Class. 
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 OR HINTS O^T^Htm 
 
 
 
 *» &^; or * ints ^ t ^ „ 
 
 PHILOSOPHY C©^ : Mi^4««|K^RbRE. 
 
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 TO WHICH ARE APPENDED 
 
 TWO POETICAL SCRAPS 
 
 ANI> 
 
 DOGMAS OF INFIDELITY 
 
 W 
 
 BY F. W. ADAMS. M. D. 
 
 — 
 
 MONTPELIER: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. E. THOMPSON. 
 1843. 
 
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 Page 75, 6th line, 
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 ERRATA. 
 
 for if ignorant, read of ignorance. 
 for Pity, read Piety, 
 for Nature, read Matter, 
 for the propensities, read propen- 
 sities, 
 for of, read or. 
 for Manatau, read Manatou. 
 for severitees, read severities, 
 for further, read any further, 
 for cowardice, read moral coward- 
 
 ice. 
 for threat, read threats, 
 for infringe, read impinge, 
 for Emphyrean, read Empyrean, 
 for general, read generous. 
 

 TO THE READER. 
 
 Having been particularly known among my familiar 
 acquaintances, and, reputedly, by the public within 
 my vicinity, as an avowed dissenter from the literality 
 and supernaturalism of the Scriptures, in which there 
 seemed enough of singularity, to induce a curious in- 
 dividual to solicit, from time to time, during several 
 years, a publication of my anti-theolgical opinions, to 
 which however, circumstances forbade assent; until, 
 at length, I was importuned by letter, at two several 
 times, from a reveren^d disciple of Universalism, to 
 make the curious disclosure: And hence concluded to 
 comply, and, therefore, set about expending, occa- 
 sionally, a leisure hour, in noting some few reflect- 
 ions upon the subjects of inquiry. This I was the 
 more willing to undertake, from the clearest convict- 
 ion, that Theology unconnected with Morality, was a 
 phantom which had seduced or frightened the world 
 into its most terrible and exterminating evils. Aud 
 that even Christianity, in which Morality, as it seems 
 to have been particularly intended, strikingly pre- 
 dominates over Theology, has been the subject and 
 occasion of the most cruel and murderous dissention: 
 
A consequence, it would be blasphemous to charge 
 upon Truth or Reason. And having, from my child- 
 hood, detested the moral cowardice, so well exempli- 
 fied in its character and consequences, by the fictitious 
 Jonah, on the one hand; and, on the other, equally 
 idolized the moral courage of the Hebrew Daniel, 
 in whom this attribute is made so godly and moment- 
 ous, as that miracles were reputedly performed to 
 save the subject of so magnanimous a souL 
 
 Hence, I resolved upon the hazard of a publica- 
 tion, in the form of a letter, or rather a series of let- 
 ters, tothe reverend solicitor; and which had made con- 
 siderable progress toward its conclusion, when I was 
 interrogated on behalf of some dozens of my friends, 
 whether I would address them in a course of public 
 lectures, upon the questions I had essayed to discuss 
 in the letter series. 
 
 No other objector appearing, than that ignominious 
 huzzy, who seduced Jonah to take lodgings in the 
 stomach of a whale; and she being annihilated by a 
 single scowl, the recollection of Daniel developed, 
 my consent was given; and the letters adopted as the 
 basis of the following essays, into which they were 
 very conveniently transformed. And being ' subse- 
 quently solicited for the manuscript for publication, 
 this little volume has come out to testify to my cour- 
 tesy, sincerity and moral courage. 
 
 These lectures, though originating in specific inqui- 
 ries, and therefore appearing to claim the character 
 of specific answers, were nevertheless written, under 
 the assumption of a general license, and are, there- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 fore, designedly, rather el i citations to theological in- 
 quiry than solutions of numerous and reputedly mys- 
 terious problems. I would that every individual 
 should not only have opinions upon all subjects of hu- 
 man interest, but that they should be sanctioned by 
 Reason and justified by truth. And however harshly 
 custom and expediency may growl at such opinions, 
 as innovations upon hereditary rights, Experience, 
 Eosterity and Nature will ultimately and cheerfully 
 accord their approbation ! 
 
 One consideration, however, more than any other, 
 which has embarrassed both the oral and typographi- 
 cal announcement of my peculiar dogmas, is that 
 most plausible of all stupefactivesto the genius of inno- 
 vation, viz., that the present state of opinions and 
 practices should not be unsettled upon any other prin- 
 principle, than that of the offer of a more valuable 
 substitute. 
 
 Justice and generosity, both, emphatically demand 
 a strict observance of this rule, whenever it falls with- 
 in the power of the agent: And yet there are so 
 many exceptions, as to embarrass, essentially, the au- 
 thority of the rule; especially where one hypothesis 
 is to be contested by another; and where Facts refrain, 
 as much as possible, from giving evidence. 
 
 This embarrassment is at length overcome by the 
 settled conviction, that Theology is not only a fiction, 
 but that were it otherwise, it would be a dark and 
 profitless subject for human contemplation;beiongingas 
 it does exclusively to God and his spiritual providence; 
 andoue that He would scarcely thank his creatures, for 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 assisting Him to manage, Beside, it seems most 
 irrefragible, that Morality, the very Genius, Christ, 
 or Savior, of Society, has been slandered, disparaged 
 and trodden upon by this cloven-footed, leaden-head- 
 ed progeny of Barbarism, until the very heart of 
 Reason should burst with indignation. But so long- 
 as Ethics shall remain subordinate to a decrepid, fic- 
 titious Spiritualism, it will continue to be starved and 
 scourged into a degraded dwarfishness and imbecility, 
 wherein it vainly attempts to repel the indignities its 
 effeminacy has elicited. Yes, whilst Ethics, which, 
 with proper nourishment and care, is competent to 
 rear the standard of literal salvation is destructively 
 neglected, Theology is petted, for its fallacious promi- 
 ses of a future fiction. 
 
 Now, if Theology is a fiction, it is, at least, a waste 
 of thought to contemplate it, and its influence must, 
 after all the expense of its support, be nugatory or 
 mischievous; hence the demand for a substitute needs 
 not to be recognized. To reflect upon any thing that 
 is, must be preferable to reflecting upon nothing at all. 
 But, if it is not a fiction, it has both God and Nature 
 to support it, and hence defies subversion. 
 
 Thus, is the Reader, not quite unceremoniously, 
 introduced to our legitimate, dogmatical and hypo- 
 thetical progeny, from which, as he cannot fail to ob- 
 serve, a foot, at least, has been amputated, for the 
 convenience of the Printer; and perhaps not less to 
 the satisfaction of the Reader; since, whatever lessejis 
 a deformity, proportionally improves it. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
j 
 
 \ 
 
 DO&UIAS OF UVFIBEMTY. 
 
 Nature is an uncreated, indivisible and unlimited 
 system of matter and functionality; whose eternity is 
 no more difficult to admit, than that of an antece- 
 dent creator : Nor is humanity competent to acquire 
 an earlier idea of things, than that which is expressed 
 by the term, formation ! Thus, when it is said that 
 a thing is made, nothing more can be understood, than 
 that a portion of preexisting material has assumed a 
 new arrangement of its parts, or atoms, denominated, 
 accurately, a new formation, but much more frequent- 
 ly, miscalled a new creation ! 
 
 The idea of God is identical with that of ultimate 
 causality, of which no other knowledge can be obtain- 
 ed, than that of its logical necessity, as a termination 
 of all philosophic inquiry; and appears to be insus- 
 ceptible of any better definition, than that it is another 
 name for ignorance: For God is never referred to, 
 whilst any apprehensible, specific cause remains avail- 
 able. And were there a God, detached from matter, 
 with the attribute we call intelligence, in an infinite 
 degree, the continuance of his being, beyond the pe- 
 
VI H DOGMAS OF 
 
 riod of a single thought, would be entirely nugatory. 
 vSuppose a God, such as it maybe thought Christian- 
 ity hath assumed, and Plato's brain engendered of ul- 
 timate causality personified; and, subsequently, en- 
 dowed with that trinity of attributes, called wisdom, 
 power and goodness, so indispensable to such a char- 
 acter! Can there be a doubt, that wisdom, such as 
 God's, and called of men omnisciency, would scan suc- 
 cessfully, the laws and their relationship, by which a 
 world's phenomena were intended to be governed; 
 or that a single thought would settle their arrange- 
 ment? And who believes, that more than one determi- 
 nation of omnipotence, would be required to put those 
 laws in operation? — Is God immutable? — He, there- 
 fore, would not modify his own decrees! — Is he omnip- 
 otent? — No other power could do it! — And hence, the 
 supervisionship of such a God, would be as nugato- 
 ry, as the idea of his being is fallacious! 
 
 Were it not an undefinable causality, of which man- 
 kind has wrought its deity; that dogma, without the 
 aid of superhuman revelation, could uever have be- 
 come so universal as it has been; and doubtless would 
 not have been acquired at all !— Hence, the universal- 
 ity of the idea of God is applicable only to such a 
 principle; and not at all to that discrepancy of attri- 
 butes, with which a diverse human fancy has endowed 
 its personification. 
 
 Notwithstanding the existence of matter, like that 
 of God, has readily obtained universal belief, it is, 
 nevertheless, a problem, whose truth can never be de- 
 monstrated. It is, naturallv, deducible from the ideas 
 
tNFIDET.TTY. IX 
 
 it is supposed to develope, and the properties of which 
 it is supposed to be the predicate, and yet its intrinsi- 
 cality must, forever, elude investigation. 
 
 Matter may be supposed to possess an ultimate be- 
 ing and functionality; a state it may successively re- 
 sume, in imitation of its original, at the termination 
 of each complete revolution of its metamorphosis^ 
 and below which, it is incapable of reduction, or sim- 
 plification. 
 
 Life is a supposed principle, to whose agency or- 
 ganic phenomena have been exclusively referred; and 
 which may be contemplated in the triple character of 
 ultimate, structural and functional. 
 
 Ultimate, or primitive life, may be defined, to be that 
 connate, or coeternal, attribute of matter, upon which 
 modification, or transformation, originally depends; 
 and without which, as without ultimate causality, no 
 phenomenon could ever occur. Structural life is that 
 modification of ultimate life, upon which the arrange- 
 ment of appropriate material, into specific organiza- 
 tion, depends; from the mushroom to the mimosa, in 
 vegetation, and from the sponge and polypus to man, 
 in animation; in all of which, it may be rationally pre^ 
 sumed, the parenchyma* is, organically, the same. 
 Functional life is that which results from, and is char- 
 acterized by, organization, upon which the two pre- 
 ceding kinds of life have been already emplo)^ed; and 
 
 * By parenchyma is meant the common organized 
 material of which particular organs are constructed, 
 
 1 
 
X DOGMAS OF 
 
 is either constituent, as in particular organs, or aggre- 
 gate, as in the whole animal; which latter state is de- 
 nominated animal life, whereon are established the pe- 
 culiar relations that exist, between sentient beings, 
 and the objects of sensation. 
 
 Every phenomenon of the living animal is a modi- 
 fication of the state of organism, of which the phe- 
 nomenon is a function; whether it be structural or an- 
 imal — physical or psychological. 
 
 Whilst the action of a muscle developes the phe- 
 nomenon of motion, that of the brain constitutes con- 
 sciousness: And the inactivity of the one is denomi- 
 nated rest — of the other sleep. Psychology, therefore, 
 consists of organic phenomena; and should never 
 have been displaced, from its legitimate position, at 
 the head of physical philosophy. 
 
 Metaphysics is no otherwise associated with, nor 
 less dependent upon, anatomy and physiology, than 
 mechanics, with, or upon, mechanism. And these, as 
 well as all other sciences, are but deductions from 
 facts, contemplated in their several legitimate rela- 
 tions. 
 
 Man consists, firstly, of a parenchyma, which is the 
 common basis of all organism, to which are superadd- 
 ed, and of the same material, differently arranged, all 
 those peculiar apparatuses, which constitute him, in 
 the aggregate, a living, moving, sentient, conscious, 
 enduring, and reproductive machine: — For, machine 
 he is, notwithstanding his obstinate and egotistic ad- 
 herence to the fallacious dogma, of freed om-of-the- 
 will, upon which psychological phantom, M. Cousin, 
 
INFIDELITY. A1 
 
 the present supervisor of the classical literature of 
 France, together with a host of infatuated disciples, 
 has exhausted every hypothetical and sophistical re- 
 source. Nor will posterity deem it an abuse of his 
 arguments that we denominate them mere blarney. 
 
 Nature is a system of adaptations, denominated 
 cause and effect, within which, men and mushroons 
 are equally included; and of equal importance, in its 
 mysterious and interminable revolutions: Nor is man, 
 with all his wild conceit of voluntary independence, 
 one whit less subject to the dominion of physical and 
 natural laws, than though he were a mass of unmodi- 
 fied material. Curious, that Nature should have 
 formed an animal to take precedence-of herself ! 
 
 Organization is a structural arrangement of elabo- 
 rated material, derived from the common stock of el- 
 ements, and subsequently transmuted, by the agency" 
 of organic life, into the specific constituents of the 
 specimen referred to — each intermediate order, be- 
 tween the two extremes of the graduated scale, being 
 nourished by an inferior, and, in turn, yielding itself 
 as the nourishment of a superior, and so on to the 
 end of the chapter; presenting, thus, a series of re- 
 volving adaptive transmutation. — A circle, in which 
 man and common matter ultimately meet; and which 
 has been, theologically, misinterpreted, and errone- 
 ously propagated as infinite design. 
 
 Man, from the time of Socrates., has been contem- 
 plated, as consisting of body and soul — or of a mate- 
 rial, physical organism, to which an immaterial, unor- 
 ganized and immortal spirit is somehow., and at some 
 period, superadded. 
 
Xli DOGMAS OF 
 
 This dogma, of an immortal spirit, which Socrates 
 had presented to the world, in a state of nudity, was 
 zealously adopted, by the spiritual enthusiast, Plato, 
 who, laboriously and ingeniously clothed up the falla- 
 cy, with all the fascinations of an invaluable truth; 
 which, being thus presented to man's strongest pro- 
 pensity, his love of lite, could, scarcely, have failed of 
 a ready and unanimous acceptance. But unanimity 
 of belief can never deserve credit, as evidence of sci- 
 entific, or philosophic truth, since the mass, even of 
 the intelligent portion of mankind, has been found, 
 contentedly, groping, in the unprogressive routine of 
 traditionary prejudice, and hereditary obstinacy, a half 
 century, at least, behind the foot-prints of the Genius 
 of social amelioration: Nor has it, ever, acquired a 
 knowledge of those principles of science, to the truth 
 of which, it has, finally, given a tardy assent. Man- 
 kind are, constantly, witnessing the phenomena, and 
 participating the benefits, of science, of whose princi- 
 ples, they are as ignorant, as of the statistics of the 
 moons and yet, their vanity vociferates — "How wise 
 our generation!" — Nor, meanwhile, think how in- 
 significant have been their, or their father's, contribu- 
 tions to that stock of wisdom; nor how small a part 
 they, individually, share ! 
 
 Man consists of structural organism, and consequent 
 functionality, of which brain and consciousness are 
 important particulars: Nor is the latter, which is sy- 
 nonymous with soul, one whit more spiritual, than the 
 elasticity of steel. He is, indeed, what reputed in- 
 spiration, a long time since, interpreted him — "a liy- 
 
INFIDELITY. XI 11 
 
 ingsoul" — Or in other words, a thinkingcroature. It 
 is written, Gen. 2. 7. "And the Lord God formed man 
 of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
 trils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." 
 And who can have been so stupid, as to have inno- 
 cently interpreted this text of sciripture, to mean 
 that the soul of man is not a function of his organism, 
 or that it was superadded, subsequently to such for- 
 mation, while the text expressly declares the man to be 
 the living soul ? 
 
 Whilst reflection cannot miss a thousand evidences, 
 that the soul is functional, exclusively; no counter 
 one has been adduced, which might not be as well ap- 
 plied affirmatively. 
 
 Whilst Truth will never fail to repay the labor of 
 investigation; Error, like a hibernating reptile, will 
 sting the hand that warms it into vigor! Theology 
 is a human fantasy, which possesses neither a type in 
 Nature, nor affinity with Reason! 
 
 Natural Theology is an unnatural dogma, with 
 which, affectation of piety has, abortively, attempted 
 to relieve the accumulating embarrassments of a fic- 
 titious revelation ! 
 
 Notwithstanding Christianity, as delineated in the 
 Gospel, is, undeniably, a most successful compilation 
 of the highest and purest metaphysical, moral and re- 
 ligious dogmas, of which the world was in possession 
 at its date; it is, nevertheless, pregnant with failaci-es 
 too numerous and palpable, to escape the notice of an 
 unprejudiced, modern school-boy! 
 
 The Gospel, which is, now, almost universal iy 3 be-* 
 
XIV 
 
 DOGMAS OF 
 
 lieved to have been supernaturally communicated to 
 mankind, through the incomprehensible medium of 
 the fictitious Son of God, is cognizable, only, as a 
 judicious and convenient compendium of the an- 
 cient Eclectic Philosophy, of which Philo, the Essen 
 Jew, was an eminent disciple, and promulgator; and 
 who, it may be well enough supposed, in his abundant 
 affection for his national kindred, wrote out a copy, in 
 his own peculiar style, and in the Jewish, allegorical 
 manner, in the laudable hope, that it would be adopt- 
 ed, by his ignorant and superstitious brethren, as an 
 invaluable substitute for the fallacies and bigotries of 
 Judaism. 
 
 Christianity is compounded of Theology and Ethics; 
 wherein the fautasms of the former, are sustained by 
 the realities of the latter. 
 
 Whilst Ethics forms the most eminent department 
 of Natural knowledge, nor needs an adjunct to sustain 
 itself; Theology would, long since, have arrived at 
 a state of insupportable decrepitude, had it been de- 
 prived of Ethics to lean upon ! 
 
 Theology, in consonance with its own fictitious- 
 ness, has instituted a censorship of Faith, instead of 
 Fact, which denominates all else, mere scoria of the 
 truth, save what has passed, unscathed, the crucible 
 of its fanaticism: It has. grimly, scowled at nat- 
 ural science, as an unholy obtruder upon its sanctimo- 
 ny, and a subverter of its superhuman truths; and 
 has never failed to persecute the man, while living, 
 nor to heap up obloquy upon hisname, when dead, who 
 has ever ventured to propagate a truth, that threaten- 
 ed a collision with the fallacies of its creed. 
 
TNFIDEL1TY. XV 
 
 The whole superstructure of modern Theology is 
 erected upon a Socratic or Platonic fiction of the hu- 
 man soul, which, both, fact and reason emphatically 
 repudiate. And, if there were, both, God and soul, 
 they would be inexplicable to humanity, and also 
 themselves subjected to Zeno's Fate, or that Necessi- 
 ty, imposed by the laws of their nature. 
 
 Whilst the falsehood has been vociferously reitera- 
 ted, throughout the wide domain of Christendom, that 
 natural science owes to Christianity, its success; a 
 counter truth is stamped on every page of civil histo- 
 ry: And, if doubt remains upon this plain question, you 
 are directed to enquire of the ghosts of Roger Bacon, 
 Nicholas Copernicus and Galileo Galilei ! 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE CHARACTER OP MAN, 
 
 Friends of Free Enquiry : — 
 
 It is not from the instigation of a love of notoriety, 
 nor for the unenviable privilege of suffering persecu- 
 tion for a frank avowal of my peculiar heterodoxy, 
 that I stand here this evening, as a traitor to my own 
 popularity, as though I were insanely soliciting the 
 honor of martyrdom; but in a self-distrustful obedi- 
 ence to your joint solicitation for a public disclosure 
 of my personal views of some particular questions, 
 in whose satisfactory solution, the world possesses a 
 deeper interest than even the querulous obstinacy, 
 with which they haye been contested, indicates: And 
 my first wish is, that you were in possession of a rea- 
 sonable assurance, that your hope of edification is not 
 altogether futile. 
 
 The peculiar character of the present enterprise 
 
 seems to demand that this introductory lecture should 
 
 consist mostly of its own preface, declarative of the 
 
 sentiments by which we are actuated, and the objects 
 
 2 
 
18 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 to be attained: And while I express the following per- 
 sonal views, I may hope that the heart of every audi- 
 tor will beat an unequivocal response. 
 
 Man is allowed to have been born with certain inal- 
 ienable rights and privileges, to which Nature has 
 given him an irrevocable title: Nor is she, whatever 
 its seeming, justly chargeable with partiality in the 
 distribution of her favors. 
 
 If the philosopher is delighted with the success of 
 his investigations; he is also annoyed with contempla- 
 ting the narrowness by which they are limited: And 
 whilst he regrets the insignificancy of his best acquire- 
 ments, " the fool is happy, that he knows no more." 
 Thus is the impartiality of Nature established, in re- 
 spect of intellectual happiness. All rational political, 
 philosophy concurs in admitting that all social privi- 
 leges should be reciprocal — or that no individual shall 
 claim a right to do, for and of himself, an act, from 
 which any other individual, under similar circumstan- 
 ces, is prohibited. 
 
 Earth, air and water, with all their convertible pro- 
 ducts, are the common property of their human in- 
 heritors — and Wisdom emphatically declares, that 
 such a distribution and use, should be made of them, 
 as to insure the greatest amount of innocent enjoy- 
 ment. And yet they are mostly monopolized, by a 
 very small proportion of our species; nor would the 
 air itself be excluded from the list, were it subject to 
 the arbitrary regulation of meets and bounds: And 
 the poor might gasp, or bend in servitude to its owner, 
 for the material of vital respiration? 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS* 19 
 
 Air is, however, most fortunately free; nor is opin- 
 ion, however unfortunately, less so. 
 
 To coerce opinion has, nevertheless, been arbitra- 
 rily, mischievously and abortively attempted by every 
 generation that History has recognized: And millions 
 have fought and bled and died in a contest, of which 
 children should have been ashamed. 
 
 Opinion being the inalienable property of every in- 
 dividual, the acquisition of which can never be dis- 
 honest, nor its possession dishonorable, should never 
 be assailed, but by the kindest expressions that suc- 
 cessful invalidation will justify; nor attempted to be 
 subverted, but with the commendable expectation of 
 substituting a better. 
 
 Reason is the grand distinguishing characteristic of 
 humanity; and is therefore appropriately subservient 
 to its highest purposes: And the higher, and more ab- 
 stract from mere propensity our objects are, the more 
 is reason required in their examination: Whatever is 
 above reason is above humanity; and whatever its in- 
 fluence upon the species, it can never become an ob- 
 ject of consciousness. Nor is there a plausible prop- 
 osition that suffers more from analysis, than a very 
 popular one among the clergy; viz. ''that revelation 
 begins where reason ends; and yet, that reason clearly 
 sees the need of such a revelation. 53 
 
 That the need of a circumstance should be clearly 
 apprehended whilst its character is entirely unknown, 
 is a proposition that cannot bear the slightest scru- 
 tiny. As well might the hungry be said to see the 
 need of bread, before it was known to be nutritious; 
 
&0 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Bat the world is fall of this kind of sophistry, where- 
 in sound is offered and accepted as a substitute for 
 sense. Wherein unembelished Truth surrenders its 
 rightful dominion to furbished and artful fallacy. Nor 
 are men aware how easily they are deceived by high- 
 sounding, though unmeaning sentences ; nor how 
 much nor often, familiar terms are perverted from 
 their original and genuine interpretation, in order to 
 subserve the purposes of a sect. 
 
 However differently the case may stand with others^ 
 it is clearly my own conviction, that Reason unequiv- 
 ocally discharges me from all responsibility, for either 
 the possession or propagation of opinion. For if any 
 individual has a right to express an opinion, whose 
 accuracy is not already acknowledged by the public, 
 that right belongs, equally, to the rest of the popula- 
 tion. And if such a right were not acknowledged, 
 and its practical consequences permitted, where, allow 
 me to ask, would be found the history of human im- 
 provement? 
 
 When was the public ever known to suggest an im- 
 provement? or, an occasional genius having made an 
 ameliorating suggestion, when was the public ever 
 known, promptly, to afford it a practical illustration? 
 Have not the originators of important improvements 
 of the various interests of their species, slept, long 
 and soundly, with their fathers, before their stupid 
 successors have been able to appreciate the value of 
 their suggestions? Alas! this public, that arrogates 
 to itself the attributes of a god, marches, nevertheless, 
 in the rearward shadow of that adveDturous, invent- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, &1 
 
 i've Genius, to whom the world is irredeemably in- 
 debted — and whose statue, if ever wrought, is erected 
 npon a pyramid of antecedent reproaches. 
 
 Reason, however fallacious, is the only guardian of 
 human actions; nor should propensity, in any case., 
 digress its most fastidious prescriptions. Yet, how 
 differently has been the case with all successive gene- 
 rations — or history belies their character! 
 
 Man has been effectually shown up, as the creature 
 of propensity, too indomitably obstinate for exhorta- 
 tion, or even experience, to improve. And still he 
 rails, each against his neighbor, for the slightest scent 
 oi inconsistency, that the sensitive and obtrusive nose 
 of suspicion is able to smell out, even, amongst the 
 privacies of domestic life. Whilst he enviously and 
 maliciously assails his neighbor's happiness, he igno- 
 rantly, though deservedly thwarts his own. His life 
 is a succession of fears and disasters, that Reason, 
 were her admonitions heeded, would enable him to 
 evade: But, to her utter discouragement, man has su- 
 perstitiously adopted a set of fictitious mysticisms, 
 under the cognomen of Theology, by which she is 
 nearly superceded in her highest vocation with hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Start not at a mere declaration, which is of no mo- 
 ment whatever, unless supported by satisfactory ar- 
 gument; and which, when thus supported, must right- 
 fully supercede its antagonist: For Truth, however 
 threatening in the distance, is always peaceful in pos- 
 session! 
 
 For myself, I am not ashamed to own, that I am a 
 
22 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 devout disciple of Reason; and an anxious, however 
 successless, inquirer after truth, whose homeliest 
 physiognomy, however often and grossly misappre- 
 hended, is really more beautiful than error, with all 
 its paint and furbishing. 
 
 Opinions being always honestly acquired, their con- 
 sequences, however disastrous, are chargeable only as 
 misfortunes, not as crimes. 
 
 Opinions, it is true, should be always right, since 
 erroneous ones possess, more or less, untoward ten- 
 dencies, from which Ignorance has taken occasion to 
 excuse the exercise of its malevolence, wherein noth- 
 ing but the kindest sympathy is justifiable. 
 
 The most unfortunate individual is he, whose hap- 
 piness is most marred by the inaccuracy of his opin- 
 ions; and he the most fortunate, the accuracy of 
 whose opinions, most successfully, provides for his 
 welfare. 
 
 A common error with mankind, is the too precipi- 
 tate formation of opinion, whereby his best exertions 
 work out his worst discomfiture. As with the travel- 
 er who misses his road, and is therefore the farther 
 from his way, the longer and more expeditiously he 
 travels. Hence opinion, should be deliberately and 
 carefully formed, and as far as possible, founded in a 
 clear apprehension of all the truths concerned in its 
 institution. Thus, Truth becomes the primary and 
 paramount object of human inquiry; and should nei- 
 ther be mistaken nor contemned, by arbitrary, obsti- 
 nate prejudice, scarcely less blind to truth than to 
 itself. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 23 
 
 Whatever is seriously proposed as truth, should be 
 patiently and carefully examined before it is rejected. 
 Who would not declare it preposterous for a chemist 
 to throw away, unexamined, a specimen of precious 
 ore, because he is not already acquainted with its 
 character? And opinions, with all their dependen- 
 cies, deserve no less to be analyzed, than unexamined 
 specimens of mineralogy. But superstitious preju- 
 dice, would crucify Innovation, though it were com- 
 missioned only to take from it the instruments of in- 
 voluntary suicide. 
 
 Heterodoxy and Infidelity are terms scarcely less 
 familiar than the names of our household goods. And 
 yet, they ought never to have commanded the respect 
 of an interpretation. They are epithets, that Igno- 
 rance, long ago, maliciously appended to imaginary 
 offenses, against imaginary authority. 
 
 In the purest theological sense, the Grecian Socra- 
 tes, the probable prototype of the reputed author of 
 Christianity, was a heretic, in opposing, by the most 
 conclusive arguments, the settled superstitions of his 
 time and country. And if it were well, that he wag 
 sacrificed to the eyeless, conceited and obstinate ge- 
 nius of stability, whilst attempting to eradicate a mis- 
 chievous and senseless mythology; then it was justi- 
 fiable to crucify the reputed Son of God for attempting 
 a similar innovation. Nor should a reproach rest 
 upon the consistent obstinacy of the descendants of 
 Abraham, though they had really murdered the Savior 
 of the world. For it matters not, by whom good or 
 evil is perpetrated^ whether by demigod or diabolist, 
 
24 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 The visionary Plato, whose theological cogitations* 
 with very little revision, have been adopted by mora 
 than eighty generations, as the genuine oracles of Al- 
 mighty God, was also a heretic: And, as a disturbed 
 of the public peace — an innovator upon established 
 opinion, should have been early treated to a bowl of 
 the lethean beverage, which had already made his tu- 
 tor, Socrates, sleep so soundly, beneath a nation's au- 
 dible regret, for so mischievious and diabolical a 
 homicide. 
 
 Copernicus too, who brought forth from a chaos of 
 fallacies, an astronomical system, apparently too deep 
 for human cogitation; whereon he stood so far above 
 cotemporary humanity, that he must have seemed, at 
 that dark day, somewhat like an unearthly spirit, sent 
 down to put these vagrant worlds in order, was, for 
 this, condemned and excommunicated by the Romish 
 Church, as a heretic and vilifier of the word of God, 
 Nor did that Church acquire snfficient shame of its 
 former godliness, to annul its worse than Irish bull 
 against the philosopher, until 1821, or little less than 
 three hundred years. A very short time, indeed, for 
 Bigotry to relent, or Superstition to be enlightened. 
 Or, to utter a very plain truth, this almost superhu- 
 man philosopher, to whom the world is more deeply 
 indebted than any acknowledgment can reach, was 
 persecuted and finally outlawed, by a church, that ar- 
 rogated to itself both the wisdom and justice of God, 
 for propagating opinions, which are, at present, so 
 well and generally understood to be true, that an im- 
 pugner of them, would be a butt for childish ridicule. 
 
T8K0LOaiC.lL CRITICISM!. If 
 
 Did Galileo persist in scrutinizing Nature, until she 
 deigned to repay his importunity with disclosures, sba 
 bad hitherto denied to the most devoted of her admi- 
 rers? .Was not this incontinence to God, the Church 
 and Stability, a deeper heresy than common men 
 •ouid perpetrate? So thought the Church, and there- 
 fore ordered its inquisitors to torture out the culprit's 
 recantation, or his life! Did his firmness fail him, in 
 this desperate contest between his principles and his 
 fears? And did he yield, in base hypocrisy, to ths 
 elamor of the last, and humbly bend before the sym- 
 bol of a fiction, and forswear himself upon the repu- 
 ted oracles of God? And did shame for his duplicity 3 
 and compunction for what he deemed the basest sacri- 
 lege, goad up his manhood to a contradiction of his 
 oath, at the hazard of interminable imprisonment, to 
 which he was immediately sentenced? 
 
 And was it right that such men's and indeed any 
 men's opinions, that happened to be inappreciable by 
 the stupidity of the time, should subject them to 
 death, unlimited imprisonment or excommunication, 
 another name for outlawry, by which life was left at 
 the disposal of any bigoted, ferocious villain, who 
 should choose to take it? Then Paul and Stephen 
 met justice in their deaths, and all were bound to 
 sanction it with a hearty amen. Nor should a Zuin- 
 jlius, a Luther, a Calvin, a Knox, with interminable 
 and so forths, have escaped the hand of the execu- 
 tioner. And yet they lived to see the Romish Harlot 
 shorn of many of her most seductive fascinations, 
 and discarded by numerous, enthusiastic admirers: 
 
 S 
 
gg THBOLOGICAL CRITICISMSc 
 
 And finally, to bequeath their names to Protestant 
 Christendom, as objects of a superstitious and shame. 
 
 ful idolatry. 
 
 Thus much for the irresponsibility of opinion, and 
 the universal, reciprocal right, and .incalculable utilitj 
 of its promulgation. 
 
 The following remarks will be more particularly 
 appropriated to the questions oft he origin, and primi- 
 tive character, of man. 
 
 There are, of the present generation of men, nu- 
 merous, sincere worshipers of antiquity, and still 
 more, pious venerators of the fallacies of the oldea 
 cime; for whom I feel much more respect than for 
 the stupid fancies by which they are distinguished. 
 
 Numerous hypotheses have been instituted in expli- 
 cation of the origin of mankind, which have been 
 mostly stamped, not only, with a characteristic falli- 
 bility, but with the most palpable and disgraceful fa- 
 tuity. 
 
 That man originally vegetated, or sprang up spon- 
 taneously from the soil, deriving nourishment from 
 the earth, by means of fibrous appendages ot his toes 
 and fingers, until his progressive organism enabled 
 him to extricate himself from his maternal attach- 
 ments, and henceforth to commence a life of inde- 
 pendent, voluntary exertion, is a theory scarcely plau- 
 sible enough to secure its immediate and general 
 adoption. Nor is it much more plausible, that our 
 primitive ancestor was a chattering baboon, whom 
 progressive cultivation succeeded, at length, in trans- 
 forming to a human being. And, were it true, it 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 27 
 
 would nevertheless fail to afford a satisfactory solu- 
 tion of our problem. The same difficulty would rest 
 with the question, whence came the baboon * 
 
 And when we contemplate the Mosaic account of 
 the same phenomenon, in the light of modern philoso- 
 phy, it seems but little better than an unnatural aggre- 
 gation of uncomely protuberances, whose deformity 
 should not escape the superficial scrutiny of child- 
 hood. And however thankless, it may not be alto- 
 gether unprofitable, to spend a few criticisms upon 
 this very popular hypothesis. 
 
 The reader of the Mosaic account finds, that " in 
 the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." 
 Although this is a reputed specimen of divine revela- 
 tion, it would seem, that no extraordinary, human in- 
 genuity were required for the attainment of so sim- 
 ple a reflection. Fatuity itself would scarcely have 
 overlooked the necessity of the earth's existence, an- 
 tecedently to that of its products. This text might 
 therefore escape a formal criticism, but for its illegiti- 
 mate connexions, and a question it involves about 
 which the world has already expended a great deal of 
 uncandid altercation, viz., whether God created the 
 material of the world, or that he merely formed it out 
 of a material already existing? There would seem 
 to be nothing further required for the satisfactory dis- 
 posal of this question, than that the inquirer should 
 make an effort to attain the idea of something having 
 been made out of nothing; and that he shall cease hi* 
 importunity until he shall have succeeded in tho at- 
 tempt. 
 
tl TBEOLtMHCiX CftlTlCISlf*. 
 
 The connections referred to, demand a more serious 
 examination. Revelation declares, that " the eartb 
 was without form and void." And wherefore should 
 God have thus created it? Is it a plausible suggestion* 
 that God should have created a formless world, in or- 
 der to display his ingenuity in remodeling it? Thins 
 would hardly ba admitted as a specimen of ordinary,, 
 human wisdom. Is it not then a better interpretation* 
 of the text, that God formed, out of the materials al- 
 ready existing in a chaotic state, the system of things 
 as it at present exists? It certainly appears thus to 
 me. 
 
 Again. "And darkness was upon the face of th« 
 deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of 
 the waters." This being relieved of its tautology 
 would read thus. And darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep; and the spirit of God moved thereon: For 
 doubtless, in this text, deep and waters are synony- 
 mous terms. The purpose, for which the spirit of 
 God moved upon the face of the waters, seems not to 
 have been considered important, or not well under- 
 stood, by the revelator, else he would, most likely, 
 have noticed it. The expression may possibly con- 
 tain more poetry than truth; which however is quit* 
 unessential. 
 
 There appears to be no little difficulty in appre- 
 hending what waters were referred to in the text un- 
 der consideration, since the elements are represented 
 to have been in a state of chaos, or confusion, until 
 the second day, when " God said let there be a firma- 
 ment, in the raids* of the waters, and let it divid* tb* 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISM*. 19 
 
 waters from the waters," which was according]* 
 done; "and the waters which were under the firma- 
 ment were divided from those which were above tha 
 firmament." "And God called the firmament Heaven,™ 
 
 It may be well, here, to examine the facts referred 
 to in the foregoing quotation. And firstly of the fir- 
 mament, which divided the upper and nether watert, 
 and must, therefore have been a material partition 
 get up in the atmosphere, at a specific distance frons 
 the surface of the earth. 
 
 Ask of the children in the street, who have been a 
 dozen years under a kind and intelligent guardianship, 
 what they understand of the firmament, or sky, 
 and they will doubtless answer, that it is an imaginary 
 concavity, whose radius, or semi-diameter, is measured 
 by the extent of individual vision; and that it is, there- 
 fore, nothing but a mere distance in space, and that 
 too as different as is the capacity of different eye*. 
 Now if God made the firmament, such as we under- 
 stand it to be, he was certainly, for once, most un- 
 profitably employed; that is, in making nothing. 
 
 Again, it may be asked, what waters were above this 
 ideal firmament; and for what purpose were they re- 
 served? These same children would unhesitatingly 
 answer you, that there is no humidity of the atmos- 
 phere, at any hight, but what is derived from the wa- 
 ters of the earth by the process of evaporation; and 
 hence that the firmament, were it ever so real and 
 substantial, could not have been designed for the pur- 
 pose, the revelator has imputed to it; so that whatever 
 other knowledge Inspiration bad afforded him 8 it htd 
 
99 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 left him totally ignorant of the subjects of his revela- 
 tion. 
 
 We find that on the third day of creation, " God 
 •aid, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered 
 together, unto one place, and let the dry land appear." 
 "And God called the dry land earth; and the gather- 
 ing together of the waters called he seas." 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that gravitation is not a 
 principle inherent in matter, but was instituted for the 
 especial purpose of making water run down hill, in 
 order that it should be accumulated in the superficial 
 hollows of the earth. And with this principle also, 
 the revelator seems not to have been very well ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 This divine record also informs us that, upon th« 
 fourth day of creation, God made the sun, moon and 
 *tars, and set them in the firmament, to give light 
 upon the earth; to rule over the day and over the 
 night; and to divide the light from the darkness. 
 
 Criticism finds no lack of food in this relation, to 
 set its teeth upon. 
 
 We find in the commencement of creation, that 
 God created light, and that it was good; that he divi- 
 ded it from the darkness, and called the light day, and 
 the darkness night ; and that the evening and the 
 morning were the first day. Three days, therefore, 
 or as most, learned theologians will have it, three 
 epochs of a thousand years each, transpired before 
 these planetary luminaries were created. Now, it 
 would seem, since these were understood by infinite 
 wisdom to be indispensable to the system of which 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 31 
 
 the earth is a very insignificant component, that ho 
 would have practiced the economy of providing them 
 in season, to have answered his earliest purpose. And 
 to corroborate, this suggestion, it is proverbial that ths 
 strictest economy is observed in all the operations of 
 Nature. Hence the apparent singularity, that God 
 should have wasted a single effort of almighty power, 
 as the above circumstance would indicate. 
 
 Geological researches have already raised many se~ 
 irious doubts, amongst the educated, both clergy and 
 laity, whether these great. Mosaic, creative, terres- 
 trial phenomena, absolutely and successively trans- 
 pired, in the short space of one hundred and forty-four 
 hours, or six days; and therefore attempt to obviate 
 their embarrassment, by the futile, if not contempti- 
 ble, hypothesis, that those days were geological eras ? 
 or periods of, at least, a thousand years each. By 
 this expedient they have created a dilemma, that af- 
 fords the theological wiseacre, the amplest opportu- 
 nity, for the display of his sophistical jugglery. For, 
 consonant with this dogma, the whole vegetable king- 
 dom must not only have subsisted, during a thousand 
 years, without the invigorating, and at present indis- 
 pensable influence of sun-light, but without any light 
 at all, during the somewhat protracted night of five 
 hundred years. This is a bone for him to gnaw, 
 whose mental hunger has made him desperate. 
 
 I would be allowed a word more in addition to a 
 foregoing remark upon the firmament, which God 
 himself declared to be Heaven, or the revelator wag 
 grossly mistaken. For it is thus written, in the eighth 
 
M THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 
 
 verse of the first chapter of Genesis: "And God 
 called the firmament Heaven." This appears to be a 
 definition of heaven, that spiritualists have entirely 
 overlooked, or flagitiously neglected, in the construc- 
 tion of their systems; and apparently involves them 
 in an inextricable dilemma. 
 
 If Moses has not misrepresented God, nor God 
 misapprehended his subject, heaven is a nullity. For, 
 as has been already suggested, modern science La» 
 demonstrated the firmament to be only the termina- 
 tion of vision, in an unobstructed atmosphere. Henca 
 it should have constituted an article, in every creed 
 of spiritualism, that the only heaven God has reared, 
 is built of man's imagination. 
 
 Whenever the subject shall have been fairly exam- 
 ined, it may be reasonably anticipated, that the idea* 
 associated with heaven and hell, originated in a total 
 ignorance of astronomical facts. 
 
 During several thousand years of human history, 
 the earth was supposed to be circular, and as flat as a 
 trencher, but of very uncertain thickness; over which 
 was erected a substantial canopy or firmament, that 
 covered its upper or habitable surface, like a tent, of 
 which Josephus, the interpreter of the Jewish scrip- 
 tures, thus writes, more than half a century after th» 
 commencement of the Christian era : " He (God) 
 also placed a crystaline firmament round it, and put 
 it together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fit- 
 ted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording 
 the advantage of dews." This is an explicit avowal 
 of the opinion, that rains and dews were transmitted 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. S3 
 
 by the firmament, from a fountain of water sustained 
 upon its upper surface. And whilst you deem this 
 opinion too futile for grown-up children ever to have 
 adopted, let me tell you that it was no less judicious 
 than most of the philosophic opinions of the great 
 Lord Bacon, nearly sixteen hundred years after. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unavoidable admission of a 
 deep and gloomy cavern beneath the earth, it remained 
 entirely unappropriated, to any human purpose, until 
 the doctrine of spiritualism, or the soul's immortality 
 and accountability, was instituted in Greece, about 
 four hundred years before the Christian era, when it 
 was converted into a residence for the disembodied 
 spirits of unjust men, and denominated ades or hades, 
 in the English translation hell, and doubtless a cor- 
 ruption of the Hebrew hull, a word denoting infirmi- 
 ty, pain, misery, &e. 
 
 On the contrary, the imaginary region above the 
 firmament, was supposed to be constantly illuminated, 
 with an atmosphere of light and odor, especially 
 adapted to the felicity of God, and the spirits of just 
 men. 
 
 Now you have no difficulty in apprehending the en- 
 tire fallacy of these ancient opinions; nor the utter 
 absurdity of respecting, or even retaining, terms, 
 which science has rendered, not merely ambiguous, 
 but absolutely nugatory. 
 
 It has been long since demonstrated that, with re- 
 spect to the inhabitants of the earth, nothing is per- 
 manently above or below them; but every thing both, 
 in a series of diurnal succession. Hence the express- 
 
 4 
 
3 4 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ions, so familiar with Theology, Heaven above and 
 Hell beneath, possess too little meaning, to be at all 
 impaired by a direct transposition. 
 
 Again. "And God set them (the sun moon and 
 stars) in the firmament," &c. 
 
 It is unnecessary that you should be reminded of 
 the gross, astronomical ignorance, indicated by this 
 expression. You are aware that, as very accurately 
 computed, the distance of the sun from the earth is 
 ninety-five million of miles, nearly, and that the 
 moon, though nearest to the earth of any of the plan- 
 etary bodies, revolves at a mean distance of two hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven thousand miles. Now, to say 
 nothing of the distance of the fixed stars, which is 
 altogether too great for trigonometry to compute, it 
 must be a very transparent material, of which the 
 Mosaic firmament was composed, to transmit light, 
 with the splendor of the sun, a distance equal to that 
 between the sun and the moon's orbit, or forty-four 
 million seven hundred and sixty-three thousand miles. 
 And if it would take a ball, as fired from a cannon, 
 twenty-six years to reach the sun, and it is thus com- 
 puted, it would be a tedious time, in a drouth, before 
 we should be drenched from such a distance, beside 
 the danger to all living organism from the velocity a 
 rain-drop would have acquired in such a descent. 
 
