divided in opinion concernmg its origin — some con-
tending that it was sanctified from the creation of
the world ; that it was observed by the patriarchs
before the flood ; that it was neglected by the Is-
raelites during their bondage in Egypt, revived on
the falling of manna in the wilderness, and enjoined
as a positive law at Sinai. Others esteem its in-
stitution to have been no older than the age of
Moses ; and argue, that what is said of the sancti-
fication of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis, is
said by way of anticipation. There may be truth
in both these accounts. To me it is probable that
the memory of the creation was handed down from
Adam to all his posterity ; and that the seventh
day was for a long time held sacred by all nations,
in commemoration of that event ; but that the pe-
ciiliar rigidness of its observance was enjoined by
Moses to the Israelites alone. As to there being
two reasons given for its being kept holy — one,
that on that day God rested from the work of cre-
ation ; the other, that on that day God had given
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 387
them rest from the servitude of Egypt — I see no
contradiction in the accounts. If a man, in writing
the histor}'' of England, should inform his readers
that the parliament had ordered the fifth day of
November to be kept holy, because on that day
God delivered the nation from a bloody intended
massacre b}^ gunpowder ; and if, in another part of
his history, he should assign the deliverance of our
church and nation from popery and arbitrary power,
by the arrival of king William, as a reason for its
being kept holy ; would any one contend that he
was not justified in both these ways of expression,
or that we ought from thence to conclude that he
was not the author of them both ?
You think "that law in Deuteronomy inhuman
and brutal, which authorizes parents, the father and
the mother, to bring their own children to have
them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call
stubbornness." You are aware, I suppose, that
paternal power among the Romans, the Gauls, the
Persians, and other nations, was of the most arbi-
trary kind ; that it extended to the taking away of
the life of the child. I do not know whether the
Israelites in the time of Moses exercised this pa-
ternal power ; it was not a custom adopted by all
nations, but it was by many, and in the infancy of
society, before individual families had coalesced into
communities, it was probably very general. Now
388 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
Moses, by this law, which you esteem brutal and
inhuman, hindered such an extravagant power from
being either introduced or exercised among the Is-
raelites. This law is so far from countenancing the
arbitrary power of a father over the life of his child,
that it takes from him the power of accusing the
child before a magistrate : the father and mother
of the child must agree in bringing the child to
judgment ; and it is not by their united will that
the child Avas to be condemned to death — the elders
of the city were to judge whether the accusation
was true ; and the accusation was to be not merely,
as you insinuate, that the child was stubborn, but
that he was "stubborn and rebellious, a glutton
and a drunkard." Considered in this light, you
must allow the law to have been a humane re-
striction of a power improper to be lodged with any
parent.
That you may abuse the priests, you abandon
your subject. " Priests," you say, *' preach up Deu-
teronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes."
I do not know that priests preach up Deuteronomy
more than they preach up other books of Scripture ;
but I do know that tithes are not preached up in
Deuteronomy more than in Leviticus, in Numbers,
in Chronicles, in Malachi, in the law, the history,
and the prophets of the Jewish nation. You go on :
