y idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of
falsehood? Is it not more safe that we stop ourselves at the plain,
pure, and unmixed belief of one God, which is deism, than that we
commit ourselves on an ocean of improbable, irrational, indecent, and
contradictory tales?

The first question, however, upon the books of the New Testament, as
upon those of the Old, is, Are they genuine? were they written by the
persons to whom they are ascribed? For it is upon this ground only that
the strange things related therein have been credited. Upon this point,
there is no direct proof for or against; and all that this state of a
case proves is doubtfulness; and doubtfulness is the opposite of belief.
The state, therefore, that the books are in, proves against themselves
as far as this kind of proof can go.

But, exclusive of this, the presumption is that the books called the
Evangelists, and ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were not
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and that they are impositions.
The disordered state of the history in these four books, the silence of
one book upon matters related in the other, and the disagreement that
is to be found among them, implies that they are the productions of some
unconnected individuals, many years after the things they pretend to
relate, each of whom made his own legend; and not the writings of men
living intimately together, as the men called apostles are supposed to
have done: in fine, that they have been manufactured, as the books of
the Old Testament have been, by other persons than those whose names
they bear.

The story of the angel announcing what the church calls the immaculate
conception, is not so much as mentioned in the books ascribed to Mark,
and John; and is differently related in Matthew and Luke. The former
says the angel, appeared to Joseph; the latter says, it was to Mary;
but either Joseph or Mary was the worst evidence that could have been
thought of; for it was others that should have testified for them, and
not they for themselves. Were any girl that is now with child to say,
and even to swear it, that she was gotten with child by a ghost, and
that an angel told her so, would she be believed? Certainly she would
not. Why then are we to believe the same thing of another girl whom we
never saw, told by nobody knows who, nor when, nor where? How strange
and inconsistent is it, that the same circumstance that would weaken
the belief