 Omitting any further remarks upon the manner in 
 which the° human race was primitively introduced 
 upon the earth, a subject, upon which speculation 
 may, as abortively exhaust itself, as upon a literal 
 and substantial Trinity, we will pass on to the pnnci- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 55 
 
 pal subject of our discourse, or the primitive state of 
 man as revealed in the following text, Gen. 1. 57. 
 " So God created man in his own image: in the image 
 of God created he him; male and female created he 
 them." 
 
 Here the questions very forcibly obtrude themselves: 
 In what respect did man resemble his maker? Whether 
 in his physical, or intellectual character, or both? 
 
 If we admit the accuracy of the Mosaic account of 
 God, we are constrained to admit his very near re- 
 semblance to humanity, and that not of the most ex- 
 alted character. 
 
 That he was corporeal and organized, is most clear- 
 ly deducible from the physical phenomena it is said 
 he performed, such as seeing, hearing, talking, walk- 
 ing &c. And that his intellect resembled man's, is no 
 less clearly deducible, from numerous instances of its 
 imbecility, of which notice will be taken as they suc- 
 cessively occur. But if Adam and Eve, as they are 
 represented to have been at their creation, really re- 
 sembled God, his worship must be somewhat humili- 
 ating to rational creatures. 
 
 If we should forego our criticisms of the, appa- 
 rently, inevitable embarrassments, attending the ad- 
 mission that God is a physical being, which, most 
 certainly, with respect to the attribute of omnipres- 
 ence, must occasion, either from his bulk or bustle, 
 very serious inconvenieuce to the existence, or har- 
 mony, of his creation, and contemplate his intellectual 
 and moral character, as represented by our first pa- 
 rents, we can scacrely charge a dissent from his wor- 
 
S6 
 
 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ship, as an unpardonable sacrilege, or even an unrea- 
 sonable neglect. The innocence of the primitive pair 
 is made to depend upon their ignorance, which pro- 
 hibited their knowing good from evil. And yet they 
 were in possession of propensities, for whose direc- 
 tion, knowledge or instinct was indispensable, as the 
 reputed catastrophe sufficiently proves. Their curi^ 
 osity and credulity were also proportioned to their 
 innocence, whereby they were ruinously imposed up- 
 on by the misrepresentation of a snake. Now, you 
 would not, deliberately, recognize these, as consistent 
 attributes of a God, notwithstanding Hebrew igno- 
 rance shall have thus described them: You would 
 doubtless sooner distrust it as a fable; and as having 
 originated with some human egotist, who thought so 
 smartly of himself, that;, therefore, God would choose 
 to be like him. 
 \ Subsequently, we read, "And God said, Behold I 
 have given you every herb bearing seed, which is up- 
 
 ./ on the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which 
 is the fruit of a tree yielding seed> to you it shall be 
 for meat." Query. Did original transgression so 
 strangely modify the constitution and principle of 
 both animal and vegetable nature, that a thousand 
 
 >V 5 V articles designed for nutrition, should thus become 
 dangerous and fatal poisons? Or is it not more likely 
 ,»,to be a specimen of the ignorance of that early time? 
 With these very liberal criticisms of the first chap- 
 ter of Genesis, we will pass to the second, wherein 
 are several propositions, upon which a generous crit- 
 icism may be profitably exercised. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 37 
 
 
 And I hope you will think my claim to your indul- 
 gence justifiable, while I continue to examiue tha 
 Mosaic evidences of the primitive character of man, 
 that being our subject, and this its most popular his- 
 tory. 
 
 In the first verse, we read, " Thus the heavens and 
 the earth were finished," &c. Man having been 
 made as the last labor of the six day's creation, both 
 male and female. And in the second verse it is de- 
 clared that God rested from all his work of creation, 
 upon the seventh day, which he blessed and sancti- 
 fied. Hence it must be settled, if our text is true, 
 that nothing has been subseqently created. Omitting 
 all counter geological circumstances, the following 
 difficulty is-, nevertheless, to be in some manner obvi- 
 ated, in order to leave the subject as clear as divine 
 revelation ought to be. 
 
 We find it repeated in verse 7, That the Lord God 
 formed man of the dust of the ground &c, and that 
 he subsequently planted the garden of Eden; and took 
 the man and put him therein, to dress and keep it — 
 meanwhile prohibiting the eating of the tree of 
 knowledge of good and evil, which was equivalent to 
 saying, He should continue forever in his state of in- 
 fantile ignorance, or purchase knowledge at the ex- 
 pense of a terrible retribution. Or in other words, 
 that he should either be a fool or be damned. After 
 this, as in verse 19, God indulged his curiosity, by 
 bringing all the creatures he had made unto Adam to 
 $ee what he would call them. And Adam gave to 
 these many thousands their several appropriate names. 
 

 S3 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 And this ceremony of passing so many creatures in re- 
 view before Adam, must have occupied no little time. 
 
 The poor man was nevertheless thus far. a bachel- 
 or. And perhaps some suspicious persons may doubt 
 whether he did not afterwards repent, that he had not 
 continued so. After all this, however, God manufac- 
 tured Eve from one of Adam's ribs. The difficulty 
 therefore is in reconciling the fact of the entire crea- 
 tion having been accomplished in six days, including 
 man, both male and female, and yet that the first wo- 
 man was not made until a long time afterward, at 
 least until the eighth day, leaving a Sabbath interval, 
 or era, as modern theology will have it, of a thousand 
 years: By which time Adam could not have been at 
 all too young to marry, nor yet too little childish to 
 refrain. 
 
 Omitting several circumstances recorded in this 
 chapter, which are not particularly relevant to our 
 present subject, to which however I shall immediate- 
 ly recur, 1 will pass it, with a single remark upon the 
 last verse, which declares that they were both naked, 
 the man and his wife, and were not ashamed, show- 
 ing, conclusively, that modesty is not instinctive, but 
 merely social, or conventional, with our species. And 
 thus it seems to be with every moral virtue. Igno- 
 rance, although it may afford excuse for wrong, does 
 not insure, nor is itself, a virtue. But on the contrary 
 it may well be called the mother of all moral mis- 
 chief, as is clearly proved by the catastrophe it is said 
 to have early wrought with human nature. 
 
 We are told, in the commencement of the succeed- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 39 
 
 ing chapter, that the serpent was, not only, the most 
 subtle of the beasts, (a very singu ar classification of 
 the reptile) but that, (more singular still) he talked 
 familiarly in human dialect; and although truly one 
 of God's good creatures, 
 
 With infidel temerity, gave God the lie; 
 
 And swore that Eve might eat the fruit, nor surely die: 
 
 And thus succeeded with an ignorance and inexperi- 
 ence, that God must have, purposely, prepared for 
 the occasion, since omniscience could not have misap- 
 prehended the result, nor the circumstances upon 
 which it depended. It must have been a most singu- 
 lar state of things, when snakes knew more than 
 folks ! And yet the case was so, or this reputed reve- 
 lation is a fable. In either case my point is gained: 
 That is, to show the ignorance of primeval manhood; 
 which must have been extreme, if Moses told the * 
 truth. Or, if the story is a fable, it shows still more; 
 viz. That ages of observation, experience and human 
 intercourse were wasted upon our stupid race: For 
 surely the inconsistencies, fallacies and even absurdi- 
 ties of this Mosaic history, leave no room to doubt, 
 that the writer, in comparison with a common clown 
 of the present time, was verily a blockhead. And if, 
 meantime, the wisest of his species, no doubt his an- 
 cestors, and may be his cotemporaries, knew less than 
 snakes. 
 
 To corroborate this, apparently, severe remark, a 
 few brief additional references will be presented, in- 
 cluding some of the omissions we have made in chap- 
 ter second. 
 
40 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 In the third chapter and fourth verse, it is thus 
 •written: " And the serpent said unto the woman. Ye 
 shall not surely die." 
 
 Now, at the time, when the prohibition of the fruit 
 was communicated, (and we do not read that it ever 
 was repeated,) Eve was not abstracted from the costal 
 furniture of her intended spouse, and therefore must 
 hare learned of him, or the lying serpent, all she 
 knew of God's especial interdiction. 
 
 But suppose Adam to have been God's messenger 
 to his wife, of which, however, no hint is given, the 
 problem must have been still, with her, whether Ad- 
 am or the serpent told the truth. And if it were *>up- 
 posable, that Adam could, thus early, have abused 
 the confidence of his better half, as grossly as the 
 after custom has, too often, been, had Eve believed 
 the serpent, or the devil, sooner than her spouse, she 
 scarcely could have been culpable. 
 
 We find the following declaration, chap. 2. r. 5 & 
 6. " For the Lord God had not caused it to rain up- 
 on the earth, and there was not a man to till the 
 ground." But there went up a mist from the earth, 
 and watered the whole face of the ground." And 
 then God planted the garden of Eden, having, v. 7, 
 just formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into him the breath of life, &c. The earth 
 therefore had not been watered from the time that 
 the seas were formed, viz., at the beginning of the 
 third day, and at the close of which, vegetation had 
 occurred, " and God saw that it was good. Here the 
 question very naturally presents itself, How long had 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 41 
 
 this drouth continued antecedently to the mist above 
 referred to ? And how should vegetation have been 
 thence affected? Vegetation is declared to have oc- 
 curred upon the third day, or the same in which the 
 waters were drained from the more elevated portions 
 of the earth; and whereon the dry land first appeared 
 after its creation. Now if the mist occurred, as it 
 seems to have done, to promote vegetation in the 
 garden where Adam was to be immediately placed, it 
 must have been upon, or after, the sixth day of crea- 
 tion. And one of the two interpretations must be 
 admitted as applicable to this strange relation. Ei- 
 their this interval consisted, according to any plausi- 
 ble interpretation, of some three revolutions of the 
 earth upon its axis, or about 72 hours, or of three 
 geological eras of a thousand years each, which cer- 
 tainly would be no slight consideration in the case in 
 question. For admitting that God made the earth 
 out of nothing, it seems to have consisted of a mis- 
 cellaneous admixture of its constituent elements du- 
 ring one or two of these periodical revolutions at 
 least, and was entirely covered with water until the 
 third, leaving, as above remarked, three other revo- 
 lutions, up to the creation of man. Now if these 
 revolutions, days or epoehs, consisted of twenty^four 
 hours each, or seventy-two in the whole, the earth 
 having been so lately and thoroughly drenched, could 
 scarcely suffer from a drouth so soon, nor other than 
 aquatic vegetables thrive lustily. And on the other 
 hand, if those eras were each a thousand years, and 
 
 5 
 
42 THEOLOGICAL CBITICISMS. 
 
 a drouth had lasted during three of them, it seems a 
 moisture would have been difficultly raised from such 
 a parched and desert surface. 
 
 And then, a moisture taken from the earth, could 
 do no more by its return, than to supply the loss it 
 must have first occasioned. And, if this proceai 
 were necessary in Eden, already watered by th. 
 sources of four of the larges^rivers in the world, a 
 general barrenness must have destructively prevailed; 
 and have rendered a new creation indispensable, un- 
 less Nature were possessed of the power of procre- 
 ation, which seems to be clearly though strangely in- 
 sinuated in the fifth verse of the chapter we are con- 
 sidering; and upon which we shall hereafter more 
 particularly remark. 
 
 " And a river went out of Eden, to water the gar- 
 den; and from thence it parted and became into four 
 beads." Here we find ourselves embarrassed by th* 
 following queries. If the river went out of Eden, to 
 water the garden, could the garden, nevertheless, 
 have been in Eden, as it is declared to have been, in 
 a preceding verse of the same chapter? And if not, 
 at what distance and in what country east of that 
 imaginary one, denominated Eden, was it most likely 
 situated?' Or was it located only in the imagination 
 of the writer? And again. How are we to under- 
 stand the declaration, that the river of Eden parted 
 into four heads as it passed onward, consistently with 
 ©ur present notions of that subject? It is certainly, 
 bo ordinary occurrence, that a stream should divid* 
 itself into four larger ones, which this must har« 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 43 
 
 done, if there is any meaning to the reputed revela- 
 tion. The only rivers to which this text can have 
 any consistent allusion, are the Euphrates and Tigris, 
 nor dp they form a junction until one of them has 
 traversed a distance of nearly fourteen hundred 
 miles. At this junction, however, theologians hav« 
 thought fit to place the fictitious Eden, together with 
 the two additional, fictitious rivers. 
 
 It may not be amiss, to enquire also, how it hap- 
 pened that Eve, in her reputed ignorance, should 
 have so highly appreciated the knowledge of good 
 and evil, or that Gods were happier than men, as that 
 it should have become a motive to such preposterous 
 disobedience. And the serpent not having told her, 
 that wisdom was worth possessing, how very singular 
 that she should have had a desire for it! 
 
 But the fruit was eaten, and their eyes were opened 
 to a recognition of their nakedness. And wherefore? 
 Was it because the nakedness, in which God had 
 placed them, was an evil, a sin, or shame? Then it 
 seems that God should have earlier supplied them 
 with garments of skins, from his own manufactory, 
 as we are informed he afterwards did, when they 
 had, however, already learned to manufacture for 
 themselves, and were therefore in less need of his as- 
 sistance. Another query very naturally arises: — , 
 Whether the formal communication between God and 
 his creatures, was consistent with any rational idea of 
 the Creator of the Universe? Or was it not rather * 
 indicative of human childishness; or, at least, an ig- 
 norance of which children should now be ashamed? 
 
 
44 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 In the curse pronounced upon the serpent, there is 
 a problem of no very easy solution, viz: What sort 
 of locomotion did the serpent perforin; and by what 
 sort of apparatus was it effected, previous to the exe- 
 cution of the curse? And wherefore, was the serpent 
 cursed, for saying what he could not have known was 
 false, unless he were omniscient, or most unreasona- 
 bly familiar with his maker for such a lying, traitor- 
 ous reprobate. But what would seem the oddest part 
 of this most singular narration is, that this infernal 
 reptile, having much more wit than man, and hence 
 much more responsibility, and having also most dia- 
 bolically seduced God's favorites, to a willful disobe- 
 dience of his positive command, and thus transferred 
 his only hope and heritage, interminably, to the devil, 
 should have been merely sentenced to that peculiar 
 mode of locomotion, to which his organism had al- 
 ready inevitably doomed him; and that he should 
 thenceforth subsist, exclusively, upon a diet which he 
 has never eaten, but which was anciently believed to 
 be mostly, if not entirely, the creature's subsistence: 
 And had the writer of the revelation known, that 
 snakes have none, or moveless eyelids, he would, 
 doubtless, have made their winkless eyes an item of 
 the curse. 
 
 We see that this transgression wrought strangely 
 with both the Deity and his works, eliciting a curse, 
 that changed the state and character of creation. 
 Why not indulge the query then, wherefore God 
 should not have hindered the transgression, apparent- 
 ly eo easily performed, rather than have wasted so 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 45 
 
 much almighty skill, in remodeling his affairs, and in 
 finally obviating, at the halves, the eternal consequen- 
 ces of one poor, ignorant man's delinquency? 
 
 It seems to have been no small mistake of the di- 
 vine revelator, that he contemplated labor as a curse; 
 whilst it doubtless contributes, aside from its pecuni- 
 ary attainments, much more than all things else, to 
 human health and happiness. The very necessity 
 too, which the fall is said to have engendered, is the 
 sole circumstance, upon which the development of 
 man's physical and intellectual energies depend. But 
 for this, he would never have emerged from the le- 
 tfaean stupidity — the slough of barbarism, in which 
 he must have been originally immersed. 
 
 "And the Lord God said, Behold the man is be- 
 come as one of us, to know good and evil." In this 
 particular therefore, man was not made in the like- 
 ness of God; but, by a most heinous transgress- 
 ion, he unluckily attained it. And lest he should par- 
 take of the tree of life &c. he was driven out of the 
 garden, whose entrance was subsequently defended 
 by a much more miraculous process, than to have cor- 
 rupted the fruit, and blasted the tree, for which the 
 miracle was instituted. 
 
 Thus have I adverted to some of the evidences af- 
 forded by the three first chapters of the Pentateuch, 
 of the characteristic ignorance and imbecility of the 
 early specimens of our race. Nor should it be 
 deemed discourteous, that Josephus calls his ancient 
 brethren savages. For so, without a doubt, they 
 were; nor thus unlike all human nature, unwhipped, 
 unschooled by long, calamitous experience. 
 
46 THEOLOGICAL CUITICISMS. 
 
 I am aware, that the slight criticisms I have mad® 
 upon the Bible, will work my serious disparagement, 
 with all its superstitious votaries, who shall have 
 learned the fact. And yet I have the temerity to pur- 
 sue and propagate them, carefully and fearlessly to 
 the last recorded fantasm of the Christian revelator: 
 And for the sole purpose of eliciting and reciproca- 
 ting truth and its legitimate deductions, upon a sub- 
 ject which hitherto, has seemed to cost a great deal 
 more than it has been worth. In this however I 
 know my liability to mistake; and will therefore in- 
 vite all counter criticism, and make my frank ac- 
 knowledgment, for every fallacy my opponent shalJ 
 detect me in. Nor should he, with all his faith ia 
 revelation, be frightened at a snarling human criti- 
 cism; but breathe with still more freedom, as he feel» 
 that truth will thus be more clearly and abundantly 
 elicited. If God or Nature owns theology as true,, 
 imbecile man will no less vainly, seek its controver- 
 sion, than he will his own best good in practicing li- 
 centiousness. And if it is a fiction, however brilliant- 
 ly illusive in the gloom, it will, nevertheless, like an 
 ignis faluuSj allure its votary from the plain, direct 
 and safe highway, wherein right reason charges man 
 to prosecute his earthly journey, and leave him to in- 
 numerable annoyances, he might otherwise avoid. 
 
 Had our race pursued, for eighteen hundred years, 
 a fearless, vigilant and unprejudiced search for the 
 truths of Nature, instead of spiritual phantoms, it 
 might now, with some good show of plausibility deny 
 its reputed primicve consanguinity with the ape. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE AND PROGRESSIVE CHARACTER OP MAW, 
 
 Not having had sufficient opportunity, upon a for- 
 mer occasion, to finish my remarks, upon the primi- 
 tive character of man, which I had adopted as th» 
 subject of my discourse, I am constrained, at this 
 time, to solicit your attention to a few additional ones. 
 
 History, both sacred and profane, explicitly declares 
 the primitive state of man, whenever and wherever 
 he has been thus found, to have been one of degraded, 
 savage ignorance and ferocity. Nor could it hare 
 been otherwise, unless he were, once, supernaturallj 
 endowed with what he now acquires by study and 
 experience. And this is a subject, we hope to live, 
 hereafter, to discuss. 
 
 la addition to the testimony afforded us, by naviga- 
 tors, travelers and missionaries, from the renowned 
 Christopher Columbus downward, of the ignorance, 
 bnrbarism, and even cannibalism of the natives of 
 our own continent, and of the numerous islands of the 
 Pacific ocean, which ought to afford satisfactory cor- 
 roboration of our remark, we have abundant other, 
 
48 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 more ancient and perhaps more satisfactory historical 
 evidence, that we can conveniently adduce, to the 
 same point. 
 
 England, or more anciently, Britain, or Albion, 
 when first visited by the Romans, about half a centu- 
 ry before the Christian era, was inhabited by a race 
 of savages, either naked, or but partly clothed with 
 the skins of beasts, the earliest kind of covering, next 
 to fig-leaves, ever adopted by our species, and in the 
 case of our first parents, as has been before alluded 
 to, manufactured by God himself, they being known, 
 or supposed to be, incapable of doing it themselves. 
 These savage islanders were divided into numerous 
 petty tribes, each being governed by a chief of its 
 own electing, under whose direction they were, more 
 or less of them, almost unremittingly engaged in fero- 
 cious and exterminating conflicts. They were hunt- 
 ers, or roving herdsmen, without any knowledge of 
 agriculture; and debased by the most absurd and 
 Druidical superstition; in whose rites, scores of hu- 
 man beings were offered at a time, in their diabolical 
 sacrifice to an imaginary God. And these pagan, un- 
 clad deer-hunters — these literal eannibals of nineteen 
 hundred years ago, were the lineal ancestors of the 
 present demigods of the cliff-bound isle, whose litera- 
 ry fallacies we are fain to mouth; and whose fashion- 
 able absurdities we aspire to imitate. Nor does his- 
 tory speak better of the early character of their con- 
 tinental neighbors, than of themselves. And that, 
 even, God's reputed favorites, the Jews, were once 
 in the same predicament, as other uncultivated sava- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS* 49 
 
 gea, is evident, not only from the testimony of th« 
 Jewish historian, but from the infallible source of di- 
 vine revelation, wherein we find, that they, though 
 under God's especial guidance and instruction, were 
 no less Pagans, Polytheists, and detestable desecrator» 
 of both Reason and Justice, in the particular of hu- 
 man sacrifice, than any of those Gentile infidels, 
 whom God so deeply cursed for Hebrew benefit. Did 
 not Rachel steal her father's household gods, and sub- 
 sequently escape detection, by a much less honest 
 than ingenious artifice, although that would scarcely 
 have succeeded with a Catholic inquisitor? Did not 
 the idolatry of his brethren so enrage the godly leader 
 of the Jewish Exodus, that he brake the graven ta- 
 blets of his God; nor knew, that such an invaluable 
 bequest would be repeated. Does not each Hebrew- 
 record, from Genesis to Chronicles, inclusive, declare 
 idolatry to have been the crying, and almost unremit- 
 ted sin of God's elected nation, for more than eleven 
 hundred years? The Hebrews, then, form no ex- 
 ception to the rule, that savages are idolaters. And 
 have you heard it from the sacred desk, as all, most 
 surely, should have done; nor so seldom either, as 
 that it shall have been forgotten, that thi3 peculiar, 
 pious people believed that God was pleased with hu- 
 man sacrifice, a sign of deepest moral degradation? 
 However careful Theology has been to let this ques- 
 tion rest, without a comment, or a breath so free, a# 
 tbat it might awake the sleeping dragon, there stand* 
 a witness of its own, amidst its treasured oracles, 
 that says, emphatically, the thing is true! "Nono 
 
 e 
 
50 
 
 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 devoted," (for sacrifice) "which shail be devoted of 
 men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to 
 death." Thus we find, that one of the ordinances 
 that God imposed upon the Levites, or holy priest- 
 hood, was to sacrifice human beings under certain cir- 
 cumstances, without the right of redemption at any 
 rate whatever. And if corroboration is demanded, 
 we will refer you to the fulfillment of Jeptha's vow, 
 in which he promised the Lord, if he succeeded in 
 his invasion of the Ammonites, that whatsoever came 
 forth of the doors of his house to meet him, on his 
 return, should be consecrated to Him, and offered up 
 for a burnt offering. We think that Incredulity it- 
 self, would be ashamed to demand further corrobora- 
 tion of the truth of our remark. And to leave no 
 doubt of a Hebrew Polytheism, or that religion which 
 includes a catalogue of inferior deities, or subordinate 
 gods, you have only to avail yourselves of a single 
 fact, viz: That their language includes a nomencla- 
 ture, of the kind in question, amongst which are the 
 following: Elihoreph, God of winter or of youth; 
 Eliashib, God of conversion; Elijah, God of strength; 
 Eliphalet, God of deliverance; Elisha, God of salva- 
 tion; Elishah, God of help; Elmodam, God of mea- 
 sure; Ishmael, God that hears; Tabeal, God of good- 
 ness; Uriel, God of fire. Again we have the follow- 
 ing, wherein father is synonymous with God, viz: 
 Abidah, Father of knowledge; Abidan, Father of 
 judgment; Abiezer, Father of help; Abihail, Father 
 of strength; Abijam, Father of the sea; Abilene, 
 Father of mourning, or of grief; Abinadab, Fatbei 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 51 
 
 ©f willingness; Abiuoam, Father of beauty; Abisha- 
 lom, Father of Peace; Abishua, Father of salvation; 
 Abishnr, Father of uprightness; Abital, Father of 
 the dew; Abitub, leather of goodness; Abiud, Father 
 of praise; Abner, Father of light; Absalom, Father 
 of Peace. Again, Baal-perazim, God of divisions; 
 Baal-zebub, God of the fly, &c. 
 
 Here we close our evidence of the primitive barba- 
 rism of the human race, which we think should be 
 satisfactorily received by any candid enquirer, 
 " The proper study of mankind, is man!" 
 
 So wrote the poetic philosopher, Alexander Pop©, 
 whose works have successfully defied the most labo- 
 rious attempts at emulation, for more than a hundred 
 years. And yet we venture to suggest, that the study 
 of man would be too limited and monotomous to com- 
 pensate the trouble of its prosecution, were it not as- 
 oociated with that of other numerous phenomena, 
 with which he stands in a more or less intimate rela- 
 tion. The proper study of mankind seems, there- 
 fore, that of the phenomena of nature, where man 
 belongs, and where he rightfully claims precedence. 
 Nature is to be contemplated, a3 a magnificent 
 Work-shop, wherein a few primitive principles ar« 
 enabled, by indefinite modification, to produce the in- 
 numerable, and interminably diversified phenomena 
 of the material world; which phenomena in the char- 
 acter of so many transformations of the matter of ths 
 universe, clearly illustrate, that its parts are in a per- 
 petual state of action and reaction upon each other, 
 And, strange as it may appear, it is becoming a que*. 
 
5£ THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tiem of no inconsiderable interest and plausibility, 
 among the simplifiers of science, whether electricity, 
 variously modified by successive and peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, is not the exclusive principle, upon which 
 all the phenomena, or changes of Nature, depend. It 
 would be, doubtless, premature, however, to settle 
 this question either way, at present. At any rate, 
 corroborative facts ought to be much more abundantly 
 accumulated, before the affirmative of this proposi- 
 tion can be safely adopted, as a valid corollary of 
 physical science. 
 
 It is true that Nature, with all her infinitude of re- 
 sources, is, nevertheless, economical of her princi- 
 ples and expenditures; squandering nothing by in- 
 adaptness, inadequacy, or superfluous multiplication 
 of causes: And whatever number of laws she has in- 
 stituted, their simplicity has been a subject of agreea- 
 ble surprise, to all who have, fortunately discovered 
 them. 
 
 As spectators of Nature's phenomena, our vision 
 with all its artificial aid, is comparatively limited to 
 a mere point; and yet that point is much too pregnant 
 with variety, for man's successful inquisition. For 
 what is all our pictured firmament, though its radius 
 were measured by a Herschel's telescope, compared 
 with worlds interminably piled on worlds? And then 
 again, each drop, of yon transparent, rippling brook, 
 though but a mimic world, is, notwithstanding, 
 crowded with a countless, living population that de- 
 fies no less our vulgar scrutiny, than does the nature 
 cf the laws that formed it. 
 
, THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. M 
 
 What then, must be the insignificance of individual, 
 yea of aggregate, humanity, in attempting to direct 
 or modify the phenomena of an infinite creation, or 
 oven to apprehend the intrinsic character of the laws 
 that govern them? 
 
 Human imbecility is more than proverbial, when- 
 ever it is employed upon a sul ject as magnificent as 
 Nature's greatest, or as intricate as her minutest pro- 
 ducts. Nor less than thus, whenever it would invade 
 the recess of ultimate causality. 
 
 But it would seem, that Nature intended to com- 
 pensate for the barrenness of our discrimination, by 
 the fertility of our imaginations; thereby enabling us, 
 with all desired facility, to transport ourselves, from 
 this matter-of-fact world of disagreeable realities, to 
 an imaginary one, fruitful of the happiest fictions. 
 
 However imbecile are the human powers, or how- 
 ever circumscribed is the theater of human enterprise, 
 there are, nevertheless, many circumstances, with 
 which man may, and should, become acquainted: Nor 
 are they rendered unimportant, by an insignificance 
 disproportioned to his own. They are well adapted 
 to his situation and capacity: Nor has Nature or- 
 dained a phenomenon, that is not emphatically great, 
 to little man. Yes; so great is the least, that Nature 
 ever deigned to present, that it is intrinsically, and in 
 its ultimatum, as incomprehensible as infinity itself. 
 It is not, therefore, with ultimate principles nor pri- 
 mary states of matter, that human cognizance has to 
 do: They are indefinitely removed beyond the limits 
 of finite scrutiny; and are known only as deductions 
 
54 •JHEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 from secondary phenomena: And these are the cir- 
 cumstances that occupy exclusively, the whole field 
 of human observation; and constitute the only mate- 
 rials of human knowledge. 
 
 All genuine science, therefore, consists in a knowl- 
 edge of specific and comparative facts, and inference* 
 legitimately deduced therefrom; and hence can be ac- 
 quired in no other manner, than by observation and 
 reflection. Nor can the latter be exercised, but upon 
 the materials already provided by the former. And 
 in this circumstance is to be formed a solution of the 
 problem of the tardy progress of intellectual im- 
 provement. Nothing promises greater indulgence of 
 human curiosity than literary antiquarianism; nor 
 anything more gratifying to the literary speculator, 
 than a concise, but judiciously compiled history of 
 the progress of human knowledge from its primitive 
 barbarism to its highest, present elevation : Nor 
 should it be doubted, that a competent genius could 
 not be more usefully and profitably employed, than 
 upon such an enterprise. And you will permit me to 
 express my regret, at the want of both talents and 
 opportunity, to afford you more than a few miscella- 
 neous hints upon this voluminous and interesting sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Whatever vacillation science may have suffered 
 during several thousand years, or however differently 
 It may have advanced with different nations, and at 
 different times, it is not deducible from any authentic, 
 historical record, that it had ever attained a higher 
 elevation than at the time, and by the contributions of 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 55 
 
 the proverbially great Sir Francis Bacon, whose tirn« 
 commenced the era of renovated science — the resusci- 
 tation of a long smothered genius, that Bigotry had 
 hitherto, for sixteen hundred years, securely immersed 
 in the Stygian element, until its long unstruggling si- 
 lence, attested to its dissolution. And Superstition, 
 Bigotry and the Church, blessed the God of obsti- 
 nate, ignorant Stability for so great and happy a de- 
 liverance. But their joy was turned to sorrowing, 
 when they found that Genius had been only sleeping. 
 
 Whatever we may be called to do upon another oc- 
 casion, we will confine our remarks, at present, to 
 the question of comparative difference between the 
 present state of natural, or physical science, and that 
 of the time of Lord Bacon, of whom you have all 
 heard much and often. He has been represented, and 
 no doubt truly, as the wonder and disgrace of hie 
 age — the precocious philosopher, who in the sixteenth 
 year of his childhood, ventured upon the invalidation 
 of the fallacies of the Aristotjian philosophy, which 
 for near two thousand years, had held unqualified 
 dominion over the scientific opinions of mankind — a 
 literary Hercules, who had the temerity to beard th« 
 peripatetic Lion in his den — the man of universal ge- 
 nius, and indefatigable industry, who wrote volumi- 
 nously upon history, law, medicine, theology, physi- 
 cal and metaphysical philosophy, geology, mineralo- 
 gy, agriculture, horticulture, witchcraft and magic. 
 
 And here we stop, to introduce, to your notice, a 
 few specimens of this intellectual prodigy, of the 
 ©Iden time. 
 
56 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Speaking of the spontaneous elimination of salt, 
 from sea-water, he says, vol. 1, p 240, of his works, 
 In 10 vols., London, 1800, that he has little doubt, 
 "that the very dashing of the water thatcometh from 
 the sea, is more proper to strike off the salt part, than 
 when the water slideth of its own motion." This 
 specimen affords indubitable evidence, that the great 
 Lord Bacon was totally ignorant of the solvency and 
 vaporability of water. He appears not to have 
 known, that sea-water is but fresh-water holding in 
 solution more or less common-salt, or muriate of eo- 
 da; which is elimenated by the evaporation of the 
 solvent, and aggregated, into more or less perfect cubic 
 crystals. But this is knowledge, so familiar to all of 
 you, that, were not the fact most voraciously record- 
 ed, you would seriously doubt, that a learned man of 
 any period, could have been so grossly ignorant. 
 Again, on the same page, speaking of the percolation 
 of water and other liquids, through cloth, sand and 
 wood, as being good strainers &.c, he says: "The 
 gum of trees, which we see to be commonly shining 
 and clear, is but a fine passage, or straining of the 
 juice of the tree, through the wood and bark; and in 
 like manner, cornish diamonds, and rock rubies, 
 which are yet more resplendent than gums, are the 
 fine exudations of stone." 
 
 What backwoodsman — what aboriginal forester 
 could have displayed a profo under ignorance, upon 
 these subjects, than has this great scholar of the sev- 
 enteenth century ? Did he know, as children now do, 
 that vegetable gums are the product of glandular 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 57 
 
 secretion in vegetables, no less than gall and urine 
 aro in animals; or that crystals cannot result from the 
 percolation of sap or other liquid through an imper- 
 meable, inorganic rock? And these were the very 
 gems of science, when Sir Francis Bacon was a prodi- 
 gy of learning. 
 
 I am aware, that I ought not to waste this opportu- 
 nity in quoting nonsense, even, from the highest au- 
 thority; but I cannot resist the temptation, to present 
 you with a few more specimens from this fountain of 
 literary absurdity, which was, for a long time, es- 
 teemed the quintessence of abstract philosophy. 
 
 Upon the subject of temperature, my Lord Bacon 
 says, p 270, - The producing of cold is very worthy 
 the inquisition, both for the use, and disclosure of 
 causes: For heat and cold are Nature's two hands, 
 whereby she chiefly worketb; and heat we have, in 
 readiness, in respect of the fire; but for cold, w 
 must stay till it cometh, or seek it in deep caves, o 
 upon high mountains: And when all is done, we can 
 not obtain it, in any great degree; for furnaces of fire 
 are far hotter than a summer's sun; but vaults or hills 
 are not much colder than a winter's frost." And of 
 the means of producing cold, « the first is that which 
 Nature presenteth us withal: viz. the expiring of cold 
 out of the inward parts of the earth, in winter, when 
 the sun hath no power to overcome it; the earth be- 
 ing, as hath been said by some, primum frigidum » 
 or originally cold. - The second cause of cold is the 
 contact of cold bodies; for cold is active and transi- 
 tive, into bodies adjacent, as well as heat, which is 
 
 7 
 
 we 
 r 
 
 e 
 
SB THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 seen, in those things, that are touched with snow or 
 cold water. The third cause is the primary nature 
 of all tangible bodies; for it is well to be noted, that 
 all things, whatsoever,, tangible, are of themselves 
 cold, except they have an accessory heat, by fire, life 
 or motion: For even the spirit of wine, or chemical 
 oils, which are so hot in operation, are to the first 
 touch cold. The fourth cause is the density of the 
 body; for all dense bodies are colder than most other 
 bodies, as metals, stone, glass; and they are longer in 
 heating than softer bodies. And it is certain, that 
 earths dense, tangible hold all the nature of cold. 
 The cause is, for that all matters tangible being cold, 
 it must needs follow, that when the matter is most 
 congregate, the cold is the greater. The fifth cause 
 of cold, or rather of increase and vehemency of cold 
 is a quick spirit, inclosed in a cold body; as will ap- 
 pear to any, that shall attentively consider of nature, 
 in many instances. We see nitre, which hath a quick 
 spirit, is cold, more cold to the tongue, than stone; 
 so water is colder than oil, because it hath a quicker 
 spirit — and snow is colder than water, because it hath 
 more spirit within it. So we see, that salt put to ice, 
 as in the producing of artificial ice, increaseth the ac- 
 tivity of cold. So some insects which have spirit of 
 life, as snakes and silkworms, are, to the touch, cold; 
 so quicksilver, (or metallic mercury,) is the coldest 
 of metals, because it is fullest of spirit. The sixth 
 cause of cold is the chasing and driving away of 
 spirits, such as have some degree of heat; for the 
 banishing of the heat must needs leave any body cold. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 59 
 
 This we see, in the operation of opium and stupe- 
 factives, upon the spirits of living creatures; and it 
 were not amiss, to try opium, by laying it upon the 
 top of a weather-glass, to see whether it will contract 
 the air: But I doubt it will not succeed; for beside 
 that the virtue of opium will hardly penetrate, through 
 such a body as glass, I conceive that opium and the 
 like, make the spirits fly rather by malignity, than by 
 cold." Seventhly and lastly, he says, " the same ef- 
 fect must follow upon the exhaling, or drawing out 
 of the warm spirits, that doth upon the flight of the 
 spirits. There is an opinion, that the moon is mag- 
 netical of heat, as the sun is of cold and moisture: It 
 were not amiss, therefore, to try it with warm waters; 
 the one exposed to the beams of the moon; the other 
 with some screen betwixt; and see whether the former 
 will cool sooner. 5 ' 
 
 It should be entirely unnecessary for me to point 
 out, to you-, the fallacies of this long quotation. It is 
 altogether impossible, that any of you, for whom this 
 discourse was prepared, shall misapprehend them. 
 You cannot have evaded the conclusion, that this 
 great author was childishly ignorant of the nature of 
 heat, or caloric, and of the laws, by which its phe- 
 nomena are governed. And are you not equally im- 
 pressed with the discrepancy and imbecility of his 
 misinterpretations ? 
 
 You have not forgotten, that his fifth cause of cold 
 is a " spirit, enclosed in a cold body," and that he in- 
 stances the cold of nitre, or nitrate of potash, com- 
 monly called salt-petrre, in the process of solution 
 
60 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 upon the tongue, in confirmation. How clearly this 
 example illustrates his ignorance of a principle, that 
 chemistry has long since elucidated, viz., that the 
 transformation of a solid, to a liquid, is invariably at- 
 tended with the reduction of sensible caloric, which 
 seems to have been absorbed and appropriated, as an 
 indispensable constituent of the material, in its state 
 of transformation; and in this state, wherein it is in- 
 capable of affecting the thermometer, or of being de- 
 tected by the touch, it is denominated latent heat; of 
 which, it is little less than discourtesy, that I should 
 say, it must, necessarily, be derived from the sur- 
 rounding bodies, and, therefore, in the case in ques- 
 tion, from the tongue itself, thereby reducing the 
 temperature, and consequently occasioning the sensa- 
 tion of cold. Nor can you have overlooked the sur- 
 prising inconsistency of an immediately subsequent 
 remark, in which he declares the sixth cause of cold 
 to be "the chasing and driving away of spirits, such 
 as have some degree of heat." What a farrago of 
 nonsense have we here. A body cold, from the en- 
 dowment of a cold spirit — rendered still colder by the 
 abduction of a hot one, between which, there should 
 have been represented an energetic contest for maste- 
 ry; and this would have afforded a single cause of 
 heat, altogether more plausible and efficient, than any 
 he has propounded for the production of either heat 
 or cold. He seems to have known nothing of the ra- 
 diation, reflection, or conduction of heat; or his in- 
 terpretations of cold (which, by the by, is nothing 
 but the negation of heat,) would not have been char- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 61 
 
 actcrized by an irrecoverable decrepitude, with which. 
 even, crutches are unavailable. Natural Philosophy 
 was certainly in its infancy, when it recognized cold, 
 as one of the accive agencies of Nature! 
 
 A few moments further encroachment upon your pa- 
 tience will have ended my quotations, for the present. 
 
 Of the transmutation of bodies, or the changing of 
 one substance into another, our philosopher says, p 
 275, " It is very probable, as hath been touched, that 
 that which will turn water into ice, will, likewise, 
 turn air, some degree nearer, into water: Therefore, 
 try the experiment of the artificial turning water inio 
 ice, whereof we shall speak, in another place, with 
 air in place of water, and the ice about it. And 
 though it be a greater alteration, to turn air into wa- 
 ter, than water into ice, yet there is this hope, that, 
 by continuing the air longer time, the effect will fol- 
 low." 
 
 Lord Bacon's geological notion? are quite too ab- 
 surdly curious to be entirely omitted in these quota- 
 tions. He says, of the induration of bodies, "The 
 examples, taking them, promiscuously, are many, as 
 the generation of stones within the earth, which, at 
 the first, are but rude earth, or clay; and so minerals, 
 which come, no doubt, at first of juices concrete, 
 which afterwards indurate ; also the exudation of 
 rock diamonds and crystal, which harden with time." 
 " For indurations by cold, there be few trials of it; 
 for we have no strong or intense cold here, on the 
 surface of the earth, so near the beams of the sun 
 and the heavens. The likeliest trial is by snow and 
 
62 THEOLOGICAL CKITIClSMS. 
 
 ice; for as snow and ice, especially being holpen, and 
 their cold activated by nitre or salt, will turn water 
 into ice, and that in a few hours; so it may be, it will 
 turn wood or stiff clay into stone, in longer time." 
 How very different is this solution from the modern 
 geological one, viz., that earth is formed by the dis- 
 gregation, or decay, of rocks, which detritus or sand 
 being washed down from elevated positions, into the 
 depressions or excavations of the earth's surface, are 
 there subjected to the combined influence of pressure 
 and volcanic heat, whereby they are again consolida- 
 ted into primitive, solid rock, which, being subse- 
 quently elevated by the same volcanic power, be- 
 comes once more the subject of another revolution. 
 Nor did the English philosopher, appear to have, 
 even, dreamed, that the stones and pebbles, he refers 
 to, were once aggregate portions of mountain rock, 
 which had been wrought into their present character 
 by the tireless operation of time and the elements. 
 
 Of making gold, by transmutation, this philosopher 
 says: cc The world hath been much abused by the 
 opinion of making gold: The work itself I judge to L 
 possible; but the means hitherto propounded to effect 
 it are, in the practice, full of error and imposture; 
 and, in the theory, full of unsound imaginations." 
 In the mean time, by occasion of handling the ax- 
 ioms, touching maturation, we will direct a trial 
 touching the maturing of metals, and thereby turning 
 some of them into gold; for we conceive indeed, that 
 a perfect good concoction, or digestion, or maturation 
 of some metals, will produce gold." And here fol- 
 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 63 
 
 lows his recipe, for that invaluable purpose, viz. 
 " Let there be a small furnace made of a temperate 
 heat; let the heat be such, as may keep the metal per- 
 petually molten, and no more; for that, above all, 
 purporteth to the work. For the material, take sil- 
 ver, which is the metal that, in nature, symbolizeth 
 most with gold; put in also with the silver, a tenth 
 part of quicksilver, and a twelfth part of nitre, by 
 weight; both these to quicken and open the body of 
 the metal; and so let the work be continued, by the 
 space of six months, at the least. I wish also that 
 there be at some times, an injection of some oiled 
 substance, such as they use in the recovering of gold, 
 which, by vexing with separations, hath been made 
 churlish; and this is to lay the parts more close and 
 smooth, which is the main work." Alchimy, I need 
 not tell you, in the utmost hight of its phrensy, never 
 perpetrated a greater absurdity than this. 
 
 " Putrefaction," he says, " is the work of the spir- 
 its of bodies, which are ever unquiet, to get forth, 
 and congregate with the air, and to enjoy the sun- 
 beams." Of the many means, he enumerates, to in- 
 duce and accelerate putrefaction, " the eighth is. by 
 the releasing of the spirits, which, before, were close 
 kept, by the solidness of their coverture, and thereby 
 their appetite of issuing checked; as in the artificial 
 rusts induced by strong waters (meaning the mineral 
 acids) in iron, lead &c; and, therefore, wetting has- 
 teneth rust or putrefaction of any thing, because it 
 softeneth the crust, for the spirits to come forth." 
 Again, he says, of the conversion of oil into water, 
 
64 THEOLOGICAL CBITICISMS. 
 
 " The intention of version of water into a more oil/ 
 substance, is by digestion; for oil is almost nothing 
 but water digested; and this digestion is principally 
 by heat; or it may be caused by the mingling of 
 bodies, already oily or digested; for they will some- 
 what communicate their nature with the rest." 
 Again, upon the subject of vegetation, he says, " The 
 ancients have affirmed, that there are some herbs, 
 that grow out of stone; which may be, for that it is 
 certain, that toads have been found in the middle of 
 freestone." You do not mistake this illustration of 
 the most preposterous fallacy, viz., that our philoeo- 
 pher seriously believed the toads referred to, to have 
 been generated, nourished and matured within the 
 enclosures where they were found. Upon the subject 
 of atmospheric impurities, he says, " It was observed 
 in the great plague of last year, that there were seen, 
 in divers ditches, and low ground about London, ma- 
 ny toads, that had tails two or three inches long, at 
 the least; whereas toads, usually, have no tails at all; 
 which argueth a great disposition to putrefaction, in 
 the soil and air." Now this interpretation of a fact, 
 that probably never existed, and seriously promulga- 
 ted as an important item of natural philosophy, is too 
 contemptible, even, for irony. It is entirely unwor- 
 thy of a sneer. 
 
