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Presented to the 

LIBRARY of the 

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 

by 

THE ESTATE OE 

TTiE LATE 
MARY SINCLAIR 



IIETLY TO rAOE; 

OR, 

AN APOLOGY FOR THE BIBLE: 

IN 

LETTERS TO THOMAS PAINE, 

AUTHOR OF 

THE "AGE OF REASON/' TART SECOND. 

WITH 
NOTICES OF HUME'S DENIAL OF .MIRACLES, 

AND 

GILBERT WEST'S ORDER OF EVENTS IN 
THE RESURRECTION. 

BY R. WATSON, D.D.,F.R.S. 

UISHOP OF LAXDAFF, AND PROFESSOR OP DIVINITY IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



hi- 



,:.>^^ 



(I rT»Y1 0l256 





10 7 3 8 7 



REPLY TO PAINE. 



LETTER I. 

Sir — I have lately met with a book of yours en- 
titled, '* The Age of Reason, Part the Second ; be- 
ing an Investigation of True and of Fabulous The- 
olo.c^y f and I think it not inconsistent with my 
station, and the duty I owe to society, to trouble 
you and the world with some observations on so 
extraordinary a performance. Extraordinary I es- 
teem it, not from any novelty in the objections 
which you have produced against revealed relig- 
ion. — for I find nttle or no novelty in them — but 
from the zeal with which you labor to disseminate 
your opinions, and from the confidence with which 
you esteem them true. You perceive by this that 
I give 3"0u credit for your sincerit;^, how much- 
socver I may Question your wisdom, in writing in 
such a manner, on such a subject ; and I have no 
reluctance in acknowledging that you possess a 
considerable share of energy of language, and 
acutencss of investigation ; though I must bo al- 



4 WATSON'S RETLY TO TAINE. 

lowed to liiiiKMit that tlicso talents liavc not been 
aj)plie(l ill a manner more useful to liuman kind, 
and more creditable to ^^uac^^'lf. 

I begin with youi' preface. You therein state 
that you had long had '^arT'intcntion of publishing 
your tlioughts upon religion, but that you had 
originally reserved it to a later period in life — I 
hope there is no want of charity in saying, that it 
would have been fortunate for the Christian world 
had your life been terminated before you had ful- 
iiTled your intention. ^In accomplishing your pur- 
pose, you w^ill have unseale d the faith of thou- 
sands ; rooted from the minds of the unhapp y 
jyTFtuQus all their comfortable assurances of a fu- 
ture recompense ; have annihilated in the minds of 
the flagitious all their fears of future punishment : 
you will have given the reins to the domination of 
every passion, and have thereby contributed to the 
introduction of the public_jnsecurity, and of the 
private unhappiness usually and almost necessa- 
rily accompanying a state of corrupt morals. 

No one can think worse of confession to a priest 
and subsequent absolution, as practised in. the 
church of Rome, than I do ; but I cannot, with 
you, attribute the guillotine massacres to that 
cause. Men's minds were not prepared, as you 
suppose, for the commission of all manner of crimes, 
by any doctrines of the church of Rome, corrupted 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 6 

as I esteem it, but by their not thoroughly believ, 
ing even that religion. What may not society 
expect from those who shall imbibe the principles 
of your book ? 

A fever, which you and those about you expect- 
ed would prove mortal, made you remember, with 
renev/ed satisfaction, that you had written the ^ 
former part of your Age of Reason — and you know, ^ 
therefore, you say, by experience, the conscientious 
trial of your own principles. I admit this declara- ^ 
tion to be a proof of the sincerity of your persua- , 
sion, but I cannot admit it to be any proof of the 
truth of your principles. ! What is conscience ? Is 
it, as has been thought, an internal monitor im- 
planted in us by the Su preme B eing, anT dictating 
to us, on all occasions, what is riglit or wrong ? 
Or is it merely our own judgm ent of the moral 
rectitude or turpitude of our own actions ? I take 
the word, with Mr. Locke , in the latter, ^s the only 
intelligible sense. Now, who sees not that our 
judgments of virtue and vice, right and wrong, are 
not always formed from an enlightened and dis- 
passionate use of our reason, in the investigation 
of truth ? They are more generally formed from 
the nature j j f the reli gion we profess: from the 
quality of the civil government under which we 
live ; from the general majincrs of the age, or the 
particular manners of the persons with v>^hom we 



6 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

associate ; from tlu) education wc have had in our 
youth ; from the hooks ^vo liave read at a more 
advanced period ; and from other accidental causes. 
AVlio sees not that, on this account, conscience 
may bo conformable or rcpugna2it to tlie law of 
nature — may be certain, or doubtful ; and that it 

can be no criterion of moral rectitude, even when 

* - 

\ it is certain, because the certainty of an opinion is 
no proof of its being a right opinion ? A manj xmy 
be certainly persjiadcd of . an_crror in reasoning, or 
an untruth in matters of fact_ It is a maxim of 
every law, human and divine, that a man ought 
never to act in opposition to his conscience, but it 
will not from thence follow that he will, in obeying 
the dictates of his conscience on all occasions, act 
right. An inquisitor, who burns Jews and here- 
tics ; a Ivobes^ierre, who massacres innocent and 
harmless women ; a robber, w^ho thinks that all 
things ought to be in common, and that a state 
of property is an unjust infringement of natural 
liberty — these, and a thousand perpetrators of dif- 
ferent crimes, may al l follow^ the^ dictjites^of con- 
science ; and may, attEe real or supposed approach 
orHcath, remember, *' with renewed satisfaction, '' 
the worst of their transactions, and experience 
without dismay *' a conscientious trial of their prin- 
ciples." But this, their conscientious composure, 
can be no proof to others of the rectitude of their 



vj' 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 7 

principles, and ou^lit to he no pledge to tliemselvos 
of their innocence in adhering to them. 

I have thought fit to make this remark, with a 
view ol* suggesting to you a consideration of great 
importance — whether you have examined calmly, 
and according to the best of your ability, the argu- 
ments by which the trutji^of reyealed religion may, 
in the iudgment of k^arncd and impartial men, be 
established ? You will allow that thousands of 
learned and impartial men — I speak not of priests, 
who however are, I trust, as learned and impartial 
as 3^ourself, but of laymen of the most splendid 
talents — you will allow that thousands of these, 
in all ages, have embraced revealed religion as^ 
true. AVhether these men have all been in an 
error, enveloped in the darkness of ignorance, 
shackled by the chains of superstition, while you 
and a few others TTave enjoyed light and liberty, is 
a question I submit to the decision of your readers. 

If you have made the best examination you can, 
and 3^et reject revealed religion as an imposture, I 
pray that God may pardon what I esteem your 
error. And whether you have made this examina- 
tion or not, does not become me or any man to 
determine. That gospel which you despise, has 
taught me this moderation ; it has said to me, 
'^ Who' art thou that judgest another man's ser- 
vant ? To his own master he standetli or falleth.'^ 



8 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

T lliiiik tlitit you are in an error ; but wlietlier that 
error be to you a vincible or an invincible error, I 
presume not to determine. I know indeed wlieni 
it is said, tliat *' the preaching of tlic cross is to 
tlieni that perish foolishness, and that if the gospel 
be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.'' The con- 
sequence of your unbelief must be left to the just 
and merciful judgment of Him who alone knoweth 
the mechanism and the liberty of our understand- 
ings, the origin of our opinions, the strength of our 
prejudices, the excellences and the defects ^of our 
reasoning faculties. 

I shall designedly write this and the following 
letters in a popiilar manner ; hoping that thereby 
they may stand a chance of being perused by that 
class of readers for whom your work seems to be 
particularly calculated, and who are the most likely 
to be injured by it. The really learned are in no 
danger of being infected by the poison o f infide lity ; 
they will excuse me, therefore, for having entered 
as little as possible into deep disquisitions eoncern- 
; ing the authenticity of the Bible. The subject has 
'^been so learnedly and so frequently handled by 
other writers, that it does not want — I had almost 
said, it does not admit — any further proof. And 
it is the more necessary to adopt this mode of an- 
swering j^our book, because you disclaim all learn- 
ed appeals to other books, and undertake to prove, 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 9 

from the Bible itself, that it is unworthy of credit. 
I hope to show, Ironi the Bihlc^_itsclf, the direct 
contrary. But in case any of your readers should 
thinlv that you had not put forth all your strength, 
by not referring for proof of your opinion to ancient 
authors — lest they should expect that all ancient 
authors are in your favor, I will venture to affirm, 
that had you madejiJcurned -appeal to all the an- 
cient books in th^ world, sacred or .profane, CIums- 
tian, Jewish, or pagan, instead of lessening, they 
would have established the credit and, authority of 
[ pi ^he Bible as the word of God. 

Quitting your preface, let us proceed to the work 
itself, in which there is much repetition, and a de- 
fect of proper arrangement. I will follow your 
track, however, as nearly as I can. The first ques- 
tion you propose for consideration is, '^ \Vhether 
there is sufficient authority for believing the Bible 
to be the word of God, or whether there is not ?" 
You determine this questio n in the negat ivc^upon 
what you are pleased to call, mo ral evi^ e r^cf^^ J Yon 
hol d it impos sible that the Bible can be the w^ord 
\ o £ God^ because it is therein said that the Israel- 
ij ites destroyed tlui Canaanites by the express com- 
mand of God ; and to believe the Bible to be true, 
we must, you affirm, unbelieve alH)ur belief of the 
moral justice of God ; for wherein, you ask, could 
crying or smiling infants offend ? I am astonished 



10 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

that so aeiitc a rcasonor should attempt to dispar- 
age tlio l^iblo by hrint^iiig forward this exploded and 
fre(|uently ret'utod objection of Morgan, Tindal, and 
T>ohn^brokc. You })rofess yourself to l)e a deist, 
and to believe that there is a God, who created 
tJie universe, and established the laws of nature 

I by wliich it is sustained in existence. You pro- 
fess that, froni the contemplation of the works of 
God, you derive a knowledge of his attributes ; 
and you reject the Bible because it ascribes to 
God thhigs inconsistent, as you suppose, with the 
attributes which you have discovered to belong to 
liim ; in particular, you think it repugnant to his 
moral justice that he should doom to destruction 
the crying or smili T^g; infmiifl- of tlin^ Can nanites. 
Why do you not maintain it to b^ repugnant to 
his moral justice that he should suffer crying or 
smiling infants to be swallowed up by an earth- 
quake, drowned by an inundation, consumed by fire, 
starved by a famine, or destroj'ed by pestilence? 

^Tlie word of God is in perfect harmony with his 
work; crying or smiling infants are subjccted_to 
death in both. We believe that the earth, at the 
express command of Gad, opened her mouth, and 
swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with 
their wives, their sons, and their little ones. This 
you esteem so repugnant to God's moral justice, 
that you spurn, as spurious, the book in which the 



AVATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. H 

eirciunstance is related. AVhen Catania, Lima, and 
Lis])()n, were severally destroyed by earthquakes, 
men, with their Avives, their sons, and their little 
ones, were swallowed up alive — why do you not 
spurn asjjpurious tlie book of nature, in which this 
fact is certainly written, and from the perusal of 
which you infer the moral justice of God ? You 
will i)robably reply, that the evils which the Ca- 
naanites suffered from the express command of 
God, were different from those which were brought 
on mankind by the operation of the laws of nature. 
Diiferent in wdiat ? Not in the magnitude of tlie 
evil — not Hi the subjects of sufferance — not in the 
autlior of it ; for my philosophy, at least, instructs 
me to believe that God not only primarily formed, 
but that he has, through all ages, executed the laws 
of nature ; and that he will, through all eternity, 
administer them for the general happiness of his 
creatures, whether we can on every occasion dis- 
cern that^end or not. 

I am far from behig guilty of the impiety of ques- 
tioning the existence of the moral justice of God, 
as proved either by natural or revealed religion ; 
what I contend for is briefly this, that you have 
no riglit, in fairness of reasoning, to urge any ap- 
])arent deviation from moral justice as an ar gume nt 
against revealed religion, because you do not urge 
an equally apparent deviation from it, as an argu- 



.aT 



IJ ' WATSON'S TtErLY TO PAINE. 

incut {i.ii;aiiist natural rdi<^iou : you reject the for- 
mer, and admit the latter, without advertiu<^ that, as 
to your objection, they must stand or fall together. 
As to the Canaanites, it is needless to enter into 
any proof of the de})raved state of their morals ; 
they were a wicked people in tlie time of Abraham, 
and they, even then, were devoted to destruction 
by God ; but their iniquity w^as not then full. In 
the time of Moses they were idolaters, sacrificers 
of their own crying or smiling infants ; devourcrs 
of human flesh ; addicted to imnatural lusts ; im- 
mersed in the filthiness of all manner of vice. 
Now, I think it will be impossible to prove that it 
was a proceeding contrary to God's moral justice, 
to exterminate so wicked a people. He made the 
Israelites the exe cutors of his jr enge ance ; and in 
doing this" Tic ^ave^sucli an evident and terrible 
proof of his abo miiyitjon to vice, as could not fail 
to strike the surrounding nations with astonish- 
ment and terror, and to impress on the minds of 
the Israelites what they were to expect if they 
followed the example of the nations whom he com- 
manded them to cut off. '' Ye shall not commit 
any of these abominations — that the land spue not 
you out also, as it spued out the nations before 
you.'' How strong and descriptive this language ! 
the vices of the inhabitants were so abominable, 
that the very land was sirk of tliem, and forced to 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE 13 

vomit them fortli, as the stomach disgorges a dead- 
ly poison. 

I have often wondered what could be the reason 
that men, not destitute of talents, should be desir- 
ous of undermining the authority of revealed re- 
ligion, and studious in exposing, with a malignant 
J >and illiberal exultation, every little difficulty atten d- 
ing theScrij^turcs^^ and 

contempt. I am not willing to attribute this 
strange propensity to what Plato attributed the 
atheism of his time — to profligacy of manners — to 
affectation of singularity— to gross ignorance as- 
suming the semblance of deep research and supe- 
rior sagacity. I had rather refer it to an impro- 
priety of judgment_Vespecting the manners and 
mental acquirements of human kind in the first 
ages of the world. Most unbelievers argue as if 
they thought that man, in remote and rude anti- 
quity, in the very birth and infancy of our species, 
had the same distinct conceptions of one, eternal, 
invisible, incorporeal, infinitely wise, powerful, and 
good God, which they themselves have now. This 
I look upon as a great mistake, and a pregnant 
source of infidelity. Human kind, by long expe- 
rience ; by the institutions of civil society ; by the 
cultivation of arts and science ; by, as I bel ig^e, 
divmeJnsti^Ki^ nHvimlly frivPTi to some, and tra. 
ditionally communicated to all, is in a far more dis- 



14 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

tingiiished Bituation, as to tlic powers of tlic mind, 
than it was in the childliood of the world. The 
history of man is the liistory of the providence of 
(Jod ; wlio, willing the supreme felicity of all his 
creatures, has adapted his government to the capac- 
ity of those wild, in different ages, were the sub- 
jects of it. The history of any on e nationJ :lirougli- 
out all ages, and_ that af_jalL-nations in the same 
age, arc but separate parts of one great plan which 
God is carrying on for the moral melioration of 
mankind. But who can comprehend the whole of 
this immense design ? The shortness of life, the 
weakness of our faculties, the inadequacy of our 
means of information, conspire to make it impossi- 
ble for us, worms of the earth, insects of an hour, 
completely to understand any one of its parts* 
No man, who well weighs the subject, ought to 
be surprised, that in the histories of ancient times 
many things should occur foreign to our manners, 
the propriety and necessity of which v/e cannot 
clearly apprehend. 

It appears incredible to many, that God Almighty 
should have had colloquial intercourse with our first 
parents ; that he should have contracted a kind of 
friendship for the patriarchs, and entered uito cove- 
nants with them ; that he should JiavesusjDcnded 
the law^s^fnature in Egypt ; should have been so 
apparently partial as to become the God and gov- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 15 

eniorof one particular nation ; and sliould liavo so 
far demeaned liimself, as to give to that people a 
burdensome ritual of worship, statutes, and ordi- 
nances, many of which seem to be beneath the 
dignity of his attention, unimportant, and impolitic. 
I have conversed with many deists, and have 
always found that the stran<j:eness of these thim^s „ 
was the only reason for their disbelief of them : 
nothing similar has happened in their time ; they 
will not, therefore, admit that these events have^^^u 
really taken place at any time. As well might a / 
child, when arrived at a state of manhood, contend ^^ ^ 
that he never either stood in need of, or cxperi- , 
enced the fostering care of a mother's kindness, 
the wearisome attention of his nurse, or the in- 
struction and discipline of his schoolmaster. The 
Supreme Being selected one family from an idola- 
trous world ; nursed it up, by various acts of his 
providence, into a great nation ; communicated to 
that nation a knowledge of his holiness, justice, 
mercy, power, and wisdom ; disseminated them 
at various times through every part of the earth, 
that they might be a 'Meaven to leaven the whole 
lump" — that they might assure all other nations of 
TTTe (existence of one supreme God, the creator and 
preserver of the Avorld, the only proper object of 
adoration. With what reason can we expect, that 
what was done to one nation, not out of any par- 



IG WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

tiality to tluMn, I)ut for lUc-.^oncral good, should be 
done to all? That tlio mode of iiijstructioii wliich 
Avas suited to the infancy of the world, should 1)0 
extended to the maturity of its manhood, or to the 
iml)eeility of its old age ? T own to j^ou, that when 
I consider how nearly man, in a savage state, ai>» 
proaches to the brute creation, as to intellectual 
excellence, and when I contemplate his miserable 
attahiments, as to the knowledge of God, in a civ- 
ilized state, \\ dien he has had no divine instruction 
on the subject,_oi--when that instruction has been 
forgotten — for JilLnien have known something of 
God from trad ition — I cannot but admire the wis- 
dom and goodness of the Supreme Being, in hav- 
ing let himself down to our apprehensions ; in 
having given to mankind, in the earliest ages, sen- 
sible and extraordinary proofs of his existence and 
attributes ; in having made the Jewish and Chris- 
tian dispensations mediums to convey to all men, 
through all ages, that knowledge concerning him- 
self which he has vouchsafed to give immediately 
to the first. I own it is strange, very strange, 
that he should have made an immediate manifesta- 
tion of himself in the first ages of the world ; but 
what is there that is not strange ? It is strange 
that you and I are here — that there is water and 
earth and air and fire — that there is a sun and 
moon and stars — that there is generation, corrup- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 17 

tion, reproduction. I can account ultimately for none 
of these things, without recurring to Ilini who made 
every tiling. I also am his workmanship, and look 
up to him with hope of preservation through all 
eternity ; I adore him for his word as well as for liis 
work : his work I cannot comprehend, but Jjis word 
has assured me of all that I am concerned to know — 
that he has prepared everlasting liappiness for 
those Avho love and obey him. This you will call 
preachment — I will have done with it ; but the 
subject is so vast, and the plan of Providence, in 
my opinion, so obviously Avise and good, that I can 
never think of it without having my mind filled 
with reverence, admiration, and gratitude. 

In addition to the moral evidence, as you arc 
pleased to think it, against the Bible, you threaten, 
in the progress of j^our work, to produce such other 
evidence as even a priest cannot deny. A philoso- 
pher in search of truth forfeits with me all claim to 
candor and impartiality, when he introduces railing 
for reasoning, vulgar and illiberal sarcasm in the 
room of argument. I will not imitate the example 
you set me ; but examine what you shall produce 
with as much coolness and respect as if you had 
given the priests no provocation ; as if jon were a 
man of the most unblemished character, subject to 
no prejudices, actuated by no bad designs, nor lia- 
ble to have abuse retorted upon you with success. 

Rep. to Faiue. 2 



18 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 




LETTER II. 

Before yon commence your grand attack upon 
the Bible, you Avisli to establish a difference be- 
tween the evidence necessary to prove the authen- 
ticity of the Bible, and that of any other ancient 
book. I am not surprised at your anxiety on this 
head ; for all writers on the subject -have agreed in 
thinking that St. A ustin reasone d well, when, in 
vindicating the genuineness of the Bible, he asked, 
*' What proofs have we that the works of Plato, 

ristotle, Cicero, Varro, and other profane authors, 
w^ere written By those whose name they bear ; 
unless it be that this has been an opinion gener- 
ally received at all times, and by all those who 
have lived since the authors V' This writer was 
convinced that the evidence which established the 
^^genuineness of any profane book, would establish 
that of the sacred book; and I profess-myself to 
be of the same opinion , notwithstanding what you 
have advanced to the contrary. \v 

In this part your ideas seem to me to be con- 
fused : I do not say that you designedly jumble 
together mathematical science and historical evi- 
dence, the knowledge acquired by demonstration and 
the probabiUty derived from testimony. You know 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 19 

but one ancient book tliat authoritatively challenges 
universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid's 
Elements. If I were disposed to make frivolous 
objections, I should say that even Eucli(J'g'"''Ele- 
ments had not met v^ith universal consent ; that 
there had been men, both in ancient and modern 
times, who had questioned the intuitive evidence 
of some of his axioms, and denied the justness of 
some of his demonstrations ; but, admitting the 
truth, I do not see the pertinency of your observa- 
tion. You are attempting to subvert the authen- 
ticity of the Bible, and you tell us that EuclicTs 
Element ^ are cc rtainbLiJue. What then ? Does it 
follow that the Bible is certainly false ? The most 
iUiterate scrivener does not want to be informed 
that the examples in his Arithmetic are proved by 
a different kind of reasoning from that by which he 
persuades himself to believe that there was such a 
person as Henry VIII, or that fhere is^ such a city 
as Paris. 

It may be of use, to remove this confusion in 
jouY argument, to state distinctly the difference be- 
tween the genuineness and the authenticity of a 
^/fcook. A genuine book, is that which was written 
'Iby the person whose name it bears as the author 
of it. An authentic book, is that which relates mat- 
ters of fact as they really happened. A book may 
be genuine without being authentic ; and a book 



20 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

may be authentic without being genuine. The 
books written by Richardson and Fielding are gen- 
uine books, thougli the histories of Clarissa and 
Torn Jones are fables. The history of the Island 
of Formosa is a genuine book ; it was written by 
Psalmanazar, but it is not an authentic book — 
though it was long esteemed as such, and trans- 
lated into different languages — for the author, in 
the latter part of his Hfe, took shame to himself for 
having imposed on the world, and confessed that 
it was a mere romance. Anson's Voyage may be 
considered as an authentic book ; it probably con- 
tains a true narration of the principal events re- 
corded in it, but it is not a genuine book, having 
not been written by Walters^ to whom it is ascribed, - 
but by Robins. 

The distinction between the genuineness and 
authenticity of a book, will assist us in detecting 
the fallacy of an argument which you state with 
great confidence in the part of your work now 
under consideration, and which you frequently 
allude to in other parts as conclusive evidence 
against the truth of the Bible. Your arguments 
stand thus : If it be found that the books ascribed 
to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written 
by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the 
auth ority, and autli aaticity of these books is gon(3 
at once. I presume to think otherwise. The gen- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 21 

uinoness of those books — in the judgment of tliosc 
who say that they were written by these authors — 
will certainly be gonef but their authenticity may 
remain; they may still contain a true account of 
real transactions, though the names of the writers 
of them should be found to be different from what 
they are generally esteemed to be. 

Had indeed Moses said Jhat he wrote the first 
five books of the Bible ; and had Joshua and Samuel 
said that they wrote the books which are respec- 
tively attributed to them ; and had it been found 
that Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, did not write 
these books, then, I grant, the authority of the 
whole would have been gone at once : these men 
would have been found liars as to the genuineness 
of these books ; and. this proof of their want of ve- 
racity m one point, would have nivalidated their 
testimony in every other ; these books would have 
been justly stigmatized as neither genuine nor 
authentic. »'^X/v 

x/iV history may be true, though it should not 
only be ascribed to a wrong author, but though the 
author of it should not be known ; anonymous testi- 
mony does not destroy the reality of faints, whether 
natural or miraculous. Had lord Clarendon pub- 
lished his History of the Rebellion without prefix- (J.^i. 
ing his name to it ; or had the History of Titus ^ 
Livius come down to us under the name of "Vale- 



22 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

rlus Flaccus, or Valerius Miixiinus, the facts irion- 
lioiied in these histories would have been equally 
certahi. 

As to vour assertion, that the miracles recorded 
in Tacitus, and in other profane historians, are quite 
as well authenticated as those of tlfe Jiible, it 
being a mere assertion, destitute of proof, may be 
properly answered by a contrary assertion. I take 
the liberty then to say, that the evidence for the 
miracles recorded in the Bible is, both in kind and 
in degree, so greatly superior to that for the prod- y 
igies mentioned hy Livy, or the miracles related b^^ 
Tacitus, as to justify us in giving credit to the one 
as the work of God, and in withholdfng it from the 
other as the effect of superstition and imposture. 
This method of derogating from the credibility of 
Christianity, by opposing to the miracles of our 
Saviour the tricks of ancient impostors, seems to 
have originated with Hierocles in the fourth ceu- 
. tury ; and it has been adopted by unbelievers from 
that time to this — with this difference, indeed, that 
the heathens of the third and fourth centurj^ ad- 
Snitted that Jesus wrought miracles ; but lest that 

^;^^ admission should have compelled them to abandon 
y their gods and become Christians, they said that 

t,V their Apolonius, their Apuleius^ their Aristeas, did as 
great : while modern deists deny the fact of Jesus 
having ever wrought a miracle. And they have 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 23 

» 
some reason for this proceeding ; they arc sensible 

tliat the g'ospel niiracles arc so different, in all tlieir 
circumstances, from those related in pagan story, 
that if they admit them to have been performed, 
they must admit Christianity to be true ; hence 
they have fabricated a kind of deistical axiom, that 
no human testimony can establish the credibility 
of a miracle. This, though it has been a hundred 
times refuted, is still insisted upon, as if its truth 
jjad never been questioned, and could not be dis- 
])roved, 
^2^] You ''proceed to examine the authenticity of the 
"Bible ; and you begin, you say, with what are called 
the five books of Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Leviti- 
cus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Your intention, 
you profess, is to show that these books are spurious, 
tind-that Moses is not the author of them ; and still 
I'urther, that they were not written in the time of 
Moses, nor till several hundred years afterwards ; 
fcliat they are no other than an attempted history 
of the life of Moses, and of the times hi which he 
is said to have lived, and also of times prior thereto, 
written by some very ignorant and stupid pretender 
to authorship, several hundred years after the death 
.if Moses.'' In this passage the utmost force of 
)'oiir attack on the authority of the five books of 
Moses is clearly stated. You are not the first who 
has started this difficulty ; it is a difficulty, indeed, 



24 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

of modern date, having not ))cen Iieard of, either in 
syna<^Of^uo or out of it, till the twelftli century. 
About that time Aben Ezra, a Jew of great erudi- 
tion, noticed some ^passages — tlie same that you 
hive brought forward — in the first five l)ooks of the 
Bible, which he tliouglit liad not been written by 
Moses, but inserted by some person after the deatii 
of Moses. But he was far from mairitaining, as 
you do, that these books were written by some 
ignorant and stupid pretender to authorshij), many 
hundred years after the death of Moses. Ilohhcs 
contends that the books of Moses are so called, 
not from their having been written by Moses, but 
from their containing an account of Moses. Spinoza 
supported the same opinion ; and Le Clerc, a very 
able theological critic of the last and present cen- 
tury, once entertained the same notion. You see 
that this fancy has had some patrons before you ; 
the merit or the demerit, the sagacity or the temer- 
ity of having asserted that Moses is not the author 
of the Pentateuch, is not entirely yours. Le Clerc, 
indeed, you must not boast of. When his judg- 
ment was matured by age, he was ashamed of 
what he had written on the subject in his younger 
years ; he made a public recantation of his error, 
by annexing to his commentary on Genesis a Latin 
dissertation concerning Moses, the author of the 
Pentateuch, and his design in composing it* If in 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 25 

your future life you should chance to change 
your opinion on the subject, it will be an honor to 
your charactcr'to emulate the integrity and to imi- 
tate the example of Le Clerc. The Bible is not the 
only book which has undergone the fate of being 
reprobated as spurious, after it had been received 
as genuine and authentic for many ages. It has 
been maintained that the history of Herodohts was 
written in the time of Co7iskintinej' and that the 
Classics are forgeries of the thirteenth or fourteenth 
century. These extravagant reveries amused the 
world at the time of their publication, and have 
long since sunk into oblivion. You esteem all 
prophets to be such lying rascals, that I dare not 
predict the fate of your book. 
: Before you produce your main objections to the 
genuineness of the books of Moses, you assert 
that ^Hhere is i\p affirmative evidence that Moses 
is the author of them." What, no affirmative evi- 
dence ? In tHe eleventh century, Maim.onides drew 
up a confession of faith for the Jews, which all of 
them at this day admit : it consists only of thirteen 
articles, and two of them have respect to Moses ; 
one affirming the authenticity, the other the gen- 
uineness of his books. The doctrine and pcophecj^ 
of Moses is true. The law that we have was 
given by Moses. This is the faith of the Jews at 
present, and has been their faith ever since the de- 



£6 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

struction of their city and tornplo ; it was tlicir faitii 
at the time when tlie authors of the New Testament 
wrote ; it was their faith dnrin<>; their captivity in 
Babylon — in the time of their kings and judges ; 
and no period can be shown, from the age of Moses 
to the present liour, in which it was not their faith. 
Is this no affirmative evidence ? I cannot desire a 
ilfongerT JosepkuSj in his book against Ajpjpum, 
^^^writes thus, *' We have only two and twenty books 
which are to be believed as of divine authority, and 
which comprehend the history of all ages ; five be- 
long to Moses, which contain the original of man 
and the tradition of the succession of generations, 
down to liis death, which takes in a compass of 
about three thousand years." Do you consider this 
as no affirmative evidence? Why should I men- 
tion Juvenal speaking of the volume which Moses 
had written ? Why enumerate a long list of pro- 
fane authors, all bearing testimony to the fact of 
Moses being the leader and the lawgiver of the 
Jewish nation ? And if a lawgiver, surely a writer 
of the laws. But what says the Bible ? In Exodus 
it says, ''Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, 
and took the book of the covenant, and read in the 
audience of the people.'' In'Deuteronomy it says, 
''And it came to pass, when Moses had made an 
end of writing the words of this law in a book, un- 
til they were finished" — this surely imports tho 



\ 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 27 

fiiiisliiiig of a laborious work — ^Hhat Moses com- 
manded the Lovitos, whicli boar tlie ark of the 
covenant of tlie Lord, sayin<j^, Take this l)Ook of 
tlie law, and put itin the side of the ark of the 
covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be 
there for a witness against thee." This is said in 
Deuteronomy, which is a kind of repetition or 
abridgment of the four preceding books ; and it is 
well known that the Jews gave the name of the 
Law to the first five books of the Old Testament. 
What possible doubt can there be that Moses wrote 
the books in question ? I could accumulate many 
other passages from the Scriptures to this purpose ; 
but if what I have advanced will not convince 
you that there is affirmative evidence, and of the 
strongest kind, for Moses being the author of these 
books, nothing that I can advance will convince 
you. 

What if I should grant all you undertake to 
prove — the stupidity and ignorance of the writer 
excepted ? What if I should admit that Samuel or 
Ezra^ or some other learned Jew, composed those 
books from public records, many years after the 
death of Mouses ? Will it follow that there was no 
truth in them ? According to my logic, it will only 
follow that they are not genuine books ; every fact 
recorded in them may be true, whenever or by 
whomsoever they were written. It cannot be said 






jOc^' 



28 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

tliiit the Jews had no public records ; the Bible fur- 
nishes abundance of proof to the contrary. I by 
no means admit that these books, as to the main 
l)art of them, were not written by Moses ; but I 
do contend, that a book may contain a true history, 
though we know not the author oi it, or though we 
may be mistaken in ascribing it to a wrong author. 
The first argument you produce against Moses' 
being the author of these books is so old, that I do 
not know its original author ; and it is so miserable 
a one, that I wonder you should adopt it. *' These 
books cannot be written by Moses, because they 
are wrote in the third person — it is always, ^The 
Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord.' 
This," you say, *^iS"the style and manner that his- 
torians use in speaking of the persons whose lives 
and actions they are waiting." This observation is 
true, but it does not extend far enough ; for this is 
the style and manner not only of historians writing 
yof other persons, but of eminent men, such as 
^/ Xenophon and Jose/phus, writing of themselves. If 
General WashingtGn should write the history of the 
American w^ar, and should, from his great modesty, 
speak of himself in the third person, would you 
tliink it reasonable that, two or three thousand 
years hence, any person should, on that account, 
contend that the history was not true ? Ccesar 
writes of himself in the third person. It is always, 



^ 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 29 

Caesar made a speech, or a speech was made to 
Ca3sar, Caesar crossed the Rhine, Caesar invaded 
Britahi ; but every school-boy knows that this cir- 
cumstance cannot be adduced as a ^serious argu- 
• ment against Caisar's being the author of his own 
Commentaries. 

