nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vin-
dictive God ; everything we there behold impresses us with
a contrary idea, — that of unchangeableness and of eternal
order, harmony, and goodness. The sun and the seasons re-
turn at their appointed time, and every thing in the Creation
proclaims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to
believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the
■word of God, or the Creation itself which none but an
, Almighty Power could make ? For the Bible says one
thing, and the Creation says the contrary. The Bible repre-
sents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the Creation
proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine,
and murder ; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.
That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes
God to say, (i Sam. xv. 3,) " Now go and smite Amaleck,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not,
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass."

That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is
what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor dis-
proved, but in my opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to be-
lieve, that God said it. All our ideas of the justice and
goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible.
It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name
of God, that the Bible describes.
