seek the life of the young child to destroy him. When he arose he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt-and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.

"This passage is in the book of Hosea, chap. xi. ver. 1. The words are, 'When Israel was a child then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt-As they called them, so they went from them, they sacrificed unto Baalam and burnt incense to graven images.'

"This passage, falsely called a prophecy of Christ, refers to the children of Israel coming out of Egypt in the time of Pharoah, and to the idolatry they committed afterwards. To make it apply to Jesus Christ, he then must be the person who sacrificed unto Balaam and burnt incense to graven images, for the person called out of Egypt by the collective name, Israel, and the persons committing this idolatry, are the same persons, or the descendants of them. This then can be no prophecy of Jesus Christ unless they are willing to make an idolator of him. I pass on to the fourth passage called a prophecy by the writer of the book of

Matthew.

"This is introduced by a story, told by nobody but himself, and scarcely believed by any body, of the slaughter of all the chil→ dren under two years old, by the command of Herod. A thing which it is not probable could be done by Herod, as he only held an office under the Roman Government, to which appeals could always be had, as we see in the case of Paul.

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Matthew, however, having made or told his story, says, chap. ii. ver. 17.— Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,-In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation, and great mourning: Rachael weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not.'

"This passage is in Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15, and this verse, when separated from the verses before and after it, and which explains its application, might with equal propriety be applied to every case of wars, sieges, and other violences, such as the Christians themselves have often done to the Jews, where mothers have lamented the loss of their children. There is nothing in the verse taken singly that designates or points out any particular application of it, otherwise than that it points to some circumstance which, at the time of writing it, had already happened, and not to a thing yet to happen, for the verse is in the preter or past tense. I go to explain the case, and shew the application of the verse.

"Jeremiah lived in the time that Nebuchadnezzar besieged, took, plundered, and destroyed Jerusalem, and led the Jews captive to Babylon. He carried his violence against the Jews to every extreme. He slew the sons of king Zedekiah before his

face, he then put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and kept him in prison till the day of his death.

"It is of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jeremiah is speaking. Their temple was destroyed, their land desolated, their nation and government entirely broken up, and themselves, men, women, and children, carried into captivity. They had too many sorrows of their own, immediately before their eyes, to permit them, or any of their chiefs, to be employing themselves on things that might, or might not, happen in the world seven hundred years afterwards.

"It is, as already observed, of this time of sorrow and suffering to the Jews that Jeremiah is speaking in the verse in question. In the two next verses, the 16th and 17th, he endeavours to console the sufferers by giving them hopes, and according to the fashion of speaking in those days, assurances from the Lord, that their sufferings should have an end, and that their children should return again to their own land. But I leave the verses to speak for themselves, and the Old Testament to testify against the new.

"Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. ver. 15. Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah (it is in the preter tense) lamentation and bitter weeping: Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not."

"Verse 16. Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and THEY shall come again from the land of the enemy.'

"Verse 17. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.'

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By what strange ignorance or imposition is it, that the children of which Jeremiah speaks (meaning the people of the Jewish nation, scripturally called children of Israel, and not mere infants under two years old), and who were to return again from the land of the enemy, and come again into their own borders, can mean the children that Matthew makes Herod to slaughter? Could those return again from the land of the enemy, or how can the land of the enemy be applied to them? Could they come again to their own borders? Good Heavens! How has the world been imposed upon by Testament-makers, priest-craft, and pretended prophecies. I pass on to the fifth passage called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

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This, like two of the former, is introduced by a dream. Joseph dreamed another dream, and dreameth of another angel. And Matthew is again the historian of the dream and the dreamer. If it were asked how Matthew could know what Joseph dreamed, neither the bishop nor all the church could answer the question. Perhaps it was Matthew that dreamed and not Joseph; that is, Joseph dreamed by proxy, in Matthew's brain, as they tell us Daniel dreamed for Nebuchadnezzar. But be this as it may, I go on with my subject.

"The account of this dream is in Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 19. But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying-Arise, and take the young child and its mother, and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead which sought the young child's life-and he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream (here is another dream) he turned aside into the parts of Galilee; and he came and dwelt and in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets,-He shall be called a Nazarine.'

"Here is good circumstantial evidence, that Matthew dreamed, for there is no such passage in all the Old Testament; and I invite the bishops and all the priests in Christendom, including those of America, to produce it. I pass on to the sixth passage, called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

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This, as Swift says on another occasion, is lugged in head and shoulders; it needs only to be seen in order to be hooted as a forced and far-fetched piece of imposition.

"Matthew, chap. iv. ver. 12. Now when Jesus heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee-and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast, in the borders of Zebulon and Nephthalim-That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles-the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light springing upon them.'

"I wonder Matthew has not made the cris-cross-row, or the christ-cross-now (I know not how the priests spell it) into a prophecy. He might as well have done this as cut out these unconnected and undescriptive sentences from the place they stand in, and dubbed them with that title.