 As the last quotation, with which I will trouble 
 you, at this time, I will present you one, with the 
 following very curious caption, viz. " Of sweetness 
 of odor from the rainbow." " It hath been observed 
 by the ancients," says Lord Bacon, " that, where a 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 65 
 
 rainbow seemeth to hang over, or to touch, there 
 breatheth forth a sweet smell. The cause is, for that 
 this happeneth in certain matters, which have, in 
 themselves some sweetness, which the gentle dew of 
 the rainbow, doth draw forth, and the like do soft 
 showers; for they also make the ground sweet: But 
 none are so delicate, as the rainbow, where it falleth. 
 It may be also that the water itself have some sweet- 
 ness," &c. In the foregoing quotations, you are pre- 
 sented with adequate means to enable you to distin- 
 guish with satisfactory precision, the difference be- 
 tween the state of natural science, two hundred years 
 ago, and at the present time. 
 
 You see, in what inexplicable mystery, the most 
 ordinary phenomena were then enveloped; and how 
 extremely fallacious, were the reasoning and inter- 
 pretations of the most extraordinary genius of any 
 age or country. But with these palpable — these pre- 
 posterous fallacies, Sir Francis Bacon was not justly 
 chargeable. He was undeniably an intellectual prodi- 
 gy, who, having been born two hundred years later, 
 would be, at this moment, the predominant star, in 
 the world's literary firmament. No! it was not Ba- 
 con, but the times in which Bacon lived, that stultified 
 an intellect, that, to-day, would successfully aspire to 
 universal knowledge; a time when, for more than 
 two thousand years, Superstition had inextricably 
 fastened its clogs, upon the heels of Genius, and ef- 
 fectually tied up Reason, in leading strings. — A long 
 period of proverbial literary darkness, which Chris- 
 tianity had arbitrarily Enforced upon mankind. Do 
 
£6 THEOLOGICUL CRITICISMS. 
 
 not mistake me, as including, in my ideas of super- 
 stition, the most fastidious, moral virtue; but treat 
 me, if jou will, with the courtesy of recollecting my 
 definition of it, as the subject of future criticism. I 
 define superstition to be a religious veneration, for 
 what cannot be examined by our senses, nor legiti- 
 mately deduced by our reason: And if this definition 
 is exceptionable, or its subject justifiable, they are in 
 your possession, together with my premeditated 
 promise of grateful acknowledgement for amend- 
 ment, or refutation. 
 
 I am conscious of having hazarded much, with 
 your patience, by the foregoing series of quotations 
 and unavoidable, slightest possible comments, but, as 
 I have already said, I could not forego the pleasure 
 of introducing you to a few of the innumerable gems 
 that sparkled upon the pages of former science. Nor 
 will you, carelessly, mistake the character of the 
 specimens, with which you have been presented. 
 They are neither the stupid yawnings of rusticity, 
 nor the evaporations of a brain, steeped in the bigot- 
 ries of the time; but the profoundest cogitations of 
 the profoundest and most learned of men. What, 
 therefore, must have been the character of Bacon's 
 tinie and cotemporaries, I leave to the fertility of 
 your imaginations to interpret; language being alto- 
 gether inadequate to its description. 
 
 From what has been adduced, you are doubtless 
 fully convinced of the progressive nature of human 
 science; and that the knowledge requisite to have 
 mad© a wonderful philosopher of two centuries ago, 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 67 
 
 is scarcely sufficient to make a respectable clown of 
 the present time. Nothing has been stationary with- 
 in the modifying power of human intellect: And 
 whatever has failed to participate of its plastic 
 emendations, must have been excluded from its scru- 
 tiny, or have been too incorporeal for successful ex- 
 amination. 
 
 Could the spirits of the ancients be aroused, from 
 their protracted slumber, and awaked, to a present 
 and a retrospective consciousness, with what aston- 
 ishment, would they look upon the world's metamor- 
 phosis, since they left its bustling theater? — With 
 what magic influence, would the countless novelties, 
 of physical science, which modern genius has dug out 
 of the rubbish of former times, dance before their 
 enchanted vision? And do you contemplate the fu- 
 ture, as prononncing the same humiliating sentence 
 upon us, as we are justly pronouncing upon the 
 past — that the proudest intellectual accomplishments 
 of to-day, will, in a few fleeting years, be stigmatized 
 as the fooleries of antiquity? I venture to charge 
 you with having misapprehended the nature of the 
 case, or the testimony, by which a decision should be 
 sustained. The cases are not parallel, in the circum- 
 stances relevant to the question. 
 
 The earliest knowledge, amongst mankind, must 
 have been that of mere animal wants, and the practi- 
 cal manipulation, subservient to their indulgence. 
 Their enterprise must have been exclusively directed 
 to the attainment of sustenance, and personal securi- 
 ty; to which clothing and other comforts, and finally 
 
68 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 luxuries, were, doubtless, successively added. Ne- 
 cessity and expediency must for a long time, with 
 every primitive people, have formed the texts, upon 
 which, their entire history w 7 as a practical commenta- 
 ry. Abstract science, therefore, must have been 
 slow, in presenting, and still slower in substantiating, 
 its claims, upon human consideration: And what is 
 much more unlucky, still, is, that whatever reflection 
 was appropriated, without the pale of daily necessi- 
 ties, w r as squandered upon the whims of an unculti- 
 vated imagination. Fancy supplied a substitute for 
 facts, which prejudice, or imposture, lost no time in 
 appropriating, to its favorite purposes: And hence, 
 the worst of all literary predicaments followed, viz: 
 That mankind were not merely ignorant, and there- 
 fore, justly supposed to be teachable, but erroneously 
 taught, and so as to be incorrigibly certain of the in- 
 fallibility of their own ignorance. You can have no 
 difficulty in apprehending the advantages of mere 
 negative knowledge, over fallacies, laboriously ac- 
 quired. No! you need not be told, how much more 
 irksome is the task of unteaching what has already 
 been mistaught, than of teaching what has not been 
 taught at all; and most, who have been either teach- 
 ers or pupils, are doubtless ready to yield a cheerful 
 corroboration of the fact. 
 
 That science, even in Christendom, was mostly 
 founded upon hypothesis, for sixteen hundred years, 
 you have ample testimony in the quotations, already 
 presented you, from the works of Francis Bacon, to 
 the truth of which every page of literary history 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 69 
 
 offers corroborative testimony: And that it was, du- 
 ring the same period, under the supervisorship of 
 guperstitionists, or mistaught individuals, we have 
 only to refer to the biographies of such men as Roger 
 Bacon, more commonly called Friar Bacon; Nicho- 
 las Copernicus, and the immortal Galileo Galilei. 
 Nor does the former ever recur to my recollection, 
 unaccompanied by sincere regret, that a little book 
 purporting to contain many curious anecdotes of that 
 philosophic paragon of the thirteenth century, and 
 from which I derived an indelible satisfaction in my 
 early boyhood, is not now extant; and in the possess- 
 ion of every youthful reader in my country. 
 
 Roger Bacon was a conscientious and indefatigable 
 devotee of natural science — an enthusiastic aspirant 
 after practical knowledge; in which hallowed enter- 
 prise he was but too successful, for the period at 
 which he lived. His numerous and novel chemical 
 experiments, amongst which was the discovery of the 
 composition of gun-powder, were so wonderful to 
 his ignorant and superstitious cotemporaries, that 
 they contemplated him as an agent of the devil; and 
 leagued with the adversary to spoil man's spiritual 
 prospects : And for these holy aspirations after truth* — 
 this careful listening to Nature's interpretations of 
 herself, he was denounced as a dangerous and insuf- 
 ferable heretic; forbade to teach his doctrines at the 
 public university; and subsequently twice imprison- 
 ed; in the last instance, during ten years; forbade 
 communication with his friends, and so poorly fed, as 
 even to endanger his life — a martyr of both the in- 
 quisition of Nature, and of the Church. 
 
TO THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Notwithstanding we have already expended a re- 
 mark upon those mathematical prodigies, Copernicus 
 and Galilei, our present, particular purpose may, 
 nevertheless, excuse its repetition. 
 
 You have all, doubtless, both heard and read, 
 much aud often, of those great philosophers of ths 
 Sixteenth century, whom Nature had endowed with 
 on intellectual voracity, insatiable of her most prodi- 
 gal and choicest revelations — swallowing, digesting 
 and assimilating to their own minds, with the easiest 
 facility, facts and principles which would stultify 
 common intellects to contemplate. 
 
 The name of Copernicus is justly and inseperably 
 associated with our present sublime system of math- 
 ematical astronomy, he being the extraordinary in- 
 dividual, with whom it substantially originated. And 
 because he looked around him with a scrutiny un- 
 known to his cotemporaries; and familiarized him- 
 self with principles of which the world had never 
 dreamed; adopting the truths of Nature, regardless 
 of their apparent discrepancy with revelation, he 
 was relentlessly assailed with obloquy, persecution 
 and outlawry, by the same Christian Church that 
 claims to have been the successful patroness of all 
 nseful science for the entire period of eighteen hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 Of Galilei, more should be said, in justice to his 
 memory, and in condemnation of his cotemporaries, 
 than would be compatible with the whole of the pre- 
 sent opportunity; and yet, a word must suffice, to 
 show the sort of patronage, the Church bestowed 
 upon philosophy. 
 
THEOLOGIC.il, CRITICISMS. 71 
 
 This was the man, whose genius, attracted by the 
 individual footsteps, wherein Copernicus had sought 
 out the material of a future edifice, approached the, 
 yet, unquarried mountain, where a few unhewn 
 blocks were scattered at its base; and here, its prodi- 
 gious energies were successfully applied, in breaking 
 up and fashioning the mountain mass, into the con- 
 stituents of an exquisite, aggregate geometry. 
 
 These materials were erected, by his individual, 
 superhuman strength, into a most magnificent temple 
 of astronomical science, of which, only the cornice 
 and dome remained, for the ingenuity of a Newton 
 to supply. This man, unimpeached, even by hjs 
 most inveterate adversaries, of any other delinquen- 
 cy, than a persevering scrutiny of Nature, for a rev- 
 elation of her uncommunicated secrets, became the 
 unfortunate object of a relentless persecution, which 
 finally deigned to offer him personal safety, in ex- 
 change for his moral integrity. In this dilemma, into 
 which his imputed heresies had involved him, he, un- 
 luckily, preferred hypocrisy to martyrdom; and, con- 
 sonant with the requisition of a Romish tribunal, 
 knelt before the altar of a persecuting superstition, 
 and, with his hands upon the reputedly holy evange- 
 lists, declared, before God and a bigoted Inquisition, 
 that what he had taught of the mobility of the earth, 
 upon its axis, and in its solar orbit, was a false and 
 damnable heresy, contrary to scripture, and the opin- 
 ion of the Church. But as he arose from his posture 
 of degrading, hypocritical humility, the resuscitated 
 spirit of his native dignity awoke to an insuppressi- 
 
72 THEOLOGICAL CB1TICISMS. 
 
 ble indignation at the base duplicity, to which his 
 moral cowardice had seduced him, and, in the act of 
 retiring from that covert of bigoted misanthropy, 
 exclaimed in the contemptuousness of a wounded 
 spirit, " Epur si motive." — " And yet, it moves." 
 
 Such have been the usage and the fate of most of 
 those occasional prodigies of genius, which Nature 
 ieems to hav8, especially, designed as the literary 
 pioneers of mankind, to the literal fruition of a social 
 milleniurn. But Prejudice has hitherto succeeded but 
 too well, in thwarting the success of their benevolent 
 mission ! 
 
 The reasons, therefore, why I venture an augury, 
 to ourselves, so much more favorable of the com- 
 mendation of posterity, than we are willing, or bound, 
 to bestow upon antiquity, are, that Truth has, at 
 length disclosed so many of her fascinations, and so 
 much of the sanativeness of her character, as, finally, 
 to have become, with many individuals, a successful 
 competitor, with fiction, for the affection and respect 
 of humanity; — that the caustic acrimony, of a perse- 
 cuting prejudice, has been very considerably diluted, 
 by the blood and tears, which the votaries of truth 
 have so often and so freely, shed, at its unhallowed 
 shrine— that Facts, thoroughly scrutinized, in all their 
 parts and bearings, are growing fashionable, as a 
 substitute for the vague and unmeaning assumptions, 
 upon which ancient theories were almost exclusively 
 founded; and that a stupid veneration for the names 
 and opinions of reputed great men which has, hither- 
 to, lain, like an incubus upon the heaving chest of 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 78 
 
 slumbering Genius, is beginning to give place to a 
 reasonable distrust of the claims of the one, and of 
 the infallibility of the other. In fine, mankind are, 
 more generally, waking up to the dignified conscious- 
 ness, that they may, and ought to, think for them- 
 selves, upon all subjects, in which they have a com- 
 mon interest. And these circumstances are present- 
 ed as a few of the many valid evidences, that our 
 literary reputation should, and will, stand fairer with 
 posterity, than that of antiquity does with us. 
 
 It is Truth, then, after which our race should ex- 
 clusively and ardently aspire; nor should that ardor 
 be dampened, by a single suspicion, that its attain- 
 ment can possibly prove disastrous, or even adverse, 
 to human welfare. 
 
 Error and Prejudice are the earliest characteristics 
 of reflective humanity, and are only to be eradicated 
 by the predominance of Truth and Reason, which, 
 unfortunately, are often much too tardy in their mis- 
 sion, or too feeble in their administration, to establish 
 a successful, salvatory dominion over the human 
 character. 
 
 Thus you are enabled to contemplate the slowly 
 progressive character of the human intellect, and to 
 appreciate the obligation which science is under to 
 Theology, for at least sixteen hundred years of the 
 present era. And notwithstanding all the boastful 
 dogmatism of the clergy, that Christianity has been 
 the pioneer, and most liberal contributor, to natural 
 science, for the whole period of its existence, History 
 so flatly contradicts the assertion that we ought to be 
 
 9 
 
74 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 excused for suspecting, its promulgators of gross ig- 
 norance, or culpable dishonesty. We know, that as 
 late as 1633, the mathematical prodigy, Galileo, was 
 sentenced to interminable imprisonment in the cells 
 of a self-styled, holy inquisition, for adhering to his 
 opinion that the earth revolved upon its axis, and al- 
 so in its annual solar-orbit — facts as little disputed, at 
 present, as that two and two make four. Yes ! Chris- 
 tianity, in this nether world, has been another name 
 for persecuting intolerance, and virulent, murderous 
 contention. It has set its cloven hoof, upon the ge- 
 nius of Free-inquiry, with an inflexible determination 
 to lacerate it, either to death or submission. It has 
 inherited the bigotry of Judaism, and hoarded the 
 acquisition with usm'ious care. 
 
 Did the Jewish law demand a pecuniary atonement 
 for what it denominated a sin of ignorance? And if 
 Michael Servetus sinned in dissenting from the dog- 
 mas of John Calvin, was it not purely the sin of ig- 
 norance; and a mere, though fatal misfortune, that 
 he was unable to appreciate the necessity and certain- 
 ty of three coeternal, coequal, successively-begotten, 
 indivisible, individually-personal, triune, only-almigh- 
 ty God, who has, especially, fore-ordained whatever 
 comes to pass; and that, therefore, man is predesti- 
 nated to the character and events that shall pertain to 
 him for, both, time and eternity; but that he shall, 
 nevertheless, work out his own salvation, from a state 
 of total depravity, to that of pure and persevering 
 saintship; and all by the inevitable operation of the 
 resistless grace of God? Yes; if Servetus sinned in 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 75 
 
 disbelieving this farrago of contradictory nonsense, 
 this Calvinistic platform of rottenness, contagion, de- 
 lirium and death, was it not a very great improve- 
 ment of Judaism, that he should himself be burned 
 in atonement for his sin, or otherwise his misfortune, 
 if ignorant? But Servetus is a single name of an in- 
 terminable catalogue, written with the faggot or the 
 dagger, in the life-blood of conscientious men, sacri- 
 ficed upon the altar of theological superstition. And 
 although its tusks and claws are less murderous now, 
 than formerly, its thirst for blood is unassuaged: It 
 growls incessantly at the thought, that fratricide has 
 grown unfashionable; nor fails to emulate its worst 
 ferocity, in the insidiousness and multiplicity of its 
 persecutions. It slanders morality, unmuzzled by its 
 absurdities, and repudiates truth, unpledged to its fic- 
 titious purposes. It breathes, throughout this nomi- 
 nally free Republic, a desolating sirocco, to which 
 opinion must surrender in submission, or in suffoca- 
 tion. It ought not to be so, especially at this late pe- 
 riod of our history, when facilities for rational and 
 useful learning, are so greatly multiplied, as almost to 
 cheat mankind into an acquaintance with Nature's 
 secrets, and a fascination of her charms. But Super- 
 stition is neither poor in expedients, nor slack in 
 stratagem. Nor has she ever been at all compunc- 
 tious of means, that success has more than justified. 
 It has been, nevertheless, so difficult for Pity to attain 
 its objects, that moral corruption, and even perjury 
 itself, have been sanctified in its holy enterprise. 
 Strange, that God should be driven to such a strait. 
 
76 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 for means to propagate his own most sacred and mo- 
 mentous truth: A truth, if truth at all, no less mo- 
 mentous to Deity than man! Yes! Theology in- 
 volves, as seriously, the beatitude of God, as the 
 spiritual blessedness of his human creatures. The 
 glory of God would seem to depend, for consumma- 
 tion, upon the salvation of mankind; and its accom- 
 plishment, therefore, upon the success of the salvato- 
 ry institution, of which Jesus Christ is the reputed 
 medium: So that wherever the Gospel proves unsuc- 
 cessful, it affords an instance of derogation from His 
 anticipated glory. How strange, we say again, that 
 God should not have seasonably foreseen his own di- 
 lemma, from his creature's sins! and stranger still, to 
 hope for extrication, by such futile instruments as 
 assume to be of his adoption ! Yet Theology consists 
 of just such strangeness; and but for morality, to 
 which it speculatively clings, as to a last and only 
 hope, a single ray of truth would, long ago, have 
 blighted its fictitious being, and expunged it from the 
 catalogue of human fallacies. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 ATHEISM AND THEISM DEFINED AND COMPARED. 
 
 The treatment of our present subject, nor that ex- 
 clusively, is intended to be characterized by the strict- 
 est candor and courtesy, that its peculiar character 
 will admit: And that facts, also, whenever they can 
 be made available, shall be employed with entire im- 
 partiality, without distortion or misrepresentation: 
 And if hypothesis shall be, sometimes, unavoidable, 
 as upon most of our occasions it doubtless will, its 
 admission shall be upon that principle only; and 
 whenever adopted, shall not only have undergone my 
 own careful scrutiny, but will be exposed to that of 
 the Public, to be adjudged by its comparative plausi- 
 bility. 
 
 I am well aware of the delicacy, not to say the 
 danger, of my position with the orthodox community 
 wherein I live; nor less so, of the disparity between, 
 my personal effeminacy, and the gigantic burthen, I 
 have assumed to carry. 
 
 It is an adage of the olden time, that an ass loaded 
 with gold can effect ,his entrance without difficulty. 
 
78 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 into the strongest city. But then, how boisterous the 
 hue and cry, Suspicion would excite, against the un- 
 welcome visitor, were his load mistaken for infection 
 of the plague. Yes, although it should be transport- 
 ed by Apis or a demigod. No matter whether it be 
 fool or knave, that caters for our factitious pleasures; 
 he is flattered and cherished, just so long as he cheer- 
 fully ministers to our vanity and licentiousness. And 
 though he were the literal adversary of human weal, 
 whilst he should carefully humor our foibles, and 
 good-naturedly assent to our fallacies, he may safely 
 insinuate himself into our very vitals, and deliberate- 
 ly gnaw himself out again, not merely with impunity, 
 but with commendation. But let an angel, a demi- 
 god, or a prodigy of human wisdom, suggest a fallacy 
 in our present notions, or an evil in our present habits, 
 he is taunted with his folly, or condemned for his im- 
 pudence. His name is heretic, and he is denounced 
 as a blasphemer. Persecution lays her leaden hand 
 upon his enterprise, and Superstition fattens upon 
 the spoil. His life is verily a prologue to that spirit- 
 ual perdition, to which Bigotry has triumphantly as- 
 signed him. 
 
 Atheism is a term derived from the Greek, and 
 means, in its strict interpretation, without God. Its 
 more general and later acceptation has been however, 
 without a belief of God — and more recently, a direct 
 denial of the existence of God. Admitting that 
 mankind have almost always, and almost everywhere, 
 believed in the existence of a God, and mostly in a 
 multiplicity of them, it must strike the superficial ob- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 79 
 
 server with a good deal of surprise, that there should 
 be a single atheist in the world, unless he were either 
 an idiot or a lunatic. And this, in its only proper ac- 
 ceptation, is most emphatically true : For whoever 
 has sufficient intellect, to contemplate the simplest 
 relations of cause and effect, cannot, in any rational 
 interpretation of the epithet, be denominated an athe- 
 ist: He will have acquired a belief of either theism 
 or polytheism — of one God, or of many gods. The 
 states of natural, and social, infancy, therefore, must 
 be allowed to be most congenial with old fashioned 
 atheism; unless it shall be satisfactorily ascertained, 
 that the idea of God is instinctive, or connate; and, 
 consequently, not acquired by reflection^ or induction. 
 
 Since it is undeniable, that the idea of a God was 
 early excited, and has almost universally prevailed 
 among mankind, even to the present time, the first 
 question to be interpreted is, whence and wherefore 
 has such an idea occurred? 
 
 That the idea of God is not intuitive, instinctive, 
 or possessed at birth, appears to be more than proba- 
 ble, from the consideration, that children appear never 
 to have acquired it, except in the ordinary course of 
 infantile education; and of which they demand the 
 same particular explanation, as of any other subject 
 of human inquiry. It is, therefore, a plausible hy- 
 pothesis, that this idea was originally the product of 
 reflection; and, when fairly analyzed, will be found 
 to be identical with undefinable causality. And there 
 seems to be no other possible method of solving the 
 problem, whence and wherefore, the idea of a God, 
 
80 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 whether supreme or subordinate; ultimate causality 
 being identical with the former, and indefinite, secon- 
 dary causality with the latter. 
 
 So entirely inadequate is human apprehension to 
 trace the principle of causality to its ultimatum, that, 
 upon many subjects, the profoundest philosophy is 
 but a single step in advance of piimitive barbarism. 
 And the following is offered, in explication of our 
 proposition. 
 
 The eye of a savage lights upon a watch, that cas- 
 ualty has dropped in his path: He views it with a 
 suspicion, and approaches it with a cautiousness pe- 
 culiar to his race: He ventures not to touch it; but, 
 with a stick some yard in length, he moves it to and 
 fro, until he perceives it to have neither teeth nor 
 claws. He ventures then, though warily, to touch it 
 with a finger — then with another; and finally to take 
 it from the ground, as a most wonderful living speci- 
 men of creative power, whose origin, he most de- 
 voutly and reverently, refers to Manatou, or him who 
 made the Indian. Here the philosopher smiles, con- 
 temptuously, in his cultivated egotism, at the childish 
 simplicity of this native forester, who sees, or thinks 
 he sees, a God, in human mechanism; and, in boast- 
 ful confidence, exclaims, that he can trace this very 
 watch to man's contrivance, and the manipulation of 
 human fingers. But ask him how contrivance and 
 those fingers came. — How humbled is his pride of 
 learning, when he finds himself, so soon, obliged to 
 ape the savage in his answer! A single step has 
 found him kneeling to the Indian's Manatou, by the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 81 
 
 / 
 
 name of God, in shuffling apology for his own imbe- 
 cility. In this example, we discover not only the 
 slight difference between the lowest barbarism and 
 the highest cultivation; but that the idea of God is 
 the same, with the whole human race, and identical 
 with supposed ultimate causality. For we see that, 
 because the savage was ignorant of the degree of hu- 
 man ingenuity, required for the construction of a 
 watch, he referred it to the same power, or princi- 
 ple of causation, that produced himself— that is, one 
 of which he was totally ignorant. And although the 
 philosopher escapes the absurdity of expending his 
 veneration upon a human mechanic, under the idea 
 of God; what more does he know of the origin of 
 man, than the savage, viz., that he must have been 
 the product of some antecedent cause; which cause 
 however seems to be altogether beyond the precinct 
 of human scrutiny; and hence his veneration is at 
 length, like that of the savage, expended upon un- 
 known causality. It seems therefore plausible, at 
 least, that the idea of God the creator is identical 
 with that of ultimate causality, by whatever epithet 
 it may have been distinguished; and is the only theo- 
 logical one, in which all mankind, both savage and 
 civilized, ignorant and learned, have been found, 
 unanimously, to agree. For it is undeniable, that 
 the attributes appropriated to this God, by different 
 persons and nations, have been as various and disso- 
 nant, as have been the states of human science, mor- 
 als and opinion: And like every other department of 
 intellectual enterprise, have been progressively modi- 
 
 10 
 
82 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tied, as society has emerged from the slough of prim- 
 itive barbarism. 
 
 The idea of ultimate causality, or of an unknown 
 cause, preceding the last known phenomenon, in any 
 continuous course of reflection, upon natural rela- 
 tionship, can not be evaded; and being identical with 
 that of creative omnipotence, must, consequently, be 
 as universal as the ability to reflect: And since it was, 
 a long time ago, clearly discovered that philosophy 
 increases the distance between mediate and ultimate 
 causality, by multiplying the particulars of the for- 
 mer, it is not surprising, that superstitionists shall 
 have, for a series of past generations, almost unani- 
 mously, decried what they have denominated human 
 learning, as tending to divert the attention from ulti- 
 mate to mediate causation; or, in other words, divert- 
 ing it from the creator to the creature, and thereby 
 lessening the piety, believed to be indispensable to 
 spiritual salvation. 
 
 Our apprehension of God is precisely the same as 
 that of materiality : And certainly very few persons 
 have been ever found, who have seriously denied the 
 existence of the latter. Wherefore then, it may well 
 be asked, has atheism obtained a name and a charac- 
 ter among the fallacies of mankind? 
 
 The evidences in support of God, and of matter- 
 when fairly examined, will be found of exactly the 
 same import; and therefore of equal validity, in aid 
 of both propositions. And whilst an indefinite diver- 
 sity of natural phenomena, denominated creations 
 (more appropriately formations) demonstrates the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 83 
 
 existence of the former, or of God; those physical 
 qualities, that stimulate our senses, and modify our 
 consciousness, as clearly testify to that of the latter. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that we deduce a creator, 
 from the creations, or existences, that surround us; 
 and not from any innate or instinctive idea of such a 
 character. We acquire the idea of God, also, in the 
 same manner as we do that of Nature, viz., by an 
 irresistible recognition of what are denominated its 
 qualities or attributes: And although we know noth- 
 ing of either, intrinsically, it would, notwithstanding, 
 be no less absurd to deny their existence than our 
 own. 
 
 Ultimate causality, alias God, therefore, as the 
 primitive agent, in the production of Nature's phe- 
 nomena, and Materiality as affording a substratum 
 for their support, are equally incomprehensible and 
 incontrovertible. But it is nevertheless equally true, 
 that notwithstanding the conclusion is unavoidable, 
 that both God and matter do exist, that existence, so 
 far as human apprehension is concerned, is a mere 
 logical deduction — an abstract metaphysical conclu- 
 sion, arising exclusively from a recognition of those 
 phenomena, which they are severally believed, but 
 not known, to produce. 
 
 We acquire the ideas of figure, color, extension, 
 resistance, motion and rest, which we denominate the 
 properties and states of a supposed substratum, or 
 predicate, of which the world is ready to declare, it 
 positively knows its existence, as substance or matter; 
 of which however, we have no other idea, than that 
 
84 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 of the necessity of such an existence. Nor have we 
 any appropriate language, with which to describe ul- 
 timate principles and atoms, which, as I have already 
 said, are simple metaphysical deductions, which it is 
 equally impossible we shall ever be able to under- 
 stand or disbelieve. 
 
 That God, or Deity is synonymous with principle 
 or attribute, inherent in, and coeternal with, matter, 
 and identical with ultimate causality, seems to be 
 most effectually sustained by the following reflections. 
 
 Were God an ultra, or supermundane agent, who 
 cogitated, with infinite perfection, and executed with 
 infallible precision, the various principles and phe- 
 nomena of Nature, it is clear, that the system of op- 
 erations, once instituted, would inevitably proceed, 
 during its destined period, with undeviating exact- 
 itude; nor need a God to w T atch or modify its pro- 
 gress. In this view of the subject, a God is undenia- 
 bly nugatory. Not so whenever the name of God is 
 used as synonymous with ultimate causality, which 
 is a principle inherent in matter, and indispensable to 
 the development and prosecution of its phenomena: 
 For otherwise existence would be without an object, 
 or the possibility of a change. Silence and stillness, 
 or unvaried monotomy, would characterize a nugato- 
 ry world; and God would be the only spectator of his 
 own fatuity! 
 
 Every circumstance, or change in Nature, howev- 
 er magnificent or minute, depends upon ultimate cau- 
 sality for its existence. And however long or com- 
 plicated shall be the chain of productive circumstan- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 85 
 
 cesj it must have originated in, and been sustained by 
 it. Therefore, while an extra-mundane God must 
 be an idle spectator of the phenomena, his eternal 
 decree has infallibly ordained, ultimate causality 
 must enter into the constitution of every event; and 
 can never be dispensed with, while consequences re- 
 main dependent upon antecedent causation. We 
 might as well expect to see figure without substance; 
 or meet resistance in a vacuum, as that change would 
 occur independently of the agency of this ultimate 
 principle, which theists denominate God. Hence, it 
 would seem to be one of the clearest propositions in 
 nature, that atheist is an unmeaning epithet, when 
 applied to an inhabitant of Christendom, in the pos- 
 session of common sense, and common cultivation; 
 and that he, who thinks himself such, is altogether 
 mistaken in his man, according to any interpretation 
 which cultivated reason, of the present time, would 
 deign to sanction. And yet, the world believes it has 
 abundant, just occasion for the use of such an epi- 
 thet. The question, therefore, is, Whence came this 
 great, and almost universal error, amongst mankind? 
 Doubtless, in the personification of causality, and in 
 the fictitious and diverse characteristics, or attributes 
 with which it has been clothed. 
 
 Judaism is particularly unfortunate, in the charac- 
 ter of its deity, which it endows with the frailties of 
 humanity, without its common sense: And in order 
 to redeem my pledge of candor and impartiality, I 
 feel myself obliged to present you with a few Biblical 
 quotations in corroboration of the truth of my remark. 
 
86 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Did God, subsequently to his entire creation, de- 
 clare, as in Gen. 1. 31, That every thing he had made 
 was very good; and this in a culpable forgetfulness of 
 the diabolical wiles of the serpent, which were, so 
 soon, to pervert the ordinances of omnipotence , and 
 write eternal damnation as the epilogue of human 
 tragedy? For, if the history of the fall is true, the 
 seduction and its consequences, were within the 
 knowledge of omniscience, and therefore at the latch- 
 es of the almighty. 
 
 And here, we find some striking lineaments of a 
 most strange, and inconsistent Jewish God. 
 
 If those peculiar vegetables, denominated the trees 
 of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, were 
 the products of a general creative principle, it ap- 
 pears somewhat strange, that they should not have 
 been somewhere else produced, where soil and cli- 
 mate were no less genial. And if not thus generated, 
 it seems that they, or at least the latter, must have 
 been especially ordained for the ruinous catastrophe 
 to which it so eminently contributed. And if God 
 foreordained whatever comes to pass, he cannot es- 
 cape the implication of having instituted the whole 
 process of seduction, and that apparently for no 
 more commendable an object, than to create a plausi- 
 ble but ficticious reason for the painful indulgence of 
 almighty and eternal vindictiveness. 
 
 Did the eating the forbidden fruit, so miraculously 
 improve the apprehension of our first parents, that 
 they mutually blushed at the conscious immodesty of 
 exposing their nakedness to each other; and was this 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 87 
 
 important trial of character omitted in their children's 
 inheritance, whilst the penalty of disobedience was 
 faithfully transmitted ? And is it fairly deducibie, 
 from this account, that but for the transgression, man 
 must have forever remained in the imbecility and vul- 
 gar nudity of the beast, and hence acquired his supe- 
 riority at the expense of eternal damnation ? 
 
 The story of the fall leaves no doubt, that primi- 
 tive man was well endowed with animal propensities, 
 without which he would indeed have been the per- 
 sonification of absurdity itself, and with them the un- 
 fortunate subject of the most fatal seduction. 
 
 Did God endow mankind with U»*r propensities, be- 
 cause they were indispensable to his enterprise, and 
 yet mistake their tendency to mischievous excess ? 
 Or did he mean, that reason should be competent to 
 their judicious exercise, and yet mistake the quanti- 
 ty required j and therefore start, like one surprised 
 at man's unrightousness ; and grieve, repent, and 
 then malevolently condemn those creatures, for whom 
 all else w T as made, and whence his godship was re- 
 flected, to the sateless burnings of an endless hell ? 
 
 Why does not this veracious and exact historic 
 record inform us, how long this garden with its pe- 
 culiar products preserved its being and its character, 
 after the expulsion of the human pair ; and how long 
 its dangerous enclosure was miraculously secured ? 
 Suppose, for so we may, that those delinquents had 
 partaken of the other fruit, while God had left it at 
 their option, and, most strangely, unprohibited. — In 
 what sad dilemma would Jehovah and mankind been 
 
88 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 placed ? An immortal race of procreative, eating 
 animals, threatening an accumulation, at some future 
 period, that space could not accommodate, and for 
 whom the earth, were it digestible, would fail to f / 
 make a meal. What almighty power and cunning 
 would have been, ere this, required, to make provis- 
 ion, of both room and sustenance, for such a race, my 
 algebra will fail to calculate. And do you think the 
 notion of a deathless, eating and prolific race of ani- 
 mals, so plausible as to have been adopted by omnis- 
 ciency, or executed by omnipotence ? Or, of the 
 tragedy of the fall, do you not think it passing strange, 
 that what of undeveloped mischief, almighty presci- 
 ence must have seen, omnipotence should have failed 
 to obviate ; unless it shall have happened before the 
 attribute of goodness shall have entered the triune 
 partnership. 
 
 " And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his 
 offering : But unto Cain, and to his offering, he had 
 no respect." Now, this conduct of God, towards 
 these two individuals, were it of a parent to his chil- 
 dren, would be a subject of the severest reprehension. 
 Wherefore, then, has Inspiration withheld from us 
 the reasons for its justification ; and thus exposed 
 mankind to the hazardous liability of distrusting the 
 justice and impartiality of his maker, or the truth 
 of inspiration ? "Was Cain acquainted with the na- 
 ture, and the crime, of fratricide ? And whence was 
 such acquaintance formed ? — Or if otherwise, did a 
 God of justice set the first example of retrospective 
 legislation, the veriest shame to human tyrants ; of 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 89 
 
 visit with a merciless retribution, an act, not yet pro- 
 hibited, nor criminally defined ? 
 
 Again we read, " And God saw that the wicked- 
 ness of man was great in the earth ; and that every 
 imagination of his heart was only evil continually. 
 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on 
 the earth ; and it grieved him at his heart." And 
 here I pledge myself, that you shall be pardoned the 
 heresy, of asking whether the language of this quota- 
 tion is most appropriate to Gocl, or man, whatever 
 penalty shall be awarded to the impiousness of my 
 reply. 
 
 Should God's prescience, or foreknowledge be con- 
 templated as a constituent of his own eternal, uncrea- 
 ted self ? Then, no fact pertaining to the history 
 of man, or Nature, can have been new to such a 
 character. And, if God saw from eternity, the griev- 
 ous wickedness, his human creatures would volun- 
 tarily, and therefore inevitably, commit; nor believed 
 His own omnipotence was able to restrain it; what a 
 wretched life of penitence and grief, God's first eterni- 
 ty mnst have been ? For, with God the occurrence 
 of the evil could not have aggravated the misery of 
 its contemplation. Again, we ask, did God commit 
 so strange an oversight, in arranging his affairs, as 
 to endow his human creatures with power to thwart 
 his own designs — to mar his bliss, and also damn 
 themselves to endless misery — and meanwhile sit in 
 endless, penitential, mournful contemplation of His 
 own unfortunate improvidence, or imbecility ? Did 
 God endow mankind with freedom of both will and 
 
 II 
 
90 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 action; and, at the same time, know how perversely 
 they would use it ? Then, by the rules of human judg- 
 ment, He was either impotent, or malicious : For man , 
 apparently, were better not to be, than to be the sub- 
 ject of interminable perdition: And, therefore, God 
 should have left him uncreated, or have been more 
 provident of his welfare ! — "And it grieved him (God.) 
 at his heart." And is this expression applicable to aGod, 
 the omnipotent, and omnipervasive, principle of life, 
 activity and transformation throughout the universe: 
 or, as Judaism would have it, to a heartless, bigoted, 
 partial, malicious, revengeful, relentless, extermina- 
 ting impersonation of inconsistency itself. Or is it 
 not, in truth, an expression of mere humanity, speak- 
 ing ignorantly of itself, and referring to the heart, 
 what belongs^ exclusively to the head ? 
 
 The deluge next presents itself, as a competent and 
 unimpeachable witness to the inconsistency and imbe- 
 cility of the Jewish God ; to whom the following in- 
 quiries might have been presented with no bad grace : 
 Or perhaps, with more propriety, to the writer of the 
 fabulous nonsense. 
 
 And did Omnisciency misapprehend, 
 
 How ill its projects must thereafter end ? 
 
 Did God, at man's depravity awake, 
 
 Too late to remedy the sad mistake, 
 
 Of having made him, as he should not be — 
 
 Not demi-God, but demi-devil he ? 
 
 And, therefore, form a project quite too odd, 
 
 For any other, than a Jewish, God ; 
 
 Namely, the diluvian expedient, 
 
 Without a plausible ingredient, 
 
 With which to work a thorough reformation,, 
 
 Of the entire, degenerate creation— 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 91 
 
 Accepting Noah, as security, 
 
 For his successor's moral purity ; 
 
 Which seems a project altogether strange, 
 
 For any being, not yet quite deranged : 
 
 Nor could another hope, from such foul seed 
 
 To reproduce a renovated breed : 
 
 Didst thou compute the water as it stood ; 
 
 And cube the five-mile, superficial flood ? 
 
 Or cast, how much the mass of water weighed > 
 
 Or how Miss Luna, in ber orb was stayed ? 
 
 For sceptics are disposed to make a fuss, 
 
 As though her highness would have called on us — 
 
 And further say, nor, seemingly, in fun, 
 
 That Earth and Moon, must both, at once, have run, 
 
 A more than Gilpin-journey, to the Sun. 
 
 Didst thou see, clearly, where the stock was laid, 
 
 Of which this universal sea was made ? 
 
 Was it produced in vapor, from the earth, 
 
 Whilst Oceans were unequal to its birth? 
 
 And were months used to bring" the thing about ^ 
 
 Seas must have risen, in form of water-spout ! 
 
 And were it, thus far, marvelously done, 
 
 The work of miracles was but begun ! 
 
 Since ten thousand years, at the common rate, 
 
 Were scanty, for it to evaporate ; 
 
 And time, itself, would scarcely fit the soil., 
 
 To recompense the ploughman for his toil ! 
 
 And were the flood no higher than the hill, 
 
 Upon whose top, the Ark, at length, stood still, 
 
 Four thousond years would scarcely dry the plain. 
 
 That trees and herbage might appear again. 
 
 Hence, to have dried it expeditiously, 
 
 Earth's heat must have been raised prodigiously — 
 
 So high indeed, that gods might be supplied, 
 
 With steaming chowder from the boiling tide ; 
 
 And, if the gods have hearts, it would not do, 
 
 That they should not have food and entrails too : 
 
 And were the water, as it may be said, 
 
 Especially, for this occasion made — 
 
 Say, whence the elements, of which 'twas wrought : 
 
 Or what the neighboring planet, whence 'twas brought 
 
 And then, how much almighty pow'r 'twould cost, 
 
 To right again, the system's balance lost ! 
 
 Kor seems a work, with more vexation fraught. 
 
92 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Except to make a universe of naught, 
 Than to unmake that world of surplus rain, 
 Which else must have involved the earth again : 
 And were there gods, whom mankind could abuse, 
 By any terms of slander, he Gould use — 
 How base the sacrilege, to charge a plan 
 So fatuous, on any thing but man! — 
 
 Or, if you would have it said in vulgar prose — Did 
 God foresee, ere man was made, the strange prepos- 
 terous character he would sustain — the mad devotion 
 he would pay to passion and licentiousness — the deep 
 corruption of a perverted mind, and the voluntary 
 wickedness he would perpetrate; nor yet, revoke, nor 
 modify, a plan so palpably defective? Or did he 
 sleep so soundly, those, more than, sixteen hundred 
 years, from the creation, to the flood, that the whole 
 world's joint, boisterous blasphemy awaked him. only, 
 when human wickedness was so incorrigible, that his 
 own omnipotence was unable to reform it? And did 
 he, therefore, as the only, or most feasible, expedi- 
 ent, decree the total extermination of the race ? A 
 project, you must all acknowledge would have been, 
 especially, successful, had he punctiliously pursued it ! 
 But that it seems he did not do ! And do you really 
 believe an all-wise God could have been so improvi- 
 dent, as to expect to regenerate mankind, by making 
 drunken Noah their progenitor? Was it like a God 
 to fail in his mechanical design?— Or having failed, 
 to destroy the labor of his hands, in childish petu- 
 lance, in order to allay his own heart's grief? And is 
 this to be received as a specimen of God's almighty 
 triple infinitude? Was the project of the Flood, that 
 involved a course of countless miracles, of which the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 93 
 
 least was tantamount to original creation, verily, the 
 suggestion of that unearthly Logos, that planned the 
 system of both temporal and eternal things? And 
 was it not the inevitable consequence of the sweeping 
 agitations — the lacerating and disorganizing concuss- 
 ions — the suffocative pressure, and atmospheric exclu- 
 sion, attendant upon the deluge, that vegetable, as 
 well as animal, life must have been universally ex- 
 tinguished? And how were fish of countless species, 
 saved from being overwhelmed, destroyed and deeply 
 buried amidst the avalanches of upland rocks and 
 trees and soil, the myriads of newborn cataracts must 
 have driven, madly, oceanward? Do you think it 
 probable, that fish and vegetables, which seem to have 
 been uncared for, were really able to withstand a 
 shock, that, without the aid of countless miracles, 
 must inevitably have been the world's catastrophe? 
 And would you not severely chide your wild imagi- 
 nation that should see, in retrospect, the diluvian pa- 
 triarch, as he may have stood upon the then youthful 
 brow of the long-since venerable and snow-capped 
 Ararat, (where one seems to see that unique water- 
 craft of primeval time, entombed beneath accumula- 
 ting frosts of more than forty centuries) and in fear- 
 ful sadness, look around him, upon the utter desola- 
 tion of all of life and hope, that once had been; when 
 lo! from where had lately swept the besom of de- 
 struction, and earth itself but just unwrapped of one 
 continuous ocean, there shall have come forth, a 
 feathered witness, to cheer the little household, with 
 the gladsome tidings, that the lately ruined earth was 
 
84 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 now itself again, and already green, with renovated 
 herbage. 
 
