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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 revolution 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 necessary. 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 of the Jews, in the Old Testament, gives existence to a new 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 they 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 wilderness; 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. *

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One would think that a system loaded with such gross and vulgar 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 sometimes we are told, as in 2 Sam. chap. ix. ver. 15, that God whispers 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."

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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 of the Jews, the fighting God of Israel, the conjuring God of their Priests and Prophets.-They tell as many fables of him as the Greeks told of Hercules. ****

They make their God to say exultingly, "I 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 giantkiller 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 cannot 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? Is it better 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 contemplation into the eternity of space, filled with innumerable orbs

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 eternity 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 A procrypha.

"The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain and false; and dreams lift up fools-Whoso regardeth dreams is ike him that catcheth at a shadow, and followeth after the wind."

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 clandestinely 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 worthy of being preserved, I have thougroper to restore the passage, with the exception of the objectional parts.—EDOR.

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AN

EXAMINATION

OF THE

PASSAGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT,

QUOTED FROM THE OLD, AND CALLED PROPHECIES OF THE COMING OF

JESUS CHRIST.

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[THIS work was first published by Mr. Paine, at New-York, in 1807, 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 beer. 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 in 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 of the works which he had prepared; observing that "An author might lose the credit he had acquired by writing too much." He however 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.]

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