struction of his Church, God should employ ministers so precarious, unsatisfactory, and inadequate, as the extacies of women and boys, and the visions of interested priests; which were derided at the very time by men of sense, to whom they were proposed.

"That this universal law, (continues Middleton, meaning the law revealed in the works of the creation) was actually revealed to the heathen world, long before the gospel was known, we learn from all the principle sages of antiquity who made it the capital subject of their studies and writings.

"Cicero (says Middleton) has given us a short abstract of it, in a fragment still remaining from one of his books on government, which (says Middleton) I shall here transcribe in his own words, as they will illustrate my sense also, in the passages that appear so dark and dangerous to my antagonist.

"The true law (it is Cicero who speaks) is right reason. conformable to the nature of things, constant, eternal, diffused through all, which calls us to duty by commanding; deters us from sin by forbidding; which never loses its influence with the good; nor ever preserves it with the wicked. This law cannot be over-ruled by any other, nor abrogated in the whole or in part; nor can we be absolved from it, either by the senate or by the people; nor are we to seek any other comment, or interpreter of it but itself: nor can there be one law at Rome, and another at Athens; one now and another hereafter; but the same eternal immutable law comprehends all nations, at all times, under one common master and governor of all-Gov. He is the inventor, propounder, enactor of this law; and whoever will not obey it, must first renounce himself, and throw off the nature of man, by doing which, he will suffer the greatest punishments though he should escape all the other torments which are commonly believed to be prepared for the wicked.' Here ends the quotation from Cicero.

“Our Doctors, (continues Middleton) perhaps, will look on this as RANK DEISM; but let them call it what they will, I shall ever avow and defend it as the fundamental, essential and vital part of all true religion.' Here ends the quotation from Middleton.

"I have here given the reader two sublime extracts from men who lived in ages of time, far remote from each other, but who thought alike. Cicero lived before the time in which they tell us Christ was born. Middleton may be called a man of our own time, as he lived within the same century with ourselves.

In Cicero we see that vast superiority of mind, that sublimity of right reasoning, and justness of ideas, which man acquires, not by studying Bibles and Testaments, the theology of schools built thereon, but by studying the Creator in the immensity and unchangeable order of his creation, and the immutability of his law. There cannot,' says Cicero, be one law now, and another hereafter; but the same eternal immutable law comprehends all nations, at all times, under one common master and governor of all-GOD.' But according to

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the doctrine of schools which priests have set up, we see one law called the Old Testament, given in one age of the world, and another law called the New Testament given in another age of the world. As all this is contradictory to the eternal immutable nature, and the unerring and unchangeable wisdom of God, we must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and the new law, called the Old and the New Testament, to be impositions, fables, and forgeries.

"In Middleton, we see the manly eloquence of an enlarged mind, and the genuine sentiments of a true believer in his Creator. Instead of reposing his faith on books, by whatever name they may be called, whether Old Testaments or New, he fixes the creation as the great original standard by which every other thing called the word or work of God, is to be tried. In this we have an indisputable scale whereby to measure every word or work imputed to him. If the thing so imputed carries not in itself the evidence of thesame Almightiness of power, of the same unerring truth and wisdom, and the same unchangeable order in all its parts, as are visibly demonstrated to our senses, and comprehensible by our reason, in the magnificent fabric of the universe, that word or that work is not of God. Let then the two books called the Old and New Testament be tried by this rule, and the result will be, that the authors of them, who ever they were, will be convicted of forgery.

"The invariable principles, and unchangeable order, which regulate the movements of all the parts that compose the universe, demonstrate both to our senses and our reason that its creator is a God of unerring truth. But the Old Testament, beside the numberless absurd and bagatelle stories it tells of God, represents him as a God of deceit, a God not to be confided in. Ezekiel makes God to say, ́chap, 14. ver. 9. 'and if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.' And at the 20th chap. ver. 25, he makes God, in speaking of the children of Israel to say, Wherefore I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live.' This, so far from being the word of God, is horrid blasphemy against him. Reader put thy confidence in thy God, and put no trust in the Bible.

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"The same Old Testament, after telling us that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, makes the same almighty power and eternal wisdom employ itself in giving directions how a priest's garments should be cut, and what sort of stuff they should be made of, and what their offerings should be, gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and badger skins, &c. chap. xxv. ver. 3, and in one of these pretended prophecies I have just examined, God is made to give directions how they should kill, cook, and eat a helamb or a he-goat. And Ezekiel, chap. iv. to fill up the measure of abominable absurdity, makes God to order him to take wheat and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and

makea loaf or a cake thereof, and bake it with human dung and eat it,' but as Ezekiel complained that this mess was too strong for his stomach, the matter was compromised from man's dung to cow dung, Ezekiel, chap. iv. Compare all this ribaldry, blasphemously called the word of God, with the Almighty power that created the universe, and whose eternal wisdom directs and governs all its mighty movements, and we shall be at a loss to find a name sufficiently contemptible for it.

"In the promises which the Old Testament pretends that God made to his people, the same derogatory ideas of him prevail. It makes God to promise to Abraham, that his seed should be like the stars in heaven and the sand on the sea shore for multitude, and that he would give them the land of Canaan as their inheritance for ever. But observe, reader, how the performance of this promise was to begin, and then ask thine own reason, if the wisdom of God, whose power is equal to his will, could, consistently with that power and that wisdom, make such a promise.