 And this diluvian fallacy, together with the fabu- 
 lous childish nonsense of the Fall, is seriously, and 
 even coercively, urged upon the people of philosophic 
 Christendom, in this forty-third year of the nineteenth 
 eentury, as though it were the very genius of Inspi- 
 ration, rehearsing the revelations of Almighty God. 
 And with whom there rests a doubt of its divinity, 
 there also rests the undivided curse of Spiritualism? 
 
 And yet, the question urges itself again, and again, 
 upon human consideration, whether God did really 
 repent and gvieve at his heart, like a disappointed in- 
 fant, for what omniscience did not foresee, or omnip- 
 otence could not prevent? 
 
 Or whether it was not Jehovah's plan, 
 To stultify, or curse, the race of man? 
 And, lest he should relent, assumed an oath, 
 He kept so well, as to accomplish both! 
 
 And do you feel assured, that Noah's fabled ark 
 was adequate to the object, for which it is said to 
 have been constructed? And have you carefully ex- 
 amined all the circumstances involved therein, and 
 found them clearly to corroborate the probability of 
 that event? If so, you are much more fortunate, in 
 these particulars, than your humble servant, who has, 
 never yet, been fully able to reconcile, with his poor 
 dividend of intellect, all the apparent difficulties pre- 
 sented in the case. And yet religious Faith descries 
 innumerous things, as clearly, as shines' the cloudless 
 sun at noon-day, that impious Reason, with all her 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 95 
 
 artificial aids, as vainly looks for, as for courtesy from 
 a bigot. Have you not already learned, from fre- 
 quent, pulpit specimens, how entirely abortive are 
 Reason's efforts in behalf of Faith? Nor is the case 
 susceptible of amendment, whilst their vocations are 
 less alike than cash and credit! 
 
 Allow me to present you with a single specimen of 
 the imbecility of Reason, in its unnatural association 
 with Faith; and in what hopeless predicament that 
 subject must be, that relies upon no better arguments 
 in its favor, than 1 have sometimes heard from the 
 pulpit, upon the question of the deluge. Yes, I have 
 heard a reverend advocate for the Bible's literality 
 and truth, contest the doubts of Scepticism, with zeal 
 enough to frighten Reason from the sanctuary; and, 
 in conclusion of a labored argument of sounds and 
 attitudes, in proof of written revelation, declare, em- 
 phatically, "that Noah's ark had room enough for all 
 it was intended to preserve; at least for all with 
 which mankind were then acquainted." Alas ! that God 
 should be obliged to leave his work to be accomplished 
 by such infirmity ! And do you think that Reason 
 would ever risk herself again with such an incompe- 
 tent interpreter? Or insanely blast her honor, to aid 
 the credit of a fiction? A sacrifice, in either case, too 
 wanton to justify a serious suspicion. 
 
 Considering the peculiar embarrassments of time 
 and circumstances, it would really seem to have been 
 rather an extraordinary undertaking, for a single indi- 
 vidual, or even a single family, to construct, in the 
 very teeth of a jeering and opposing Incredulity, that 
 
96 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 mammoth world-preservative, within the time allotted 
 by Biblical Chronologists. 
 
 Ere log-canoes, or bulrush substitutes, were invent- 
 ed, a Nation's genius, and a Nation's wealth would 
 have been scarcely adequate to such an enterprise. 
 And yet I will not pronounce the thing impossible; 
 but, rather than risk my teeth with so unchewable a 
 mouthful, will put my capacious gullet into requisi- 
 tion, and swallow it at once. But there are other 
 particulars, which are not, so conveniently, to be dis- 
 posed of; being, not only, too tough to chaw, but, 
 palpably, too gross to swallow. But admitting Noah 
 to have been either the butt of ridicule for his appa- 
 rent simplicity, or an object of pity, for his supposed 
 lunacy, throwing him entirely npon his individual re- 
 sources, for the accomplishment of his magnificent 
 undertaking; and that he, nevertheless, succeeded, 
 and that, too, within the apparently inadequate period 
 of the year two thousand three hundred and forty- 
 nine before Christ; and that it was also fully adequate 
 to its design; however heavy their demand upon our 
 credulity, are altogether the most plausible particulars 
 of this preposterous narrative. 
 
 Do you think it within the range of the strangest 
 probability, that, in the short period of seven days, 
 allowed to Noah for freighting his vessel, seventy 
 thousand living creatures were actually and simulta- 
 neously collected from their peculiar and indefinitely 
 diversified locations and climates — from every point 
 of compass, and every habitable portion of the earth's 
 geographical surface, together with their appropriate 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 97 
 
 nourishment, which could not have been less than ten 
 times their own bulk, or even their own weight; 
 amounting, in the aggregate to an equivalent of seven 
 hundred and seventy thousand such animals, ten of 
 which only., viz., the mastadon, elephant, rhinoceros, 
 hippopotamus and elk, would have required, at least, 
 one hundred and ninety tons of vegetable food; a lit- 
 tle less than an ordinary ship load, and, in the com- 
 mon, farming way of packing, would have rilled five 
 common barns: And in this way of proceeding, we 
 shall soon have appropriated the whole of Noah's 
 mammoth vessel. 
 
 Have you ever thought, how very odd it must have 
 seemed, to see so many thousands of dissimilar ani- 
 mals, spontaneously emigrating from country and 
 kindred; and contrary to every impulse of instinct 
 and habit, compassing, by one universal miracle, 
 trackless, and almost immeasurable distances of des- 
 ert land and ocean, to form the least congenial con- 
 gregation, insanity could have dreamed of; and also 
 each, since any other mode seems quite impossible, 
 voluntarily transporting ten times its weight of that 
 peculiar nourishment, its adopted country would not 
 afford, nor yet an answerable substitute? And since 
 it seems to be a law, amongst the carniverous tribes, 
 that each inferior species, successively, shall become 
 the sustenance of its superior, how odd, to see each 
 several, single pair or septenary, group, (for birds, 
 however carniverous and foul were no less cared for, 
 than delicious poultry, and therefore saved in septen- 
 ary pairs,) how odd, I say, to see them each, and all, 
 
 12 
 
98 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS* 
 
 attended by their appropriate, nutrient herds, and 
 flocks, and swarms of living creatures, most unnatu- 
 rally and marvelously anxious to be eaten ! 
 
 Omitting to notice any of the thousand, specific pe- 
 culiarities, by which animal existence must have been 
 distinguished, in the different climates and localities 
 of Asia and Africa; and the apparent inconveniences 
 attending their sudden congregation at a single point 
 in ancient Armenia, there are, still, innumerable cir- 
 cumstances, with which my incredulity is querulously 
 at issue; of which however, an instance or two must 
 suffice our present purpose. 
 
 Among the many kinds of animals peculiar to 
 South America, which must have been included in the 
 diluvian, salvatory project, however difficultly accom- 
 plished, there are four species of Ant-eaters: Hence 
 we may reasonably contemplate eight of them, ac- 
 companied by countless millions of those diminutive 
 insects, for whose destruction P. M. Roget & Co. 
 would declare these animals were intentionally and 
 especially created; and these also attended by their 
 multiplied myriads of aphides or vine-fretters, no less 
 indispensable to their own necessities: For it would 
 be preposterous to pretend that Noah, in addition to 
 all his other perplexities, should have been obliged to 
 hunt up ant's nests enough to provision these eight 
 gormandizers, for the period of a full year after their 
 arrival in Armenia! And, in order to strengthen the 
 probability of the principal event, we may also ima- 
 gine those insectiverous myrmecophaga, with their in- 
 calculably numerous attendant insects, most provi- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 99 
 
 tlently pioneered, in their seven days excursion of 
 more than six thousand miles, by their enterprising, 
 sprightly compatriot, the Sloth; of which it is said, 
 that he is so deliberate in his progressive expeditions, 
 as, having become fattened upon one forest tree, to 
 be reduced to the last state of emaciation, while trav- 
 eling to the next one, though but a few yards distant 
 Nor would the Dodo, of the Isle of France, the literal 
 impersonation of deformity and inactivity, be an un- 
 apt commissary in such an anomulous enterprise ! In 
 what condition do you think the Boa, Crocadile, Sloth, 
 Ape, Lion, Elephant andjOstrich, from the hottest cli- 
 mates, would have been found, at the end of this 
 strange catastrophe, and at a point of elevation 
 marked by perpetual frost? And do you deem it a 
 plausible suggestion, that the White-bear would spon- 
 taneously prosecute a journey, from Greenland, to 
 the interior of Asia, when he pants in the sunshine of 
 his own polar zero; thus, not only, to be broiled in 
 the plains of the Frat or the Kur, but to starve for 
 lack of fresh fish and seals, which the deluge must 
 have rendered it particularly difficult to obtain. The 
 Argos-pheasant, also, must have been somewhat diffi- 
 cultly sustained, upon so long a voyage, unless its 
 character has been misrepresented: For it is said of 
 it, that it cannot be kept alive beyond a single month, 
 in a state of bondage. 
 
 Suppose, however, all these, and a thousand other 
 apparently impossible events to have really occurred; 
 and the ark, not only, to have been built, but fully 
 freighted, consonantly with its reputed purpose; and 
 
 LofC. 
 
100 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 all that heterogeneous congregation quietly nibbling 
 its several rations, in strange, promiscuous harmony — 
 it still remains a problem of most unfeasible solution, 
 how Noah, with his undisciplined and scanty help, 
 could have safely navigated such an unwieldly enor- 
 mity, in such a limitless, dark and boisterous ocean, 
 without rudder, anchor, star or compass, nor yet, 
 have failed to end his anomalous and erratic voyage, 
 within the limits of his own Armenia, But may be, 
 you are ready to retort, that God was Noah's pilot; 
 and hence the safety of the ship, and prosperity of 
 the issue! Then, in my opinion^ God has been much 
 more ingenious and successful in his nautical, than 
 spiritual, affairs!— a much better mariner, than meta- 
 physician or legislator; or both Jews and Christians 
 have slanderously misrepresented Him! And again; 
 though theological credulity shall be able to reconcile 
 these preposterous circumstances, to its peculiar stand- 
 ard of consistency, it would seem that, were it not 
 early and constantly disciplined in swallowing absurd- 
 ities by the volume, it would find itself, not a little, 
 perplexed with the state of affairs, inevitably conse- 
 quent upon the deluge. It must have required much 
 more than a mimic miracle, to produce a sudden crop 
 of luxuriant verdure from out the mud and rock, the 
 flood, so lately, had abandoned — a state, in which the 
 earth could have been, scarcely, more prolific, than 
 when it first emerged from a primeval chaos! And 
 Theology, as we have seen, at length admits an epoch, 
 of at least a thousand years, to have been expended 
 upon the earth's first, verdant mantle, ere insects, 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 101 
 
 beasts and birds, the product of such an other epoch, 
 were sent to nestle in its folds: Nor terminates the 
 difficulty here! — For, admitting vegetable luxuriance 
 to have, miraculously, succeeded the deluge, there 
 yet remains the perplexing consideration, that a great 
 proportion of Noah's omnigenous congregation was 
 carniverous; and therefore, in the absence of another, 
 no less miraculous creation, than that wherein the life 
 of animals originated, these imprisoned, fleshly feed- 
 ers must have been turned adrift, with the improvi- 
 dent and evil chance of eating one another — ending 
 thus the catastrophe of the fable ! And yet, the most 
 surprising miracle of all is unrecounted; viz., that 
 God should not have saved himself so unnatural and 
 perplexing an administration of his own affairs, as, 
 by a single miracle, to have aided our first progeni- 
 tors, in a successful resistance of the devil; nor left 
 them to become, by disobedience, so exactly like 
 himself— and that at such an awful hazard! 
 
 I have thus presented you with an inconsiderable 
 fraction of the evidence of inconsistency in the char- 
 acter of the Jewish God, as contained in his own reve- 
 lation of himself. And if more is required, in order 
 to complete any undecided conviction, a general refer- 
 ence may be made to the entire pentateuch, wherein 
 the greatest follies and the blackest crimes are abet- 
 ted and enjoined by this personification of the genius 
 of superstition. And should men be stigmatized as 
 atheists, and thrust without the pale of civil privilege, 
 and protection, because their faith but darkly sees the 
 worth of such a character: or their reason has broke 
 
102 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 loose from traditionary leading-strings, and claimed 
 its fight of supervisorship ? The Indian's Manatau, 
 without a doubt, deserves as much respect as this of 
 Israel, or as any other extra-mundane fiction called 
 a God, or by any other name, that men have chosen 
 for their ignorance of causation ! 
 
 Of an extra-mundane God, of whom it has been al- 
 ready said, that he would be inevitably as useless as 
 a marble statue, in superintending the phenomena of 
 the world, the following additional remark may not 
 be unacceptable, as an illustration. 
 
 Let me refer you to that primitive, ideal state of 
 things, when universal chaos reigned. — When God's 
 omniscience planned a Universe unlimited; and his 
 omnipotency spoke it into being. — When his single 
 contemplation must have viewed infinity of circum- 
 stance and space, throughout an interminably revol- 
 ving series, as though all changes, to be thereafter 
 wrought, were but as unity, in the present tense. — 
 Nor could that contemplation be repeated, since noth- 
 ing new could possibly occur, to call it into action. 
 One effort also of omnipotence, must have been the 
 alpha and omega of God's determination, since that 
 must have set the world's machinery effectually and 
 infallibly in motion ; and wherein it must resistlessly 
 continue as long as he shall have decreed it ! Thus 
 we see that such a God's creation must have com- 
 menced and ended simultaneously, and not progressed 
 by regular succession of time and circumstance ; 
 And therefore, since he passed his first decree, he 
 must have sat an idle and a passive looker on of all 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 103 
 
 the world's innumerable and inevitable phenomena : 
 Nor would his presence be one whit less nugatory, 
 than that of him, who shall have made a clock, to 
 measure out, with absolute precision, each moment of 
 a hundred years, and that but with a single winding, 
 and then should sit and count the motions of its pen- 
 dulum. 
 
 Would not the hands of such machine revolve as 
 well, were he who wrought them dead, as though he 
 lived to watch the progress of their uniform and per- 
 fect revolutions ? — And if thus — wherefore should 
 doubt, or disbelief, of such a character be bandied, 
 except from fool to fool, as sinfulness or reproach r 
 What but Bigotry, or Lunacy would deem it blasphe- 
 mous to say, that such a God, whether of Gentile, 
 Jew, or Christian, is not more useful than a man of 
 straw ; nor more deserving of human veneration ? 
 
 But then you say, perhaps, that intelligence must 
 have been employed, in arranging the materials of 
 this complicated physical Universe, and the phenome- 
 na, they specifically and relatively present. Intelli- 
 gence, therefore, becomes the subject of present and 
 particular inquiry ; and is, without a doubt, as far 
 as ordinary humanity is able to distinguish, exclusive- 
 ly, an atribute of an organized, living sentient being, 
 in possession of a brain and nervous system, and 
 consists in a more or less clear perception of the phe- 
 nomena of Nature, and the several relations existing 
 among them : And hence the brain, and not the 
 heart, should be contemplated, as the exclusive in- 
 strument of mind, thought or soul ; and this, wheth- 
 
104 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 er consciousness result from organic functionality, or 
 from a more or less successful effort of the soul to 
 display itself, through the vulgar medium of physical 
 organism. And, whatever the mode of operation, it 
 is already the settled opinion of all educated persons, 
 that the better developed, the more healthy, and the 
 better disciplined and sustained, is this cranial or 
 psychological machinery, the clearer, and more ele- 
 vated, is the intellectual product or functional intel- 
 ligence, it displays. 
 
 In these respects, thought and locomotion possess 
 a parallel character, both being alike embarrassed by 
 defective, or unhealthy, organism, or deficient, or ex- 
 cessive exercise. 
 
 The idea of thought existing abstractly from a brain, 
 would be no less preposterous, than that of animal 
 motion, unconnected with muscular developement. 
 A brainless philosopher, and an agile skeleton would 
 be equally strange phenomena. In fine, it appears to 
 me quite impossible to conceive of mind, or soul, 
 but as an attribute or function of organized, living, 
 animal matter. And hence it follows, that deity, in 
 order to posses the attribute of intelligence, should 
 be also in possession of a brain, or some other appro- 
 priate, physical organ, through which intelligence, 
 mind, or soul, may be displayed, or by which it may 
 be generated. It appears, therefore, incontrovertible, 
 that the intelligence of God must be animal intelli- 
 gence, or that, of which mankind can have no man- 
 ner of conception: And hence the theist cannot es- 
 cape the vexatious dilemma, that his God is clothed 
 

 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 105 
 
 with human attributes, or with none at all, as far as 
 he can apprehend. And do you think the former 
 kind, which is scarcely adequate, at best, to the or- 
 dinary exigences of temporal humanity, well befitting 
 the creator and director of a world's affairs r Nor 
 can the difficulty be at all obviated, by the vulgar, 
 senseless expedient, of annexing the term, infinite, 
 to this, or any other, imputed attribute of God. For 
 this adjective, like the subject, it is so often used to 
 qualify, however convenient, or indespensable, use 
 may have rendered it, means neither more nor less, 
 than an indefinite extension of its substantive, beyond 
 the limits of human apprehension: And in every 
 case in which it is used, it is exactly synonymous with 
 an acknowledgement of total ignorance of what it is 
 intended to express. Therefore, whoever speaks of 
 wisdom, power and goodness, as attributes of God, 
 whether qualified by the nugatory adjective, infinite, 
 or not, is manufacturing a deity of the attributes of 
 mere humanity. And here you will allow me to ask 
 again,Who else but fool or lunatic would kneel in pious 
 veneration, to so uncomely and so strange a vagary ? 
 
 The difficulty upon this question seems to depend 
 upon the fallacy of confounding an attribute of mere 
 humanity, and one in no inconsiderable degree com- 
 mon to men and beasts, denominated intelligence, 
 with the adaptiveness or consistency of Nature, of 
 which this same human intelligence is a constituent; 
 man himself being a part of her physical system, and 
 employed in the performance of her functions. 
 
 And were I indulged a moment for recapitulation, 
 
 13 
 
106 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 1 would express my own belief of God and, his intel- 
 ligence, in the language of the following theorems. 
 
 First. That the original idea of God is universally 
 and unexceptionably the same, with all mankind, 
 who are endowed with the ordinary powers and op- 
 portunities of reflection; and that it is identical with 
 that of inherent, primitive, or ultimate causality, and 
 spontaneously engendered in the mind of every in- 
 quirer after the causes of things. And thus, is the 
 only plausible notion of atheism completely invalida- 
 ted — no man being obnoxious to the epithet, who is 
 able to contemplate the existence of an unknown 
 cause: Upon which point, the savage and the sage 
 are nearly equal competitors; both infallibly attaining 
 their goal, but by different steps, and unequal des- 
 patch. 
 
 Second. That natural Theology affords no other 
 evidence, or knowledge of Deity, than that of mere 
 abstract existence, obtained by induction, whilst in- 
 vestigating the relation of cause and effect. And that 
 nothing more can ever be known upon the subject, 
 except by the assistance of supernatural revelation. 
 
 Third. That intelligence, as applied to God, is al- 
 together void of meaning, or palpably slanderous of 
 his imputed omnisciency; and cannot be theologically 
 employed without the basest irreverence, or, the 
 deepest stupidity. It would, nevertheless, be striking- 
 ]y absurd, to utter an explicit denial of the intelli- 
 gence of God, or causality, which it is not man's 
 province to determine; but it is his right to insist up- 
 on the truth of the proposition, that human apprehea- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 107 
 
 sion cannot, in any conceivable manner, apply itself 
 to the subject of infinite wisdom, admitting such wis- 
 dom to exist. Nor is it possible for mankind to ac- 
 quire any definite idea of the existence of any other 
 intelligence, affection, or propensity, than that which 
 is displayed by living animals. Thus, are men stig- 
 matized, as infidels and atheists, because they see 
 and own their ignorance of all beyond the pale of 
 time and things, and humbly yield, to God or Nature, 
 the sole direction of superhuman incidents — Mean- 
 while, the human egotist, who assumes to be famil- 
 iar with the privacies of God, and with the undevel- 
 oped circumstances of, perhaps, a ficticious future 
 state of being; and who, both night and morning, im- 
 pudently asks his God, to shape His providence, to 
 his own immediate, particular occasions; or, at least 
 reminds Him of the duty of looking carefully to His 
 own affairs, is eulogized as a model of humanity; and 
 as a very pink of piety and wisdom. Nor are vanity 
 and impudence the only faults, that reason charges 
 upon such pharisaic holiness. She hears them confi- 
 dently reiterate the purest Gospel-precepts, as though 
 they were themselves the Logos, whence they came; 
 and, meanwhile, hourly contradict them by their base 
 examples. — She also hears their daily, formal prayers, 
 in which they ask their God to be a benefactor to the 
 poor — to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; nor 
 even dream that God has made them stewards of a 
 bounty, He intended should be thus appropriated: 
 And hence she tells her votaries, thac there is some- 
 thing wrong, or rotten, in the system of theology. 
 
108 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 And for this, she and they are slandered and con- 
 demned as miscreants, and fearful agents of the ad- 
 versary, in the diabolical project of both temporal 
 and eternal ruin: Nor has she ever ventured a com- 
 ment upon its absurdities, even those, which itself 
 has subsequently discarded, in shame for their very 
 ugliness, but that superstition has, forthwith, perse- 
 cuted her from Dan to Beersheba and back again; 
 nor relaxed in her severities, until by tortures, and 
 oaths of extermination, the exhausted and dishearten- 
 ed heritic has been made to utter a heartless recanta- 
 tion. 
 
 Nor has the cry of heresy, blasphemy, infidelity 
 and atheism, ever failed to be raised against the vota- 
 ries of Reason, who have dared to inculcate her sug- 
 gestions of the deformities of Popery, and even of 
 Judaism itself; nor have its echoes ceased, wherever 
 Superstition has set its cloven hoof, since Seth and 
 Enos, lucklessly, mistook causation for a God: But 
 even here, in this focus of discordant spiritualism, or, 
 as discourtesy might say, this menagere of biped ani- 
 mals, where precept and example are hot at logger- 
 heads, and vociferously bandying the lie, in each 
 other's teeth, Superstition is already getting hoarse 
 with brawling of its danger and its infallibility. 
 
 Thus you see I have thrown the gauntlet to Juda- 
 ism, and the superstitions of Christianity; nor intend 
 ever to resume it, whilst I retain the power to wield 
 either tongue or pen, in what I deem a most holy, 
 contest — a contest of Reason and Truth and Amity, 
 against Lunacy, Error and murderous Dissension. 
 
 But lest I should be mistaken for a disorganizer — 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 109 
 
 a civil and moral nuisance — an abettor of crime, and 
 an advocate of licentiousness, I must beg your atten- 
 tion to the following avowal. 
 
 I hold to equal, and mutual rights, privileges, and 
 responsibilities, among all persons, of all countries, 
 and of all colors; and that it is the especial duty of 
 each individual in every community, to act conscien- 
 tiously, or in accordance with the suggestions of rea- 
 son, uninfluenced by personal considerations, by preju- 
 dice or partiality — or by the fear of consequences, to 
 persons or characters; and, meanwhile, aim to make 
 the greatest possible contributions to the common 
 stock of human happiness. 
 
 I hold that the moral precepts of the New Testa- 
 ment should be adopted, as the standard of rectitude 
 among mankind, until an unquestionably better sys- 
 tem shall have been obtained. And that the Gospel 
 can never become seriously objectionable, until its 
 precepts shall have been surpassed by the excellence 
 of human conduct; of which disparagement, it ap- 
 pears in no immediate danger. 
 
 I hold, that Legislation should seek to elevate the 
 character and promote the welfare of its subjects, 
 with the least possible infringement of the principle 
 of reciprocity; being itself obedient to those institu- 
 tions of Nature, that regard the production, preserva- 
 tion, usefulness and happiness of the human race. 
 
 And were there a power, that I could successfully 
 invoke, I would become a wrestling Jacob, until I 
 were blessed with the happy consciousness, of having 
 fully exemplified the purity of the Gospel, in my own 
 daily practices. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 INFIDELITY AND RELI&I0US FAITH CRITICALLY 
 EXAMINED, AND COMPARED. 
 
 Infidelity, or unbelief, in its religious acceptation, 
 is a disbelief of the supernatural inspiration of the 
 Scriptures, or of the superhuman origin of Christian- 
 ity; whilst the opposite should, of course, be received 
 as the definition of religious faith. 
 
 Since Nature is entirely barren of testimony in fa- 
 vor of theology, anM further than the inductive con- 
 viction, she enforces, of the existence of an ultimate 
 cause, which we have considered, heretofore, as iden- 
 tical with God, the creator, mankind have found it 
 convenient to introduce, upon this question, the testi- 
 mony of a reputed divine revelation. And, upon 
 this, I believe the utmost reliance is almost universal- 
 ly placed. If, therefore, it should fail to sustain it- 
 self, under the severest scrutiny, Theology will be 
 inevitably exposed in its naked decrepitude; and ab- 
 horred for its digusting deformities: But, on the other 
 hand, if it is marked with the consistency and infalli- 
 bility of the laws of Nature, it will grow brighter by 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. Ill 
 
 collision, and more and more conspicuous by the tests 
 to which it is submitted. And were I a disciple of 
 revealed religion, I would solicit, and even provoke, 
 discussion upon the question of supernatural revela- 
 tion, until the infidel shall have relinquished the last 
 hook, upon which to hang even the shadow of an ob- 
 jection; glorying, meanwhile, in my increasing confi- 
 dence of the truth, as my adversary shall have re- 
 treated from the field of contest. 
 
 When have men fallen to loggerheads, about the 
 permanency of the laws of Nature? Or whether 
 they were in danger of being obstructed or perverted 
 by the fallacy of human opinion? Have they not 
 proceeded with the same regularity and results, what- 
 ever opinion mankind have maintained of them? 
 And, were Theology of a similar character, would it 
 surrender its dominion over the opinions of men, 
 sooner than gravitation over his physical corporality? 
 
 Revelation is, nevertheless, believed to be, in tech- 
 nical phrase, a noli me tangere, or touch me not — a 
 sanctum sanctorum, or holy of holies, wherein the 
 profanity of human reason is, peremptorily, forbid- 
 den to enter, lest it should corrupt the savor of holi- 
 ness, or be itself extinguished, for its sacrilegious te- 
 merity. But then again, the laws of Nature, which 
 Theology admits to be the institutions of God, are, 
 in no wise, impaired by the closest examination; and 
 wherefore revelation should be more endangered, 
 from a similar scrutiny, is a question of no easy solu- 
 tion, unless it is itself a fiction. 
 
 The truth of revelation, or the supernatural char- 
 
112 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 acter of the Scriptures, therefore, offers itself for ex- 
 amination: An enterprise so full of danger, if not of 
 difficulty, that less than the temerity of martyrdom 
 would cower at the enunciation of its terrible threat- 
 enings. It is deemed an unhallowed encroachment 
 upon the sanctuary of the holy mountain, which The- 
 ology has fenced about with a mysterious sanctity that 
 pales the face of the most dauntless intruder. A 
 critical inquiry into the divinity of revelation is, at 
 any time, a desperate undertaking, and affords a prac- 
 tical illustration of the language of the author of 
 Christianity, wherein he exclaims, " Think not that I 
 am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send 
 peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at 
 variance against his father, and the daughter against 
 her mother," fee. — a declaration that every page of 
 Christian history has fully verified. And thus, inno- 
 vation upon established prejudices has always done! 
 But if, as the present opinion is, God permits man- 
 kind to examine, and speculate upon his works — 
 wherefore should his word be excluded from the same 
 ordeal? Would God have promulgated a sentiment 
 or a principle, for the theological, moral or political 
 direction of mankind, less infallible, in truth and ef- 
 fect, than are the laws that govern the inorganic 
 world? Whence, then, the cowardly dread that the 
 word of God is in danger of being subverted? But 
 perhaps the disciple of Christianity deprecates the 
 temporary evils of Infidelity upon the weak and 
 credulous, during a contest in which the latter shall 
 be finally overcome? 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 113 
 
 This is, nevertheless, an unjustifiable fear; since 
 the path to Christian conversion must be constantly, 
 if not fatally, obstructed, until every stumbling-block 
 to scepticism shall have been effectually removed. 
 Hence the necessity of collision, until Theological, 
 shall vie with mathematical, truth, in the clearness of 
 its demonstrations — when man shall be again admit- 
 ted to a personal interview with his maker; nor be 
 cheated of the certainty of truth, of all the most mo- 
 mentous, through the fallacious medium of human in- 
 terpretation. And here, I must solicit your patience, 
 while I speak a few words, in explanation of my own 
 particular predicament. 
 
 Notwithstanding the notoriety of my irreligion, 
 which I have never shrunk from declaring, whenever 
 solicited, with a frankness that ought to have vouched, 
 at least, for my sincerity, I have succeeded in acqui- 
 ring the friendship and patronage of a great number 
 of individuals, and mostly too of Christian denomina- 
 tions, whose acquaintance any man might have been 
 proud to share; but, I may be allowed to say, upon 
 this particular occasion, that I have, nevertheless, 
 been, more than any other individual of rny acquaint- 
 ance, the object of an unremitted, relentless and big- 
 oted persecution, for more than thirty years; and 
 after all, am, at this moment, enjoying the compensa- 
 tory reflection, that I have contemptuously rejected 
 hundreds of solicitations to place myself, even in the 
 foremost ranks of Christian communities; and that I 
 have also resisted as many temptations to secure my 
 
 14 
 
114 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 temporal prosperity, at the sacrifice of both my rea- 
 son and conscience. 
 
 But then the oddest point in this long history of 
 bloodless persecution is, that after thirty years of 
 frank avowal of my scepticism, the tug of war, with 
 murderous Bigotry, shall have but now arrived. And 
 wherefore all my Christian friends should deem me 
 closer leagued with Satan now, than at any former 
 day of thirty years, is be} r ond my feeble power of 
 divination. My principles were drawn, like theirs, 
 from Gospel infallibility, wherein my spirit has been 
 daily schooled, from childhood onward: And though 
 its warfare with the flesh has proved its discipline de- 
 fective, nor made my case, in this respect, at all pe- 
 culiar; is it reasonable to fear, that wear and tear 
 have made me more licentious? 
 
 But when my friends, in tearful sorrow for my 
 waywardness, shall threaten to withdraw their friend- 
 ship and their patronage, in conformity with the plain 
 injunctions of a Christian conscience, and prescribed 
 allegiance to the infinite source of merciful forgive- 
 ness; I have but one reply to such denounement, 
 which is: However dearly I esteem the affection of 
 my friends, and that can scarcely be suspected, in one, 
 who honestly declares his willingness to yield his life 
 in sacrifice for the welfare of his foes, I cannot hesi- 
 tate, in the arbitrary and unnatural dilemma, wherein 
 my friends, or liberty, must be relinquished. You 
 know 'tis base, contemptibly base, that man should 
 enter into voluntary slavery to his fellow man; but 
 that 'tis baser still, except by moral suasion, to at- 
 
 I 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 115 
 
 tempt to modify a single thought: But then, all other 
 baseness may, comparatively, assume the name of 
 virtue, when contrasted with that low sycophancy, 
 that would purchase favor with its self respect — a 
 baseness inexpressible by any epithets afforded by our 
 language. And then suppose that penury, with its 
 hungry importunity and rags, should drive me to a 
 base relinquishment of libeity and self respect, for 
 patronage and friendship. What magnanimity in 
 friendship thus developed, thus obtained and thus di- 
 rected ? Moral putrefaction would be a savor of right- 
 eousness in comparison! But enough of this un- 
 comely egotism, which nothing but apparent necessi- 
 ty would have elicited. The question of siapernatu- 
 ralism is much more worthy of my labor, and your 
 attention. 
 
 The scriptures purport to be a divine revelation 
 from God to man; and in this assumption, the popu- 
 lation of Christendom, almost unanimonsly concur. * 
 And in order to frighten incredulity, and even timidi- 
 ty into acquiescence, Imposture has set its seal there- 
 on, engraven with a denunciation of the unbeliever ; 
 and damnation to him that doubts. But to this par- 
 ticular point, whatever the imputed heresy, the Ameri- 
 can citizen, white or black, male or female, should 
 not hesitate to speak with a frankness, emphasis and 
 boldness, persuasive of his sincerity, and his proud 
 consciousnes of personal liberty. And here, in the 
 unbending spirit of reciprocal and impartial freedom, 
 I venture to enunciate my irrevocable curse upon 
 cowardice, and blush to think, hew many Jonahs 
 
 
116 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 are my brethren. Yes, to be frightened into a relin- 
 quishment of one's opinion, by threatf purporting to 
 be either from God or man, is a base servility, to 
 which an upright,manly consciousness can never bend : 
 Nor is there more than seeming heresy in this re- 
 mark: For it is a truth, no one can hope to contro- 
 vert, that a God cannot, and that man should not, be 
 unreasonable. 
 
 The disciples of Christianity are, or ought to be, 
 fully conscious, that both the supernatural and literal 
 characters of the scriptures have been subjects of 
 censorious controversy for many hundred years: 
 For that an occasional individual, has Droke loose 
 from the restraints of traditionary superstition, and 
 with a temerity that defied persecution, promulgated 
 his heresies in the teeth of a retaliatory, malignant 
 and fashionable theology. Nor does the question ap- 
 pear, at present, to be any nearer settled, than at 
 any former period of the protracted contest. Chris- 
 tians ought not, therefore, arbitrarily, to impose upon 
 an opponent, a series of essays, as indisputable au- 
 thority, whose character and import have been a sub- 
 ject of interminable, malevolent dissention, even 
 among themselves. 
 
 Were the truth of biblical divinity susceptible of 
 demonstration, or even of plausible support, by ex- 
 trinsic circumstances, or intrinsic consistency, it 
 would, assuredly, have been, long since, shorn of its 
 countless horns, upon which Scepticism has, so long 
 and securely, hung its myriads of objections. But to 
 the great annoyance of its disciples, those horns have 
 

 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 1 17 
 
 grown more numerous and conspicuous, as science 
 has dispersed the darkness in which they were gener- 
 ated. 
 
 Whenever testimony is demanded of the truth of 
 divine revelation, the inquirer having been firstly 
 presented with a motley preface of hems and haws, 
 of grins and grimaces, of groans and grumblings at 
 the absurdity and even sinfulness of such a query, is 
 finally referred to what are denominated prophecy 
 and miracles for a demonstration of its validity; as 
 though the most unlikely, if not impossible, things in 
 nature, were to he credited as self-evident truths. 
 These are propositions which Nature abhors and Phi- 
 losophy detests — which cultivated reason indignantly 
 spurns; and to which, nothing but the darkest super- 
 stition, or the wildest mysticism can be made to as- 
 sent. And yet in these palpable fallacies, slanders of 
 Nature, and mockeries of her consistency, there is 
 something that may be seriously, but mournfully, 
 contemplated. One truth, at least, is included in 
 these propositions, which must not only be admitted, 
 but is doubtless deserving an explanation; viz., the 
 almost universal conviction of their validity. 
 
 It is not to be doubted, that the probability of very 
 many future, or anticipated, events, may have been 
 very clearly apprehended by many of the Jewish, 
 Pagan and Christian moralists and politicians, and 
 accordingly promulgated, in the language of positive 
 assurance; by which ignorant credulity may have 
 been successfully imposed upon, and a positive 
 knowledge of future events very naturally supposed 
 
118 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 to exist, in the character of an undefinable, supernat- 
 ural state, or kind, of human consciousness. 
 
 Those nominal prophecies, of whatever date, place 
 or character, were, doubtless, more or less rational 
 inductions from known moral Or political circumstan- 
 ces, and generally promulgated, especially among the 
 Hebrews, in the imaginative spirit and style of an- 
 tique poetry: But however legitimately and success- 
 fully they may have been deduced from substantial 
 premises, they must, nevertheless, have been, and 
 remained, mere matters of faith, and not of fact, un- 
 til their actual transpiration shall have given them a 
 palpable and indisputable existance: For the most 
 confident and reasonable expectation of an event, 
 can never be identical with its certainty. An event 
 in prospect is not an event in fact: And whatever 
 has not already assumed the character of a specific 
 phenomenon, possesses no other identity than that of 
 an idea, in the mind of the projector : Therefore, pheno- 
 mena, not yet transpired, are no phenomena at all; and 
 however probable their occurrence, cannot make any 
 part of the positive knowledge of mankind. They 
 are, therefore, to be guessed at, as the nearest ap- 
 proach to certainty. 
 
 To doubt that the sun will rise tomorrow, would 
 be justly deemed insanity; and yet it is equally ab- 
 surd to think we know it will. Water has hitherto, 
 when left to the law of gravitation, invariably run 
 down hil!, and nothing appears more likely, than that 
 it will continue thus to do; but to know the fact, is 
 not an attribute of ordinary humanity. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 119 
 
 The difference, therefore, between knowledge and 
 belief, is too palpable to be mistaken; and may be 
 seen to cpnsist in this — while the former depends ex- 
 clusively upon an especial examination, and accurate ap- 
 prehension of the fact itself; the latter is a mere deduc- 
 tion from other facts, to which the particular fact in 
 question is supposed to stand in a logical relation. 
 And so of the events of prophecy, which must have 
 existed in the mind of the prophet, as more or less 
 distinct anticipations, produced by a course of reflec- 
 tion upon the relation existing between apparent 
 causes and unapparent effects. 
 
 It appears entirely incontrovertible, whatever at- 
 tempts may have been made to invalidate it, that no 
 idea was ever acquired, but by the collision of some 
 external circumstance with an organ of sense, or by 
 reflecting upon ideas already thus acquired: Or in 
 other words, we have no means of direct knowledge, 
 except by the aid of our senses, and that too by their 
 direct application to the objects of inquiry, or to their 
 representatives; or of indirect, or inductive, knowl- 
 edge, except by judicious reflection upon the relations 
 and tendencies of such objects, or upon the ideas they 
 shall have created. 
 
 There is perhaps no greater absurdity in Nature, 
 than the idea that mind can anticipate thought. Mind 
 and thought are synonymous, and therefore converti- 
 ble terms. — Hence it would be no less absurd to say, 
 that mind thinks, while that very contemplation is 
 mind itself, than to say that thought thinks, or that 
 motion moves. 
 
120 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 It is true, that mind has been erroneously interpre- 
 ted as the instrument of thought, which appears to be 
 au injudicious epithet for brain, that is now recog- 
 nized, by all educated persons, as the exclusive psy- 
 chological apparatus. In this manner, cause and ef- 
 fect are palpably confounded, and the function of an 
 organ mistaken for the organ itself. Mind is as clear- 
 ly an organic function as muscular motion; both be- 
 ing phenomena, produced by irresistible impulse up- 
 on the thinking and motive organs. Nor can either 
 brain or muscle excite itself to action.— They must 
 passively await the presence of excitation, without 
 which neither would ever act: 
 
 To speak physiologically: Man is an aggregate of 
 complicated organism, which is so arranged as that, 
 whilst each individual organic structure possesses a 
 specific identity and functionality, the whole are as- 
 sociated by means of vascular and nervous intercom- 
 munication, into an individual, living, thinking, ac- 
 ting machine, whose phenomena are either psycho- 
 logecal or automatic, or, in other words, voluntary 
 or involuntary; with the former of which only, are 
 we at present concerned. 
 
 A voluntary action is that which occurs in conso- 
 nance with, and as an impulse of, the will, and is pri- 
 marily produced in the following manner^ viz. — An 
 appropriate external stimulus is presented to a heal- 
 thy organ of sensation; whence a corresponding im- 
 pulse is received by the nerves, or sentient medium 
 between the world and consciousness; which impulse 
 being transmitted to the brain, a corresponding con- 
 sciousness, idea or perception is, at once, developed. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 121 
 
 Nor can I apprehend any other mode, by which an 
 original, or primitive, idea can have been ever ac- 
 quired. And yet, this primitive idea may become it- 
 self an efficient stimulus to thought — an adequate 
 substitute for physical impulse, in the development of 
 any formal series of reflections. And beside these, 
 there seems to be no natural and apprehensible mode 
 of inducing the state denominated consciousness. 
 What, therefore, is apparently more innocent or judi- 
 cious, than an inquiry after the peculiar mode by 
 which a reputed supernatural idea may have been ac- 
 quired ? But upon this question, or rather this para- 
 doxical fatuity, Philosophy frowns contemptuously, 
 whilst all Nature is as mute as vacancy itself. No ! 
 never has she whispered a thing so senseless as su- 
 pernatural revelation; nor practiced the servility of 
 owning a superior. And is not man, at best, a hum- 
 ble part of this same adaptive, systematic Nature? 
 And what is all his aggregate biography, but a single 
 paragraph of her voluminous and interminable histo- 
 ry? Can he, a mere instrument, like a pair of pin- 
 cers in his mother's hand, with which to work her 
 purposes, successfully aspire to that which she has 
 not intended ? That humanity can acquire a thought, 
 above what Nature can suggest, is a fallacy, at which 
 reflecting infancy should sneer. Prophecy, therefore, 
 can never have been, at best, any thing more than an 
 expression of opinion relative to an anticipated event, 
 of which known circumstances appeared to the repu- 
 ted seer, to indicate a greater or less probability : 
 For, as we have already heard, certainty with man, 
 
 15 
 
12-2 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 pertains to nothing which has not yet transpired; and 
 even of that, he is too often conscious of misappre- 
 hension, not to distrust the infallibility of his senses. 
 It seems to be high time, therefore, that the stultify- 
 ing phantasm, prophetic, or supernatural, inspiration 
 was effectually exploded, and intellect disenthralled 
 from its superstitious servility. Nor does it seem less 
 derogatory to cultivated common sense, that mankind 
 should admit the occurrence of phenomena, independ- 
 ent and transcendental of Nature's laws. 
 
 It is said, that God wrought miracles, in aid of Ju- 
 daisnij and of the subjugation and extermination of 
 those who ventured an opposition to Hebrew robbery 
 and dominion. And what, meanwhile, became of his 
 omnisciency, that he should have wholly overlooked 
 those palpable defects, in both the ethics and theology 
 of Judaism, for which a few years after, he found it 
 indispensable to substitute the novel system called 
 Christianity? And did that project prove abortive, 
 which a senior God had instituted, especially, for the 
 Jew, and which a junior God was miraculously com- 
 missioned to enforce? And did God waste a world 
 of pains, in this and various other ways, upon His 
 peculiar people, until His undisguised partiality be- 
 came a by-word of reproach, and a plausible excuse 
 for atheism; and then, alas, resign them up, with ap- 
 propriate denunciations, to His satanic adversary for 
 both temporal and eternal ruin? And did he not al- 
 low the only Theocracy on earth, the only govern- 
 ment, he ever, personally, administered, to be sub- 
 verted, and its subjects, who had long basked in the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 123 
 
 egotizing beams of culpable partiality, to be persecu- 
 ted, dispersed, enslaved and murdered, by the same 
 pagan idolaters as had been the particular objects of 
 His almighty vengeance? Now, do you seriously be- 
 lieve in the existence of such a god, or in his power 
 to interrupt or modify the laws of Nature; and that 
 for purposes so fatuous or vile, that common justice 
 deprecates, and common sense detests, them? And 
 would a god like this, be fully competent to direct a 
 world's phenomena, so broad, so limitless, that this 
 whole system called our own, is, comparatively, a 
 single atom? But these comparisons are nugatory, 
 since such a god could not produce a spear of grass, 
 nor scarcely tell it from a turnip. 
 
 It is also said, that God wrought miracles in order 
 to convince mankind of Christ's divinity, and of Gos- 
 pel-truth. And with what success, though aided by 
 the fagot and the sword, the genuine disciple of 
 Christianity, of this, or any other, time, would blush 
 to tell. And if we may measure the extent of unbe- 
 lief, by the deep and reiterated lamentations of the 
 pious; Christendom has dearly paid, perhaps toodear- 
 Jy, for its reformation, howeyer tenaciously its friends 
 may hold the contrary. 
 
