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confidence, if any man in New York could persuade the people of that city to keep a festival in commemoration of the waters of the Hudson stopping and parting, so that the people of that city might pass dry-shod over to Jersey, in order to escape some dreadful malady, if such a thing had never happened; and thus the ignorant and lazy are made to believe that you have a case precisely analogous to this; but the misfortune with you is, that you have no such case. There is no feast, and never was, in commemoration of the pretended passage of the Red sea, or of the delivery of the law at Sinai. The only pretended miracle of which you can pretend to have a commemorative feast, is that of God Almighty murdering the first born of Egypt. Let the Jew believe it-an enlightened Roman would not, neither will I. Besides, there are in this case the principal ingredients of your great argument wanting, viz: a sensible fact and an uninterrupted continuance of the institution. I know that the murdering of children is, in its nature, a sensible fact. What I mean to aver is, that it was not witnessed or seen by the great body of the Jews, even according to Moses' own account of it. By reading the reign of Josiah, as found in Chronicles and Kings, the reader will learn that the celebration of the passover had been discontinued for centuries before his day. This may be disputed, and much stress laid on the word such. (I may allude to this matter hereafter.j

It is legitimate to conclude, as Moses did establish a festival, to commemorate one alleged fact of a marvellous nature, viz, the murder of the first born, that he would have instituted feasts also for the commemoration of others; such as the passage of the Red sea, and the thunders of Sinai, if they had occurred.

I know that the people are told by the moderns, that there were feasts to commemorate all the wonders that Moses relates; but they are imposed

upon.

The only authority we can have, is Moses himself, the institutor of these feasts, and he tells us no such thing; nor does he any where drop a hint, from which a conjecture can be drawn, that he instituted any feast for the commemoration of the passage of the Red sea or the delivery of the law.

We will now return to the first chapters of Genesis, with a view to show that Moses could not have written them, or that the author of them could not have been the author of the other parts of the Pentateuch. The author of these chapters, whoever he was, must have been a polytheist. This is apparent from the translation, as we have it. "Let us make man in our image;" but the most decisive expression is, "behold the man is become as one of us." You tell us that the doctrine of the trinity is taught here; but you have no more authority for saying that the doctrine of three in one is here taught, than that of fifty in one.

The author does

not say how many there were of us. You Trinitarians do not say us or them, and you dare not say one of them or one of us, when speaking of either person of what you call your Godhead, for fear of incurring the charge of polytheism from your opponents, the Unitarians. It is folly to deny that the expression imports plurality. If an individual should hold to me the following language, "we did all we could do to thwart his views and mar his prospects, for fear he would become as rich as one of us," I should be very much surprised, and so would you, if that individual should tell me, that he had been talking about his individual self, and intended to include no other. It would certainly be taking an unwarrantable liberty with language. If the expression "one of us," conveys the idea of unity, or does not convey that of plurality, the Bible, which you say is a revelation from God, must be the most unintelligible book in the world-must be any thing but a revelation,

One reason you assign, (though your God no where assigns it, nor the author for him) why all three of the persons in your trinity were required to make man, is, that he was the masterpiece of God's workmanship,that God the Father alone could make the Sun, Moon and Stars; but when he wished to make man, he called upon the other two. Hence, the expression "let us make man," you intimate, if not directly assert, is found but in this place, in the book of Genesis. You certainly must forget that this God of Genesis is represented as going down to Babel to see what the Babelites were doing, and when starting, as saying to the persons of his court, "Let us go down and there confound their language." Here was an event, according to your own reasoning, as important as the creation of man, and much more so than the creation ofthis and all other worlds. The serpent is also made to say, "Ye shall be as Gods," and he is good authority-at least, the author is responsible in this particular for what he puts in the mouth of this dramatis personce. Add to all this, the Hebrew scholars tell us, that the first verse should read, "In the beginning the Gods made the heaven and the earth." The writer therefore must have been a polytheist. But the author of Exodus, and the other books of the pentateuch, must have been a monotheist. There are no we's and us's in reference to God in them, but it is throughout, I and me. "I am that I am is my name”—“say that I am hath sent me unto you." "Thou shalt have no other God before me," "See now that I- I am he, and there is no other God with me," are expressions decisive of this point. One man could not have been the author of all this. I go further, and state that one man could not have been the author of the first six chapters of Genesis. As has been before plainly shewn by Mr. Paine, the first cosmagany ends with the third verse of the second chapter; and at the fourth verse of the second chapter,

