siastical history. By these the benevolent and social affections are blasted, the milk of human kindness is dried up, and every thing that is worthy and good in our nature goes to decay; while the malevolent and evil passions are nourished and gather strength. It is a matter of indifference whether we pay our adorations to a Deity the work of men's hands or the creature of their fancy, provided such worship tends to darken our understanding, enslave our minds, engender animosity, render men implacable, and outrage humanity; while the priests claim for themselves the best of the corn, the wine, and the oil, as a gift of their God,-a tenth of the produce of cultivated nature by divine right, and the consequent slavery of the industrious part of mankind.

"To investigate the character, and clear up the pretensions of this Deity to divine worship, to expose the absurdity and nullity of such pretensions, and point out the pernicious effects of imitating his conduct, or regulating our actions by his pretended law, shall be the business of this essay; and this solely from what is called his own word. This, however, is a task of no small difficulty, considering the disjointed manner in which it has come down to us; his ways are not as our ways,' so neither are his writings. We must, therefore, rest contented to wander through this holy chaos, and gather up the scattered fragments in the best manner we

can.

"To estimate the characters of mankind, it is necessary to compare men with each other. But to what standard shall we appeal to estimate the character of fictitious beings, who exist nowhere but in the imaginations of credulity? I know of none, unless we are to judge of them by their approximation to human perfection or imperfection. This divinity, says he, made man in his own image,' which, if he did not, then has man created him in his, and that not one of the most rational and virtuous part of the species. Which of these is the case it matters not; the relation is the same either way; and we are equally entitled to the right of investigating his character.

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"No character is so detestable among mankind as that of a cruel tyrant. At such a disposition every sensation revolts, and all our feelings staud appalled; yet do cruelty and inhumanity stand forward as the most prominent feature in the character of this Deity.

"The Lord of Hosts,' or the God of Battles,' is one of bis favourite appellations among the Jews; he is always re

presented as assisting at their encounters, giving out the most bloody and vindictive orders, and as being delighted with carnage and masacre. The greatest blessings he usually promises are those of victory; and the greatest evils he threatens that of being vanquished. All his saints partake of the same temper; and the chief of them, who was 'a man after his own heart,' was a man of the most sanguinary cruelty. A few examples will better illustrate the savage disposition of this Deity than any thing we can say.

"We have a strong example of his ferocious cruelty in the 31st chapter of Numbers, where the Lord commanded Moses to avenge him of the Midianites, who selected twelve thousand men for this holy enterprise, with a priest at their head. This consecrated banditti accordingly proceeded on the expedition, and they slew all the males,' and took all the women of Midian captives, with their little ones,'burnt and plundered the whole country, and carried off the booty to their camp. Even this, however, was not enough to satiate the cruel temper of this incensed Deity: Upon their arrival in the camp, Moses was wroth with the officers of the host,' because they saved all the women alive. He, therefore, in the name of their God, issued the atrocious order to kill every male among the little ones (although all the males were killed before, verse 7th), and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him;' but the maids they might retain for themselses; although it was on their account that the war commenced, verse 16. The girls with the other plunder the Lord ordered to be divided, according to his own holy law of robbing, in a way suitable to the character of the expedition; taking care, however, to retain his share of the different articles, no less than ninetysix young wenches being his dividend of the maids. Here the elucidation of our priests is wanted to inform us whether the Lord kept them for his own use, or lent them to his priests? Or if it was for amorous purposes, or that of celibacy, they were ordered to be kept alive? No person is capable of reading this chapter without being inspired with sentiments of the deepest horror at such abominable cruelty; no history can furnish a parallel by the greatest tyrant that ever lived. However, it is what a Christian Bishop calls good policy combined with mercy:'" As also the following passage: "Where we do not find justice we cannot expect veracity. The Jewish Deity has been pompously declared to be the God of Truth;' be says of himself, that he is not a man that he should lie,' Num. xxiii.