"It is from this book, chap, 25, ver. 4, they have
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 389
taken the phrase, and applied it to tithing, 'Thou
shalt not muzzle the ox wlien he treadeth out the
corn ;' and that this might not escape observation,
they have noted it in the table of the contents at
the head of the chapter, though it is only a single
verse of less than two hues. priests, priests,
ye are willing to be compared to an ox, for the sake
of tithes !" I cannot call this reasoning, and I will
not pollute my page by giving it a proper appella-
tion. Had the table of contents, instead of simply
saying. The ox is not to be muzzled, said. Tithes
enjoined, or priests to be maintained, there would
have been a little ground for your censure. AVho-
ever noted this phrase at the head of the chapter,
had better reason for doing it than you have attrib-
uted to them. They did it, because St. Paul had
quoted it when he was proving to the Corinthians
that they who preached the gospel had a right to
live by the gospel ; it was Paul, and not the priests,
who first applied this phrase to tithing. St. Paul,
indeed, did not avail himself of the right he con-
tended for ; he was not, therefore, interested in
what he said. The reason on which he grounds
the right is not merely this quotation, which you
ridicule ; nor the appointment of the law of Moses,
which you think fabulous ; nor the injunction of
Jesus, which you despise : no, it is a reason founded
in the nature of things, and which no philosopher,
390 WATSON'S EEPLY TO PAINE.
no unbeliever, no man of common-sense, can deny
to be a solid reason : it amounts to this, that "the
laborer is worthy of his hire." Nothing is so much
a man's own as his labor and ingenuity ; and it is
entirely consonant to the law of nature, that by
the innocent use of these he should provide for his
subsistence. Husbandmen, artists, soldiers, phy-
sicians, lawyers, all let out their labor and talents
for a stipulated reward ; why may not a priest do
the same ? Some accounts of you have been pub-
lished in England ; but conceiving them to have
proceeded from a design to injure your character,
I never read them. I know nothing of your par-
entage, your education, or condition of life. You
may have been elevated, by your birth, above the
necessity of acquiring the means of sustaining life
by the labor of either hand or head ; if this be the
case, you ought not to despise those who have come
into the world in less favorable circumstances. If
your origin has been less fortunate, you must have
supported yourself either by manual labor or the
exercise of your genius. Why "should you think
that conduct disreputable in priests, which you prob-
ably consider as laudable in yourself? I will just
mention, that the payment of tithes is no new
institution, but that they were paid in the most
ancient times, not to priests only, but to kings.
I could give a hundred instances of tliis j two may
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 391
be sufficient. Abraham paid tithes to the king of
Salem, four hundred years before the law of Moses
was given. The king of Salem was priest also of
the most high God. Priests, you see, existed in
the world, and were held in high estimation — for
kings were priests — long before the impostures, as
you esteem them, of the Jewish and Christian dis-
pensations were heard of. But as this instance is
taken from a book which you call "a book of con-
tradictions and lies" — the Bible— I will give you
another, from a book, to the authority of which, as
it is written by a profane author, you probably will
not object. Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Solon,
cites a letter of Pisistratus to that lawgiver, in
which he says, "I Pisistratus, the Tyrant, am con-
tented with the stipends which were paid to those
who reigned before me ; the people of Athens set
apart a tenth of the fruits of their land, not for my
private use, but to be expended in the public sacri-
fices, and for ^e general good."
392 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
LETTER III.
Haying done with what you call the grammatical
evidence that Moses was not the author of the
books attributed to him, you come to your historical
and chronological evidence, and you begin with
Genesis. Your first argument is taken from the
single word, Dan, being found in Genesis, when it
appears, from the book of Judges, that the town
Laish was not called Dan till above three hundred
and thirty years after the death of Moses ; there-
fore the writer of Genesis, you conclude, must have
lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan
given it. Lest this objection should not be obvious
enough to a common capacity, you illustrate in the
following manner : " Havre-de-Grace was called
Havre-Marat in 1793; should then any dateless
writing be found, in after-times, with the name of
Havre-Marat, it would be certain evidence that such
a writing could not have been written till after the
year It 93." This is a wrong conclusion. Suppose
some hot republican should at this day publish a
new edition of any old history of France, and in-
stead of Havre-de-Grace should write Havre-Marat ;
and that, two or three thousand years hence, a
man like yourself should, on that account, reject
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 393
the whole history as spurious, would he be justi-
fied in so doing? Would it not be reasonable to
tell him that the name of Havre-Marat had been
inserted, not by the original author of the history,
but' by a subsequent editor of it ; and to refer him,
for a proof of the genuineness of the book, to the
testimony of the whole French nation ? This sup-
position so obviously applies to your difficulty, that
I cannot but recommend it to your impartial atten-
tion. But if this solution does not please you, I
desire it may be proved that the Dan mentioned in
Genesis was the same town as the Dan mentioned
in Judges ; I desire, further, to have it proved that
the Dan mentioned in Genesis was the name of
a town, and not of a river. It is merely said,
Abram pursued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan.