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commences another account by another author. In the first account the author uses the word God, and in the second it is uniformly Lord God,besides it is not probable, (and probability I need not repeat too often is all we are required to arrive at,) that an author would give an account of the generations of the Heavens and the earth and finish it, by saying that God rested from all the works which he had created and made, and then add, these are the generations of the Heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and Heavensthat he would, in the first account, say that the earth, by the fiat of the Almighty, brought forth grass and herb yielding seed; and in the next page under the new caption, (these are the generations,) tell us that God made every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. Is it possible, I say, that an author under the first caption (in the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth) would state that God gave to man and his help meet, every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed for meat (and there is no other tree, and no account of any other sort of tree being made, for the expression, “in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed," is not a distinctive expression, but only declarative of that which is common to all trees. I will begin again, after this long parenthesis. I say, is it probable that an anthor, under the first caption, would assert that God gave to man and his helpmeet every tree for meet, and, in the following page, under a second caption, say that God gave them all the trees but one?

It is beyond dispute that here are two distinct philosophical or thoelogical treatises, written by different authors, in opposition to each other. The different names given to God (for names in this matter are material) is of itself sufficient to prove the position. These names in the original, are as unlike as Jehovah and Baal, as Eloi and Adonai. He who contended that Jehovah made all things, was of a different sect, or party, from the one to which he belonged, who contended that Baal made them. So of the followers of Eloi and Adonai.

If there were no discrepancies in these chapters, I ask, is it probable that an author would write two consecutive accounts of the same transactions? You cannot, under all the circumstances, believe that one man wrote both. But we have yet another author. In the fourth chapter, the writer, (we will call him the second) gives us an account of the birth of Cain, Abel and Seth, and a succinct history of the two former. The fifth chapter commences thus: This is the book of the generations of Adam; that is, "The following is the book, &c." The author then proceeds to state: "In the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him; male and female ereated he them and blessed them, and called them Adam, in the day when

they were created." This is the third account we have, in the space of three pages, of the creation or generation of Adam. Is it not probable, I say, that we have here three authors? Our third author proceeds thus: "And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness after his image, and called his name Seth." Our second author says he begat Cain and Abel first. No discrepancy here, you will say, because this second account of Adam's progeny does not directly deny the firstbecause it does not say that Adam did not beget Cain and Abel first.This author, be him whom he may, may have been informed that there were two sons before Seth, and may have intentionally began at the third son; but what is the probability? Your faith should not rest on possibilities. The author formally begins the history of Adam and his posterity—tells us he begat Seth, and lived a certain number of years afterwards, and begat other sons and some daughters, and then regularly kills him. He then takes up the history of Seth, in all which he says not a word about Cain and Abel; and yet you will believe that the author intentionally began at the third son, because it is possible. Another circumstance that adds strength to my argument, is, that Adam was no older when he is said to have begotten Seth, than many of his descendants were, when they began to get children. But the most convincing argument is derived from the pharseology itself: "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son;" that is, he had got none before. No one but a diplomatist or quibbler, would pretend to say the contrary. "And Seth lived an hundred and five years and begat Enos; and Lamech an hundred and eighty-two years, and begat a son" (Noah.) Do you pretend that Seth begat any son before Enos-or Lamech, before Noah? When the phraseology is the same, should not the construction be the same?

But I have not done with my third author yet. He most assuredly intends to tells us that God was in human shape-his God must have been corporeal. His notion was that God was a very great man.' He tells us also, that God created Adam in his likeness: and then tells us that Adam begat Seth in his likeness. If Seth was like Adam, which you will admit, then Adam must have been in the likeness of God. If you still insist that the first and fifth chapters were written by the same person, this argument is still stronger, for the phraseology is the same throughout, the words likeness and image being used in both cases. The first chapter

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has it: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The fifth has it: "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.' When the phraseology is the same, should not the construction be? (I fear the writing of this book will be a thankless business. Some, I fancy, will throw it down in disgust, and

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exclaim: "why will any man of common sense bother his head about such foolish things"-others will refuse to take it up, exclaiming, in their turn: "wonder if this wicked infidel thinks he can reason down the holy things of God.")

It is very probable that this third author finishes the book. The second verse of the fourth chapter (his second) is direct and positive to the point, that his God was a huge man; for he tells us he had sons that cohabited with women-aye, and married them and begat giants. "Non amplius addam" on this point,

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