RELIGIOUS ERRORS OF MR. MAHAN.
Proposition of Mr. Mahan.
1926. “Evidence that the Scriptures are given by inspiration of the Spirit of God, as contrasted with the evidence, that the spirit manifestations are from the spirits of men.”
1927. The Rev. Mr. Mahan, not satisfied with endeavouring to refute Spiritualism directly, devotes some pages of his work to the object of bearing it down by the weight of Scriptural superiority, both as to the evidence, and its moral tendencies. This renders the expediency of the strictures which I have made, or may make, on the other side of the question, unquestionable.
1928. There are several truths, which I deem to be axiomatic, which are irreconcilable with the truth of Revelation, ([18] to 20.) Merely to state them is to refute Mr. Mahan’s allegation above cited. With readers who will not admit the axioms to which allusion is made, I must agree to differ. (See page 34.)
1929. In the first place, I have represented it as a contradiction to allege that an omnipotent, omniscient, and prescient God can subject any thing to probation, ([1380].)
1930. In the next place, I hold that an omnipotent God cannot wish men to have any religion, without that object being effected.
Will not any event arrive
For which both will and power strive?
Must not any result obtain
Which power unites with will to gain?
1931. I answer these queries in the affirmative, and of course consider the theology of Revelation as involved in a contradiction, so far as it represents an omnipotent and prescient God as wishing any creed to be adopted which has not been adopted.
1932. As a corollary to these axioms, it results that God never has performed any miracle for the purpose of conveying a knowledge of the true religion; simply because all that have been alleged to have come from God have only produced religious discord. Of course God, foreseeing the failure of those miracles, would not have resorted to them.
Did God a special creed require,
Each soul would he not with that creed inspire?
1933. This I answer affirmatively. The truth of the affirmative is as clear to my mind as any of Euclid’s axioms.
1934. Another conclusion I consider as inevitable: that no document can be substantiated by the facts of which it furnishes the sole evidence.
1935. In this predicament I place the Bible, the Koran, the Shaster, or Veda, and the Zendavesta, or any religious record of antiquity.
1936. Manifestly, a record made by man can have no higher authority than that of the men whose testimony it records, and those by whom it was recorded.
Of the origin of the Books of Moses no higher evidence exists, according to the testimony of the Bible itself, than that of an obscure priest and a fanatical king.
1937. If we are to judge of the Jewish priesthood by the example afforded by Samuel, we have no more reason to trust a Hebrew pontiff than a Romish pope, ([1091].) Bishop Hopkins has sufficiently shown how far priests are to be trusted, ([1296].) What would be said of any book, alleged to be due to Divine inspiration, if it had, agreeably to its own authority, an origin no more reliable than the allegation of a priest that it had been found in a temple or church, there being no other evidence of its not having been forged by the priest, or his accomplices, than his own allegation? What better evidence would there be of the sacred origin of such a document, than there is of the Book of Mormon—the Bible brought forward by Joe Smith? Yet the following quotation will show that there was no Bible in use in Judea in the reign of Josiah, 350 years after the reign of David, and just before the Babylonian captivity; and that, in consequence, idolatry had to a great extent superseded the true worship.
1938. Under these circumstances, the high priest alleged a copy of the Bible to be found, and sent it by a scribe to the king. This monarch had lived in such ignorance of the existence of this holy code, that he was thrown into a state of such deep penitence for the sinful omissions arising from his ignorance, as to rend his clothes by way of expressing his sorrow. Moreover, orders were forthwith given to have the abuses abated, which had been introduced solely through ignorance.
1939. I view this evidence of the highest importance at this time, when such men as Mahan, and the anonymous author of the parodied letter, ([1182],) are appealing to the Bible as the inspired word of God, and thus making God sanction a catalogue of atrocious crimes and indecencies, and when this imposture is to sit as an incubus on those truly moral impressions which the blessed spirits of the immortal Washington and other worthies, as well as my honoured father, would communicate for the amelioration of the religion and morals of mankind. I repeat, that I consider it of immense importance that attention should be called to the questionable foundation on which these pretensions to inspiration are erected. I shall, therefore, not only quote a portion of these pretended words of God, but also that part of a chapter in the Book of Josephus which narrates the same all-important occurrence more fully and satisfactorily, though giving the same evidence essentially.
Scriptural Account of the Finding of the Books of Moses by Hilkiah, the High Priest.—2 Chron. xxxiv.; 2 Kings xxii.
1940. “And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it. And they have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the workmen. Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king’s, saying, Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel, and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book. And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college:) and they spake to her to that effect. And she answered them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah: because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard; because thy heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again. Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers.”
Account of the Finding of the Books of Moses, by Josephus.
1941. “The repairs of the temple being completed, and all expenses defrayed, Hilkiah, in conformity to the king’s orders, took out the money for the purpose of converting it into vessels for the use of the temple; and, upon removing the gold, happened to discover the sacred books of Moses. This he took out and gave to Shaphan, the king’s secretary, to peruse, who, upon reading them over, went to the king, accompanied by Hilkiah, who told him that he had executed all his commands relative to the reparation of the temple, and at the same time presented the book to him in great form, assuring him what it was, and where they had found it.
1942. “The king ordered Shaphan to read a part of the contents, which being done, he rent his robes, in dread of the heavy curses denounced against a wicked generation. In the height of his affliction, he desired the secretary, with Hilkiah, and several priests who were present, to go to the prophetess Huldah, the wife of Shallum, a man of eminence, and unite their endeavours to prevail upon her to make intercession with God for pardon toward himself and his subjects. He told them there was great reason to apprehend that the vengeance of Heaven would fall upon the present generation as a punishment for the iniquity of their progenitors, and particularly their neglect and contempt of the laws of Moses; and that, without obtaining a reconciliation, they should be dispersed over the face of the earth, and terminate their lives in misery.
1943. “Hilkiah, with those who were appointed to accompany him, immediately repaired to the prophetess, and having related the cause of the king’s affliction, and his earnest desire of her intercession with Heaven in behalf of him and his subjects, she bade them return him this answer: That the sentence already pronounced was not to be recalled on any supplication or intercession whatever. That the people were to be banished from their own country, and punished for their disobedience with the loss of all human comforts. That the judgment was irrevocable, for their obstinately persisting in their superstitious and idolatrous practices, notwithstanding so many warnings to a timely repentance, and the menacing predictions of the prophets, if they persevered in their abominations.