Now, a river was full as likely as a town to stop
a pursuit. Lot, we know, w^as settled in the plain
of Jordan; and Jordan, we know, was composed
of the united streams of two rivers called Jor and
Dan.
Your next difficulty respects its being said in
Genesis, " These are the kings that reigned in Edom
before there reigned any king over the children of
Israel." "This passage could only have been writ-
ten," you say, and I think you say rightly, " after the
first king began to reign over Israel : so far from
being written by Moses, it could not have been
394 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
written till the time of Saul at the least." I admit
this inference, but I deny its application. A small
addition to a book does not destroy either the gen-
uineness or the authenticity of the whole book. I
am not ignorant of the manner in which commen-
tators have answered this objection of Spinoza,
without making tlie concession which I have made ;
but I have no scruple in admitting that the passage
in question, consisting of nine verses, containing
the genealogy of some kings of Edom, might have
been inserted in the book of Genesis after the book
of Chronicles — which was called, in Greek, by a
name importing that it contained things left out
in other books — was written. The learned have
shown that interpolations have hajDpened to other
books ; but these insertions by other hands have
never been considered as invalidating the authority
of the books.
"Take away from Genesis," you say, "the belief
that Moses was the author, on which only the
strange belief that it is the word of God has stood,
and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anon-
ymous book of stories, fables, traditionary or in-
vented absurdities, or of downright lies." What,
is it a story, then, that the world had a beginning,
and that the author of it was God ? If you deem
this a story, I am not disputing with a deistical
philosopher, but with an atheistic madman. Is it
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 395
a story, that our first parents fell from a paradisiacal
state — that this earth was destroyed by a deluge —
that Noah and his family were preserved in the
ark — and that the world has been repeopled by his
descendants? Look into a book so common that
almost every body has it, and so excellent that no
person ought to be without it — Grotius on the Truth
of the Christian Religion — and you will there meet
with abundant testimony to the truth of all the
principal facts recorded in Genesis. The testimony
is not that of Jews, Christians, and priests ; it is
the testimony of the philosophers, historians, and
poets of antiquity. The oldest book in the world
is Genesis ; and it is remarkable that those books
which come nearest to it in age, are those which
make either the most distinct mention, or the most
evident allusion to the facts related in Genesis con-
cerning the formation of the world from a chaotic
mass, the primeval innocence and subsequent fall
of man, the longevity of mankind in the first ages
of the world, the depravity of the antediluvians,
and the destruction of the world. Read the tenth
chapter of Genesis. It may appear to you to con-
tain nothing but an uninteresting narration of the
descendants of Shem, Ham, and Jajpheth — a mere
fable, an invented absurdity, a downright lie. No,
sir, it is one of the most valuable and the most
venerable records of antiquity. It explains what all
396 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
profane historians were ignorant of — the origin of
nations. Had it told us, as other books do, that
one nation had sprung out of the earth they inhab-
ited ; another from a cricket or a grasshopper ; an-
other from an oak ; another from a mushroom ; an-
other from a dragon's tooth ; then indeed it would
have merited the appellation you, with so much
temerity, bestow upon it. Instead 0/ these ab-
surdities, it gives such an account of peopling the
earth after the deluge, as no other book in the
world ever did give ; and the truth of which, all
other books in the world, which contain any thing
on the subject, confirm. The last verse of the chap-
ter says, "These are the families of the sons of
Noah, after their generations, in their nations ; and
by these were the nations divided in the earth after
the flood." It would require great learning to trace
out precisely, either the actual situation of all the
countries in which these founders of empires settled,
or to ascertain the extent of their dominions. This,
however, has been done by various authors, to the
satisfaction of all competent judges ; so much at
least to my satisfaction, that, had I no other proof
of the authenticity of Genesis, I should consider
this as sufficient. But without the aid of learning,
any man who can barely read his Bible, and has
but heard of such people as the Assyrians, the
Elaviites, the Lydians, the Medes, the lonians, the
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 397
Thradans^ will readily acknowledge that they had
Asur, and Elavi, and Lud, and Madia, and Javan,
and Tiras, grandsons of Noah, for their respective
founders ; and knowing this, he will not, I hope,
part with his Bible as a system of fables. I am
no enemy to philosophy, but when philosophy
would rob me of my Bible, I must say of it, as
Cicero said of the twelve tables, ''This little book
alone exceeds the libraries of all the philosophers,
in the weight of its authority, and in the extent of
its utility."
