Watson Refuted - Francis Samuel Ward

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as inconceivable as any religious mystery; therefore it may seem ridiculous in them to stop their credulity; since we call God just, when nothing but a concatenation of causes and effects can be perceived in the world; when we proclaim him benevolent, while the world is full of vice, while millions perish in misery, and continual calamities befal mankind; while, in short, most men have the gloomy prospect of damnation before them. These are greater miracles than an universal deluge, making a woman from a rib, or God's countenancing the atrocious murders of Jews. He that will believe one wonder, has no plea for doubting the rest.

      LETTER II

MY LORD,

      Your second letter begins with some nice distinctions between authenticity and genuineness. The whole reasoning seems to amount to this, that a book may be authentic, although not genuine, and vice versa. To this proposition we were no strangers; but piety makes your Lordship forget some other considerations. When the proofs of authenticity depend in a great measure upon the genuineness of a book, then the authenticity falls to the ground the moment we prove it spurious. Thus the Jews strenuously maintained, that the Pentateuch had been written by an inspired man at a particular time. But if Moses is shown not to have written these books, I trust you will not declare them authentic, without other very solid proofs. When a whole nation is proved to be mistaken respecting the author of a work, we ought not hastily to credit their legends. Moreover, logic teaches us, that in proportion as events are incredible, they require a stronger testimony to prove that they have actually taken place. A battle may have been fought, a city may have been destroyed, but miracles being against the order of nature, no testimony can be strong enough to prove them, we must again appeal to faith. It is so much easier for men to be deceived or imposed upon, or for persons designedly to mislead their credulous followers, that unless it were more miraculous that a man should be mistaken, than that the miracle happened, we ought not to give credit to such fables. If we drop this rule of logic, we shall readily believe prodigies of all sorts, whether wrought by Moses, Jesus Christ, Mahomet, St. Antony of Padua, or any modern wonder-workers, witches, magicians, astrologers, or magnetisers. Mr. Paine no where asserts, that because a book is not genuine, it must be false; but certainly he might assert this of the Bible. You say, that if the works of Titus Livius had been ascribed to another, they would nevertheless be true; how would you ascertain it? If the whole Roman nation supposed them to have been written by a particular author at a certain time, and should we be enabled to point out many passages evidently written in a posterior age, would you, without any other proofs, join in the assent to the authenticity of the history, upon a tradition so vague, and already proved false in so material a point? Although I am no Bishop, I would only imagine, that as to probable events contained in such spurious books, there might have been some grounds for them; but I would receive them with great caution; and, at any rate, never would I establish a system of history, much less of religion, upon the productions of an ignorant people: in all cases, events related against the order of nature are to be considered as the reveries of dark ages. To elucidate your principles, you mention Anson's voyage, written by Robins, under the name of Walter, to prove that a spurious work may contain a true history; but, my Lord, do you forget, that this was written at a time when the whole nation knew that Lord Anson had made such a voyage, and every man in his fleet could testify the particulars of it? But if our posterity, four or five centuries hence, should discover a book purporting to be written by a Mr. Walters, detailing the voyage of Admiral Anson, and if in that book they should meet a passage speaking of the late revolution in France, or of the author's death and burial, would not that strike at the authenticity of the whole? Would any part be believed that was not corroborated by the evidence of respectable contemporary authors? All that could be inferred would be from the nature of the events related, such as the accurate description of countries, and such other particulars as marked either the period of the observations, or their truth: in the first case, they might suspect the work to be interpolated; in the second, they would value it only for the accuracy of information. It is different with scientifical and historical works: a spurious book of science may contain truths, they stand for themselves, they are the same at all times and places. Not so in history: the truth here depends on the universal consent of nations, on the testimony of authors of credibility confronted with each other, and in all cases relating things probable. When we read in a Chinese history, that the goddess Amida peopled the world by bearing male children from under one arm, and females under another, or, in the Mahometan writers, that the trees spoke to the founder of that sect, would a man credit any circumstance, however probable, related in such histories, without the strongest collateral proofs? And should we further discover, that these histories detailed events posterior to their author's death, would not this make the whole still more improbable? Your remark upon this subject is singular: you say, that if Joshua, Samuel, or Moses, declared themselves the authors of the works ascribed to them, then to prove these books spurious would at once destroy their genuineness and authenticity. I would reason thus: Moses does not say, that he was the author of the Pentateuch; why then do we believe that he wrote it? You would, no doubt, answer, that the tradition of the Jews proclaims him such. I retort, that if the genuineness of a book may be proved by tradition, we ought as much to argue against the authenticity of a work, from having proved the general belief of its genuineness to be founded on error, as if the author had said, I am the author of this book. This we shall, in the sequel, prove to be the case with the books of the Old Testament. The addition of an express declaration of Moses would add no authenticity to the Pentateuch, since it is as easy to forge a work where the author speaks in the first as in the third person.

      Your next remark is concerning miracles. I have already observed, that no testimony can give them belief. You maintain, that the degree and kind of evidence for the prodigies recorded in the Bible exceeds that for any other wonders. How this happens I am unable to comprehend. I know they are contained in a book composed by the priests of the most credulous and ignorant nation that perhaps ever existed; and the authority of these unknown and obscure persons, is all the evidence we have for crediting their stories. An English Bishop tells his countrymen, that the miracle of the sun standing still is better supported than the prodigies of Abbe Paris, Mesmer, and the late Labre at Rome, than the numerous Indian, Chinese, and Popish miracles, of which a great part are attested by magistrates, divines, physicians, and the most enlightened classes of society; while the wonderful repast of the angels with Abraham, or the marvellous tale of Jonah's three days' residence in the belly of a fish, depends upon the authority of a book which we shall prove to be spurious, to have been lost for several ages, and to be compiled, if not altogether composed, by some Jewish scribes, who were, as they themselves acknowledge, the only men versed in the scriptures of the nation. I thought you would have known sacred history better than at the present day to make such unsupported assertions. Have you forgotten the wonders of the magicians of Pharaoh? Do you not recollect the express acknowledgment of Moses himself, that there may be miracles and prophecies performed by men who adored not the Lord Jehovah? Does he not say, in chap. xiii. of Deuteronomy, "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, &c. – that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to you to turn away from the Lord your God." It is not because he is a false prophet, but because he is not a prophet of Jehovah. Does not this at once show the grossness of the conceptions of the Jews, and the sophistical mode of arguing of their legislator? For I would ask, How did Moses prove himself the oracle of God? Or how did Jesus Christ show himself the Son of God, but by their pretended miracles? Why then believe the testimony of a miracle in one instance, and not in another? But the Jews certainly imagined, that there were several gods, and that they quarrelled with each other, as kings are used to do; therefore it was natural that one set of prophets should try to exterminate another, and be as inveterate against them as the Lord Jehovah was against Baal, or other rival gods. If the reader imagines I speak at random when I say, the Jews believed in other gods, I refer him to Judges, chap. xi. ver. 23, 34, where it is said, "So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldst thou not possess it? Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." There cannot be a fairer parallel.

      I can hardly imagine a Bishop ignorant of the augurs, oracles, and sybils of the Greeks and Romans,

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