1944. “This unchangeable decree was to show, by the event, that there is a just and overruling Disposer of all things, and the predictions which he delivered by the means of the prophets will be infallibly verified, as the certain indications of his whole will respecting mankind. The prophetess added, ‘Tell the king, however, that, in consideration of his own pious and virtuous example, the judgment shall be averted from the people during his days; but that the day of his death shall be the eve of their final destruction.’
1945. “As soon as Josiah received this message from the prophetess, he immediately despatched messengers to the several cities within his dominions, commanding all the priests and Levites, and men of all ages and conditions, to repair with the utmost speed to Jerusalem. These orders being obeyed, and the people assembled, the king went to the temple, where, in the hearing of the whole multitude, he caused the laws of God, as contained in the books of Moses, to be distinctly read; after which he bound himself and the people, with their universal consent, by a most solemn oath, strictly to observe every article contained in the sacred books, respecting the laws and religion established by Moses. This solemn oath was followed by prayers and oblations for the divine blessing and protection.
1946. “The king strictly enjoined the high priest to take a particular account of the plate and vessel in the temple, and to cast out so many of them as they should find to have been dedicated by any of his ancestors to idolatrous services. Those that were found were reduced to dust, and in that state thrown into the air. All the priests were likewise put to death, that were not of the flock of Aaron.
1947. “Having effected this reformation in Jerusalem, Josiah made a progress throughout his whole dominions, where he destroyed all the relics of Jeroboam’s superstition and idolatry, and burnt the bones of false prophets, upon the very altar which that impious king had set up. Of this we have taken notice before, as well as the intervention of the prophet, with a prediction in the hearing of the multitude, at the time when Jeroboam was offering sacrifice, ‘That one of the race of David, Josiah by name, was to do this.’ The prediction was verified, by the event, three hundred and fifty-one years after it was foretold.
1948. “So ardent was the zeal of Josiah for extending the great work of reformation, that he went in person to several of the Israelites who had escaped the Assyrian bondage, in order to dissuade them from continuing in superstition, and prevail with them to embrace the pure religion of their forefathers, according to the long established custom of their country. Nor did he rest here, but caused the towns and villages to be searched for the discovery of any remains of idolatrous practices that might lie concealed. The very figures of the horses over the porch of the temple, which their forefathers had dedicated to the sun, and all the monuments to which the people had ascribed divine honour, were, by his special order, taken away and destroyed.
1949. “Having thus purged the whole nation from idolatry, and fully restored the true worship of the one only and true God, he called an assembly of the people at Jerusalem, for the purpose of celebrating the passover, the time for that festival being near at hand. On this occasion the king gave out of his own store, for paschal sacrifices, thirty goats, a thousand lambs, and three thousand oxen. The heads of the priests presented to the others of the sacerdotal order two thousand six hundred lambs, and the chief of the Levites gave to their tribes five thousand lambs, and five hundred oxen. A solemn sacrifice was made of these victims, according to the precepts of Moses, and the ceremony was performed under the direction of the priests. From the time of the prophet Samuel to that day, there had never been a festival celebrated with equal solemnity; for this had the allowed preference, because the whole was conducted in strict conformity to the very letter of the laws, and the precise mode of their forefathers. Josiah, after the accomplishment of a work of such moment and importance to the nation in general, enjoyed his government in honour, peace, and plenty, till he closed his life.”—Book 10, page 153.
If the Pentateuch had been previously known to the Jews, it is incredible that it could have become obsolete and forgotten prior to the alleged discovery of it in the Temple, in the reign of Josiah.
1950. After the Pentateuch had been viewed as the word of God, made known to a people as their peculiar inheritance, lifting them, in their own estimation, above the rest of mankind, as God’s chosen people, this code being the sole authority for their bloody and rapacious course toward their neighbours, is it credible that such a document, had it ever existed, could have become both obsolete and forgotten?[45] Yet we have no alternative but to admit this absurdity, or to conclude that the Bible has no better authority than the Book of Mormon; the one being no more than the other the work of a designing priesthood and would-be rulers.
1951. What credit would be given to any work having no better authority for divine origin than that of the allegation that some pope had found it in a cathedral or in the Vatican, and had sent it to some monarchical bigot as the mislaid testament of the Almighty, given by inspiration through some ancient predecessor of his holiness?
1952. It may be difficult to conceive that Hilkiah and his associates, in writing a book, as proceeding by inspiration from Jehovah, could have fabricated any facts so derogatory to an immaculate Deity as those mentioned under the authority of Moses. How impious must have been their conceptions, to represent him as authorizing them to borrow trinkets of the Egyptians, in order to purloin them; the sanctioning the cold-blooded murder of three thousand people for religious error; the slaughtering of whole nations, even to their suckling babes, as in the case of the Midianites, Canaanites, and Amalekites, with the setting aside virgins for the fate from which the Roman Virginius relieved his daughter by his dagger! It is difficult to conceive that an idea, so derogatory of God, could have been entertained by his chosen people. Yet, on the other hand, inasmuch as they were written, there must have been some mind so impious as to have originated them; and it may be a less wonder that such fabricators should have existed in a cruel and barbarous age of the world, than that, in the present age of superior morality and civilization, they should find endorsers in the professed ministers of the Being whom they have thus misrepresented.
1953. Mr. Mahan alleges: “Every reader will agree with us in the assumption that the incorruptible God has never performed and never will perform a miracle in attestation of that which is unreal or untrue. A religion really and truly attested by divine miracles must therefore be admitted to be true.”
1954. To this very admissible truism, I add that an omnipotent and prescient God could not have any occasion to perform miracles in attestation of any thing, since, by the premises, his will must be carried out without miracles. That any thing should, even for an instant, be contrary to his will, is inconsistent with his foresight and omnipotency. It would be a miracle that any thing counter to his will should exist.
1955. The next postulate of Mr. Mahan is: “No religion attested as true by divine miracles can be false.”
1956. Was this proposition ever impugned? No one would resist the unquestionable dictates of God, however conveyed, whether by miracles or any other means. The question is not whether a religion attested by divine miracles should be accredited, but whether there were ever any miracles, attesting any religion, performed; and if so, what religion has the peculiar merit of having been thus attested? Millions, who believe in other religions, deride those miracles of revelation which Mr. Mahan would adduce; and Protestants do not admit many which the Romish Church sanctions. For one, I deny that any miracle has ever been performed with the view of attesting any religion whatever. No miracle could be necessary to attest the will of Omnipotence any more than to enable a man to wave his hand. But, admitting that it ever has been necessary, no miracle has ever been resorted to for the purpose in question, since none has answered the desired end. This would not have been the case had miracles been resorted to by prescient omnipotence.
