PROSPECT,

OR

View of the Moral World,

BY ELIHU PALMER.

VOL. I.

SATURDAY, March 3d, 1804.

No. 13.

Comments on the sacred writings of the Jews and Chris tians: Genesis, Chapters seven and eight. FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING

INSPIRED

THE DELUGE.

NSPIRED men are generally unacquainted with the laws of nature. They are seized with a kind of religious fanaticism, which blinds them in regard to the most stubborn facts, and the gross inconsistencies gross inconsistencies which they themselves have fabricated. In the wonderful account of this most wonderful flood, it is said, "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth-and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." The expression contained in this passage, in regard to the elevation of the waters, is in some measure ambiguous. If it means fifteen cubits from the common surface of the earth, this is only about twenty seven feet and would go but a little way towards covering the highest hills-if it means that the water rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains, this would involve the flood makers in still greater difficulty, because it would be impossible that the atmosphere should contain a body of water sufficient for such a purpose, especially when the height of the mountains in both hemispheres is brought into the account. The two following paragraphs taken from doubts of infidels, are not unworthy of insertion in this place.

The account of the flood is very embarrassing. It is described as the effects of natural agents in the hands of

God: it rained-no mention is made of waters for the purpose. The deluge was universal: all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered; it did not cease in consequence of the annihiliation of the waters, but they were evaporated by a wind. Now from whence came the water? The weight of the whole atmosphere, with all its vapours, is equal to no more than a hollow sphere of three or four and thirty feet thickness, environing the whole globe, and, con. sequently, the whole of its contents, if condensed into water, could not deluge the earth to the height of an ordinary house. It is to no purpose to break open the fountains of the abyss or great deep, if any such fountains there are; for gravity would prevent the waters from issuing out-neither can unbelievers be persuaded to believe that the windows of heaven were opened while they know it has no windows; So that we have but three or four and thirty feet of water to deluge the highest mountains, some of which are about twenty thousand feet high.

The weak in faith find themselves equally at a loss respecting the ark. It seems strange to them, that so vast an assemblage of animals, could be inclosed in an ark or chest, which had but one window, (which window was kept shut for more than five months) without being stifled for want of air: it appears equally remarkable, that Noah and his three sons could unstow and serve out the daily allowance of provisions and water to the passengers-and if their wives were supposed to help them, the work to be done is still prodigiThe lions, and other carnivorous animals, must have lived on salt provisons-which, no doubt, they were glad of, as seafaring people are not very nice, especially in long voyages.

ous.

COMMUNICATION.

OF THE WORD RELIGION,

AND OTHER WORDS OF UNCERTAIN SIGNIFICATION.

THE word religion is a word of forced application when used with respect to the worship of God. The root of the word is the latin verb ligo, to tie or bind. From ligo, comes religo, to tie or bind over again, or make more fast-from

religo, comes the substantive religio, which with the addition of n makes the English substantive religion. The French use the word properly-when a woman enters a convent she is called a noviciate, that is, she is upon trial or probation. When she takes the oath, she is called a religieuse, that is, she is tied or bound by that oath to the performance of it. We use the word in the same kind of sense when we say we will religiously perform the promise that we make.

But the word, without referring to its etymology has, in the manner it is used, no definitive meaning, because it does not designate what religion a man is of. There is the religion of the Chinese, of the Tartars, of the Bramins, of the Persians, of the Jews, of the Turks, &c.

The word christianity is equally as vague as the word religion. No two sectaries can agree what it is. It is a lo here and lo there. The two principal sectaries, Papists and Protestants, have often cut each other's throats about it:The papists call the protestants heretics, and the protestants call the papists idolaters. The minor sectaries have shewn the same spirit of rancour, but as the civil law restrains them from blood, they content themselves with preaching damnation against each other.

