The New Gospel

That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange.  But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising; and still persist, though it has been so often proved contrary to the light of nature, to every principle of Justice and Humanity … 

It is only in the creation that all our ideas and conceptions of the word of God can unite.  The creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be.  It is an ever existing original, which every man can read.  It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed.  It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other.  It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know.

Here we are.  The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently demonstrated to us [through the observable creation], though we cannot conceive, as it is impossible we should, the nature and manner of its [the Almighty power’s] existence.  We cannot conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact we are here.  We must know also that the power which called us into being, can, if he please, and when he please, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know before hand that he can.  The probability or even possibility of the thing, is all that we ought to know; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be mere slaves of terror.  Our belief would have no merit, and our best actions no virtue.

When we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God.  It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel.

[Recourse to miracles] implies a lameness or weakness in the doctrine that is preached.