But Moses, you urge, cannot be the authgr of 
the book of Numbers, because he says of himself, 
th^t '^ Moses was a very meek man, above all the 
/\,/men that were on the face of tlie earth." If he 
said this of himself, he was, as j^ou say, *'a vain and 
arrogant coxcomb" — such is your phrase — -*'and 
unworthy of credit ; and if he did not say it, the 
• hooks are without authority." This your dilemma 
is perfectly harmless ; it has not a horn to hurt the 
weakest logician. If Moses did not write this little 
verse — if it was inserted by Samuel, or any of his 
countrymen, who knew his character and revered 
his memory, will it follow that he did not write any 
other part of the book of Numbers ? Or if he did 
not write any part of the book of Numbers, will it 
follow that he did not write any of the other books 
of which he is usually reputed the author? And 
if he did write this of himself, he was justified by 
the occasion which extorted from him this com- 
mendation. Had this expression been written in a 
modern style and manner it would probably have 
given you no offence. For who would be so fastid- 



30 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

ious as to find fault with an illustrious man, who, 
l)ein;j: caluniniat(Hl hy his nearest Halations, as guilty 
of pride and fond of power, should vindicate his 
character by»saying, My temper was naturally as 
meek and unassuming as that of any man upon 
earth? There are occasions in which a modest 
man, who sj)eaks truly, may speak proudly of him- 
self, without forfeiting his general character ; and 
there is no occasion which either more requires, or 
more excuses this conduct, than when he is repel- 
ling the foul and envious aspersions of those who 
Loth knew his character and had experienced his 
kindness ; and in that predicament stood Aaron and 
Miriam, the accusers of Moses. You yourself have 
probably felt the sting of calumny, and have been 
anxious to remove the impression. I do not call 
you a vain and arrogant coxcomb for vindicating 
your character, when in the latter part of this very 
work you boast, I hope truly, **The man does not 
exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any 
man, or any set of men, in the American revolu- 
tion, or in the French revolution ; or that I have in 
any case returned evil for evil." I know not what 
kings and priests may say to this : you may not 
have returned to them evil fcr evil, because they 
never, I believe, did you any harm ; but you hav6 
done them all the harm vou could, and that with 
out provocation. 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 3] 

I think it needless to notice your observf»iion 
upon what you call the dramatic style of Deuteroii' 
oniy ; it is an ill-fo und ed hvpothes k. You might 
as well ask where the autlior of Cigsar's Commen- 
taries got the speeches of Caesar, as where the 
autlior of Deuteronomy got the speeches of Moses. 
But your argument, that Moses was not the author 
of Deuteronomy, because the reason given in that 
book for the observation of the Sabbath is different ^ 
from that given in Exodus, merits a reply. 

You need not be told that the v(^ry name of this 
book impor^sTTn Greek, a repetition of a law ; and 
that the Hebrew doctors have called it by a word 
of the same* meaiillig. In the fifth verse of the first 
chapter it is said in our Bibles, ''Moses began to 
declare this law ;" but the Hebrew words, more 
properly translated, import that ''iIose,s_l>egan, oi 
determined Jo exglaiiitlia law.'^ This is no shift . 
of mine to get over a difficulty ; the words are se 
rendered in most of the ancient versions, and by 
Fagius^ VatahluSj and Le Clcrc^ men eminently 
skilled in thaJSebrew-Janguage. This repetition 
and explanation- ©f-4he la\^ was a wise and benev- 
olent proceeding in Moses, that those who were 
either not born^or were mere infants, when it was 
first — forty years before — delivered in Horeb, might 
have an opportunity of knowing it ; especially as 
Moses their leader was so soon to be taken from 



32 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

tlicin, and they were about to be Bottled in the 
midst o£ nations given to idolatry and sunk in vice. 
Now, Avhcrc_ia~tUc_wonder that some variations 
and some additioua-^liould be made to a law, when 
a legislator thi^nks_iit to repuljlisli it many years 
after its first promulgation? 

AVith respect to the Sjiblmtlij the learned are 
divided in opinion concerning its origin — some con- 
tending that it was sanctified from the creation of 
the world ; that it was jobservcd by the patriarchs 
before the flood ; that it was neglected by the Is- 
raelites during their bondage in Egypt, revived on 
the falling of manna in the wilderness, and enjoined 
as a positive law at Sinai. Othcrs_e^tcem_its in- 
stitution to have been no older than the age of 
Moses ; and argue, that what Ts said of the sancti- 
fication'orihe Sabbath in the book, of Genesis, is 
said by way of anticipation. There may be truth 
in both these accounts. To me it is probable that 
the memory of the creation was handed down from 
Adam to all his posterity ; and that the seventh 
day was for a long time held sacred by all nations, 
in commemoration of that event ; but that the pe- 
culiar rigidness of its observance was enjoined by 
Moses to the Israelites alone. As-4e-4here Joeing 
two reasons given for its beiiig--ko}3t holy — one, 
that on that day God rested fr-om-4he work of cre- 
ation ; the other, that on thaL-day-God had given 



WATSON'S REPLT TO PAINE. 33 

them rest from^lic servitude of Eirvpt — ^I see no , 
contradiction in tlie accounts . If a man, in writii^ 
tlie history of England, should inform his readers ^ 
that the parliament had ordered the fifth day of 
November to be kept holy, because on that day 
God delivered the nation from a bloody intended 
massacre by gunpowder ; and if, in another part of 
his history, he should assign the deliverance of our 
church and nation from popery and arbitrary power, 
by the arrival of king William, as a reason for its 
being kept holy ; would any one contend that he 
was not justified in both these ways of expression, 
or that we ou2:ht from thence to conclude that he 
was not the author of them both ? 

You think 'Hhat law in Deuteronomy inhuman 
and brutal, w^hicli authorizes parents, the father and 
the mother, to bring their own children to have 
them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call 
stubbornness." You are aware, I suppose, that 
paternal power among the Romans^ the Gauls^ the 
PcfsianSj and other nations, was of the most arbi- 
trary kind ; that it extended to the taking away of 
the life of the child. I do not know whether the 
Israelites in the time of Moses exercised this pa- 
ternal power ; it was not a custom adopted by all 
nations, but it was by many, and in the infanc}^ of 
society, before individual families had coalesced into 
communities, it was probably very general. Now 

Rep. to Paine. 3 



34 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

Moses, by this law, wliicli you esteem brutal and 
ii;lnnnan, hindered sueh an extravagant power from 
/ being either introduced or exercised among the Is- 
raelites. This law is so far from countenancing the 
arbitrary power of a father over the life of his child, 
that it takes from him the power of accusing the 
child before a magistrate : the father and mother 
of the child must agree in bringmg the child to 
judgment ; and it is not by their united will that 
the child was to be condemned to death — the elders 
of the city were to judge whether the accusation 
was true ; and the accusation was to be not merely, 
as YOU insinuate, that the child was stubborn, but 
that he was ''stubborn and rebellious, a glutton 
and a drunkard.'^ Considered in this light, you 
must allow the law to have been a humane re- 
Y' striction of a power improper to be lodged with any 
parent. 
) That you maj abuse the priests, jon abandon 
I your subject. " Eriests^,^^ you say, ''preach up Deu- 
teronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes." 
I do not know that priests preach up Deuteronomy 
more than they preach lip^her booTis of Scripture ; 
but I do know that tithes are not preached up in 
Deuteronomy more than in Leviticus, in Numbers, 
in Chronicles, in Malachi, in the law, the history, 
and the prophets of the Jewish nation. You go on : 
''It is from this book, chap. 25, ver. 4, they have 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 35 

. taken the plirasc, and applied it to tithing, 'Thou 
shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the 
corn •/ and that this might not escape observation^ 
they have noted it in the table of the contents at 
the head of the chapter, though it is only a single 
verse of less than two lines. priests, priests, 
ye are wilhng to be compared to an ox, for the sake 
of tithes !^' I^annot call this reasoning, and I will 
not i)ollute my page by giving it a proper appella- 
tion Had the table of contents, instead of simply 
saying, The ox is not to be muzzled, said. Tithes 
enjoined, or priests to be maintained, there would 
have been a little ground for j^our censure. Who- 
ever noted this phrase at the head of the chapter, 
had better reason for doing it than you have attrib- 
uted to them. They did it, because St. Paul had 
quoted it when he was proving to the Corinthians 
that they who preached the gospel had a right to 
live by the gospel ; it was Paul, and not the priests, 
who first applied this phrase to tithing. St. Paul, 
indeed, did not avail himself of the right he con- 
tended for; he was not, therefore, interested in 
what he said. The reason on which he grounds 
the right is not merely this quotation, which you 
ridicule ; nor the appointment of the law of Moses, 
wdiich you think fabulous ; nor the injunction of 
Jesus, which you despise : no, it is a reason founded 
in the nature of things, and which no philosopher, 



30 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

no iinl)eliovor, no man of common-sense, can deny 
to be a solid reason : it amounts to tliis, that '*tlie 
laborer is worthy of his hire." Nothing is so mucli 
a man's own as his labor and ini:^enuity ; and it is 
entirely consonant to the law of nature, that by 
tiie innocent use of these he should provide for his 
subsistence. Husbandmen, artists, soldiers, phy- 
sicians, lawyers, all let out their labor and talents 
for a stipulated reward ; why may not a priest do 
the same ? Some accounts of you have been pul> 
lished in England ; but conceiving them to have 
proceeded from a design to injure your character, 
I never read them. I know nothing of your par- 
entage, your education, or condition of life. You 
may have been elevated, by your birth, above the 
necessity of acquiring the means of sustaining life 
by the labor of either hand or head ; if this be the 
case, you ought not to despise those who have come 
into the world in less favorable circumstances. If 
your origin has been less fortunate, you must have 
supported yourself either by manual labor or the 
exercise of your genius. Why should you think 
that conduct disreputable in priests, which you prob- 
ably consider as laudable in yourself? I will just 
mention, that the payment of tithes is no new 
institution, but that they were paid in the most 
ancient times, not to priests only, but to kings. 
1 could give a hundred instances of this ; two may 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 37 

be sufficient. Abraham paid tithes to tlie king of 
Salem, four hundred years before the law of Moses 
was given. The king of Salem was priest also of 
the most high God. Priests, you see, existed in 
the world, and were held in high estimation — for 
khigs were priests — long before the impostures, as 
you esteem them, of the Jewish and Christian dis- 
pensations were heard of. But as^lliis. instance is 
taken from a book which you call ''a book of con- 
tradictions and lies"— the Bible— I will give you 
another, from a book, to the authority of which, as 
it is written by a profane author, you probably will 
not object. Diogenes Laertms^ in his life of SoloTiy 
cites a letter of Pisistratus to that lawgiver, in 
which he says, ''I Pisistratus, the Tyrant, am con- 
tented with the stipends which were paid to those 
who reigned before me ; the people of Athens set 
apart a tenth of the fruits of their land, not for my 
private use, but to be expended in the public sacri- 
fices, and for the general good." 



38 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 



LETTER III. 

Having done with what you call the p^rammatical 
evidence that Moses was not the author of the 
books attributed to him, you come to your historical 
dnd chronological evidence, and you begin with 
Genesis. Your first argument is taken from the 
single word, Dan, being found in Genesis, when it 
appears, from the book of Judges, that the town 
Laish was not called Dan till above three hundred 
and^thirty^years after the death of Moses; there- 
fore the writer of Genesis, you conclude, must have 
lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan 
given it. Lest this objection should not be obvious 
enough to a common capacity, you illustrate in the 
following manner: ''Havre-de-Grace was called 
Havre-Marat in 1793; should then any dateless 
writing be found, in after-times, with the name of 
Havre-Marat, it would be certain evidence that such 
a writino: could not have been written till after the 
year 1793." This is a wrong conclusion. Suppose 
some hot republican should at this day publish a 
new edition of any old history of France, and in- 
stead of Havre-dc-Grace should write Havre-Marat ; 
and that, two or three thousand years hence, a 
man like yourself should, on that account, reject 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAIKE. 39 

the whole history as spurious, would he be justi- 
fied in so doing? Would it not be reasonable to 
tell him that the name of Ilavre-Marat had been 
inserted, not by the original author of the history, 
but by a subsequent editor of it ; and to refer him, 
for a proof of the genuineness of tlic book, to the 
testimony of the whole French nation ? This sup- 
position so obviously applies to your difficulty, that 
I cannot but recommend it to your impartial atten- 
tion. But if this solution does not please you, I 
desire it may be proved that the Dan mentioned in 
Genesis was the same town as the Dan mentioned 
in Judges ; I desire, further, to have it proved that 
the Dan mentioned in Genesis was the name of 
a town, and not of a river. It is merely said, 
Abram pursued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan. 
Now, a river was full as likely as a town to stop 
a pursuit. Lot, we know, was settled in the plain 
of Jordan^ and Jordan, we know, was comjx^sed 
of the united streams of two rivers called Jor and 
Dan, 

Your next difl5culty respects its being said in 
Genesis, '' These are the kings that reigned in Edom 
before there reigned any king over the children of 
Israel.'^ '*This passage could only have been writ- 
ten,'' you say, and I think you say rightly, '' after the 
first king began to reign over Israel : so far from 
being written by Moses, it could not have been 



40 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

writton till the time of Saul at the least." T admit 
Jtljis iufereiicc, but I deny its application. A small 
addition to a book does not destroy either the gen- 
uineness or the authenticity of the whole book. I 
am not ignorant of the manner in which commen- 
,tators have answered this objection of^pixioza, 
w^ithout making the concession which I have made ; 
but I hav.e no scruple in admitting that the passage 
in question, consisting of nine verses, containing 
the genealogy of soiuiL.kiiigs oLEdDm^ Wiig^it have 
been inserted in the book of Genesis after the book 
of Chronicles — which was called, in Greek, by a 
name importing that it contained things left out 
in other books — =w^as written. The learned have 
shown that interpolations have happened to other 
books ; but these hisertions by other hands have 
never been considered as invahdating theauthority 
of the books. ' - — ^ 

'^Take aw^ay from Genesis," you say, '*the belief 
that Moses was the author, on which only the 
strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, 
and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anon- 
ymous book of stories, fables, traditionary or in- 
vented absurdities, or ot downright lies." What, 
is it a story, then, tKaFthe world had a beginning, 
and that the author of it was God ? If you deem 
this a story, I am not disputing with a deistical 
philosopher, but wnth an atheistic madman. Is it 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 41 

u story, that our first parents fell from a paradisiacal 
state — that this earth was destroyed by a deluge — 
that Noali and his family were preserved in the 
ark — and that the world has been repeopled by his 
descendants? Look into a book so common that 
almost every body has it, and so excellent that no 
person ought to be without it — Grotius on the Truth 
of the Christian Religion — and you will there meet 
with abundant testimony to the truth of all the 
principal facts recorded in Genesis. The testimony 
is not that of Jews, Christians, and priests ; it is 
the testimony ,of the philosophers, historians, and 
poets of antiquity. The oldest book in the world 
is Genesis ; and it is remarkable that those books 
which come nearest to it in age, are those which 
make either the most distinct mention, or the most 
evident allusion to the facts related in Genesis con- 
corning the formation of the world from a chaotic 
mass, the primeval innocence and subsequent fall 
of man, the longevity of mankind in the first ages 
of the world, the depravity of the antediluvians, 
and the destruction of the world. Read the tenth 
chapter of Genesis. It may appear to you to con- 
tain nothing but an uninteresting narration of the 
descendants of Shem^ Ham, and Jajpheth — a mere 
fable, an invented absurdity, a do^right lie No, 
sir, it is one of the most valuable and the most 



venerable records of antiquity. It explains what all 






42 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

profane historians were ignorant of — the orjgin of 
nations. Had it told us, as other books do, that 
one nation had sprun^^ out of tlie earth they inhab- 
ited ; another from a ericket or a grasshopjxjr ; an- 
other from an oak ; another from a mushroom ; an- 
other from a dragon's tooth ; then indeed it would 
liavc merited the appellation you, with so much 
\ , temerity, bestow uix)n it. Instead of these ab- 
Jt surdities, it gives such an account of peo])rmg the 
<(^ (TartiT after the deluge, as no other book in the 
world ever did give ; and the truth of which, all 
other l30oks in the world, which contain any thing 
on the subject, confirm. The last verse of the chai> 
ter says, '* These are the families of the sons of 
Noah, after their generations, in their nations ; and 
by these were the nations divided in the earth after 
the flood." It would require great learning to trace 
out precisely, either the actual situation of all the 
countries in which these founders of empires settled, 
or to ascertain the extent of their dominions. This, 
however, has been done by various authors, to the 
satisfaction of all competent judges ; so much at 
least to my satisfaction, that, had I no other proof 
of the authenticity of Genesis, I should consider 
this as sufficient. But without the aid of learning, 
any man who can barely read his Bible, and has 
but heard of such people as the Assyrians^ the 
Ela mites ^ tlie Lydians, the MedeSy the lonians, the 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 43 

ThracianSj will reiidily acknowlcdgo that they had 
Asur, and Elam^ and Ltul^ and Madidj and Javan, 
and Tiras^ grandsons of Noah^ for their respective 
founders ; and knowing this, he will not, I liope, 
part with his Bible as a system of fables. I am 
no enemy to philosophy, but when philosophy 
would rob me of my Bible, T must say of it, as 
Cicero said of the twelve tables, '*This little book 
alone exceeds the libraries of all the philosophers, 
in the weight of its authority, and in the extent of 
its ntiliiy." 

From the abuse of the Bible you proceed to that 
of Moses, and again bring forward the subject of 
his wars in the land of Canaan. There are many 
men who look upon all war — would to God that 
all men saw it in the same light — with extreme ab- 
horrence, as afflicting mankind with calamities not 
necessary, shocking to humanity, and repugnant 
to reason. But is it repugnant to reason that God 
should, by an express act of his providence, destroy 
a wicked nation? I am fond of considering the 
goodness of God as the leading principle of his con- 
duct towards mankind, of consideringQiis justice as 
subservient to his merc;^^ He punishes individuals 
and nations with the rod of his wrath ; but I am 
persuaded that all his punishments originate fin his 
abhorrence of sin, arc calculated to lessen us in- 
fluence, and are proofs of his goodness^ inasmuch 



44 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

as it may not be possible for Omnipotence itself to 
communicate supreme Iiap[)iness to the human race 
while they continue servants of sin. The destruc- 
tion of the Canaanites exhibits to'all nations, in all 
ag-es, a signal proof of GotUs dis[)leasure jJii;a,iiAS.t 
sin : it has been to others, and it is to ourselves, a 
benevolent warning. Closes would have been the 
wfetcii you represent him, had he acted by his own 
authority alonc^ but you may as reasonably attrib- 
ute cruelty and murder to the judge of the land 
in condemninjj criminals to death, as butchery and 
massacre to [Moses in executing the command of 
God^ ^ 

The Midianites, through the counsel of Balaam, 
and by the vicious instrumentality of their women, 
had seduced a part of the Israelites to idolatry, to 
the impure w^orship of their infamous god Baal-peor : 
for this offence, twenty-four thousand Israelites had 
perished in a plague from heaven, and Moses re- 
ceived a command from God '^to smite the Midi- 
anites who had beguiled the people." An army 
was equipped, and sent against Midian. When the 
army returned victorious, Moses and the princes 
of the congregation went to meet it ; and *' Moses 
was wroth with the officers." He observed the 
women captives, and he asked with astonishment, 
''Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, 
these caused the children of Israel, through the 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 45 

counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the 
Lord in tlie matter of Peer, and there was a plague 
among tlie congregation " lie then gave an order 
that the boys and the women should be put to 
death, but that the young maidens should be kept 
alive for themselves. I see nothing in this proceed- 
ing, but good policy combined with mercy. The 
young men might have become dangerous avengers 
of what they would esteem their country^s wrongs ; 
the mothers might have again allured the Israelites 
to love licentious pleasures and the practice of idol- 
atry, and brought another plague upon the con- 
gregation ; but the young maidens, not being pol- 
luted by the flagitious habits of their mothers, nor 
likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept 
alive. You give a different turn to the matter ; ^^ 
you say, that ''thirty-two thousand women-children j>'^ 
were consigned to debauchery by the order of 
Moses." Prove this, and I will allow that Moses '^-b^ ^. 
w^as the horrid monster you make him ; prove this, ^^ 
and I will allow that the Bible is what you call it, 
'' a book of l ies, w ickedness, and blasphemy:" prove 
this, or excuse my warmth if I say to you, as Paul 
said to Elymas the sorcerer, who sought to turn 
away Sergius Paulus from the faith, ''0 full of all^ 
subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, L 
thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not ( 
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" ly 



46 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

did not, wlicn I began these letters, think that I 
Khoiihl have been moved to this severity of rebuke 
by any thing you could have written ; but when 
so gross a misrepresentation is made pf God's i)ro- 
1^ ceedings, coohiess would be a crime/ The women- 
children were not reserved for the purposes of de- 
bauchery, but of slavery-::::^ custom abhorrent from 
our manners, but everywhere practised in former 
times, and still practised in countries where the 
benignity of the Christian religion has not softened 
the ferocity of human nature. You here admit a 
part of the account given in the Bible respecting 
the expedition against Midian to be a true account : 
it is not unreasonable to desire that you will ad- 
mit the whole, or show suflBcient reason why you 
admit one part and reject the other. I will mention 
the part to which you have paid no attention. The 
Israelitisir army consisted but of twelve thousand 
men, a mere handful w^hen opposed to the people 
of Midian ; yet, when the officers made a muster 
of their troops after their return from the war, 
they found that they had not lost a single man ! 
This circumstance struck them as so decisive an 
evidence of God's interposition, that out of the 
spoils they had taken they offered ''an oblation to 
the Lord, an atonement for their souls." Do but 
believe what the captains of thousands and the caj)- 
tains of hundreds believed at the time when these 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 47 

things happened, and we shall never more hear of 
your objections to the Bible from its account of the 
Avars of Moses ^ 

You produce two or three other objections re- 
specting the genuineness of the first five books of 
the Bible, I cannot stop to notice them : every 
commentator answers them m a manner suited tp 
the apprehension of even a mere English reader 
You calculate to the thousandth part of an inch,^^ 
the length of the iron bed of Og the king of Bashan ; 
but you do not prove that the bed was too big for 
the body, or that a Patagonian would have been 
lost in it. You make no allowance for the size of 
a royal bed, nor ever suspect that king Og might 
liave been possessed with the same kind of vanity 
which occupied the mind of king Alexander wlien 
he ordered his soldiers to enlarge the size of their 
beds, that they might give the Indians, in succeed- 
ing ages, a great idea of the prodigious stature of a 
Macedonian. In many parts of your work you 
speak much in commendation of science. I join 
with you in every commendation you can give it ; 
but you speak of it in such a manner as to give room 
to believe that you are a great proficient in it : it 
this be the case, I would recommend a problem to 
your attention, the solution of which you will readily 
allow to be far above the powers of a man con- 
versant only, as you represent priests and bishops 



48 WATSON'S RETLY TO TAJNE. 

to be, in hicy hccc^ hoc. Tlio j)ro])lcm is this — to de- 
teriiiine the heiglit to wliich a liuin«aii body, pre- 
serving its simihirity o^ figure, may be augmented, 
before it will perish by its own weight. AVhen 
you liavc solved this problem, we shall know 
whether the bed of the king of Bashau was too 
big for any giant ; whether the existence of a man 
twelve or fifteen feet high is in the nature of things 
fim possible My philosophy teaches me to doubt 
of many things, but it does not teach me to reject 
every testimony which is opposite to my experi- 
ence : had I been in Shetland, I could, on proper 
testimony, have beheved in the existence of the 
Lincolnshire ox, or of the largest dray-horse in 
London, though the oxen and horses in Shetland 
had not been bigger than mastiffs. 



WATSON'S RETLY TO TAINE. ^Q 



LETTER IV. 

Having finished your objections to the genuine- 
ness of tlie books of Moses, you proceed to your 
remarks on the book of Joshua ; and from its in- 
ternal evidence you endeavor to prove that this 
book was n ot written by Jo_s hua. What then? 
what is your conclusion ? '^ Tha^t^it is aiionymous, 
and without authoritja!L^ Stop a little : your con- 
clusion is not connected with your premises ; your 
friend Euclid would have been ashamed of it. 
" Anonymous, and therefore without authority V^ 
I have noticed this solecism before ; but as you 
frequently bring it forward — and indeed your book 
stands much in need of it — I will submit to your 
consideration another observation on the subject. 
The book called Fleta is anonymous ; but it is not 
on that account without authority. Doomsday- 
book is anonymous, and was written above seven 
hundred years ago ; yet our courts of law do not 
hold it to be without authority as to the facts re- 
lated in it. Yes, you will say, but this book has 
been preserved with peculiar care among the rec- 
ords of the nation. And who told you that the 
Jews had no records, or that thej^ did not preserve 



them with singular care ? Josephus says the con- 
trary ; and in the Bible itself an appeal is made to 

Rep So Paine 4 



5Q WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

many books wliicli liavo perished, such as the 
book of Jaslier, the book of Natlian, of Abijali, of 
Iddo, of Jehii, of natural history l)y Solomon, of the 
acts of Manasseh, and others Mdiich niiglit hp men- 
tioned. If any one having access to the journals 
of the lords and commons, to the books of the trea- 
sury, war-office, privy council, and other public 
documents, should at this day write a history of 
the reigns of George the First and Second, and 
should publish it without his name, would any 
man, three or four hundreds or thousands of years 
hence, question the authority of that book, when 
he knew that the whole British nation had received 
it as an authentic book from the time of its first 
publication to the age in which he lived ? This 
supposition is in point. The books of the Old Tes- 
tament were composed from the records of the 
Jewish nation, and they have been received as 
true by that nation, from the time in which tliey 
were written to the present day. Dodsley's An- 
nual Register is an anonymous book, we only 
knov/ the name of its editor ; the New Annual 
Register is an anonymous book ; the Reviews are 
anonymous books ; but do we, or will our posterity 
esteem those books of no authority ? On the con- 
trar}^, ihcy are admitted at present, and will be 
received in after-ages, as authoritative records of 
the civil and military and literary history of Eng- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 51 

land and of Europe. So little foundation is tliere 
for our being startled by your assertion, ^* It is 
anonymous, and witliout authority." 

If I am right in this reasoning — and I protest to 
you that I do not sec any error in it — all the argu- 
ments you adduce in proof that the book of Joshua 
was not written by Joshua, nor that of Samuel by 
Samuel, are nothing to the purpose for which you 
have brought them forward : these books may be 
books of authority, though all you advance against 
the genuineness of them should be granted. No 
article of faith is injured by allowing that there is 
no such positive proof, when or by whom these 
and some other books of holy Scripture were writ- 
ten, as to exclude all possibility of doubt and cavil. 
There is no necessity, indeed, to allow this. The 
chronological and historical difficulties, which others 
before you have produced, have been answered, 
and as to the greatest part of them so well an- 
swered, that I will not waste the reader's time by 
entering into a particular examination of them. 

You make yourself merry with what you call 
the tale of the sun standing still upon mount Gib- 
eon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon ; and 
you say that *Hhe story detects itself, because 
there is not a nation in the world that knows any 
thing about it." How can you expect that there 
should, when there is not a nation in the world 



53 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

wliosc annals rcacli this era by many liundrcd 
years? It happens, liowevcr, that you arc proba- 
bly mistaken as to the faet ; a confused tradition 
concerning this miracle, and a similar one in tlie 
time of Ahaz, when the sun went back ten degrees, 
has beeTTprcservea among one of the most ancient 
nations, as we a rc^informed b y one of the most 
ancient historians. Herodotus, in his Eutcrjx}, 
speaking of tlle^E7;yptiltn priests, says, ''They told 
me that the sun Jiad four times deviated from his 
, course, having ^twica--risen where he uniformly 
^Y'^es down, and twice gone down where he uni- 
^ formly rises. Tliis however had produced no al- 
teration in the climate of Egypt ; the fruits of the 
earth and the phenomena of the Nile had always 
been the same." Beloe^s Translation. The last 
part of this observation confirms the conjecture, 
that this account of the Egyptian priests had a 
reference to the two miracles respecting the sun 
mentioned in Scripture ; for thej^ were not of that 
kind which could introduce any change in climates 
or seasons. You would have been contented to 
^dmit the account of this rnirnrle as^Jj^o^UQce^of 



\^^ poetical imagery : you may have seen some Jew- 
ish-doctors, and some Christian commentators, who 
consider it as such, but impi?^perly, in my opinion. 
I think it idle at least, if not impious, to undertake 
to explain how the miracle was performed ; but 




WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 53 

one who is not able_ to^ explain the mode of doing 
a thing, arguQs ill if lie hence infers that the thing- 
was not done. We are perfecth^ ignorant how the 
sun was formed, liow^lhe planets were projected 
at the creation, how they are still retained in their 
orbits by the power of gravity ; but we admit, not- 
withstanding, that the sun was formed, that the 
planets were then projected, and that they are still 
retained in their orbits. The machine of the uni- 
verse is in the hand of God ; he can stop the motion 
of"any^part, or of the whole ofjt, jwith less trouble 
and less dangeFoflnJuring it than you can stop your 
watch. In testimony of the reality of the miracle, 
the author of the book says, ^^ Is not this w^rittcn 
in the book of Jasher T^ No author in his senses 
would have appealed, in proof of his veracity, to a 
book which did not exist, or in attestation of a fact 
which, though it did exist, was not recorded in it ; 
we may safely therefore conclude, that, at the time 
the book of Joshua was written, there was such a 
book a_s jthe book of Jasher, and that the miracle of 
the sun's standing still was r ecorded in t hat book. 
But this observation, you will say, does not prove 
the fact of the sun's having stood still. I have not 
produced it as a proof of that fact ; but it proves 
that the author of the book of Joshua believed tlie 
fact, that the people of Israel admitted the authority 
of the book of Jasher. An appeal to a fabulous 



54 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

book would luivc been as scnacloss an insult upon 
tb(Mr Hiiderstandinp:, as it would liave been upon 
ours bad ]vaj)in appealed to tbe Arabian Nigbtai 



Entertainments as a proof of tlic battle of llast- 



nigs. 



I cannot attribute mucb weigbt to your argu- 
ment against tbe genuineness of the book of Josh- 
ua, from its being said that *^ Joshua burned jV^ 
and made it a heap for ever, even a desolation 
unto this day.''^ Joshua lived twenty-four years 
after the burning of Ai ; and if he wrote his history 
in the latter part of his life, w^liat absurdity is there 
in saying, Ai is still in ruins, or Ai is in ruins to 
this very day ? K young man, who had seen the 
hea3s of the rebels in forty-five, when they were 
first stuck upon the poles at Temple-Bar, might, 
twenty years afterwards, in attestation of his 
veracity in speaking of the fact, have justly said, 
And they are there to this very day. Whoever 
wrote the gospel of St. Matthew, it w^as written not 
many centuries, probably — I had almost said cer- 
tainly — not a quarter of ono century after the death 
of Jesus ; yet the author, speaking of the potter^s 
field which had been purchased by the chief priests 
with the money they had given to Judas to betray 
his Master, says that it was thereibre called the 
field of blood unto this day; and in another place 
he says that the story of the body of Jesus behig 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 55 



y"' 



\ stolen out of the scpulclirc was commonly reported 
among the Jews wdil this day, Moses, in his old 
age, had made use of a similar expression, when 
he put the Israelites in mind of what the Lord had 
done to the Egyptians in the Red sea : ^' The Lord 
hath destroyed them unto this day." Deut. 11:4. 
In the last chapter of the book of Joshua it is 
related that Joshua assembled all the tribes of Is- 
rael to Shechem, and there, in the presence of the 
elders and principal men of Israel, he recapitulated, 
in a short speech, all that God had done for their 
nation from the calling of Abraham to that time, 
when they were settled in the land which God 
had promised to their forefathers. In finishing his 
speech, he said to them, ^' Choose you this day 
whom you will serve ; whether the gods which 
your fatliers served, that were on the other side 
of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose 
land ye dwell : but as for me and my house, we 
will serve the Lord.'' And the people answered 
and said, '' God forbid that we should forsake the 
Lord to serve other gods." Joshua urged farther, 
that God would not suffer them to worship other 
gods hi fellowship witli him. They answered that 
''tliey would serve the Lord." Joshua then said 
to them, ''Ye are witnesses against yourselves 
that ye have chosen you the Lord to serve him." 
And they said, "We are witnesses." Here was a 



56 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

solonin covenant between Joshua, on the ])art of 
tlie Lord, and all the men of Israel, on their own 
l)art. The text then says, ^* So Joshua made a 
covenant with the people that day, and sc^t them a 
statute and an ordinance in Sheclumi ; and Joshua 
10 rote these words in the hook of the law of God^ 
Here is a proof of two things : first, that there 
was then, a few j^ears after the death of Moses, 
existing a book called the Book of the Law of God ; 
the same, without doubt, which Moses had written, 
and committed to the custody of the Levites, that 
it might be kept in the ark of the covenant of the 
Lord, that it might be a witness against them ; 
secondly, that Joshua wrote a part at least of his 
own transactions in that very book, as an addition 
to it. It is not a proof that he wrote all his own 



transactio ns in any book ; but I submit entirely to 
the judgment of every candid man, whether this 
proof of his having recorded a very material trans- 
action does not make it probable that he recorded 
.other material transactions — that he wrote the 
>,^chief part of the book of Joshua — and that such 
^\<f'V things as happened after his death have been in- 
r^ '^ I serted in it by others, in order to ^render the his- 
^tory more complete. 

