to be done by the express command
of God, that are as shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of
moral justice as anything done by Robespierre, by Carrier, by Joseph le
Ben, in France; by the English Government in the East Indies; or by any
other assassin in modern times. Are we sure that the Creator of man
commissioned these things to be done? Are we sure that the books that
tell us so were written by His authority? To read the Bible without
horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathising, and
benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other
evidence that the Bible is fabulous than the sacrifice I must make to
believe it to be true, that alone would be sufficient to determine my
choice.

But it can be shown by internal evidence that the Bible is not entitled
to credit as the word of God. It can readily be proved that the first
five books of the Bible, attributed to Moses, were not written by him
nor in his time, but several hundred years afterwards. Moses could not
have described his own death, nor mentioned that he was buried in a
valley in the land of Moab. Similarly, the book of Joshua was not
written by Joshua; it is manifest that Joshua could not write that
Israel served the Lord not only in his days, but in the days of the
elders that over-lived him. The book of Judges is anonymous on the face
of it. The books of Samuel were not written by Samuel, for they relate
many things that did not happen till after his death.

The history in the two books of Kings, which is little more than a
history of assassinations, treachery, and war, sometimes contradicts
itself; and several of the most extraordinary matters related in Kings
are not mentioned in the companion books of Chronicles. The book of Job
has no internal evidence of being a Hebrew book; it appears to have been
translated from another language into Hebrew; and it is the only book in
the Bible that can be read without indignation or disgust. It is an
error to call the Psalms the Psalms of David because historical evidence
shows that some of them were not written until long after the time of
David. The books of the prophets are wild, disorderly, and obscure
compositions, the so-called prophecies in which do not refer to Jesus
Christ, but to circumstances the Jewish nation was in at the time they
were written or spoken.

I now go on to the book called the New Testament. Had it been the object
of Jesus Christ to establis