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others. What a man whose name is the Branch, growing out of his place," has to do with Christ, we are at a loss to discover; but this probably arises from the obliquity of our mental vision, which cannot perceive relations that sound believers can, whose faith is of so plastic and accommodating a nature, that it squares itself to all occasions, and loses nothing by subtraction; and men of much faith can say as Juliet of her love," the more I give the more I have to give;" and the wider any proposition is of reason and consistency, the more room has faith to play and exercise itself. Much faith and poverty and spirit are the indispensables of all true Christians, "for blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven;" and again, "he who believeth shall be saved, and he who believeth not shall be damned;" so that, poverty of mind or spirit, and much belief, theologists consider go hand-inhand, and consistently enough, denounce reason, temperance, &c., as of the devil. Infidels are, according to these worthies, an abomination upon the face of the earth-men who have "deserted the fountain of living waters, and made unto themselves cisternscracked cisterns-that will hold no water." Of course, by living waters is meant streams of faith, so that, those who drink them not, and thirst after the dead waters of reason, are to die of thirst, and perish everlastingly!

The faithful we hope not to convince the reasonable only are appealed to, and to these we undertake to shew that it is impossible that what is related in Scripture about Abraham can be true, or anything more than an Eastern romance or allegory. The Bible, say our preachers, is a revelation from Deity, and call upon us to believe it upon that ground; but then, after all, reason must judge whether it be revelation or not. Those who declaim against reason are not expected to be reasonable,-the pillar of their orthodoxy is faith, and their pride is not to try books and systems by their sense, but bend their sense to books and systems. The reasonings of theologists generally turn upon one proof, that may be likened to a mathematical point, which is without length, breadth, or thickness, and therefore purely imaginary. There is no such thing as a mathematical point, say the men of science, so that, a mathematical point is in reality no point at all; and if the comparison hold good, theological reasonings have no point, save an imaginary one,-existing only in the minds of those who repose upon it; but to proceed with our exposition :

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David,

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the son of Abraham," so says the first verse of the first chapter of St. Matthew: thus Christ, according to Matthew, descended in a right line from Abraham, as we are afterwards told in the same chapter," So all the generations from, Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations." Now, this Abram or Abraham, or, as called among the Arabs, Ibrahim, was said to be the son of one Terah, " And Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran;" then we read that "the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran:" immediately afterwards we are informed that "The Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of the country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, into a land that I will shew thee. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him; and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran." Here there is a slight discrepancy in the two statements,-Terah begat Abram when he was seventy and five years old, and died at the good old age of two hundred and five years. So that, at the death of Terah, according to vulgar arithmetic, Abraham was 135 years old when the Lord said, "Get thee out of thy country, &c. ;" but theologists have an arithmetic of their own, and have one reply to all objections, which is, that they, the objectors, must have faith, and then all difficulties will vanish-mountains will be removed; those who have it will believe Abram was but 70 years old when Terah died according to Scripture, and 135 years old according to Cocker. Contradictory absurdities and impossibilities, all sink before faith. A great deal more is said about Abram; and among other interesting particulars we are told, that "the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre ; and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself towards the ground." This tete-a-tete between the Lord and Abraham is inexplicable to mere reasoners; for what are we to understand by the term Lord, if not Jehovah the great God of the Universe?but then, how can we suppose that Abraham would address such language as the following to God, or Gods?-for there were, according to Genesis, three of them in the shapes of men ;

but, the Trinitarians contend that three are one!

so we must un

derstand, if it be understandable at all, that the three angels

were, in some mysterious and inexplicable manner, one. This mys teriousness and inexplicability is rendered more inexplicable and mysterious the farther we proceed with the text; for after it is said, that Abraham ran to meet them at the tent door; he addresses them, and said My Lord, as though the three were one; which idea is strengthened by the fact, that Abraham always addresses the three as My Lord, and not My Lords-and the Lord always replied; so that, if there were three, one only acted as spokesman; but, to suppose that God took an angelic, or human shape, and talked with Abraham in the plains of Mamre, is, of course, out of the question, especially when we consider the language Abraham addressed to him, or them, for he said, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant;" and again, he is exceedingly familiar when he says, "Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree;" but certainly, not at all according with sober notions of Deity. A God, devil, or angel with dirty feet, and so tired as to need to rest himself under a tree, savours of the absurd.