The book of Joshua, chap. 6, ver. 26, is quoted 

"^ in the first book of Kings, chap. 16 : 34, '' In his," 

\^ Ahab's, ^'days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho ; 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 57 

he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first- 
born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest 
son Segub, according to the word of the Lord which 
lie spake by Joshua the son of Nun.'^ Here is a 
proof that the book of Joshua is older than the first 
book of Kings : but that is not all which may rea- 
sonably be inferred, I do not say proved, from this 
quotation. It may be inferred from the phrase, 
*' according to the word of the Lord which he spake 
by Joshua the son of Nun," that Joshua wrote 
down the word which the Lord had spoken. In 
Baruch — which, though an apocryphal book, is au- 
thority for this purpose — there is a similar phrase : 
as thou spakest by thy servant Moses in tlie day 'x 
when thou didst command him to write thy law, ^ 

I think it unnecessary to make any observations 
on what you say relative to the book of fudges ; 
but I cannot pass unnoticed your censure of the 
boo k of Iluth, which you call *^ an idle bungling 
story, foolishly told, nobody knows by whom, about 
a strolling country girl creeping slyly to-bed to her 
cousin Boaz : pretty stuff indeed," you exclaim, 
*' to be called the word of God !" It seems to me 
that/^^ou do not perfectly comprehend what is ^ 
meant by tlic expression, the word of God, or the 
divine authority of the Scripture^ I will explain.^ 
it to you in the words of Dr. Law, late Bishop of 
Carlisle, and in those of St. Austin. My first quo- 



58 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

tiition is from Bislioj) Law^s Theory of Religion, a 
hook not undeservin<:^ your notice. *' The true 
sense tlien of the divine authority of tlie books of 
tlie OKI Testament, and which i)erliaps is cnougli 
\ to denominate tliem in genera l dirinely in spired, 
seems to be this : that as in tTiose times God has 
all along, besides the inspection or superintendency 
of his general providence, interfered upon particu- 
lar occasions, by giving express commissions to 
some persons, thence called prophets, to declare his 
will in various manner s and degrees of evidence, 
as best suited the occasion, time, and nature of 
the subject, and in~all other cases left them wholly 
to themselves : in like manner he has interposed 
his more immediate assistance — and notified it to 
them, as they did__tgJJiajiXuid — in the recording of 
these revelations, so far as that was necessarj^, 
amidst the" common, but from hence termed sacred, 
history of those times ; and mixed with various 
other occurrences, in which the historian's own 
natural qualifications w^ere sufficient to enable him 
to relate things with all the accuracy they requir- 
ed.'^ The passage from St. Austin is this : ** I am 
of opinion that those men to whom the Holy Ghost 
revealed w^hat ought to be received as authorita- 
tive in religion, might write some things as men, 
with historical diligence, and other things as proph- 
ets, by divine inspiration ; and that these things 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 59 

are so disLiiict, that the former may be attributed 
to themselves as contributing to the increase of 
knowledge, and the latter to God speaking l)y 
them things op})ertaining to the authority of re- 
ligion." Whether tiiis opinion be right or wrong, 
I do not here inquire ; it is the opinion of many 
iCarned men and good Christians ; and if j'ou will 
adopt it as j^our opinion, you will see cause, per- 
haps, to become a Christian yourself — you will 
see cause to consider chronological, geographical, 
or genealogical crrojs, apparent mistakes or real 
contradiction^ as tu hisluiical facts, needless repe- 
titions and trifling interpolations — indeed, you will 
see cause to consider all the principal objections of 
3^our book to be absolutely without foundation. 
Only receive the Bible as composed by upright 
and well informed, though, in some points, fallibig, 
men — for I exclude all ftUlibility when they profess 
to deliver the word of God--and you must receive 
it as^a l5t)ok revealing to you, in many parts, the 
express will of God ; and in other parts, relating 
to you the ordinary history of the times. Give 
but the authors of the Bible that credit which youi 
give to other historians : believe them to deliver 
the word of God, when they tell you that they do 
so ; believe, when they relate other things as of 
themselves and not of the Lord, that they wrote 
",0 the best of their knowledge and capacity, and 



GO WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

you will be in your belief somethini^ very difrereut 
from a deist : you may not be allowed to asi)ire to 
the character of au orthodox believer, but you will 
not be an unbeliever in the divine authority of the 
Bible, thou<^h you should admit human mistakes 
and human opinions to exist in some parts of it. 
Tliis 1 take to be the first step towards the removal 
of the doubts of many sce[)ticfil men ; and when 
they arc advanced thus far, the grace of God as- 
sisting, a teachable disposition and a pious inten- 
tion may carry them on to perfection. 

As to Ruth, you do an injury to her character. 
She was not a strolling country girl. She had 
been married ten years ; and being left a widow 
without children, she accompanied her mother-in- 
law, returning into her native country, out of 
which, with her husband and her two sons, she 
had been driven by a famine. The disturbances 
in France have driven* many men with their fami- 
lies to America ; if, ten years hence, a woman, 
liaving lost her husband and her children, should 
return to France wnth a daughter-in-law, would 
you be justified in calling the da.ughter-in-law a 
strolling country girl ? *' But she crept slyly to-bed 
to her cousin Boaz." I do not find it so in the 
history : as a person imploring protection, she laid 
herself down at the foot of an aged kinsman's bed, 
and she rose up with as much innocence as she had 






WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 61 

laid herself down. She was afterwards married to 
Boaz, and reputed by all her neighbors a virtuous 
woman ; and they were more likely to know her 
character than j^ou are. Whoever reads the book 
of Ruth, bearing in mind tlic simplicity of ancient 
manners, will find it an interesting story of a poor 
young woman, following in a strange land the ad- 
vice, and affectionately attaching herself to the for- 
tunes of the mother of her deceased husband. 

The two books of Samuel come next under your 
review. You proceed to show that these books 
were not written by Samuel, that they are anony- 
mous, and tlience^ you conclude, without authority. 
I need not here repeat what I have said upon the 
fallacy of your conclusion ; and as to your proving 
that the books were «ot written by Samuel, you 
might have spared yourself some trouble if you 
had recollected that it is generally admitted that 
Samuel did not write any part of the second book 
which bears his name, and only a part of the first. 
It would indeed have been an inquiry not unde- 
serving your notice, in many parts of your work, 
to have examined what was the opinion of learned 
men respecting the authors of the several books of 
the Bible ; you would have found that you were 
in many places fighting a phantom of your own 
raising, and proving what was generally admitted. 
Very little certainty, I think, can at this time be 



62 WATSON'S RETLY TO TAINE. 

obtained on this subject ; but that you may have 
some knowledge of wliat has been conjectured by 
men of jud<i^nient, I will quote to you a passage 
from Dr. Hartley's Observations on Man. The 
author himself does not vouch for the truth of his 
observations, for he begins it with a supposition : 
" I suppose, then, that the Pentateuch consists of 
the writings of Moses, put together by Samuel, 
with a very few additions ; that the books of Josh- 
ua and Judges were, in like manner, collected by 
him ; and the book of Ruth, with the first part of 
the book of Samuel, written by him ; that the lat- 
ter part of the first book of Samuel, and the second 
book, were written by the prophets who succeeded 
Samuel, suppose Nathan and Gad ; that the books 
of Kings and Chronicles are extracts from the rec- 
ords of the succeeding prophets concerning their 
own times, and from the public genealogical tables 
made by Ezra ; that the books of Ezra and Nehe- 
miah are collections of like records, some written 
by Ezra and Nehemiah, and some by their prede- 
cessors ; that the book of Esther was written by 
some eminent Jew, in or near the times of the 
transactions there recorded, perhaps Mordecai ; the 
book of Job by a Jew, of an uncertain time ; the 
Psalms by David, and other pious persons ; the 
books of Proverbs and Canticles by Solomon ; the 
book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon, or perhaps by a 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. G3 

Jew of later times, speaking in his person, but not 
with an intention to make him pass for the author ; 
the prophecies by the prophets Avliose names they 
bear ; and the books of the New Testament by the 
persons to whom they are usually ascribed/' I 
"Tiave produced this passage to you, not merely to 
show you that, in a great part of your work, you 
are attacking what no person is interested in de- 
fending, but to convince you that a wise and good 
man, and a firm believer in revealed xdigion — for 
such was Dr. Hartley, and no imcst — did not reject 
the anonymous books of the Old Testament as 
books without authority. I shall not trouble either 
3^ou or myself with any more observations on that 
head : you may ascribe the two books of Kings 
and the two books of Chronicles to what authors 
you please ; I am satisfied wnth knowing that the 
annals of the J^swish nation were written in the 
time of Samuel^^^;jand probably in all succeeding 
times, oy meil of ability who lived in or near the 
times of which they write. Of the truth of this 
observation we have abundant proof, not only from 
the testimony of Josephus and of the writers of 
the Talmuds, but from the Old Testament itself. 
I will content myself with citing a few places. 
'' Now the acts of David the king, first and last, 
behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the 
seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and 



A^ 



G4 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAlNE. 

in the book of Gad tlic sccr." 1 Cliroii. 29 : 29. 
**Now the rest of tlie cicts of Solomon, first and 
last, are they not written in tlic book of Nathan 
the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the 
Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer?^' 
2 Chron. 9 : 29. '* Now the acts of Rehoboam, first 
and last, are tliey not written in tlie book of She- 
maiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer, concern- 
ing genealogies?'' 2 Chron. 12:15. *'Now the 
rest of tlie acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, be- 
hold, they are written in the book of Jehu, the son 
of Ilanini." 2 Chron. 20 : 34. Is it possible for 
writers to give a stronger evidence of their ve- 
;acity, than by referring their readers to the books 
from which they had extracted the materials of 
their history ? 

'' The two books of Kings," you say, *' are little 
more than a history of assassinations, treachery, 
and war." That the kings of Israel and Judah 
were many of them very wicked persons, is evi- 
dent from the history which is given of them in tlie 
Bible ; but it ought to be remembered, that their 
wickedness is not to be attributed to their religion ; 
nor were the people of Is rael chosen to be the people 
of God on account o f their wic kedness ; nor was. 
their being chosen a cause of it. One may wonder 
indeed, that having experienced so many singular 
marks of God's goodness towards their nation, they 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 65 

did not at once become, and continue to be — wliat, 
however, they have long been — strenuous advo- 
cates for the worsliip of one only God, the maker 
of lieaven and earth. This was tlio purpose for 
wliich tliey Avere chosen, and this purpose has 
been accomplished. For above three and twenty 
hundred years, the Jews have uniformly witness- 
ed, to all the nations of the earth, the unity of God 
and his abomination of idoTalfy. But as you look 
upon ''the appellation of the Jews being God's 
chosm people as a lie, which the priests and leaders 
of the Jews had invented to cover the baseness of 
their own characters, and which Christian priests, 
sometimes as ^corrupt and often as cruel, have pro- 
fessed to Mteve,'' I will plainly state to you the 
reasons which induce me to believe that it is no 
lu, and I hope they will be such reasons as you 
will not attribute either to cruelty or corruption. 

To any one contemplating the universality of 
things and the fabric of nature, this globe of earth, 
with the men dwelling on its surface, will not 
appear, exclusive of the divinity -of their souls, of 
more importance than a hillock of ants ; all of 
which, some with corn, some with eggs, some 
without any thing, run hither and thither, bus- 
thng about a little heap of dust. This is a thought 
of the immortal Bacon ; and it is admirably fitted 
to humble the pride of philosophy, attempthag to 

Rep to Poine. O 



G6 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

prescribe forms to tlie proceediiips, and bounds to 
the attributes of (iod. We may as easily circum- 
scribe infinity as penetrate the secret purposes of 
the Ahnighty. There are but two ways by whicli 
I can acquire any knowledge of the Supreme Be- 
ing — by reason, and by revelation j to you, who 
reject revelation, there is but one. Now, my rea- 
son informs me that God has made a great differ- 
ence between the kinds of animals, with respect to 
their capacity of enjT5JSPg happiness. Every kind 
is perfect in its order ; but if we compare diflTerent 
kinds together, one will appear to be greatly supe- 
rior to another. An animal which has but one 
sense, has but one source of happiness ; but if it 
be supplied with what is suited to that sense, it 
enjoys all the happiness of which it is capable, and 
is in its nature perfect. Qthor^^^^rt^ of animals, 
■which have two or three senses, and which have 
also abundant means of gratifying them, enjoy 
twice or thrice as much happiness as those do 
w^hich have but one. In the same sort of animals 
there is a great difference among individuals, one 
having the senses more perfect, and the body less 
subject to disease, than another. Hence, if I were 
to form a judgment of the divine goodness by this 
use of my r eason, I cou ld not but say that it was 
partial and uneq ual. ** What shall we say then ? 
Is God unjust ? God forbid !" His goodness may 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. G7 

be unequal without being imperfect ; it must be 
estimated from tlic whole, and not from a part. 
Every order of beings is so sufficient for its own 
happiness, and so conducive at the same time to 
the happiness of every other, that in one view it 
seems to be made for itself alone, and in another, 
not for itself, but for every other. Could we com- 
prehend the whole of the immense fabric which 
God hatli formed, I am persuaded that we should 
see Tir>t_ [ppnr Im t ^orfoction^ ha rmony, and beauty, 
i n evQry pgj *^ ^f it ;, but while we dispute about 
parts, we neglect the whole, and discern nothing 
but supposed anomalies and defects. The maker 
of a watch, or the builder of a ship, is not to be 
blamed because a spectator cannot discover either 
the beauty or the use of the disjointed parts. And 
shall we dare to accus e God of i njustice, fo r not 
having distribut ed the gift_s of nature in the same 
degree to all kinds of f^i^ jmals. when it is probable 
that this very inequality of distribution may be the 
means of producingTTie gi^eatest sum total of hap- 
piness to thrjyrjjglr;^ nyntem ? In exactly the same 
manner may we reason concerning the acts of God's 
especial providence. If v/e consider any one act, 
such as that of appointing the Jews to be his 
peculiar people, as •ug^ounected with every other, 
it may appe ar to be a partial display of his good- 
ness — ^it may excite doubt^ concerning the wisdom 



pj^y^ 




68 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

or the bcnigTiity of his divine nature. But if we 
connect the history of the Jews witli that of other 
/ nations, from the most n^mote antiquity to the 
present time, we shall discover tliat they were 
not chosen so much^foj: tficir own benefit, or on 
account of their own merit, as for the general bene- 
fit of mankind. Ttrttfc Egyptians, Clialdeans, Gre- 
"Cians, Romans, to all the people of the earth, they 
were formerly, and they are still to all civilized 
nations, a beacon set upon a hill, to warn them 
from idolatry, to light them to the sanctuary of a 
God, holy, just, and good. Why should we sus- 
pect such a dispensation of being a &, when, 
even from the little which we can understand of it, 
we see that it is founded in wisdom, carried on for 
the general good, and analogous to all th^t reason 
teaches us concerning the nature of God ? 

Several things, you observe, are mentioned in the 
book of the Kings, such as the drying up of Jero- 
boanVs hand, the ascent of Elijah into heaven, the 
destruction of the children who mocked Elisha, 
and the resurrection of a dead man : these cir- 
cumstances being mentioned in the book of Kings, 
and not in that of Chronicles, is a proof to j^ou that 

tlievjii^hes. I est eem it a very e rroneous m ode 

— -^ — . 



-^f^-^-^Y of reas oning, w^iich, from the silence of one author 
'Oncerning a particular circumstance, infers the 
want of veracity in another who mentions it ; and 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 69 

tliis observation is still more cogent when applied 
to a bo ok which is only a supplement to, or abridg- 
ment of other b ooks ; and under this description 
the book of Chronicles has been considered by all 
writers. But though you will not believe the 
miracle of tlie drying up of Jeroboam's hand, what 
can you say to the prophecy which was then de- 
livered concerning the future destruction of the 
idolatrous altar of Jeroboam ? The prophecy is 
thus written : '' Behold, a child shall be born unto 
the house of David, Josiah by name ; and upon 
thee,'' the altar, ^' shall he offer the priests of the 
high places." 1 Kings 13:2. Here is a clear proph- 
ecy ; the name, family, and office of a particular per- 
son are described in the year 9t5, according to the 
Bible chronology, before Christ. About 350 years 
after the delivery of the prophecy you will find, by 
consulting the second book of Kings, chap. 23 : 15, 
16, this prophecy fulfilled in all its parts. 

You make a calculation that Genesis was not 
written till 800 years after Moses, and that it is of 
the same age, and you may probably think of the 
same authoritj;^,jLS jEspp's Fables. You give what 
you call the evidence of this the air of a demon- 
stration : *^ It has but two stages : first, the account 
of the kings of Edom, mentioned in Genesis, is 
taken from Chronicles, and therefore the book of 
Genesis was written after the book of Chronicles ; 



70 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

second]}", the book of Chronicles was not begun 
to be written till after Zedekiah, in whose time 
Nebuchadnezzar conquered JerusahMu, 588 years 
l)efore Christ, and more than 8G0 after iMoses." 
Having answered this objection before, I might be 
excused taking any more notice of it ; but as you 
build mucli in this place upon the strength of your 
argument, I will show its weakness when it is 
-properly stated. K few verses in the book of Gene- 
sis could not be written by Moses ; therefore no jpart 
of Genesis could be written by Moses :( a child^, 
would deny your therefore. Again, a few verses 
in' tbe book of Genesis could not be written by 
Moses, because they speak of kings of Israel, there 
having been no kings of Israel in the time of Mo- 
ses ; and therefore they could not be written by 
Samuel, or by Solomon, or any other person who 
lived after there were kings in Israel, except by 
the author of the book of Chronicles : this is also 
an illegitimate inference from your position. Again, 
a few verses in the book of Genesis are, word for 
word, the same as a few verses in the book of 
Chronicles; therefore the authorof the book of 
Genesif^ jnust have taken them frorjijCiLronicles :j 
another • lame^ conclusion./ Why might not the 
author of the book of Chronicles have taken them 
from Genesis, as he has taken many other geneal- 
ogies, supposing them to have been inserted ^n 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 71 

Genesis by Samuel ? But where, you may ask, 
could Samuel, or any other person, have found the 
account of the Idngs of Edom? Probably in the 
public records of the nation, which were certainly 
as open for inspection to Samuel, and the other 
prophets, as they were to the author of Chronicles. 
I hold it needless to employ more time on the 
subject. 



72 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 



LETTER V. 

At len*^th you come to two books, Ezra and 
.Nehcniitili, wliicli you allow to be genuine books, 
,^-iving an account of the return of the Jews from 
the Babylonian ca})tivity, about 53G years before 
Christ ; but then you say, *' Those accounts are 
notliing to us, nor to any other persons, unless it 
be to the Jews, as a part of the history of their 
nation : and there is jusf as much of the word of 
God in those books as there is in any of the histo- 
ries of France, or in Rapines History of England." 
Here let us stop a moment, and try if, from your 
own concessions, it be not possible to confute j'our 
argument. Ezra . land^^^e^ you grant, are 

genuine books, '' but they are nothing to us." 
The very first verse of Ezra says the prophecy of 
Jeremiah was fulfilled : is it notliing to us to know 
that Jeremiah was a true prophet ? Do but grant 
that the Supreme Being communicated to any of 
the sons of men a knowledge of future events, so 
that their predictions were plainly verified, and you 
will find little difficulty in admitting the truth of 
revealed religion. Is it nothing to us to know 
that, five hundred and thirty-six years before 
Christ, the books of Chronicles, Kings, Judges, 
Joshua, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Exo- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 73 

dus, Genesis, every book the authority of which 
you have attacked, are all referred to by Ezra and 
Neheniiah as authentic books, containing the his- 
tory of the Tsraelitish nation from Abraham to that 
very time ? Is it notliing to us to know that the 
history of the Jew^Jstrue ? It is every thing to 
usj^Jor if that history be not true, Christianity 
must be false. The Jews are the root, we arc the 
branches '^grafted in among them f to whom per- 
tain ''the adoption, and the glory, and the cove- 
nants, and the giving of the law, and the service 
of God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, 
and whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, 
who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.'' 

The history of the Old Testament has, without 
doubt, soi^jg difficulties ii^^ ; but a minute philos- 
opher who busies himself in searching them out, 
while he neglects to contemplate the harmony of 
all its parts, the wisdom and goodness of God dis- 
played throughout the whole, appears to me to be 
like a purblind man, who, in surveying a picture, 
objects to the simplicity of the design and the 
beauty of the execution, from the asperities he has 
discovered in the canvas and the coloring. The 
history of the Old Testament, notwithstanding the 
real difficulties which occur in it, notwithstanding 
the scoffs and cavils of unbelievers, appears to me 
to have such internal evidences of its truth, to be 



74 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

SO corroborated by tlio most ancient profane histo- 
ries, so conlirnicd by the present circumstances of 
the world, that if I were not a Christian, I would 
become a Jew. You think this history to be a 
collection ofjies, contradictions, and blasphemies : 
I look up on it to be the oldest, the truest, the most 
comprehensive, and the most important history in 
the world. I consider it as giving more satisfac- 
tory~7iToo!s^of the being and attributes oLXiod, of 
the origin and end of h uman kind, than ever was 
attained l3y the do^)ast researches of ^he most 
enlightened philosoj)hers^ ThiLja$ercise of our rc^a- 
^>-sOn in the investigation Qf_Jruths respecting the 
imt^ure of Grocf and the future expectations of hu- 
. man kind, is highly useful ; but I hope I shall be 
pardoned by the metaphysicians in saying that the 
chief utility of such disquisitions consists in this — 
that they make us acquainted with the weakness 
of our intellectualfacujties. I do not presume to 
measure other men by my standard : you may 
have clearer notions than I am able to form of the 
infinity of space : of the eternity of duration ; of 
necessary existence ; of the connection between 
necessary existence and intelligence, between in- 
telligence and benevolence — you may see nothing 
in the universe but organized matter ; or, reject- 
ing a material, you may see nothing but an ideal 
world. With a mind weary of conjecture, fatigued 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 75 

by doubt, sick of disputation, eager for knowledge, 
anxious for certainty, and unable to attain it by 
the best uj^rrnfmyreason in matters of the utmost 
^importance,'^nTave long ago turned my thoughts 
J ^ to an impartial exaiViination of the proofs on which 
•^ vcYG^d-Ju^li^oix is grounded, and I am convinced 
P^V^oTTts triitlu. This examination is a su])ject within 
tlie" reach of human capacity : you have come to 
one conclusion respecting it, I have come to an- 
other; both of us cannot be right; may God for- 
give him that is in an error. 

You ridicule, in a note, the story of an angel 
appearing to Joshua. Your mirth you will per- 
ceive to be misplaced, when you consider the de- 
sign of this appearance : it was to assure Joshua, 
that the same God who had appeared to Moses, 
ordering him to pull off his shoes because he stood 
on holy ground, had now appeared to himself. Was 
this no encouragement to a man who was about 
to engage in war with many nations ? Had it no 
tendency to confirm his faith ? Was it no lesson 
to him to obey in all things the commands of God, 
and to give the glory of his conquests to the author 
of them, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ? 
As to j^ouiL^wit about pulling off the shoe, it origi- 
nates I thiiik^ in your ignorance : you ought to have 
known t!TartlTrs"rite wKsrait indication of reverence 
to the divine'i)resCT:Ue7 and that the custom of 



76 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

entering barefoot into their temples subsists, in 
some countries, to this day. 

You allow the book of Ezra to be a genuine 
book ; but that tlic author of it may not escape 
without a blow, you say that in matters of record 
it is not to be depended on, and as a i)roof of your 
assertion, you tell us that the total amount of the 
numbers who rctunicd-lcQin Babylon docs not 
correspond with the par ticular s ; and that every 
child may have an argument for its infidelity, you 
display the particulars, and show your skill in 
arithmetic by summing them up. And can you 
suppose that Ezra, a man of great learning, knew 
so little of science, so little of the lowest branch of 
science, that he could not give his readers the sum 
total of sixty particular sums? You know un- 
doubtedly that the Hebrew letters denoted also 
numbers ; and that there is such a similarity be- 
tween some of these letters that it was extremely 
easy for a transcriber of a manuscript to mistake 
a :: for a 5, or 2 for 20 — a a for a i, or 3 for 50 — a 
n for a n, or a 5 for 200. Now, what have we to 
do with numerical contradictions in the Bible, but 
to attribute them, wherever they occur, to this ob- 
vious source of error — the inattention of the tran- 
scriber in writing one letter for another that was 
like it ? 

I should extend these letters to a length troub- 



WATSON^S REPLY TO PAINE. 77 

losomc to the reader, to yon, and to myself, if I 
answered minntely every objection yon have made, 
and rectified every error into which you have fall- 
en ; it may be sufficient briefly to U4)tice some of 

the chief. 

The character represented in Job under the 
name of Satan is, you say, ;^ the first and the only 
time this name is mcnfioned in the Bible.^' Now, 
I find this name, as denoting an enemy, frequently 
occurring in the Old Testament: thus, ^' What 
liave I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye 
should this day be adversaries unto me ?" 2 Sam. 
19:22. In the original it is, Satans unto me. 
Again, ''The Lord my God hath given me rest 
on every side, so that there is neither adversary 
nor evil occurrent." 1 Kings 5:4. In the origi- 
nal, neither Satan nor evil. I need not mention 
other places ; these are sufficient to show that the 
word Satan, denoting an adversary, does occur in 
various places of the Old Testament ; and it is 
extremely probable to me, that the root Satan was 
introduced in the Hebrew and other eastern lan- 
guages to denote an adversary, from its having 
been the proper name of the great enemy of man- 
kind. J knowJ Us an opin ion of Voltaire, that the 
word Satan is Rot .oldey-4tian the Babylonian cap- 
tivity : this is joaistakejorjt is met with in the 
liundred and ninth psalm, which all allow to have 



78 WATSON^S REPLY TO PAINE. 

been written by David, lon<^ before the captivity. 
Now wc are uj)on this sin)ject, permit me to rec- 
ommend to your consideration the universality of 
the doctrine concerning an evil being, who in the 
beginning of time had opposed himself, who still 
continues to oppose himself, to the supreme source 
of all good. Among all nations in all ages this 
opinion prevailed, that human affairs were subject 
to the will of the gods, and regulated by their 
interposition. Hence has been derived whatever 
we have read of the wandering stars of the Chal- 
deans, two of them beneficent and two malignant ; 
hence the Egyptian Typho and Osiris — the Persian 
Arimanius and Oromasdes — the Grecian celestial 
and infernal Jove — the Brama and the Zupay of 
the Indians, Peruvians, Mexicans — the good and 
evil principle, by whatever names they may be 
called, of all other barbarous nations ; and hence 
the structure of the whole book of Job, in what- 
ever light, of history or drama, it may be consid- 
ered. Now, does it not appear reasonable to sup- 
pose that an opinion so ancient and so universal 
has arisen from tradition concerning the fall of our 
first parents ; disfigured, indeed, and obscured, as 
all traditions must be, by many fabulous additions ? 
ThGj^ws^^^^£u_tellu^ never prayed but when 
they were in trouble." Ido not believe this o^ the 
Jews ; but that^hey prayed more fervently when 



■ I 

I 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 79 

thoy were in trouble than at other times, may be 
true of the Jews, and I apprehend is true of all 
nations and of all individuals. But ''the Jews 
never i)rayed for any thing but victory, vengeance, 
and riches." Head Solomon's prayer at the dedi- 
cation of the temple, and blush for your assertion- 
illiberal and uncharitable in the extreme ! 

It appears, you observe, '' to have been the cus- 
tom of the heathens to personify both virtue and 
vice by statues and images, as is done nowadays 
both by statuary and pain ting ; J jutitdoes not fol- 
low frqm thi s that they wo rshippcdlHcm any more 
than we doT^ Not worshipped them 1 What think 
you of the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar 
set up ? Was"lf not worshipped by the princes, 
the rulers, the judges, the people, the nations, and 
the languages of the Babylonian empire? Not 
worshipped them ! What think you of the decree 
of the Roman senate for fetching the statue of the 
mother of the gods from Pessinum ? Was it only 
that they might admire it as a piece of workman- 
ship ? Not worshipped them ! '' What man is 
there that knoweth not how that the city of the 
Ephesians is a worshipper of the» great goddess 
Dianar^ST^EjhZilig^.'which fell down from 
Jupiter ?" Not worshifq)fid.Jhem ! The worshipi 
was universal. '' Every nation made gods of their 
own, and put them in the houses of the high 



80 WATSON'S JIETLY TO TAINE. 

places, wliicli the Samaritans liad made — the men 
of Babylon made Siiccot]i-])enoth, and the men of 
Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Ilamath made 
Asliima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, 
and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to 
Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Seph- 
arvaim." 2 Kings, 17. Thp heathens are much 
indebted to you for _t]ii3curiou~s apology for their 
idolatry — for a mode of worship the most cruel, 
senseless, impure, abominable, that can possibly 
disgrace the faculties of the human mind. Had 
this your conceit occurred in ancient times, it 
might have saved MicaJCs ttrci'phims^ the. golden calves 
of Jeroboam and of Aaron, and quite superseded the 
necessity of the second commandment ! Heathen 
morality has had its advocates before you ; the 
facetious gentleman who pulled off his hat to the 
statue of Jupiter, that he might have a friend when 
heathen idolatrj^ should again be in repute, seems 
to have had some foundation for his improper hu- 
mor, some knowledge that certain men, esteeming 
themselves great philosophers, had entered into a 
conspiracy to abolish Christianity, some foresight 
of the consequences which will certainly attend 
their success. 

• It is an error, you say, to call the Psalms the 
Psalms of David. This error was observed by St. 
Jerome many hundred years before you were 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINK. • 81 

• 

born ; his words arc, ** We know that they are 
in error who attribute all tlie Psalms to David." 
You, I suppose, will not deny that David wrote 
some of them. Sonj^s are of various sorts ; wc 
have hunting-songs, drinking-songs, fighting-songs, 
lovesongs, foolish, wanton, wicked songs ; if you 
will have the ** Psalms of David to be nothing but 
a collection from different song-writers," you must 
allow that the writers of them were inspired by 
no ordinary spirit — that it is a collection incapable 
of being degraded by the name you give it — that 
it greatly excels every other collection in matter 
and in manner. Compare the book of Psalms with 
the odes of Horace or Anacreon, with the hymns 
of Callimachus, the golden verses of Pythagoras, 
the choruses of the Greek tragedians — no con- 
temptible compositions any of these — and you will 
quickly see how greatly it surpasses them all in 
piety of sentiment, in sublimity of expression, in 
purity of morality, and in rational tkeology. 

As jou esteem the Psalms of David a song- 
book, it is consistent enough in you to esteem the 
Proverbs of Solomon a jest-book : there have not 
come down to us above eight hundred of his jests ; 
if we had the whole three thousand which he 
wrote, our mirth would become extreme. Let us 
open the book, and see what kind of jests it con- 
tains : take the very first as a specimen*: ^'The 

Rep to Paine- O 



82 ' WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge ; 
but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Do 
you perceive any jest in this? The fear of the 
Lord I What Lord does Solomon mean ? He 
means the Lord who took the posterity of Abra- 
ham to be his peculiar peoi)le ; who redeemed that 
people from Egyptian bondage by a miraculous 
interposition of his power ; who gave the law to 
Moses ; who commanded the Israelites to exter- 
minate the nations of Canaan. Now this Lord 
you will not fear ; the jest says, you despise wis- 
dom and instruction. Let us try again. ** My 
son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake 
not the law of thy mother." If your heart has 
been ever touched by parental feelings, you will 
see no jest in this. Once more. **My son, if 
sinners entice thee, consent thou not." These are 
the three first proverbs in Solomon's '' jest-book ;" 
if you read it through, it may not make you merry ; 
I hope it will tnake you wise ; that it will teach 
you, at least, the beginning of wisdom — the fear of 
that Lord whom Solomon feared. Solomon, you 
tell us, was witty : jesters are sometimes witty ; 
but though all the world, from the time of the 
queen of Sheba, has heard of the wisdom of Solo- 
mon, his wit was never heard of before. There is 
a great difference, Mr. Locke teaches us, between 
wit and judgment, and there is a greater between 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 83 

wit and wisdom. Solomon ^' was wiser than Ethan 
the Ezaliite, and Ileman, and Chalcol, and Darda, 
the sons of Mahol." These men you may think 
were jesters ; and so you may call the seven wise 
men of Greece ; but you wnll never convince the 
world that Solomon, who was wiser than them all, 
was nothing but a witty jester. As to the ai.ns, 
and debaucheries of Solomon, we have nothing to 
do with them but to avoid them ; and to give full 
credit to his experience, when he preaches to us 
his admirable sermon on the vanity of every thing 
but piety and virtue. 

Isaiah has a greater share of your abuse than 
any other writer in the Old Testament, and the 
reasott of it is obvious — the prophecies of Isaiah 
have received such a full and circumstantial com- 
pletion, that unless you can persuade yourself to 
consider the whole book, a few historical sketches 
excepted, '^ as one continued bombastical rant, full 
of extravagant metaphor, without application, and 
destitute of meaning,'^ you must of necessity allow 
its divine authority. You compare the burden of 
Babylon, the burden of Moab, the burden of Da- 
mascus, and the other denunciations of the prophet 
against cities and kingdoms, to the story *' of the 
knight of the burning mountain, the story of Cin- 
derella, etc.'' I may have read these stories, but 
I remember nothing of the subjects of them ; I 



84 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

liavc read also IsaialTs burden of Babylon, and I 
have compared it with the past and present state 
of Babylon, and the comparison has made such 
an impression on my mind, that it will never be 
(»ftaced from my memory.. I shall never cease to 
believe that the Eternal alone, by whom tilings 
future are more distinctly known than past or pres- 
ent things are to man, that the eternal God alone 
could have dictated to the prophet Isaiah the sub- 
ject of the burden of Babylon. 