1957. A miracle, as defined by this author, on page 345 of his work, is an event “whose existence and characteristics can be accounted for but by a reference to the direct and immediate interposition of creative power, as their exclusive cause.”
1958. I reassert that, where omnipotence and prescience are concerned, such interposition could, in no case, be requisite. The miracle would be, that there could be any thing so contrary to omnipotent will as to require any miraculous interference to set it right!
1959. Instead of assuming, with orthodoxy, that our heavenly Father is quite omnipotent, spirits hold that his powers are only such as this magnificent and almost infinite universe involves; consequently, there is no necessity on their part to admit that every thing must be exactly as God wishes it to be. They are not obliged to consider him as allowing mischievous ignorance, sin, and misery to exist, while by a fiat he could correct them; and still less are they involved in the necessity of supposing that, while able to make every thing perfect, he, from choice, makes them imperfect, and yet has had to resort to drowning his creatures by a great flood, and subjecting whole nations to degrading captivity; authorizing one nation to massacre another, even to each suckling babe, for wrongs done centuries before.
1960. By Spiritualism, the Deity is represented as operating by general laws, from which, consistently with his attributes, he cannot deviate, having to perform no miracle to attain his ends; and that through these laws he is incessantly acting for the good of mankind; and the whole universe is progressing under his benign controlling influence.
1961. Thus we have the two systems, that of progression last mentioned, and that of probation above objected to; which last, being in diametric opposition to an axiomatic truth, is, on this account alone, manifestly absurd.
1962. But, admitting that miracles could, without inconsistency, be supposed to be resorted to by prescient omnipotence, in order to produce or prevent some consequence of a general law, in the making or carrying out of which an all-wise and all-powerful being inconsistently displays a want of wisdom and foresight, it must be perfectly clear that a prescient being would resort to such miracles as would produce the desired effect; not such as would be only partially seen or believed, and would become a new source of discord. Omnipotence could certainly devise miracles which could be seen and be believed in by all men; and which would so impress their minds, as to make them believe in what they should hear and see. By a single fiat, God, if as omnipotent as represented in Scripture, could make all his people of one mind. He would not send them a “sword to separate father from child, mother from daughter, mother-in-law from daughter-in-law,” and to make the subordinates of each household rise in rebellion against their master. A prescient God would not perform miracles of such doubtful character as, for want of evidence, to oblige one of the miracle-makers to enforce a belief in them by treacherous and cruel assassination, as did Moses. God would require no evidence of his miracles but such as could be recorded in the minds of believers. He would not have the records of his will so situated, as to be liable to be confounded with the fabrications of priestcraft. If devils were to be cast out, he would not have drowned a herd of swine, merely to give those immortal miscreants a ducking.
1963. So far are the miracles narrated in the gospel from commanding my credence, that the account of them proves to me, that the Evangelists were men without discretion, in recording any thing so absurd and incredible, and so useless to the main object, of giving a knowledge of God, and of the means of reaching a future happy state.
1964. How absurd to represent God as performing miracles remotely and indirectly bearing upon his object, instead of exercising his omnipotent power universally, effectually, and at once!
1965. If God were to adopt any miraculous means to make his will known, they would not be such as would fail in attaining their end. None but an idiot would resort to measures foreknown to be incompetent to the object for which they should be devised. As no miracles that have been alleged to have been performed have been productive of general conviction of the truth of the creed which they have been alleged to support, it follows that they could not have had a divine origin. A prescient God would not have resorted to incompetent miracles.
1966. This reverend author is likewise of opinion that nothing but miracles can be appealed to as evidence of the divine origin of Christianity or of any other religion.
1967. When miracles are appealed to by different sects, in support of their conflicting pretensions, it must result that, if religion is to be founded only on miracles, that religion only can be recognised as true whose miracles are so pre-eminently evident as to abrogate all others that conflict with it. But it is notorious that the miracles brought forward by each sect are denied, if not ridiculed, by others. Appealing to miracles is, in fact, appealing to the human evidence on which they depend. In like manner, any religion which rests on assumed inspiration, rests, in fact, on the evidence proving that the inspiration claimed ever took place.
1968. But are we to believe in all miracles which have been alleged by men to have happened? Are we to believe any book to be inspired, because men, who contradict each other, alleged it to be inspired? and if several books are alleged to be inspired, how are we to choose between them? Is a man’s choice of these books to be governed by his education? If brought up in Turkey, is he to believe that the Koran is the word of God; if in Christendom, the gospel? If all who surround him were to treat it as impious to doubt that a book is the word of God, is he to submit to this dictation, or is he to exercise his own judgment, and examine whether the Bible of the Christian, and the miracles on which it rests, are not more likely to be true than the Koran and the miracles on which it rests? But if, after having examined both of these works, he finds that the miracles on which they rest are, in both cases, entirely dependent on human testimony, and that this testimony is disputed on one side by the Mohammedans, and on the other by the Christians, and that each party only admits such miracles to be true as harmonize with his own religion; that miracles told by profane writers rather tend to discredit than to corroborate the occurrences with which they are associated,—will not the inference naturally arise that the belief in miracles is the result of religion, not religion the result of belief in miracles?
1969. An analogous result may be perceived in relation to any extraordinary manifestation in Spiritualism. Scarcely any one will believe that the spirit hand ([1513]) has been seen and felt at Koons’s establishment in Ohio, unless previously a convert to Spiritualism. Thus he does not become a spiritualist by reading the account of that manifestation, but believes the manifestation because he has been converted to Spiritualism. Did the truth of that manifestation rest upon the evidence of only one set of eye-witnesses, even spiritualists had not believed in it. As miracles have ever been alleged to have been seen only by very few persons, and have never been of a nature to be seen by a succession of observers, I cannot conceive why any man, in any age or time, could be reasonably expected to display a credulity, the inverse of that now exhibited, as respects this spiritual manifestation. Scarcely any person, without being an eye-witness of the fact, has been brought to believe that tables move without human contact. By recurrence, the reader may perceive that in my letter of February 3, 1854, I use this language in my letter to Mr. Holcomb: You believe that tables move without contact, because you have seen them so moved; I am skeptical, because I have never seen them moved without contact, though I have been at several circles, ([698].)