 The proposition is plausible at least, that no less 
 miracle is required to produce conviction of a super- 
 human truth, in the mind of an individual, than in 
 the minds of the whole human race — nor can it mat- 
 ter at all, whether the subject of such communication 
 is philosopher or fool; since a supernatural idea, being 
 acquired neither by sensation nor reflection, can stand 
 
124 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 in no relation, whatever, to a natural one, nor be 
 modified in the least, by any of the phenomena of 
 Man or Nature. 
 
 What worse improvidence, therefore, of either God 
 or man, than to begin to propagate a truth, especially 
 of the Gospel's reputed moment, too late to benefit a 
 hundred generations; and by a method, so defective, 
 that eighteen hundred years have been wasted on its 
 preface — a method inevitably, and proverbially, abor- 
 tive, without the aid of God's incessant, miraculous 
 interposition, through the medium of His Grace! 
 And if the Gospel-dispensation were made for man's 
 immediate safety, wherefore was God so culpably im- 
 provident, as to defer that dispensation for the period 
 of four thousand years, wherein some hundred thou- 
 sand million souls must have been lost, for want of 
 gospel intervention? Or wherefore all this bustle, 
 about a novel methed of salvation, while the Hea- 
 then's piety and the Jew's obedience were adequate 
 to its accomplishment? And is a god of such a char- 
 acter worthy of respect, and his absurdities to be ac- 
 credited as supernatural and divine phenomena? Or 
 is it not inversely true, that such a god does not exist, 
 except in Superstition's wild imagination, and thus, 
 too palpably preposterous for serious contemplation? 
 And however generally or universally the idea may 
 have been adopted, or venerated, is it at all too sacred 
 for children to break their jests upon? 
 
 And yet, is not this fallacious whim personified, the 
 very God both Jews and Christians worship, and to 
 which the work of miracles is imputed? — And to 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 125 
 
 which the wisest and best of men must bow, in hum- 
 blest adoration, or be stigmatized as willfully corrupt 
 and dangerous atheists, to shake whose hands is 
 thought, by not a few, a cleanseless contamination? 
 
 Superstition seems to have sworn her votaries upon 
 the altar of incorrigible ignorance, never to yield as- 
 sent to the suggestions of Reason, upon the dogmas 
 of theology; nor to discard a folly she has ever 
 taught. — Nor has that oath been often broken, nor 
 she annoyed by frequent heresy. 
 
 But upon the question of the supernatural charac- 
 ter of revelation, were all the other, innumerable ob- 
 jections nugatory, the two following appear to be suf- 
 ficient to invalidate the superstitious dogma. These 
 are the fallibility of the compilers, and the metaphys- 
 ical ignorance of their authors. 
 
 To substantiate the first objection, it should be only 
 necessary to refer to the word apocryphal, as applied 
 to the character of religious essays, of both the Old 
 and New Testament eras. 
 
 Were it true, that individuals have been supernatu- 
 rally inspired with ideas, that Nature could never 
 have suggested, and therefore nugatory to common 
 sense; and entirely incommunicable to others, but by 
 the same supernatural process; there is, nevertheless, 
 a serious difficulty presented, in the absence of an in- 
 fallible criterion by which the uninspired may clearly 
 determine its character: For unless there is some- 
 thing of this kind associated with such unnatural com- 
 munication, there must be a perpetual liability to mis- 
 take, imposture and scepticism. Hence it should not 
 
126 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 be denied, that a sufficient test should be connected 
 with divine revelation, or with the revelator himself, 
 to resolve entirely, the doubts of the rankest incre- 
 dulity. And upon this momentous subject, it seems 
 omniscience would thus have certainly suggested, and 
 omnipotence have promptly instituted. 
 
 Now, you will not misunderstand me, when I em- 
 phatically declare, in this public position, that, what- 
 ever the consequence, I fearlessly assume the respon- 
 sibility of denying the existence of any such provi- 
 sion, and cast my defiance of controversion, boldly in 
 the teeth of a reputedly infallible Tritheism. 
 
 You are all, doubtless, aware, that both the old, 
 and new Testaments were compiled from a great 
 number of miscellaneous manuscripts, differing very 
 widely, from each other, in style, and in moral and 
 religious character. And that from such hetrogen- 
 eous mass, those selections were made, which ap- 
 peared to be most consonant, in the opinion of the 
 compilers, with the genuine spirit of divine truth — 
 that is 3 truth upon moral and religious subjects. Of 
 these manuscripts, it cannot be doubted, that very 
 many were entirely rejected, on account of the ab- 
 sence of the required characteristic. — Others were 
 believed to possess it, but in too slight a degree to ex- 
 tinguish every possible doubt of their genuineness. 
 Those it would seem, were too highly appreciated, 
 to be altogether discarded; and were, therefore, pres- 
 erved, and finally arranged under the denomination, 
 Apocrypha. A third class appears to have consisted 
 of those writings, which carried about them the indu- 
 

 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 127 
 
 bitable evidence of supernatural origin, and were 
 compiled under the denominations of The Old-— and 
 New — Testaments. 
 
 These,- however, have undergone, at different times 
 and by different tribunals, several revisions and mod- 
 ifications—So that what has been unsuspiciously 
 adopted, as genuine revelation, at one period, has 
 been rejected as fallacious, or apocryphal, at another. 
 Hence it is a most natural, however injudicious, con- 
 clusion, that what are distinguished as the holy scrip- 
 tures have, at all times, participated of the fallacies, 
 and even absurdities, of the illiterate eras in which 
 they originated, and in which they have been succes- 
 sively, though not successfully, weeded: For not- 
 withstanding they have undergone much advantage- 
 ous pruning, they have still retained many superflu- 
 ous and uncomely appendages. 
 
 Now, do you not think it most preposterous, that 
 a supernatural discrimination could have suffered the 
 embarrassment of a doubt? Or that there could have 
 remained, under such a criticism, an apocrypha], or 
 doubtful, essay ? And yet there are many such, of 
 both the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which have 
 at different periods of religious history, been confi- 
 dently adopted, and devotionally used, as portions of 
 divine revelation. Hence the conclusion appears to 
 be unavoidable, that the scriptures were compiled, 
 under the fallible direction of mere human judg- 
 ment; and consequently of no higher authority than 
 any other human speculations. Nor does this con- 
 sideration, in the least, depreciate their value: For 
 
128 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 truth can never be intrinsically modified by the pecu- 
 liarity of its origin, or mode of communication. — And 
 were it suggested by an idiot or a devil, and in harsh 
 or exquisite poetry or prose, it would be no less val- 
 uable in its effects, when adopted, than though it were 
 really communicated by the incomprehensible, if not 
 impracticable method of divine revelation. And this 
 is confidently offered as intrinsic evidence of the fal- 
 lacy of the aforesaid dogma. 
 
 Of the second objection, or the metaphysical igno- 
 rance of the biblical writers, very much more ought 
 to be said, in its elucidation, than is compatible with 
 our present opportunity, or the feeble ability of your 
 humble servant. That mankind were anciently and 
 scripturally deemed to be morally and religiously 
 responsible for the character of their belief, admits of 
 no manner of doubt, whilst the validity of any part of 
 the scriptures continues to be acknowledged. 
 
 This proposition is not only positively and unequiv- 
 ocally asserted by Christ himself, or by the author of 
 the Gospel, and often repeated by his apostles, but is 
 so common a sentiment in both the old and new 
 Testaments, especially the latter, that I should deem 
 myself justly chargable with a willful insult to your 
 religious education, were I to designate particular in- 
 stances. Hence, it cannot be denied, that man is 
 positively responsible to his maker, for, at least, his 
 religious opinions and affections, or that the Omnis- 
 cient Son of God was grossly ignorant of the meta- 
 physical character of his creatures. Nor do I feel the 
 least embarrassment from the predicament in which 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 129 
 
 this proposition places me; since I deem it wholly 
 unnecessary to review the history of metaphysical 
 fallacies, or to disturb the literary lumber of by-gone 
 ages, under which a superstitious Theology has been 
 indefatigably laboring to bury the question of man's 
 religious irresponsibility. I am confident that no 
 scientific question is less difficult of apprehension 
 than the one under consideration; since it requires 
 nothing more of any individual whatever, in order 
 that he should be able to judge, with sufficient accu- 
 racy, of every psychological phenomenon, concerned 
 in its solution, than to watch carefully and impartial- 
 ly, the operation of his own mind, in any given in- 
 stance of voluntary action. Nor does it matter, in 
 this inquiry, whether a thinking soul, or a thinking 
 brain, is admitted in the premises. In either case, the 
 psychological history is the same; the mental phe- 
 nomena being developed by the same causes, and in 
 the same order of succession, whether thought is a 
 function of the brain; or of the. soul, displaying itself 
 through that medium. Hence we again assume, that 
 thought is not self generative, but entirely dependent 
 upon impulse, for its developement; and, as an ex- 
 emplification, would offer the following. — 
 
 You are doubtless aware that many petrified speci- 
 mens, or organic remains, of extinct species of vegeta- 
 bles and animals, have been exhumed from deep and 
 solid masses of transition and younger rocks, in va- 
 rious geographical situations upon our globe; and that 
 their examination has not only produced a series of 
 novel reflections among philosophers, but has literal- 
 
 16 
 
ISO THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ly established a new era in the science of geology; ana 
 beside these, has thrown an enormous weight in the 
 scale of probabilities against the Mosaic Cosmogony; 
 and hence against the supernatural character of the 
 Pentateuch-. And were you asked, whether you be- 
 lieve that any of these particular reflections and opin- 
 ions would have occurred, if accident had not exposed 
 the aforesaid petrifactions to human observation; would 
 you hesitate to yield an answer upon the side of its 
 negative ? 
 
 You are also aware, that, once, the whole human 
 race, who were capable of reflection, believed the 
 earth's surface to be flat, with the slight exception of 
 hill and dale; nor should it be suspected, that you are 
 unacquainted with the circumstances that prove it to 
 be spherical. — And were not these circumstances ap- 
 plied, and reapplied successively, for thousands of 
 years, before they produced a final conviction of the 
 truth? And is it, nevertheless, preposterously pre- 
 tended, that such conviction could have been other- 
 wise attained — uninduced and self-generated? — Yes, 
 to the deep disgrace of* present metaphysical science, 
 it is so ! Nor is this the only, nor the silliest dogma, 
 that Prejudice has instituted, for common-sense to 
 sneer at. 
 
 Thought has been referred to the brain, whose ac- 
 tion, or functional excitation is assumed to be identi- 
 cal with thought, as that of muscle is with motion; 
 nor is the one more capable than the other of origina- 
 ting its own actions. — 
 
 For. if the brain were really possessed of such ca- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 1-31 
 
 pacity, it would have been nugatory, for any intellect- 
 ual purpose whatever, that the organic petrefactions 
 referred to, should have been disinterred from their 
 rocky inclosures that they might be recognized; nor 
 the evidences of the earth's spheiicity required, to 
 produce conviction of the fact — nor yet the cogita- 
 tions of gods or men, to have been expressed, in order 
 to their being fully understood. And, ^certainly, if 
 there were any other mode of originating ideas than 
 by impulse, human apprehension might be indeed 
 limitless. 
 
 Take, if you please, any individual circumstance 
 of your life, in which opinion, preference and will, or 
 determination, have been involved- and see whether 
 its analysis will justify, or not, the prevailing dogma 
 of religious, or even of moral, responsibility! 
 
 Admitting what it would be the depth of absurdity 
 to deny, that voluntary actions are never performed 
 without motive; will you tell me whether, of any 
 number of contemplated motives, that of the greatest 
 apparent value, has not always predominated? Are 
 you conscious of having, at any time, manufactured 
 the motives of your own actions ? Or have you only 
 judged, more or less accurately, of the comparative 
 value of such motives, as accident has thrown in your 
 way? When were your partialities or prejudices, in 
 the least, modified by your own predetermination? 
 Or, finally, in what particular instance of your life, 
 do you feel assured, that you could have thought or 
 acted differently, without a variation of the attendant 
 circumstances?— And whether those circumstances 
 
132 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 were, or were not, subject to the influence of your 
 own volition? And until these questions shall have 
 been answered in behalf of responsibility, man must 
 acknowledge himself to be one of the innumerable 
 products of Nature's plastic energies, which she has 
 forced into existence, and also into the possession of 
 the characteristics of his anomalous being — that he is 
 a creature o&circumstance, who thinks and acts con- 
 sonantly with the affinities, constitutionally established 
 between his own sensibilities and the contingents upon 
 which they may, at any time, infringe. For other-,' < 
 wise he may, and must, assume the prerogative of 
 predetermining his own thoughts, or of contemplating 
 what he will contemplate; and of foreordaining his 
 own actions, independently of impulse, or antecedent 
 causation — that is, in spite of God or Nature: And 
 being thus, unembarrassed by the arbitrary formality 
 of motives, he would be enabled to institute his own 
 contemplative elysium, in spite of the lacerations, 
 physical circumstance should maliciously inflict upon 
 his animal corporation. Nor, whilst unhappiness 
 should be thus left to his own latches, would he be 
 less insane, than though he were to attempt to bite his 
 own nose off, should he fail in the manufacture, or 
 preconcertion of such cogitations as would extinguish 
 the possibility of suffering an unhappy moment. 
 
 It is doubtless true, that opinion governs the man, 
 and not man opinion. Opinion is enforced upon the 
 man, and the man impelled thereby. And wherever 
 opinion has been proved to be judicious, by the prac- 
 tical benefits it has produced, it and they have been 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 133 
 
 honored by the name of virtue; but, on the contrary, 
 whenever it has been erroneous, and its consequences 
 disastrous, it and they have been stigmatized as vice. 
 Hence it may be plausibly concluded, that virtue and 
 vice, or good and evil, have not an intrinsic, but mere- 
 ly a conventional, existence — that being good, which 
 is productive of happiness, and that evil, which im- 
 pairs it. 
 
 But to attempt the clearest possible elucidation of 
 the question of responsibility for mere opinion, or be- 
 lief, as well as that of directing or modifying its in- 
 stitution; I would be allowed to present you with the 
 following additional illustration. 
 
 Suppose yourselves, individually, to have been 
 nurtured, in the strictest tenets of Romanism, with 
 the clearest conviction of the infallibility of the Pope, 
 and of the truth of transubstantiation, or the miraculous 
 transmutation of the flour and wine, constituting its 
 sacramental wafers, into the real flesh and blood of 
 Jesus Christ; and that you doubted not, while parta- 
 king of the sacrament, that you were literally canni- 
 balizing upon the cast off corporality of the Son of 
 God! Thus far it is clearly absurd that you should 
 be charged with responsibility for an opinion thrust 
 upon you by your spiritual teachers, and therefore 
 must have innocently acquired; and oue, you also 
 deemed so invaluable, that the basest means were 
 more than justified in its support; for thus thought 
 the church. 
 
 Suppose you shall have, subsequently, fallen upon 
 some lucid commentary of one of the great reformers 
 
134 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 of Popery, that shall have cleared off the opacity of 
 your vision, with the despatch of a successful occu- 
 list, whereby you shall have come to detest the opin- 
 ion you lately thought so valuable! And where is 
 now the responsibility for this new opinion, which 
 the church calls heresy, and deserving of torture and 
 perdition ? Did you predetermine it, or design, or in- 
 stitute, the means of its accomplishment? Or were 
 not those means produced by talents much surpassing 
 yours, and dropped, by accident, upon the supersti- 
 tious path, you were stupidly and contentedly pursu- 
 ing; and which you ignorantly, but piously believed 
 the only way to heaven? 
 
 Having acquired your opinion, you thought it pass- 
 ing strange, that you should have been so obstinately 
 wrong, or so well pleased with so palpable an error. 
 And yet your conscience told you, there was no need 
 of penitence. And had you been a practical inquisi- 
 tor, and tortured out the lives of countless, conscien- 
 tious men, for what you deemed the welfare of the 
 church, your worst reflection should have been re- 
 gret, that your opinions were not sooner changed. — 
 And thus thought Paul, of his Christian persecutions. 
 
 In this example, you have also an illustration of the 
 fallacy of an almost universal opinion, that we are 
 happier with our present belief, than we should be 
 with any possible substitute. For it has been shown, 
 that you were not only entirely satisfied with, but 
 obstinately tenacious of your opinions, as papists; 
 and that, as protestants, also, you were not only 
 equally satisfied with your new ones; but were sur- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 135 
 
 prised at the grossness of your former errors, and 
 blushed at the recollection of having stupidly adopted 
 them. Opinion, therefore, is not the more satisfac- 
 tory, for being one thing or another, but for being 
 ours: Hence it should be a matter of indifference, 
 whether we retain our present opinion or not — wheth- 
 er we hold the same perpetually, or change it hourly, 
 so far at least as mere opinion contributes to happi- 
 nes. But you have already heard that there is anoth- 
 er, and more substantial, value in opinion, estimated 
 by its salutary influence upon human conduct. Our 
 object, therefore should not be to retain a present 
 opinion, but to acquire a right one, in which our real 
 interest always predominates. 
 
 And do you really think it a successful display of 
 what you deem to be infinite wisdom, wherein the in- 
 carnate Logos, or wisdom of God, is made to say, that 
 He will reprove the world of sin, because they be- 
 lieve not on him — and that they who believe not that 
 he is the Christ shall die in their sins, and of course 
 be excluded from paradise? — That he that believeth 
 and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth 
 not shall be damned; and that he that believeth on 
 the Son, hath everlasting life; and he that believeth 
 not shall not see life, Sec; especially, when contrasted 
 with the following, Mark 9.23: "Jesus said unto 
 him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to 
 him that believeth"? Most certainly the man could 
 believe in the power of Christ to restore the health 
 of his epiliptic son, as readily as he could believe His 
 superhuman character. The first he might believe if 
 he could — the latter he should believe or be damned. 
 
136 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Did Christ upbraid his appostles, as in Mark 16,14; 
 because they believed not the witnesses to his resur- 
 rection, and, nevertheless, condescend to afford Thom- 
 as, gratuitous demonstration of the fact, without 
 demanding his belief upon a less consideration; as 
 though unbelief were not altogether reprehensible 
 wherein testimony, however direct and unimpeacha- 
 ble, fails to produce conviction? 
 
 And what do you think of the natural, or supernat- 
 ural, acquirements of the renowned disciple of the 
 ficticious, Jewish Gamaliel, or recompense of God, 
 when he charges his brethren cc to take heed, lest there 
 be, in any of them, an evil heart of unbelief," to 
 which abundant reference is made, as the seat of 
 propensities, affections, preference, will and even 
 opinion itself, leaving the brain, which is the exclusive 
 psychological organ, without a single function to per- 
 form? 
 
 The bible, therefore, promulgates opinions, whose 
 absurdity should have secured their explosion, even 
 among the children of the peasantry, centuries ago: 
 And yet their appreciation with theology renders 
 them, apparently, too invaluable to be voluntarily re- 
 linquished, or even wrenched from the gripe of a 
 superstitious obstinacy, which, tradition has so long 
 petted, that it has become altogether incorrigible. 
 
 It should be deemed no less than blasphemous, in 
 these latter days of improved erudition, to reiterate 
 the preposterous fallacies of reputed divine revela- 
 tion, as though God were once so ignorant or abusive, 
 as to have adopted or promulgated them, to his own, 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 1ST 
 
 and his creature's shame. Insanity and idocy, only, 
 should be excused for charging God with having 
 wrought a fallacy, or committed a mistake. No ! that 
 which is untrue in Nature, a God can never have 
 adopted, nor inculcated. The foregoing, therefore, 
 are human fallacies; anatomical, physiological and 
 metaphysical errors, of which the Clergy, from igno- 
 rance or prejudice, or both, continue to be madly te- 
 nacious, in spite of reiterated confutation : And in the 
 very language, that science has long since rendered 
 nugatory, they pretend to philosophize and instruct 
 an illiterate laity, whose stupidity fattens upon their 
 theological and metaphysical stultiloquence. 
 
 And here, you will permit me to give a brief reca- 
 pitulation of my sentiments relative to that most stupid 
 of all serious questions, viz., that of moral culpabili- 
 ty for mere abstract opinion;' which is, metaphysically 
 interpreted, a state of mind either favorable, or unfa'- 
 vorable, to whatever suggestion or proposition it shall 
 have been presented with — the former constituting 
 belief, the latter unbelief. If, therefore, a person can- 
 not institute an opinion antecedently to suggestive 
 circumstances, and even contrary to their natural' ten- 
 dencies,- it is clear, that belief and unbelief, in all pos- 
 sible cases, are irresistibly forced upon him; and 
 hence the charge of moral or religious responsibility 
 must be entirely nugatory. 
 
 The mind, as has been already said, is dormant du- 
 ring the absence of excitation; nor can opinion be 
 ever formed without a presentation to the mind, of 
 more or Jess of those circumstances, which have ac- 
 
 17 
 
138 
 
 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 quired the name of evidence. As well might math- 
 ematics be instituted without numbers, or geometry 
 without figure.. Hence, if opinion, or belief and dis- 
 belief cannot occur, in the absence of what the mind 
 recognizes as testimony, which would be equivalent 
 to an opinion without an object, it must depend, in- 
 controvertibly,. and exclusively, upon circumstances, 
 over which the mind possesses no modifying control. 
 Responsibility, therefore, for the formation, or pas- 
 session, of opinion, is one of the senseless dogmas of 
 illiterate superstition; of which it is disgraceful to 
 acknowledge, that it is, yet, to be exploded: For, if it 
 is culpable, in any case, to have acquired an errone- 
 ous belief, a single exception to the rule is altogether 
 inadmissible} and hence culpability must be as cer- 
 tainly, if not as momentously r involved in an errone- 
 ous opinion of astronomy, or chemistry, as of theolo- 
 gy or morality. And who, allow me to ask, is so un- 
 reasonable, as to reproach a cobbler, with his ignorance 
 of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia; or a back-woods 
 log-roller, with that of Sir Humphrey Davy's, or Jus- 
 tus Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry; of which, in all 
 probability, neither has ever heard ? Yet, if the 
 scriptures are literally trite, an erroneous opinion of 
 the personality, or divinity of Jesus Christ, which, 
 by the by. stands upon the same foundation as any 
 other, is to be visited with the amazingly dispropor- 
 tibned penalty of eternal damnation. And, most cer- 
 tainly, if belief can be instituted without apparent 
 evidence, it can be so, in, direct opposition to it. And, 
 hence, a Lazarus might have sanely believed, that he 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 139 
 
 was snugly deposited in Abraham's bosom. Nor, 
 upon this principle, would the literal incarnation of 
 the spirit of evil find the least inconvenience in be- 
 lieving himself, to be the immaculate Son of God. 
 And so Napoleon might, if he would, have believed 
 his ruinous defeat at Waterloo a splendid victory; 
 and that his murderously unexampled retreat from 
 Moscow, and his exiles to El^, and St. Helena, as so 
 many magnificent triumphs. 
 
 Now, religious infidelity consists, in fact, of a dis- 
 belief of these and similar contemptible absurdities, 
 which Theology has arbitrarily and successfully im- 
 posed upon mankind: Nor does it involve the slight- 
 est distrust of a single truth in Nature. It frankly 
 admits all the testimony afforded by Nature, and all 
 the inductions Reason has been able to draw there- 
 from, in favor of the existence of a God, which it is, 
 however, entirely unable to distinguish from the idea 
 of ultimate causality, whereat every continuous in- 
 quiry must finally terminate; and at which every se- 
 ries of phenomena must have commenced. 
 
 Religious faith, on the contrary, appears to have 
 nothing to do with Nature, or with any of her palpa- 
 ble realities; but professes to spurn them, as objects 
 entirely unworthy of its exalted contemplation ! It 
 constitutes one of the three rundles of the ladder, 
 upon which a fictitious Spiritualism anticipates its 
 ascent to a fictitious Paradise. And yet, so inconsist- 
 ent are spiritualists, that while they decry the world 
 and the flesh, as being too uncleanly for the residence 
 and habitation of their sanctified souls, they are often 
 
140 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 found so firmly clinched to its veriest corruptions, 
 that Death itself can scarce!}- unloose their gripe! 
 Yes, while they are importuning you to relinquish 
 your attachment to " the thiugs of time and sense" 
 for a more exalted devotion to God and spiritualism, 
 they are doubtless sometimes, much more seriously 
 devising some artful plan., to circumvent a neighbor 
 in a bargain, and thereby transfer, unpaid for, anoth- 
 er's property to themselves: Nor is it dealing unfairly 
 with spiritualists, an occasional, magnanimous ex- 
 ception having been admitted, to say that, while they 
 point with one hand toward an imaginary heaven, 
 they are literally committing felony with the other. 
 Such is the apparent practical result of both Theism 
 and Tri-theism, notwithstanding they assume to have 
 been instituted and patronized of God: sustained by 
 miracles; and verified by martyrdom; and all, espe- 
 cially, for man's regeneracy, from a state of nature, 
 to a state of grace! 
 
 And, in the face of all this palpable invalidation, 
 the religious Fanatic, nevertheless, believes all truth. 
 superior to that which ministers to the welfare of the 
 beast, to be safely wrapped up within the folds of a 
 stultifying and maddening spiritualism! Wherefore 
 then., I boldly- ask, should the slightest blush suffuse 
 the cheek of him, who is peevishly taunted with his 
 infidelity? Should he not rather glory in his, little 
 less than miraculous, emancipation from the intellect- 
 ual thraldom to which his race has so long, tamely 
 and shameful!}- submitted? And let me indulge the 
 hope, that your affirmative assent is unembarrassed by 
 a momentary doubt ! 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE OEJECTS OF 
 RELIGIOUS FAITH CONTINUED. 
 
 Scepticism has been constantly, and, doubtless, 
 with no little propriety, taunted with its ignorance of 
 both, the letter and spirit of those scriptures it would, 
 as is said, ruinously, if not maliciously, invalidate. 
 But admitting the justice of the general charge, that 
 sceptics are poorly read, in, both, the scriptures and 
 their voluminous, elaborate commentaries; the rule 
 has > nevertheless, been interrupted by frequent indi- 
 vidual exceptions, wherein may have been found 
 enough of biblical erudition to have done credit to 
 the cowl or suplice — to pope or bishop. And yet 
 the general reading of those scriptures, superficial as 
 it may have been, has, doubtless, engendered and 
 nourished the present luxuriant Infidelity, that threat- 
 ens, ere long, to supersede the superstitions of Chris- 
 tianity; and that, without detracting from its ethical, 
 and only, truth: Therefore, whilst the Christian 
 solicits attention to the Scriptures, as an infallible mean 
 of instituting and confirming spiritual faith, the seep- 
 
142 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tic may, with, at least, an equal confidence, advance 
 the same proposition, to invalidate their superhuman 
 character: And whilst the one is laboriously search- 
 ing out biblical concordances; the other, with much less 
 labor, may sate himself with the contrary. Apply 
 yourselves, therefore, both to the volume of Nature, 
 and that of reputed, divine revelation, perusing and 
 comparing them, carefully, page by page, that you 
 may, judiciously, decide, how far the truths of the 
 former corroborate the hypotheses of the latter! Nor 
 distrust the validity of this assertion. — That Nature 
 is one great, infallible truth — a magnificent aggrega- 
 tion of all the miscellaneous particulars of herself and 
 history; constituting the sole criterion, by which all 
 human truth, of both thought and action, should be 
 tested! For veritable thoughts and opinions are but 
 Nature spiritualized — literal truths accurately cop- 
 ied by the brain ! However ample, the apparent cir- 
 cumference of our rule, religious faith is, neverthe- 
 less, excluded from its limits. One of its earliest and 
 warmest advocates has, most aptly, defined it in Heb. 
 11, 1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped 
 for, the evidence of things not seen.' 5 And, in this, 
 we have a striking instance of old fashioned, logical 
 acumen, which, by the by, is shamefully in fashion 
 yet; especially, in the service of theism! 
 
 Two propositions are, pretty clearly, included in 
 the apostle's definition of faith; first, that it is the 
 substance, and second, that it is the evidence, of a 
 thing — or, that it is, both, the substance and evidence, 
 that our confident expectations will be verified; the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 143 
 
 slightest analysis of which, must clearly expose the 
 inanity, if not the insanity, of its author. 
 
 By what sophistical necromancy, a literal substance 
 can be wrought, out of mere mental confidence, or 
 how mind can be transformed to matter, can be known,- 
 only, to supernaturalism ! Nor can it be reconciled, 
 with any of the views of common sense, that faith is 
 the evidence of any truth whatever, except that the 
 mind has been, antecedently, influenced by real or 
 imaginary testimony in favor of the event hoped for!' 
 And yet this sonorous inanity — this rhetorical nu- 
 gacity, has been pompously enunciated from every 
 pulpit in Christendom, and upon every convenient 
 occasion, as being especially imbfied with the awful 
 spirit of divine wisdom ! 
 
 Faith, of whatever kind, or degree, is nothing, 
 mare nor less, but a confident expectation of the lite- 
 ral occurrence of some anticipated event; and is, 
 therefore, neither the substance,- nor the evidence of 
 such event; being itself as fallacious as any other at- 
 tribute of humanity. But if religious faith possesses 
 the efficiency imputed to it by the Scriptures, and yet 
 can claim no strength, superior to that of any other;, 
 for that faith is still but faith, whatever subject shall 
 have developed it, nor always stronger in the right 
 than wrong; then, Monomania should never err; Li- 
 centiousness be disappointed; nor Parsimony be un- 
 happy: Nor should Millerians, or Second-adventists, 
 remain, in lingering disappointment, for having failed 
 of their anticipated translation to the skies! 
 
 But to return to the Pentateuch, where Criticism 
 
144 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 will find no want of objects, on which to vent its ac- 
 rimony. 
 
 At the termination of the deluge, we find the hiT- 
 man race reduced to eight individuals of a single 
 family, from three of whom the world was to be pa- 
 ternally indebted for its repopulation: And yet, but 
 about a century had elapsed, when Babylon the great 
 —the queen of cities — a peopled world in miniature, 
 stood, gigantically, astride the majestic river of Eden; 
 and, in her vain assumption of omnipotence, mocked 
 at invasion, and laughed at the reiterated, prophetic 
 threatenings of the Almighty. — Around and in her 
 midst, arose a wall, in competition with the clouds, 
 and vying with a mountain's strength; whose hundred 
 brazen gates yawned at a population whose num- 
 bers historians have not ventured to compute: And, 
 within its westerly enclosure, sublimely stood the 
 towering Babel-pyramid, that reared its ostentatious 
 hight, in sacreligious nearness to the throne of God. 
 Nor yet so near that Omnipercipience could clearly 
 view it from its own Emplyrean; and therefore "God 
 came down, to see the City and the Tower." And 
 because it was so fearfully indicative of the almighty 
 power of human strength combined, as to threaten 
 Omnipotence with successful competition, God resort- 
 ed to the surprisingly ingenious expedient, of con- 
 founding, or diversifying, human dialect, in order to 
 disperse its dangerous population, and divide its 
 threatening enterprise. And so successful was the 
 project, that Ninus, the son of him who founded 
 Babylon, successfully emulated the enterprise of his 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 145 
 
 father, in the erection of magnificent Ninevah — 
 scarcely inferior to Babylon itself: Nor could Egypt- 
 ian Thebes have been much less, or later in its origin, 
 than those already named ! 
 
 Now, would you not deem yourselves insulted, 
 were you offered an opinion of the absurdity and abor- 
 tiveness of the foregoing project; or of the utter in- 
 consistency of the biblical record, which preposter- 
 ously derives all this immensity of people, wealth and 
 art from Noah's sons, within the period Chronology 
 designates, or one hundred and two years? Are you 
 aware, that all the population, which could have re- 
 sulted from the six prolific individuals of Noah's 
 family, at the rate of doubling in sixteen years, an 
 increase more rapid than was ever known, would 
 numberless than five hundred, in a single century ? 
 And do you still believe great Babylon was peopled 
 thence; and that her millions were from Noah's loins, 
 in contravention of Nature's institutes; nor yet, a 
 miracle pretended to be wrought, in aid of its accom- 
 plishment? — Then you may fearlessly proceed to 
 swallow, both, Jonah and the whale, as a very feasi- 
 ble employment for so capacious a credulity! 
 
 And again; whose dialect, but that of the builders 
 of the sacreligious edifice, was confounded? Or were 
 it of the whole population of the great city, or even 
 of Chaldea itself; that were but an inconsiderable 
 portion of the inhabitants of a populated world, as 
 the Hebrew tradition explicitly and repeatedly de- 
 clares that ancient one to have been. And, should 
 Ignorance venture upon a contradiction, it may be 
 
 18 
 
146 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 asked, where were Armenia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, 
 Aram, or Syria, Persia, or the land of Nod, Egypt 
 and Ethiopia? Were they not already planted with 
 towns and cities; and also bloated with a population, 
 from which millions could be spared for defense, or 
 depredation? And when Abram first passed through 
 the land of promise, were not the Canaanite and the 
 Perizzite already there, and in countless numbers too? 
 And were not the Horites, Amalekites and Ainorites 
 settled upon their borders? What better than a sense- 
 less fable, therefore, is the story of the confusion of 
 human dialect? 
 
 I will not stop here to recount the contemptuous 
 reflections, elicited by the palpable inconsistencies of 
 Abram's going with his family and effects, from Ha- 
 ran, in Mesopotamia, to a position between Bethel 
 and Ai, or Hai, in the land of Canaan, a distance, by 
 any practicable route, of more than five hundred 
 miles, and that in a country too, which Josephus says 
 w it requires much time to pass through; it being te- 
 dious traveling, both in winter for depth of clay, and 
 in summer for want of water; and besides this, for 
 the robberies there committed, which are not to be 
 avoided by travelers, but by caution beforehand." 
 And this long, difficult and dangerous journey accom- 
 plished, without a single incident, worthy to be re- 
 corded; nor but two short lines appropriated to the 
 whole account, viz. " And they went forth, to go into 
 the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they 
 came." 
 
 Now do you not deem this quite too insignificant a 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 147 
 
 journal, for divine Inspiration to have suggested of so 
 inevitably eventful a peregrination? And do you not 
 think, that Contempt would debase itself, were it to 
 condescend to seowl upon so utterly worthless an 
 item of civil history? 
 
 I do not intend, in these essays., to commit a waste 
 cf your, or my own, time, by noticing unimportant 
 discrepancies; nor, especially, by a snarling pedagog- 
 ical criticism of mere style: But a specimen or two 
 just now presents itself, of quite too singular a char- 
 acter to, entirely, escape remark. 
 
 In Gen. 9, 23, we read, " And Shem and Japheth 
 took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, 
 and went backward, and covered the nakedness of 
 their father; and their faces were backward, and they 
 saw not their father's nakedness." In order to make 
 sense of this quotation, it is necessary that the word 
 backward, as repeated in the same sentence, should 
 be inversely interpreted in its two positions, i. e. if 
 those two sons of Noah went backward, in approach- 
 ing their father, they could not, at the same time, 
 have conveniently looked ^backward, or in the same 
 direction without seeing the very nakedness it appears 
 to have been their object to avoid. But this is merely 
 a blunder, and not a falsehood: And yet, it seems ex- 
 ceptionable, that Inspiration should commit the slight- 
 est blunder. 
 
 It seems an instance of somewhat more than austere 
 justice, that Ham shall have been cursed with perpet- 
 ual servitude to his brethren, for having accidentally, 
 or evtn purposely, seen his drunken father's naked- 
 
148 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ness; and, therefore, how inexcusably absurd, to ac- 
 cuse a being of reputed infinite justice, of having ar- 
 bitrarily transferred a penalty from the immediate 
 transgressor, (admitting Ham to have been such) to 
 his unborn, unparticipant, innocent and irresponsible 
 posterity! And do you seriously believe that God, 
 intentionally, dictated this palpable slander of him- 
 self; and thac too, with the fallacious expectation, that 
 it would escape detection by our undiscriminative 
 race? Then you may, with the utmost consistency, 
 admit the accuracy of the Jewish description of Him; 
 and that He had really forgotten, or never knew, how 
 cunning, an intercourse with Satan would make man- 
 kind. 
 
 We were, however, agreeably disappointed upon 
 meeting with the subsequent declaration, that the 
 subject of the aforesaid condemnation should, never- 
 theless, be also the servant of the Lord: For it is 
 written, in verse 26, of the chapter referred to, "And 
 he said, blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Ca- 
 naan, (Ham's posterity) shall be his servant." That 
 is, in its only grammatical acceptation, the culprit 
 was sentenced, not to be the servant of Shem, but of 
 the Lord God of Shem; a somewhat singular dispen- 
 sation toward the subject of so serious a retribution 
 as that of perpetual slavery to one's kindred. Nor 
 should we believe that Noah was better than insane, 
 having just awaked from a state of drunken stupidi- 
 ty, to the consciousness of deserving himself to be 
 cursed, to utter such an unnatural denouncement, 
 were it not a matter of subsequent history, that Ca- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRfTICLSMS. 149 
 
 naan was really invaded, conquered, enslaved and 
 murdered. And were the question asked by whom: 
 Would you not very confidently reply, by the de- 
 scendants of Shem, through the loins of Eber or He- 
 ber and Peleg; and meanwhile think yourselves fully 
 justified by the letter of the record? Then you 
 would be, for once, palpably mistaken. For to your 
 utter confusion, and that of all believers in the con- 
 sistency of Jewish supernaturalism, you will find in 
 the following, or 27th verse, this declaration, that 
 "God shall enlarge Japhelh, and he (Japheth shall 
 dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his 
 (Japheth's) servant;" which seems not, however, to 
 have been historically verified. 
 
 It is explicitly declared by this, theological oracle, 
 that Eber was the father of the Hebrews, and the 
 great-grand-son of Shem; from whom Peleg was the 
 first, and Abram the sixth generation: And that the 
 Hebrews, or descendants of Shem, were the conquer- 
 ors and enslavers of unfortunate Canaan. But the 
 record is a direct contradiction of this, v. herein it 
 says, as above, cc that Japheth, (or Japhet) shall dwell 
 in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his (that is 
 Japheth's servant:" Japheth being, meanwhile, rep- 
 resented as the father of the nations who inhabited the 
 isles of the Gentiles; or, as Josephus says, the father 
 of the Galls, Sythians, Medes, Greeks, Thracians, 
 Cyprians, &c. Sec. by whom the primitive Canaanites 
 seem not to have been at all disturbed. 
 
 It is certain, therefore, that the texts under conside- 
 ration, are grossly inconsistent, cither in their construe- 
 
150 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tion or import. They either do not convey the mean- 
 ing of the writer, or he was guilty of promulgating 
 falsehoods. For, it is, at best, historically true, that 
 the Canaanites were neither the servants of God nor 
 Japheth. 
 
 Thus ends our criticism of the syntax adopted by 
 supernatural Inspiration; but not with its other nu- 
 merous connections. 
 
 I would be indulged in a single remark, upon the 
 discrepancy observable between the pentateuch of 
 Moses, and the history of Josephus, in regard to the 
 length of each of the seven generations between Shem 
 and Terah. 
 
 While the former allows but thirty-two years and a 
 half, as the average length of a generation, the latter 
 extends it to a little less than one hundred and thirty- 
 two. Arphaxad is also declared by the former, to 
 have been born but two years after the deluge, while 
 the latter, as emphatically, declares it to have been 
 twelve. This may be taken as very plausible evi- 
 dence, at least, that different, if not uumerous tradi- 
 tions had been preserved of the same historical events, 
 respecting the Hebrew people. 
 
 Now, it is recorded of the patriarchs of these seven 
 generations, that they lived to the average age of 
 three hundred and thirty years; not, however gradu- 
 ally decreasing, as Josephus declares, but between the 
 consecutive ones of Eber and Peleg, abruptly reduced 
 to little more than one half; or from 464, to 239, years. 
 And do you think it credible, that, while human life 
 was prolonged to 330 years, ifaa* connubial eligibility 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 151 
 
 shall have arrived earlier than when it was abridged 
 to 120, as the case appears to have been with Moses 
 and his cotemporaries? And here I am reminded of 
 a somewhat striking disparity between the account 
 given by Moses and Josephus, respecting the time and 
 manner of the aforesaid abridgement of human life. 
 
 We find, agreeable to the biblical chronology, that, 
 in the year two thousand three hundred and forty 
 nine before the present era, God said li my Spirit 
 shall not always strive with man, for that he also is 
 flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty 
 years." At what period of human history, this decree 
 is to be literally and permanently enforced, remains 
 for futurity to determine, since it has not been veri- 
 fied in the past. 
 
 Subsequently to this declaration, Hebrew genealo- 
 gy informs us, that the average length of human life, 
 during eleven generations, was three hundred and five 
 years nearly. And we learn from the poetry of David 5 
 Ps. 90, 10; That the days of man's years were three 
 score years, and ten; and that if by reason of 
 strength, they were extended to fourscore years, yet 
 their strength was labor and sorrow; for it was soon 
 cut off, and they were flown away. Hence it may be 
 v-ery reasonably concluded, that, during the last three 
 thousand years, the period of human life has been 
 very nearly as it is at present; and therefore the val- 
 idity of Inspiration, in this instance, apparently, not 
 a little suspicious. But Josephus, failing as may be 
 supposed, to find, amongst the traditions of his coun- 
 trymen, a satisfactory reason, for the abridgment of 
 
152 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 human life, has employed his own ingenuity, with 
 laughable success, in constructing one, viz., because 
 Moses happened to live one hundred and twenty years, 
 God, therefore, in respect of him, determined that to 
 he the length of human life: A most exalted idea of 
 Deity, and of the motives by which He is actuated. 
 Another circumstance also, which bears strongly upon 
 the validity of the Mosaic account of the shortness 
 of the seven generations, between Shern and Terah, 
 is, that the average length of the eight .subsequent 
 ones, or those from Terah to Moses, inclusive, was 
 about 46 1-4 years, or nearly 13 3-4 longer than the 
 preceding, which seems to be altogether dissonant 
 with the principle of gradual abridgment, therein 
 clearly inculcated. 
 
 This however, though apparently too absurd to 
 have been committed by divine Inspiration, is com- 
 paratively too trifling to expend a serious objection 
 upon. And thus, it may be said of its innumerable 
 associates; such as the profane implication of God 
 in the fraudulent imposture, practiced upon the un- 
 wary Egyptian King, wherein, at Abram's instigation, 
 Sarai disavowed her connubial relationship, and pal- 
 pably, as did her husband, also, perverted the truth, 
 by an avowal of consanguinity that did not exist; 
 for she w as not his father's, but his uncle's daughter. 
 And do you think it probable, that God connived with 
 such a black-leg cheat as Abram, to circumvent, abuse 
 defraud and frighten honest Pharaoh? And such he 
 surely was, for aught the record tells us: For it is a 
 fair conclusion from history itself, that the custom 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 103 
 
 then, not only excused, but even justified Pharaoh's 
 contemplated intercourse with Sarai, had she been 
 unmarried. Wherefore then, was Pharaoh plagued 
 with great plagues? Was it as a punishment for the 
 witless confidence he placed in the word of God's 
 particular favorite; as though he were himself re- 
 sponsible for a mere contemplated delinquency; and 
 that too, one into which he had been cheated, by the 
 willful misrepresentation of righteous Abram? Or 
 did God, really, contrary to any rational expectation 
 of him, suggest the expedient of a palpable false- 
 hood, and a most reprehensible fraud, in order to 
 subserve the interests of a favorite, which could not 
 have been honestly accomplished; thus admitting Om- 
 niscience to have fallen into a dilemma, wherein, infi- 
 nite justice was unavoidably sacrificed to the imbe- 
 cility of almighty power? But this was a Hebrew 
 god, from which nothing better could have been ra- 
 tionally expected: And yet both orthodox and unor- 
 thodox theology owns such a character to be the ob- 
 ject of its most pious veneration; and would damn, 
 to endless wo, whoever ventures a dissent from the 
 justice of its claim! Alas, that superstitious Tyran- 
 ny shall have scourged mankind, so long and safely; 
 nor even now, afford a hope that its dotage will ever 
 yield a chance for successful revolution. 
 
