Nothing is more certain than that no man can rationally predict of the future, otherwise than by deduction drawn from the past; and, therefore, there is reason to believe that the writers of Matthew and Luke, who most probably wrote after the middle of the second century, spoke by inference drawn from their own experience, when they uttered that plain, bold, and bloody declaration regarding the future fruits of Christianity. "Suppose ye that I came to send peace on earth? I tell you nay; _I came not to send peace, but a sword._ For I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother. And a man's foes shall be those of his own household." This terrible denunciation has proved true to a tittle. Where is there another of all the New Testament predictions that has been so literally fulfilled? If such effects began to show themselves while it was yet in its infancy, and even crying out for tolerance amongst the Pagans, can we wonder that in subsequent times, after gaining the patronage of tyranny, riches, and power, it should engender a greater mass of human misery than was ever caused by all the other systems of religious plagues put together. The artificers of this scheme saw well that the power and influence of the priest and despot, were ever in exact proportion to the debasement of man; and, therefore, they laid their foundation in that hideous sink of vice and depravity, the Jewish superstition; for there they found the examples of a numerous and rapacious priesthood, the enforcement of tithes, and a perfect specimen of the iniquitous league between civil and theological tyranny; a combination which makes an easy conquest of the human mind in a state of ignorance and renders it incapable of one liberal, manly or independent sentiment. When man is thus shorn of his native energy, and all virtuous dignity, by the surrender of his reason, these confederate powers erect their common throne on the ruins of his freedom, welfare and happiness. The ferocious character ascribed to deity in the barbarous books of the Jews, was no stumbling-block against their adoption, when contrasted with the mighty advantages to be derived from the precedents already noticed, and which have so eminently served the successors of the adopters in the way of trade. They were utterly reckless that the writers of these books, in the delirium of blasphemy (to use a cant word) have depicted the ruling power of the universe as a contemptible and wicked personation, with the worst of human passions, and as sanctioning or commanding the perpetration of the blackest crimes that ever disgraced human nature. By quoting these bloody examples as laudable and worthy of imitation, have not priests caused half the earth to be ravaged, and debauched the minds of princes (who would otherwise have been humane and virtuous) and made them devastators and infamous persecutors?