We see that it is the height of folly to suppose that such a personage ever did live, or does now; but the belief of it has been one of the greatest curses which ever befel mankind. Here, then, let us bring up the idea, and reflect upon it, that all the evil which has taken place, and all the sufferings endured by the unfortunate beings in the dark ages, may possibly again occur. The Bible is the same, and mam is the same. The difference is in the actions of men in different ages. When reason and the morality of things are man’s guide, then he is peaceable and humane; but when acting under the imagination, he is capable of becoming as bad as is the Devil.

In concluding this chapter, let us look back to those times of ignorance and superstition. Let us place ourselves by the misortunate victims who were put to torture and death for a crime they could not commit. Could they, in their extreme pain, but have had a hope that a day would arrive when a band of master spirits would arise on the shores of the Atlantic, who, by reason and the moral fitness of things, would upset and prostrate the systems under which they so severely suffered-—could the poor, suffering victim, with his broken heart and fractured limbs, have had assurance, when his tortured mind was about to quit its lacerated boundary, that a time would soon surely come when the truth of the Bible and the existence of a Devil would cease to be made the instruments of unspeakable misery and torment, it would have been a cheerful ray of comfort amid the devouring flame. The time has at length arrived, and we ought to improve it. Let us, then, with untiring perseverance and moral courage, give the death-blow to the Divinity of the Old and New Testaments, and thereby forever obliterate, not only the incentives to, but also the remembrance of all religious persecutions.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

AS this work is about to be concluded, it will be of importance to the reader that a comprehensive view be taken of the mission of Christ to the Jewish nation. In doing which, an opportunity will be given to such of my readers as may hitherto have been afraid to doubt the truth of the Divine authority of the Bible, to see, at one glance, its absurdity.

In the four Gospels, which contain the sayings and doings of Jesus during his ministry among the Jews, and also in the Epistles of the Apostles, it is uniformly declared and enforced, that the main purpose of Christ’s (the anointed of God) coming into the world was, to die. And this death was required by the Father as an atonement for the sins of mankind, that whosoever believed in and obeyed him, their pardon should be sure, not for any thing which they had done as it related to justice, chastity, or humanity, but for the ransom paid for their sins by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. An apostle, in speaking on this subject, says—“He (Christ) being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have, by wicked hands, crucified and slain.” This decree, then, was absolute, and every movement then made by Jesus, and also his preaching and conversation with the Jews, was so arranged, that die he must, to save a lost and ruined world.

This, according to the Scriptures, was the divine arrangement between the Father and the Son. This doctrine is taught in the New Testament. And in such a lost condition were the human race, that Jesus freely gave himself as a ransom to be completed in due time. If the New Testament does not teach this, it is not possible to know what it does teach. To die, then, as a sacrifice for sin, included the sum and substance of the Gospel, or good news.

Having laid down the ground-work of human redemption, we proceed to carry through the plan said to be the work of mercy and goodness flowing from the mighty God, the author of all things. In the examination of such an arrangement, it appears impossible to conclude that the Author of the Universe can be considered as the God of the Jews and Christians. The Jews had always been taught to believe that they were God’s favorite people, and they retain the same faith to the present day. For ages before the Christian era, they not only expected the coming of the Messiah, but also, that no nation but their own would be interested in that glorious event. It never entered their minds that he would come in any disguise, for many impostors had appeared, who, being discovered, their Messiahship procured them certain destruction. The Jews, therefore, inferred, that when the proper time should arrive for the long-expected and ardently-looked for Messiah to appear among them, their nation would be raised to more than its former greatness, and God’s chosen people would be held up to the nations of the earth as confirming the truth of what their ancient prophets had foretold of their future prosperity.

It could never, therefore, have entered the minds of the Jews, as a nation, that the Messiah would come in any disguise. And it must have been far from their thoughts to expect that he, when he should arrive, would load them with violent abuse, and reproach them as being too low to be considered as any thing else than a nation of hypocrites. If Jesus came into this world to die, then every thing which he taught, and also all the intercourse which he had with his own people, was preparatory to that event. That the Messiah would come to the Jewish nation to dwell among them, to be their leader, to exalt them above all other nations, was what they had been taught to expect. Instead of which, he calls them “a generation of vipers!” and pronounces terrible things against the heads of the nation, commencing his denunciations with “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!” Such violence and abuse surprised them, coming from one who said “he came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Again, Jesus said that “he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” But Jesus gave them no quarter, but sent them head and heels to the Devil. The Jewish rulers must have been more than human to have quietly taken such vulgar abuse. Sometimes, Jesus seemed to soften down in his conduct, as when he says, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not.” So erratic is Jesus depicted, in the account we have transmitted down to us, that we are at a loss as to forming an opinion concerning his manner of treating his own people. But as it was “by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God” that he was to be a “sacrifice for the sins of mankind,” his mode of addressing the rulers of Israel was calculated to bring about the “will of his Father.”

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Jews were in a worse state than if he had not appeared among them. The statement made by Jesus of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of his second coming, confounded all their ideas of the Messiah’s kingdom. In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, after having pronounced a number of dreadful predictions against them, he winds up in chapter twenty-third as follows, “YE SERPENTS! YE GENERATION OF VIPERS! HOW CAN YE ESCAPE THE DAMNATION OF HELL?” In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives a long account of his second coming. How was it possible for the Jews to understand what he there describes? Their desire was, to know if he was the Messiah promised by the prophets; and, if so, what steps he would take for the exaltation of their nation, so that they might enjoy all they had been induced to expect when the “sun of righteousness should arise with healing in his hands.”