From the abuse of the Bible you proceed to that
of Moses, and again bring forward the subject of
his wars in the land of Canaani There are many
men who look upon all war — would to God that
all men saw it in the same light — with extreme ab-
horrence, as afflicting mankind with calamities not
necessary, shocking to humanity, and repugnant
to reason. But is it repugnant to reason that God
should, by an express act of his providence, destroy
a wicked nation? I am fond of considering the
goodness of God as the leading principle of his con-
duct towards mankind, of considering his justice as
subservient to his mercy. He punishes individuals
and nations with the rod of his wrath ; but I am
persuaded that all his punishments originate in his
abhorrence of sin, are calculated to lessen its in-
fluence, and are proofs of his goodness ; inasmuch
398 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
as it may not be possible for Omnipotence itself to
communicate supreme happiness to the human race
while they continue servants of sin. The destruc-
tion of the Canaanites exhibits to all nations, in all
ages, a signal proof of God's displeasure against
sin : it has been to others, and it is to ourselves, a
benevolent warning. Moses would have been the
wretch you represent him, had he acted by his own
authority alone ; but you may as reasonably attrib-
ute cruelty and murder to the judge of the land
in condemning criminals to death, as butchery and
massacre to Moses in executing the command of
God.
The Midianites, through the counsel of Balaam,
and by the vicious instrumentality of their women,
had' seduced a part of the Israelites to idolatry, to
the impure worship of their infamous god Baal-peor :
for this offence, twenty-four thousand Israelites had
perished in a plague from heaven, and Moses re-
ceived a command from God "to smite the Midi-
anites who had beguiled the people." An army
was equipped, and sent against Midian. When the
army returned victorious, Moses and the princes
of the congregation went to meet it ; and " Moses
was wroth with the officers." He observed the
women captives, and he asked with astonishment,
"Have ye saved all the women aUve? Behold,
these caused the childi'en of Israel, through the
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 399
counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the
Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague
among the congregation." He then gave an order
that the boys and the women should be put to
death, but that the young maidens should be kept
alive for themselves. I see nothing in this proceed-
ing, but good policy combined with mercy. The
young men might have become dangerous avengers
of what they would esteem their country's wrongs ;
the mothers might have again allured the Israelites
to love licentious pleasures and the practice of idol-
atry, and brought another plague upon the con-
gregation ; but the young maidens, not being pol-
luted by the flagitious habits of their mothers, nor
likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept
alive. You give a different turn to the matter ;
you say, that "thirty-two thousand women-children
were consigned to debauchery by the order of
Moses." Prove this, and I will allow that Moses
was the horrid monster you make him ; prove this,
and I will allow that the Bible is what you call it,
'' a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy;" prove
this, or excuse my warmth if I say to you, as Paul
said to Ely mas the sorcerer, who sought to turn
away Sergius Paulus from the faith, "0 full of all
subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil,
thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ?" I
400 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
did not, when I began these letters, think that I
should have been moved to this severity of rebuke
by any thing j^ou could have written ; but when
so gross a misrepresentation is made of God's pro-
ceedings, coolness would be a crime. The women-
children were not reserved for the purposes of de-
bauchery, but of slavery — a custom abhorrent from
our manners, but everywhere practised in former
times, and still practised in countries where the
benignity of the Christian religion has not softened
the ferocit}^ of human nature. You here admit a
part of the account given in tlie Bible respecting
the expedition against Midian to be a true account :
it is not unreasonable to desire that you will ad-
mit the whole, or show sufficient reason why you
admit one part and reject the other. I will mention
the part to which you have paid no attention. The
Israelitish army consisted but of twelve thousand
men, a mere handful when opposed to the people
of Midian ; yet, when the officers made a muster
of their troops after their return from the war,
they found that they had not lost a single man I
This circumstance struck them as so decisive an
evidence of God's interposition, that out of the
spoils they had taken they offered " an oblation to
the Lord, an atonement for their souls." Do but
believe what the captains of thousands and the cap-
tains of hundi'eds believed at the time when these
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 4Q1
things happened, and we shall never more hear of
your objections to the Bible from its account of the
wars of Moses.