"The performance of the promise was to begin, according to that book, by four hundred years of bondage and affliction. Genesis, chap. xv. ver. 13, ' And God said unto Abraham, 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.' This promise then to Abraham, and his seed for ever, to inherit the land of Canaan, had it been a fact instead of a fable, was to operate, in the commencement of it, as a curse upon all the people and their children, and their children's children for four hundred years.

“But the case is, the book of Genesis was written after the bondage in Egypt had taken place; and in order to get rid of the disgrace of the Lord's chosen people, as they called themselves, being in bondage to the Gentiles, they make God to be the author of it, and annex it as a condition to a pretended promise; as if God, in making that promise, had exceeded his power in performing it, and consequently his wisdom in making it, and was obliged to compromise with them for one half, and with the Egyptians, to whom they were to be in bondage, for the other half.

"Without degrading my own reason by bringing those wretched and contemptible tales into a comparative view, with the Almighty power and eternal wisdom, which the Creator hath demonstrated to our senses in the creation of the universe, I will confine myself to say, that if we compare them with the divine and forcible sentiments of Cicero, the result will be, that the human mind has degenerated by believing them. Man, in a state of grovelling superstition, from which he has not courage to rise, loses the energy of his mental powers.

"I will not tire the reader with more observations on the Old Testament.

"As to the New Testament, if it be brought and tried by that standard which, as Middleton wisely says, God has revealed to our

senses, of his Almighty power and wisdom, in the creation and government of the visible universe, it will be found equally as false, paltry, and absurd, as the Old.

"Without entering, in this place, into any other argument, that the story of Christ is of human invention and not of divine origin, I will confine myself to shew that it is derogatory to God, by the contrivance of it; because the means it supposes God to use, are not adequate to the end to be obtained; and, therefore, are derogatory to the Almightiness of his power, and the eternity of his wisdom.

"The New Testament supposes that God sent his son upon earth to make a new covenant with man; which the church calls the covenant of grace, and to instruct mankind in a new doctrine, which it calls Faith, meaning thereby, not faith in God, for Cicero and all true Deists, always had, and always will have, this; but faith in the person called Jesus Christ, and that whoever had not this faith should to use the words of the New Testament, be DAMNED.

"Now if this were a fact, it is consistent with that attribute of God, called his Goodness, that no time should be lost in letting poor unfortunate man know it; and as that goodness was united to Almighty power, and that power to Almighty wisdom, all the means existed in the hand of the Creator, to make it known immediately over the whole earth, in a manner suitable to the Almightiness of his divine nature, and with evidence that would not leave man in doubt; for it is always incumbent upon us, in all cases, to believe that the Almighty always acts, not by imperfect means as imperfect man acts, but consistently with his Almightiness. It is this only that can become the infallible criterion by which we can possibly distinguish the works of God from the works of man.

"Observe now, Reader, how the comparison between this supposed mission of Christ, on the belief, or disbelief, of which they say, man was to be saved or damned-observe, I say, how the comparison between this and the Almighty power and wisdom of God demonstrated to our senses in the visible creation, goes on.

"The Old Testament tells us, that God created the heavens and the earth, and every thing therein, in six days. The term six days, is ridiculous enough when applied to God; but leaving out that absurdity it contains the idea of Almighty power acting unitedly with Almighty wisdom, to produce an immense work, that of the creation of the universe, and every thing therein in a thort time.

"Now as the eternal salvation of man, is of much greater importance than his creation, and as that salvation depends, as the New Testament tells us, on man's knowledge of, and belief in, the person called Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows from our belief in the goodness and justice of God, and our knowledge of his almighty power and wisdom, as demonstrated in the creation, that ALL THIS, if true, would be made known to all parts of the world, in as little time, at least, as was employed in making the world. To suppose the Almighty would pay greater regard and attention to the creation and

organization of inanimate matter, than he would to the salvation of innumerable millions of souls, which himself had created, as the image of himself' is to offer an insult to his goodness and his justice.

"Now observe, reader, not the promulgation of this pretended salvation by a knowledge of, and a belief in, Jesus Christ went on, compared with the work of creation.

"In the first place, it took longer time to make the child than to make the world, for nine months were passed away and totally lost, in a state of pregnancy; which is more than forty times longer time, than God employed in making the world, according to the Bible account. Secondly; several years of Christ's life were lost in a state * of human infancy. But the universe was in maturity the moment it existed. Thirdly; Christ, as Luke asserts, was thirty years old before he began to preach what they call his mission. Millions of souls died in the mean time without knowing it. Fourthly; it was above three hundred years from that time before the book called the New Testament was compiled into a written copy, before which time there was no such book. Fifthly; it was above a thousand years after that before it could be circulated; because neither Jesus nor his apostles had knowledge of, or were inspired with the art of printing: and consequently, as the means for making it universally known did not exist, the means were not equal to the end, and therefore it is not the work of God.

"I will here subjoin the nineteenth Psalm, which is truly deistical, and to shew how universally and instantaneously the works of God make themselves known, compared with this pretended salvation by Jesus Christ.201

"Psalm 19th. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work-Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge-There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard-Their line is gone, out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a chamber for the Sun. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race-his going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.' "Now had the news of the salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the Sun and the Moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know any thing of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it. "I have now reader, gone through all the passages called prophecies of Jesus Christ, and shewn there is no such thing.

"I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared the several circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Mid