The latter part of the forty-fourth and the begin- 
ning of the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah are, in your 
opinion, so far from being written by Isaiah, that 
they could only have been written by some person 
who lived at least a hundred and fifty years after 
Isaiah was dead. These chapters, you go on, ''arc 
a compliment to Cyrus, who permitted the Jews to 
return to JerusalemTrom the Babylonian captivity, 
above a hundred anJ'fifty years after the death 
of Isaiah.'^ And is it for this, sir, that you accuse 
the church of audacity, and the priests of igno- 
rance, in imposing, as you call it, this book upon 
the world as the writing of Isaiah ? What shall 
be said of j^ou, who, either designedly or ignorant- 
ly, represent one of the most clear and important 
prophecies in the Bible as a hi storic al compliment, 
written above a hundred and fifty years^ter the 
death of the prophet ? We contend, sir, that this 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 85 

is a prophecy, and not a history -^ that God called 
Cyrus l)y liis name, declared tiiat he should con- 
quer Babylon, and described the means by which 
he should do it, above a hundred years before 
Cyrus was born, and when there was no probabili- 
ty of such an event. Porphyry could not resist 
the evidence of DaniePa prophecies, but by saying 
that they were forged after the events predicted 
had taken place ; Voltaire could not resist the evi- 
dence of the prediction of Jesus concerning the 
destruction of Jerusalem, but by saying that the 
account was written after Jerusalem had been 
destroyed ; and you, at length — though, for aught 
I know, you m.ay have had predecessors in this 
presumption — unable to resist the evidence of Isa- 
iah^s prophecies, contend that they are bombastical 
rant, without application, though the application is 
circumstantial ; and destitute of meaning, though 
the meaning is so obvious that it cannot be mis- 
taken ; and that one of the most remarkable of 
them is not a prophecy, but a historical compliment 
Avritten after the event. We will not, sir, give up 
Daniel and St. Matthew to the impudent assertions 
of Porphyry and Voltaire, nor will we give up Isa- 
iah to your assertion. Proof, proof is wha t w^e 
require, and not assertion ; we will not rehnquish 
our religTon in obedience to your abusive assertion 
respecting the prophets of God. That the wonder- 



86 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

fill iibsunlity of this liypotliosis may be more ob- 
vious to you, I bc<i; you to consider that Cyrus 
was a Persian, had been brought up in the religion 
of his country, and was probably addicted to tlie 
magian superstition of two indej)endent beings 
equal in power but dilfercnt in principle — one the 
author of light and of all good,* the other the author 
of darkness and all evil. Now, is it proljable that 
a captive Jew, meaning to compliment the greatest 
prince in the world, should be so stupid as to tell 
the prince his religion was a lie ? *' I am the Lord, 
and there is none else : I form the light and create 
darkness, I make peace and create evil : I the Lord 
do all these things." 

But if you will persevere in believing that the 
prophecy concerning Cyrus w^as wa^itten after the 
event, peruse the burden of Babylon : was that 
also written after the event? Were the Medes 
then stirred up against Babylon? Was Babylon, 
the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chal- 
dees, then overthrown, and become as Sodom and 
Gomorrah ? Was it then uninhabited ? Was it 
then neither fit for the Arabian's tent nor the shep- 
herd's fold ? Did the wild beasts of the desert 
then lie there ? Did the wild beasts of the islands 
then cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in 
their pleasant places ? Were Nebuchadnezzar and 
Belshazzar, the son and the grandson, then cut off*? 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 87 

Was Ba))ylon then become a possession of the bit- 
tern, and pools of water ? Was it then swept witli 
the besom of destruction, so swept that the world 
knows not where to find it ? 

I am unwilling to attribute bad designs, deliber- 
ate wickedness, to you or to any man ; I cannot 
avoid believing that you think you have truth on 
your side, and that you are doing service to man- 
kind in endeavoring to root out what you esteem 
superstition. What I blame j^ou for is this, that 
you have attempted to lessen the autliority of the 
Bible by ridicule more than by reason ; that you 
have brougHFlor wafd^OTery' petty objection which 
your ingenuity could discover, or your industry 
pick up from the writings of others, and, without 
taking any notice of the answers which have been 
repeatedly given to these objections, you urge and 
enforce them as if they were new. There is cer- 
tainly some novelty at least in your manner, for 
you go beyond all others in boldness of assertion 
and in profaneness of argumentation ; Bolingbroke 
and Voltaire must yield the palm of scurrility to 
Thomas Paine. 

Permit me to state to you what w^ould, in my 
opinion, have been a better mode of proceeding — 
better suited to the character of an honest man, , y^ 
sincere in his endeavors to "search out truth. Such | r -u^ 
a man, in reading the Bible, would, in the first 



r 



88 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

place, examine whether the Bible attributed to the 
Supreme Bein<j^ any attributes re])U2^nant to holi- 
ness, truth, justice, goodness ; whether it repre- 
s(^nt(Hl him as subject to human infinnities ; wheth- 
er it excluded him from the government of the 
world, or assigned the origin of it to chance and an 
eternal conflict of atoms. Finding nothing of this 
kind in the Bible — for the destruction of the Ca- 
iiaanites by his express command I have shown 
I not to be repugnant to his moral justice — he would, 
* in the second place, consider that the Bible being, 

I ,1 — ~^ — mt III 1 

as to many of its parts, a very old book, and writ- 
ten by various authors and at different and distant 
l)eriods, there might probably occur some difficul- 
ties and apparent contradictions in the historic al 
part of it ; he would endeavor to remove these dif- 
ficulties, to reconcile these apparent contradictions, 
by the rules of such sound criticism as he would 
use in examining the contents of any other book ; 
and if he found that most of them were of a trifling 
nature, arising from short additions inserted into 
the text as explanatory and supplemcmtal, or from 
mistakes and omissions of transcribers, he would 
infer that all the rest w^ere capable of being ac- 
counted for, though he was ^notj ible to do it; and 
he would be the more willing to make this conces- 
sion, from observing that there ran through the 
whole book a harmony and connection utterly in- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 89 

consistent with cvcryWea of forgery and deceit. 



\ He would then, in the thirdplacc, observe that the 
J , miraculous and historical parts of this hook were 
^yf^o intermixed that they could not be separatcK l, 
' and that they must either both be true, or both 
false ; and from finding that the historical part was 
as well or better authenticated than that of any 
other liistory, he would admit the miraculous part ; 
and to confirm himself in this belief, he would ad- 
vert to the prophecies, well knowing that the predic- 
tion of things to come was as certain a proof of the 
divine injiiq^ositionj^ the perform aaGi. uif a nika clc 
could be. If he should find, as he certainly would, 
tliat many ancient prophecies had been fulfilled in 
all their circumstances, and that some were fulfil- 
ling at this very day, he would not suffer a few 
seeming or real difficulties to overbalance the 
weight of the accumulated evidence for the truth 
of the Bible. Such, I prea ujae to think, would be 
a proper conduct in all those who are_ ilesirous of 
forming a rational andjinpar^ 
subject of revealed religion. 
To return : 

As to your observation that the book of Isaiah 
is, at least in translation, that kind of composition 
and false taste which is properly called prose run 
mad, I have only to remark, that your taste for 
Hebrew poetry, even judging of it from the trans- 



90 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

latioii, would be more correct if you would suffer 
yourself to be inforuied ou the subject by Bishop 
Lowth, who tells you in his Prelections, that ''a 
poem translated literally from the Hebrew into any 
other language, while the same forms of the sen- 
tences remain, w^ill still retain, even as far as re- 
lates to versification, much of its native dignity, and 
a faint appearance of versification." If this is what 
you mean by prose run mad, your observation may 
be admitted. 

You explain at some length your notion of the 
misapplication made by St. Alatthew of the proph- 
ecy in Isaiah, *' Behold, a virgin shall conceive and 
bear a son.'' That passage has been handled 
largely and minutely by almost every commenta- 
tor, and it is too important to be handled superfi- 
cially by any one. I am not on the present occa- 
sion concerned to explain it. It is quoted by you 
to prove — and it is the only instance you produce — 
that Isaiah was ^' a lying prophet and an impostor.'' 
Now, I maintain that this very instance proves 
that he was a true prophet, and no impostor. The 
history of the prophecy, as delivered in the seventh 
chapter, is this : Rezin king of Syria, and Pekah 
king of Israel, made war upon Ahaz king of Judah ;. 
not merely, or perhaps not at all, for the sake of 
plunder or the conquest of territory, but with a 
declared purpose of making an entire revolution in 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 91 

the government of Judali, of destr63dng tlic royal 
house of David, and of phichif^ another family on 
the throne. Tlieir purpose is thus expressed : 
"Let us go up against Judah and vex it, and let 
us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in 
the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal/' Now, 
what did the Lord commission Isaiah to say to 
Ahaz ? Did he commission him to say. The kings 
shall not vex thee ? No. The kings shall not 
conquer thee ? No. The kings shall not succeed 
against thee ? No. He commissioned him to say, 
" It,'^. the purpose of the two kings, '^ shall not 
stand, neither shall it come to pass." I demand, 
did it stand ? did it come to pass ? Was any rev- 
olution effected ? Was the royal house of David 
dethroned and destroyed ? Was Tabeal ever made 
king of Judah ? No. The prophecy was perfectly 
accomplished. You say, *' Instead of these two 
kings failing in their attempt against Ahaz, they 
succeeded ; Ahaz was defeated and destroyed." 
I deny the fact ; Ahaz was defeated, but was not 

destroyed ; and even the *' two hundred thousand 

• 

women, and sons, and daughters," whom you rep- 
resent as carried into captivity, were not carried 
into captivity ; they were made captives, but they 
were not carried into captivity ; for the chief men 
of Samaria, being admonished by a prophet, would 
not suffer Pckah to bring the captives into the 



92 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 



liincl. ^'Tho}" rose up and took tlic captives, and 
^vith the spoil clotlied all that were naked amon<^ 
thcni, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave 
them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and 
carried all the feeble of them upon asses" — some 
humanity, you see, among those Israelites whom 
you everywhere represent as barbarous brutes — 
*'and brouglit them to Jericho, the city of palm- 
trees, to their brethren." 2 Chron. 28 : 15. The 
kings did fail in their attempt : their attempt was to 
destroy the house of David, and to make a revolu- 
tion ; but they made no revolution, thej'' did not 
destroy the house of David ; for Ahaz slept with 
his fathers, and Hezekiah his son, of the house of 
David, reigned in his stead. 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 93 



LETTER VI. 

Aftku what I conceive to be a great misrepre- 
sentation of the character and conduct of Jeremiah, 
you bring forward an objection which Spinoza and 
otliers before you had much insisted upon, tliough 
it is an objection which neither affects the genuine- 
ness nor the authenticity of the book of Jeremiah, 
any more than the bhinder of a bookbinder, in mis- 
placing the sheets of your performance, would les- 
sen its authority. The objection is, that the book 
of Jeremiah has been put together in a disordered 
state. It is acknowledged that the order of time 
is^'nbt everywhere observed ; but the cause of the 
confusion is not known. Some attribute it to Ba- 
ruch collecting into one volume all the several 
prophecies which Jeremiah had written, and neg-* 
lecting to put them in their proper places. Others 
think that the several parts of the Avork were at 
first properly arranged, but that, through accident 
or the carelessness of transcribers, they were de- 
ranged. Others contend that there is no confusion ; 

that prophecy differs from history in not being sub- 
ject to an accurate observance of time and order. 
But leaving this matter to be settled by critical 
discussion, let us come to a matter of greater im- 



94 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

portiince — to your cliarp^o ai^ainst Joroiniah for liis 
du])licityj and for his false prediction. First, as to 
his dui)licity. 

Jeremiah, on account of Iiis having boldly pre- 
dicted the destruction of Jerusalem, had been 
thrust into a miry dungeon by the princes of Ju- 
dah, who sought his life ; there he would have per- 
ished, had'not one of the eunuchs taken compassion 
on him, and petitioned king Zedekiah in his favor, 
saying, ** These men,'' the princes, ** have done evil 
in all that they have done to Jeremiah the proph- 
et'' — no small testimony this of the probity of the 
prophet's character — ''whom they have cast into 
the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger." On 
this representation, Jeremiah was taken out of the 
dungeon by an order from the king, who soon 
afterwards sent privately for him, and desired him 
to conceal nothing from him, binding himself by an 
oath, that whatever might be the nature of his 
prophecy, he would not put him to death, or de- 
liver him into the hands of the princes who sought 
his life. Jeremiah delivered to him the purpose of 
God respecting the fate of Jerusalem. The con- 
ference being ended, the king, anxious to perform 
his oath to preserve the life of the prophet, dis- 
missed him, saying, '' Let no man know of these 
words, and thou shalt not die. But if the princes 
hear 'that I have talked with thee, and they come 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 95 

unto thee, and say unto thee, Declare unto us now 
wliat thou liast said unto the king, liide it not from 
us, and we will not put thee to death ; also v;hat 
the king said unto thee : then thou shalt say unto 
them, I presented my supplication before tlie king, 
that he would not cause me to return to Jona- 
than's house to die there. Then came all the 
princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him ; and he told 
them according to all these words that the king 
. had commanded." Thus, you remark, ** this^ man 
of God, as he is called, could tell a lie, or very 
strongly prevaricate ; for certainly he did not go 
to Zedekiah to make his supplication, neither did 
he make it." It is not said that he told the princes 
he went to make his supplication, but that he pre- 
sented it. Now, it is said in the preceding chapter 
Hhat he did make the supplication, and it is proba- 
y blc that in this conference he renewed it ; but be 
''^^i^ that as it may, I contend that Jeremiah was not 
5^,,^ guilty of duplicity, or, in more intelligible terms, 
that he did not violate any law of nature or of civil 
society, in what he did on this occasion. He told 
the truth in part, to save his life ; and he was 
under no obligation to tell the whole to men who 
were certainly his enemies^ and no good subjects 
to his king. ^'In a matter," says Puflfendorf, 
*^ whicE I am not obliged to declare to another, if 
I cannot, with safety, conceal the whole, I may 



1)G WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

fairly discover no more tlian a part." Was Jere- 
miah under any ol)li<j^ation to declare to the princes 
what liad i)assed in his conference with the king? 
Yoii may as well say tliat the house of lords has 
a right to compel privy counsellors to reveal the 
king^s secrets. The king cannot justly require a 
privy counsellor to tell a lie for him, ))ut he may 
require him not to divulge his counsels to those 
who have no right to know them. Now for the 
false prediction — I will give the description of it in 
your own words. 

In the 34tli chapter is a prophecy of Jeremiah 
to Zedekiah, in these words, verse 2 : *' Thus saith 
the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the 
hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn 
it with#fire ; and thou shalt not escape out of his 
hand, but shalt surely be taken and delivered 
into his hand ; and thine eyes shall behold the 
eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak 
with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to 
Babylon. Yet hear the word of the Lord, 
Zedekiah, king of Judah ; thus saith the Lord, 
Thou shalt not die by the sword, but thou shalt 
die in peace ; and with the burnings of thy fathers, 
the former kings that were before thee, so shall 
they burn odors for thee ; and they will lament 
thee, saying, Ah, lord ! for I have pronounced the 
word, saith the Lord." 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 97 

" Now, instead of Zcdekiah bclioldiiig tlie eyes 
of the king of Babylon, and speaking with him 
mouth to mouth, and dying in peace, and wltfi the 
burning of odors, as at the funeral of his fathers — 
as Jeremiah had declared the Lord himself had 
pronounced — the reverse, according to the 52(1 
chapter, was the case ; it is there stated, verse 10, 
tliat ' the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zede- 
kiah before his eyes ; then he put out the eyes of 
Zedekiah, and bound him in chains, and carried him 
to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of 
his death/ What can we say of these prophets, 
but that they are impostors and liars T^ I can say 
this, that the prophecy you have produced was 
fulfilled in all its parts : and what then shall be 
said of those who call Jeremiah a liar, and an im- 
postor ? Here then we arc fairly at issue : you 
affirm that the prophecy was not fulfilled, and I 
affirm that it was fulfilled in all its parts. ^^ I will 
give this city into the hands of the king of Baby- 
lon, and he shall burn it with fire :" so says the 
prophet ; what says the history ? ^^ They,'' the 
forces of the king of Babylon, ^' burnt the house of 
God, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and 
burnt all the places thereof with fire." 2 Chron. 
36 : 19 '^Thou shalt not escape out of his hand, 
but shalt surely be taken and delivered into his 
hand :" so says the prophet ; what says the his- 

Rep to Paine. 7 



98 WATSON^S REPLY TO TAINE. 

tory? **Tlie men of war fled by night, and the 
king went the way towards the plain. And the 
army of the Chaldecs pnrsued after the king, and 
overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his 
army were scattered from him. So they took the 
king, and brought hivi up to the king of Babylon to 
Kihlah." 2 Kings 25 : 4-6. The prophet goes on, 
*' Thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of 
Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to 
mouth." No pleasant circumstance this to Zede- 
kiah, who had provoked the king of Babylon by 
revolting from him ! The history says, *' The king 
of Babylon gave judgment upon Zedekiah," or, as 
it is more literally rendered from the Hebrew, 
** Spake judgment with him at Riblah." The prophet 
concludes this part with, **And thou shalt go to 
Babylon f the history says, ^' The king of Babylon 
bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, 
and put him in prison till the day of his death." 
Jer. 52 : 11. *^ Thou shalt not die by the sword." 
He did not die by the sword, he did not fall in 
battle. *' But thou shalt die in peace." He did 
die in peace : he neither expired on the rack, or on 
the scaffold ; was neither strangled nor poisoned ; 
no unusual fate of captive kings. He died peace- 
ably in his bed, though that bed was in a prison. 
*' And with the burnings of thy fathers shall they 
burn odors for thee." I cannot prove from the 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 99 

history that this part of the prophecy was accom- 
plished, nor can you prove that it was not. The 
probability is, that it was accomplished ; and I 
have two reasons on which I ground this proba- 
bility. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 
to say nothing of other Jews, were men of great 
authority in the court of the king of Babylon, be- 
fore and after the commencement of the imprison- 
ment of Zedekiah ; and Daniel continued in power 
till the subversion of the kingdom of Babylon by 
Cyrus. Now, it seems to me to be very probable 
that Daniel and the other great men of the Jews 
would both have inclination to request, and influ- 
ence enough with the king of Babylon to obtain, 
permission to bury their deceased prince Zedekiah 
after the manner of his fathers. But if there had 
been no Jews at Babylon of consequence enough 
to make such a request, still it is probable that the 
king of Babylon would have ordered the Jews to 
bury and lament their departed prince after the 
manner of their country. Monarchs, like other 
men, are conscious of the instability of human con- 
dition ; and when the pomp of war has ceased, 
when the insolence of conquest is abated, and the 
fury of resentment subsided, they seldom fail to 
revere royalty even in its ruins ; and grant, with- 
out reluctance, proper obsequies to the remains of 
captive kings. 



100 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

You profess to liave been particular in trcatin<^ 
of tlie books ascribed to Isaiali and Jeremiah. Par- 
ticular ; in what ? You have particularized two or 
three passages, which you have endeavored to 
repn^scnt as objectionable, and which I hope have 
been shown to the reader's satisfaction, to be not 
justly liable to your censure ; and you have passed 
over all the other parts of these books without no- 
tice^ Had you been particular in your examina- 
tion, you would have found cause to admire the 
probity and the intrepidity of the characters of the 
authors of them ; you would have met with many 
instances of sublime composition, and what is of 
more consequence, with many instances of prophet- 
ical veracity. Particularities of these kinds you 
have wholly overlooked. I cannot account for 
this ; I have no right, no inclination to call you a 
dishonest man ; am I justified in considering you 
as a man not altogether destitute of ingenuitj', 
but so entirely under the dominion of prejudice in 
every thing respecting the Bible, that, like a cor- 
rupted judge, previously determined to give sen- 
tence on one side, you are negligent in the exam- 
ination of the truth ? 

You proceed to the rest of the prophets, and you 
take them collectively, carefully, however, select- 
ing for your observations such peculiarities as are 
best calculated to render, if possible, the prophets 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINC. 101 

odious or r-Idiculous in the eyes of your readers. 
You confound prophets with poets and musicians ; 
I would distinguish them thus : many prophets 
were poets and musicians, but all poets and musi- 
cians were not prophets. Prophecies were often 
^delivered in poetic language and measure ; but 
flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets have 
not, as you afififm7 been foollehly erected into what 
are now called prophecies ; they are now called, 
and have always been called, prophecies, because 
they were real predictions^ some of which have 
received, some are now receiving, and all will re- 
ceive their full accomplishment. 

That there were false prophets, witches, necro- 
mancers, conjurers, fortune-tellers, among the Jews, 
no person will attempt to deny ; no nation, barba- 
rous or civilized, has been without them ; but 
when you would degmde the prophets of the Old 
Testament to a level with these conjuring, dream- 
ing, strolling gentry — when you would represent 
them as spending their lives in fortune-telling, 
casting nativities, predicting riches, fortunate or 
unfortunate marriages, conjuring for lost goods, 
etc., I must be allowed to say that you wholly 
mistake their office and misrepresent their charac- 
ter : their office was to convey to the children of 
Israel the commands, the promises, the threaten- 
ings of Almighty God ; and their character was 



102 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

that of iiHMi sustaining, with fortitude, persecution 
in the discharge of their duty. There were false 
ju'ophets in abundance among tlie Jews ; and if 
you ojijiosc these to the true prophets, and call 
them both i)arty prophets, you have the liberty of| 
doing so, but you will not thereby confound the 
disthiction between truth and falsehood. False 
prophets are spoken of with detestation in many 
parts of Scripture, particularly- by Jeremiah, who 
accuses them of prophesjung lies in the name of 
the Lord, saying, '' I have dreamed, I have dream- 
ed. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the 
Lord, that use then* tongues and say, He saith ; 
that prophesy false dreams, and cause my people 
to err by their lies, and by their lightness.'' Jere- 
miah cautions his countrymen against giving credit 
to their prophets, to their diviners, to their dream- 
ers, to their enchanters, tojtheir sorcerers, w^hich 
speak unto you, saying, *'Ye shall not serve the 
king of Babj'lon." You cannot think more con- 
temptibly of these gentry than they were thought 
of by the true prophets at the time they lived ; 
but, as Jeremiah says on this subject, '' what is 
the chaff to the wheat ?'' what are the false proph- 
ets to the true ones ? Every thing good is liable 
to abuse ; but who argues against the use of a 
thing from the abuse of it ? against physicians, 
because there are pretenders to physic? Was 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 103 

Isaiali a fortuno-tcllcr predicting riches, when lie 
said to king Ilezekiah, ''Behold, the days come 
that all that is in thy house, and that which thy 
fathers have laid up in store until this day, sliall 
be carried to Babylon : nothing shall be left, saitli 
the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from 
thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away, 
and thoy shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king 
of Babylon." Fortune-tellers generally predict 
good luck to their simple customers, that they may 
make something by their trade ; but Isaiah pre- 
dicts to a monarch desolation of his country and 
ruin of his family. This prophecy was spoken in 
the year before Christ tl3; and, above a hun- 
dred years afterwards, it was accompHshed ; when 
Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, and carried out 
thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, 
and the treasures of the king's house, 2 Kings 
24 : 13, and when he commanded the master of the 
eunuchs, Dan. 1 : 3, that he should take certahi of 
the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and 
of the princes, and educate them for three years, 
till they were able to stand before the king. 

Jehoram king of Israel, Jehoshaphat king of 
Judah, and the king of Edom, going with their 
armies to make war on the king of Moab, came 
into a place where there w^as no water either for 
their men or cattle. In this distress they waited 



101 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

upon Elisha — a high honor for one of your conjur- 
ers — by the advice of Jehoshaphat, who knew tliat 
the word of the Lord was with him. The prophet, 
on seeing Jehorarn, an idohitrous prince, who had 
revolted from the worship of tlie true God, come 
to consult liim, said to liim, " Get thee to the 
l)rophets of thy fatlier, and the prophets of thy 
mother." This, you think, shows Ehsha to have 
been a party prophet, full of venom and vulgarity. 
It shows him to have been a jnan of great courage, 
who respected the dignity of his own character, the 
sacredness of his office as a prophet of God, whose 
dutj^ it was to reprove the wickedness of kings, as 
of other men. He ordered them to make the val- 
ley where they wxre full of ditches. This, you 
say, ''every countryman could have told, that the 
way to get water was to dig for it." But this is 
not a true representation of the case : the ditches 
were not dug that water might be got by digging 
for it, but that they might hold the water when it 
should miraculously come, *' without wind or rain," 
from another country ; and it did come ''from the 
way of Edom, and the country was filled with 
water." As to Elisha's cursing the little children 
who had mocked him, and their destruction in con- 
sequence of his imprecation, the whole story must 
be taken together. The provocation he received 
is, by some, considered as an insult offered to him, 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 105 

not as a man, but as a prophet ; and that the per- 
sons wlio offered it were not what we understand 
by little children, but grown up youths ; the term 
child being applied, in the Hebrew language, to. 
grown up persons. Be this as it may, the cursing 
was the act of the prophet : had it been a sin, it 
would not have been followed by a miraculous 
destruction of the offenders ; for this was the act 
of God, who best knows who deserve punishment. 
What effect such a signal judgment had on the 
idolatrous inhabitants of the land, is nowhere said ; 
but it is probable it was not without a good effect. 
Ezekiel and Daniel lived during the Babylonian 
captivity ; you allow their writings to be genuine. 
In this you_differ from some of the greatest adver- 
saries of Christianity ; and in my opinion, cut up, 
by this concession, the very root of your whole 
performance. It is next to an impossibility for 
any man, who admits the book of Daniel to be a 
genuine book, and who examines that book with 
intelligence and impartiality, to refuse his assent 
to the truth of Christianity. As to your saying 
that the interpretations which commentators and 
priests have madcLpf these books only show the 
fraud, or the extreme folly to which credulity and 
priestcraft can go, I consider it as nothing but a 
proof of the extreme folly or fraud to which preju- 
dice and infidelity can carry a minute philosopher. 



106 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

You profess a fondness for science ; I will refer 
you to a scientific mun who was neither a com- 
mentator nor a ])riest — to Ferguson. In a tract 
entitled, " I'he Year of our Saviour's Crucifixion 
ascertained, and the darkness at the time of liis 
crucifixion proved to be supernatural," this real 
philosopher interprets the remarkable propliecy in 
the ninth chapter of Daniel, and concludes his dis- 
sertation in the following words : "Thus we liave 
an astronomical demonstration of the truth of this 
ancnent prophecy, seeing that the prophetic year 
of the Messiah's being cut off was the very same 
with the astronomical.'' I have somewhere read 
an account of a solemn disputation which w^as held 
at Venice, in the last century, between a Jew and 
a Christian : the Christian strongly argued from 
Daniel's prophecy of the seventy weeks, that Je- 
sus was the Messiah whom the Jews had long 
expected, from the predictions of their prophets ; 
the learned Rabbi who presided at this disputation, 
w^as so forcibly struck by the argument that he 
put an end to the business by sajung, " Let us 
shut up our Bibles ; for if we proceed in the ex- 
amination of this prophecy, it will make us all be- 
come Christians." Was it a similar apprehension 
which deterred you from so much as opening the 
book of Daniel ? You have not produced from it 
one exceptionable passage. I hope you will read 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 107 

that book with attention, witli intelligence, and 
with an unbiassed mind follow the advice of our 
Saviour w^hcn he quoted this prophecy, '' Let him 
that rcadeth understand," and I shall not despair 
of your conversion from deism to Christianity. 

In order_to discredit the authority of the ])ooka-- 
which you allow to ])o j!;('iniiii(^^ you forin a stran<T^c 
and prodigious hypothesis concerning Ezekiel and 
Daniel, for which there is no manner of foundation 
cither in history or probability. You suppose these 
two men to liave had no dreams, no visions, no 
revelations from God Almighty, but to have pre- 
tended to these things ; and under that disguise, 
to have carried on an enigmatical correspondence 
relative to the recovery of their country from the 
Babylonian yoke. That any man in his senses 
should frame or adopt such an hypothesis, and 
should have so little regard to his own reputation 
as an impartial inquirer after truth, so little respect 
for the understanding of his readers, as to obtrude 
it on the world, would have appeared an incredible 
circumstance, had not you made it a fact. 

You quote a passage from Ezekiel : in the 29th 
chapter, verse 11, speaking of Egypt, it is said, 
^^ No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of 
beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be in- 
habited forty years :" this, you say, " never came 
to pass, and consequently it is false, as all the 



108 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

books I liavo already reviewed arc." Now that 
this did come to pass, we have, as Bishop Newton 
observes, *' the testimonies of Mcf^astlicncs and 
Berosus, two heathen historians, who hved about 
300 years before Christ ; one of wliom afTirms ex- 
pressly that Nebnchadnezzar conquered the greater 
part of Africa ; and the other aflirnis it in effect, in 
saying, that when Nebuchadnezzar heard of the 
death of his father, having settled his affairs in 
Egypt, and committed the captives whom he took 
in Egypt to the care of some of his friends to bring 
them after him, he hasted directly to Babylon" 
And if we had been possessed of no testimony in 
support of the prophecy, it would have been a 
hasty conclusion that the prophecy never came to 
pass ; the history of Egypt, at so remote a period, 
being nowhere accurately and circumstantially 
related. I admit that no period can be pointed 
out, from the age of Ezekiel to the present, in 
which there was no foot of man or beast to be 
seen for forty years in all Egypt ; but some think 
that only a part of Egypt is here spoken of; and 
surely you do not expect a literal accomplishment 
of a hyperbolical expression, denoting great desola- 
tion — importing that the trade of Egypt, which was 
carried on then, as at present, by caravans, by the 
foot of man and beast, should be annihilated. Had 
you taken the trouble to have looked a little fur- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 109 

thcr into the book from which you liave made your 
quotation, you would have there seen a prophecy 
dehvered above Jvvo thousand years ago, and 
wliich has been fuHilling from that time to this : 
*' Egypt shall be the basest of the kingdoms, nei- 
ther shall it exalt itself any more above the na- 
tions — there shall be no more a prince of the land 
of Egypt.'' This you may call a dream, a vision, a 
lie : I esteem it a wonderful prophecy ; for ^^ as is 
the prophecy, so has been the event. Egypt was 
conquered by the Babylonians ; and after the Bab- 
ylonians, by the Persians ; and after the Persians 
it became subject to the Macedonians ; and after 
the Macedonians, to the Romans ; and after the 
Romans, 4o the Saracens ; and then to the Mame- 
lukes ; and is now a province of the Turkish em- 
pire.'' 

Suffer me to produce to you from this author, 
not an enigmatical letter to Daniel respecting the 
recovery of Jerusalem from the hands of the king 
of Babylon, but an enigmatical prophecy concern- 
ing Zedekiah the king of Jerusalem, before it was 
taken by the Chaldeans : '' I will bring him," Zede- 
kiah, '' to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans ; 
yet he shall not see it, though he shall die there." 
How ? not see Babylon, when he should die there ? 
How, moreover, is this consistent, you may ask, 
with what Jeremiah had foretold — that Zedekiah 



110 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

should see the eyes of the king of Babylon ? This 
darkness of expression, and apparent eontradiction 
})etween the two prophets, induced Zedekiali, as 
Jose])hus informs us, to give no credit to either of 
them ; yet he nnlnippily experienced — and the fact 
is worthy of yoiu* observation — the truth of them 
botli. He saw the eyes of the king of Babylon, 
not at Babylon, but at Eiblah ; his eyes were 
there put out ; and he was carried to Babylon, yet 
he saw it not ; and thus were the predictions of 
both the prophets verified, and the enigma of Eze- 
kiel explained. 

As to your wonderful discovery that the proph- 
ecy of Jonah is a book of some Gentile, ^' and that 
it has been written as a fable, to expose the non- 
sense and to satirize the vicious and malignant 
character of a Bible prophet, or a predicting priest," 
I shall put it on the same shelf with your hypothe- 
sis concerning the conspiracy of Daniel and Ezekiel, 
and shall not say another word about it. 

You conclude your objections to the Old Testa- 
ment in a triumphant • style — an angry opponent 
would say, in a style of extreme arrogance and 
sottish self-sufficiency. ''I have gone," you say, 
''through the Bible" — mistaking here, as in other 
places, the Old Testament for the Bible — '' as a man 
would go through a wood, with an axe on his shoul- 
der, and fell trees ; here they lie, and the priests, y 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. HI 

if they can, may replant them. Thoy may perliaps 
stick them in tlic ground, but they will never 
grow." .And is it possible that you think so highly 
of your performance as to believe that you have 
thereby demolished the authority of a book which 
Newton himself esteemed the most authentic of all 
liTstor iesyw lucii, by its celestial light illiiTnTTfes the 
darkest ages of antiquity ; which is the touchstone 
whereby we are enabled to distinguish between 
true and fabulous theology, between the God of 
Israel, holy, just, an^T good, and the impure rabble 
of heathen Baalim ; which has been thought, by 
competent judges, to have afforded matter for the 
laws of Solon, and a foundation for the philosophy 
of Plato ; which has been illustrated by the labor 
of learning in all ages and countries, and been ad- 
mired and venerated for its piety, its sublimity, its 
veracity, by all who were able to read and under- 
stand it ? No, sir ; you have gone indeed through 
the wood, with the best intention in the world to 
cut it down ; but you have merely busied yourself 
in exposing^to vulgar contempt a few unsightly 
shrubs, which good men had wisely concealed from 
public view ; you have entangled yourself in thick- 
ets of thorns and briars ; you have lost your way 
on the mountains of Lebanon ; the goodly cedar- 
trees whereof, lamenting the madness and pitying 
the blindness of your rage against them, have 



112 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

scorned tlie blunt cdp;c and tlic base tompcT of your 
axe, and laughed, unhurt, at the feebleness of your 
strokes. 