You produce two or three other objections re-
specting the genuineness of the first five books of
the Bible. I cannot stop to notice them : every
commentator answers them in a manner suited to
the apprehension of even a mere English reader.
You calculate to the thousandth part of an inch,
the length of the iron bed of Og the king of Bashan ;
but you do not prove that the bed was too big for
the body, or that a Patagonian would have been
lost in it. You make no allowance for the size of
a royal bed, nor ever suspect that king Og might
have been possessed with the same kind of vanity
which occupied the mind of king Alexander when
he ordered his soldiers to enlarge the size of their
beds, that they might give the Indians, in succeed-
ing ages, a great idea of the prodigious stature of a
Macedonian. In many parts of your work you
speak much in commendation of science. I join
with you in every commendation you can give it ;
but you speak of it in such a manner as to give room
to believe that you are a great proficient in it : if
this be the case, I would recommend a problem to
your attention, the solution of which you will readily
allow to be far above the powers of a man con-
versant only, as you represent priests and bishops
Infidelity. 26
402. "WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
to be, in hie, hctc, hoc. The problem is this^-to de-
termine the height to which a human body, pre-
serving its similarity of figure, may be augmented,
before it will perish by its own weight. When
you have solved this problem, we shall know
whether the bed of the king of Bashan was too
big for any giant ; whether the existence of a man
twelve or fifteen feet high is in the nature of things
impossible. My philosophy teaches me to doubt
of many things, but it does not teach me to reject
€very testimony which is opposite to my experi-
ence : had I been in Shetland, I could, on proper
testimony, have believed in the existence of the
Lincolnshire ox, or of the largest dray-horse in
London, though the oxen and horses in Shetland
had not been bigger than mastiffs.
WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE. 403
LETTER IV.
Having finished your objections to the genuine-
ness of the books of Moses, you proceed to your
remarks on the book of Joshua ; and from its in-
ternal evidence you endeavor to prove that this
book was not written by Joshua. What then ?
what is your conclusion ? " That it is anonymous,
and without authority." Stop a little : your con-
clusion is not connected with your premises ; your
friend Euclid would have been ashamed of it.
" Anonymous, and therefore without authority I"
I have noticed this solecism before ; but as you
frequently bring it forward — and indeed your book
stands much in need of it — I will submit to your
consideration another observation on the subject.
The book called Fleta is anonymous ; but it is not
on that account without authority.. Doomsday-
book is anonymous, and was written above seven
hundred years ago ; yet our courts of law do not
hold it to be without authority as to the facts re-
lated in it. Yes, you will say, but this book has
been preserved with peculiar care among the rec-
ords of the nation. And who told you that the
Jews had no records, or that thej^ did not preserve
them with singular care ? Josephus says the con-
trary ; and in the Bible itself an appeal is made to
404 WATSON'S REPLY TO PAINE.
many books which have perished, such as the
book of Jasher, the book of Nathan, of Abijah, of
Iddo, of Jehu, of natural history by Solomon, of the
acts of Manasseh, and others which might be men-
tioned. If any one having access to the journals
of the lords and commons, to the books of the trea-
sury, war-office, privy council, and other public
documents, should at this day write a history of
the reigns of George the First and Second, and
should publish it without his name, would any
man, three or four hundreds or thousands of years
hence, question the authority of that book, when
he knew that the whole British nation had received