 But what is stranger still, in this most strange nar- 
 ration, (especially wherein a Jewish god's insanity is 
 not concerned) is that Sarai should have retained, un- 
 til her ninetieth year, and in that prematuring climate 
 too, so many of the fascinations of her youthful beau- 
 
 19 
 
154 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ty, as to supersede, with king Abimelech, the fairest 
 of all the countless damsels he might command 5 and 
 who, without a question, as the eastern fashion was, 
 were emulous of domestication, within the precincts 
 of his harem, or moral slaughter-house. 
 
 What induced Abram to go into the south, in a 
 journey from Egypt to Canaan, situated as those pla- 
 ces are in relation to each other, i. e. east north east, 
 and west south west, having Ramesees or its neigh- 
 borhood for the Egyptian extremity, whereby dis- 
 tance and difficulties must have been continually in- 
 creased, is a question, apparently somewhat difficult 
 of solution. 
 
 Again — Do you believe that Abram and his nephew, 
 Lot, acquired in Egypt, during a residence, scarcely 
 more than sufficient to relate the incredible story, 
 such numbers of "sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and 
 men-servants, and she-asses, and camels, that the! and, 
 about Bethel and Ai, was not able to bear them — And 
 that, notwithstanding theCanaanite and the Perizzite 
 dwelled then in the land," they successfully assumed 
 the ownership of the country, and peaceably appro- 
 priated its produce to themselves? It must have been 
 no common enterprise, that made these Hebrews so 
 quickly and immensely rich! For were Pharaoh, 
 really so contemptible a dupe as to have been cheated 
 into an undeserved liberality to Abram, while the 
 Hebrew's willfully corrupt perversion of the truth, 
 ought to have obtained his imprisonment in its stead; 
 accounting thus, for his pecuniary success, the ques- 
 tion still remains, how Lot should also have become 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 155 
 
 so ric&, notwithstanding Pharaoh, most judiciously, 
 banished them all his country,. as soon as he became 
 acquainted with their dangerous duplicity.. And yet 
 you are obnoxious to the uncomely epithets, infidel 
 and heretic, unless you believe that these two He- 
 brews drove countless flocks and herds, from Egypt 
 to the land of Canaan; and, unmolested., fed them 
 there, amongst the. towns and eities of its native pop- 
 pulation, and, without rebuke, monopolized between 
 them, a peopled territory, much more extensive than 
 a petty kingdom of that ancient time. And thus the 
 case is biblically reported; Or what meant Abram, 
 when he thus exclaimed? (i Is not the whoJe land be- 
 fore thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if 
 thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the 
 right.; or if thou depart to the right hand, I will go to 
 the left." Or wherefore does the record say, that 
 " Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan — and dwelled 
 in the cities of the plain:" And that kings and people 
 cheerfully surrendered their possessions to these un- 
 ceremonious intruders. 
 
 And was it consonant with the genius of the times, 
 or the character of human nature, that these two 
 Chaldeans, themselves vagrants, should have induced 
 an army of free Egyptians, (for slaves were at the 
 command of others) to abandon their homes and 
 country, for the very unseductive consideration of be- 
 coming the servants of strangers, and perhaps of vag- 
 abonds., in a strange, if not a barbarous, land? Ami 
 is it consistent with the fashion of those ancient, pa- 
 triarchal times, where Youth was, not only, taught an 
 
156 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 impious respect for age; but when it was indebted to 
 obedience for life itself, that experienced Age should 
 voluntarily disclaim respect, and surrender its author- 
 ity, opinions and partialities to youthful inexperience, 
 as Abram appears to have done, with regard to his 
 nephew Lot ? 
 
 It is not to be expected, that the most ignorant and 
 enthusiastic devotee of Judiasm, will presume upon 
 the fictitious excuse, for his favorite patriarch, that 
 the territory of Canaan was, at the time in question, 
 an uninhabited desert, and therefore rightfully subject 
 to the occupancy of whoever would take the trouble 
 to sit down upon it. On the contrary, he must feel 
 himself effectually refuted, by the revelations of his 
 own oracle, which emphatically declare that five dis- 
 tinct, (though doubtless petty) monarchies were al- 
 ready established, within the limits of the land of 
 promise; beside a much greater number upon its 
 immediate borders: And to which may be added an 
 enumeration of cities, emulating both the antiquity 
 and population of the oldest and greatest of gray- 
 haired Egypt. 
 
 Notwithstanding the foregoing account is particu- 
 larly qbnoxious to the severest criticism, it may, nev- 
 ertheless, be deemed the veriest sublimation of con- 
 sistency, when compared with that given in the fol- 
 lowing chapter, Gen. 14; wherein it is recorded, that 
 the several kings of the earliest and most numerously 
 populated countries of Asia, combined their military 
 forces, in a marauding expedition of a thousand 
 miles, against a half dozen tribes of Canaanitish sava- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 157 
 
 ges. And you will allow me here to express my 
 doubts, whether the writer, compiler, translator, or 
 any credentive individual of its millions of readers, 
 has ever seriously contemplated the absurdities of this 
 particular chapter, which ought to have shamed Mun- 
 chausen himself, had he been its reader, out of his 
 comparatively puny attempts at the marvelous and 
 absurd. 
 
 Here are four kings, represented as personally lea- 
 ving their own fertile, rich and populated plains, in- 
 cluding an aggregate territory of more than twenty- 
 two thousand square miles, or nearly thirty times the 
 area of all Judea, in order to prosecute, at least, a 
 twelve-month's expedition against, what must have 
 been, at that time, and with them, unheard of kings 
 and nations; and that with an army, although nations 
 had combined to form it, so verily contemptible, that 
 the tythe of a single household was able to conquer 
 and disperse it, with as much safety and expedition, as 
 though it were a flock of sheep. 
 
 It is also said, that this combined army of Persians, 
 Chaldeans, Assyrians, &c, passed entirely through 
 the land of Canaan, from north to south, by the way 
 of Ham, Ashteroth Karnaim, Kiriathairn and Mount 
 Seir, unto El-paran, or God of beauty, which is by 
 the wilderness, (of Paran) a place, by the by, whose 
 locality is not anywhere designated; pillage and ex- 
 termination, meanwhile, marking their murderous 
 progress; that they returned, (from where is only to 
 be imagined) and came to En-mishpat, which is Ka- 
 desh, or the Waters of strife, noted as being about 
 
158 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 fifteen miles west of Mount Hor, in the desert of 
 Zin, more than a hundred miles of reputedly imprac- 
 ticable desert intervening, between it and the nearest 
 boundary of the land of Canaan. And what sent 
 them there, neither human nor superhuman sense has 
 ventured to suggest. But what is most singular is, 
 that while there, they shall have destroyed two na- 
 tions, or tribes in different directions, and at very 
 considerable distances. And thus it reads: "And 
 they returned and came to En-mishpat, which is Ka- 
 desh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, 
 and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar." 
 Now, this text appears not to be susceptible of any 
 other plausible interpretation than the following, viz: 
 First, That these invaders came upon Kadesh, on 
 their return. The query, therefore is, from whence? 
 And the answer is to be found, if anywhere, in the 
 immediate context, which reads thus: " And in. the 
 fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings 
 that were with him, and smote the Rephaims, or 
 giants, in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims., or 
 door-posts, in Ham, and the Emims, or terrors, in 
 Shaven Kiriathim, and the Horites in their mount 
 Seir, unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness," 
 And they returned to En-mishpat, which is Kadesh. 
 Here then, lies the difficulty with our first proposition; 
 that En-mishpat, or Kadesh, is a great way farther 
 from Canaan, than any part of the wilderness (of Pa- 
 ran) by which El-paran is said to have been situated; 
 and, therefore, not very conveniently fallen upon, in 
 the manner described- Nor, second, can it bo more 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 159 
 
 satisfactorily settled, by an arbitrary transfer of the 
 wilderness of Zin, upon whose easterly border Kadesh 
 is situated, to an unnatural position between Idumea 
 and the country of Ainalek. For it would be passing 
 strange that the Amorites, who dwelt in Hazezon-ta- 
 mar, should be destroyed at Kadesh, situated, at least 
 sixty miles south of it; and, according to a very plain 
 interpretation, not less than one hundred and forty, 
 with an extenstve intervening wilderness: Or, to 
 adopt a vulgar truism, it appears quite improbable, 
 that these marauders destroyed men and places where 
 they were not. 
 
 This story then, in plain English, reads thus: The 
 invading army passed through the land of Canaan, 
 from north-east, to south-west; thence south-east, 
 through the territories of the Amalekites and Idurne- 
 ans, to Eu-mishpat, upon the east border of the desert 
 of Zin, a distance from Canaan, as we have already 
 seen, of, at least, a hundred miles, having left the 
 desert of Paran on their right. That here, they de- 
 stroyed the Amalekites, situated a hundred miles to 
 the north-west; and also the Amorites at the north- 
 west extremity of the Dead sea, and little less than a 
 hundred miles, by any practicable route, from the de- 
 voted city of Sodom. Hence the enemy must have 
 passed and repassed, both Sodom and Gomorrah; and 
 subsequently, retraced the aforesaid distance, [admit- 
 ting that they committed depredations at Hazezon- 
 tamar,] in order to sack these two great cities, which it 
 appears, they effectually accomplished. And all this 
 protracted, successive, murderous invasion prosecuted 
 
160 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 hi the very neighborhood of Abram, without his being 
 apprised of such an expedition, until (t there came 
 one, that had escaped," and told him of the overthrow 
 and ravage of the cities; and also of the capture and 
 abduction of his nephew Lot. 
 
 " And when Abram heard that his brother (nephew) 
 was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, 
 born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen," 
 &c. And in this there seems to be an inconsistency, 
 that must puzzle the very necromancy of Theology to 
 rectify. How is it possible, it may be asked, that 
 Abram should have had three hundred and eighteen 
 men of war born in his«own house, which requires 
 the admission of an equal number of coeval females; 
 so that of persons of all ages, required in the premi- 
 ses, the patriarch's family must have consisted of more 
 than twelve hundred. — A notable family, to be sure, 
 for the time and circumstances; and yet Orthodox 
 Credulity finds no difficulty in swallowing it. It may 
 be further remarked of this affair, that Abram's won- 
 derful defeat of the combined Asiatic army, was ef- 
 fected antecedently to his cohabitation with Sarai's 
 Egyptian handmaid, whose son, Ishmael, was born 
 when Abram was eighty-six years old; he having, as 
 Josephus relates, been driven from his home in Meso- 
 potamia, by a persecution raised against his superior 
 knowledge, at the age of seventy-five. The interval, 
 therefore, between his emigration, in the character of 
 a disinherited fortune-hunter, and his magnificent mil- 
 itary exploit, can have been but about ten years. — A 
 period scarcely adequate to the rearing, from birth, of 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 161 
 
 six hundred and thirty-six persons, male and female, 
 of an age fit for war, or from twenty, to fifty years. 
 Nor is the difficulty susceptible of any rational solu- 
 tion whatever, except upon the principle of miracu- 
 lous interposition, which was neglected to be intro- 
 duced upon this particular occasion. 
 
 Upon the fictitious nonsense, about the king of Sa- 
 lem, we may be allowed to present Theology with 
 the following interrogation. And who was this won- 
 derful Melchizedek — and whence and wherefore, this 
 archetype of Christ — this reference and exemplar of 
 all future piety — this righteous king and priest of the 
 most high God, presiding over a Gentile people, with 
 whom God was a stranger; and to whom even his 
 name was yet unknown, and who were already sen- 
 tenced to extermination, for their incorrigible, prede- 
 termined impiety, which God himself was unable, or 
 unwilling to reform. 
 
 To contemplate this righteous, unbegotten, unpro- 
 creant king of a tribe of pagan savages, in the char- 
 acter of high-priest of an undeveloped theology; and 
 offering sacrifice in the unknown name of an unknown 
 God, appears not much unlike the Genius of future 
 science seeking a Golgotha, as the theater of its lite- 
 rary enterprise. 
 
 Again, Gen. 15, 13, " And he (God) 'said unto 
 Abram, know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a 
 stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve 
 them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years." 
 
 Now this declaration of thevAlmighty must be ad- 
 mitted to refer to the subjugation of the Israelites, in 
 
 20 
 
162 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Egypt, some two hundred years after, or to no event 
 that human history has ever recorded. 
 
 This period of four hundred years is not that, how- 
 ever, to which the Scriptures testify. At Ex. 12. 40, 
 it thus reads: " Now the sojourning of the children 
 of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and 
 thirty years." And a corresponding declaration, in 
 the character of a reference, is found at Gal. 3, 17. 
 And as though it were intended to establish a palpable 
 disagreement of relation, a reference, in Acts 7, 6, is 
 also made to the period of four hundred years. Nor 
 is the difficulty at all alleviated by a reference to the 
 narrative of the Jewish historian, whose authority, 
 especially upon the point in question, should not be 
 treated with indifference. He says that the whole 
 period, from Abram's gcing out of Haran of Meso- 
 potamia, to the exodus of the Israelites, was four 
 hundred and thirty years; the half of which, or two 
 hundred and fifteen years only, were expended in the 
 latter place. Nor is it a reasonable conclusion, that 
 the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians, until 
 the death of Joseph, on whose account they are said 
 to have been particularly favored. Now Joseph's 
 death occurred when he was 110 years old, or seventy 
 years after his father and family removed from Ca- 
 naan to Egypt. It is hence, chronologically true, that 
 the term of actual, Hebrew slavery could not have 
 exceeded two hundred and fifteen years, less by the 
 aforesaid seventy, or one hundred and forty-five; a 
 number, essentially different from those of the Scrip- 
 tures. Nor can there be a reasonable doubt, that the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 163 
 
 Jewish historian's is the most reasonable account. 
 For there were but three generations between Jacob 
 and Moses, viz., Levi, Kohath and Araram, which, 
 if we allow the most reasonable term of forty-five 
 years for each, will amount to one hundred and thirty- 
 five, adding to which eighty, the age of Moses at the 
 time of the exodus, we have two hundred and fifteen; 
 the number of years appropriated by Josephus; and., 
 doubtless, the most satisfactory conclusion, the ques- 
 tion will admit of. 
 
 Again, verse IS: " In the same day, the Lord made 
 a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I 
 given this land, from the river .of Egypt, unto the 
 great river, the river Euphrates." How punctually, 
 or consistently, this pledge of the Almighty was re- 
 deemed, consonantly with its intelligible import, may 
 be safely left to the decision of each individual, who 
 shall have made himself, at all, acquainted with Jew- 
 ish political history. The entire invalidation of the 
 foregoing announcement is contained in this emphatic, 
 historical declaration. That the Jews, at no time, 
 from their Mosaic introduction into the land of Ca- 
 naan, until their final overthrow and dispersion by the 
 Roman Titus, adopted the nationalizing policy of 
 colonization, or of establishing territorial possession, 
 beyond the narrow, geographical limits of their own 
 blessed Palestine: And that the few insignificant con- 
 quests, they were enabled to effect in Syria, Arabia 
 and Egypt, passed away, like the vapor of a summer 
 .morning. 
 
 We do not omit to notice the following, or 16th 
 
164 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 chapter, because it is barren of food for Criticism; 
 but that it is too insipid to interrupt our pursuit of 
 more exquisite viands, we smell amongst its younger 
 relatives. All but a single comment, therefore, we 
 will forego, viz: That Abram is herein represented as 
 having set the first example of bigamy; which, if 
 true, would seem to smack of inconsistency, in God's 
 peculiar favorite — the acknowledged patriarch of the 
 very Christianity by which it is prohibited. But this 
 too, Theology receives, as being geometrically right; 
 or right, in all its parts and bearings. And here, I 
 may not omit to notice a particular corroboration of a 
 former remark, that Abram's sojourn in Egypt must 
 have been, at most, a short one — scarcely longer than 
 to have afforded opportunity for relating his story. 
 "And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, 
 the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the 
 land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram^ 
 to be his wife," of whom Ishmael was born the fol- 
 lowing year, or when Abram was eighty six years 
 old; leaving, apparently, a very inadequate opportu- 
 nity for the accumulation of wealth, in Egypt. 
 
 Again, the 8th verse of the 17th chapter reads thus: 
 " And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after 
 thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the 
 land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession." 
 
 That Abram shall have been deemed a stranger in 
 a country, no more extensive than Canaan, over most 
 of which for ten successive years, his, or his neph- 
 ew's, countless animals must have roved for suste- 
 nance; and through the whole length of which he had 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 165 
 
 himself tracked an army of invaders to its utter de- 
 feat and dispersion, is not a little difficult to admit. 
 Nor do we think it needs but common sense and 
 knowledge, to determine how very imperfectly this 
 promise of the Almighty has been fulfilled. And yet 
 the second-sight of Spiritualism sees, as clearly as it 
 does its own infallibility, that this has been, or is to 
 be, punctiliously performed. 
 
 In the 18th chapter, it is written, verse 1st, "And 
 the Lord appeared unto him" (Abraham) — verse 2d, in 
 the form of three men; and verse 8th, that " they did 
 eat." It really seems somewhat dissonant with the 
 most improved present state of opinion, that God 
 should have found it necessary to assume the form of 
 three men, in order to succeed in making a single 
 communication: And more especially, that these mere 
 forms should have positively devoured a whole calf, 
 with adequate bread and trimmings. It, unquestion- 
 ably, requires a great deal of stupidity or credulity to 
 believe this ghostly gormandizing! And though it is 
 not scripturally asserted, that these aparitions actual- 
 ly ate the whole calf; yet it is both scripturally and 
 rationally admissible, that, with their almighty appe- 
 tites and capacities, they might have eaten a whole 
 calf, and even a whole herd, if they would — at least 
 as well as to have eaten at all. 
 
 And does it appear entirely consistent with a ration- 
 al idea of God, that, as in verse 13th, the Almighty 
 should have really enquired of Abram, wherefore Sa- 
 rah laughed; and that too, with the eternal fore- 
 knowledge, that the great-great-grandmother of the 
 Son of God would answer falsely? 
 
166 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 At verse 14th, the question is asked, by God himself, 
 11 Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" And what 
 could have been more absurd than this inquiry, when 
 addressed to those oriental savages? They might, 
 with quite as much propriety, have been asked if they 
 could calculate an eclipse, or measure the diameter of 
 the sun: For they did not yet, possess the lean ad- 
 vantage of the fallacies, that Moses afterwards pro- 
 mulgated; and, therefore could have had no other no- 
 tions of God's character, than he had already revealed 
 to them. And even Moses himself seems not to have 
 had mm idea of God's omnisciency, nor omnipercipi- 
 ency; since, in verses 20 and 21, God is made to de- 
 clare that, because of the cry of Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, and of their very grievous sin, " I will go down 
 now, and see whether they have done altogether ac- 
 cording to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and 
 if not, I will know." 
 
 This language, which is impiously detractive of 
 God's admissible character, could never have been 
 adopted but by the extremest Ignorance or Depravi- 
 ty! Nor did God ever make so contemptible a revela- 
 tion of himpelf! But, to resume our acquaintance 
 with God's spiritual proxies, or rather his shadowy 
 self. That the three men before spoken of, were sur- 
 prisingly singular personages, even for ghosts, appears 
 from the following. In verse 22d it is said, in conclu- 
 sion of God's determination to go down to Sodom, 
 and inquire out the truth, " And the men turned their 
 faces from thence and went toward Sodom." And 
 meanwhile, God is prudently managing his own affairs, 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 1C7 
 
 in his own proper person, as we learn, at the close of 
 the same verse, which says, " But Abram stood yet 
 before. the Lord/' And here, we find the Lord con- 
 descends to stop, and hold a formal interview with 
 Abraham, who presumes to prosecute a true horse- 
 jockey banter with God Almighty; and when termina- 
 ted, they part, upon their usual familiar, friendly 
 terms, each going, leisurely, about his own business. 
 
 In chapter 19, verse 1st, it is written, "And there 
 came two angels to Sodom, at even; and Lot sat in 
 the gate of Sodom. And he said, (to the two angels) 
 Behold now my lords, turn in I pray you into your 
 servant's house" &c. " And they said, nay; but we 
 will abide in the street all night. And he pressed 
 upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and 
 entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and 
 did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat." Here 
 then, we find two of the three men, alias, angels of 
 God, alias, shadows, who, in the preceding chapter, 
 are said to have conversed and ate with Abraham, 
 eating also with Lot; and that they, after God deter- 
 mined to go down to Sodom, to learn the truth of 
 what he had heard of it, " turned their faces — and 
 went toward Sodom." It seems, therefore, that they 
 must have lost a companion upon the way, or that 
 they left him to personate God, in the aforesaid con- 
 ference with Abraham. 
 
 That Lot, a roving, Arab herdsman, with his many 
 thousand cattle, and an army of domestics, requiring 
 a territory for their accommodation, and who, a little 
 while before, is said to have pitched his tent toward 
 
168 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Sodom, (not built his house therein) should have been 
 thus cooped up within the gate of the city, with no 
 other household than his wife and two provident and 
 precocious daughters, who were in the oddest of all 
 predicaments, that of married virgins, as in Gen. 19, 
 8 and 14, is a circumstance, apparently, absurd enough 
 for second-adventists to believe. But perhaps you 
 are, this moment, meditating a retort, in the follow- 
 ing language, 14, 12. "And they took Lot, Abram's 
 brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, 
 and departed." And yet, before you shake your sides 
 to lameness, with laughter at your conscious victory, 
 just take a peep at what Josephus says about the same 
 event, viz: " Now when the Sodomites joined battle 
 with the Assyrians, and the fight was very obstinate, 
 many of them (the Sodomites) were killed, and the 
 rest were carried captive; among which captives was 
 Lot, who had come to assist the Sodomites." 
 
 But to say another word or two, of those minister- 
 ing angels, or spiritual messengers of an omnipresent 
 God. How strange it seems, that they shall have 
 found occasion to revise their cogitations — to reverse 
 their predeterminations, or expose themselves to per- 
 sonal abuse, from a licentious and beastly populace, 
 whom they had the power, as it would clearly seem, 
 to blast with blindness, paralysis or death; according 
 as their almighty pleasure was inclined. 
 
 And do you deem it other than miraculous, that Lot 
 shall have offered, so unnaturally, to sacrifice, his two 
 virgin daughters, (who, by the by, were already mar- 
 ried) to the diabolical concupisence of a countless 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 169 
 
 multitude; and, especially, that such an offer shall 
 have been still more unnaturally rejected? 
 
 We further find what curious things those appari- 
 tions were, who, having been repeatedly transformed, 
 and retransformed, from men to angels, and also phy- 
 sically employed in dragging forth the loitering family 
 from destruction, were, finally, in consummation of 
 the strange, unnecessary metamorphoses, sublimated 
 to an individual God, whom Lot thus ventures to ad- 
 dress: " O, not so my Lord!" And then proceeds to 
 banter him about the place of his retreat, and with as 
 good success, as did his uncle Abraham, in the former 
 case; although the bargain turned out less profitably 
 than Lot had probably expected : For the record says, 
 he soon left Zoar, for the mountain, where it is repu- 
 ted that the patriarchs of Moab and Ammon were 
 more miraculously, than immaculately, begotten.- — 
 This is, nevertheless, explicitly contradicted by Jose- 
 phus, who says, " There (in Zoar) it was that he 
 (Lot) lived a miserable life, on account of his having 
 no company, and his want of provisions." 
 
 With these remarks, which are not a tythe of those 
 demanded by the absurdities of the record, but which 
 are all, our alloted opportunity will allow, we shall 
 pass, with but an occasional criticism, to the story of 
 the Hebrew exodus. 
 
 At Gen. 20, 1, we find that Abraham sojourned at 
 Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur, which appears 
 somewhat difficult of apprehension; since both the 
 latter places are some miles to the south of the for- 
 mer. It must have been, therefore, quite a supernal 
 
 21 
 
170 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ural circumstance, that Abraham shall have lived at 
 Gerar, and, at the same time, many miles south of it. 
 In this chapter, we also find a repetition of Abram's 
 farcial denial of his connubial relation, and again, 
 hypocritically, passing off his wife as his sister, with 
 the intention of prosecuting a successful fraud, or 
 basely preserving his own skin, at the expense of his 
 wife's chastity. A dilemma, it would seem, that both 
 God's power and warm affection for his favorite, 
 should have prevented. Nor would it have required, 
 that we can see, a greater miracle, than that which 
 did prevent Abimelech's intended intercourse. 
 
 Of Hagar's repudiation from Abraham's family, it 
 is written, Gen. 21, 15, '-'And the water (with which 
 Abraham had supplied her) was spent in the bottle, 
 and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And 
 she went, and sat down over against him, a good way 
 off as it were a bow-shot: For she said, Let me not 
 see the death of the child." And again, verse 18, 
 And God said to Hagar, "Arise, lift up the lad and 
 hold him in thy hand," &c. 
 
 This narration, when fairly interpreted, presents a 
 most singular phasis. 
 
 We find by biblical chronology, that Ishmael was 
 eighteen years old at the time of Hagar's repudiation; 
 and therefore, in all probability, a very great baby, to 
 make such childish work with; especially, that he 
 lacked but two years of the period, at which the He- 
 brews were made to wield the war-club. And do you 
 think that Ishmael's ghost, yet conscious of its former 
 patriarchal dignity, would deem it flattery, to see this 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. l7l 
 
 item of its base biography? But this is supernatu- 
 ralism; and therefore spiritually true, though literally 
 as false as Satan's war in Heaven. 
 
 In the last verse of the present chapter, we read, 
 "And Abraham sojourned in the Philistine's land ma- 
 ny days." 
 
 An attempt to reconcile this with its context would be 
 met with no little difficulty. For we find the places of 
 Abraham's residence, after his return from Egypt to 
 Canaan, to have been first, the plain of Mamre, near 
 Hebron, where he remained until the destruction of 
 the cities of the plain; when he is said to have jour- 
 neyed from thence toward the south country, and so- 
 journed in Gerar; and thence to Beer-sheba, or the 
 place of profanity between Abimelech and himself, 
 and where he appears to have been at the close of this 
 chapter. And the following considerations are found 
 to embarrass the consistency of the text, viz: All the 
 forementioned places are noted in biblical maps, and 
 asserted by Josephus, to have been within the limits, 
 and constituting a part, of the country called Canaan, 
 or Palestine. Therefore it entirely fails of being 
 historically true, that Abraham ever resided in the 
 land of the Philistines at all. Beside, Gerar and 
 Mamre appear to have been convertible terms; hence 
 we find the location spoken of as Gerar, or Mamre. 
 Hence Abraham's journey from the one place, to the 
 other, must have been an extremely short one ! 
 
 Omitting to notice the several particulars of the 
 senseless fable, contained in the 22d chapter, it should 
 be deemed sufficient to remark of God's project to 
 
172 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tempt Abraham, or, as more appropriate, to test the 
 measure of his faith, that, were man the arbiter, 
 some such trial might be plausibly prosecuted, in or- 
 der to develope satisfactory confidence of the fact. 
 But how contemptibly absurd, when Omniscience 
 judges in his stead; which needs no testimony to a 
 fact, that must have been an item of the aggregate of 
 infinite contemplation. And yet, this question being 
 of a Jewish god, I quit the point, in utter hopeless- 
 ness of success. 
 
 Again, Gen. 24, 29. " And Rebekah had a brother, 
 and his name was Laban;" and at 29, 5, " And he 
 (Jacob) said unto them, (the three flocks of sheep of 
 course, since no persons are said to have been there) 
 Know ye Laban, the son of Nahor?" 
 
 At 24, 47, we find the following: "And I (Isaac) 
 asked her (Rebekah) and said, Whose daughter art 
 thou? And she said, the daughter of Bethuel, Na- 
 hor's son, whom Milcah bear unto him." Again, at 
 29, 12, "And Jacob told Rachel that he was her fath- 
 er's brother, and that he was Rebekah's son." The 
 plain state of all which is, that Abram, or Abraham, 
 and Nahor were brothers, and married their nieces, 
 the daughters of Haran. That Isaac, the son of 
 Abraham, married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, 
 and grand daughter of Nahor. Pursuing therefore 
 the foregoing relationship, in the next or second de- 
 gree. And that finally Jacob, the grand son of Abra- 
 ham, married Leah and Rachel, the daaghters of La- 
 ban, or grand daughters of Bethuel, and great-grand 
 daughters of Nahor, the same relation being here pre- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 173 
 
 served in the next degree. And here we leave this 
 subject to be reconciled, in its several parts, by whom- 
 soever, that can command the leisure and ability. 
 
 Our opportunity not permitting us to dwell upon 
 secondary topics, we are constrained to pass innu- 
 merable absurdities without remark; such as Jacob's 
 curious device, to defraud his father- in-law out of the 
 produce of his cattle; Rachel's theft of her father's 
 household gods; Jacob's meeting God's angelic host 
 at Mahanaim, or place of angels, near the middle of 
 Palestine, whence he "sent messengers before him to 
 Esau, his brother into the land of Seii^ the country 
 of Edorn," &c. &c. And wherefore he shall have 
 sent messengers the distance of a hundred and forty 
 miles, and into a government entirely beyond his con- 
 templated residence, simply to report his childish 
 tearfulness of his brother, Esau, whom he had al- 
 ready succeeded in defrauding of his birthright and 
 his father's blessing, seems to have been left to the 
 discovery of second-sight. 
 
 " And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a 
 man with him, until the breaking of the day. And 
 when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he 
 touched the hollow of his thigh: and the hollow of 
 Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with 
 him. And he (the man) said, Let me go, for the day 
 breaketh: And he (Jacob) said, I will not let thee go, 
 except thou bless me," which, it seems he did; and 
 therefore ■" Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 
 for I have seen God face to face, and my life is pre- 
 served." Now, do you think that this adventure be- 
 
174 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 tween Jacob and God Almighty, in the form and phys- 
 ical character of humanity, actually, or literally oc- 
 curred? 
 
 Does it not seem most strange, nor less contempti- 
 ble, that such puerile notions of a Deity shall ever 
 have prevailed among mankind, as that he banters, 
 speculates and wrestles with his creatures, as man 
 with man, or rather clown with clown? And these 
 are beauties that religious Faith would wed and hug, 
 as though they were the very life of paradise it hopes 
 for. 
 
 And is it probable, seeing there was no miracle in 
 the case, that Jacob pursued his journey, so immedi- 
 ately and well, with an unreduced luxation of his 
 thigh, by which it seems, however, God made him 
 permanently a cripple? And was it really generous 
 in God, to leave his friend in such predicament? 
 
 The story of Dinah's ravishment is too absurd to 
 pass unnoticed; and yet we cannot stop to pay it half 
 the compliment it deserves. 
 
 Chronologically, Leah was given to Jacob in the 
 year 1758 before Christ; and Dinah's ravishment per- 
 petrated in 1732, B. C. If, therefore, Reuben, Leah's 
 eldest son, was born one year after the former date, 
 he will have been nineteen years old, at the time of 
 his sister's insult. 
 
 And if we take the case of Isaac, as a precedent of 
 the age, at which infants were, at that time weaned, 
 we shall have Simeon to be near five years younger, 
 or fifteen, at the uttermost, at the period above allu- 
 ded to; and, by the same rule, Levi, Leah's third 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 175 
 
 son, would have been but ten years old. And yet, we 
 are bound to believe, (the story of Ishmael to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding,) that these two infants, " Sim- 
 eon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his 
 sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the 
 males. And they slew Hamor, and Shechem his son, 
 with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of 
 Shechem's house, and went out." But the gist of 
 this affair is not yet exposed. For, by the rule adopt- 
 ed for the interval between the births of children, 
 Dinah must have been at the time in question several 
 years unborn; And, at the most accommodating calcu- 
 lation, she could not have exceeded four years. Rath- 
 er young to have been the subject of that species of 
 abuse! Nor ought we to omit the expression of our 
 deepest can tempt for the fraud, these children of God 
 practiced upon the credulous House of Hamor. 
 
 Passing over the story of Joseph and its connections, 
 with the frank avowal, that, with all its faults, (and 
 they are as numerous as even Scepticism could wish,) 
 it is, nevertheless, particularly creditable, amongst its 
 baser relatives, we will sit down, deliberately, to the 
 task of criticising the wonderful story of the Hebrew 
 Exodus. 
 
 And first, of the course of miracles instituted by 
 God, in order to induce Pharaoh to release the He- 
 brews from bondage. We find at Ex. 1, 22, a decree 
 of Pharaoh, cc That every son that is born, ye shall 
 cast into the river," and that Moses was preserved by 
 a breach of it, while Aaron being born four years ear- 
 lier, escaped its application. Several entire chapters 
 
176 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 of this book are appropriated to an account of mira- 
 cles — wrought by God and the Egyptian sorcerers — a 
 contest most obstinately and successfully prosecuted, 
 for one, wherein the parties were so amazingly une- 
 qual. We find, for several trials, that God's advan- 
 tage was unessential; until, at length, he came to the 
 finer work of making lice, to which it seems the gross 
 machinery of the sorcerers was not adapted. 
 
 And yet we think it strange, that those magicians 
 should have failed, at all, even against the Deity, with 
 the power they are admitted to have had: For it 
 seems that nothing less than Omnipotence could make 
 a frog. In this case, therefore, the admission is too 
 little or too much — since he who could really produce 
 a frog, could scarcely fail to make whatever else he 
 might intend. And then this whole parade must have 
 been no better than a farce, or fiction, whilst, if mira- 
 cles were possible, a single one, and less than these, 
 had it been wrought on Pharaoh's obstinacy, to soften, 
 not to harden, might have superseded all this cata- 
 logue; and answered quite as well, except the nice 
 excuse God found in Pharaoh's obstinacy, for damn- 
 ing him most heartily. 
 
 Another striking inconsistency, in this old, witless 
 tale, appears in this. Notwithstanding God had, al- 
 ready, turned all the waters of Egypt, to blood, so 
 that " the fish died, and all the river stank," yet it is 
 said the magicians did the same with their enchant- 
 ments. And we ask what waters, not already changed 
 to blood, they could have found, on which to operate? 
 And again, while Egypt was so immersed in frogs, as 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 177 
 
 that they croaked and skipped from kneading-trough 
 to oven* how was it accurately determined that the 
 magicians had also made their share? And then 
 again, the strangest oversight is here. The hail, most 
 wonderfully thick and large, destroys both man and 
 beast unsheltered, and also, all of living vegetation 
 except in Goshen, where the Hebrews were: And yet 
 the locusts came; nor were restrained from eating up 
 the last and least green vestige that remained, through- 
 out the whole of Egypt. 
 
 Another oversight appears in this. That God, hav- 
 ing sent a murrain, of which all the cattle of Egypt 
 died, he then sent, thoughtlessly, a storm of hail to 
 do the work already done. And still, as though he 
 were forgetful, or insane, he swears to smite the first 
 born of the whole, upon the evening of his memora- 
 ble passover. 
 
 But what insufferable slander should we deem the 
 following, were it of any other, than a Hebrew god! 
 £x. 12, 13. "And the blood (upon the door-posts) 
 shall be to you for a token upon the houses where 
 you (the Hebrews) are; and when I see the blood, I 
 will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon 
 you, to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt/' 
 What could be said, in deeper derogation of God's 
 omniscieney, than that he should need such bloody 
 signal, to save him from mistake? And what worse 
 slander of his justice, than to charge him, as in 11, 2, 
 of having said to Moses, " Speak now in the ears of 
 the people, and let every man borrow of his neigh- 
 bor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of sif- 
 
 22' 
 
178 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 ver and jewels of gold;" 5 except that he shall have 
 beeu accused, as in verse 3d, of directly participating 
 of the fraud, by "giving the people (Hebrews) favor 
 in the sight of the Egyptians?" Or, as in 12. 36, that 
 he shall have given "the people favor in the sight of 
 the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things 
 as they required: and they spoiled the Egyptians." 
 
 It was entirely unnecessary that the writer of the 
 pentateuch should have revealed the aforesaid slan- 
 ders of his god, since fraud and inconsistency are con- 
 sonant with his general character; and that, beside, 
 the Egyptians would never have been thus defrauded 
 by their slaves, had not their stupor been miraculous. 
 
 And again, verse 37, "And the children of Israel 
 journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hun- 
 dred thousand on foot, that were men, beside children." 
 
 Upon this extraordinary item of Jewish history, 
 our first object is, to establish, by a careful compari- 
 son of testimony, and an unprejudiced, and even lib- 
 eral computation, the most probable number of per- 
 sons and animals, included in this memorable exodus. 
 
 First then, we find several biblical declarations, 
 more or less explicit upon the point in question; our 
 text being first in order. And next in order is Ex. 1, 46, 
 "Even all they that were numbered (of an age fit for 
 war) were six hundred and three thousand five hundred 
 and fifty." And also as enumerated by tribes, 2, 32, 
 " These are those which were numbered of the chil- 
 dren of Israel, by the house of their fathers: all those 
 that were numbered of the camps, throughout their 
 hosts; were six hundred thousand, and three tbou- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 179 
 
 sand, and five hundred and fifty. But the Levites 
 were not numbered among the children of Israel;" 
 they not being included, more than women, in the list 
 ef warriors. And in corroboration we may be allowed 
 to introduce the testimony of Josephus; who says: 
 " Now the entire multiude of those that went out, in- 
 cluding the women and children, was not easy to be 
 numbered, but those that were of an age fit for war" 
 (from twenty to fifty) "were six hundred thousand." 
 If, therefore, we adopt the number explicitly given in 
 the Scriptures, we have first, of the class of warriors, 
 603,550, who were of an age between 20 and 50 years. 
 Nor can there be found either fact or reason, against 
 there having been an equal number of coeval females, 
 or 603,550. And of both males and females, above 
 and below the foregoing numbers, (seeing that 120 
 years were established as the period of human life,) 
 it must be sufficiently liberal to estimate them at an 
 equal number, or 1,207,100; to which the Levites are 
 yet to be added. To this point we find at Num. 3, 29, 
 that, " All that were numbered of the Levites, which 
 Moses and Aaron numbered at the command of the 
 Lord, throughout their families, all the males from a 
 month old and upward, were twenty and two thou- 
 sand;" to which should, most reasonably, be added as 
 many females, making an aggregate of 44,000. Which 
 several numbers, being added together, amount to 
 2,458,200 as the least probable aggregate of persons, 
 concerned in this event; not including the indefinite 
 " mixed multitude, that went up also with them." 
 And of the flocks and herds, they are said to have 
 
180 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 driven forth, it would be erroneous to say, as in Ex. 
 If, 38, that "there went up with them even very 
 much cattle," unless each family possessed a number 
 of animals of all sorts, double that of its human indi- 
 viduals. And even this with them, both for food and 
 sacrifice, and also, stocking Canaan in the end, would 
 be a state of poverty indeed. It is, therefore, more 
 than generous, to compute their number thus; or at 
 4,912,200, which, added to the aggregate of persons, 
 is, 7,374,300 individuals, of both men and beasts, go- 
 ing out together, from the land of Egypt. And here, 
 we are met by a difficulty, not very easily surmount- 
 ed, viz., the surprising expedition with which they 
 marched from Rameses to the Red Sea, i. e. a dis- 
 tance, by the biblical map, of about one hundred ancj 
 twenty miles in three days, and that too, through a 
 district, of which Josephus says, cc And, indeed, that 
 land was difficult to be traveled over, not only by ar- 
 mies, but by single persons." 
 
 Now, we find no intimation, that the manner, or ra- 
 pidity of the Hebrew's march, wa»c miraculously as- 
 sisted, whatever other circumstances may have been 
 thus modified. These, therefore, are subjects of law- 
 ful criticism; which may be handled alike, without 
 mittens, and without the guilt of blasphemy, however 
 justly chargeable with heresy. 
 
 To the validity of the record, that these 7,374,300 
 individuals actually commenced their march from 
 Rameses, on the morning after the passover, and, 
 more especially, harnessed, or by fives, and at eve- 
 ning encamped at Succoth, a distance of about forty 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 181 
 
 miles, there is at least one very obstinate objection, 
 viz: That, in that form of march, admitting, them all 
 to be well disciplined soldiers, and proceeding in line, 
 allowing two feet for each platoon, they would have 
 extended, from front to rear, but little less than nine 
 hundred miles. 
 
 And, admitting the eligibility of the country, and 
 that they really marched in platoons of forty individ- 
 uals abreast, they would still have occupied a dis- 
 tance of one hundred and eleven miles; at which es- 
 timate (whereby we yield eight hundred per cent of 
 our rightful advantage) the case would, then, stand 
 thus. The first platoon having commenced its march, 
 at Rameses, and proceeded at the quickest rate of 
 military progression, would have required twenty 
 hours of incessant marching, to reach its destined 
 Succoth. And yet, being followed by the rest, in the 
 manner indicated, but little more than a third of this 
 living immensity will have started. And ere the last 
 platoon can have removed a step from Rameses, the 
 first must have been nearly at the sea, and have been 
 marching at the very swiftest rate, and unremittingly, 
 but little less than five whole days, or from sunrise un- 
 til sunset each. Hence, the rear platoon would not 
 have'reached the sea, until near the close of the tenth 
 day. - 
 
 It is, therefore, apparently impossible, to reconcile 
 the story, with the circumstances it inevitably involves. 
 
 Another objection here, importunately obtrudes. 
 Did Pharaoh repeal the prudent ordinance, from 
 which Moses, in his infancy, so marvelously escaped ? 
 
182 
 
 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 If so, why has Inspiration neglected to reveal it, and 
 hence afford another hook for Scepticism to hang up- 
 on? And if not. the conclusion is resistless, that Mo- 
 ses was the youngest Hebrew living (some rare eva- 
 sions of the law excepted) at the time of this strange 
 exodus. 
 
 And still another, somewhat unyielding difficulty 
 comes up, from out this fertile mass of tradipnary 
 rottenness. 
 
 We find the Hebrews to have numbered two mill- 
 ions, four hundred fifty-eight thousand and two hun- 
 dred. And that this immense population shall have 
 proceeded from the seventy Israelites of Jacob's tribe, 
 is what we should sooner chaw upon, than undertake 
 to swallow whole. 
 
 Allowing these seventy persons to have doubled 
 each twenty years, during the period of their residence 
 in Egypt— which is not only a more rapid increase, 
 than a state of cruel slavery, would justify, but than 
 any other history has ever recorded, the whole num- 
 ber at the time of their exodus would have been fifty- 
 five thousand six hundred and eighty. Or a little 
 more than one eleventh of the Hebrew warriors. 
 
 And still, to doubt that this is veritably God's reve- 
 lation of a literal occurrence, is deemed unpardonable 
 heresy, for which its subject should be physically 
 kicked, and spiritually damned. — At least, so seems 
 good orthodoxy to consider it; and wonders that God 
 should be so dilatoiw, in his almighty retribution. 
 
 And here, at the threshold of our inquiry into the 
 absurdities of Judaism, our already expended oppor- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 183 
 
 tunity admonishes me that a close of this discourse is 
 indispensable. And hence the residue of this He- 
 brew miscellany, compiled of fabulous traditions* 
 senseless theology, exagerated* partial civil-history, 
 moral allegories, tracts and dogmas, with much sub- 
 lime and graphic poetry, must pass untouched, and 
 scarcely pointed at. 
 
 However discourteous, or even diabolical; it may 
 be deemed by Christien Superstitionists, I am, never- 
 theless, constrained, in obedience to my deep contempt 
 of its recorded, superstitious fatuities, to pass over 
 the entire book of Leviticus, with this single critical 
 remark, viz: That Reason may fret herself to mad- 
 ness, before she finds a mode of reconciling its for- 
 malities with any higher views of God or Nature., 
 than those, a savage Superstition would engender; 
 And, as contrasted with Gospel principles? must have 
 been the senseless institutions of a different God; or 
 else a stranger thing must be admitted, than that of 
 seperate Gods, for Jew and Christian; I mean, the 
 acquisition, by the Jewish one, of so much wisdom 
 and consistency, as would constitute respectable hu- 
 manity ! 
 
