounds, each of the Bishop's bricks would weigh thirty 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, 2, p. 211.) far exceeds his bricks of ten feet square iu the walls of Babylon; these are but brick-bats compared to them.

The stones (says 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