In plain languaj^c, you have gor»e through tlio 
Old Testament hunting aftcr^cflfriculties, and you 
have found some real one^7-th?!sc you have endeav- 
ored to magnify into insuxmountable objections to 
the authority of the whole book.^ When it is con- 
' A^sidered that the Old Testament is composed of sev- 
^.JS cral books, written by^^iifeFeut authors and at dif- 
• ferent periods, from Moses to Malachi, comprising 
an abstracted history^^^£-a--particular nation for 
above a thousand years, I think the real difficulties 
which occur in it are much few^r and of much less 
importance than couT3 reasonably have been ex- 
pected. Apparent difficulties you have represented 
as real ones, without hinting at the manner in 
> which they have been explained. You have ridi- 
culcd-iWngsJiGld^iost sacred, and calumniatecT 
characters esteemed imost venei*ftblc; you have ex- 
cited the scoffs of the proTane, Increased the scep- 
ticism of the doubtfuL_s haken th e faith of the un- ' 
)/^learned_,^^ugg gsted _cavns to tlie ^^ dispulers^of this 
J^' world," and p erplexed tbe jninds of honest men who, 
?^ wIsKTo worship theilodjiflhelESlEers'i^^ 
^ ^ and tr ixtL This^ajid more you have done in going 
(^ through the Old Testament ; b ut you have noji^jso 
^ mixcli-are"-gfen<3ed^utjhe_grea^ 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 113 

at che harmony and mutual dependence of the scv- 
erai parts. You have said nothing of the wisdom 
of God in sidled in^ a particular people from the rest 
of mankind, not for their own sakes^ but that they 
might witness to the whole world, in successive 
ages, his existence and attributes ; that they might 
be an Instrument of subverting idolatry, and of de- 
claring the name of the God of Israel throughout 
tlie whole earth. It was through this nation that 
the Egyptians saw the wonders of God ; that 
the Canaanites, whom wickedness had made a re- 
proach to human nature, felt his judgments ; that 
the Babylonians issued their decrees, that ''none 
should dare to speak amiss of the God of Israel ; 
that all should fear and tremble before him f and 
it is through them that you and I, and all the world, 
are not at this day worshippers of idols. You have 
said nothing of the goodness of God in promising 
that, through the seed of Abraham, all the nations 
of the earth were to be blessed ; that the desire of 
all nations, the blessing of Abraham to the Gen- 
tiles, should come. You have passed by all the 
prophecies respecting the coming of the Messiah : 
though they absolutely fixed the time of his coming, 
and of his being cut off : described his ofBce, char- 
acter, condition, sufferings, and death, in so circum- 
stantial a manner that we cannot but be astonished 
at the accuracy of their completion in the person of 

Rep to Paine. 8 



Ill WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

Jesus of Nazareth. You have neglected noticing 
the testinion}^ of the wliole Jewisli nation to the 
truth both of th(^ natural and miraculous facts re- 
corded in tlie Old Testament. That we may better 
judi^e of the weight of this testimony, let us sup- 
j)Ose that God should now manifest himself to us, 
as we contend he did to the Israelites in Egypt, in 
the desert, and in the land of Canaan, and that he 
should continue these manifestations of himself to 
our posterity for a thousand years or more, punish, 
ing or rewarding them according as they disobej^ed 
or obeyed his commands ; what would you expect 
would be the issue? You would expect that our 
posterity would, in a remote period of time, adhere 
to their God, and maintain, against all opponents, 
the truth of the books in which the dispensations 
of God to us and to our successors had been re- 
corded. They would not yield to the objections 
of men, who, not having experienced the same di- 
vine government, should, for want of such experi- 
ence, refuse assent to their testimony. No. They 
would be to the then surrounding nations what 
the Jews are to us, witnesses of the existence and 
of the moral government of God. 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. II5 



LETTER VII. 

**The New Testament, they tell us, is founded 
upon the prophecies of the Old ; if so, it must fol- 
low the fate of its foundation.'' Thus you open 
your attack upon tlie New Testament ; and I agree 
with you, that the New Testament must follow the 
fate of the Old ; and that fate is to remain unim- 
paired by such efforts as you have made against 
it. The New Testament, however, is not founded 
solely on the prophecies of the Old. If a heathen 
from Athens or Rome, who had never heard of the 
prophecies of the Old Testament, had been an eye- 
witness of the miracles of Jesus, he would have 
made the same conclusion that the Jew Nicodemus 
did : '^ Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come 
from God ; for no man can do these miracles that 
thou doest, except God be with him." Our Saviour 
tells the Jews, ''Had ye believed Moftes, ye would 
have believed me ; for he wrote of me f and he 
bids them search the Scriptures, for they testified 
of him. But notwithstanding this appeal to the 
prophecies of the Old Testament, Jesus said to the 
Jews, ''Though ye believe not me, believe the 
works" — "believe me for the very works' sake." 
*'If I had not done among them the works which 



1 



116 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

none other man did, tlicy had not liad sin." Tho^e 
are snlTici(Mit i)roofs that the trutli of Christ^s mission 
was not even to the Jews, mnch less to the Gen- 
tih^s, founded sohdy on the truth of the propliecies 
of tlie Old Testament. So that if you could prove 
some of these prophecies to have been misapplied, 
and not completed in the person of Jesus, the truth 
of the Christian rehgion would not thereby be over, 
turned. That Jesus of Nazareth was the person 
in whom all the prophecies, direct and typical, in 
the Old Testament, respecting the Messiah, were 
fulfilled, is a proposition founded on those prophe- 
cies, and to be proved by comparing them with the 
history of his life. That Jesus was a prophet sent 
from God, is one proposition ; that Jesus was the 
prophet, the Messiah, is another ; and though he 
certainly was both a prophet and the prophet, yet 
the foundations of the proof of these propositions 
are separate and distinct. 

The mere existence ''of such a woman as Mary, 
and of such a man as Joseph/aiTd Jesus," is, you 
say, a matter of indifference, al)0ut whicli there is 
no ground either to believe or to disbelieve. Belief 
is different from knowledge, with wliich you here 
seem to confound it. We know that the whole is i 
greater than its parts ; and we know that all the 
angles in the same segment of a circle are equal to 
each other : we have iniuition and demonstration 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 117 

as grounds of this knowledge ; but is there no 
ground for belief of past or future existence? Is 
there no ground for believing that the sun will 
exist to-morrow, and that your father existed be- 
fore you? You condescend, however, to think it 
probable that there were such persons as Mary, 
Joseph, and Jesus ; and without troubling yourself 
about their existence or non-existence, assumincr, 
as it were, for the sake of argument, but without 
positively granting their existence, you proceed to 
inform us that ''it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as 
told in ITie New Testament, and the wild and vision- 
ary doctrine raised thereon,'' against w^hich you 
contend. You w^ill not repute it a fable, that there 
was such a man as Jesus Christ ; that he lived in 
Judea near eighteen hundred years ago ; that he 
went about doing good, and preaching, not only in 
the villages of Galilee, but in the city of Jerusalem ; 
that he had several followers, who constantly at- 
tended him ; that he was put to death by Pontius 
Pilate ; that his disciples were numerous a few 
years after his death, not only in Judea, but in 
Rome, the capital of the world, and in every prov- 
ince of the Roman empire ; that a particular day 
lias been observed in a religious manner by all his 
followers, in commemoration of a real or supposed 
resurrection ; and that the constant celebration of 
baptism, and of the Lord's supper, may be traced 



118 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINK. 

back from the j)rcseiit time to him, as tlie author 
of those institutions. These things constitute, I 
suppose, no part of your fable ; and if these things 
be facts, they will, when maturely considercfl, draw 
after them so many other things related in the New 
Testament concerning Jesus, that there will be left 
for your fa))le but very scanty materials, which 
will require great fertility of invention l)efore you 
will dress them up into any form which will not 
disgust even a superficial observer. 

The Qiiraculous conception you esteem a fable, 
and in your mind it is ajx-obscenc fable. Impure, 
indeed, must that man's imagination be, who can 
discover any obscenity in the angePs declaration 
to Mary, ''The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee : therefore that holy thing which shall be 
born of thee, sliall be called the Son of God '^ I 
wonder you do not find obscenity in Genesis, where 
it is said, ''The_^.pir.it,_QL>God moved upon the face 
of the waters," and brought_order out of confusion, 
a world out of cTTabs, by his fostering influence 
As to the Christian faith being built upon the hea- 
then mythology, tliefe is no ground w^hatever for 
the as's^rtixiii :■ tliT5re would have been some for 
spying that much of the heathen mythology was 
built upon the events recorded in the Old Testa- 
ment. 



WATSON'.S REPLY TO PAINE. ll9 

You eoino now to a deinoiistration, or wliich 
amounts to the same thing, to a proposition which 
cannot, you say, be controverted. First, ''Tliat 
the agreement of all the parts of a story does not 
prove that story to be true, because the parts may 
agree, and the wliole may be~ false. Secondly, 
That the disagreement of the parts of a story proves 
that the whole cannot be true. The agreement does 
not prove truth, but the disagreement proves false- 
hood positively.^' Great use, I perceive, is to be 
made of this proposition. You will pardon my un- 
skilfulness in dialectics, if I presume to controvert 
the truth of this abstract proposition, as applied to 
any purpose in life. The agreement of the parts 
of a story implies that the story has been told by 
at least two persons — the life of Doctor Johnson, 
for instance, by Sir John Hawkins and Mr. Bos- 
well. Now I think it scarcely possible for even two 
persons, and the difficulty is increased if there are 
more than two, to write the history of the life of 
any one of their acquaintance without there being 
a considerable difference between them with re- 
spect to the number and order of the incidents of 
his life. Some things will be omitted by one, and 
mentioned by the other ; some things will be briefly 
touched by one, and the same things circumstan- 
tially detailed by the other ; the same things which 
are mentioned in the same way by them both, may 



120 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

not be iiicntioiiod as liaving happcnod exactly at 
the same point of time, with other possible and 
jirobable dilFerences. l^ut these real or ai)parent 
diflieulties in minute circumstances, will notjn3Jil=- 
idato their testimony as to the material transactions 
of his life, much less will they render the w^hole of 
it a fable. If several independent wi,tnesses of 
fair character should agree in all the parts of a 
story — in testifying, for instance, that a murder or 
a ro])bery was committed at a particular time, in a 
])articular i)lace, and by a certain individual — every 
court of justice in the world would admit the fact, 
notwithstanding the abstract possibility of the 
whole being false. Again, if several honest men 
sliould agree in saying that tliey saw the king of 
France beheaded, though they should disagree as 
to the figure of the guillotine or the size of his exe- 
cutioner, as to the king^s hands being bound or 
loose, as to his being composed. or agitated in as- 
cending the scaffold, yet every court of justice in 
the world would think that such a difference re- 
specting the circumstances of the fact did not in- 
validate the evidence respecting the fact itself. 



When you speak of the whole of a story, you can- 
not mean every particular circumstance connected 
With the story, but not essential to it ; you must 
mean the pith and marrow of the story ; for it would 
be impossible to establish the truth of any fact — 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 121 

of Admirals Byng or Kcppcl, for example, having 
neglected or not neglected their dnty>— if a dis- 
agreement in the evidence of witnesses, in minute 
points, should be considered as annihilating the 
weight of their evidence in points of importance. 
In a word, the Relation of a fact differs essentially 
from the demonstration of a theorem. If one step 
is left out, one link in the chain of ideas constitut- 
ing a demonstration is omitted, the conclusion will 
be destroyed ; but a fact may be established, not- 
withstanding the disagreement of the witnesses in 
certain trifling particulars of their evidence respect- 
ing it. 

^ You apply your incontrovertible proposition to 
the genealogies of Christ given by Matthew and ' 
Luke — there is a disagreement between them ; 
therefore, you say, '' If Matthew-speak truth, Luke 
speaks falsehood ; and if Luke speak truth, Mat- 
thew speaks false hood; and thence there is no 
authorityjbr believing either ; and if they cannot 
be believed even in the very fost thing they say 
and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be 
believed in any thing they, say., afterwards/' I 
cannot admit either your premises or j^our conclu- 
sion : not your conclusion, because two authors 
who differ in tracing back the pedigree of an indi- 
vidual for above a thousand years, cannot, on that 
account, be esteemed incompetent to boar testi- 



122 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

luoiiy to the transactions of his life, unless an in- 
tention to falsify could be proved against them. 
If two Welsh historians should at this time write 
the life of any remarkable man of their country 
who had been dead twenty or thirty years, and 
should, through different branches of their genea- 
logical tree, carry up the pedigree to (Jadwallon, 
would they, on account of that difference, be dis- 
credited in every thhig they said ? Might it not 
be believed that they gave the pedigree as they 
had found it recorded in different instruments, but 
without the least intention to write a falsehood ? I 
cannot admit your premises, because Matthew 
speaks truth, and Luke speaks truth, though they 
do not speak the same truth ; Matthew giving the 
genealogy of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, 
and Luke giving the genealogy of Mary, the real 
mother of Jesus. If you will not admit this, other 
explanations of the difficulty might be given ; but 
I hold it sufficient to say, that the authors had no 
design to deceive the reader ; that they took their 
accounts from the public registers, which were 
carefully kept ; and that, had they been fabricators 
of these genealogies, they w^ould have been ex- 
posed at the time to instant detection ; and the 
certainty of that detection w^ould have prevented 
them from making the attempt to impose a false 
genealogy on the Jewish nation. 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. ]j:j 

Rut tluit you may effectually overthrow the 
credit of these genealogies, you make the follow- 
hig calculation : "^^rom the birth of David to the 
birth of Christ is upwards of 1,080 years ; and as 
there were but twenty-seven full generations, to 
find the average age of each person mentioned in 
St. Matthew's list at the time his first son was 
born, it is only necessary to divide 1,080 by 27, 
which gives fortj^ years for each person. As the 
lifetime of man was then but of the same extent 
it is now, it is absurdity to suppose that twenty- 
seven generations should all be old bachelors be- 
fore tliey married. So far from this genealogy 
being a solemn truth, it is not even a reasonable 
lie.'' This argument assumes the 'appearance of 
arithmetical accuracy, and the conclusion is in a 
style v/hich even its truth would not excuse ; yet 
the arffuni cnt is _good for nothing, and the conclu- 
sion is not true. You have read the Bible with 
some attention, and you are extremely liberal in 
imputing to it lies and absurdities : read it over 
again, especially the books of the Chronicles, and 
you will there find, that in the genealogical list of 
St. Matthew, three generations are omilted be- 
tween JoramancTOzias ; Joram was the father of 
Azariah, Azariah of Joash, Joash of Amaziah, and 
Amaziah of Ozias. I inquire not in this place 
whence this omission proceeded ; whether it is to 



124 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

be attributed to an error in the genealogical tabVvs 
from whence Matthew took liis account, or to a 
corruption of the text of the evangelist ; still it is 
an omission. Now, if 3^ou will add these three 
generations to the twenty-seven you mention, and 
divide one tliousand and eighty by thirty, you will 
find the average age when these Jews had each 
of them their first son born was thirty-six. They 
married sooner than they ought to have done ac 
cording to Aristotle, who fixes thirty-sev.en as the 
most proper age wdien a man should marry. Nor 
was it necessary that they should have been old 
bachelors, though each of them had not a son to 
succeed him till he was thirty-six ; they might 
have been married at twenty, without having a 
son till they were forty. You assume in your 
argument, that the first-born son succeeded the 
father in the list ; this is not true. Solomon suc- 
ceeded David, yet David had at least six sons who 
were grown to manhood before Solomon was born ; 
and Rehoboam had at least three sons before he 
had Abia — Abijah — who succeeded him. It is need- 
less to cite more instances to this purpose ; but 
from these, and other circumstances which might 
be insisted upon, I can see no ground for believing 
that the genealogy of Jesus Christ mentioned by 
St. Matthew is not a solemn truth. 

You insist much upon some things being men- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 125 

# 

tioned by one cvaii<rclist,3^1uek-ftix^ not mentioned 
by all, or by any of tlic otjiers ; and you take this 
to be a reason why we should consider the gospels, 
not as the works of* Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John, but as the productions of some unconmded 
individuals, each of whom made his own legend. 
I do not admit the truth of this supposition, but I 
may be allowed to use it as an argument against 
yourself; it removes every possible suspicion of 
fraud and imposture, and confirms the gospel his- 
tory in the strongest manner. Four unconnedcd 
individuals have each written memoirs of the life 
of Jesus : fro m whatever s ource they derived their 
materials, itj s^ eviden t that they agree in a great 
many particulars^ the last importance, such as 
the purity of his^manners, the sanctity ofjiis doc- 
trines, the nmltitudc and publicity oThis miracles, 
the persecuting spirit' of his enemies, the manner 
of his death, an^ tHecerfainty of his resurrection ; 
and while they agree^in these great points, their 
disagreement Jn^points of little consequence is 
...^^^^l^ther a confirmation jDf the trutli7 than* an indica- 
tion icjf the- falsehood of tlieir several accounts. 
^ Had they agreed in notliing, their testimony ought 
to have been rejected as a legendary tale; had 
they agreed in every thing, it might have been 
suspected that, inst ead of uncj 3nnected individuals, 
they were jt^__setjQ£limpos^^ The manner in 



126 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

which the cvaiif^olists Jiavc recorded the particu- 
lars of the life of Jesus is .wholly conformable to 
what we experience in other biographers, and claims 
our hi<^hest assent to its trutli, notwithstanding the 
forcie of your incontrovertible proposition. 

As an instance of ^ contradic^ iaa between the 
eva ngelists, you tcU us that Matthew says, the 
angel announcing the immaculate conception ajv 
pearcd unto Joseph ; but Luke says he appeared 
unto Mary. The angel, sir, appeared to them both : 
to Mary, when he informed her that she should, 
by the power of God, conceive a son ; to Joseph, 
some months afterwards, when Mary's pregnancy 
was visible ; in the interim she had paid a visit of 
three months to her cousin Elizabeth. It might 
haye been expected, that, from the accuracy with 
which you have read your Bible, you could not 
have confounded these obviously distinct appear- 
ances ; but men, even of candor, ^re liable to mis- 
takes. Who, you ask, would now believe a girl, 
who should say that she was gotten with child by 
a ghost ? Who, but yourself, would ever have 
asked a question so abominably indecent and pro- 
fane ? I cannot argue with you on this subject. 
You will never persuade the world that the Holy 
Spirit of God has any resemblance to the stage 
ghosts in Hamlet or Macbeth, from which you 
seem to have derived your idea of it. 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE 127 

• 

The story of the massacre of the young cliildren 
by the order of Ilcrod, is mentioned only by Mat- 
thew ; and therefore you~tirink it is a lie. We 
must give up all history, if we refuse to admit 
facts recorded by only one historian. JMattli^AV- 
addrcssed his gospcHoJhe Je ws, an d put them in kC ^^ 
miiid of a circumstance of which they must have >^^--^r- 
had a melanchol}'- remembrance ; but gentile con- ^ 
verts were less interested in that event. The 
evangelists were not writing the life of Ilerod, but 
of Jesus ; it is no wonder then that they omitted, 
above half a century after the death of Herod, an 
instance of his cruelty which was not essentially 
connected with their subject. The massacre, how- 
ever, was probably known even at Rome ; and it 
was ccrtainl}^ correspondent to the character of 
Ilerod. *^ John," you say, at the time of the mas- 
sacre, ''was under two years of age, and yet he 
escaped ; so that the story circumstantially belies 
itself." John was six months older than Jesus ; 
and you cannot prove that he was not beyond the 
age to which the order of Herod extended ; it prob- 
ably reached no farther than to those who had 
completed their first year, without including those 
who had entered upon their second : but without 
insisting upon this, still I contend that you cannot 
prove John to have been under two years of age 
at the time of the massacre ; and I could give 



f^ 



128 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

many probable reasons to the contrary. Nor is it 
certain that John was, at tliat time, in that part of 
the country to wliich the edict of Herod extended. 
But tliere would be no end of answering at length 
all your little oUfections. 

No two of the evangelists, you observe, agree 
in reciting, exactly in the same words^ the written 
inscription which was put over Christ when he 
Avas crucified. I a dmit that thcrcjs an unessen- 
tial verbal difference ; and arc you ccrTaih that 
there was not a verbal difference in the inscrii> 
tions themselves ? One was written in Hebrew, 
another in Greek, another in JLatm ; and though 
they all had the same meanm.g,_^t-iJ^is probable, 
that if two men had translated the Hebrew and 
the Latin irito_ Greek, there would have been a 
verbaLdiffierence between their translations. You 
have rendered yourself famous by writing a book 
called. The Rights of Man ; had yon been guillo- 
tined by Robespierre, with this title, w^ritten in 
French, English, and German, and affixed to the 
guillotine, '' Thomas Paine, of America, author of 
The Rights of Man ;" and had four persons, some 
of whom had seen the execution, and the rest had 
heard of it from eye-witnesses, written short ac- 
counts of your life twenty years or more after 
your death, and one had said the inscription was, 
** This is Thomas Paine, the author of The Rights 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINK. 129 

of Man ;" another, '' The author of The Rights of 
Man ;" a tliird, '' This is tlie author of Tiie Rights 
of Man ;" and a fourth, '' Tliomas Paine, of America, 
the author of The Rights of Man ;" would any man 
of common-sense have doubted, on account of this 
disagreement, the veracity of the authors in writ- 
ing your Hfe ? "JTha^only one," you tell us, '' of 
the men called apostles, who appears to have been 
near the spot wTTere Jesus was cruciiied, was Pe- 
ter." This your asscntion is not true : we do not 
knowt hat Pct er3![as jjresent at the crucifixion ; 
but we do know that John, the disciple whom Je- 
sus loved, was present ; for Jesus spoke to him 
from the cross. You go on : ^' But why should we 
believe Peter, convicted by their own account of 
perjury, in swearing that he knew not Jesus ?" I 
will tell you why ; because Peter sincerely re- 
pented of the wickedness into which he had been 
betrayed, through fear for his life, and suffered 
martyrdom in attestation of the truth of the Chris- 
tian religion. 

But the evangelists disagree, you say, not only 
as to the superscription on the cross, but as to the 
time of the crucifixion : ^^ Mark saying it was at the 
third hour — nine in the mornmg — and John at the 
sixthhour--^ you suppose, ''at noon." 

Various solutions have been given of this difficulty, 
none of which satisfied Doctor Middleton, much 

Rep. to Paine. Q 



130 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

less can it be expected that any of them should 
satisfy you ; but there is a solution not noticed by 
hini, in which many judicious men have acquiesced, 
that John, writinf]^ his^osjgelin Asia, used the 
Konian met hod of com putings tirne, which was the 
same as our own ; so that by tlie sixth hour, when 
Jesus was crmdanncd^ we are to understand six 
o'clock in the morning ; the intermediate time from 
six to nine, when he was crucified, being employed 
in preparing for the crucifixion. But if this diffi- 
culty should be still esteemed insuperable, it does 
not follow that it will always remain so ; and if it 
should, the main point, the crucifixion of Jesus, 
will not be affected thereby. 

I cannot, in this place, omit remarking some cir- 
cumstances attending the crucifixion, which are so 
natural, that we might have wondered if they had 
not occurred. Of all the disciples of Jesus, John 
was beloved by him with_ j. peculiar deg ree of afifec* 
tion ; and as kindness produces kindness, there 
can be little doubt that the regard was reciprocal. 
Now, whom should w^e expect to be the attendants 
of Jesus in his last suffering ? Whom but John, 
the friend of his heart ? Whom but his mother, 
whose soul was now pierced through by the sword 
of sorrow which Simeon had foretold ? Whom 
but those who had been attached to him through 
life ; who, having been healed by him of their in- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 131 

firinitics, were impelled by gratitude to minister to 
him of their substance, to be attentive to all his 
wants ? These were the persons whom we should 
have expected to attend his execution, and these 
were tliere. To whom would an expiring son, of 
the best affections, recommend a poor, and proba- 
bly a widowed mother, but to his warmest friend? 
And tliis did Jesus. Unmindful of the extremity 
of his own torture, and anxious to alleviate the 
burden of her sorrows, and to protect her old age 
from future want and misery, he said to his be- 
loved disciple, ^^ Behold thy mother ! and from that 
hour that disciple took her to his own home." I 
own to you that such instances as these of the 
conformity of events to our probable expectation, 
are to me genuine marks of the simplicity and 
truth of the gospels ; and far outweigh a thousand 
little objections, arising from our ignorance of man- 
ners, times, and circumstances, or from our inca- 
pacity to comprehend the means used by the 
Supreme Being in the moral government of his 
creatures. 

St. Matthew mentions several miracles which 
attended our Saviour's crucifixion — the darkness 
which overspread the land — the rending of the 
veil of the temple — an earthquake, w^hich rent the 
rocks — and the resurrection of many saints, and 
their going into the holy city. '^ Such," you say, 



132 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

'^ is the account wliicli this dasliinf^ writer of tlic 
book of Matthew gives, but in which he is not 
supported by the writers of the' other books." 
This is not accuratiilx.^-'^'Pi'^^'^'^^^'^l i Matthew is sup- 
po rted by Mark and Luke, witli respect to two of 
TTic miracles — lh(^ darkness, and the rending of 
^C^velT; and their omission of the otliers does not 
prove that they were either ignorant of them, or 
disbehevcd them. I think it idle to pretend to say 
positively what influenced them to mention only 
two miracles : they probably thought them suffi- 
cient to convince any person, as they convinced 
the centurion, that Jesus *^ was a righteous man, 
the Son of God." And these two miracles were 
better calculated to produce general conviction 
among the persons for whose benefit Mark and 
Luke wrote their gospels, than either the earth- 
quake or the resurrection of the saints. The earth- 
quake was probably confined to a particular spot, 
and might, by an objector, have been called a nat- 
ural phenomiCnon ; and those to whom the saints 
appeared might, at the time of writing the gospels 
of Mark and Luke, have been dead ; but the dark- 
ness must have been generally known and remem- 
bered, and the veil of the temple might still be pre- 
served at the time these authors wrote. AsJ.o^ 
John not mentioning any of these miracle^, it is 
woll known that his gospel was written as ajkind , 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 133 

of supj)lcmciit to the otljcr ^o^spcls ; he has there- 
lore omjtteijIiajrLtJih^^ the other three 
cvanpreli sts had related , mid he has added several 
things which they had not mentioned : in particu- 
lar, he has added a circumstance of great impor- 
tance ; he tells us that he saw one of the soldiers 
pierce the side of Jesus with a spear, and that the 
blood and water flowed through the wound ; and 
lest any one should doubt of the fact, from its not 
being mentioned by the other evangelists, he as- 
serts it with peculiar earnestness. ** And he that 
saw it bare record, and his record is true ; and lie 
knoweth that he saith true, that ye might be- 
hove.'' John saw blood and water flowing from 
the wound : the blood is easily accounted for ; but 
whence came the water ? The anatomists tell us 
that it came from the 'pericardium; so consistent is 
evangelical testimony with the most curious re- 
searches into natural science ! You amuse your- 
self with the account of what the Scripture calls 
ma7iy saints, and you call an army of saints, and 
are angry with Matthew for not having told jpou a 
great many things about them. It is very possible 
that Matthew might have known the fact of their 
resurrection without knowing every thing about 
them ; but if he had gratified your curiosity in 
every particular, I am of opinion that you would 
not have believed a word of what he had told you. 



134 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

I liavc no curiosity on the subject ; it is cnoup^h 
for me to know that " Christ was the first-fruits of 
thcni that slept," and ^' tliat all that are in the 
graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth," 
as those holy men did who heard the voice of the 
Son of God at his resurrection, and passed from 
death to life. If I first indulge myself in being wise 
above what is written, I might be able to answer 
many of your inquiries relative to the saints ; but I 
dare not touch the ark of the Lord^ I dare not sup- 
port the authority of Scripture by the boldness of 
conjecturc.--^Whatever difficulty there may be in 
accounting for the silence of the other evangelists, 
and of St. Paul also on this subject, yet there is a 
greater difficulty in supposing that Matthew did 
not give a true narration of what had happened at 
the crucifixion. If there had been no supernatural 
darkness, no earthquake, no rending of the veil of 
the temple, no graves opened, no resurrection of 
holy men, no appearance of them unto many — if 
none of these things had been trie, or rather, if 
any 0>ne of them had been false, what motive 
could Matthew, writing to the Jews, have had fo^ 
trumping up such wonderful stories ? He wrote, 
as every man does, with an intention to be be- 
lieved ; and yet every Jew he met would have 
stared him in the face and told him that he was a 
liar and an impostor. What author, who, twenty 



i 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 135 

years hence, should address to the French nation 
a history of Louis XVI., would venture to affirm 
that when he was beheaded there w^as darkness 
for three hours over all France ; that there was 
an earthquake; that rocks were split, graves 
opened, and dead men brought to life, who ap- 
peared to many persons in Paris? It is quite 
impossible to suppose that any one should dare to 
publish such obvious lies ; and I think it equally 
impossible to suppose that Matthew would have 
dared to publish his account of what happened at 
the de^th of Jesus, had not the account been gen- 
erally known to be true. 



130 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 



LETTER VIII. 

The " talc of the resurrection," you say, *' follows 
that of the crucifixion/' You have accustomed me 
so much to this kind of language, that when I find 
you speaking of a tale,Hiave no doubt of meeting 
with a truth. From the apparent disagreement in 
the accounts which the evangelists have given of 
some circumstances respecting the resurrection, 
3^ou remark, '' If the writers of these books had 
gone into any court of justice to prove an alibi — 
for it is the nature of an alibi that is here attempt- 
ed to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead 
body by supernatural means — and have given 
their evidence in the same contradictory manner 
as it is here given, they would have been in dan- 
ger of having their ears cropped for perjury, and 
would have justly deserved it :" ^' hard words, or 
hanging," it seems, if you had been their judge. 
-Noj5JLj2iS:i]Qiain which 

th^Laccoimt of thaji^^mnreetioiL is given by all the 
iivangel[sts which has occasioned the seeming con- 
Jijsion, andTEat^this confusion would have been 
cleared up at once, if the witnesses of the resur- 
rection had been examined before any judicature. 
As we cannot have this viva voce examination of 
all the witnesses, let us call up and question the 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 137 

evangelists as witnesses to a supernatural alibi. 
Did you find the sepulchre of Jesus empty ? One 
of us actually saw it empty, and the rest heard, 
from eye-witnesses, that it was empty. Did you, 
or any of the followers of Jesus, take away the 
dead body from the sepulchre ? All answer. No. 
Did the soldiers or the Jews take away the body ? 
No. How are you certain of that ? Because we 
saw the body when it was dead, and saw it after- 
wards when it was alive. How do you know that 
what you saw was the body of Jesus ? We had 
been long and intimately acquainted with Jesus, 
and knew his person perfectly. Were you not 
affrighted, and mistook a spirit for a body ? No ; 
the body had flesh and bones ; we are sure that it 
was the very body which hung upon the cross, 
for we saw the wound in his side, and the print of 
the nails in the hands and feet. And to all this 
you are ready to swear ? We arc ; and we are 
ready to die also, sooner than we will deny any 
part of it. This is the testimony which all the 
evangelists would give, in whatever court of jus- 
tice they were examined ; and this, I apprehend, 
would sufficiently establish the alibi of the dead 
body from the sepulchre by supernatural means. 

But as the r.esurrection of Jesus is a point which 
you attack with all your force, I will examine 
minutely the principal of your objections ; I do not 



138 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

think tlioin descrvinp^ of tliis notice, but they shall 
have it. The book of Matthew, you say, ^' states 
that when Christ was put in the sepulchre, the 
Jews api)lie(l to Pilate for a watch or a guard to 
be placed over the sepulchre, to prevent the body 
being stolen by the disciples." I admit this ac- 
count ; but it is not the whole of the account ; you 
have omitted the reason for the request which the 
chief priests made to Pilate : '' Sir, we remember 
that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, 
after three days I will rise again." It is material 
to remark this ; for at the very time that Jesus 
predicted his resurrection, he predicted also his 
crucifixion, and all that he should suCfer from the 
malice of those very men who now applied to Pi- 
late for a guard. ''He showed to his disciples, 
how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer 
many things of the elders and chief priests and 
scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third 
day." Matt. 16 :21. These men knew full well 
that the first part of this prediction had been ac- 
tually fulfilled through their malignity; and in- 
stead of repenting of what they had done, they 
were so infatuated as to suppose that by a guard 
of soldiers they could prevent the completion of 
the second. The other books, you observe, '' say 
nothing about this application, nor about the seal- 
ing of the stone, nor the guard, nor the watch, and 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 139 

according to those accounts there were none." 
This, sir, I deny. Tlic other books do not say 
tliat there were none of these things : how often 
must I repeat, that omissions are not contradic- 
tlons, nor silence concerning a fact a denial of it ? 