Longinus, the great critic, dwells much upon the sublimity of the Scripture; but really the above borders upon the ridiculous; dusublime, du ridicule, says the proverb, and whether it is sublime or ridiculous to talk or write about Gods washing their feet, or resting themselves under trees, we leave others to determine. We read also, that Abraham said "and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do as thou hast said." Now let every thinking reader reflect upon this passage, and ask himself, or herself, this simple question-can such language be received as literally true? The answer of every reasonable being must be in the negative, which will lead us to considerations of a very grave and important character, for if we cannot literally interpret the language of Genesis, and if the very existence of Abraham depends upon such literal interpretation, it will be clear that the man called Abraham never existed; but as we proceed, the allegorical character will be proved by Scripture itself, for it is our intention to destroy the belief in Abraham and Christ, by an appeal to ancient philosophers, Biblical, and what is called, profane history.

London: H. Hetherington; A. Heywood, Manchester; and all Booksellers. J. Taylor, Printer, 29, Smallbrook Street, Birmingham.

EXISTENCE OF CHRIST

AS A HUMAN BEING,

DISPROVED!

BY IRRESISTIBLE EVIDENCE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

FROM A GERMAN JEW,

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTIANS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS.

LETTER 18.

WEEKLY.

ONE PENNY.

"I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no Saviour."-ISAIAH XLIII. 3, 10, 11.

CHRISTIANS,

The common cry of Christians is the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible; so say we-the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible; for by that same Bible, we will prove to all capable of exercising their reason, whose brains are not rheumatized and palsied by fanaticism, that the books of Genesis are the books upon the literal interpretation of which the whole Christian scheme depends. All that is written about Christ and Abraham must be true or false, a fable or a real history: we say it is a fable, and will prove our assertion by the Scripture itself. Hast thou appealed unto the Bible? then by the Bible must thou abide,—it is a weapon, O Christians! that you have long wielded; but it is now to be used against yourselves by those who have deeply studied its contents, not in the spirit of a Jew, Christian, or Infidel, but in the spirit of a philosopher, who searches not for evidence or argument to support some profitable darling theory, but that truth may be established, and the mind of man freed from the shackles that a grovelling and most debasing superstition imposes upon it. That a lie cannot live, has passed into a proverb; and if the belief in Abraham and Christ be a lie, it cannot live,-truth alone being eternal and immortal, all lies must die.

The book of Genesis is either a scientific exposition of the gene

ration of things, or a mere cosmogonic fable; if the former, it will bear the test of a precise and searching investigation; if the latter, it will not bear that test; for falsehood and truth, being necessarily antagonistic, have been through all time, are now, and will eternally be opposed to each other; nor let our Christian readers fear, for if they hold the truth, it cannot perish; and those who dread investigation, only prove this, that they have not perfect faith, but fear, lest their opinions and systems should be scattered to the winds by the breath of free inquiry.

It is most inconsistent in Christians, who appeal to the Bible as a casket containing all sorts of moral treasures, to shrink from the consequences of such appeal. They say, search the Scripture; but wherefore are we to search, if not to find that which lies hidden there; that which we see requireth no searching out, it is that we see and know not we hope to see and to know by seeking for it. The outcry against inquiry is the outcry of knaves and fools, who howl against the march of intellect, and the spread of what they call Infidel principles, as though possessed by the spirit of a wolf, or, as the poet has happily expressed it, as if " their currish spirit governed a wolf, who longed for human slaughter; even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, and infused itself into them, for their desires are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous." It is ignorance, not knowledge, that the wise man dreads, whether on Scriptural or other subjects; and they look anxiously forward to the time, when the same rules of inquiry and reasoning will be applied in morals. as in physical science. It is shameful to fetter the human mind, and make it bow down to creeds and systems-creeds of human invention in times of barbaric ignorance, and systems, revolutions to common sense, established by fraud, falsehood, and treachery, and now supported by them. No truth in moral science is more clear than this, that it is ignorance and error, not knowledge and right reason, which renders individuals full of fancies and apprehensions— robs them of their usefulness, and gives them over, bound hand and foot by their own slavish fears, to the cunningly bold, who triumph in their weakness,-as observed by Andrew Combe, M.D. in his Principles of Physiology, "If, indeed, ignorance were itself a preventive of danger, or could provide a remedy when it approached, then it might be said, that ignorance is bliss ;' but as it gives only the kind of security, which shutting the eyes affords against the dangers of a precipice, and, consequently, leaves its victim doubly exposed, it is high time to renounce its friendship and protection,

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