I know that this bold investigation will alarm many, but
it would be paying too great a compliment to their credulity
to forbear it on that account. The times and the subject
demand it to be done. The suspicion that the theory of
what is called the Christian church is fabulous, is becoming
very extensive in all countries; and it will be a consolation
to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubting what
to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely
investigated. I therefore pass on to an examination of the
books called the Old and the New Testament.

THESE books, beginning with Genesis and ending with
Revelations, (which, by the bye, is a book of riddles that
requires a revelation to explain it) are, we are told, the
word of God. It is, therefore, proper for us to know who
told us so, that we may know what credit to give to the
report. The answer to this question is, that nobody can
tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however,
historically appears to be as follows:

When the church mythologists established their system,
they collected all the writings they could find, and managed
them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncer-
tainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear
under the name of the Old and the New Testament, are in
the same state in which those collectors say they found
them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed
them up.

Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books
out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF
GOD, and which should not. They rejected several; they
voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the
Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes,
were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted other-
wise, all the people since calling themselves Christians had

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