It is in punctuality to fulfil the superstitious and frivolous duties, that the morality of the Jews in the Old Testament writings is chiefly conspicuous; legal observances, rites, ceremonies, are all that occupied the people of Israel. In recompense for their scrupulous exactness to fulfil these duties, they were permitted to commit the most frightful of crimes. The virtues recommended by the Son of God, in the New Testament, are not in reality the same as those which God the Father had made observable in the former case. The New Testament contradicts the Old. It announces that God is not pacified by sacrifices, nor by offerings, nor by frivolous rites. It substitutes in place of these, supernatural virtues, of which I believe I have sufficiently proved the inutility, the impossibility, and the incompatibility with the well-being of man living in society. The Son of God, by the writers of the New Testament, is set at variance with himself; for he destroys in one place what he establishes in another; and, moreover, the priests have appropriated to themselves all the principles of his mission. They are in unison only with God when the precepts of the Deity accord with their present interest. Is it their interest to persecute? They find that God ordains persecution. Are they themselves persecuted? They find that this pacific God forbids persecution, and views with abhorrence the persecution of his servants. Do they find that superstitious practices are lucrative to themselves? Notwithstanding the aversion of Jesus Christ from offerings, rites, and ceremonies, they impose them on the people, they surcharge them with mysterious rites: they respect these more than those duties which are of essential benefit to society. If Jesus has not wished that they should avenge themselves, they find that his Father has delighted in vengeance. If Jesus has declared that his kingdom is not of this world, and if he has shown contempt of riches, they nevertheless find in the Old Testament sufficient reasons for establishing a hierarchy for the governing of the world in a spiritual sense, as kings do in a political one,--for the disputing with kings about their power,--for exercising in this world an authority the most unlimited, a license the most terrific. In a word, if they have found in the Bible some precepts of a moral tendency and practical utility, they have also found others to justify crimes the most atrocious.