§ 6.
This being settled, let us examine for a little the idea which the Prophets have formed of the Deity. According to their account, God is a being purely corporeal. Michael saw him seated; Daniel beheld him clothed in white, and under the form of an Old Man; Ezekiel perceived him as a Fire: so much for the Old Testament. With respect to the New, the disciples of Jesus Christ imagined that they saw him in the form of a Dove; the Apostles, like Tongues of Fire; and finally, St. Paul beheld him as a Light, which dazzled and blinded him. Then as to their contradictory statements; in the Book of Genesis[3] we are informed that man is the master of his own actions, and that it only depends upon himself to do what is right. St. Paul on the other hand asserts that man has no control over his evil propensities without the particular grace of God. Samuel[4] declares that the Deity repented of the evil which he had brought on men: and Jeremiah[5] affirms that he repented, or on certain conditions that he would repent, of the good which he had done them. Such are the false and contradictory ideas which those pretenders to inspiration give us of the divinity; and which they wish us to adopt without reflecting that they represent the Deity as a sensitive Being, material, and subject to like passions with ourselves. Next they inform us that God has nothing in common with matter, and that his nature is altogether incomprehensible by us. It would be important to learn how these manifest and irrational contradictions can be reconciled; and whether we ought to put much faith in the evidence of a people who, in spite of the sermons of Moses, were stupid enough to believe that a calf was their God! Without dwelling on the reveries of a people cradled in bondage and brought up in absurdity, it is sufficient to remark, that ignorance has produced a belief in all the impostures and errors which prevail amongst us at the present day.
[1] Moses put to death in one day 24,000 men, because they resisted his laws. [↑]
[2] We read in the [Book of Kings, chap. xxii, v. 6], that Ahab, the King of Israel consulted 400 prophets who were all false, as the result of their vaticinations showed. [↑]
[3] [Genesis, chap. iv, v. 7.] [↑]
[4] [I. Samuel chap. xv, v. 11]. [↑]
[5] [Jeremiah, chap. xviii, v. 10.] [↑]