1970. When I stated to my friend, Professor Henry, the experiment illustrated by [plate 3], with the utmost precision, made twice on two different evenings, he said: “I would believe you as soon as any man in the world, but I cannot believe that.” Yet the result of that experiment was nothing more than the fact of bodies moving when uninfluenced by any apparent mortal agency, accompanied by a demonstration of a governing reason; a result which has been established again and again by myself with the greatest precision, and by many other investigators. Evidently, if this had never been repeated, it would have been treated as a mental hallucination on my part by my comrades in science and all the rest of the community.
1971. Such is the difficulty of inducing credence, in enlightened minds, of any thing which is inconsistent with those laws of nature with which they have become familiar. Clearly, in the present advanced state of the human mind, no miracles would be believed on hearsay testimony.
1972. It seems as if facts, incredible at first view, are always believed when they are confirmed by being seen by independent and disinterested and intelligent observers sufficiently often, and under such modifications, as to make all such observers believe in them. We are willing to believe in a mysterious fact as one of a genus, but not when isolated. If I may judge by the incredulity with which my observations in Spiritualism have been met by those who had previously considered me reliable, I should deem it utterly impossible among intelligent, well-educated people of the present day to induce a belief in an isolated miracle; and, as respects ignorant, bigoted sectarians, the difficulty to obtain credence would be at least as great.
1973. Were our heavenly Father now to cause miracles to be performed as wonderful and as isolated as those mentioned in Scripture, as no one would know any thing of them direct from God, excepting those by whom they might be witnessed, it would only cause the narrators of them to be ridiculed, as those spiritualists were ridiculed who first asserted their belief in spiritual manifestations. In order, therefore, that miracles should be believed in by an enlightened community, belief would have to be instilled by education or supported by reiterated observation, since, in enlightened communities, no miracles would be believed in but those which should come within these conditions.
1974. There is not a single miracle mentioned in the gospel which tends to throw light upon the alleged object of Christ’s mission. The object of their performance was mainly to prove his supernatural power to those who should believe in them, and thus to cause him to be accredited as a missionary from God. So far from their ever having had an effect of this kind on my mind, gospel miracles tended only to destroy my confidence in the veracity or discretion of their narrators, upon the same principle that spiritualists have lost weight with their intelligent friends by mentioning manifestations which were considered by these as incredible.
1975. I can foresee a great triumph for spiritualists, sooner or later, in the world to come, if not in this; but this result will not flow from the conversion of their skeptical friends to a belief in the manifestations which may have been viewed by the narrators, as described. The conversion of skeptics will arise from their own observation, with the concurrent testimony of many reliable witnesses, all tending to the verification of analogous phenomena.
1976. The miracles of Scripture never have had nor never can have this species of corroboration, and of course will make but little progress among people educated under conflicting impressions. In this age of bigotry in favour of all educational mysteries and extreme skepticism as to innovations, the last thing which could obtain credence would be miracles of the nature of those which Mr. Mahan assumes to be the only foundation for religious belief.
1977. It has already been urged that Moses was, by his own account, a worldly man, who, as I conceive, was guilty of a misrepresentation in alleging that the Creator of the hundred millions of solar systems comprised in this universe ([1342]) made him and his people especially the object of a partiality, authorizing them to plunder and extirpate all the neighbouring people: moreover, that Moses was worldly-minded in the extreme, and so intent upon acquiring lands in this world, as to neglect his opportunities, if he had any, of learning from Jehovah, in frequent alleged intercourse with him, any information respecting the immortality of the soul, ([1091], [1098], [1271].) My attention has been recently turned to the 24th chapter of Exodus. It is there mentioned that Moses, with more than seventy elders of Israel, went up the mount, and there had an interview with the God of Israel, when “they saw God.” It is then stated that “The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering. And this is the offering which you shall take of them, gold, silver, and brass, and blue and purple, fine linen, and goats’ hair,” &c.[46]
1978. There are then two or three chapters occupied with the specification of the various valuable articles of gold, and precious wood, and stones, required by an omnipotent God to furnish a tabernacle. Such is the misuse made by this pretended missionary of God, of the opportunity of learning that which is above all price. How many thousands of human beings have been willing to lay down their lives for religious truth!—and yet this pretended favourite of Jehovah, by his own account, spent his time in getting baubles, making the Almighty his agent. It may be that the whole is a fable, and that the account originated in the time of Hilkiah, when the Pentateuch was acknowledged to have been found accidentally. But if Moses and the elders really ascended the mount, and represented themselves as seeing God, and receiving those directions, evidently they were all a set of impostors, who resorted to this mode of obtaining furniture for the tabernacle.
Great Importance attached to a Belief in Immortality by Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, as contrasted with the recklessness of Moses respecting the same Belief.
1979. Among the errors propagated industriously by fanatical sectarians, is that of representing the Old and New Testament as of inestimable importance, as the only source of our knowledge of a future state of existence, of which heathen writers are mentioned as deficient. In refutation of the calumny thus promulgated, I deem it expedient to quote the following sentiments ascribed by Xenophon to Cyrus, King of Persia, in addressing his children:
1980. “Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart from you, I shall be no more: remember that my soul, even while I lived among you, was invisible; yet by my actions you were sensible it existed in this body. Believe it, therefore, existing still, though it still be unseen. How quickly would the honours of illustrious men perish after death, if their souls performed nothing to preserve their fame! For my part, I could never think that the soul, which, while in a mortal body, lives, when departed from it, dies; or that its consciousness is lost when it is discharged out of an unconscious habitation; on the contrary, it most truly exists when it is freed from all corporeal alliance.”
1981. Let this be compared with the inexcusable inattention of Moses, taking his own narrative to be true, in communicating with God about every thing else, almost, excepting that which concerns immortal life. If the despicable criminality of Abraham in putting his wife at the pleasure of two heathen kings successively, and their repugnance to have violated his connubial rights, be taken as a fit test of comparative morality, if these sentiments of King Cyrus be compared with those of the Jewish lawgiver as respects immortality, the chosen people of God were much below some neighbouring heathens both in morality and religion.
1982. This inference will be fortified by comparing the portraiture of the Deity as given by Moses ([1140]) and Samuel, ([1091],) with that given by Seneca, ([1224].)