The word protestant has a positive signification in the sense it is used. It means protesting against the authority of the Pope, and this is the only article in which the protestants agree. In every other sense, with respect to religion, the word protestant, is as vague as the word christian. When we say an episcopalian, a presbyterian, a baptist, a quaker, we know what those persons are, and what tenets they hold-but when we say a christian we know he is not a Jew nor a Mahometan, but we know not if he be a trinitarian or an anti-trinitarian, a believer in what is called the immaculate conception or a disbeliever, a man of seven sacraments, or of two sacraments, or of none. The word christian describes what a man is not, but not what he is.

The word Theology, from Theos, the greek word for God, and meaning the study and knowledge of God, is a word, that strictly speaking, belongs to Theists or Deists, and not to the christians. The head of the christian church is the person called Christ-but the head of the church of the Theists, or Deists, as they are more commonly called, from Deus, the latin word for God, is God himself, and

therefore the word Theology belongs to that church which has Theos or God for its head, and not to the christian church which has the person called Christ for its head. Their technical word is christianity and they cannot agree what christianity is.

or

The words revealed religion, and natural religion, require also explanation. They are both invented terms, contrived by the church for the support of priest-craft. With respect to the first, there is no evidence of any such thing, except in the universal revelation, that God has made of his power, his wisdom, his goodness, in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of creation. We have no cause ground from any thing we behold in those works, to suppose God would deal partially by mankind, and reveal knowledge to one nation and withhold it from another, and then damn them for not knowing it. The sun shines an equal quantity of fight all over the world-and mankind in all ages and countries are indued with reason, and blessed with sight, to read the visible works of God in the creation, and so intelligent is this book that he that runs may read. We admire the wisdom of the ancients, yet they had no bibles, nor books, called revelation. They cultivated the reason that God gave them, studied him in his works, and arose to emi

nence.

As to the bible, whether true or fabulous, it is a history, and history is not revelation. If Solomon had seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, and if Samson slept in Delila's lap, and she cut his hair off, the relation of those things is mere history, that needed no revelation from heaven to tell it; neither does it need any revelation to tell us that Samson was a fool for his pains and Solomon

too.

As to the expression so often used in the bible, that the word of the Lord, came to such an one, or such an one, it was the fashion of speaking in those times, like the expression used by a quaker, that the spirit moveth him, or that used by priests, that they have a call. We ought not to be deceived by phrases because they are ancient. But if we admit the supposition that God would condesend to reveal himself in words, we ought not to believe it would be in such idle and profligate stories as are in the bible, and it is for this reason, among others which our reverence to God inspires, that the Deists tdeny that the book called the bible is the word of God or that it is revealed religion.

With respect to the term, natural religion, it is upon the face of it, the opposite of artificial religion, and it is impossible for any man to be certain that what is called revealed religion, is not artificial. Man has the power of making books, inventing stories of God, and calling them revelation or the word of God. The Koran exists as an instance that this can be done, and we must be credulous indeed to suppose that this is the only instance, and Mahomet the only impostor. The Jews could match him, and the church of Rome could overmatch the Jews. The Mahometans believe the Koran, the Christians believe the Bible, and it is education makes all the difference.

Books, whether Bibles or Korans, carry no evidence of being the work of any other power than man. It is only that which man cannot do that carries the evidence of being the work of a superior power. Man could not invent and make a universe he could not invent nature, for nature is of divine origin. It is the laws by which the universe is governed. When, therefore, we look through nature up to nature's God, we are in the right road of happiness, but when we trust to books as the word of God, and confide in them as revealed religion, we are afloat on an ocean of uncertainty, and shatter into contending factions. The term, therefore, natural religion, explains itself to be divine religion, and the term revealed religion involves in it the suspicion of being artificial.

To shew the necessity of understanding the meaning of words, I will mention an instance of a minister, I believe of the episcopalian church, of Newark, in Jersey. He wrote and published a book, and entitled it, "An Antidote to Deism." An antidote to Deism, must be Atheism. It has no other antidote-for what can be an antidote to the belief of a God, but the disbelief of a God. Under the tuition of such pastors, what but ignorance and false information can be expected.

T. P.

RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

IF your Christ was the light of the world, as he declared

himself to be-why did he not rise in light, and enlighten the world with his presence! Why did he rise and set in