state
of exilement or transportation from heaven, and the way back to his
original country was to die.--In fine, everything in this strange system
is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is the reverse of truth,
and I become so tired of examining into its inconsistencies and
absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion of it, in order to proceed
to something better.

How much, or what parts of the books called the New Testament, were
written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can know
nothing of, neither are we certain in what language they were originally
written. The matters they now contain may be classed under two heads:
anecdote, and epistolary correspondence.

The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are
altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place.
They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did and said
to him; and in several instances they relate the same event differently.
Revelation is necessarily out of the question with respect to those
books; not only because of the disagreement of the writers, but because
revelation cannot be applied to the relating of facts by the persons
who saw them done, nor to the relating or recording of any discourse
or conversation by those who heard it. The book called the Acts of the
Apostles (an anonymous work) belongs also to the anecdotal part.

All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book of enigmas,
called the Revelations, are a collection of letters under the name of
epistles; and the forgery of letters has been such a common practice
in the world, that the probability is at least equal, whether they are
genuine or forged. One thing, however, is much less equivocal, which
is, that out of the matters contained in those books, together with
the assistance of some old stories, the church has set up a system of
religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name
it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended
imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.

The invention of a purgatory, and of the releasing of souls therefrom,
by prayers, bought of the church with money; the selling of pardons,
dispensations, and indulgences, are revenue laws, without bearing that
name or carrying that appearance. But the case nevertheless is, that
those things derive their origin from the proxysm of the crucifixion,
and the theory deduced therefr