 Of Deuteronomy I would say more? and less con- 
 temptuously, were not my opportunity expended. But 
 as it is, I may venture Upon a single question. In 
 contemplation of the Jewish, civil code, do you feel 
 disposed to its adoption, as a substitute for that you 
 have; or its author, as your executive, rather than 
 elect one from among yourselves? Or rather, do 
 you not most heartily contemn that antiquated, blood- 
 less mummy, that literary death's head, that Platonisna 
 
134 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 has lugged along, to frighten fools and children with. 
 
 Of God's extreme civility to Joshua, much com- 
 ment might be divertingly expended, were it admissi- 
 ble; nor less than volumes upon the book containing 
 his biography. But we can only stop to ask, if you 
 believe God taught such bungling astronomy, as this 
 stupid fable indicates? Or that he was so lame in al- 
 mighty calculation, as to adopt a plan, for Joshua's 
 benefit, by which the world must have been physical- 
 ly deranged, instead of a dozen others, not less effi- 
 cient, and that common-sense would sanction! 
 
 Upon the farce, (Judg. 6, 37) between God and Gid- 
 eon, about the miraculous bedewing the fleece of 
 wool, I would not even waste contempt. 
 
 What strange unnatral thing, was that old giant. 
 Sampson, whose strength, so commonly of flesh and 
 bone, resided so entirely in his hair. Nor was Deli- 
 lah's method to effect her object, less odd than Samp- 
 son's constitution ! 
 
 In the 11th chapter of Samuel, we find the history 
 of an event, although not reputedly miraculous, appa- 
 rently, too superhuman to have been otherwise ac- 
 complished. We are here told, that messengers were 
 sent from Jabesh Gilead to Gibeah, soliciting the aid 
 of Saul. To whom he replied, "To-morrow, by the 
 time the sun be hot, ye shall have help." And so 
 punctual was Joshua, that he collected, from all Israel 
 and Judah 330,000 warriors, (in no time) and marched 
 them in a single night, a distance, by any practicable 
 route, of at least 60 miles, and fell upon the enemy at 
 Jabesh, before sunrise, the next morning, And thus 
 stands the character of the objects of religious faith 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 OF THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY 
 AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
 Suspect not your humble servant of standing here, 
 as a malicious impugner of Christianity, or its adopted 
 oracle; nor charge me with insincerity, while I, em- 
 phatically, avow my preference for the Gospel, wheth- 
 er of style or sentiment, to any other tract, of human, 
 or superhuman, origin. And yet, to yield entire as- 
 sent to its utter infallibility, is not consistent with my 
 present views. Nor is it dissonant with its own ex- 
 plicit teaching, that we should, not merely adopt opin- 
 ions honestly, but that we should carefully test them, 
 by the exercise of reason. 
 
 Not having a moment's opportunity to spare upon a 
 preface, we may claim to be excused that want of 
 etiquette; and, therefore, unreproached, fall, warmly 
 and abruputly, at our work. 
 
 Of the origin of Christianity, we are too poor in 
 historical evidence, to forego the use of much hypo- 
 thesis; and hence, we hope for pardon, for its subse- 
 quent adoption. 
 
 23 
 
186 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 
 
 That Christianity is quite as old, as itself has 
 claimed, (and we doubt not older still) should be, at 
 once, accorded to all its advocates, who hope to make 
 it their advantage. 
 
 Our first hypothesis is this. That Christianity 
 originated in Platonism, or, indeed, is but that, suc- 
 cessively and variously modified. 
 
 And, in support of this opinion, we adduce the fol- 
 lowing circumstances. 
 
 Plato is universally known, where learning has been 
 taught, as the Grecian prophet, or man of God. — As 
 having amplified, as well as mystified, the theological 
 crudities of his teacher, Socrates; and finally wrought 
 them into an elaborate system of incomprehensible 
 Spiritualism, which we assume to have been adopted 
 bp the Jewish sect of philosophers, denominated Es- 
 sens, of which Philo appears to have been an eminent 
 disciple. 
 
 Platonism was promulgated, in Greece, a little less 
 than four hundred years before the Christian era, and 
 became the uncontested criterion, or test, of all exist- 
 ing literature, until Aristotle's almost superhuman 
 strength pulled the academic from the clouds, and 
 used him up as condiment to common matter. 
 
 That Platonism, introduced thus early into Greece, 
 should not have found its way the little distance from 
 Athens to Judea, some time before the Christian era, 
 is too unnatural to be the subject of a doubt. And 
 history explicitly informs us, that this philosophy was 
 inculcated in Judea, during the reign of the Ptole- 
 mies, and imported from the Alexandrian schooL 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 187 
 
 And still it could not have retained its name of Pla- 
 tonism, among the Jews, or Joseph us would, most 
 certainly, have noticed it; and therefore it must have 
 had some other epithet. 
 
 It cannot well be doubted, that the Jewish sect, 
 called Essens, from its character and habits, was iden- 
 tical with Platonism. 
 
 And yet, its origin is, historically, a mystery. This 
 sect is unquestionably referred to in the apocryphal 
 writings denominated Maccabees, more than 160 years 
 before the present era. And Josephus, who makes 
 no reference to its origin, says it had existed for a long 
 time, previous to the date of his writing. 
 
 We are also informed, that Philo, the learned Jew, 
 was a most devout disciple of new, or modified, Pla- 
 tonism, or Eclecticism, which, in their time, appear to 
 have heen convertible terms, and that he was, as be- 
 fore remarked, a member of the sect of Essens also. 
 
 Having thus assumed what it is impossible, at this 
 long after time, to prove, that ,Platonism Avas called 
 Essenism in Judea, we will now proceed to test its 
 claims as mother of Christianity. 
 
 Josephus informs us that the sect of Essens existed 
 in his own time; and gives the . following account of 
 their religious principles and conduct. 
 
 They hold that all things are best ascribed to God. 
 That man consists of body and soul, the first corrupti- 
 ble, the last immortal; and that the rewards of right- 
 eousness are to be earnestly striven for. That, though 
 they send presents to the temple, they offer up no sa- 
 crifices, but have more pure lustrations of their own; 
 
188 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 (or sacrifices of the heart) on which account they are 
 prohibited the temple, and therefore sacrifice, or wor- 
 ship, by themselves. 
 
 They also live a better life than other men, and ad- 
 dict themselves entirely to husbandry. They excel, to 
 admiration, all other men in virtue; theirs not being 
 common virtue, but real righteousness, and such as 
 never hath appeared among others, either barbarian 
 or Greek, not even for a little time, and yet it hath 
 long endured among them. They have all things in 
 common; and stewards are appointed to distribute 
 equally to all, according to their necessities. 
 
 They reject pleasure, as an evil, but esteem conti- 
 nence and conquest of the passions as virtue. They 
 choose not to marry, and only consent to it, on the 
 principle of necessity, in perpetuating the species. 
 They guard against the laciviousness of women, of 
 whose fidelity they are suspicious. They despise 
 riches, and are communicative to admiration. They 
 have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in 
 every city, and wherever they are, they partake of 
 whatever they need, as though it were their own; and 
 therefore carry nothing with them, when they travel 
 into remote parts; though still they take their weapons 
 with them, for fear of thieves. They neither discard 
 nor change their clothes or shoes, until they are en- 
 tirely worn out, or torn, to pieces. They neither buy 
 nor sell between each other, but make such exchanges, 
 as will best accommodate; and are allowed to take 
 from each other, whatever they may need, as though 
 it were their own. Their extraordinary piety con- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 189 
 
 strains them to keep a strict silence about profane 
 matters, until sunrise, employing their time, mean- 
 while^ in prayers and supplications, when they go, in- 
 dustriously and faithfully to their several employ- 
 ments. They are fond of clothing themselves in 
 white veils; and punctilious in the practice of bathing 
 their bodies in cold water. They are particular to 
 have grace said before and after meals, praising their 
 God as the author of the benefaction. They permit 
 no clamor, nor disturbance, to pollute their houses, 
 but permit every one to speak in his turn. They are 
 eminent for sobriety and fidelity, and are ministers of 
 peace. They dispense their anger with perfect just- 
 ice, and restrain their passions within proper bounds. 
 They condemn swearing as being worse than perjury, 
 and hold their mere word more binding than an oath. 
 They study attentively, the writings of the ancients, 
 and choose from them, whatever they deem most ad- 
 vantageous to their souls and bodies. They do not 
 admit their proselytes to full membership, at once; 
 but adopt them on trial for a year, presenting them, at 
 the same time, a hatchet, a girdle, and a white gar- 
 ment: And if they succeed in their observances, to 
 the satisfaction of the sect, they then participate of 
 the waters of purification. They are so strict obser- 
 vers of the seventh day, as a day of rest, that they 
 not only refrain from their ordinary labors, but pre- 
 pare their food beforehand, that they may avoid even 
 the kindling a fire. They believe, like the Greeks, in 
 a future spiritual retribution — that the souls of the 
 just retire to a state of extatic happiness, while those 
 the wicked are subjects of an em'less torment. 
 
190 THEOLOGICAL, CRITICISMS. 
 
 We find, at the commencement of the present era, 
 that there were three prominent philosophic sects, as 
 they were called, among the Jews; but which, with 
 us, would be denominated religious sects. These 
 were the Pharisees, or disciples of Reason, despisers 
 of luxury and ostentation; respecters of age, believers 
 in spiritual immortality, and future reward and pun- 
 ishment, according to the virtuous or vicious charac- 
 ter of the recipient. They believed that all things were 
 governed by fate, except the actions and thoughts of 
 mankind, which they considered free. 
 
 The second sect w r as the Saducees, or aristocrisy; 
 disbelievers in immortality, and strict observers of 
 the Mosaic law. 
 
 Of the third sect, or Essens, we have already spo- 
 ken. 
 
 Now, of these three sects, we may very reasonably 
 conclude, judging by the manner in which Josephus 
 treats them, that the Essen, was a very numerous and 
 popular sect, as late as seventy years after the reputed 
 birth of Christ, or near forty years after his crucifix- 
 ion. And, therefore, were not this the sect, known, 
 subsequently as Christian, a most singular phenome- 
 non is thus developed in the fact, that there is not a 
 single reference, within the pages of the Testament, 
 to such a sect, nor even to such a name. 
 
 On what principle, therefore, except the one sug- 
 gested, can this anomaly be accounted for? By what 
 strange, yet secret, providence or catastrophe, did 
 such a numerous and interesting sect become, so sud- 
 denly, extinguished? Indeed, we find the eulogy of 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 191 
 
 Josephus to have been written near forty years after 
 Christ's reputed mission; and still this sect existed. 
 
 And whoever shall carefully compare Josephus' ac- 
 count of it, with the apostolic Acts, and yet is uncon- 
 vinced that Christians and Essens were identical, 
 must, we think, be blinded by his prejudices. There 
 seems, in truth, no chance for reasonable dissent. 
 
 But, not having time, at present, to note the partic- 
 ulars of their agreement, I must, therefore, leave you 
 to make the examination for yourselves, with this ad- 
 ditional suggestion. — That, in forming your conclu- 
 sion, you will make all proper allowance for want of 
 uniformity, that an admission of successive modifica- 
 tion would demand. 
 
 On account of the barrenness of our subject, in the 
 article of positive testimony, upon the question of the 
 origin of Christianity, we are thrown upon the em- 
 barrassing resource, of relying upon negative circum- 
 stances, as evidence in our own behalf. And, to this 
 point, but a few moments can be appropriated. 
 
 First then, of Philo, the Jew, who was born seve- 
 ral years before the Christian era. 
 
 Whilst be talked familiarly of the Logos, or wis- 4 
 dom of God, as having planned, the universe, and su- 
 perintended its phenomena; and as being adequate 
 and available to man's extremest temporal and spirit- 
 ual good, we still hear nothing of this miraculous re- 
 former, denominated. Christ, or God incarnate. Nor 
 yet a hint of Christian reformation, nor its wonderful, 
 or miraculous associates. And that no opportunity 
 for information, could have been more favorable than 
 
192 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 his, is evinced, most clearly, from the several circum- 
 stances of character, situation and cotemporality . The 
 latter circumstance being fully established, by the his- 
 torical fact; that in A. D. 42, or eight years after the 
 reputed crucifixion, he was selected by his country- 
 men, as embassador to Rome, being esteemed the 
 most learned and eloquent of his nation. 
 
 Now, do you think it, at all, reasonable, that the 
 most literary and popular scholar in Judea, and living 
 cotemporaneously with so extraordinary a personage, 
 as Christ is represented to have been, and necessarily, 
 from his situation, an attendant spectator of more or 
 less of the extraordinary phenomena, said to have ac- 
 companied his supernatural mission, and what is 
 more, a brother Jew, by birth and parentage, would 
 have observed, in all his writings, so profound a si- 
 lence, as he appears to have done? 
 
 If so, it can scarcely be disputed, that your preju- 
 dice has stupified your reason. 
 
 Plutarch comes next, to tell the world of his re- 
 proachful ignorance, or willful, base suppression of 
 the truth: For, in his ample, labored writings, neither 
 the name of Christ, nor Christian can be found. And 
 yet this greatest Grecian scholar of his time, was 
 born but fifty years, after Christ, or but seventeen after 
 his notorious miracles and crucifixion. Nor could he, 
 well, have evaded knowing quite as much of these 
 events, under circumstances no less favorable, as did 
 the Roman Pliny, who, doubtless, has been made to 
 say, while dead, what he never even dreamed of while 
 alive. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 193 
 
 We next, presume upon the testimony of Joseph us, 
 the eminent Jewish historian, whose ghost is doubt- 
 less yet reproaching, with its shadowy scowls, that of 
 every hooded Romanist, that lands on yonder side the 
 river Styx, for having made his book tell lies, of which 
 his living self would have been most heartily ashamed, 
 
 This most eminent scholar of his time, whether of 
 Judea, Greece or Rome, we find was born A. D. 
 37, or four years after the Logos had closed its per- 
 sonal, earthly, mission: And yet, with all this, best, 
 possible, opportunity for knowledge, of all his learned 
 countrymen, (Philo, or Paul, alone, excepted,) he 
 has observed the strictest silence, unless the best, and 
 most, of modern scholars are entirely mistaken, upon 
 the question of a supposed interpolation in this au- 
 thor's book. 
 
 That the single sentence, of all the work, appro« 
 priated to this momentous subject, is an interpolation 
 by the Romish clergy, who propagated, unblushingly, 
 the damnable, but church-saving doctrine, that false- 
 hood is commendable, whenever it contributes to the 
 interest of religion, is a plausible conclusion, at least. 
 
 In corroboration of this opinion, we have that of 
 the most ingenious Christian philosopher of the last 
 century, Father James Henry Bernardine; patronized 
 by Lous 16th, knighted by Napoleon, and pensioned 
 by Joseph Bonaparte: And of whom it should be suf- 
 ficient praise (were that his sole production) that he 
 wrote the matchless tale, Paul and Virginia. 
 
 This worthy, and hence extraordinary father of the 
 Romish Church, remarks, and with quite his usual 
 
 24 
 
194 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 emphasis, (Studies of Nature, vol. 2, p 166,) having 
 already, severely, animadverted upon the dishonesty 
 of those early Christian writers, through whose hands 
 the ancient manuscripts had passed: "It is impossi- 
 ble to adduce a more satisfactory demonstration of 
 this ancient infidelity of the two parties" (meaning 
 Christians and sceptics) "than an interpolation to be 
 found in the writings of Flavius Josephus, who was 
 cotemporary with Pliny.'*' (One of the greatest 
 scholars in Rome, but. silent, we believe, upon tho 
 subject in question,) " He is made to say, in so many 
 words, that the Messiah was just born; and he con- 
 tinues his narration, without referring, so much as 
 once, to this wonderful event, to the end of a volu- 
 minous history. How can it be believed that Jose- 
 phus, who frequently indulges himself in a tedious 
 detail of minute circumstances, relating to events of 
 little importance, should not have reverted a thousand 
 and a thousand times, to a birth so deeply interesting 
 to his nation, considering that its very destiny was in- 
 volved in that event; and that even the destruction of 
 Jerusalem was only one of the consequences of the 
 death of Jesus Christ? He on the contrary perverts 
 the meaning of the prophecies which announce Him, 
 applying them to Vespasian and Titus; for he, as 
 well as the other Jews, expected a Messiah trium- 
 phant. Beside had Josephus believed in Christ, 
 would he not have embraced his religion?" 
 
 And this is a quotation from a voluminous work 
 designed especially to sustain the divinity of the 
 Serijptures. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 195 
 
 Tn simple courtesy, we are bound to own that, the 
 religious sect, called Christians, has, undoubtedly, 
 existed, and been known by that cognomen, for nearly 
 eighteen hundred years, at least. The question, 
 therefore, next occurring, is. When, whence, and 
 wherefore was its name obtained. 
 
 The first occurrence of the name of Christian is 
 said to have been about A. D. 43, or 10 years from 
 the crucifixion; as found in x\cts 11, 26, which saya, 
 "the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." 
 
 This text clearly evinces, from its particular con- 
 struction, that this name was not assumed, but arbi- 
 trarily, and may be tauntingly, imposed upon the sect, 
 as a stigma, intended to reproach it with, like Qua- 
 ker, Methodist, Holy Roller, &c, and suggested by 
 some objectionable peculiarity in their creed or con- 
 duct. And, if the Christian sect acquired its known 
 cognomen thus; must we thence conclude it had no 
 previous epithet, though countless thousands, and al- 
 most daily too, are said to have been proselyted to 
 this new, and strange philosophy — this revision of 
 God's first attempt at creed or statute making, for 
 thirteen years preceding. And had Christ been 
 known, throughout Judea, as its human, or superhu- 
 man author, and also as its surprisingly, if not mirac- 
 ulously, successful promulgator; would those million 
 proselytes have witlessly relinquished the conscious 
 credit of his name, and stupidly have waited, those 
 ten wmole years from his departure, in order that Re- 
 proach might taunt them with an epithet? 
 
 This would have been strange indeed, were not the 
 
196 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 whole an allegory: But then, the name exists, as we 
 have seen, or else the record is untrue, since Saul 
 and Barnabus taught Eclecticism, alias, Christianity, 
 a full year at Antioch: And hence our next enquiry — 
 Whence its name? Nor can we here proceed a step, 
 without hypothesis; and, however weak the crutch 
 on which we limp, 'tis our dilemma, to hobble thus, 
 or not at all. 
 
 The first suggestion of our friend Hypothesis is 
 this. 
 
 The Gospel is an allegory, containing the very 
 cream of all the known philosophy, at its date; and 
 doubtless written out by Philo, the Eclectic. Nor 
 could Judea have found another Jew, nor the world, 
 perhaps, another man, who could have done the thing 
 so well! But that he could do it thus, we have no 
 doubt, if Fame has not most falsely, nor less flatter- 
 ingly treated him. We think it breathes his match- 
 less style and spirit; or rather glows with superhu- 
 man pathos and benignity, of which he, much more 
 than other men, was master. Nor is this suggestion, 
 apparautly less plausible, than that which makes il- 
 literate fishermen its author. Had such obtained the 
 revelation; they would scarcely have told it thus. Nor 
 has superhuman Inspiration but seldom found its way 
 from God to man, through such a brilliant medium. 
 And hence, and also from the Logos that inspired it, 
 and that Philo worshipped as the Son,orsecoud attri- 
 bute of God—- as He of the trinity personified, who 
 planned the world and still remains its supervisor: 
 and who, m both morally preventive and recupera- 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 197 
 
 tive salvation. Nor can we deem it less than strange, 
 that any careful reader of the Gospel, who knows a 
 thought of Philo's upon the point in question, should 
 possibly evade our own conclusion ! 
 
 And would you have, at once, a lucid specimen of 
 our author's style, and plain acknowledgment of alle- 
 gory; read, carefully, what he has uttered by fictitious 
 John in chapter first, of that sublime compendium of 
 all the best philosophy of man, when that compendi- 
 um was written. 
 
 " In the beginning (of the creation) was the Word 
 (Logos, or wisdom of God) and the Word was with 
 (an attribute of) God, and the Word was God," (in- 
 finite or omniscient.) " The same (Logos) was in 
 the beginning with God. All things were made (form- 
 ed or planned) by him (Logos or wisdom personified.) 
 And him the Logos, Word or wisdom of God, is first- 
 ly made to assume a personality, it allegorically re- 
 tains throughout the work. Again, " In him (Logos) 
 was life; (being) and the life was the light (moral 
 wisdom, or Gospel truth) of men." Verse 14th, 
 "And the Word (Logos) was made flesh;" i. e. the 
 wisdom of God was personified by the writer, for the 
 purpose of more effectually illustrating it by practi- 
 cal application to the business of human life. As an 
 allegory, we think the Gospel a most transparant and 
 invaluable production; while, as literal history, it is 
 spiritless, insipid and even stultifying; at least to or- 
 dinary common sense! 
 
 This Gospel, Hypothesis again declares, and con- 
 sonantly with the work itself, was written for the 
 
198 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 Jews, whom Philo, doubtless, wished to benefit, by 
 this superior philosophy; and that he, most ingenious- 
 ly, however unsuccessfully, adopted allegory to effect 
 his purpose, which only failed, from having met with 
 superstitious, Hebrew obstinacy and bigoted, Mosaic 
 infallibility — the natural and inevitable result of a fic- 
 titious political Theocracy. And this partiality, or 
 affection, for the Jews, appears to us, much more like 
 Philo, than like God; and, therefore, think it Philo's 
 saying. 
 
 That the general character, even of the Old Testa- 
 ment, is allegorical, there can scarcely be a doubt 
 with him, who has attentively reflected upon its moral 
 tracts. The story of Joseph was doubtless fabricated, 
 with the view of practically illustrating the virtue 
 and effects of continence, or self command; whilst 
 that of Job is equally explicit upon the point of pious 
 resignation to whatever a Providence shall dispense. 
 Nor can we imagine a clearer illustration of moral 
 cowardice and its opposite, than is contained in 
 those tracts, or allegories denominated Jonah and 
 Daniel, while literally, they are subjects of derision 
 or contempt. And here, the author of the Gospel 
 found a precedent, sufficient to justify himself. Nor 
 would any other mode, than that of allegory, have 
 promised half as much success, among an ignorant 
 and superstitious race. Nor did he fail, most faith- 
 fully, to follow the example. In proof of which we 
 make the following references. 
 
 At the fifth chapter of Mark, we find an account of 
 a maniac, which we are unable to interpret in any 
 other manner, than as an allegory. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 190 
 
 We think the writer adopted, and most appropri- 
 ately too, the literal maniac, or one laboring under 
 the disease of insanity, as a most fit representative-of 
 him, who yields unqualified obedience to the dictates 
 of his propensities. 
 
 He is represented, in the tale, as one, on v>hom both 
 common and extraordinary means of reformation and 
 restraint had been expended uselessly. In fine, that 
 every mean, except the Gospel influence had been 
 vainly tried. 
 
 But that the Logos failed not, even here, of its re- 
 cuperative and sal vatory effect. And what a smudge 
 envelopes us, whenever we most stupidly, contem- 
 plate this as literally true — A. legion of itinerent, vol- 
 untary devils, not only to create, but uncreate to fit 
 this one occasion. 
 
 The subject of a trinity of divinities, as deducible 
 from the Gospel, is doubtless also allegorical. 
 
 God has been long contemplated as possessed, or 
 rather constitued, of three grand attributes, Power, 
 Wisdom and Goodness, infinitely extended. Power 
 to create — Wisdom to devise, and Goodness to direct 
 the system of the universe. Nor could less than 
 these have ever formed a rational idea of God in- 
 deed. Power without design would be nugatory; 
 whilst both power and design might be abortive or 
 disastrous, without direction to a proper end. 
 
 Almighty power, or Omnipotence personified, is 
 therefore God the creator, and individual in the human 
 mind — Wisdom, Logos, or omniseiency, is reflective- 
 ly engendered, or begotten of omnipotence, as indis- 
 
200 
 
 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 pensible to its exercise; and hence the second of the 
 three personifications that constitute the trinity. — 
 Goodness, or beneficence, is likewise reflectively en- 
 gendered, or begotten of both power and wisdom, as 
 being also indispensible to the judicious exercise of 
 these; and constitutes the last of these three allegorical 
 individuals, whose aggregation forms the trinitarian 
 Godhead. 
 
 Thus have we, or rather our Hypothesis, disclosed, 
 and most concisely too, our notions of the when, the 
 whence and wherefore of Christianity; Nor that with- 
 out regret, that want of opportunity has thus restrict- 
 ed us. 
 
 We are come, at length, where Superstition would 
 scowl us into silence; and that with such acerbity, as 
 should turn the sweetest milk of human kindness in- 
 to bonnyclabber, viz, to the question of the divinity, 
 or superhuman character of the Gospel. 
 
 Here again, w r e find ourselves upon the negative 
 side of the question, where hypothesis is unavoidable, 
 and plausibility the highest point attainable. And 
 yet, there are numerous facts available, that stand 
 much nearer, than a cousinship, to real demonstration, 
 in favor of our position. 
 
 Theology assumes, as evidence of the supernatural 
 character of the Gospel, that it contains superior sen- 
 timents, to those the world can have derived from 
 any other source. 
 
 This may, nevertheless, have been said much more 
 in honesty than in truth. At least, we apprehend no 
 difficulty in its entire invalidation, both, by extrinsic 
 circumstances, and intrinsic discrepancies. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 201 
 
 In this inquiry, we may be excused for calling up 
 the Grecian Socrates, who was born near five hundred 
 years before our era, to testify in our behalf. 
 
 Socrates is said by his biographers, to have aban- 
 doned all inquiries concerning the origin, and physi- 
 cal phenomena of Nature, for what he deemed the 
 higher, or more important departments of Religion 
 and Morality. Yet, although he neglected, he did not 
 despise physical or natural philosophy. But moral 
 philosophy was the subject upon which he expended 
 his best attention ; and wherein his success was so ex- 
 traordinary, that it was said of him, " That he brought 
 philosophy down from heaven, to the abodes of men." 
 He was fully convinced of the existence of an invisi- 
 ble Creator of the universe, a being in possession of 
 almighty power, wisdom and goodness, and who rules 
 the world by a providence of his own. The existence 
 of this Being he believed was clearly deducible from 
 the system of Nature, and, especially, from the struc- 
 ture of the human frame. And that, as man is capa- 
 ble of reason, its author should be much more amply 
 endowed. That we should no more doubt the exist- 
 ence of Deity, because he is invisible and intangible, 
 than that of other powers or principles, known only 
 by their effects: But he thought the question about 
 the substance of the Deity, unprofitable for specula- 
 tion; and that it was sufficient that we clearly appre- 
 hend his spiritual nature. Though he was educated 
 in polytheism, and sometimes spoke of minor deities^ 
 he was still the w r orshiper of one only God, the Crea- 
 tor of the world, and the Judge of mankind; and to 
 
 25 
 
202 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 whose kind providence he traced all human blessings; 
 and maintained, that the omniscient and omnipresent 
 Deity knows everything, and observes every secret 
 thought and action of mankind. And hence our duty 
 to wsrship him with all our powers, (mind, might and 
 strength,) and one, that he most punctually performed, 
 both in public and private; and sincerely believed, 
 that God made especial, divine revelations of himself 
 to his sincere petitioners; and that his holy spirit 
 warned them of evil and aided them in virtue He 
 taught that man cannot purchase, but must merit, the 
 favor of God; and that, by a blameless life, which is 
 the truest and best service of the Deity: And hence 
 his efforts to abrogate all sacrificial worship, to which 
 his countrymen were obstinately inclined, and to 
 which he became himself an offering. He considered 
 prayer, essential to a virtuous life, and taught his dis- 
 ciples thus to pray. " Father Jupiter," (the Grecian 
 name of God) " give us all good, whether we ask it 
 or not; and avert from us all evil, though we do not 
 pray thee so to do," (or do not name particulars.) 
 "Bless all our good actions, and reward them with suc- 
 cess and happiness." He believed in the existence of 
 an immaterial, immortal human soul, of divine origi- 
 nal, and eternal destination; and connected with Deity 
 by consciousness and reason. The improvement of 
 mind he considered of paramount importance; and 
 self knowledge its first department; and that he who 
 knew all things else, except himself, was still a fool. 
 He distinguished the soul, as sensible and reasonable; 
 or, as we should say, propen'sitive and rational. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 203 
 
 The soul's immortality he deduced from its dignity, its 
 vitalizing energy, its activity in sleep, and from the 
 nature of God from whom it is derived. He viewed 
 death to the good, as but a transition to a better life, 
 of which his hope was confident and clear, and where- 
 in, he thought, with rapture, of meeting the virtuous 
 of other ages.. He was fearless of death and judg- 
 ment, in the consciousness of having labored after 
 truth, and struggled for virtue; but believed the souls 
 of wicked and licentious men were sentenced to unut- 
 terable woe, in a place for the especial retribution of 
 impenitent wickedness. He made religion the foun- 
 dation of morality: And that, as God wishes men to 
 be virtuous, they should therefore be so. He believed 
 that happiness depended, solely, upon the perform- 
 ance of duty; and the desire of it, he considered as 
 but one of the various motives to the performance of 
 virtue; and thus established an intimate connection 
 between virtue and religion. He had the highest 
 conceptions of thedignity of virtue; and declared do- 
 minion over the senses, (propensities) to be the high- 
 est state of freedom; and that virtue, only, is true 
 wisdom: Whilst on the contrary, he deemed vice 
 identical with insanity. See this allegorized in the 
 three first Gospels, Mat. S, 28, Mark 5, 2, and Luke 
 8,27. His yet unsystemized morality was founded 
 upon the only true metaphysical basis, "Do what the 
 Deity" (or His proxy, Conscience) "commands thee." 
 And though he mistook somewhat the character and 
 function of Conscience; he made it an indispensable 
 attribute of the human soul, as a judge and director 
 
'204 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 between right and wrong. He held, that human prac- 
 tice is qualified by human knowedge; and that, there- 
 fore, perfect knowledge would, infallibly, insure per- 
 fect happiness. He defined virtue to be the striving 
 to make one's self and others as perfect as possible, 
 and reduced it to the two great principles, Temperance 
 and Justice; the former embracing duties we owe 
 ourselves; the latter, those we owe to others. He 
 defined temperance to be dominion over every sensual 
 impulse; awd this he regarded as the basis of all other 
 virtues, and indispensable to the proper exercise of 
 Conscience and Knowledge. He held injustice to be 
 one of the greatest evils ; and that perfect justice 
 should be rendered equally to friends and foes; and 
 that men should render obedience to the laws of their 
 country, however unjustly they are administered; 
 and that the golden mean (or middle way between 
 the two extremes) should be carefully observed in 
 every thing. 
 
 Thus, you are presented with a summary of a No- 
 tice of the great Grecian moralist, to be found in the 
 American Encyclopedia, under its appropriate head; 
 and in which, you can recognize, even at the distance 
 of nearly 23 centuries the great moral luminary — the 
 undoubted prototype of Philo's Christ, who caught 
 its brilliancy, and, as brightened too by Plato's fire, 
 and further burnished by the allegorical inspiration of 
 the Jew, thence reflected its broad and radiant bril- 
 liancy, over Europe and the world. 
 
 We will pass, without further comment, from So- 
 crates to other equally veracious, and scarcely less 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 205 
 
 rnVportaut, testimony; and firstly, call Confucius, the 
 Chinese prophet, and not less ancient than the Greek, 
 to tejl what he once thought and taught, of -moral 
 principle. And thus he testifies. 
 
 That temperance, justice and the minor virtues 
 are indispensable to the happiness of society. That 
 riches, pomp or luxury should be -contemned, while 
 the magnanimity, and greatness of soul, which make 
 men incapable of dissimulation and insincerity, should 
 be carefully encouraged: And that a life of reason is 
 incomparably preferable to a life of pleasure, or sen- 
 suality. That man possesses a reasoning seal, which 
 he derived from Tien, (God) and that its cultivation 
 and improvement is the highest and most useful em- 
 ployment of man; and as thus improved, should be 
 actively employed, in the improvement of others: 
 And, in order to insure success, in the project of so- 
 cial regeneration, each individual should begin with 
 himself, and thereby add the weight of example to 
 that of precept. We should, first, become that, 
 which we would have others to be; and acquire an 
 indelible love of virtue, and hatred of vice. That a 
 mean, between the two extremes, should be invaria* 
 bly observed, which is the essence of practical virtue* 
 Nor are we willing to dismiss our Chinese witness, 
 until he shall have spoken a single sentence, in his 
 own impressive manner. " I am a man," said he, 
 '"and cannot exclude myself from the society of men, 
 and consort with beasts. Bad as the times are, I shall 
 do all I can to recal men to virtue; for in virtue are 
 all things, and if mankind would but once embrace it, 
 
200 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS, 
 
 and submit themselves to its discipline and laws, they 
 would not want me or any body else to instruct them. 
 It is the duty of a good man, first to perfect himself, 
 and then to perfect others. Human nature, came to 
 us from heaven pure and perfect; but in process of 
 time, ignorance, the passions, and evil examples cor- 
 rupted it. All consists in restoring it to its primitive 
 beauty; and to be perfect, we must reascend to that 
 point from which we have fallen. Obey heaven, and 
 follow the orders of him who governs it, Love your 
 neighbor as yourself. Let your reason, and not your 
 senses, be the rule of your conduct: for reason will 
 teach you to think wisely, to speak prudently, and to 
 behave yourself worthily upon all occasions." And 
 here we find an antique brilliant, that has been lately 
 dug from out the long since, mouldering relics of a 
 former time; but which, with little burnishing, reflects 
 the plainest image of the Gospel. 
 
 Omitting Plato, to whom our Hypothesis has, here- 
 tofore, presumed to refer, though indirectly, the ori- 
 gin of Christianity, we next call up the Stoic Zeno, to 
 tell what he had learned, three hundred years before 
 the Christ, the Living Word, was born of Philo's 
 brain, or else adopted from the Zend A vesta. 
 
 Of Zeno and the Stoics we learn, that philosophy 
 is the way to wisdom, which is itself the knowledge 
 of human and divine things, and that virtue (or mo- 
 rality) is its practical application to the affairs of so- 
 cial life. That man should aim at divine perfection, 
 as the only way to insure a virtuous life. That Rea- 
 son governs (or should govern) the whole soul. That 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 207 
 
 true happiness results from conduct, that is dictated 
 by reason, and harmonizes with both God and Nature. 
 That men should live in conformity to the injunctions 
 of reason or the laws of animal nature. That virtue 
 is the highest good, and vice the greatest evil; the for- 
 mer being the harmony, and vice the discord, of man 
 with himself; and/hold to the existence and wor- 
 ship of one God. That the highest virtue consists in 
 self denial, or the perfect control of the animal pas- 
 sions. In fine, the doctrines of the Stoics, at the com- 
 mencement of the present era, had acquired so near 
 a resemblance to the Gospel, that they were suspected 
 of having been borrowed therefrom. 
 
 We would be indulged with the liberty of introdu- 
 cing one more witness to the fact, that religious views 
 even in Pagan Rome, were scarcely inferior to those 
 of Christianity itself, more than seventy years before 
 Christ taught the Gospel. 
 
 The Roman Cicero, who was born one hundred and 
 six years before the Christian era, expresses himself 
 thus, (as the translation reads) of God and his wor- 
 ship. " That we ought, above all things to be con- 
 vinced that there is a Supreme Being, who presides 
 over all the events of the world, and disposes of them 
 as sovereign lord and arbiter: that it is to him man- 
 kind are indebted for all the good they enjoy: that he 
 treats the just and impious according to their respect- 
 ive merits; that the true means of acquiring his favor, 
 and of being pleasing in bis sight, is not by the use of 
 riches and magnificence in his worship, but by pre- 
 senting him with a heart pure and blameless, and by 
 
- 
 
 20S THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 adoring feiin with an unfeigned and profound venera- 
 tion. 
 
 Having heard the testimony of these witnesses 
 whom we have selected from different countries and 
 at different periods, the last of whom wrote out his 
 affidavit, three quarters of a century before the Gos- 
 pel was promulgated; will you stiil believe, that noth- 
 ing had occurred of God, of piety and morals, from 
 which the Gospel might have been compiled ? Or 
 that, as in 2d Tim. 1, 10, Life and Immortality were 
 brought to light, (or first promulgated) through the 
 Gospel? If so, look into the second book of Macca- 
 bees, at the seventh chapter, and read of spiritual 
 faith and hope and pious continence; and blush at 
 both your incredulity and our degenerate, heartless 
 mimicry. And here we also find the earliest intima- 
 tion of the body's resurrection; and having, thus acci- 
 dentally, fallen upon this curious question of the soul's 
 new tenement, which appears to be particularly de- 
 serving of, at least, a passing remark, we are induced 
 to make the following. 
 
 No matter how intrinsically absurd the dogma is, 
 since it constitutes an important item of the prevail- 
 ing spiritualism of the Christian world. It thus ac- 
 quires a nominal consequence, that entitles it to, 
 either commendation or reproach. And although, 
 like the subject, of which it seems an unapt ap- 
 pendage, like a crutch to him who has neither leg, it 
 is indeed the merest fiction: It has, nevertheless, a 
 name and an existence, at least, in ideality, and has 
 ■thence a claim to general criticism. 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. t>0!J 
 
 Having admitted the existence of such a doctrine, 
 as the resurrection of the body, subsequently to it* 
 natural, or organic> dissolution* our first inquiry 
 should,' doubtless, be, after the time and manner of its 
 origin. 
 
 And here, again, hypothesis is indispensable, since 
 no positive historical dates, nor declarations, are avail- 
 able to our present purpose* 
 
 The earliest evidence of the dogma of a resurrec- 
 tion, among mankind, is doubtless found in the apocry^ 
 phal book called Maccabees, whose date is assumed 
 to be about a hundred and sixty -seven years , before 
 the Christian era: And hence, must be, at least, so 
 much older than the Gospel. But since we have no 
 earlier intimation, that such a sentiment had become 
 sectarian, as it seems it then was with the Essens, it 
 is plausible, at the worst, to conclude it to have been, 
 at that time, in its infancy, which is all we ask, or 
 need, in our behalf. 
 
 More than three hundred years before our era, Pla- 
 to taught his spiritualism to the Greeks, who at that 
 time exercised a literary censorship, throughout the 
 world; and hence, his doctrines must have been, im- 
 mediately, coextensive with the spread of science. 
 In these, the world, in which Judea was included, was 
 taught the dogmas of God, of Heaven, the soul, its 
 immortality and certain destination to interminable 
 weal or wo: But not a word about the body's resur- 
 rection. And wherofore should Plato have been thus 
 silent, upon a subject so momentous? Because he 
 made the human soul with all the qualities or attri- 
 
 26 
 
*ilO THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 butes essential to its immediate translation to another 
 world, and to a participation, also, of its pleasures or 
 its pains: And, hence; a body were, at best, but nuga- 
 tory. 
 
 But this literary Auteus had, meanwhile, reared a 
 Hercules, to lift him from the ground of his enchant- 
 ment, and break the chain with which he had so gross- 
 ly and successfully fooled mankind. Yes, Aristotle, 
 the greatest of Pinto's pupils, and of his race, con- 
 - tested, so successfully, his master's fallacy, that the 
 soul could move, without machinery, or feel, without 
 corporality, as to make it necessary for the disciples 
 of Platonism to invent the resurrection as an indis- 
 pensable addition to their former creed. Nor is any 
 thing more natural than this result. For, admitting 
 what it was impossible that Platonists should doubt, 
 that the human soul is inevitably immortal, and yet 
 inadequate to the phenomena of its destination with- 
 out the aid of physical machinery, it would be an im- 
 providence, with which God should not be chargea- 
 ble, that such machinery should not be provided. 
 And hence, the body would be finally restored to its 
 former occupant; and that the same, in order to evade 
 the embarrassment of a new acquaintance. 
 
 This depredation upon Plato's creed may have been 
 made some forty years after its promulgation, that be- 
 ing about the difference between the ages of these 
 two eminent philosophers. Yet, that of Aristotle's 
 must have been embarrassed by the other's popularity, 
 and therefore slowly propagated. For this result 
 however, we have a period of some one hundred and 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 211 
 
 fifty-seven years, antecedently to the time at which 
 this dogma is expressed in Maccabees. A time, no 
 doubt, sufficient to effect the changes we have here as- 
 sumed. And thence, we think the silliest fallacy, 
 next to freedom of the will, originated, and the most 
 preposterous, the world is yet to be ashamed of. 
 
 The question of the soul's immortality having, thus 
 far, stared us constantly in the face, it seems high 
 time its impudence was reproved: And as the short- 
 est method, we will make an effort to invalidate the 
 dogma of its existence. 
 
 Christianity requires that man shall be compounded 
 of two distinct identities, the body and the soul, of 
 distinct character and formation. To apprehend this 
 subject, even superficially, we must form some, more 
 or less particular, acquaintance with the origin and 
 growth of organic man. 
 
 Every individual, subsequently to the first, must, 
 according to any admitted principles of physiology, 
 have been thus developed. 
 
 The primitive state of the animal, as an identity, is 
 that of a minute vesicle, containing an unorganized, 
 nearly transparent, liquid, without any other vitality 
 than what is consistent with a secretion from the 
 blood of its parent. But this is not the farthest we 
 can trace its origin. We found it a secretion from 
 the mother's blood, by means of organs which did 
 not, themselves, exist, in the mother's infancy, and 
 hence were also made of blood. This blood was 
 manufactured from the mother's nourishment, and 
 hence, both blood and vesicle were once but bread 
 and cheese. 
 
£'fa THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 This vesicle, in which specific animal organism ori- 
 ginates is entirely incompetent to commence the pro^ 
 cess, without a new and vivifying impulse communi- 
 cated to it by the other parent. Nor is this less true 
 of vegetable, than animal development. From the 
 reception of this impulse a new state of things is in- 
 stituted. This vesicle acquires the character of an 
 independent being, so far as the transmutation of un- 
 organized, to organized, material is concerned; and, 
 thenceforth, is a living, organized identity, progress- 
 ively and successively developed, in its various con- 
 stituents, until the perfect animal is completed, which, 
 however, has not occurred at birth, nor does, until 
 the age of puberty. 
 
 We may, therefore, be allowed to ask, At what 
 particular period of this being's life, does it acquire a 
 soul? We think not, while unorganized. And if 
 subsequently, there seems no one so eligible as that 
 of puberty: For, if the soul includes the whole psy- 
 chology, or mind of man, the inevitable and immedi- 
 ate result of its infusion, must be a clear development, 
 as we usually observe it„ 
 
 The mind of man, whatever it may be,, most cer- 
 tainly, resembles functionality. It bears a strict anal- 
 ogy to muscular motivity^being apparently developed* 
 in a direct ratio of that of material organism, from 
 its commencement to maturity;; whence its progress 
 is invertedj and it marches downward, with physical 
 dissolution. 
 
 Love of life, has been adopted as a most cogent 
 evidence of immortality. Yet nothing can be more 
 fallacious, notwithstanding its plausibility, with the 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 2 f 3 
 
 superficial observer. Love of life is a propensity, 
 like that of acquisitiveness, or parisirnony if you 
 please, and subject to the same regulations; and, as 
 are all the rest, indispensable to the constitution of 
 the perfect animal. Without propensities, neither 
 thought nor voluntary action could be possibly elicited. 
 
 Nor is attention, so indispensable to successful 
 thinking, more or less than an active, }>ersisting pre- 
 dominance of some single propensity over the rest. 
 Hence propensities are no less essential to humanity 
 than reason and reflection. For, supposing man to 
 have been unendowed with a propensity to live, or ta 
 eat, or in other words without yitativexressyor alimen- 
 tiveness, and thus, subjected to his present circum- 
 stances. What a strange improvidence or inadaptness 
 would be thus presented! A man compelled to live 
 and eat, without a wish for either; and hence, a con- 
 stant miracle required for these results ! Have you not 
 often seen how widely different is the love of money 
 amongst mankind? Nor is the love of life, at all, less 
 different! While one individual would suffer himself 
 to be daily skinned by the butcher, could a new one be 
 recovered in the interval, rather than relinquish his 
 hold on life, another holds this gift so valueless, as to 
 yield it, voluntarily, at the merest threatenings of 
 misfortune. And do you think, that these propensi- 
 ties, even love of life, or reason either, survive the 
 wreck of organism? Then trace their declination 
 from manhood down to dotage; and thence, through 
 imbecility, to absolute fatuity, and then evade our 
 ewn conclusion, if you can! 
 