The Worship of a Book, Idolatry.
1983. Much has been said in Scripture and by its votaries against idolatry, but I do most seriously consider the Old Testament as a more pernicious idol than any image or statue can be in the nature of things.
1984. An image or statue does not speak; it suggests nothing cruel, unjust, or indecent to the worshipper; neither do any of the objects usually treated as idols. It must evidently be an error to accuse idolaters of contemplating the inert image to which they kneel, as their God. They must see that it neither does nor can do any thing. They must perceive that, fixed in one place, the image cannot have that ubiquity or efficacy, essential to divine power. It follows that the object of adoration must be an invisible power associated with the idol, which may occupy the image only when invoked. In every temple devoted to Jupiter there might be a statue of Jupiter, and yet it was never held that there was more than one Jupiter. From the verses subjoined, from Pope’s translation of the Iliad, it appears that Homer gave to Jupiter a supremacy which made the other deities bear to him no higher relation than that which the archangels do to God, according to Christianity:
1985. “Let down our golden everlasting chain,
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main;
Strive all, of mortal or immortal birth,
To drag by this the Thunderer down to earth.
Ye strive in vain. If I but lift this hand,
I heave the heavens, the ocean, and the land;
For such I reign, unbounded and above,
And such are men and gods compared to Jove.”
1986. But when a book is made the word of God, which patronizes men as belonging to a chosen seed who are guilty of cruelty, robbery, fraud, massacre in cold blood, it becomes a more active and mischievous idol than any dumb beast, image, or statue can be. An idolater worships a silent idol as the representative of God. The idol cannot say, “I am a jealous God: I wax hot in my wrath.”
1987. Mr. Mahan urges, that the sufferings undergone by martyrs to Christianity is evidence of its truth, whereas, it seems to me that it only proves the conviction of the parties, which, if displayed by a dervise or a fakir, would be called bigotry. But if suffering in a cause is evidence in its favour, there have been sufferers on the other side, as well as on that which this author has undertaken to uphold. It is but fair, if those who suffer for one side should have their suffering held up as proof of their conscientiousness, the same conscientiousness should be conceded to those who have suffered for the other. The author of the pages I am about to quote, the Rev. Robert Taylor, was, for want of a better answer to his publication, condemned to Oakam Jail, in England, for one year. It was there he wrote his Diagesis, copies of which may be had of Mr. Curtis, No. 34 Arch street, as well as other books which may assist readers to form an opinion for themselves. I shall quote some pages from this work, which, being studied after reading Mahan’s arrogant allegations, will make good the old saying, that “One story is good until another is told.”
1988. “The ordinary notion, that the four gospels were written by the persons whose names they bear, and that they have descended to us from original autographs of Matthew and John, immediate disciples, and of Mark and Luke, contemporaries and companions, of Christ, in like manner as the writings of still more early poets and historians have descended to us from the pens of the authors to whom they are attributed, is altogether untenable. It has been entirely surrendered by the most able and ingenuous Christian writers, and will no longer be maintained by any but those whose zeal outruns their knowledge, and whose recklessness and temerity of assertion can serve only to dishonour and betray the cause they so injudiciously seek to defend.
1989. “The surrender of a position which the world has for ages been led to consider impregnable, by the admission of all that the early objection of the learned Christian Bishop, Faustus the Manichean, implied, when he pressed Augustine with that bold challenge which Augustine was not able to answer, that,[47] ‘It was certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, affixed to their works the names of apostles, or of such as were supposed to have been their companions, asserting that what they had written themselves was written ACCORDING TO those persons to whom they ascribed it.’
1990. “This admission has not been held to be fatal to the claims of divine revelation, nor was it held to be so even by the learned Father himself who so strenuously insisted on it, since he declares his own unshaken faith in Christ’s mystical crucifixion, notwithstanding.
1991. “Adroitly handled as the passage has been by the ingenuity of theologians, it has been made rather to subserve the cause of the evidences of the Christian religion than to injure it. Since, though it be admitted that the Christian world has ‘all along been under a delusion’ in this respect, and has held these writings to be of higher authority than they really are; yet the writings themselves and their authors are innocent of having contributed to that delusion, and never bore on them, nor in them, any challenge to so high authority as the mistaken piety of Christians has ascribed to them, but did all along profess no more than to have been written, as Faustus testifies, not BY, but ACCORDING to, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and by persons of whom indeed it is not known who or what they were, nor was it of any consequence that it should be, after the general acquiescence of the church had established the sufficient correctness of the compilations they had made.
1992. “And here the longo post tempore (the great while after) is a favourable presumption of the sufficient opportunity that all persons[48] had, of knowing and being satisfied that the gospels which the church received were indeed all that they purported to be; that is, faithful narrations of the life and doctrines of Christ according to what could be collected from the verbal accounts which his apostles had given, or by tradition been supposed to have given, and, as such, ‘worthy of all acceptation.’
1993. “The objection of Faustus becomes from its own nature the most indubitable and inexceptionable evidence, carrying us up to the very early age, the fourth century, in which he wrote, with a demonstration that the gospels were then universally known and received under the precise designation, and none other, than that with which they have come down to us, even as the gospels, respectively, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
1994. “Of course there can be no occasion to pursue the inquiry into the authenticity of the Christian Scriptures lower down than the fourth century.
1995. “1. Though, in that age, there was no established canon or authoritative declaration that such and none other than those which have come down to us were the books which contained the Christian rule of faith.
1996. “2. And though ‘no manuscript of these writings now in existence is prior to the sixth century, and various readings which, as appears from the quotations of the Fathers, were in the text of the Greek Testament are to be found in none of the manuscripts which are at present remaining.’—Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 160.
1997. “3. And though many passages which are now found in these Scriptures were not contained in any ancient copies whatever.
1998. “4. And though ‘in our common editions of the Greek Testament are MANY readings which exist not in a single manuscript, but are founded on MERE CONJECTURE.’ —Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 496.
1999. “5. And though ‘it is notorious, that the orthodox charge the heretics with corrupting the text, and that the heretics recriminate upon the orthodox.’—Unitarian New Version, p. 121.
2000. “6. And though ‘it is an undoubted fact that the heretics were in the right in many points of criticism where the Fathers accused them of wilful corruption.’—Bp. Marsh, vol. ii. p. 362.