"The words, however, are in Isaiah, chap. ix. ver. 1, 2, as follows:

"Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthali, and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations."

"All this relates to two circumstances that had already happened, at the time these words in Isaiah were written. The one, where the land of Zebulon and Nephthali had been lightly afflicted, and afterwards more grievously by the way of the sea.

"But observe how Matthew has falsified the text. He begins his quotation at a part of the verse where there is not so much as a comma, and thereby cuts off every thing that relates to the first

affliction. He then leaves out all that relates to the second affliction, and by this means leaves out every thing that makes the verse intelligible, and reduces it to a senseless skeleton of names of towns.

"To bring this imposition of Matthew clearly and immediately before the eye of the reader, I will repeat the verse, and put between crotchets [] the words he has left out, and put in Italics those he has preserved.

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"[Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation when at the first he lightly afflicted] the land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthali, [and did afterwards more grievously afflict her] by the way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations."

"What gross imposition is it to gut, as the phrase is, a verse in this manner, render it perfectly senseless, and then puff it off on a credulous world as a prophecy. I proceed to the next verse.

"Ver. 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.' All this is historical, and not in the least prophetical. The whole is in the preter tense: it speaks of things that had been accomplished at the time the words were written, and not of things to be accomplished afterwards.

"As then the passage is in no possible sense prophetical, nor intended to be so, and that to attempt to make it so, is not only to falsify the original, but to commit a criminal imposition: it is matter of no concern to us, otherwise than as curiosity, to know who the people were of which the passage speaks, that sat in darkness, and what the light was that had shined in upon them. "If we look into the preceding chapter, the 8th, of which the 9th is only a continuation, we shall find the writer speaking, at the 19th verse, of witches and wizards who peep about and mutter,' and of people who made application to them; and he preaches and exhorts them against this darksome practice. It is of this people, and of this darksome practice, or walking in darkness, that he is speaking at the 2d verse of the 9th chapter; and with respect to the light that had shined in upon them, it refers entirely to his own ministry, and to the boldness of it, which opposed itself to that of the witches and wizards who peeped about and muttered.

"Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild and disorderly writer, preserving in general no clear chain of perception in the arrangement of his ideas, and consequently producing no defined conclusions from them. It is the wildness of his style, the confusion of his ideas, and the ranting metaphors he employs, that have afforded so many opportunities to priestcraft in some cases, and to superstition in others, to impose those defects upon the world as prophecies of Jesus Christ. Finding no direct meaning in them, and not knowing what to make of them, and supposing at the same time they were intended to have a meaning, they supplied the de

fect by inventing a meaning of their own, and called it his. I have, however, in this place, done Isaiah the justice to rescue him from the claws of Matthew, who has torn him unmercifully to pieces, and from the imposition or ignorance of priests and commentators, by letting Isaiah speak for himself.

"I pass on to the seventh passage, called a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

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Matthew, chap. viii. ver. 16. 'When the evening was come, they brought unto him (Jesus) many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirit with his word, and healed all that were sick. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (Isaiah) the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities, and bear our sicknesses.'

"This affair of people being possessed by devils, and of casting them out, was the fable of the day when the books of the New Testament were written. It had not existence at any other time. The books of the Old Testament mention no such thing; the people of the present day know of no such thing; nor does the history of any people or country speak of such a thing. It starts upon us all at once in the book of Matthew, and is altogether an invention of the New Testament-makers and the Christian church. The book of Matthew is the first book where the word Devil is mentioned.* We read in some of the books of the Old Testament of things called familiar spirits, the supposed companions of people called witches and wizards. It was no other than the trick of pretended conjurors to obtain money from credulous and ignorant people, or the fabricated charge of superstitious malignancy against unfortunate and decrepid old age.

"But the idea of a familiar spirit, if we can affix any idea to the term, is exceedingly different to that of being possessed by a devil. In the one case, the supposed familiar spirit is a dextrous agent, that comes and goes and does as he is bidden; in the other, he is a turbulent roaring monster, that tears and tortures the body into convulsions. Reader, whoever thou art, put thy trust in thy Creator, make use of the reason he endowed thee with, and cast from thee all such fables.

"The passage alluded to by Matthew, for as a quotation it is false, is in Isaiah, chap. liii. ver. 4, which is as follows:

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Surely he (the person of whom Isaiah is speaking of) hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.' It is in the preter tense. "Here is nothing about casting out devils, nor curing sicknesses. The passage, therefore, so far from being a prophecy of Christ, is not even applicable as a circumstance.

"Isaiah, or at least the writer of the book that bears his name, employs the whole of this chapter, the 53d, in lamenting the sufferings of some deceased person, of whom he speaks very pathe

* The word devil is a personification of the word evil.