all the inferences that have been drawn from
those books, the devotional respect that has been paid to them, and
the laboured commentaries that have been written upon them, under
that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about.--In many things,
however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate than
that of being bound up, as they now are, with the trash that accompanies
them, under the abused name of the Word of God.

If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must
necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the
utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident
whatever, in that which we would honour with the name of the Word of
God; and therefore the Word of God cannot exist in any written or human
language.

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is
subject, the want of an universal language which renders translation
necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the
mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of
wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human language,
whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of
God.--The Word of God exists in something else.

Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of ideas and expression
all the books now extant in the world, I would not take it for my
rule of faith, as being the Word of God; because the possibility would
nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But when I see throughout
the greatest part of this book scarcely anything but a history of the
grossest vices, and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible
tales, I cannot dishonour my Creator by calling it by his name.

CHAPTER VIII - OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

THUS much for the Bible; I now go on to the book called the New
Testament. The new Testament! that is, the 'new' Will, as if there could
be two wills of the Creator.

Had it been the object or the intention of Jesus Christ to establish a
new religion, he would undoubtedly have written the system himself, or
procured it to be written in his life time. But there is no publication
extant authenticated with his name. All the books called the New
Testament were written after his death. He was a Jew by birth and by
profession; and he was the son of God in like manner that every other
person is; for the Creator is the Father of All.

The first four books, called Matthew,