You go on : '^ The book of Matthew continues 
its account, that at the endj^f the Sabbath, as it 
began to dawn, towards the first day of the week, 
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to sec 
the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising, and^ 
John says it was dark. Luke says it was Mary 
Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of 
James, and otMr women, that came to the sepulchre. 
And John says that Mary Magdalene came alone. 
So well do they all agree about their first evidence I 
They all appear, however, to have known most 
about Mary Magdalene ; she was a woman of a 
large acquaintance, and it wa_s not an ill conjecture 
that she might be upon the stroll." This is a long 
paragraph : I will answer it distinctly. First, there 
is nodisagreement of evidence with respect to the 
time when the women went to the sepulchre ; all 
the evangelists agree as to the day on which they 
went ; and as to the time of the day, it was early 
in the morning : what court of justice in the world 
would set aside this evidence, as insufficient to 
substantiate the fact of the women's having gone to 
the sepulchre, because the witnesses differed as to 



140 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

the degree of twiliglit which hghted tlieni on their 
way ? Secondly, tlierc is no disagreement of evi- 
dence with respect to the persons who went to 
the sepulchre. John states that Mary Magdalene 

m 

went to the sepulchre ; but he does not state, as 
yoiL make him state, that Afary ^[agdalene went 
alone ; she might, for any thing you have proved, 
or can prove to the contrary, have been accompa- 
nied by all the women mentioned by Luke : is it 
an unusual thing to distinguish by name a princi- 
pal person going on a visit, or on an embassy, 
without mentioning his subordinate attendants ? 
Thirdly, in opposition to your insinuation that 
Mary Magdalene was a common woman, I wish it 
to be considered whether there is any scriptural 
authority for that imputation ; and whether there 
be, or not, I must contend that a repentant and 
reformed woman ought not to be esteemed an im- 
proper witness of a fact. The conjecture which 
you adopt concerning her is nothing less than an 
illiberal, indecent, unfounded calumny, not excusa- 
ble in the mouth of a Hbertine, and intolerable in 
yours. 

'' The book of Matthew," you observe, ''goes on 
to say, ' And behold, there was an earthquake ; for 
the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and 
came and rolled back the stone from the door, and 
sat upon itf but the other books say nothing about 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. HI 

an earthquake." What then? does their silence 
prove that there was none ? '' Nor about the 
angel rolling back the ^tone, and sitting upon it." 
What then ? does their silence prove tliat the stone 
was not rolled back by an angel, and that he did 
not sit upon it ? '' And according to their accounts, 
there was no angel sitting there." This conclusion 
I must deny : their accounts do not say there was 
no angel sitting there at the time that Matthew 
says he sat upon tlie stone. They do not deny 
the fact, they simply omit the mention of it ; and 
they all take notice that the women, when they 
arrived at the sepulchre, found the stone rolled 
away : hence it is evident that the stone was 
rolled away before the women arrived at the sepul- 
chre ; and the other evangelists, giving an account 
of what happened to the women when they reached 
the sepulchre, have merely omitted giving an ac- 
count of a transaction previous to their arrival. 
Where is the contradiction ? What space of time 
intervened between the rolling away' the stone, 
and the arrival of the women at the sepulchre, is 
nowhere mentioned ; but it certainly was long 
enough for the angel to have changed his position ; 
from sitting on the outside, he might have entered 
into the sepulchre ; and another angel might have 
made his appearance, or, from the first, there 
might have been two, one on the outside, rolling 



142 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

away tlie stone, and the other within. Luke, j^ou 
tell us, *^says there were two, and they were both 
standing ; and John says there were two, and both 
sitting'." It is impossible, I grant, even for an an- 
gel to be sitting and standing at the same mstant 
of time ; but Luke and John do not speak of the 
same instant, nor of the same appearance. Luke 
speaks of the appearance to all the women, and 
John of the appearance to Mary Magdalene alone, 
who tarried weeping at the sepulchre after Peter 
and John had left it. But I forbear making any 
more minute remarks on still minuter objections, 
all of which are grounded on this mistake — that 
the angels were seen at one particular time, 
in one particular place, and by the same individ- 
uals. 

As to your inference, from Matthew's using the 
expression, unto this day^ that *' the book must have 
been manufactured after the lapse of some genera- 
tions at least,'' it cannot be admitted against the 
positive testimony of all antiquity. That the story 
about stealing away the body was a bungling story, 
I readily admit ; but the chief priests are answera- 
ble for it : it is not worthy either your notice ot 
mine, except as it is a strong instance to you, to 
me, and to every body, how far prejudices may 
mislead the understanding. 

You come to that part of the evidence in those 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 143 

books that respects, you say, '' the pretended ai> 
pcarancc of Christ after his pretended resurrec- 
tion." The writer of the l)Ook of Matthew relates, 
that the anp;el that was sittini? on the stone at the 
mouth of the sepulchre, said to the two Marys, 
chap. 28 : 7, '' Behold, Christ is gone before you into 
Galilee ; there shall you see him." The gospel, sir, 
was preached to poor and illiterate men, and it is 
the duty of priests to preach it to them in all its 
purity ; to guard them against the error of mis- 
taken, or the designs of wicked men. You, then, 
who can read your Bible, turn to this passage, and 
you will find that the angel did not say, *' Behold, 
Christ is gone before you into Galilee ;" but, *' Be- 
hold, hc^goeth before you into Galilee." I know not 
what Bible you made use of in this quotation, none 
that I have seen render the original word by, he 
is gone. It might be properly rendered, he will 
go : and it is literally rendered, he is going. This 
phrase does not imply an immediate setting out 
for Galilee. When a man has fixed upon a long 
journey to London or Bath, it is common enough 
to say, he is going to London or Bath, though the 
time of his going may be at some distance. Even 
your dashing Matthew could not be guilty of such 
a blunder as to make the angel say, he is goiu; for 
he tells us immediately afterwards, that, as the 
women were departing from the sepulchre to tell 



144 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

)iis disciples what tlic angels had said to them, 
Jesus himself met tliem. Now, how Jesus could 
be gone into Galilee, and yet meet the women at 
Jerusalem, I leave you to explain, for the blunder 
is not chargeable upon Matthew. I excuse your 
introducing the expression, ''then the eleven dis- 
ciples went away into Galilee," for the quotation 
is rightly made ; but had yon turned to the Greek 
Testament, you w^ould not have found in this 
place any word answering to then: the passage is 
better translated, '' and the eleven." Christ had 
said to his disciples, Matt. 26 : 32, '' After I am 
risen again, I will go before you into Galilee ;" and 
the angel put the women in mind of the very ex- 
pression and prediction : 'Tie is risen, as lie said ; 
. and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee." 
Matthew, intent upon the appearance in Galilee, of 
w^hich there were, probably, at the time he WTote, 
many living witnesses in Judea, omits the mention 
of many appearances taken notice of by John, and 
by this omission seems to connect the day of the 
resurrection of Jesus with that of the departure of 
the disciples for Galilee. You seem to think this 
a great difficulty, and incapable of solution ; for 
you say, "It is not possible, unless we admit 
these disciples the right of wilful lying, that the 
writers of these books could be any of the eleven 
persons called disciples ; for if, according to Mat- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 145 

thew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus 
in a mountain, by his own appointment, on the 
same day tliat he is said to have risen, Luke and 
John must have been two of that eleven ; yet the 
writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies 
as much, that the meeting was that day in a house 
at Jerusalem : and on the other hand, if, according 
to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a 
house at Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one 
of that eleven ; yet Matthew says the meeting 
was in a mountain in Galilee, and consequently 
the evidence given in those books destroys each 
other/^ When I was a young man in the univer- 
sity, I was pretty much accustomed to drawing of 
consequences ; but my Alma Mater did not suffer 
me to draw consequences after your manner : she 
taught me tha^t a_false posi.tiQn,_must -end,_m,an 
absurd conclusion. I have shown your position, 
that '^ the eleven went into Galilee on the day of 
the resurrection,'^ to be false ; and hence your con- 
sequence, that ** the evidence given in those two 
books destroys each other," is not to be admitted. 
You ought, moreover, to have considered that the 
feast of unleavened bread, which immediately fol- 
lowed the day on which the passover was eaten, 
lasted seven days ; and that strict observers of the 
law did not think themselves at liberty to leave 
Jerusalem till that feast was ended ; and this is a 

Kep to Paine. 1 



146 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

collateral proof tliat the disciples did not go to Gali- 
lee on the day of the resurrection. 

You certainly have read the New Testament, 
but not, I think, with great attention, or you would 
have known who the apostles were. In this place 
you reckon Luke as one of the eleven, and in other 
places you speak of him as an eye-witness of the 
things he relates. You ought to have known that 
Luke was no apostle ; and he tells you himself, in 
the preface to his gospel, that he wrote from the 
testimony of others. If this mistake proceeds from 
your ignorance, you are not a fit person to write 
comments on the Bible ; if from design — which I 
am unwilling to suspect — you are still less fit : in 
either case it may suggest to your readers the pro- 
priety of suspecting the truth and accuracy of j^our 
assertions, liowever daring and intemperate. ^' Of 
the numerous priests or parsons of the present 
day, bishops and all, the sum total of whose learn- 
ing," according to you, ''is ^ J aJ, and hie, hic^ hoc, 
there is not one among them,-' you say, '' who can 
write poetry like Homer, or science like Euclid." 
If I should admit this — though there arc many of 
them, I doubt not, who understand these authors 
better than you do — yet I cannot admit that there 
is one among them, bishops and all, so ignorant as 
to rank Luke the evangelist among the apostles of 
Christ. I will not press this point ; any man may 



WATSON^S RETLY TO PAINE. 147 

fall into a mistake, and the consciousness of this 
fallibility should create in all men a little modesty, 
a little diffidence, a little caution, before they pre- 
sume to call the most illustrious characters of an- 
tiquity liars, fools, and knaves. 

You want to know why Jesus did not show him- 
self to all the people after the resurrection. This 
is one of Spinoza's objections, and it may sound 
well enough In the mouth of a Jew, wishing to 
excuse the infidelity of his countrymen ; but it is 
not judiciously adopted by deists of other nations. 
God gives us thejjie ans of he alth, but he does not 
force us to the use of them ; he gives us the pow- 
ers of the mind, but he does not compel us to the 
cultivation of them ; he gave the Jews opportuni- 
ties of seeing the miracles of Jesus, but he did not 
oblige them to believe them. They who perse- 
vered in their incredulity after the resurrection of 
Lazarus, would have persevered also after the res- 
urrection of Jesus. Lazarus had been buried four 
days, Jesus but three ; the body of Lazarus had 
begun to undergo corruption, the body of Jesus 
saw no corruption ; why should you expect that 
they would have believed in Jesus on his own 
resurrection, when they had not believed in him 
on the resurrection of Lazarus ? AVhen the Phari- 
sees were told of the resurrection of Lazarus, they, 
together with the chief priests, gathered a council 



.148 WATSON'S PcErLY TO TAINE. 

and said, *' AV^hat do wc ? for this man docth many 
miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will 
believe on him. Th(»n from tliat day forth thoy 
took counsel to,!:!;otlicr to put him to death." The 
great men at Jerusalem, you sec, adrnitt(Ml that 
Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead ; j^et the 
belief of that miracle did not generate conviction 
that Jesus was the Christ : it only exasperated 
their malice and accelerated tlieir purpose of de- 
stroying him. Had Jesus shown himself after his 
resurrection, the chief priests would probably have 
gathered together another council, have opened it 
with '' What do we ?" and ended it with a deter- 
mination to put him to death. As to us, the evi- 
dence of the resurrection of Jesus which w^e have 
in the New Testament, is far more convincing than 
if it had been related that he showed himself to 
every man in Jerusalem ; for then w^e should have 
had a suspicion that the whole story had been 
fabricated by the Jews. 

You think Paul an improper witness of the res- 
urrection ; I think him one of the fittest that 
could have been chosen, and for this reason, his 
testimony is the testimony of a former enemy. 
He had, in his 'own miraculous conversion, suffi- 
cient ground for changing his opinion as to the 
matter of fact — for believing that to have been a 
fact, which he had formerly, through extreme prej- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 149 

udicc, considered as a fable. For the truth of the 
resurrection of Jesus, lie appeals to above two 
hundred and fifty living witnesses ; and before 
whom does he make his appeal ? Before his ene- 
iriies, who were able and willing to blast his char- 
acter, if he had advanced an untruth. You know, 
undoubtedly, that Paul had resided at Corinth near 
two years ; that during a part of that time he had 
testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ ; 
that, finding the bulk of that nation obstinate in 
their unbelief, he had turned to the Gentiles, and 
had converted many to the faith in Christ ; that he 
left Corinth, and went to preach the gospel in 
other parts ; that about three years after he had 
quitted Corinth, he wrote a letter to the converts 
wiiieh he had made in that place, and who, after 
his departure, had been split into different factions, 
and had adopted different teachers in opposition to 
Paul. From this account we may be certain that 
Paul's letter, and every circumstance in it, w^ould 
be minutely examined. The city of Corinth was 
full of Jews ; these men were, in general, PauPs 
bitter enemies ; yet, in the face of them all, be 
asserts that ** Jesus Christ was buried; that he 
rose again the third day ; that he was seen of Ce- 
phas, then of the twelve ; that he was afterwards 
seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of 
W'hom the greater part w^erc then alive." An ai)- 



150 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

peal to above two hundred and fifty living wit- 
nesses is a pretty strong proof of a fact ; but it be- 
comes irresistible wlien that appeal is submitted 
to the judgment of enemies. St. Paul, you must 
allow, was a man of ability ; but he would have 
been an idiot had he put it in the power of his 
enemies to prove, from his own letter, that he was 
a lying rascal. Tlu^y neither proved, nor attempt- 
ed to prove any such thing ; and therefore we may 
safely conclude that this testimony of Paul to the 
resurrection of Jesus was true : and it is a testi- 
mony, in mj^ opinion, of the greatest weight. 

You come, you say, to the last scene, tjie ascen- 
sion ; upon which, in your opinion, ^^ the reality of 
, the future mission of the disciples w^as to rest for 
"^ proof." I do not agree with you in this. The 
reality of the future mission of the apostles might 
have been proved, though Jesus Christ had not 
visibly ascended into heaven. Miracles are the 
proper proofs of a divine mission ; and w^hen Je- 
sus gave the apostles a commission to preach the 
gospel, he commanded them to stay at Jerusalem 
till the}^ were endued w4th power from on high. 
Matthew has omitted the mention of the ascen- 
sion ; and John, you say, has not said a syllable 
about it. I think otherwise. John has not given 
an express account of the ascension, but he has 
certainly said something about it ; for he informs 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 151 

lis that Jesus said to Mary, ** Touch me not ; for I 
am not yet ascended to my Father ; but go to my 
brethren, and say unto them, I asceml unto my 
Father and 3'our Father, and to my God and your 
God." Tliis is surely saying something about the 
ascension ; and if the fact of the ascension be not 
related by John or Matthew, it may reasonably be 
supposed that the omission was made on account 
of the notoriety of the fact. That the fact was 
generally known may be justly collected from the 
reference which Peter makes to it, in the hearing 
of all the Jews, a very few days after it had hap- 
pened : " This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof 
we all are witnesses. Therefore being by t/ie right: 
Jiand of God exalted" — Paul bears testimony also 
to the ascension, when he says that Jesus was 
received up into glory. As to the difference you con- 
tend for, between the account of the ascension as 
given by Mark and Luke, it does not exist ; except 
in this, that Mark omits the particulars of Jesus 
going with his apostles to Bethany and blessing 
them there, which are mentioned by Luke. But 
omissions, I must often put you in mind, are not 
contradictions. 

You have now, you say, ''gone through the ex- 
amination of the four books ascribed to Matthew, iQ 
Mark, Luke, and John ; and when it is considered ! 
that the whole space of time, from the crucifixion 



152 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

to wliat is called the ascension, is but a few (lays, 
a|)i)arently not more than tliree or four, and that 
all the circumstances are reported to have haj)- 
pened near the same spot, Jerusalem, it is, I be- 
lieve, impossible to find, in any story upon record, 
.so many and such glaring absurdities, contradic- 
tions, and falsehoods, as are in those books." What 
am I to say to this ? Am I to say that, in writing 
this paragraph, you have forfeited your character 
as an honest man? Or, admitting your honesty, 
am I to say that you are grossly ignorant of the 
subject ? Let the reader judge. John says that 
Jesus appeared to his disciples at Jerusalem on 
the day of his resurrection, and that Thomas was 
]iot then with them. The same John says, that 
after eight days he appeared to them again, when 
TIjomas was with them. Now, sir, how ajypartiUhj 
three orfmir days can be consistent with really eight 
days, I leave you to make out. But this is not the 
w^iole of John's testimony, either with respect to 
place or time ; for he says, *^ After these things'' — 
after the two appearances to the disciples at Jeru- 
salem on the first and on the eighth day after the 
resurrection — *' Jesus showed himself again to his 
disciples at thj5 sea of Tiberias." The sea of Tibe- 
rias, I presume you know, was in Galilee ; and 
Galilee, you may know, was sixty or seventy 
miles from Jerusalem : it must have taken the 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 153 

disciples some time, after the ei^j^litli cla}^ to travel 
from Jerusalem into Galilee. What, in your own 
insulting language to the priests, what have you 
to answer, as to the savie spot Jcrusahm, and as to 
your ap})arently ihrze or four daysl liut this is 
not all. Luke, in the beginning of the Acts, refers 
to his gospel, and says, *' Christ showed himself 
, alive after his passion by many "infallible proofs, 
, J ^ being seen of the apostles forty days) and speaking 
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." 
Instead oi four^ you perceive there was forty days 
between the crucifixion and the ascension. I need 
not, I trust, after this, trouble myself about the 
falsehoods and contradictions wliich you impute to 
the evangelists ; your readers cannot but be upon 
their guard as to the credit due to your assertions, 
however bold and improper. You will suffer me 
to remark, that the evangelists were plain men, 
who, convinced of the truth of their narration, and 
conscious of their own integrity, have related what 
they knew with admirable simplicity. Tiiey seem 
to have said to the Jews of their time, and to say 
to the unbelievers of all timiigj^JWe have told you 
the truth ; and if you will not believe us, we have 
'nothing more to say. Hadihey been impostors 
they would have written with more caution and 
art, have obviated every ca\:Uy~ and avoided every 
appearance of contradiction. This they liavo not 



154 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

(lone ; aiul this I consider aa tL_i>roof of tlieir hon- 
esty and veracity. 

John the l^aptist liad given liis testhnony to the 
truth of our Saviour's mission in the most unequiv- 
ocal terms ; lie afterwards sent two of his disciples 
to Jesus, to ask him whether he was really' the ex-j 
pected Messiah or not. Matthew relates holh these 
circumstances : had the writer of the book of Mat- 
thew been an impostor, would he have invalidated 
John's testimony, by bringing forward his real or 
apparent doubt ? Impossible ! Matthew, having 
proved the resurrection of Jesus, tells us that the 
eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a 
mountain where Jesus had appointed them ; and 
^'when they saw him, they worshipped him; but 
some doubted." Would an impostor, in the very 
last place where he mentions the resun'ection, and 
in the conclusion of his book, have suggested such 
a cavil to unbelievers as to say, ''some doubted?" 
Impossible I The evangelist has left us to collect 
the reason why some doubted. The disciples saw 
Jesus, at a distance, on the mountain ; and some 
of them fell down and worshipped him ; w^hile others 
doubted whether the person they saw w^as really 
Jesus : their doubt, however, could not have lasted 
long, for in the very next verse we are told that 
Jesus came and spoke unto them. 

Great and laudable pains have been taken by many 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 155 

learned men to harmonize the several accounts 
given nshj the evangelists of the resurrection. It 
does not seem to me to be a matter of any great 
consequence to Christianity whetlier the accounts 
can, in every minute particular, be harmonized or,^^*-' 
not, since there is no such discordance in them as 
to render the ftict of the resurrection doubtful to 
any impartial mind. If any man, in a court of jus- 
tice, should give positive evidence of a fact, and 
three others should afterwards be examined, and 
all of them should confirm the evidence of the first 
as to the fact, but should apparently differ from him 
and from each other, by being more or less partic- 
ular in their accounts of the circumstances attend- 
ing the fact, ought we to doubt of the fact because 
we could not harmonize the evidence respecting 
the circumstances relatmg to it? The omission of 
any one circumstance — such as that of Mary Mag- 
dalene having gone twice to the sepulchre ; or that 
of the angel having, after he had rolled away the 
stone from the sepulchre, entered into the sepul- 
chre — may render a harmony impossible, Avithout 
having recourse to supposition to supply the de- 
fect. You deists laugh at all such attempts, and 
?all them priestcraft. I think it better then, in 
arguing with you, to admit that there may be — 
not granting, however, that there is — an irrecon- 
cilable difference between the evanp^elists in some 



15G WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

of their arcounts respecting the hfe of Jesus, or his 
resurrection. Be it so ; Avhat then ? Docs this dif- 
ference, adniittinf^ it to be real, destroy the credi- 
bility of the gospel history in any of its essential 
jioints ? Certainly not, in my opinion. As I look 
u-)on this to be a general answer to most of your 
deistical objections, I profess my sincerity in say- 
hvj: that I consider it as a true and sufficient an- 
swer ; and I leave it to your consideration. I have 
purposely, in the whole of this discussion, been 
silent as to the inspiration of the evangelists, well 
knowing that you would have rejected, with scorn, 
any thing I could have said on that point ; but in 
disputing with a deist, I do most solemnly contend 
that the Christian religion is true, and worthy of 
all acceptation, whether the evangehsts were in- 
spired or not. 

Unbelievers in general wish to conceal their sen- 
timents ; they have a decent respect for public 
opinion ; are cautious of affronting the religion of 
their country, fearful of undermining the founda- 
tions of civil society. Some few have been more 
daring, but less judicious, and have, without dis- 
guise, professed their unbelief. But you are the 
first who ever swore that he w^as an infidel, con- 
cluding your deistical creed with: — So help me 
God 1 I pray that God may help you ; that he 
may, through the influence of his Holy Spirit,^ 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 157 

bring you to a right mind ; convert you to the 
religion of his Son, whom, out of his abundant 
love to mankind, he sent into the world, that all 
who believe in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life. 

You swear that you think the Christian religion 
is not true. I give full credit to your oath ; it is 
an oatTi in confirmation — of what? of an opinion. 
It proves the sincerity of j^our declaration of your 
opinion ; but the opinion, notwithstanding the oath, 
may be either true or false. Permit me to produce 
to you an oath not confirming an opinion, but a 
fact ; it is the oath of St. Paul, when he swears to 
the Galatians, that in what he told them of his 
miraculous conversion he did not lie : '' Now the 
things which I write unto you, behold, before God, 
I he not"— do but give that credit to St. Paul 
which I give to you, do but consider the differenco 
between an opinion and a fact, and I shall not 
despair of your becoming a Christian. 

Deism, you say, consists in a belief of one God, 
and an imitati on of his moral characj er, or the prac- 
tice of what i s called virtu e ; and in this, as far as 
religion is concerned, you • rest all your hopes. 
There is nothing in deism but what is in Christian- 
ity, but tliere is mucEin Christianity which is not 
in deism. The Christian has no doubt concerning 
a future state ; every deist, from Plato to Thomas 



158 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

Paine, is on this subject overwhelmed with doubta 
insup(*ra])le by human reason. ThcCiAW+^an has 
no mis^ivinf^s as to the pardon of penitent sinners, 
throu<^h the intercession of a mediator ; tlic deist 
if^-harassed with agjirchensions lest the rnorarjTrs=^ 
tTc(rDf~tjon sliould demand, with inexorable rigor, 
l)unishment ibr transgression. Thejlhri&tian has 
no doubt concerning the lawfulness and tlie effica- 
cy of prayer ; the deist is disturbed on this point 
by abstract considerations concerning the goodness 
of God, which wants not to be entreated — con- 
cerning his foresight, which has no need of our 
information — concerning his immutability, which 
cannot be changed through our supplication. _^<> 
Christian admits the providence of God, and \he 
liberty ^f human^actfons ; the dcisf is^TrivoTved in 
great dlfficiHties^wtrefr he undefEakes the proof of 
either. The-" Christian has assurance that the 



SpiiiLJJtLjGl ed wilU Iialp^lns inhrmities7,^^ LAiK!liJr 
docs not deny the possibility thai God^ may have 
access to tlie human mind, but he has no ground 
to believe the fact of his either enlightening the 
understanding, influencing the will, or purifying 
,^\the heart. 



J 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 159 



LETTER IX. 

" Those," you say, ** who are not much acquaint- 
ed with ecclesiastical history, may suppose that T^ 
'the book called tlie New Testament has existed ] 
ever since the time of Jesus Christ ; but the fact 
is historically otherwise : there was no such book 
as the New Testament till more than three hun- 
dred years after the time that Christ is said to 
have lived." This paragraph is calculated to mis- 
lead^ommon readers ; it is necessary to unfold its 
meaning. The book called the New Testament, 
consists of twenty-seven different parts ; concern- 
ing seven of these, namely, the epistle to the He- 
brews, • that of James, the second of Peter, the 
second of John, the third of John, that of Jude, 
and the. Revelation, there were at first some 
doubts ; and the question whether they should be 
received into the canon might be decided, as all 
questions concerning opinions must be, by vote. 
With respect to the other twenty parts, those who 
are most acquainted with ecclesiastical history will 
tell you, as Du Pin does after Eusebius, that they 
I were owned as canonical at all times, and by all 
Christians. Whether the council of Laodicea was 
held before or after that of Nice, is not a settled 
point : all the books of the New Testament, except 



u 



JGO WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. \^: 

the Revelation, arc enumerated as canonical in 
tlie constitution of that council; but i^ is a great 
mistake to suppose that tlie greatest part of the 
books of the New Testament were not in general 
use among the Christians long before the council of 
Laodicea was held. This is not merely my opinion 
on the subject ; it is the opinion of one much bet- 
ter acquainted with ecclesiastical history than I 
am, and probably than you are — Mosheim. *' The 
oi)inions," says this author, ''or rather, the conjec- 
tures of the learned, concerning the time when the 
books of the New Testament were collected into 
xme volume, as also about the authors of that col- 
lection, arc extremely different. This important 
question is attended with great and almost insuper- 
able difficulties to us in these latter times." It is 
however sufficient for us to know, that before the 
middle of the second century, the greatest part of 
the books of the New Testament were read in 
every Christian society throughout the world, and 
received as a divine rule of faith and manners. 
Hence it jipj;iaar.s.„tliiLt-tl>ese sacred writings w^u'e 
^ftFefully. separated from several_ human composi- 
tions,jipon the sanie^ sul)jectj either by some of the 
apostles themselves who lived so long, or by their . 
disciples and successors who were spread abroad 
through all nations. We are Avell assured that 
the four gospels were collected , during the life ot 



WATSON'S RETLY TO TAINE. 161 

St. John, and that the three first received the ap- 
probation of^tHis divine apostle. And why may 
we not suppose that the other books of the New 
Testament were gathered together at the same 
time ? AVhat renders this liighly probable is, that 
the most urgent necessity required its being done. 
For, not long after ChrisVs ascension into heaven, 
several histories of his life and doctrines, full of 
pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed 
by persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not 
bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest 
superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all ; pro- 
ductions appeared, which were imposed on the 
world by fraudulent men as the writings of the 
holy apostles. TIjlcsc apocryphal and spurious 
writings must have produced a sad confusion, and 
rendered both the history and the doctrine of 
Christ uncertain, had not tlie rulers of the church 
used all possible care and diligence in separating 
the books that were truly apostolical and divine 
from air that spurious trash, and conveying them 
down to posterity in one volume.'^ 

Did you ever read the Apology for the Christians 
which Justin Martyr presented to the emperor An- 
toninus Pius, to the senate, and people of Rome ? 
I should sooner expect a fallacy in a petition which 
any body of persecuted men, imploring justice, 
should present to the king and parliament of Great 

Rep to Paine 1 i 



162 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

Ikitciiii, than in this Apology. Yet in tliis Apolo- 
gy, which was i)rcsentcd not fifty y^^ars after the 
death of St. John, not onjy parts of all tlit four gos" 
pels are qitoted^ but it is expressly said, that on the 
day called Sunday a portion of them was read in 
the public assemblies of the Christians. I for])ear 
pursuing this matter further, else it might easily 
be shown that probably the gospels, and certainly 
some of St. PauPs epistles, were known to Clem- 
ent, Ignatius, and Polycarp, contemporaries with 
the apostles. These men could not quote or refer 
to books which did not exist ; and therefore, though 
you could make it out that the book called the New 
Testament did not formally exist under that title 
till 350 years after Chris4^';et I hold it to be a cer- 
tain fact that all the books of which it is composed 
were written, and most of them received by all 
Christians, within a few years after his deatL 

You raise a difficulty relative to the time which 
intervened between the death and resurrection of 
Jesus, wlio had said that the Son of man should 
be three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth. Are you ignorant, then, that the Jews 
used the phrase three days and three nights to 
denote w^hat we understand by three days ? It is 
said in Genesis, chap, t : 12, ''The rain was upon 
the earth forty days and forty nights f and this is 
equivalent to the expression, verse 17, ''And the 



WATSON S RETLY TO TAINE. 1G3 

flood was forty days upon the earth." Instead 
then of saying three days and three nights, let us 
simply say three days ; and you will not object to 
Christ's being three days — Friday, Saturday, and 
Sunday — in the heart of the earth. I do not say 
that he was in the grave the whole of either Fri- 
day or Sunday ; but a hundred instances might be 
produced, from writers of all nations, in which a 
part of a day is spoken of as the whole. Thus 
much for the defence of the historical part of the 
New Testament. 

You have introduced an account of Faustus, as 
denying the genuineness of the books of tfrelSfew 
Testament^JJiS^ill you permit that great scholar in 
sacrecT literature, Michaelis, to tell you something 
about this Faustus ? '' lie was ignorant, as were 
most of the African writers, of the Greek language, 
and acquainted with the New Testament merely 
through the channel of the Latin translation : he 
was not only devoid of a sufficient fund of learning, 
but illiterate in the highest degree. An argument 
which he brings against the genuineness of the 
gospel affords suflfcient ground for this assertion ; 
for he contends that the gospel of St. Matthew 
could not have been written by St. Matthew him- 
self, because "He Is always mentioned in the third 
ITcrson." You know who has argued like Faustus, 
but 1 did not think myself authorized on that ac* 



\0 



1G4 WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 

count to call you illiterate in the highest degree ; 
l)ut ^lichaelis makes a still more severe conclusion 
concerning Faustus, and he extends his observa- 
tion to every man who argued like him : *' A man 
cnj)able of such an argument must liavc been igno- 
rant not only of the Greek writers, the knowledge 
of which could not have hccn expected from Faus- 
tus, but even of the commentaries of Caesar. And 
Averc it thought impro])able that so heavy a charge 
could be laid with justice on the side of his know- 
ledge, it would fall with double weight on the side 
of his honesty, and induce us to suppose that, pre- 
ferring the art of sophistry to the plainness of truth, 
he maintained opinions which he believed to be 
false." Never more, I think, shall we hear of Mo- 
ses not being the author of the Pentateuch, on ac- 
count of its being written in the third person. 

Not being able to produce any argument to ren- 
der questionable either the genuineness or the 
authenticity of St. Paul's epistles, you tell us that 
" it is a matter of no great importance by whom 
they were wTitten, since the writer, whoever he 
was, attempts to prove his doctrine by argument : 
he does not pretend to have been witness to any 
of the scenes told of the resurrection and ascension, 
and he declares that he had not believed them." 
That Paul had so far resisted the evidence which 
the apostles had given of the resurrection and as- 

'J 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 1G5 

consion of Jesiw as to be a persecutor of the disci- 
ples of Christ, is certain ; but I do not remember . 
the pUu-e where he dechires that he had not be- ^ 
licved them. Tlie high-priest and the senate of 
the chikh-en of Israel did not deny the reality of 
the miracles which had been wrought by Peter 
and the apostles ; they did not contradict their 
testimony concerning the resurrection and the as- 
cension ; but whether they believed it or not, they 
were fired with indignation, and took counsel to 
put the apostles to deatli : and this was also the 
temper of Paul : whether he kelieved or did not 
believe the story of the resurrection, he was ex- 
ceedingly mad against the saints. The writcf of 
Paul's epistles does not attempt to prove his doc- 
trine by argument ; he in many places tells us that 
his doctrine was not taught him by man, or any 
invention of his own which required the higenuity 
of argument to prove it : " I certify you, brethren, 
that the gospel, which was preached of me, is not 
after man ; for I neither received it of man, neither 
was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ." Paul does not pretend to have been a 
witness of the story of the resurrection, but he 
does much more, he asserts that he was himself a 
witness of the resurrection. After enumerating 
many appearances of Jesus to his disciples, Paul 
says of himself, " Last of all, he was seen of me 



16G WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

also, as of one born out of due time." Whetlicr 
you will admit Paul to have been a true witness 
or not, you cannot deny that he pretends to have 
been a witness of the resurrection. 