2001. “7. And though ‘it is notorious that forged writings under the names of the apostles were in circulation almost from the apostolic age.’—See 2 Thess. ii. 2, quoted in Unitarian New Version.[49]
2002. “8. And though, ‘not long after Christ’s ascension into heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance.’—Mosheim, vol. i. p. 109.
2003. “9. And though, says the great Scaliger, ‘They put into their Scriptures whatever they thought would serve their purpose.’[50]
2004. “10. And though, ‘notwithstanding those twelve known infallible and faithful judges of controversy, (the twelve apostles,) there were as many and as damnable heresies crept in, even in the apostolic age, as in any other age, perhaps, during the same space of time.’—Reeve’s Preliminary Discourse to the Commonitory of Vincentius Lirinensis, p. 190.
2005. “11. And though there were in the manuscripts of the New Testament, at the time of editing the last printed copies of the Greek text, upward of ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THOUSAND various readings.”—Unitarian New Version, p. 22.
2006. “12. And though ‘the confusion unavoidable in these versions (the ancient Latin, from which all our European versions are derived) had arisen to such a height, that St. Jerome, in his Preface to the Gospels, complains that no one copy resembled another.’—Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 119.
2007. “13. And though the Gospels fatally contradict each other; that is, in several important particulars, they do so to such an extent as no ingenuity of supposition has yet been able to reconcile: after Marsh, Michaelis, and the most learned critics, have stuck, and owned the conquest.
2008. “14. And though the difference of character between the three first Gospels and that ascribed to St. John is so flagrantly egregious, that the most learned Christian divines and profoundest scholars have frankly avowed that the Jesus Christ of St. John is a wholly different character from the Jesus Christ of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; and that their account and his should both be true is flatly impossible.[51]
2009. “15. And though such was the idolatrous adulation paid to the authority of Origen, that emendations of the text which were but suggested by him were taken in as part of the New Testament; though he himself acknowledged that they were supported by the authority of no manuscript whatever.—Marsh, in loco.
2010. “16. And though, even so late as the period of the Reformation, we have whole passages which have been thrust into the text, and thrust out, just as it served the turn which the Protestant tricksters had to serve.
2011. “17. And though we have on record the most indubitable historical evidence of a general censure and correction of the Gospels having been made at Constantinople, in the year 506, by order of the Emperor Anastasius.[52]
2012. “18. And though we have like unquestionable historical evidence of measureless and inappreciable alterations of the same having been made by our own Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the avowed purpose of accommodating them to the faith of the orthodox.”[53]
Evidence of Josephus and Gibbon vs. Mr. Mahan.
2013. The silence of Josephus respecting Christ induced some Christians to concoct the pious fraud of interpolating in his history a notice of the career and crucifixion of Christ, but subsequent Christian writers have detected and exposed the interpolation; so that the history alluded to, written soon after Christ’s death by the distinguished Hebrew, contains no notice of those events; and, from the following passage in Gibbon, it appears that it did not awaken much attention among the Romans. Yet Mahan, assuming the opposite to be true, urges it as evidence of the evangelical account, that the phenomena drew universal attention.
2014. “How shall we excuse,” says Gibbon, “the supine inattention of the pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? This miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects or received the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature—earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses—which his indefatigable curiosity could collect; both one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.” (Gibbon, vol. ii. chap. xv. p. 379.)
The Worshippers of the Golden Calf more righteous than their Assassins.
2015. The example is set in the Old Testament of attributing the worst motives to every one who does not concur with the accusers in religious opinions. I conscientiously believe that the Israelites who made the golden calf were at least as righteous in their worship as those who treacherously and cruelly massacred them in obedience to an order strangely represented as sanctioned by Jehovah: “Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out of the camp, and slay every man his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbour; and the children of Levi did according to the words of Moses, and there fell of the people on that day about three thousand men.”
2016. Obviously, the only way in which those who, with Mr. Mahan, can find any pretence for ascribing this horrible sanguinary order to the inspiration of God, is by treating idolatry as so wicked as to be punished, not only in the immediate transgressor, but in his offspring to the third and fourth generation. Is it not a fairer way of viewing this affair to infer that Moses and his partisans were covetous, unprincipled men, who did not hesitate at swindling, lying, massacre, or any measures requisite to give him and them ascendency? Was there ever a greater analogy between the measures of any two evil-doers than those of Mohammed and Moses, both professing communion with God, which we now know could not have taken place, and both pleading his commands to exercise the most horrible intolerance at home, as well as cruel rapacity abroad?
2017. Mohammed appears to have been more successful than Moses in convincing his followers of his mission. There seems to have been a great distrust of Moses, which he artfully always ascribes to the impiety of the unbelievers; like all other religious impostors, identifying his word with that of God. Nothing but his inability to convince the skeptics of the divine origin of his mission could have induced them to worship idols in opposition to his remonstrance; and the fact that Aaron assisted them in casting the golden calf, can only be explained by his participation in the heresy. Does not this alleged conduct on the part of Aaron render the whole affair so absurd as to throw doubt over the whole history? Moses, while killing the malcontents, could hardly avoid punishing their ringleader. Moreover, how could one who would assist in idolatrous worship, be fit to hold the office of high-priest, into which he was soon afterward installed with great pomp?
2018. It is perfectly clear, to my mind, that a pagan who sincerely worships any thing as his God, really worships God. He stands in the same relation to his God that a debtor stands to his real creditor when paying a forged draft.
2019. Wicked priests have raised a cry against idolaters, as the real thief strives, by calling after some innocent person within view, to divert the hue and cry from himself. As an exemplification of this species of wickedness, I quote here a speech made to the Emperor Constantius by Julius Firmicius Maternus, (Taylor’s Diagesis, page 144:)
2020. (Addressing the Emperor Constantius.) “Take away, take away, in perfect security,” exclaims this self-called Christian priest, “O most holy emperor, take away all the ornaments of their temples. Let the fire of the mint or the flames of the mines melt down their gods. Seize upon all their wealthy endowments, and turn them to your own use and property. And, O most sacred emperor, it is absolutely necessary for you to revenge and punish this evil. You are commanded by the law of the Most High God to persecute all sorts of idolatry with the utmost severity; hear and commend to your own sacred understanding what God himself commands. He commands you not to spare your son or your brother; he bids you plunge the avenging knife even into the heart of your wife that sleeps in your bosom; to persecute your dearest friend with a sublime severity; and to arm your whole people against these sacrilegious pagans, and tear them limb from limb. Yea, even whole cities, if you should find this guilt in them, must be cut off. O most holy emperor, God promises you the rewards of his mercy, upon condition of your thus acting. Do, therefore, what he commands, complete what he prescribes.”
