23. Whatever its origin it cannot be a divine revelation to us. Even supposing that the writers of the Bible had claimed to be inspired and that these books really were a divine revelation to them, they would not, as Paine justly argues, be a divine revelation to us. The only evidence we would have of their divinity would be the claim of the writer--a claim that any writer might make--a claim that even an honest writer might make were he, like many religious writers, the victim of a delusion. 24. A written revelation unnecessary. To affirm the necessity of a written revelation from God to man, as Christians do, is to deny his divine attributes and ascribe to him the limitations of man. If God be omnipotent and omnipresent a written revelation is unnecessary. To impute to him an unnecessary act is to impute to him an imperfection, and to impute to him an imperfection is to impugn his divinity. We do not write a communication to one who is present. Think of an infinite, all-powerful, and ever-present God communing with his living children through an obscure and corrupted message said to have been delivered to a tribe of barbarians three thousand years ago! 25. Its want of universal acceptance. A divine revelation intended for all mankind can be harmonized only with a universal acceptance of this revelation. God, it is affirmed, has made a revelation to the world. Those who receive and accept this revelation are saved; those who fail to receive and accept it are lost. This God, it is claimed, is all-powerful and all-just. If he is all-powerful he can give his children a revelation. If he is all-just he will give this revelation to all. He will not give it to a part of them and allow them to be saved and withhold it from the others and suffer them to be lost. Your house is on fire. Your children are asleep in their rooms. What is your duty? To arouse them and rescue them--to awaken all of them and save all of them. If you awaken and save only a part of them when it is in your power to save them all you are a fiend. If you stand outside and blow a trumpet and say, "I have warned them, I have done my duty," and they perish, you are still a fiend. If God does not give his revelation to all; if he does not disclose its divinity to all; if he does not make it comprehensible and acceptable to all; in short, if he does not save all, he is the prince of fiends. If all the world's inhabitants but one accepted the Bible and there was one who could not honestly accept it, its rejection by one human being would prove that it is not from an all-powerful and an all-just God; for an all-powerful God who failed to reach and convince even one of his children would not be an all-just God. Has the Bible been given to all the world? Do all accept it? Three-fourths of the human race reject it; millions have never heard of it.