The story of his being struck to the ground as 
he was journeying to Damascus, lias nothing in it, 
Vr-^ you say, miraculous or extraordinary ; you repre- 
sent him as struck by lightning. It is somewliat 
extraordinary for a man who is struck by lightning, 
to have, at tlie very time, full possession of his 
understanding; to hear a voice issuing from the 
lightning, speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, 
calling him by his name, and entering into conver- 
sation wnth him. His companions, you say, ap- 
. pear not to have suffered in the same manner ; 
the greater the wonder. If it was a common storm 
of thunder and lightning which struck Paul and all 
his companions to the ground, it is somewhat ex- 
traordinary that he alone should be hurt ; and that, 
notwithstanding his being struck blind by lightning, 
he should in other respects be so little hurt as to 
be immediately able to walk into the city of Da- 
mascus. So difficult is it to oppose truth by an 
hypothesis. In the characte^j^f Paul you discover, 
a great deal of violence and fanaticisiXL; and such 
men, you observe, are never good moral evidences 
of any doctrine they teach. Read, sir, lord Lyttel- 
ton's Observations on the Conversion and Apostle- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 1G7 

ship of St. Paul, and I think you will be convinced 
of the contrary. That elegant writer thus ex- 
presses his opinion on this subject : *' Besides all 
the proofs of the Christian religion which may be 
drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, 
from tlie necessary connection it has with the 
whole system of the Jewish religion, from the 
miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of 
his resurrection by all the other apostles, I think 
O^thc conversion and apostlesliip of St. Paul alone, 
duly considered, is of itself a demonstration suffi- 
cient to prove Christianity to be a divine revela- 
tion." I hope this opinion will have some weight 
with 3^ou ; it is not the opinion of a lying Bible- 
prophet, of a stupid evangelist, or of an ^^ i ab 
priest, but of a learned layman, whose illustrious 
rank received splendor from his talents. 

You are displeased with St. Paul ''for setting 
out to prove the resurrection of the same body." 
You know, I prcfHAme, that the resurrection of the 
same bodyMs not, by all, admitted to be a scrip- 
tural doctrine. " In the New Testament — where- 
in, I think, are contained alTThc articles of the 
Christian faith — I find our Saviour and the apos- 
tles to preaph the resurrection of the dead, and the 
resurrection from the dead, in many places ; but I 
do not remember any place where the resurrection 
of the same body is so much as mentioned." This 



1G8 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

ol)s(Tvation of Mr. Locke I so far adopt as to deny 
that yon can produce any i)lacc in tlic writin<,^s of 
St. l*aul, Aviierein he sets out to prove the resur- 
rection of the same body. I do not question the 
possihiHty of the resurrection of tlie same body, 
s.ind I am not iii;norant of the manner in which 
some learned men liave explained it — somewhat 
after the way of your vegetative speck in the ker- 
nel of a peach ; but as you are discrediting St. 
Paul's doctrine, you ought to show that what you 
attempt to discredit is the doctrine of the apostle. 
As a matter of choice, you had rather have a better 
body — you will have a better body, *'your natural 
body will be raised a spiritual body, your corrupti- 
ble w^ill put on -incorruption.'^ You are so much 
out of humor with your present body, that you 
inform us every animal in the creation excels us 
in something. Now I had always thought that 
the single circumstance of our having hands, and 
their having none, gave us an infinite superioritj^, 
not only over insects, fishes, snails, and spiders — 
which you represent as excelling us in locomotive 
powers — but over all the animals of the creation ; 
and enabled us, in the language of Cicero, describ- 
I'ing the manifold utility of our hands, to make as it 
were a new nature of things. As to what you 
say about the consciousness of existence being the 
only conceivable idea of a future life, it proves 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 169 

Tiotliinc^, citlier for or arainst the resurrection of a 
body, or of the same body ; it docs not inform us 
whether to any or to what substance, material or 
immaterial, this consciousness is annexed. I leave 
it however to others, who do not admit personal 
identity to consist in consciousness, to dispute with 
you on this point, and willingly subscribe to the 
opinion of Mr. Locke, that '' notlung but conscious- 
ness can unite remote existences into the same 
person.'' 

From a caterpillar's passing into a torpid state 
resembling death, and afterwards appearing a 
splendid butterfly, and from the — supposed — con- 
sciousness of existence which the animal had in 
these different states, you ask, ** \\QjijL.injist I be-., 
lieve that the resurrection of the same body is 
necessary to continue in me the consciousness of 
existence ji^eafter V^ I do not dislike analogical 
reasoning, when appliedJ.o proper .oL^ficts^and kept 
within due bounds ; but whereJ aJt^~KaId in Scrip- 
ture, that_the_resurrectLQn„.oL the., same body~Is 
necessary to continue in you the consciousness of 
existence ? Those who admit a conscious state of 
the soul "Between death and the resurrection, will 
contend that the soul is the substance in which 
consciousness is continued without interruption : 
those who deny the intermediate state or the soul 
as a state of consciousness, will contend that con- 



9 



X 



170 WATSON^S REPLY TO PAINE. 

sciousncss is not destroyed by death, but sus- 
pended by it, as it is suspended during a sound 
sleep, and that it may as easily be restored after 
death as after sleep, during which the faculties of 
the soul arc not extinct, but donnant. Those who 
think that the soul is nothing distinct from the 
compages of the body, not a substance but a mere 
quality, will maintain that the consciousness ap- 
pertaining to every individual person is not lost 
when the body is destroyed ; that it is known to 
God, and may, at the general resurrection, be an- 
nexed to any system of matter he may think fit, 
or to that particular compages to which it belonged 
in this life. 

In reading your book I have been frequently 
shocked at the virulence of your zeal, at the inde- 
corum of your abuse in applying vulgar and offen- 
sive epithets to men who have been held, and who 
will long, I trust, continue to be holden in high 
estimation. I know that the scar of calumny is 
seldom wholly effaced, it remains long after the 
wound is healed ; and your abuse of holy men and 
holy things will be remembered when your argu- 
ments against them are refuted and forgotten. 
Moses you term an arro":ant coxcomlx a chief as- 
sassin : Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, monsters 
and impostors ; the Jewish kings a parcel of ras- 
^als ; Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets liars ; 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 171 

and Paul a fool, for having written one of the sub- 
linicst compositions, and on the most important 
subject that ever occupied the mind of man — the 
fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corin- 
thians : this you call a doul)tful jargon, as destitute 
of meaning as ^lenrening of the bell at a funeral. 
Men of low condition, pressed down, as you often 
are, by calamities generally incident to human na- 
ture, and groaning under burdens of misery pecul- 
iar to your condition, what thought you when 3 ou 
heard this chapter, read at the funeral of your cliildj 
your parent, or your friend ? Was it mere jargon.^ 
to you, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of a 
bell ? No. You understood from it that you would 
not all sleep, but that you would all be changed in 
a moment, at the last trump ; you understood from 
it that this corruptible must put on incorruption, 
that this mortal must put on immortality, and that 
death would be swallowed up in victory ; you 
understood from it, that if — notwithstanding pro- 
fane attempts to subvert your faith — ye continue 
steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, your labor will not be in vain. 

You seem fond of displaying your skill in science 
and philosophy ; you speak more than once of Eu- 
clid ; and in censuring St. Paul, you, intimate to 
us, that when the apostle says one star differetli 
from another star in glory, he ought to have said 



172 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

ill (listaiico. All men see that ono star diffcretli 
from another star in glory or bri<^litness, but few 
men knoto that their differenco in brightness arises 
from their difference in distance ; and I beg leave 
to say, that even you, philosopher as you are, do 
not know it. You make an assumj)tion which you 
cannot prov(^ — that the stars are equal in magni- 
tude, and placed at different distances from the 
earth ; but you cannot prove that they are not 
different in magnitude and placed at equal dis- 
tances, though none of them may be so near to 
the earth as to have any sensible annual parallax. 
I beg pardon of my readers for touching upon this 
subject ; but it really moves one's indignation to 
see a smattering in philosophy urged as an argu- 
ment against the veracity of an apostle. *' Little 
learning is a dangerous thing." 

Paul, you say, affects to be a naturalist, and to 
prove — you might more properly have said illus- 
trate — his system of resurrection from the princi- 
ples of vegetation : ^' Thou fool," says he, '' that 
which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die ;" 
to which one might reply in his own language, and 
say, ^'Thou fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is 
not quickened, except it die notP It may be seen, 
I think, from this passage, who affects to be a nat- 
uralist, to be acquainted with the microscopical 
discoveries of modern times, which were probably 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAlNl!:. 173 

i*eithcr known to Paul nor to the Corintliians ; and 
which, had they been known to tliein both, would 
have been of Httle use in the illustration of the 
subject of the resurrection. Paul said, ** That which 
thou sowest is not quickened, except it die :'' every 
husbandman in Corinth, though unable perhaps to 
define the term dcatli, would understand the apos- 
tle's phrase in a popular sense, and agree with him 
that a grain of wheat must become rotten in the 
ground before it could sprout ; and that, as God 
raised, from a rotten grain of wheat, the roots, the 
stem, the leaves, the ear of a new plant, he might 
also cause a new body to spring up from the rotten 
carcass in the grave. Doctor Clarke observes, '^ In 
like manner, as in every grain of corn there is con- 

• 

tained a minute insensible seminal principle, which 
is itself the entire future blade and ear, and in due 
season, when all the rest of the grain is corrupted, 
evolves and unfolds itself visibly to the eye ; so 
our present mortal and corruptible body may be 
but the exuvicej as it were, of some hidden and at 
present insensible principle — possibly the present 
seat of the soul — w^hich at the resurrection shall dis- 
cover itself in its proper form." I do not agree with 
this great man, for such I esteem him, in this phi- 
losophical. conjecture ; but the quotation may serve 
ho show you that the germ does not evolve and 
unfold itself visibly to the eye till after the rest of 



174 WATSON'S rtEPLi TO rAlNE.' 

the f^rain is corrup/cd; that is, in the language and 
meaning of St. Taul, till it dies. Tliough the au- 
thority of Jesus may have as little weight with 
you as that of Paul, yet it may not be improper to 
quote to you our Saviour's 'expression, when he 
foretells the numerous disciples wliich liis death 
would produce : *^ Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die., it abidetli alone ; but if it die, 
it bringeth forth muclf'fruit." You })erceive from 
tliis, that the Jews thought the death of the grain 
was necessary to its reproduction ; hence ever}^ 
one may see what little reason you had to oi)ject 
to the apostle's popular illustration of the possibili- 
ty of a resurrection. Had he known as much as 
any naturahst in Europe does of the progress of 
an animal from one state to another, as from a 
worm to a butterfly — which you think applies to 
the case — I am of opinion he would not have used 
that illustration in preference to what he has used, 
which is obvious and satisfactory. 

Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul 
were written by him or not, is, in your judgment, 
a matter of indifference. So far from being a mat- 
ter of indifference, I consider the genuineness or 
St. Paul's epistles to be a matter of the greatest 
importance ; for if the epistles ascribed to Paul 
were written by him — and there is unquestionable 
proof that they were — it will be difficult for you, or 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 175 

for any man, upon fair principles of sound reason- 
in.i^, to d(3ny that the Christian religion is true. 
Tlie ar<^ument is a short one, and obvious to every 
capacity. It stands thus : St. Paul wrote several 
letters to those whom, in different countries, lie 
had converted to the Christian faith ; in these 
letters he affirms two tilings: first, that he had 
wrought miracles in their presence ; secondly, 
that many of themselves had received the gift of 
tongues, and other miraculous gifts of the Holy 
Ghost. The persons to whom these letters were 
addressed must, on reading them, have certainly 
known whether Paul affirmed what was true, or 
told a plain lie ; they must have known whether 
they had seen him work miracles ; they must have 
been conscious whether they themselves did or did 
not possess any miraculous gifts. Now, can you, 
or can any man, believe for a moment that Paul — 
a man certainly of great. laJjUities — would have 
written public letters fall of lies, and which could 
not fail of "belng^scd?t?red to be lies as soon as 
his leCTers were read ? Paul could not be guilty 
of falsehood in these two pohits, or in either of 
them ; and if either of them be true, the Christian 
religion is true. References to these two points 
are frequent in St. PauFs epistles : I will mention 
only a few. In his epistle to the Galatians he 
says, chap. 3:2, 5, ''This only would I learn of 



17G WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

you, Received ye tlic Spirit" — <^ifts of tlic Si)irit — 
^' by the works of tlie law ? lie niiiiistereth to you 
the SjHrit, and worketh miracles ainoii<^ you." To 
the Thessaloiiians he says, 1 Thess. chap. 1:5, 
*' Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but 
also in power, and in the Holy Ghost." To the 
Corinthians he thus expr(\ssed himself. Cor. 2:4, 
*'My preaching was not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, l)ut in the demonstration of the 
Spirit and of power ;" and he adds the reason for 
his working miracles, ^' That your faith should not , 
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of .-^^ 
God." With what alacrity would the faction at 
Corinth which opposed the apostle, have laid hold 
of this and many similar declarations in his letter, 
had they been able to have detected any falsehood 
in them. There is no need to multiply words on 
so clear a point : the genuineness of PauPs ej)istle.s 
proves their authenticity, independently of every 
other proof; for it is absurd in the extreme to su}> 
pose him, under circumstances of obvious detec- 
tion, capable of advancing w^hat wscs not true ; and 
if PauFs epistles be both genuine and authentic, the 
Christian religion is true. Think of tViis argument. 
You close your observations in the following 
manner : ^' Should the Bible" — meaning, as I have 
before remarked, the Old Testament— '' and Testa- 
ment hereafter fall, it is not I that have. been the 



^ WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE l?^ 

bccasioii;^ You look, I think, upon your produc- 
tion with a parentis partial cycjrhcn you speak of 
it in such a style of 8elf-conii)lacency. The Uible, 
sir, has withstood the learninj:^ of Porphyry and 
the power of JuliaiiTTo^say nothing of the Man- 
icliean Faustus fit has resisted the genius of Bo- 
lingbroke and the wit of Voltaire, to say nothing 
of the numerous herd of inferior assailants ; and 
jt will not fall by your force. You have barbed 
anew the blunted arrows of former adversaries ; 
you have feathered them with blasphemy and ridi- 
cule ; dipped them in your deadliest poison ; aimed 
them with your utmost skill ; shot them against 
the shield of faith with your utmost vigor ; but, 
like the feeble javelin of aged Priam, they will 
scarcely reach the mark, and will fall to the ground 
without a stroke. 



Rep to Paine. 



12 



178 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 



LETTER X. 

The remaining part of your work can hardly bo 
made the subject of animadversion. It principally 
consists of nnsui)ported assertions, abusive appel- 
lations, illiberal sarcasms, *' strifes of words, pro- 
fane babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely 
so called." I am hurt at being, in mere justice to 
the subject, under the necessity of using such 
harsh language ; and am sincerely sorry that, from 
what cause I know not, your mind has received a 
wrong bios 4n. every point respectin g i^veal ed re- 
ligion. You are capable of better things ; for there 
is a philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas 
when you speak of the Supreme Being as the 
Creator of the universe. That you may no^ ac- 
cuse me of disrespect, in passing over any part 
of your work without bestowing proper attention 
upon it, I will wait upon you through what you 
call your conclusion. 

You refer your reader to the former part of the 
Age of Reason ; in which j^ou have spoken of what 
you esteem three frauds : mystery^ miracle, and 
prophecy. I have not at hand the book to which 
you refer, and know not what you liaye^said on 
these subjects. They are subjects of great impor- 
tance^ and we, probably, should differ essentially 



WATSON'S REPLY TO TAINE. 179 

ill onr opinion concerning thcni ; but I confess, I 
am not sorry to be excused from examining what 
you have said on these points. The specimen of 
3^our reasoning whicli is now before me, lias taken 
from me every inchnation to trouble either my 
reader or myself with any observations on your 
former book. 

You admit the possibility of God^s revealing his 
will to man"7"yet '' the thing so revealed," you say, 
'Ms revelatidfr to the person only to whom it is 
made ; liis account oTTT to another is not revela- 
tion/^ This is true ; his account is simple testi- 
rnoTiy YQii-.nfld^ ihovo. is no ''possible Criterion to 
judge of the truth of what he says.'^ This I posi- 
tively deny ; 'and' conte^M that a real miracle, i^er- 
formed in^attestaiioiiJifJi^Tcvealed 'tfutE,"Ts a cer- 
tain criterioaJby-Ssdiidx we maj^ judge of the truth 
of that attestation. I am perfectly aware of the 
objections which may be made to this position ; I 
have examined them with care : I acknow^lediro 
them to be of weight ; but I do not speak unad- 
visedly, or as wishing to dictate to other men, 
whe%I say that I am persuaded the position is 
true. So thought Moses when in the matter of 
Korah he said to the Israelites, ^ If th^^se m o:n die 
the common death of all men, then the Lord hatli 
not sent me." So thought Elijah when he said, 
'' Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it 



180 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

bo known this daythat^^iou art God in Israel, and 
that lam thy servant f_ and the people before 
Avhom ho spoko wore of the same opinion, for 
whon the lire of the Lord foil and consumed the 
burnt-sacrifice, thoy said, ''The Lord ho is the 
God." So thought our Saviour whon he said, 
*'The works tliat I do in my Fatlior's name tlioy 
boar witness of me ;" and, " If I do not the works 
of my Father, believe me not." 

What reason have we to believe Jesus speaking 
in the gospel, and to disbelieve Mahomet speaking 
in the Koran ? Both of them lay claim to a divine 
commission ; and yet we receive the words of the 
one as a revelation from God, and we reject the 
Avords of tTic'lTffierlis an imposture of man. The 
reason is evident : Jesus establiglied his preten- 
daaSj_iiot by al leging an; ^_sc cret c ommunicatiou., 
^with the lleityf but by work m^g^ nume rous and 
indu bitable mira cles in the presence of thousands, 
and v/hidi^EemostlSitterimdwatchful of his ene- 
mies could not disallow ; but Mahomet wro ught 
^10 miracles at ajl : nor is a miracle the only crite- 
rion, by which we may judge of _tJie_truIhofji^ 
Jatioa. r If a scries of prophets should, through aT 
course- of many centuries, predict the appearance 
of a certain personjv\^hom God would at a particu- 
lar time send into the world for a particular end, 
and at length a person should Jippear in whom all 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 181 

• the predictions were minutely accomplished ; such 
a completion of prophecy would be a criterion of 
the truth of "HllllrTevelatifiin which that person 
should deliver to mqnkinQ^2^J0r if a person should''^"/, y 
now say — as many false prophets have said, and It^ 

are daily saying — that he had a commission to 
declare the will of God ; and as a proof of his ve- 
racity, should predict that, after his death, he 
would rise from the dead on the third day, the 
completion of such a prophecy would, I presume, 
be a sufficient criterion of*the truth of what this 
man might have said concerning the will of God. 
*' Now I tell you," says Jesus to his disciples con- 
cerning Judas, who was to betray him, '' before it 
come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe 
that I am lie." 

In various parts of the gospels our Saviour, with 
the utn^.ost propriety, claims to be received as the 
messenger oXG_M^Jiot only from the miracles 
which ho wrou ght, ^ ut from the prophecies which 
were fulfilled in his person, and from the predic- 
tions which he himself delivered. Hence, instead 
of there being no criterion by which we may judge 
of the truth of the Christian revelation, there arc 
clearly |lired> It is an easy matter to use an in- 
decorous flippancy of language in speaking of the 
Christian religion, and w^ith a supercilious negli- 
gence, to class Christ and his apostles among the 



\y 



182 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

^ . impostors who have figured in the world ; but it is 
not, I think, an easy matter for any man, of good 
sense and sound erudition, to make an inn)artial 
examination into any one of the three grounds 
of Christianity wliich I have liere mentioned, and 
to reject it. 

AViiat is it, you ask, the Bible teaches? Tlie 

propliet Micah shall answer you : it teaches us 

'*to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk ji_urij])ly 

with our God;" justice, mercy, and piety, instead 

<^pf what 3^ou contend for— rapine, cruelty, and innr- , 

^ m2trj,,Ji^hfit is it, you demand, the Testament 
teaches us ? You answer your question — to be- 
)^yj^ lieve that the Almighty committed debauchery 
with a woman. AlVsurd and impious assertion ! 
No, sir, no ; this profane doctrine, this miseraljle 
stuff, tliis blasphemous perv(5rsion of Scripture, is 
your doctrine, not that of the New Testament. I 
will tell you the lesson which it teaches to infidels 
as well as to believers ; it is a lesson which phi- 
losophy never taught, which wit cannot ridicule, 
nor sophistry disprove ; the lesson is this : *' The 
dead shall hear the voice ^of-th^ Son of God, and 
they that hear shall live : all that are in their 
graves shall come forth ; they that have done 
good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that 
have done evil, unto the resurrection of damna- 
tion." 



^ A^ A ^-^.TSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 183 

^ ^^hc in oral proci^EJ^Qf ^^^c gospel arc so well ^ 

fitted to i)roniote tlie happiness of mankind in this 
world, and to lu'cpare human nature for the future 
eiijoymentrtjf- that blessedness, of which, in our 
present state, we can form no conception, that I 
had no expe(!tation they would have mot with 
your disapprobation. You say, however, " As to 
the scraps of morality that arc irregularly and 
thinly scattered in those books, they make no paH Av ^ 
of the pretended thing, revealed religion." '' Whatr ^ 
soever ye would that men shouia do to ymi^..do ye g '^-^^^ 
even so to them." Is this a £crap of morality? Is "^ " 

it not rather the concentrated essence of all ethics, 
the vigorous root from which every Ui'anch of moral 
dut}^ towards each other may be derived ? Duties, 
you know, are distinguished by moralists into du- 
ties of perfect and injpcrfect obligation : does the 
Bible teach .^^Oii nothing, when it instructs you 
that this distinction is done away — when it bids 
you ''put on bovs^els of mercy, kindness, humble- 
ness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing 
one another, and forgiving one another, if any man 
have a quarrel against any?" These, and precepts 
such as these, you will in vain look for in the codes 
of Frederick or Justinian ; you cannot find them 
in your statute-books ; they were not taught, nor 
are they taught, in the schools of heathen pliiloso- 
phy ; or if some one or two of them should chance 



/ 



184 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

to be glanced at by a Plato, a Seneca, or a Cicero, 
they arc not bound upon the conscience of man- 
kind by any sanction. It is in the gospel, and in 
the gospel alone, that we learn their iinjjortiinco : 
acts of benevolence and brotherly love may be to 
an unbeliever voluntary acts — to a Christian, they 
are indispensable duties. Is a new commandment 
no part of revealed religion ? '^ A new command- 
mandment I give unto you, that ye love one an- 
other:" the law of Christian benevolence is en- 
joined us by Christ himself, in the most solemn 
manner, as the distinguishing badge of our being 
his disciples. 

Two precepts you particularize as inconsistent 
w^ith the dignity and the nature of man — tliai-oL 
not resenting injuries, and that of loving enemies. 
Who but yourself ever interpreted literally the 
proverbial phrase, ''If a man smite thee on thy 
right cheek, turn to him the other also?-'- Bid 
Jesus himself turn the Qthei' cheek-Jvviuiii-the offi- 
cer of the high-priest smote him ? It is evident 
that a patient acquiescence under slight personal 
injuries is here enjoined ; and that a proneness to 
revenge, which instigates men to savage acts of 
brutality for every trifling offence, is forbid den. 
As to loving enemies, it is explained in another 
place to mean the doing them all the good in our 
power : '* If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINB^^^^^^'' 185 !<f 

thirst, give him drink;" and what, think you, is 
more Hkcly to preserve peacc^^ncjuti) promote kind 
affections among men, than the r6turning good for 
evil ? Christianity does not order us to love in 
proportion to the injury; '^it does not offer a pre- 
mium for a erime f it orders us to let our benevo- 
lence extend alike to all, that we may emulate the 
benignity of God himself, wka.maketh '' hi^ sun to '"^ 
rise on the evil, an4 on the good." 

Aristotle, in his treatise of morals, says that 
some thought retaliation of personal wrongs an 
equitable proceeding ; Rhadamanthus is said to 
have given it his sanction ; the decemviral laws 
allowed it ; the common law of England did not 
forbid it, and it is said to be still the law of some 
countries, even in Christendom : but the mild spirit 
of Christianity absolutely prohibits, not only the 
retaliation of injuries, but the indulgence of every 
resentful propensity. 

*'It has been," you affirm, ''the scheme of the ^ 
Christian church to hold man in ignorance of ittc { 
Creator, as it is of government to hold him in igno- 
rance of his rights." I appeal to the plain sense 
of any honest man to judge whether this represen- 
tation be true. When he attends the services of 
the church, does he discover any design in the 
minister to keep him in ignorance of his Creator ? 
Arc not the public prayers in which he joins, and 



)6G WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

the soiinoiis which are i)reached, all calculated to 
impress upon his mind a strong conviction of the 
mercy, justice, holiness, i)Owcr, and -wdaikuu-^if the 
one adorable God, blessed for ever? By these 
means which the Christian church has provided 
for our instruction, I will venture to say that the 
most unlearned congregation of Christians have 
more just and sublime conceptions of the Creator, 
a more perfect knowledge of their duty tovv^ards 
hiin, and a stronger inducement to the practice of 
virtue, holiness, and temperance, than all the phi- 
losophers of all the heathen countries in the" world 
ever had, or now have. If indeed your scheme 
should take place, and men should no longer be- 
lieve their Bible, then w^ould they soon become as 
ignorant of the Creator as all the world was when 
God called Abraham from his kindred, and as all 
the world Avhich has had no communication with 
either Jews or Christians, now is. Then would 
they soon bow down to stocks and stones, kiss 
their hand — as they did in the time of Job, and as 
the poor African does now — to '^ the moon walking 
in brightness, and deny the God that is above f 
then w^ould they worship Jupiter, Bacchus, and 
Venus, and emulate, in the transcendent flagitious- 
ness of their lives, the impure morals of their gods. 
You are animated with proper sentiments of 
piety when jou speak of the structure of the uni- 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 187 

verse. No one, indeed, who considers it with 
attention, can fail of liaving his mind filled with 
the supremest veneration for its Author. Who 
can contemplate, without astonishment, the mo- 
tion of a comet, running far beyond the or)) of 
Saturn, endeavoring to escape into the j)athless 
regions of unbounded space, yet feeling, at itir* 
utmost distance, the attractive influence of the 
sun ; hearing, as it were, the voice of God arrest- 
ing its progress, and compelling it, after a lapse of 
ages, to reiterate its ancient course ? Who can 
comprehend the distance of the stars from the 
earth, and from each other ? It is so great, that 
it mocks our conception ; our very imagination is 
terrified, confounded, and lost, when we are told 
that a ray of light, which moves at the rate of ten 
millions of miles in a minute, will not, though 
emitted at this instant from the brightest star, 
reach the earth in less than six years. We think 
this earth a great globe, and we see the sad wick- 
edness which individuals are often ..guilty of, in 
scraping together a little of its dirt ; we view, 
with still greater astonishment and horror, the 
mighty ruin which has in all ages been brought 
upon human kind by the low ambition of contend- 
ing powers, to acquire a temporary possession of a 
little portion of its surface. But how does the 
whole of this globe sink, as it wxrc, to nothhig, 



188 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

when wc consider Umt «a million of earths will 
scarcely equal the bulk of the sun ; that all the 
stars are suns ; and that millions of suns consti- 
. tute, pro))ably, but a minute portion of that mate- 
rial world which God hath distributed through the 
immensity of space ! Systems, however, of insen- 
si))le matter, thougli arranged m exquisite order, 
prove only the wisdom and the power of the great 
Architect of nature. As percipient beings, we look 
for something more — for his goodness ; and we 
cannot open our eyes without seeing it. 

Every portion of the earth, sea, and air, is full of 
sensitive beings, capable, in their respective orders, 
of enjojang the good things which God has pre- 
pared for their comfort. All 'the orders of beings 
are enabled to propagate their kind ; and tlms pro- 
vision is made for a successive continuation of hap- 
piness. Individuals yield to the law of dissolution 
inseparable from the material structure of their 
bodies, but no gap is thereby left in existence ; 
their place is occupied by other individuals capable 
of participating in the goodness of the Almighty. 
Contemplations such as these fill the mind with 
humility, benevolence, and piety. But why should 
we stop here— wby-^iot contemplate the goodness 
of God in the rede/iiplidnj^Ks well as in the creation 
of the world? By 'the death of Lis only begotten 
Son Jesus Christ, he has redeemed us from the 



WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 189 

eternal death which the transgression of Adam had 
entailed on all his posterity. You believe nothing 
about tlie transgression of Adam. The history of 
Eve and the serpent excites your contempt ; you 
will not admit that it is either a real history or 
an allegorical representation of death entering into 
the world through disobedience to the command 
of God. Be it so. You find, however, that death 
reigns over all mankind, by whatever means it 
was introduced : this is not a matter of belief, but 
of laineiikible knowledge. The New Testament 
tells us that, through the merciful dispensation of 
God, Christ has overcome death, and restored man 
to that inmiortality which Adam had lost. This 
also j^ou refuse to believe. Why ? Because you 
cannot account for the propriety of this redemp- 
tion. Miserable reason ! stupid objection ! What 
is there that you can account for ? Not for the 
germination of a blade of grass, not for the fall of a 
leaf of the forest ; and will you refuse to eat of the 
fruits of the earth, because God has not given you 
wisdom equal to his own ? Will you refuse to 
lay hold on immortality because he has not given 
you, because he, probably, could not give to such 
a being as man a full manifestation of the end forj 
which he designs him, nor of the means requisite 
for the attainment of that end ? What father of a 
family can make level to the apprehension of his 



190 WATSON^S REPLY TO TAINE. 

infant clnldroii all the views of liapinness which 
his paternal <j^oo(lness is preparing for them ? IIow 
can he exj)hiin to them the utility of reproof, cor- 
rection, instruction, example — of all the various 
means by which he forms their minds to piety, 
temperance, and probity ? We are children in the 
hand of God ; we are in the very infancy of our 
existence, just separated from the womb of eternal 
duration ; it may not be possible for the Father of 
the universe to explain to us — infants in apprehen- 
sion — the goodness and the wisdom of his dealings 
with the sons of men. What qualities of mind 
will be necessary for our well-doing through all 
eternity, we know not ; what discipline in this 
infancy of existence may be necessary for generat- 
ing these qualities, \ve know not; whether God 
could or could not, consistently w4th the general 
good, have forgiven the transgression of Adam 
without any atonement, we know not ; whether 
the malignity of sin be not so great, so opposite to 
the gcnera.1 good, that it cannot be forgiven while 
it exists, that is, while the mind retains a propen- 
sity to it, we know not ; so that if there should be 
nmch greater difiBculty in comprehending the mode 
of God's moral government of mankind than there 
really is, there w^ould be no reason for doubting of 
its rectitude. If the whole human race be consid- 
ered as but one small member of a large commu- 



WATSON'S HETLY TO PAINE 191 

nity of free and intelligent beings of different, 
orders, and if this wliole community be subject to 
discipline and laws productive of the greatest pos- 
sible good to the whole system, then may we still 
more reasonably suspect our capacity to compre- 
hend the wisdom and goodness of all God's pro- 
ceedings in the moral government of the universe. 
You are lavish in your praise of deism. It is so 
much better than atheism, that I mean not to say 
any thing to its discredit ; it is not, however, with- 
out its difiBcultics. What think you of an uncaused 
causo of every thing ; of a Being who has no rela- 
tion to time, not being older to-day than he was 
yesterday, nor younger to-day than he will be to- 
morrow ; who has no relation to space, not being 
a part here, and a part there, or a whole anywhere ? 
What think you of an omniscient Being who can- 
not know the future actions of a man ? Or, if his 
omniscience enables him to know them, what think 
you of the contingency of human actions ? And if 
human actions are not contingent, what think you 
of the morality of actions, of the distinction be- 
tween vice and virtue, crime and innocence, sin 
and duty ? What think you of the infinite good- 
ness of a Being who existed through eternity with- 
out any emanation of his goodness manifested in 
the creation of sensitive beings ? Or, if you con- 
tend that there has been an eternal creation, what 



11)2 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

think you of an effect coeval Avitli its cause, of mat- 
ter not posterior to its Makc^r ? What think you 
of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in the 
vvM)rk of an infinite Beinfi^, i)Owerful, wise, and 
good ? What think you of the gift of freedom of 
will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause 
of general misery ? I could propose to your con- 
sideration a great many other questions of a similar 
tendency, the contemplation of which has driven 
not a few from deism to atheism, just as the difli- 
cultics in revealed religion have driven yourself, 
and some others, from Christianity to deism. 

For my own par4yJ can see no reason why either 
revealed or natural "Veligion should be abandoned 
on account of the difficulties which attend either of 
them. I look up to the incomprehensible Maker of 
heaven and earth with unspeakable admiration and 
self-annihilation. I contemplate, with the utmost 
gratitude and humility of mind, his -unsearchable 
wisdom and goodness in the redemption of the 
world from eternal death, through the intervention 
of his Son Jesus Christ ; and I have no doubt of a 
future state. You and other men may conclude 
differently. From the inert nature of matter, from 
the faculties of the human mind, from the apparent 
imperfection of God's moral government of the 
world, from many modes of analogical reasoning, 
and from other sources, some of the philosophers 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 193 

of antiquity did collect, and modern philosophers 
may, perhaps, collect a strong probabiUty of a fu- 
ture existence ; and not only of a future existence, 
but — which is quite a distinct question — of a future 
state of retribution proportioned to our moral con- 
duct in this world. Far be it from me to loosen 
any of the obligations to virtue ; but I must con- 
fess that I cannot, from the same sources of argu- 
mentation, derive any positive assurance on the 
subject. Think then with what thankfulness of 
heart I receive the word of God, which. tells me, 
that though ^^in Adam," by the condition of our 
nature, '^airdie," yet ''in Christ," by the covenant 
of grace, " shall all be made alive." I lay hold on 
''eternal life as the gift of God through Jesus 
Christ ;" I consider it not as any appendage to the 
nature I derive from Adam, but as the free gift of 
the Almighty through his Son, whom he hath con- 
stituted Lord of all, the Saviour, the Advocate, and 
the Judge? of human kind. 