19; yet we shall find, in the sequel, that he will both lie himself, and instruct other people to do the same:' As also the following passage: "To hold up a human character to general odium, it would be sufficient to enumerate among its bad qualities a furious, angry, and revengeful disposition; yet though we find these to predominate in the Jewish Deity, in all the omnipotence of his character, we are still to account him a God slow to anger, and of great kindness, whose tender mercies are above all his other works,' and one whose mercy endureth for ever.' It is no easy matter to conceive how a man, far less a God, could be provoked at such silly trifles as this God of the Hebrews often was; sometimes for faults of which himself is the author; commonly in circumstances that would rather excite sentiments of pity and compassion in a generous mind than those of anger and resentment. A few examples will illustrate this. The affair of the golden calf put him in a terrible passion, if Moses had not been able to soothe him, by representing the indelible stain it would be upon his character to vent his anger upon his own chosen people in their present circumstances:" As also the following passage: "Ahab is said to have done more to provoke the Lord to anger than all the Kings of Israel that went before him, 1 Kings xvi. 33. The 78th Psalm is wholly taken up with recounting the provocations he had received, and the passions he had been put into; these he bore for sometime, being rather drowsy; but when they could not be any longer endured, Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine: and he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he put them to a perpetual reproach,' verse 65, 66. It is no uncommon thing for drunkards and fools to behave in this manner! The Prophets are full of the overflowing bile of this choleric Deity, where he is continually venting his rage and threats against one people or another, denouncing war, mischief, and ruin against whoever happens to be the objects of his vengeance; even his chosen covenanted people were by no means spared, but must take their share of his maledictions. The Prophets give us very lively descriptions of his furious temper, not much in unison with the character of mercy and peace. What kind of temper must he be in, when he says, My fury shall come up in my face: for in my jealousy, and in the fire of my wrath, have I spoken?' Ezek. xxxvi. 18. As to the method of melting people in the fire of his wrath, see chap. xx. 22. The prophet Nahum begins his prophecy

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by describing the passionate and revengeful temper of his God, chap. i. 2. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries; and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.' For by fire and by his sword shall the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many.' Isaiah lxvi. 16. Behold the tyger-like ferocity of this Deity! 'Therefore I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion.' The Prophet Jeremiah says, ' He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.' Lam. iii. 10. Is it possible for human nature to conceive Deity representing himself as a savage wild beast, devouring the human race? To what a condition hath superstition reduced human intellect?" And also the following passage" If the Lord be ignorant of men, he is more so of things. It was for fear that men should build a tower to reach to heaven that made him confound their language; but he must have been confonndedly stupid to imagine men could ever reach heaven by a As also the following passage:-" Neither would he bave spoken of a firmament with waters, either above or below it, when there is no firmament in existence. The Lord must be grossly ignorant of physics to relate the history of the deluge in the way he has done: a modern chemist would have instructed him better in the production of rain than breaking up the fountains of the great deep, or opening the windows of heaven,' which are no where to be found. The author of this history has not sense enough to see, that making the waters to cover the highest mountains fifteen cubits, increases the earth's magnitude far beyond its present bulk, alters its orbit, &c. But it is impossible such an event ever did, or ever can take place. This will satisfy both the Infidel and the Believer; as the one will give no credit to the story, while the other will swallow it with greater alacrity. It was not he, surely, which fashioneth us in the womb who tells us the story of the scarlet thread at the birth of Tamar's two sons, Gen. xxxviii. 27, which, for stupid ignorance and beastly obscenity, is without parallel."

And also the following passage:-" We have now taken a general survey of the character of the Hebrew Deity from the sacred books of the Jews; books which his votaries pretend were inspired and dictated by the God himself. But have we found a God of holiness, truth, justice, goodness?

Far, very far from it. These books represent their God as a being of ferocious cruelty, tyrannical, unjust, false, deceitful, passionate, angry, revengeful, and capricious; continually repenting and changing his mind. True, indeed, they also say that he is good, merciful, and just, slow to anger, and of great kindness, one whose tender mercies are above all his other works; in short, they blow hot and cold alternately, and give him such discordant qualities that no such being ever did or can exist but in the distempered imagination of gloomy superstition and blind credulity. The priesthood have also fathered upon him those incoherent rhapsodies, which they declare to the ignorant to be the fountain of divine wisdom; but which we look upon to be the store-house of priestly fraud; a compilation so confused and contradictory as to bid a defiance to all the rules of criticism; a book which no human intellect has ever been able to explain or illustrate; although millions of men have been constantly employed for many ages, in clearing it up, it still continues as dark as ever, and the same infallible rule of faith and manners it always was." (4.) AND FURTHER, time and place last above libelled, you the said James Affleck did wickedly and feloniously publish, vend, and circulate, by then and there giving to the said John Nugent, in exchange for the sum of four shillings and sixpence, or some other sum of money then and there paid by the said John Nugent to you as the price thereof, a profane, impious, and blasphemous book or printed work, entitled "The Theological Works of Thomas Paine," bearing to be printed and published at London by R. Carlile, No. 55, Fleet Street, 1822, containing many passages wickedly denying the truth and authority of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian Religion, and tending to asperse, vilify, ridicule, and bring into contempt the Holy Scriptures and the Christian Religion; and particularly the following passage in that part of the said book or printed work, entitled "The Age of Reason, part 1st:"-" Thus far the ancient and Christian mythologists differ very little from each other. But the latter have contrived to carry the matter much farther. They have contrived to connect the fabulous part of the story of Jesus Christ with the fable originating from Mount Etna; and, in order to make all the parts of the story tie together, they have taken to their aid the traditions of the Jews; for the Christian mythology is made up partly from the ancient mythology and partly from the Jewish traditions.