2021. It should be recollected that this diabolical address was made to the Christian son and successor of Constantine. Can there be a more shocking picture of the mischievous consequences of the example and doctrines of Moses as respects idolaters? Certainly, Constantius was not any better for his Christianity, when he could listen, without indignation, to such wicked suggestions!
2022. It is alleged that in the city of Thessalonica the Emperor Theodosius put to death all the pagans that breathed, in obedience to Christianized Mosaic intolerance, which in modern times was carried out in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day, and the Inquisition. Such were the effects of the propagation of Christianity, with the appendage of the Pentateuch to the swordlike attributes with which Christ endowed himself: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword!” Matt. x. 34.
2023. Shakspeare truly makes one of his characters say that whosoever takes away the good name of another commits a more wicked theft than one who takes a purse. But in this portrait of the effect of calumny there is one important feature omitted, which is sometimes the most injurious: I allude to the pain of mind created by a false accusation. If, as I have before urged, it be wrong to hurt the flesh by a blow, is it not wrong to hurt the soul by calumny? The sting of the fangs of the viper, no less than the paw of the lion, may give a mortal infliction; but no less painful may be the effect of a false human tongue. Is it not as great a wrong to wound a man’s soul as his flesh? Yet there never has been any hesitation on the part of sectarians to express any painful opinion as to heretics or idolaters. The word infidel, so much more deserved by themselves for their violation of the precepts they profess, is used as a matter of course, and, coupling with an error in worship a heinous sinfulness, the idolater is always in the wrong. But reasonably, upon the grounds which have been advanced in the preceding portion of this work, ([1245],) idolatry may be an imputation against the intellectual pretension, but not against the integrity, of the worshipper; and for one I consider the propensity to the worship of idols displayed throughout the whole of the Jewish history, and even by Solomon the “Wise,” as a strong proof that there never was sufficient evidence presented to the Jews of the divine origin of the books of Moses, or any others represented as conveying God’s holy word.
2024. It is not doing as we would be done by to accuse any worshipper of bad motives, for the reasons which I have above given; and when it is considered how unwilling people are to part with their property, the fact that the Israelites gave their gold ornaments to enable Aaron to cast a golden calf, shows that they sincerely believed that their worship would be acceptable to some deity who had the best claim to their acknowledgment. If they mistook the object, it must have been an error of the understanding, which it would have been evidently more reasonable to have corrected by reasoning and evidence, than by punishment.
2025. While such eminent men as Mahan, and the learned Goliah of my mundane guardian spirit, will hold up this, to my mind, barbarous and preposterous Pentateuch as the word of God, I am obliged to meet them upon the ground thus stated; but there are other highly respectable clergymen, who concur in questioning that the Pentateuch existed until after the return of the Jews from their captivity; and there is evidence, agreeably to the quotations I have made, that this alleged work of divine inspiration, or word of God, as stated in the Second Book of Chronicles, and 22d chapter of the Second Book of Kings, has no better foundation than the word of the priest Hilkiah and his accomplices.
2026. The Rev. Mr. Norton, in a laborious investigation, shows that, according to internal evidence, almost all the important facts stated in Genesis and Exodus are inconsistent with each other or the circumstances under which they are alleged to have happened.
2027. Mr. Mahan conceives that the willingness of the believers in the gospel to sacrifice their lives in testimony of the sincerity of their conviction proves the truth of revelation. Wherefore, then, does not their exposure to the slaughtering sword of the partisans of Moses prove the sincerity of the Israelites in their worship of their idol? No wise knave would do any thing so absurd. History shows that many of those who have been most willing to make sacrifices for their belief have been great fanatics. Their willingness to suffer only proves the intensity of their belief, not the truth of the miracles which they believe.
2028. Having first assumed, contrary to the fact, that the mission of Christ was generally accredited in the contemporaneous pagan communities, Mr. Mahan claims this to be evidence of the facts stated by the evangelists.
2029. But if the belief in a mission by contemporaries is evidence in its favour, is not the disbelief of contemporaries evidence on the other side? Is not the fact that Moses could only expel idolatry from the Hebrews by the sword, a proof that he was unable to convince them by any adequate evidence of his claims to inspiration?
2030. This surmise, respecting the inadequacy of the facts and reasoning which Moses had to advance in favour of his pretensions as a missionary of Jehovah, appears to be fully justified in the history given by Josephus. From the following language, which this distinguished Jewish historian alleges to have been held by one of the Israelites, it is evident that Moses was then viewed as no better than Mohammed or any of the usurping popes of Christendom. While Protestants sanction such religious despots as Moses and Samuel, they ought not to complain of the papal despots of Christendom, (note to 1091.)
Just denunciation of the religious imposture and usurpation of Moses, by noble-minded Israelites.[54]
2031. “Corah, an Hebrew of great wealth and influence, and famous for his eloquence, becoming jealous of the dignity to which Moses had attained, raised a clamour against him among the Levites who were of the same tribe, by suggesting to them, in an occasional harangue, ‘That it redounded to their dishonour thus tamely to suffer Moses, under pretence of the divine command, to retain unlimited authority, vest the priesthood in his brother Aaron without their suffrages, and bestow places of honour and profit at pleasure.’ He added, ‘that these measures were the more oppressive and grievous as founded on the arts of sophistry and insinuation; that those who are conscious of deserving posts of dignity endeavour to obtain them not by force, but mild persuasion; that it was the interest of a state to check the ambition of such aspiring individuals, before they acquired an influence that might prove destructive.’ He demanded by what authority Moses had conferred the priesthood on Aaron and his sons, enforcing his own title as superior to theirs, both by descent and property.”
2032. In consequence of this, Moses addresses the following prayer, which certainly is as remote from the sentiments which the precepts of Christ would call for, as any which can be imagined:
2033. “Testify thy wonted kindness to the Hebrews by inflicting condign punishment on Dathan and Abiram, for suggesting that thy purposes are opposed by my arts. Visit these detractors from thy glory with exemplary vengeance. Let the earth on which they tread swallow them up, with their families and substance, to the manifestation of thy power, and as an example to posterity not to think unworthily of the Majesty of heaven.”