"Deism," you affirm, "teaches us, without the 
possibility of being mistaken, all that is necessary 
or proper to be known." There are three things 
which all reasonable men admit are necessary and 
proper to be known: the being of God; the prcvi- 
dence of God; a future state of rdriBution, Whether 
these three truths are so taught us by deism that 
there is no possibility of being mistaken concern- 
Rep- to Paine- 13 



194 WATSON'S RETLY TO PAINE. 

ing any of them, let the history of philosophy, and 
of idolatry, and superstition, in all ages and coun- 
tries determine. A volume might be filled with an 
account of the— mfetakcs into which the greatest 
reasoners hayj?. fa,]lon, and of tlie uncertainty in 
which they lived, with respect to every one of 
these points. I will advert, briefly, only to the 
last of them. Notwithstanding the illustrious la- 
bors of Gassendi, Cudworth, Clarke, Baxter, and 
of above two hundred other modern writers on 
the sul)ject, the natural mortality or immortality of 
the human soul is as little understood by us as 
it was by the philosophers of Greece and Rome. 
The opposite opinions of Plato and of Epicurus on 
this subject have their several supporters among 
the learned of the present age in Great Britain, 
Germany, France, Italy — iii every enlightened part 
of the world ; and they who have been most se- 
riously occupied in the study of the question con- 
cerning a future state, as deducible from tlie nature 
of the human soul, are least disposed to give, from 
reason, a positive decision of it either way. The 
importance of revelation is by nothing rendered 
more apparentThan by the discordant sentiments 
of learned and good men^-for I speak not of the 
ignorant and immoral — on this point. They show 
the insufficiency of human reason, in a course of 
above two thousand years, to uirfold the mysteries 



WATSON'S RETLY TO TAINE. 195 

of human nature, and te-fttWiish, from the contem- 
phitiou of it, any assurance of the quahty of our 
future condition. If you should ever become per- 
suaded of this insufliciency — and you can scarce 
fail of becoming sS^' if "you examine the matter 
deeply — you will, if you act I'ationally, be disposed 
to investigate, with seriousness and impartiality, 
the truth of Christianity. You will say of the 
gospel, as the Northumbrian heathens said to 
Paulinus, by whom they were converted to the 
Christian religion, *' The more we reflect on the 
nature of our soul, the less we know of it. While 
it animates our body, we may know some of its 
properties ; but when once separated, we know 
not whither it goes, or from whence it came. 
Since, then, the gospel pretends to give us clearer 
notions of these matters, we ought to hear it, and 
laying aside all passion and prejudice, follow that 
which shall appear most comformable to right 
reason." 

What a blessing is it to beings with such limited 
capacities as ours confessedly are, to have God 
himself for our instructor in every thing which it 
much concerns us to know. We are principally 
concerned in knowing, not the origin of arts, or the 
recondite depths of science ; not the history o\ 
mighty empires desolating the globe by their con- 
tentions ; not the subtilties of logic, the mysteries 



lOf) WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

of metaphysics, the subhmities of poetry, or the 
lueeties of criticism. These, and subjects such as 
t'lese, properly occupy the learned leisure of a few ; 
I ut the bulk of human kind have ever been, and 
must ever remain ignorant of them all ; they must, 
of necessity, remain in the same state with that 
which a Gernian emperor voluntarily put himself 
into when he made a resolution bordering on bar- 
barism, that he would never read a printed book. 
We are all, of every rank and condition, equally 
concerned in knowing what w^ill become of us after 
death ; and if we are to live again, we are inter- 
ested in knowing whether it be possible for us to 
do any thing while we live here, which may render 
that future life a happy one. Now, ** that thing 
called Christianit}^" as you scoffingly speak — that 
last best gift of Almighty God, as I esteem it — the 
gospel of Jt3sus Christj has given us the most clear 
and satisfactory information on both these points. 
It tells us, w^hat deism ngyer could have told us, 
that we sha ll cer t^iDl y bo ra ised from the dead ; 
that, whatever be^thgjmtm^e of the soul, we shall 
certainly live '& ever ; and that, while we live 
here, it is possible for us to do much towards the 
rendering that everlasting life a happy one. These 
are tremendous truths to bad men : they cannot 
be received and reflected on with indifference by 
the best ; and they suggest to all such a cogent 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 197 

motive to virtuous action, as deism could not fur- 
nish even to Brutus himself. 

Some men have been wurped to infidelity by 
viciousness of life ; and some may have hypocriti- 
cally professed Christianity from prospects of tem- 
poral advantage ; but behig a stranger to your 
character, I neither impute the former to you, nor 
can admit the latter as operating on myself. The 
generality of unbelievers arc such from want of 
information on the subject of religion ; having been 
engaged from their youth in struggling for worldly 
distinction, or perplexed with the incessant intrica- 
cies of business, or bewildered in the pursuits of 
pleasure, they have neither ability, inclination, nor 
leisure, to enter into critical disquisitions concern- 
ing the truth of Christianity. Men of this descrip- 
tion are soon startled by objections which they are 
not competent to answer ; and the loose morality 
of the age — so opposite to Christian perfection — 
cooperating with their want of scriptural know- 
ledge, they presently get rid of their nursery faith, 
and are seldom sedulous in the acquisition of an- 
other, founded, not on authority, but sober inves- 
tigation. The gospel has been offered to their 
acceptance ; and from whatever cause they reject 
it, I cannot but esteem their situation to be dan- 
gerous. Under the influence o£ that persuasion I 
have been induced to write this book. I do not 



198 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 

expect to derive from it eitlier fame or profit ; these 
are not improper incentives to honorable activity, 
but there is a time of Hfe wlien they cease to di- 
rect the judgment of tliinkino; men. What I liavo 
written will not, I fear, make any imprc^ssTo'n o:i 
you; but I.-iiidnl<je a hopcL that it may not be 
without its effect on some of your readers. In- 
fidelity is a rank weed ; it threatens to overspread 
the land ; its root is principally fixed among the 
great and opulent, but you arc endeavoring to 
extend the mahgnity of its poisdn through all the 
classes of the community. For all I have the 
greatest respect, and am anxious to preserve them 
from the contamination of your irrehgion. I know 
that many of the mercantile and laboring classes 
are given to reading, and desirous of information 
on all subjects. If this little book should chance 
to fall into their hands after they have read yours, 
and they should think that jijxy of your objections 
to the authority of the Bible have not been fully 
answered, I entreat them to attribute the pmission 
to the brevity which I have studied ; to my desire 
of avoiding learned disquisitions ; to my inadver- 
tency ; to my inability — to any thing, rather than to 
an impossibility of completely obviating every diffi- 
culty you have brought forward, I address the 
same request to such of the youth of both sexes 
as may unhappily have imbibed, from your writ* 



WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 199 

itiM^^vfl^c^ ]»ois()*i of inridclityl beseeching tliein to 
believe that all their religious doubts may be re- 
moved, though it may not have been in my power 
to answer, to tlxciiLi^jsfaction, all your objections. 
I pray God that the rising generation of this land 
may be preserved from that ''evjl heart of unlje- 
lief" which has brought ruin on a neighboring 
nation ; that neither a neglected education, nor 
domestic irreligion, nor evil communication, nor 
the fashion of a licentious \vorld, may ever induce 
them to forget that religion alone ought to be their 
rule of life. ; 

In the conclusion of my Apology for Christianity, 
I informed Mr. Gibbon of my extreme aversion to 
public controversy. I am now twenty years older 
than I was then, and I perceive that this my aver- 
sion has increased with my age. I have, through 
life, abandoned my little literary productions to 
their fate : such of them as have been attacked, 
have never received any defence from me ; nor 
will this receive any, if it should meet with your 
public notice, or with that of any other man. 

Sincerely vv^ishin^^that you may become a par- 
taker of that faith in revealed religion which is the 
foundation of my happiness in this world, and of 
all my hopes in another, I bid 3^ou farewell. 

-" R. LANDAFF. 

Calgarth Park, Jan. 20, 1796. 



HUME'S 



DENIAL OF MIRACLES. 



The plausible and sophistical argument of Hume 
in his Essay on Miracles, in which he contends that 
**a miracle, however attested, can never be ren- 
dered credible," since ^^ it is contrary to experience 
tliat a miracle should be true, but not contrary to 
experience that testimony should be false," has 
been ably answered by Drs. Campbell, Adam, Hey, 
Price, Douglass, Paley, Whately, D wight, Alexan- 
der, Professor Vince, and others. The following 
brief notices seem all that it is necessary to insert 
in this volume. 

'' Independent," says Douglass in his Errors re- 
garding Religion, *' of the redudio ad ahsurdum 
which Hume^s own philosophy affords against his 
favorite argument, and which is undermined by the 
very system from which it springs, it may be ob- 
served that it contains within itself a complication 
of blunders, more numerous, perhaps, than ever 



HUME'S DENIAL OF MIRACLES. 201 

were crowded into the same brief space. The 
argument of Hume against miracles is as follows : 
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature ; but 
we learn from experience that the laws of nature 
are never violated. Our only accounts of miracles 
depend upon testimony, and our belief in testimony 
itself depends upon experience. But experience 
shows that testimony is sometimes true, and some- 
times false ; therefore we have only a variable ex- 
perience in favor of testimon3^ But we have a 
uniform .experience in favor of the uninterrupted 
course of nature. Therefore, as on the side of 
miracles there is but a variable experience, and on 
the side of no miracles a uniform experience, it is 
clear that the lower degree of evidence must yield 
to the higher degree, and therefore no testimony 
. can prove a miracle to be true. 

*^ Every one who has attacked this sophistry has 
pointed out a new flaw in it, and they are scarcely 
yet exhausted. Paley showed that it was neces- 
sary to demonstrate that there was no God, pre- 
viously to demonstrating that there could be no 
miracles. Campbell showed that so far from belief 
in testimony being founded on experience alone, it 
Uvas difBdence in testimony that we acquire by 
experience. Others have pointed out the sophism 
in the double use of the word experience, and the 
confusing of the experience of a particular individ- 



202 HUME'S DENIAL OF MIRACLES. 

ual with the universal experience of mankind ; for 
to assert that miracles are contrary to experience 
in the last sense, is most pitifully to beg the ques- 
tion. Otlu^rs have observed upon the complete 
misapprehension of the argument of Tillotson, and 
upon the sophism in tlie use of the word *' con- 
trary," for as it is a begging of the question to say 
that miracles are contrary to tlie experience of 
mankind, so it is a sopliism to say that they are 
contrary to the experience of Mr. Ilume himself, 
unless he had been personally present at the time 
and place when and where all the miracles re- 
corded in the Bible are said to have been wrought, 
from the days of Moses to the time of our Saviour. 
Our experience, so far from being contrary to mira- 
cles, is decided in favor of them. Both our reason 
and our experience are altogether in favor of the 
veracity of testimony, where there is no motive to 
deceive, and no possibility of being deceived. Such 
was the case with the apostles. Their personal 
experience, and that of many others, is invincibly 
in favor of miracles. There is no experience — no, 
not even of a single individual, against miracles. 
No one was ever placed in the situation where 
miracles might be reasonably expected, to whom 
miracles were not vouchsafed. Thus so far from 
miracles being contrary to experience, the whole 
range of the experience we possess is altogether. 



HUME'S DENIAL OF MIRACLES. 203 

and without one solitary exception, in favor of 
miracles. 

'' Rut to take entirely new ground, miracles, 
philosophically speaking, arc not violations of the 
laws of nature. The miracles of the Bible, which 
are the onlj'' true miracles, so far from being viola- 
tions of nature, are as natural as the lifting up of 
a stone from the ground, or impelling a vessel 
along the waves by the stroke of an oar. None 
would call it a violation of the laws of nature when 
human agents set a body in motion which was 
previously at rest, and which would have remained 
at rest without their interference ; still less can it 
be called a violation of the laws of nature, when 
the divine Agent, who is the lawgiver of nature, 
impresses an additional force upon creation, and 
gives a new direction to its movements. But it 
would be endless to go over all the variety of mis- 
takes involved in the sophistry against miracles, 
and to point out the many vulgar and unphilosoph- 
ical notions implied in Hume's reasonings, both 
concerning nature and her inviolable laws." 



STARKIE'S 

EXAMINATION OF HUME'S ARGUMENT. 



Starkie, an author of great eminence in the legal 
profession, in his " Practical Treatise on the Law 
of Evidence," under tlie head of ** Force of Testi- 
mony," vol. 1, p. 471, appends the following note, 
than which nothing can be more conclusive. 

** In observing upon the general principles on 
which the credibility of human testimony rests, it 
may not be irrelevant to advert to the summary 
positions on this subject advanced by Mr. Hume. 
He saj^s in his Essay, vol. 2, sec. 10, * A miracle 
is a violation of the laws of nature ; and as a firm 
and unalterable experience has established these 
laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very 
nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument 
from experience can possibly* be imagined.' As a 
matter of abstract philosophical consideration — for 
in that point of view only can the subject be ad- 
verted to in a work like this — Mr. Hume's reason- 
ing appears to be altogether untenable. In the 
first place, the very basis of his inference is, that 



EXAMINATION OF HUME. 205 

• 

faith in human testimony is founded solely upon 
crj^cricvcc : this is by no means, the faet ; the credi- 
bility of testimony frequently dei)ends upon the 
exercise of reason on the effect of coincide^ias in 
testimony, which, if collusion be excluded, cannot 
be accounted for but ui)on the supposition that 
the testimony of concurring witnesses is true ; so 
much so, that their individual character for veracity 
is frequently but of secondary importance — supra^ 
466. Its credibility also greatly depends upon 
confirmation by collateral circumstances, and on 
analogies supplied by the aid of reason as well as 
of mere experience. But even admitting experi- 
ence to be the basis, even the sole basis, of such 
behef, the position built upon it is unwarrantable ; 
and it is fallacious, for, if adopted, it would lead to 
error. The position is, that human testimony, the 
force of which rests upon experience, is inadequate 
to prove a violation of the laws of nature, which 
are established by firm and unalterable experience. 
The very essence of the argument is, that the force 
of human testimony — the efficacy of which in the 
abstract is admitted — is destroyed by an opposite, 
conflicting, and superior force, derived also from 
experience. If this were so, the argument would 
be invincible ; but the question is, whether mere 
previous inexperiena of an event testified is directly 
opposed to human testimony, so that mere inex- 



206 EXAMINATION OF HUME. 

pcrioncc as stron<i;ly proves that the thing is not, 
as previous expi^ricnce of the credibihty of human 
testimony proves that it is. Now a miracle, or 
viohition of the laws of nature, can mean nothing 
more than an event or effect never observed be- 
fore ; and on the other hand, an event or effect in 
nature never observed before is a violation of the 
laws of nature ; thus, to take Mr. Hume's own 
example, Mt is a niir>c!6 that a dead man should 
come to life, becau^3 chat hen: never b&in observed in 
any age or country ;- precisely in the same sense, 
the production of b, new metal from potash, by 
means of a powcilul and newly discovered agent 
in nature, and the first observed descent of mete- 
oric stones, wcx'e violations of the laws of nature ; 
they were events which had never before been 
observed, and to the production of which the 
known laws of nature are inadequate. But none 
of these events can, with the least propriety, be 
said to be against or contrary to the laws of nature 
in any other sense than that they have never be- 
fore been observed ; and that the laws of nature, 
as far as they were previously known, were inade- 
quate to their production. The proposition of Mr. 
Hume ought then to be stated thus : Human tes- 
timony is founded on experience, and is therefore 
inadequate to prove that of which there has been 
no previous experience. Now, whether it be plain 



EXAMINATION OF HUME. 207 

and self-evident that the mere negation of experi- 
ence of a particular fact necessarily destroys all 
faith in the testimony of those who assert the fact 
to be true ; or whether, on the other hand, this bo 
not to confound the pincijple of belief with the sub- 
ject viatter to which it is to be applied ; and whether 
it be not plainly contrary to reason to infer the 
destntdion of an active principle of belief from the 
mere negation of experience, which is perfectly con- 
sistent with the just operation of that principle ; 
whether, in short, this be not to assume broadly 
that mere inexperience on the one hand is neces- 
sarily superior to positive experience on the other, 
nmst be left to every man's understanding to de- 
cide. The inferiority of mere negative evidence to 
that which is direct and positive, is, it will be seen, 
a consideration daily acted upon in judicial investi- 
gations. Negative evidence is, in the abstract, 
inferior to positive, because the negative is not 
directly opposed to the positive testimony ; both 
may be true. Must not this consideration also 
operate where there is mere inexperience, on the 
one hand, of an event in nature, and positive tes- 
timony of the fact on the other ? Again, what are 
the laws of nature, estabhshed by firm and unal- 
terable experience ? That there may be, and are, 
general and even unalterable laws of providence 
and nature may readily be a<lmitted ; but that 



208 EXAMINATION OF HUME. 

humnn knowledge and experience of those laws is un- 
alterable — which alone can Ije the test of exclu- 
sion — is untrue, except in a very limited fc^ense ; 
that is, it may fairly be assumed that a law of na- 
ture once known to operate, will always operate 
in a similar manner, unless its operation be impeded 
or counteracted by a new and contrary cause. In 
a larger sense, the laws of nature are continually 
alterable : as experiments are more frequent, more 
perfect, and as new phenomena are observed, and 
new causes or agents are discovered, human expe- 
rience of the laws of nature becomes more general 
and more perfect. How much more extended and 
perfect, for instance, are the laws which regulate 
chemical attractions and affinities than they were 
two centuries ago ? And it is probable that in 
future ages experience of the laws of nature will 
be more perfect than it is at present; it is, in 
short, impossible to define to what extent such 
knowledge may be carried, or whether, ultimately, 
the whole may not be resolvable into principles 
admitting of no other explanation than that they 
result immediately from the will of a superior Be- 
ing. This, at all events, is certain, that the laws 
of nature, as inferred by the aid of experience, have 
from time to time, by the aid of experience, been 
rendered more general and more perfect. Experi- 
ence, then, so far from pointing out any unalterable 



EXAMINATION OF HUME. 209 

laws of nature to tlie exclusion of events or phe- 
nomena wliicli have never before been experienced, 
and which cannot be accounted for by the laws 
already observed, shows the very contrary, and 
proves that such new events or phenomena may 
become the foundation of more enlar^j^ed, more 
general, and therefore more perfect laws. But 
whose experience is to be the test? that of the 
objector ; for the very nature of the objection ex- 
cludes all light from the experience of the rest of 
mankind. The credibility, then, of human testi- 
mony is to depend not on any intrinsic or collateral 
considerations which can give credit to testimony, 
but upon the casual and previous knowledge of 
the person to whom the testimony is offered; in 
other ends, it is plain that a man's scepticism must 
bear a direct proportion to his ignorance. Again, 
if Mr. Ilume^s inference be just, the consequences 
to which it leads cannot be erroneous ; on the 
other hand, if it lead to error, the inference must 
be fallacious : the position is, that human testi- 
mony is inadequate to prove that which has never 
been observed before, and this, by proving far too 
much for the author's purpose, is felo de se, and in- 
effect proves nothing ; for if constant experience 
amount to stronger evidence on the one side than, 
is supplied by positive testimony on the other, the 
argument applies necessarily to all cases where 

Rep to Paine. " 1 4 



210 EXAMINATION OF HUME. 

mere constant inexperience on tlie one hand is 
opposed to positive testimony on tlie other. Ac- 
cording, then, to this argument, every philosopher 
was bound to reject the testimony of witnesses 
that they had seen the descent of meteoric stones, 
and even acted contrary to sound reason in at- 
tempting to account for a fact disproved by con- 
stant inexperience, and would have been equally 
foolish in giving credit to a chemist that he had 
produced a metal from potash by means of a gal- 
vanic battery. It will not, I apprehend, be doubted 
that in these and similar instances the eflfect of Mr. 
Hume^s argument would have been to exclude tes- 
timony which was true, and to induce false con- 
clusions ; the principle therefore, on which it is 
founded, must of necessity be fallacious. Nay, 
further, if the testimony of others is to be rejected, 
however unlikely they were either to deceive or 
be deceived, on the mere ground of inexperience of 
the fact testified, the same argument might be 
urged even to the extravagant length of excluding 
the authority of a man\s own senses ; for it might 
be said that it is more probable that he should 
have labored under some mental delusion, than 
that a fact should have happened contrary to con- 
stant experience of the course of nature. 

** In stating that the inference attempted to be 
drawn from mere inexperience is fallacious, I mean 



EXAMINATION OF HUME. 21x 

not to assort that tlic absence of previous cxixri- 
ence of a particular fact or phenomenon is not of 
the highest importance to be weighed as a circum- 
stance in all investigations, whether they be phys- 
ical, judicial, or historical ; the more remote the 
subject of testimony is from our own knowledge 
and experience, the stronger ought the evidence 
to be to warrant our assent : neither is it n^pant 
to deny that in particular instances, and under par- 
ticular circumstances, the want or absence of pre- 
vious experience may not be too strong for positive 
testimony, especially when it otherwise labors un- 
der suspicion. What is meant is this, that mere 
mexperience, however constant, is not in itself, 
and in the abstract, and without consideration of 
all the internal and external probabilities in favor 
of. human testimony, sufficient to defeat and to 
destroy it, so as to supersede the necessity of 
investigation. Mr. Hume's conclusion is highly 
objectionable in a philosophical point of view, in- 
asmuch as it would leave phenomena of the most 
remarkable nature wholly unexplained, and would 
operate to the utter exclusion of all inquiry. Es- 
toppels are odious, even in judicial investigations, 
because they tend to exclude the truth ; in meta- 
physics they are intolerable. 'So conscious was 
Mr. Hume himself of the weakness of his general 
and sweeping position, that in the second part of 



212 EXAMINATION OF HUME. 

liis tenth section he limits his inference in these 
remarkable terms : ' I beg the limitations herb made 
may be remarked, when I say that a miracle can 
never be proved so as to be the foundation of a 
system of religion ; for I own that otherwise there 
viny possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual 
course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof 
from kiiman testimony? 

** In wliat way the use to be made of a fact, 
when proved, can affect the validity of the proof, 
or how it can be that a fact proved to be true is not 
true for all purposes to which it is relevant, I pre- 
tend not to understand. Whether a miracle, when 
proved, may be the foundation of a system of relig- 
ion, is foreign to the present discussion ; but wlien 
it is once admitted that a miracle may he proved by 
human testimony^ it necessarily follows, from Mr. 
Hume's own concession, that his general position 
is untenable ; for that, if true, goes to the full ex- 
tent of proving that human testimony is inadeqwite 
to the proof of a miracle or violation of the laws of 
nature.'^ 



THE RESUmiECTION 

ORDER OF EVENTS, AS RECORDED BY THE 
FOUR EVANGELISTS. 

Ix tlie unanswered and unanswerable treatise 
of Gilbert West, Esq., on the Resurrection, all 
seeming contradictions in the narratives of the 
evangelists are so fully explained, and the whole 
subject of the resurrection so amply and ably pre- 
sented, that it forms one of the most convincing 
proofs of the truth of Christianity. The reader 
who would tlioroughly examine the subject, is re- 
ferred to the volume itself. Only the outline of 
the order of events as presented by the author is 

here given. 

Mr. West says, section 9, Having thus cleared the 
way, I shall now set down the several incidents 
of this wonderful event in the order in which, 
according to the foregoing observations, they seem 
to have arisen ; after premising that our Saviour 
Christ was crucified on a Friday — the preparation, 
;)r the day before the Jewish Sabbath — gave up 
the gliost about three o'clock in the afternoon of 
the same day, and was buried that evening, before 



214 WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 

the coinmcncomont of the Sabbath, which amon2 
tlic Jews was always reckoned to begin from the 
fh'st appearance of the stars on Friday evening, 
and to end at the appearance of tlienn again on the 
day we call Saturday ; tliat some time, and most 
probably towards the close of the Sabbatli, after 
the religious duties of the day were over, the chief 
priests obtained of Pilate the Roman governor a 
guard to watch the sei)ulchrc till tlie third day 
was past, pretending to apprehend that his dis- 
ciples might come by night and steal away the 
body, and then give out tliat he was risen, accord- 
ing to what he himself had predicted while he was 
yet alive ; that they did accordingly set a guard, 
made sure the sepulchre, and to prevent the sol- 
diers themselves from concurring with the disci- 
ples, they put a seal upon the stone which closed 
up the entrance of tlie sepulchre. 

The order I conceive to have been as follows : 
Very early on the first day of the week — the 
day immediately following the Sabbath, and the 
third from the death of Christ — Mary Magdalene 
and the other Mary, in pursuance of the design of 
embalming the Lord's body, which they had con- 
certed with the other women who attended him 
from Galilee to Jerusalem, and for the performing 
of which they had prepared unguents and spices, 
set out, in order to take a view of the sepulchre, 



WEST ON THE P.ESURRECTION. 215 

just as the day began to break ; and about the 
time of their setting out, '' there was a great earth- 
quake ; for the angel of the Lord descended from 
lieavc^n, and came and rolled back the stone from 
the door of the sepulclire, and sat upon it: hisi 
countenance was like hghtning, and his raiment 
wliite as snow ; and for fear of him the keepers did 
shake, and became as dead men ;^' during whose 
amazement and terror, Christ came out of the sep- 
ulchre ; and the keepers being now recovered out 
of their trance and fled, tlie angel, who till then 
sat upon the stone, quitted the station on the out- 
side, and entered into the sepulchre, and probably 
disposed the linen clothes and napkin in that order 
in which they were afterwards found and observed 
by John and Peter. Mary Magdalene, in the mean- 
w^hile, and the other Mary, were still on their way 
to the sepulchre, where, together with Salome — 
whom they had either called upon or met as they 
were going — they arrived at the rising of the sun. 
And as they drew near, discoursing about the 
method of putting their intent of embalming the 
body of their Master in execution, ''they said 
among themselves, Who shall roll us away the 
stone from the door of the sepulchre ? for it was 
very great f and they themselves — the two Marys 
at least — had seen it placed there two days before, 
and seen with what difficulty it was done. But in 



216 WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 

the midst of their deliberation about removing this 
great and sole obstacle to their design — for it does 
not appear that they knew any thing of the gnard — 
lifting up their eyes, while they were yet at some 
distance, they perceived it was already rolled away. 
Alarmed at so extraordinary and so unexpected a 
circumstance, Mary Magdalene, concluding that 
as the stone could not be moved witliout a great 
number of hands, so it was not rolled away with- 
out some design, and that they who rolled it away 
could have no other design but to remove the 
Lord^s body ; and being convinced bj^ appearances 
that they had done so, ran immediately to acquaint 
Peter and John with what she had seen and what 
she suspected, leaving Mary and Salome there, 
that if Joanna and the other women should come 
in the meantime, they might acquaint them with 
their surprise at finding the stone removed and 
the body gone, and of Mary Magdalene's running 
to inform the two above-mentioned apostles of it. 
While she w^as going on this errand, Mary and 
Salome went on, and entered into the sepulchre, 
and there saw an angel '' sitting on the right side, 
yclothed in a long w4iite garment ; and they were 
(aflfrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not af- 
frighted : ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, w^hich was 
crucified : he is risen ; he is not here : behold the 
place where they laid him. But go your way, tell 



WEST ON TilE RESURRECTION. 217 

liis disciples and Poter that he goeth before you 
into Gahlee ; there shall ye sec him, as he said 
unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled 
from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were 
amazed ; neither said they any thing to any man, 
for they were afraid.'' After the de[)arture of Mary 
and Salome came John and Peter, who having been 
informed by Mary Magdalene that the body of the 
Lord was taken away out of the sepulchre, and 
that she knew not where they had laid him, ^' ran 
both together to the sepulchre, and the other dis- 
ciple," John, *^ outran Peter, and came first to the 
sepulchre ; and he, stooping down and looking in, 
saw the linen clothes lying, yet went he not in. 
Then cometh Simon Peter, following him, and w^ent 
into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 
and the napkin that was about his head, not lying 
with the Unen clothes, but wn-apped together in a 
place by itself. Then went in also that other dis- 
ciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he 
saw and believed ; for as yet they knew not the 
scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. 
Then the disciples went aw^ay again unto their 
own home. But Mary stood without at the sepul- 
chre weeping ; and as she wept, she stooped down 
and lookexl into the sepulchre, and seeth two an- 
gels in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the 
other at the feet, w^lierc the body of Jesus had 



218 WKST ON THE RESURRECTION. 

lain ; and they say unto her, Woman, why weei> 
est tlioii ? She saith unto them. Because they 
have taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
tliey have laid him. And when she had thus said, 
she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, 
and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saitli unto 
lier, Woman, why weepest thou ? Whom seekest 
thou ? She, supposin^^ him to be the gardener, 
saith unto him. Sir, if thou have borne him hence, 
tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take 
him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary ! She 
turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni ! 
which is to say. Master ! Jesus saith unto her. 
Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my 
Father ; but go to my brethren, and say unto 
them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, 
and to my God and your God." After this appear- 
ance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, to w^iom St. 
Mark says expressly he appeared first, the other 
Mary and Salome, who had fled from the sepulchre 
in such terror and amazement that they said not 
any thing to any man — that is, as I understand, 
had not told the message of the angel to some 
whom theg^ met, and to whom they were directed 
to deliver it — were met on their way by Jesus 
Christ himself, who said to them, ^^ All hail! And 
they came and held him by the feet, and wor- 
shipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not 



WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 219 

afraid ; go tell iny brethrou that they go into Gali- 
lee, and there shall they see nie." These several 
women and the two apostles being now gone from 
the sepulclire, Joanna with the other Galilean 
women, '' and others with them, eame brinirinir 
the spices which they had prepared for the em- 
balming the body of Jesus, and finding the stone 
rolled away from the sepulchre, they entered in, 
but not linding the body of the Lord Jesus, they 
were much perplexed thereabout, and behold two 
men stood by them in shining garments ; and as 
they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to 
the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the 
living among the dead? He is not here, but is 
risen. Remember how he spake unto you when 
he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man 
must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, 
and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And 
they remembered his words, and returned from 
the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the 
eleven, and to all the rest. And their words 
seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed 
them not." But Peter, who upon the report of 
Mary Magdalene had been at the sepulchre, had 
entered into it, and with a curiosity that bespoke 
an expectation of something extraordinary, and a 
desire of being satisfied, had observed that the 
linen clothes in which Christ was buried, and the 



220 WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 

napkin which was about his head, were not only 
loft ill the sepulchre, but carefully wrapped up and 
laid in several places ; and who from thence might 
begin to suspect what his companion St. John from 
those very circumstances seems to have believed : 
Peter, I say, hearing from Joanna that she had 
seen a vision of angels at the sepulchre, who had 
assured her that Christ w^as risen, starting up, ran 
thither immediately, and knowing that the angels, 
if they were within the sepulchre, might be dis- 
covered without his going in, he did not, as before, 
enter in, but stooping down looked so far in as to 
see the 'Minen clothes, and departed, w^ondering 
in himself at that which was come to pass." And 
either with Peter, or about that time, went some 
other disciples who w^ere present when Joanna 
and the other women made their report, *^and 
found it even so as the w^omen had said. The 
same day two of the disciples went to a village 
called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about 
threescore furlongs. And they talked together of 
all those things which had happened. And it came 
to pass that while they communed together and 
I'easoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with 
^hem. But their eyes were holden, that thoy 
!^hould not know him. And he said unto them, 
What manner of communications,'^ arguments, ''are 
these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, 



WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 221 

and arc sad ? And one of them, whose name was 
Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a 
stranger in Jerusalem, and liast not known the 
things whieh are eomc to pass there in these days? 
And he said unto them. What things ? And they 
said unto him, Coneerning Jesus of Nazareth, wliich 
was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God 
and all the people ; and how the chief priests and 
our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, 
and have crucified him. But we trusted that it 
had been he which should have redeemed Israel ; 
and besides all this, to-day is the third day since 
these tliinofs were done. Yea, and certain women 
also of our company made us astonished, which 
were early at the sepulchre ; and when they found 
'not his body, they came, saying that they had also 
seen a vision of angels, wdiich said that he was 
alive. And certain of them which were with us 
went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the 
women had said ; but him they saw not. Then 
he said unto them, fools, and slow of heart to 
believe all that the prophets have spoken : ought 
not Christ to have suffered these things, and to 
enter into his glory ? And beginning at Moses 
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in 
all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 
And they drew nigh unto the village whither they 
went ; and he made as though he would have gone 



222 WEST ON THE RESURRECTION. 

further. But they constrahied him, saying, Abide 
with ; us for it is towards evening, and the day is 
far spent. And he went in to tarry with tlieni. 
And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with tliem, 
lie took bread and blessed it, and brake and gave 
to them. And their eyes were opened, and they 
knew him ; and he vanislied out of their sight. 
And they said one to another, did not our lieart 
burn within us, while he talked with us by the 
way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? 
And they rose up the same hour, and returned to 
Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered togeth- 
er, and them that were with them, saying. The 
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. 
And they told what things were done in the way, 
and how lie was known of them in breaking of' 
bread.'' 

This is the ordvY in which the several incidents 
above related appear to have arisen ; the conform- 
ity of which with the words of the evangelists, 
interpreted in their obvious and most natural 
sense, I have shown in my remarks upon the 
passages wherein they are contained. By this 
order, all the different events naturally and easily 
follow, and as it were rise out of one another, and 
the narration of the evangelists is cleared from all 
confusion and inconsistencies. 



BL 

2740 
W3 
1880 



Watson, Richard, Bp. of 
Llandaff 

Reply to Paine 



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