 With rVw exceptions, an intellect most vigorous at 
 
514 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 50, will have sensibly declined at 80; and sunk to ut- 
 ter childishness at 100. Thence reflection is extin- 
 guished, and passion devoured by itself: and the last 
 propensity smouldering in its ashes. The fire of ge- 
 nius, that once outglowed cotemporary humanity, is 
 smothered among the ruins of a demolished architect- 
 ure. Nor does even memory throw one ray of light 
 upon the mental void, by, even, dreaming of its for- 
 mer self. The external senses no longer respond to 
 their appropriate stimulants, nor preserve the connex- 
 nexion between the phenomena of the world and the 
 organ of conciousness We see both propensities and 
 affections, one after another, demolished by the grim 
 destroyer of present forms, and thrown back amongst 
 the common stock, for future transmutation, until 
 nothing remains of this human prodigy, but the mere 
 mockery of vegetation; where the past is forgotten — 
 the present unapprehended — and the future nncontem- 
 plated — life itself unvalued, and conciousness of iden- 
 tity extinguished. And what remains, except a breath- 
 ing organized automaton? And where this love of 
 life, that, so infallibly, attests the truth of heaven and 
 immortality? Gone, like the function of a worn-out 
 dislocated clock, to be revived in the tireless pro- 
 gress of revolving, transmutive permutation. 
 
 And here you will allow me to anticipate a question, 
 that Ignorance has already proposed a thousand 
 times, and doubtless will as many more, viz., Where- 
 fore do diseased and even dying persons, not unfrc- 
 quently, retain their intellects to the very gasp of dis- 
 solution? Simply because the brain, in such instan- 
 ces, is not the seat of disease, nor its function other 
 
THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 215 
 
 wise impaired, than that its energy diminishes as it 
 fails to receive its necessary support, from its diseased 
 or dying associate. And thus we dispose of the So- 
 cratic phantoms, denominated soul and spiritual im- 
 mortality. 
 
 Whilst a volume would scarcely be sufficient to ex- 
 pose the discordances and fallacies of the New Test- 
 ament, we are restricted to scarcely more than a sin- 
 gle paragraph, and that the termination of our unin- 
 structive, thankless course. 
 
 First, of the genealogies of Christ, as recorded by 
 Mat. and Luke. Here we have, for the same period, in 
 the former, 41 genearations, (though Matthew declares 
 them to be 42,) and in the latter 56, a difference of 
 15. No small difficulty to be surmounted ! For if we 
 allow but 41 generations, we have about 49 years for 
 each, or an average of 17, more than are allowed, 
 from Shem to Terah. And if 56 are allowed, we then 
 have aq average length of nearly 36, still an excess of 
 4 years, over the length of those more ancient ones. 
 
 It has been, most foolishly, or impudently, said, that 
 this apparent genealogical discrepancy, depends upon 
 the misapprehension of the fact, that one belongs to 
 Jesus and the other to Mary. Why should one have 
 had fifteen more ancestors in its line, of equal length, 
 than the other? And why should they both end in 
 Joseph, unless he were the father of both, instead of 
 neither? And here comes a mouthful for the ostritch 
 stomach of Theology to digest. If Christ was be- 
 gotten of the Holy Ghost, and not of Joseph, how 
 could he have been related to David or Jesse, by the 
 way of Joseph ? Again, did Herod murder hundreds of 
 
•216 THEOLOGICAL CRITICISMS. 
 
 children in Bethlehem and all its coasts, nor history 
 have blabbed of such demonian cruelty? Did Jesus 
 find Andrew and Simon, as he was walking by the 
 sea of Galilee, as in Matthew, Mark and Luke? Or 
 before he went there, as in John? JDid Peter, firstly deny 
 his master, to a maid, while sitting without in the 
 palace; and again to another, in the porch; and also a 
 third time before the cock crew, as in Matthew; and 
 at the same time, as in John, make his first denial as 
 he passed in with another disciple, and secondly, to 
 the officers and servant of the court, not a maid, while 
 standing and warming himself? And did Judas, as in 
 Matthew, cast down the price of treason, and go and 
 hang himself? And, at the same time, as in Aces, 
 purchase a field with the reward of iniquity; and, 
 falling headlong, burst asunder in the midst, and all 
 his bowels gush out? When the two Marys visited 
 Christ's sepulcher, was there and was there not, a 
 great earthquake? Or, did none but Matthew deem 
 the thing worth mentioning? Did they come, as in 
 Mat., as it began to dawn, and at the same time, at the 
 rising of the sun, as in Mark? And also, as in John 
 while it was yet dark? Did Mary Magdalene, visit the 
 sepulcher with the mother of James, and at the same 
 time, alone? Or did she do both these, and at the same 
 time have other company also? Did she find the sepul- 
 cher closed, and at the same time unclosed? Did she see 
 an angel descend, and remove the stone, and sit upon it; 
 and, also, the stone to have been already removed, and 
 nothing upon it? Did she seethe angel sitting upon the 
 stone, without, and atthc same time, within? And did she 
 see two angels, and.at the same time,butone? &e. &c — 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 GENIUS OF POVERTY 
 
 A POEM IN TWO CANTOS. 
 
 BY AN EXPERIMENTAL! SI 
 
 184S. 
 
CANTO I. 
 
 And why shoulri'st thou be scouted, as an imp 
 
 Of Satan, and condemned to infamy, 
 
 As though thou vvert, not less, accessory 
 
 To man's depravity, than to his grief? 
 
 Thou hast been charged, of old time, as the blight- 
 
 The mildew of man's brightest, earthly hopes, 
 
 And spoiler of his noblest enterprise; 
 
 The stifler of his out-side piety, 
 
 (The siiie qua non of its growth within) 
 
 Nor yet, wert named in Eden's catalogue 
 
 Of condemnations and delinquenccs! 
 
 Thy biography, were it written out, 
 
 And with a Peacock's feather, would almost 
 
 Match the Pilgrim's Progress; and, quite excel 
 
 The twisticals, of Boz's Oliver, 
 
 Which seem too heavy, to have been written, 
 
 Entirely, with the plucking of a wing: 
 
 And yet, it is no literary trash, 
 
 Would find a place in Littell's Museum! 
 
No book produced by mortal intellect, 
 Save Gulliver's, (for Moses was inspired) 
 Is so corpulent, with the marvelous, 
 And yet, those marvels true, as thine would be! 
 And could'st thou realize the ample fund, 
 In any currency, but Biddle's rags, 
 And those, above the fraction of a dime, 
 Or, even, half the copyright should fetch, i 
 And would, if offered to the Harpers, first, 
 Thou would'st, as suddenly, unknow thyself, 
 xis did the Royal-little- Gentleman, 
 When knighted, for deflouring Caroline;* 
 Which is the punishment, John Bull inflicts, 
 On knaves, for trespassing on foreigners! 
 
 Dids't thou make thy first debut in Eden, 
 With grandsire Adam, and our grand an? Eve. ? 
 And other gentry, quite too amorous, 
 To trust a youthful married woman with; 
 And yet, escape, withal, the fearful curse, 
 That fell on other luckless spirits, there; 
 And, in the artless texture of a leaf, 
 Become the small clothes of the needy pajrf 
 Nor, wert thou, ere while thus incorporate. 
 In those primeval, undegenerate times, 
 Less honored, than thine after substitutes. 
 Mentioned, only, as unmentionables ! 
 
 *The boat, destroyed in the Schl.osser outrage. 
 
If these remarks are consonant with truth, 
 
 Thou could'st not then have had the threatening scowl 
 
 That makes folks, now, detest thee so: 
 
 For, such a look would have monopolized, 
 
 Exclusively, the stock of curses there; 
 
 At least, if they had been dispensed by us: 
 
 For we were, never, half, so much annoyed, 
 
 By any other devil, us by thee ! 
 
 And strange we deem it, that Omnipotence, 
 
 Who did foresee thy filthiness and rags, 
 
 Nor less forebear thy murmurmgs of fate. 
 
 And reprehensions of a Providence, 
 
 That fails to gratify thy selfishness, 
 
 Did not doom thee, in mercy to mankind, 
 
 To stop and curse the fiends of Tartarus! 
 
 If thou wert promised, in thine infancy, 
 A day of cloudless sunshine, it was vain: 
 For, almost ere that luminary rose, 
 The flame-lit clouds gave counter evidence, 
 That a storm was rising, to o'er whelm thee! 
 
 The pride of Wealth and its magnificence, 
 
 Which oft-times, steals out human hearts and brains. 
 
 Looked, scornfully, on thy humble bearing, 
 
 And marked thee, as the prey of Opulence, 
 
 Together with thy numerous progeny! 
 
 And, in spite of Equity and Heaven, 
 
 Thou and they and after generations, 
 
 Were doomed to infamy and servitude., 
 
 As an Inheritance, for evermore! 
 
6 
 
 And by thy junior, thus in bondage held, 
 By claim, pretended from Omnipotence, 
 In vindication of accursed wrong; 
 As though Benignity would have transmitted, 
 From its throne, a license for oppression ! 
 Shameless slander of a God of justice, 
 Who hath, with nicest impartiality, 
 Dispensed his mercies, equally, to all; 
 Nor designed the rule should be perverted! 
 
 Thy history declares, the time was once, 
 
 When all thy caste was stigmatized as brutes, 
 
 To feed on threats, and grieve in thankfulness, 
 
 Or suffer scourging for ingratitude. 
 
 Nor do we lack examples, nearer home, 
 
 (We hope Judge Lynch wont hear the allusion) 
 
 Of metamorphosing men to cattle; 
 
 Though, not exactly, by the Power Bioine, 
 
 By which hereditary Kings are made, 
 
 But what is nearest in authority. 
 
 That of the Federal-Constitution, 
 
 Which owns the equal rights of all mankind, 
 
 And therefore deems the African a beast! 
 
 For else, his freedom is as well secured 
 
 By this same Compact, paramount to law, 
 
 As that of any yankee-mother's son, 
 
 Whose sire, the war-torch lit, at Lexington !— 
 
 Glorious Spirit of Seventy -six, 
 
 Which did, the fetters, of the black-man, fix, 
 
 Through countless generations of his race; 
 
JSfor heeded the anomalous disgrace. 
 
 Of rearing its standard, in name of God, 
 
 And striping its flag, with the negro's blood; 
 
 Bestowing its freedom on all our kin, 
 
 Whom nature wrapped not, in too dark a skin * 
 
 Thus doth Columbia's Charter secure 
 
 The mutual justice, of Simon Pure! 
 
 Nor is dominion counter to the plans 
 
 Of brawling, nominal republicans! — 
 
 With whom, liberty is another name 
 
 For downright, political recklessness 
 
 Of all the rules a wise Consistency 
 
 Has established, for its preservation — 
 
 A liberty, that bold Licentiousness 
 
 Might feed upon, to gouty corpulence — « 
 
 That fain, would make Philosophy and Art 
 
 Shake hands with Ignorance and Quackery ; 
 
 And call this breach of Nature's institutes — 
 
 This impracticable absurdity, 
 
 Sublime, political equality— 
 
 A liberty that spurns a guardian, 
 
 Though it were a Deity incarnate ! 
 
 Nor will it yield the insane privilege, 
 
 Of being cheated, and imposed upon 
 
 By any false pretender, who shall choose 
 
 To expend his wit in that direction ! 
 
 As those ancient chronicles inform us, 
 Whose veracity must not be doubted, 
 Thou wert, firstly manacled, where the Nile 
 Made corn abundant, yet where vassals starved: 
 
s 
 
 Where slavesjby thousands, wrought for one mad lord. 
 
 And other millions, for an insane king; 
 
 Where princely vanity could gorge itself, 
 
 With lumbrous, architect'ral monuments. 
 
 Obelisks, Pyramids and Labyrinth, 
 
 For Glory, Sepulture and Sacrilege; 
 
 Nor grieve at such a reckless sacrifice, 
 
 Of human flesh and sinews, as should draw 
 
 Tears, from an eyeless, marble monument! 
 
 That thou wert, next, enslaved in Palestine, 
 
 By those anno in ted Hebrew Partialists, 
 
 That claimed, by contract of the Deity, 
 
 The entire beneficence of Heaven : 
 
 Nor, like innumerous, modern Christians* 
 
 Would they admit a soul to Paradise, 
 
 But through the slough, of their formalities! — 
 
 Thenceforth, the world, (for such were Greece and 
 
 Rome,) 
 Assumed the right to scourge thee at its will : 
 And tho' that world has met sad changes since. 
 It has not changed its hate of thee. 
 Except in few and rare particulars ! 
 
 Thou art, tho' men have known thee long too well; 
 
 A thing anomalous — inscrutable, 
 
 And which no single definition fits! 
 
 Chameleon like, thou art as changeful 
 
 As conscience, fashion and opinion are! 
 
 For that which bears thine epithet, to-day, 
 
Might, yesterday, have been called competence, 
 And to-morrow, with equal justice, wealth. 
 
 Like one, who holds left-handed sentiments, 
 
 Of Religion, Politics or Morals, 
 
 Or like a debtor irresponsible, 
 
 Thou art unwilling to expose thy state 
 
 Of feeling, or of funds! — 
 
 Kind hearted thing! 
 To be so careful of our sympathies, 
 As though we had a wish, to waste on thee, 
 But that thou had'st been drowned with Egypt's Host, 
 Nor lived, to snarl at Providence so long, 
 For ills, thy sordidness hath merited ! 
 
 Thou art as friendless as ophthalmia, 
 
 Or Parsimony, Toothache, or the Gout, 
 
 And as heartily contemned as Treason! — 
 
 And so thou should'st! for rank duplicity, 
 
 The vilest trait, in Satan's character, 
 
 And e'en in some, who own him not as master, 
 
 Has marked thy wanderings, six thousand years; 
 
 And yet thou would'st, like most of us, be thought 
 
 Possessed of virtues, which were never thine; 
 
 And charge on others, want of complaisance, 
 
 While thou dost not, one whit, respect thyself! 
 
 Thou art the cringing sycophant of Wealth, 
 Whom, meanwhile, thou pretendest to despise! 
 Nor can'st yet sustain e'en Honor's shadow, 
 Without a golden crutch, to lean upon! 
 Nor is such lameness rare, among mankind ! 
 
10 
 
 To imitate Wealths worst delinquencies. 
 And play the tyrant, well, with Beggary, 
 Seems the apex of thy mean aspirings. 
 Such baseness fits thee, for a paltry slave, 
 And shapes thy pliant limbs, for manacles! 
 The ape and mocking-bird excel thee, more. 
 In principle than art! For they do not, 
 Select, for imitation, but the worst, 
 Of all the practical examples, 
 Of prank and voice, bat fain attempt the whole? 
 
 Thou art the pander of Licentiousness, 
 
 The supple catspaw of thine enemy, 
 
 To scratch out nuts, from where 'twould burn its own ! 
 
 Not much unlike, some talking animals, 
 
 Who, being served, (ungrateful fratricides) 
 
 Then serve themselves, by sacrificing those, 
 
 Who have been catering for their baseness? 
 
 Yet thou, with all these stains upon thy hands * 
 
 Art no less sensitive, when honor 's touched, 
 
 Than though, memory had^ to thee, turned traitor. 
 
 And left thee unacquainted with thyself! 
 
 Or wert a Congress man, or Col. Webb, 
 
 To murder folks in injured manhood's cause^ 
 
 While the transaction proves themselves are beasts! 
 
 And, were detraction whispered in thine ear, 
 
 Thy carcase would, like a percussion cap, 
 
 Explode, and let thy mammoth spirit out, 
 
 To plant a Cypress, on a mad-man's grave !, 
 
11 
 
 So much like human nature is thine own, 
 
 Thou wilt worship all of earth, that glistens, 
 
 Or bears the stamp of Mammon, on its back ! 
 
 And he, who hath what thou hast sought, in vain. 
 
 Hath thy reproaches, and thine envy too! 
 
 Meanwhile, thou art vociferously mad 
 
 With human folly, for its love of gold, 
 
 Which, thou sayest, is so idolatrous, 
 
 That Elysium would be rejected, 
 
 Unless it were a mint, for coining cash, 
 
 And, also, Immortality refused, 
 
 (Were it a thing provisional,) 
 
 If unemployed in counting o'er the trash ! 
 
 Our answer, to thy charge, must be concise! 
 We wish it were, both, false and slanderous! 
 
 Thou sayest, and thy saying is too true, 
 (Though, in thy fits of frenzy, for the stuff, 
 Which Fate determined should elude thy grasp,) 
 That gold perverts the Law, and smothers Truth- 
 That Justice cannot hold her scales, so tight, 
 That dust will not disturb its equipoise! 
 And, loi thy sense of right is so acute, 
 (And sharper, much, for its apprenticeship,) 
 That thy philanthropy calls, loud and long, 
 To have the order of the thing reversed; 
 And then, the balance, to thy jaundiced eye. 
 Would be, most admirably, adjusted! 
 
 Thou sayest, also, that the tyrant Wealth 
 Assumes, too much dictation, and controls, 
 
n 
 
 Disastrously, the fashion of the world, 
 
 Which, blindly, runs a jack-a-lantern race, 
 
 After the shadow of fictitious worth! 
 
 So it does; and so thou would'st, if thou could'st! 
 
 Or professions have much, higher merit, 
 
 In thy case, than they evep had in ours: 
 
 For men, who would be Neroes, if in power, 
 
 Are most obsequious, in manacles; 
 
 And he, who would live free, or cease to live, 
 
 Would be — No! he would not be a master! 
 
 Among thy numerous complaints of Wealth, 
 
 Thou sayest it claims honor, not its due, 
 
 In rearing all those mighty piles of art, 
 
 Whether designed, for worship, or for show. 
 
 Whose ruins, yet, attest magnificence, 
 
 At which the traveler gaps, staringly, 
 
 And wonders, at the human enterprise, 
 
 Which could have planned and executed works, 
 
 Apparently so impracticable! 
 
 Nor apprehends, that these were monuments, 
 
 Which superstitious Tyranny hath reared, 
 
 In ostentatious show of piety, 
 
 Or to inflate the pride of Opulence, 
 
 And at a waste of human happiness, 
 
 Which recklessness, itself, should deprecate! 
 
 In fine, whatever Intellect hath planned. 
 
 Or Labor hath, successfully, accomplished. 
 
 Beyond the value of a moccason, 
 
 Is claimed, exclusively, as Mammon's work; 
 
 And yet, from quarrying, to stuccoing, 
 
13 
 
 Not a hod of brick nor mortar shouldered, 
 
 Nor a hammer nor a trowel wielded, 
 
 Except, by muscles of my luckless tribe! 
 
 For Beggary is not available 
 
 To the basest projects of a tyrant, 
 
 From lack of all, but begging enterprise! — 
 
 It is, in truth, too mean to be a slave ! 
 
 Be it so! Nor would we contradict it! 
 
 V r et, what claim hast thou, thou madcap braggart, 
 
 To the half a thimble full of merit, 
 
 For all the vaunted labor, thou hast done? 
 
 Thou would'st have been no less contemptible 
 
 And indolent, than those who whittle chips, 
 
 And muse upon the unhallowed means, 
 
 Which cunning Indolence hath sometimes found 
 
 Successful, in replenishing thy ranks, 
 
 And most unluckily, from out the midst 
 
 Of those whom God hath owned his noblest work. 
 
 Had not dire necessity compelled thee ! 
 
 For stubborn Nature is not changed with dress! — 
 
 Knaves are the same with epaulette or brand ! 
 
 Where, then exists thy claim to moral worth, 
 
 For doing what thy virtue ne'er enjoined? 
 
 We'll tell thee, would'st thou know, and doubtless true ! 
 
 Where the religious hyprocrite will find, 
 
 The blissful plaudit of the Deity; 
 
 And that, as Murphy said, of land he owned, 
 
 Is not, in fath sir, either here or there ! 
 
 The chains that gall thee, thine own right hand forged, 
 And thy servility hath riveted •— 
 
14 
 
 Ask not redress for wrongs, thy baseness sought, 
 
 And which, thy tameness hath solicited, 
 
 As though a slave were written on thy brow! 
 
 The faults, thou chargest Wealth and Heaven with, 
 
 Proceed, alone, from thy delinquency! — 
 
 Have not thy virtues been apocryphal, 
 
 And thy professions slandered by thy deeds? 
 
 When hath thy servile spirit ventured forth, 
 
 In name of Truth, of Heaven and Equity, 
 
 And Nature's holy Impartiality, 
 
 In gallant contest, for equality? 
 
 When hast thou owned the claims of Intellect, 
 
 (Immortal spark, from God inherited, 
 
 Consciousness, memory, and contemplation 
 
 Of principles and joys ineffable, 
 
 And for which, only, Paradise was made) 
 
 Above the groveling propensities, 
 
 Whose base indulgence stigmatises man 
 
 As brother of the beast that perishes, 
 
 And seems the limit of his enterprise? — 
 
 Never! nor ever will, while thou dost kneel, 
 
 In humble supplication of the molten god, 
 
 Whose greatest benefaction is a curse! — 
 
 Thy motto is, as it hath always been, 
 A curse on wealth's unjust supremacy ! 
 And yet, thou hast, immemorially. 
 Yielded it thine envy and submission! 
 Nor hast thou ever dreamed, that happiness 
 Can be attained, through any other means! 
 
15 
 
 And yet. Wealth is a scorpion, to sting 
 
 The hand that, covetously, would grasp it! 
 
 And had'st thou read the gospels, thou would'st know 
 
 That ragged usefulness, in Heav'n's account, 
 
 Is worthier than ermined uselessness ! — 
 
 And that humble virtue, wrapt in sackcloth. 
 
 Is still a Goddess, brighter in her tears, 
 
 And happier than wealth or flattery, 
 
 Or stars or crowns can make Licentiousness I 
 
 And so hath God, in equity, decreed ! 
 
 There is a way which he who runs may read*, 
 
 For thee and thine, to be unmanacled. 
 
 As sure as mandate of the Deity ! 
 
 Nor is it, otherwise than, wonderful, 
 
 That thou should'st not have sought it earlier, 
 
 And broke the chain, by which wealth rules the world \ 
 
 Thou should'st discard the idol, Opulence, 
 
 And worship at the Goddess Reason's shrine ! 
 
 Her response will teach thee, clear as sunlight, 
 
 How thy manacles may be dissevered; 
 
 And thine unpitied subjugation, 
 
 To the Tyrant, Wealth, forever ended! 
 
CANTO H. 
 
 Would'st thou break the chain, that binds thee closer, 
 
 To Wealth's contemptible idolatry. 
 
 Than is the native, Pagan Indian bound 
 
 To the accursed Car of Juggernaut? 
 
 Discard, forthwith, that slander of the truth, 
 
 Which says, that wealth produces happiness; 
 
 A plant congenial, but to virtue's soil, 
 
 And reared by vigilant cultivation; 
 
 Nor still perpetuate thy name and woes, 
 
 By wearing Mammon's tinsel livery, 
 
 Which cheats thee, of thy cash and credit, too, 
 
 And fits thee, for a beggar or a thief! 
 
 Descend not to the basest mimicry, 
 
 Of Folly's first and worst delinquency, 
 
 A gaudy, superficial frippery; 
 
 But, frankly, own thy name and character, 
 
 And miss the stigma of duplicity, 
 
 Which seems, too deeply, graven on the heart 
 
 Of man, to be, by reason, burnished out, 
 
 Or extinguished by regeneration ! 
 
17 
 
 We've said, thou should'st invoke the Pythoness 
 
 Of Wisdom's Temple, (who is Reason's self, 
 
 Improved by patient, useful discipline, 
 
 Amongst earth's real apprehensibles) 
 
 To teach thee, how thou shalt release thyself, 
 
 At once, from a disgraceful servitude; 
 
 And furthermore, how wrongly, thou hast judged 
 
 Of Wealth's exclusive aptitude for bliss! 
 
 The rule, thou hast adopted for thy guide, 
 In adding up and balancing accounts, 
 Between thyself and Mammon's favorite, 
 Was not proposed by Solomon nor Paul; 
 But smacks of Parsimony's rule of three, 
 Which proves, as clearly as the a, b, c, 
 That good for you is better, still, for me! 
 And thus, thou hast augmented, wrongfully, 
 Wealth's real happiness above thine own. 
 
 Thy mouth is, doubtless, full of verbal proofs, 
 In form of oathful asservation, 
 That, of the warp and woof which wealth enjoys., 
 Thou would'st weave an interminable web 
 Of most exquisite, earthly happiness — 
 A Cashmere suit, for every brat of thine! 
 And so, fell Parsimony promises 
 To its inimitable self, at least; 
 And hence it starves, to hoard the magic stuff, 
 In which, like almost all mankind, ic thinks 
 The very soul of happiness resides! 
 And, as a most judicious episode, 
 It steals thy very rags, to clothe itself! 
 
 *3 
 
13 
 
 Success, on such a plan, can scarcely fail, 
 
 Oftener than would a vigorous attempt, 
 
 To lift one's self, by tugging, lustily, 
 
 At boot-straps, or waistband of one's breeches! 
 
 Nor is Ostentation more successful 
 Than Parsimony, in the bliss it seeks! 
 And though, apparently, less groveling — 
 Less soiled by loam, than by licentiousness, 
 There's not a vice so reprehensible, 
 With the exception of Intemperance, 
 Whose omnipotence is proverbial, 
 In transmuting manhood to beastliness, 
 As we think this same ostentation is! 
 Nor has it 'mongst the foes of righteousness, 
 Or of mutual, social happiness, 
 A single, other, fair competitor! 
 
 Each follows out the promptings of its own 
 
 Indomitable, base propensity, 
 
 And would monopolize the world itself, 
 
 Were not its pow'r unequal to its ends! 
 
 The one, in order to maintain a state 
 
 Of base, contemptible magnificence. 
 
 For the exquisiie glorification, 
 
 Of being gaped at by the idiot! 
 
 The other, in its fearful providence, 
 
 Would miss the thousand curses, heaped on thee, 
 
 And, therefore, lives the very mimic 
 
 Of the character, it so much detests! 
 
 So near together are the two extremes! 
 
 What would'st thou profit, therefore, by exchange 
 
19 
 
 Of state and character, with those we've named?- 
 
 E'en Beggary, itself, would be insane, 
 
 To swop its very worst estate with either! 
 
 Each is engaged in vigilant pursuit 
 
 Of exclusive, individual bliss, 
 
 Which both, remotely miss, and equally: 
 
 For Happiness is perched on Reason's shield, 
 
 Whose standard is erected just midway, 
 
 Between these antipodes of wretchedness, 
 
 The furbished, and the furfuraceous: 
 
 And, surely, thou dost offer evidence, 
 
 Amidst thy lengthened catalogue of faults, 
 
 As indubitable as truth itself, 
 
 That thou art much less mischievous than they: 
 
 And yet, thy virtue, like the most of ours. 
 
 Is both negative and apocryphal: 
 
 For, that thy guilt is less than theirs is not 
 
 From want of inclination, but of power; 
 
 Therefore, until thy principles are changed, 
 
 Thy miseries, with thy means, would multiply: — 
 
 Success would stultify thine intellect, 
 
 And indolence destroy thine enterprise; — 
 
 So that thou might, successfully, contest, 
 
 With human things, the prize of infamy ! 
 
 Awake ! and take a peep at destiny. 
 As fate hath settled it with human kind, 
 And as God, in Scripture, hath revealed it! 
 There, thou may'st measure with exactitude, 
 The length and breadth of both thy weal and wo; 
 Nor Heaven, nor Fate, hath meditated ill 
 To thee; but, to thy moral turpitude! 
 
20 
 
 Thy name, in Christendom, was coupled once. 
 
 With saintly and prophetic piety; 
 
 And thought to be almost synonymous. 
 
 With unsophisticated holiness! — 
 
 And who, from choice, became thy devotee, 
 
 Was honored as a saint, and deified ! 
 
 And so he might be now, with little risk 
 
 Of multiplying- acts of sacrilege;— 
 
 For no one knows thee, and detests thee not, 
 
 Unless his fast-receding sinciput 
 
 Proclaims his irresponsibility: 
 
 Nor was it, anciently, a small mistake, 
 
 That thine was thought the name of righteousness ! 
 
 For thou hast not, from thy birth, been better, 
 
 Nor more deserving of respect, than now: 
 
 Nor was the claim of Lazarus to Heaven, 
 
 Improved by his companionship with thee,— 
 
 But that he bowed not, in idolatry, 
 
 To a. golden calf, which, interpreted, 
 
 Means adoration of a wealthy Fool! 
 
 This sacrilege has been, amongst mankind 
 
 So nearly universal, hitherto, 
 
 That an exception has been ever deemed 
 
 A most remarkable phenomenon ! 
 
 And while thou shalt continue to succumb 
 
 To any less authority than God's, 
 
 Or Reason's (its admitted substitute, 
 
 In all emergencies apocryphal: 
 
 For understanding cometh from the Lord, 
 
 Or Solomon, for once, mistook the truth) 
 
n 
 
 Thine unbroken manacles will hold thee, 
 To a servitude, not unmerited ! 
 
 Nor hath Idleness escaped thine envy, 
 
 Whene'r Inheritance enabled it 
 
 To riot boldly in licentiousness: 
 
 And when reduced to starving nudity, 
 
 (The doom Heav'n stamped on its delinquency,) 
 
 Thou hast o'erlooked its culpability, 
 
 And wasted thy reproaches on its rags ! 
 
 This truth is clear, whatever blockheads think: 
 
 Were not thy ranks repaired by Indolence, 
 
 They would dwindle to the merest shadow, 
 
 And thine would be recruits of competence ! 
 
 Thou hast deemed labor ignominious, 
 As though it were exclusively for slaves; 
 And that true-freedom's definition is, 
 Release, from the restraints of usefulness. — 
 In this thou dost resemble some of us, 
 Who deem it, clearly, a primeval curse, 
 That man must be familiar with the soil, 
 And barter, for his bread, his daily toil; 
 And rather than appear so ungenteel, 
 Will practice ev'ry fraud, and sometimes steal : 
 As though the Deity had branded labor 
 With his most emphatic malediction, 
 And the soiling fingers, as a stigma, 
 Too foul for soap and water to remove! 
 These are the dogmas of Theocracy, 
 Inherited by aristocracy. 
 But, thanks to God and the Revolution; 
 
22 
 
 To Liberty and our Constitution; 
 
 This twin inheritance, with worldly wealth, 
 
 Too often gained as basely, as by stealth, 
 
 Will slip, together, through the grandson's hands, 
 
 Or Heav'n has recently revised its plans! 
 
 Hebrew Theocracy assumed the right, 
 
 To despoil the heretic Canaanite, 
 
 Enslave his infants, gorge upon his blood, 
 
 In name of Justice, Piety and God. 
 
 'Tis aristocracy's calculation, 
 
 To succeed as well by legislation. 
 
 The one with bigoted temerity, 
 
 Would crucify the Christ for heresy: 
 
 The other sooner, than resign its place, 
 
 Would, doubtless, crucify the human race! 
 
 What Theocracy achieved by bravery, 
 
 Aristocracy hath wrought by knavery. 
 
 One has met deserved retribution, 
 
 In the course of civil revolution: 
 
 The other's fate, we think we know as well, 
 
 And yet, would wait for ballotings to tell, 
 
 Which, doubtless, are as unequivocal. 
 
 We, surely, have been wandering from our text, 
 
 And must have known it, had we not been vexed. 
 
 But since we've fully cancelled thy demands, 
 
 We'll pass thee over into better hands ! 
 
 Hark ye, then, to Reason's admonition. 
 
 Corroborated by the word of God, 
 
 And plainly registered, in Holy-Writ. 
 
 And thus we heard — or dreamed that Reason spoke. 
 
23 
 
 5C Desist from Mammon's service, and henceforth, 
 
 Appreciate money, at its real worth. 
 
 And dost thou ask its value — I reply, 
 
 That of the real happiness 'twill buy. 
 
 Render obedience to God and me, 
 
 Which constitutes genuine liberty. 
 
 Not the factitious, the licentious know, 
 
 Which works their own inevitable wo; 
 
 But one of holiness, without alloy, — 
 
 The freedom which the sons of God enjoy. 
 
 Thus shall every votary of mine, 
 
 Bask in the rays of liberty divine. 
 
 "Had'st thou but known and heeded Agur's prayer, 
 
 Of Bible specimens, the finest there, 
 
 Which shames vain man's loquacious levity, 
 
 As much in spirit as in brevity, 
 
 Thou would'st have deprecated Mammon's gifts, 
 
 No less than thou hast done thy luckless shifts. 
 
 iC The prophet prays, as warmly, as for health, 
 To be preserved from Poverty and Wealth. 
 What can be gathered from a prayer like this. 
 But that the two are equal foes to bliss? — 
 And what induction can be plainer seen, 
 Than that the proper place is one between? 
 Nor can'st thou, in this instance, fail to see, 
 That holy Agur and myself agree. 
 
 " Heav'n cannot, pecuniarily, dispense 
 A blessing so exact as competence ! 
 He, therefore, who solicits less or more, 
 Invokes a curse, possession must deplore ; 
 
24 
 
 'Tis, therefore, Competence I will protest, 
 Alone, can make an earthly spirit blest:— ' 
 And though attainable by common sense, 
 'Tis oft extinguished by improvidence! 
 
 (C Saint Peter knew, that competence is good, 
 And who that needs, might have it if he would : 
 Or he would not, the pious spouse compel 
 To it, or rank beneath the infidel: 
 Who supplies not, his house, halhhoth denied 
 His faith, in Christ, and duty, to his bride* 
 The cost of one his penitence may pay; — 
 The other, doubtless, will provoke a fray. 
 
 " 'Tis therefore clear, that industry can find 
 Enough for comfort, if she's so inclined; 
 And with Frugality, to tend the purse, 
 Escape, thine own* hereditary curse. 
 Nor would a prudent votary of mine 
 Rely on either, but the two combine; 
 Nor venture on the opposite extreme, 
 Since Parsimony's curse is not a dream. 
 
 " Invoke Temperance for absolution, 
 
 From thy deepest and un holiest stain; 
 
 And the Deity for resolution, 
 
 That, henceforth, thou shalt not relapse again !- 
 
 For, of thy sources of replenishment, 
 
 Intemperance contributes two of three, 
 
 And yet affords as great a compliment, 
 
 Or greater, to the ranks of beggary. 
 
 Let Virtue, Morals and Integrity, 
 
 With Undejiled Religion, all agree, 
 
25 
 
 To form thy character^ which, though rare 
 Jlmong mankind) is not at all too fair I 
 
 Another source of thy peculiar wo, 
 Is an unconquerable love of show; 
 Thine outside gilt, thou carest not a fly, 
 Thine inside, being filthy as a sty! 
 
 " Thou hast fed Fashion with thy humble gains* 
 And been despised and laugh 'd at for thy pains: 
 For Opulence, if mean, will not confess 
 A fit companion, in thine apishness. 
 In folly's service, thou can'st never be 
 An equal match for Aristocracy : 
 Therefore desist from acting as its tool, 
 Nor curse thyself, by mimicking a fool ! 
 
 " The biped, www, perchance, may take the whim. 
 That this courtesy is designed, for him: 
 But with that favorite of Providence, 
 Who esteems my best suggestions nonsense, 
 My admonitions have been withheld long since: 
 And though thou art more tractable than he, 
 My patience hath been sorely tried by thee! 
 
 " 5 Tis strange, that thou should 'st still remain so dull. 
 
 With my incessant rapping at thy skull; 
 
 Nor, can it be disputed that thy pate, 
 
 Unless His human, is but second-rate !— 
 
 For, one would think that such repeated polts. 
 
 Would have awakened anything but dolts! 
 
26 
 
 " Thou dost complain, that thou hast wrought for 
 
 wealth ! 
 What else would have as well preserved thy health? 
 For he can never labor for himself, 
 Whose life's consumed, in worshipping bis pelf;. 
 And yet, wealth's time, employed to count its store. 
 Might he much better spent in earning more ! 
 And Competence requires but little time. 
 To calculate its income to a dime ! 
 
 " Thy sweat hath also irrigated soil, 
 Not thine! — It cooled and fitted thee for toil'. 
 Thou sayest Wealth can feast on a ragout, 
 While thou must make a plainer diet do! — 
 And, hence, thy nether limbs can -stub about,, 
 W r hiie Luxury's are crippled with the gout: 
 Nor can it sleep on feathers, half so sound.. 
 As honest industry upon the ground! 
 Neither hath Wealth effectual defense, 
 But by eternal, anxious vigilance: 
 For it hath wings, which it doth sometimes use, 
 Leaving its votary, dangling from a noose!" 
 
 " With these suggestions, of the woes of Wealth, 
 Thou, yet, would'st risk them, tho' it were by stealth: 
 For thou dost think, with human, silly things, 
 That thou could'st soar to Heav'n with golden wings! 
 But, if '£is true, what Christ and prophets tell. 
 Such wings soar not, but gravitate to hell: 
 Nor can they counteract attraction thence. 
 Unless they're light'ned by Benevolence: 
 
27 
 
 Yet, men will risk a journey to that clinic, 
 Rather than spare the fifth part of a dime! 
 
 "Although Jehovah to the point hath spoken, 
 Thou art, like man, distrustful of the token: 
 \nd, as tho' thine were only human sense, 
 No test will answer but experience; 
 Nor yet will that, unless it is thine own — 
 By that of others, little can be known! 
 
 Thus would those human egotists declare, 
 
 Whose folly is a proverb, everywhere, 
 
 (Unless, mayhap, the lunar folks should be 
 
 Inclined to approbate their lunacy,) 
 
 To whom, I've constant preached, six thousand years, 
 
 And vainly, as though asses had no ears'! 
 
 " Among this race, improvement is all fudge; 
 As trudged the father, so the son doth trudge; 
 And when exception offers to the rule, 
 Its subject is admonished as a fool! 
 
 " I'll now leave thee, to thy contemplation 
 Of my proposals for reformation ! — 
 Heed my precepts — remember Agur's prayer:— 
 Thou shalt be free, as spirits of the air!" 
 
 Montpelier, 1839. 
 
FASHIONS SOLILOQUY, 
 
 While indulging a recent exacerbation of literary 
 antiquarianism, among the curiosities of my great- 
 great-grand-father's Scrap-Book; I casually fell upon 
 the subjoined burlesque of the fashionable monoma- 
 nia, of Louis 14th of France: And for which, as indi- 
 cated by an autographic mariginal-note, we are in- 
 debted to the pen of Pere de Lachaise, the worthy 
 Confessor of that royal friend, and zealous patron, of 
 the delirious ostentation, and senseless etiquette, with 
 which Europe was bedizened, for near a century; and 
 which remains, at least, with the reflecting moralist, 
 a proverbial stigma upon the Parisian, to the present 
 day; And however inapplicable to the good people of 
 Vermont, in the year of our Lord 1839; it may, not- 
 withstanding, claim, of the curious, to be preserved 
 as a literary relic of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The following may be received, as, very nearly, a 
 literal translation of the Scrap-Book copy, which is 
 humbly submitted to those who will condescend to 
 read it, 
 
 ANTIQUARIAN, 
 
29 
 
 11 Reason, that sour misanthrope, yet persists, 
 
 In her senseless contest, for dominion, 
 
 O'er those unfeathered geese, or tailless apes, 
 
 Denominated, by themselves, mankind; 
 
 As though her monastic melancholy, 
 
 That maddens at the thought of earthly bliss, 
 
 And calls man's pleasure all concupiscence — 
 
 That would feed his enterprise, with shadows, 
 
 And pay his weariness, with hope-deferred, 
 
 Could vie, with my felicitous employ, 
 
 That pays the laborer with connate joy ! 
 
 As well may tasteless Fountain-water hope, 
 
 To supercede delicious Alcohol, 
 
 Among the children of the Temperate ! 
 
 " Her vanity is inexhaustible; 
 
 Or she would have, long since, deemed it hopeless. 
 
 To force her whims on Sensuality, 
 
 The true synonym of Humanity; 
 
 At least, with those, who bow at Mammon's shrine. 
 
 And think, that Wealth makes Man a Demigod: 
 
 And these are all the true Nobility, 
 
 Among my countless, biped worshippers — 
 
 True Pioneers, to that Ostentation, 
 
 To which the Mimicry of Man aspires ! 
 
 Thanks, to the premature development 
 Of those exquisite, apt Propensities, 
 Which are able to descry, so soon 
 And clearly, my superiority 
 O'er Reason, as the Monitor of Man, 
 
30 
 
 Whose unrestrained indulgence constitutes, 
 With singular exceptions, now and then, 
 The most exquisite, noble enterprise, 
 Of this improvement of the Baboon-Race! 
 
 i£ Dame Nature could never have intended 
 Man, to be the Proselyte of Reason; 
 For else, his Appetites would have been wrought 
 Less dissonant with her cold suggestions, 
 Which, like an Iceberg to the Mariner, 
 Freeze up the current of fictitious enterprise, 
 That claims, exclusively, his vigilance! 
 
 " Humanity consists of sympathies, 
 
 So very amiably domestic, 
 
 That they commence, and terminate, 
 
 Within the circle of judicious Selfishness — 
 
 Nor, will it, soon, be so improvident 
 
 To swop the smallest Pleasure, of to-day, 
 
 For the mere Image of the richest Bliss, 
 
 That Reason paints upon To-morrow's Map; 
 
 So incredulous of her promises, 
 
 Which he has, most judiciously, esteemed, 
 
 Too spiritless, and fatuous, to test, 
 
 Is that two-legged thing, she calls her Pet: 
 
 " Man's proverbial Magnanimity, 
 Like the Philanthropy, he practices, 
 Forms a Halo, but dimly luminous, 
 Beyond the circle of his private views — 
 Within, it shines, with treble brilliancy, 
 
SI 
 
 Its focus resting- where his soul should be r 
 Disclosing, 'mongst his lesser attributes, 
 A Pavonine,* noble Ostentation, 
 That contemns Reason, as a Lunatic, 
 And promises eternal vassalage, 
 To affable Licentiousness and me ! 
 
 ''That Reason, with her long experience 
 Of Man's suspicion of her sanity, 
 Should still persist, in importuning him.. 
 Against the protest of his Appetites, 
 Which are, proverbially obstinate, 
 To leave those easy avenues to Bliss, 
 That stark-blind Sensuality can thread, 
 Unerringly, as with old Argus' eyes, 
 Ere Juno lent them to the Peacock's tail; 
 Where they, appropriately, represent 
 The Moral Vision of my votaries, 
 Seems to prove her really insane ! 
 
 " In spite of her sepulchral threatenings, 
 
 And yet, without an effort of mine own, 
 
 I have entirely, superseded her, 
 
 In the best affections of human-kind. — 
 
 Meanwhile, by turns, she mopes, in sullen grief, 
 
 Presently, tornado-like, she blusters, 
 
 Nor foams, less madly, than a Cataract, 
 
 At Man's supreme submissiveness to me I 
 
 * Peacock-like. 
 
n 
 
 45 But, let her rail, exhort and importune. 
 Until hoarseness shall have made her voiceless, 
 And disappointment, grief and weariness, 
 Shall have shrunk her Shrewskip to a Mummy, 
 My friends will heed her just about as well, 
 As modern children do their guardians! 
 Dear little gentlefolk! how smart they are; 
 Dame Reason may assail them, if she dare! 
 And, if she dont get trained;, 1 will admit, 
 That she may humanize the Monkeys yet!" 
 
 , Bearing date 1636; and signed Fouetteur 1'Hommes, 
 or Whipper of Mankind. 
 
 Deacidified .sing the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnes.umOx.de 
 
 Treatment Date: Feb. 2005 
 
 Treatment uaie. ■ ^ 
 
 i 
 
 111 Thomson Park unye 
 Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
 
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DEC 20 1901 
 
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