2034. Mr. Mahan urges that those who sacrificed their lives for a cause must have had good reason for their course. What are we, then, to think of Zimri the Hebrew, who used the following language to Moses, and was, as well as those who concurred with him in opinion, murdered in consequence, not after trial, but by Lynch law, as will appear from the sequel?[55]
2035. “‘Moses, you are at liberty to contend for the use and observance of your own laws, which have obtained a sanction and authority by long custom alone, or you would have been brought to merited disgrace and punishment, and found, to your cost, that the Hebrews were not to be deluded by your arts. I will never subject myself to your tyrannical decrees, assured that, under a pretext of regard to religion and law, you seek to enslave us, and establish a supreme authority over us, by denying us those liberties to which all free-born men have an undoubted right. Was there a more grievous oppression during the whole course of an Egyptian bondage than the power you usurped of punishing every man by laws of your own formation? You particularly deserve punishment for abrogating and annulling those customs, laws, and privileges which are authorized and established by the common consent of nations, and preferring the suggestions of your fancy to rules so generally followed and rationally founded. Conscious that I have done nothing wrong, I now frankly declare, in this assembly, that I have married a strange woman. This I confess with an honest boldness, and would do the same in the face of the world. I also worship the gods whom thou hast forbidden to be worshipped, as I do not hold myself bound to submit to your arbitrary sway either in matters of law or religion, but must assert the liberty of investigating the truth for myself, and directing my own personal concerns.’
2036. “Zimri, in this speech, delivered the general sentiment of the whole faction, while the multitude silently waited the issue of his presumptuous conduct, for they apprehended much confusion would ensue.”
2037. But one of Moses’s partisans did not allow this noble asserter of the rights of human nature to survive this bold stand long, as will appear from the rest of the narrative, which thus proceeds:
2038. “His contumacy and flagrantly insolent behaviour to Moses raised the resentment of one Phineas to the highest degree. He was a youth eminent for the dignity of his family, his singular prowess, and his personal virtues. Eleazar the high-priest being his father, he was nearly allied to the great lawgiver. Sensible that to suffer such indignity to pass with impunity would bring both the religion and the laws of the Hebrews into contempt, he determined to make an example of the ringleader of the faction, as his exalted rank would cause that example to have a greater influence on the minds of the people. His resolution being equal to his zeal, he repaired, without delay, to the tent of Zimri, and at one stroke slew both him and Cobi his wife. This resolute act excited an emulation among those of his contemporaries who still maintained a regard for the honour of their country, to avenge themselves on those who had done it violation; inasmuch that they fell most furiously upon the faction, and put great numbers of them to the sword.”
2039. Where is the true-hearted son of Columbia who would not have been among those who fell with Zimri, for the right of choosing his wife and his religion according to his own judgment?
Remarkable observance of the Golden Rule by Moses, in his last advice to the Israelites.[56]
2040. “‘Wherefore, to avoid this danger of apostasy from the worship of the God of your fathers, suffer not any of your enemies to live after you have conquered them; but esteem it highly conducive to your interest to destroy them all, lest, if you permit them to live, you become infected by their manners, and thereby corrupt your own institutions. I do further exhort you to overthrow their altars, temples, groves, and indeed to exterminate their nations with fire and sword. By these means alone the permanency of your happy constitution can be secured to you.’”
2041. Let these sentiments of Moses be compared with those of the great Cyrus, in which he justly adverts to the immortality of the soul. Moses was always worldly, and, as respects the lives of neighbouring pagans, so called, displayed no better morality than Thuggism on a great scale.
Straining at Spiritual Gnats, while swallowing Scriptural Camels.
2042. The question is put, Wherefore can spirits cause tappings on or tilting of tables, only when a medium is present? To those who believe in the Old Testament as the word of God, it may be in point to inquire, Wherefore the mere elevation of the hands of Moses, on a hill remote from the field of battle, enabled the Israelites to overcome their enemies, when the opposite result ensued when the hands of the veracious prophet were lowered, as agreeably to verses 11 and 12, chapter xvii. of Exodus?
2043. “And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’s hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
2044. It follows from the verses in question that the skill, strength, or courage of every Jewish combatant varied with the elevation or depression of the arms of Moses above or below a mean horizontal plane.
2045. Surely, the peculiar influences thus exercised by the author of the Pentateuch is at least as incredible as that by which the presence of a medium enables spirits to move ponderable bodies, when otherwise they could not move them. The influence ascribed to Moses is alleged to have been witnessed only on one occasion, whereas that attributed to media has been seen in a multiplicity of instances by living witnesses of good character, who will attest to the facts, as well as the media themselves.
2046. But, independently of the incredibility of this Mosaic miracle as an isolated fact discordant with the laws of nature and human experience, is it not incredible on account of its inconsistency with the just and humane idea of God which the truly pious entertain, that he should give this assistance to the Jews in their unchristian warfare? This reasoning is at least as applicable to the alleged arrestation of the sun, (involving that of the rotary motion of the earth,) in order that Joshua might make a further slaughter of the vanquished Canaanites. For this slaughter the prominent excuse seems to have been that Moses, wishing to possess the territory of the Canaanites, professed to have the authority of God for extirpating them as idolaters, agreeably to the following language, which is represented by Mr. Mahan and others as the word of God, (Deut. viii. 16, 20, 22:)
2047. “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. Moreover, the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.”
The Evidence which is insufficient to establish the Iniquity of a Sinner cannot be sufficient to establish the Divine Authority of a Book.
2048. “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or any sin: at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall the matter be established,” (Deut. xix. 15.)
2049. Agreeably to the preceding quotation from Scripture, one witness is not sufficient to convict a man of any iniquity. Two witnesses, at least, are necessary to establish guilt. But if a single witness be insufficient to establish the iniquity of a man, how is it to be established, on the evidence of the priest Hilkiah alone, that the manuscript, which, as he represented, he had found in the temple, was the inspired code of Moses, or, as Mahan and others would have it, the word of God?
2050. Should the righteousness of a religious code be established by evidence insufficient to establish the iniquity of an individual? A fortiori, when, by proving the righteousness of a code, a whole generation was to be convicted of iniquity, was the evidence of one individual sufficient, especially when the iniquity thus to be adjudged was to draw down the unquenchable wrath of God, agreeably to Huldah the prophetess?
Word of God, impiously so called, or the Golden Rule inverted by God’s alleged Commands.
2051. “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself: and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee,” (Deut. xx. 10-17.)