We are constantly reading over accounts of the same events, sometimes said to be written by dead men, and never marking time; for _it came to pass_, which is the Bible phrase, does not fix the period when the event took place. These books bear all the marks of being the productions of some persons at a very late period, and to have suffered great interpolations. Joshua is, in the face of it, a continuation of Deuteronomy, Judges of Joshua, and so on through the remainder. You pass on to Judges. It requires neither great knowledge nor ingenuity to discover, that this book is an unconnected farrago put together by some unknown person. You do not attempt to say any thing in its favour. Sad falling off from the paths of faith! Formerly it would have been a heresy to assert that Judges was a book of no authority: now, even a Bishop has nothing to say in its defence. You then proceed to Ruth, and endeavour to blot out the apparent infamy of her conduct, with what success, I leave the reader to judge, after he has perused her history. Next follow your subtle distinctions between the inspired and non-inspired part of the Bible, which may be very intelligible to an inspired Bishop, but cannot fail to appear a mere dream to a man in his senses. Notwithstanding Austin and your other brethren, this distinction rests upon nothing but fancy. Your request is very moderate. "Receive the Bible," you say, "as composed by upright and well-informed, though in some points, fallible men, (for I exclude all fallibility _when they profess to deliver_ the word of God), and you must receive it as a book revealed to you in many parts by the express will of God, and, in other parts, relating to you the ordinary history of the times." Bravo! A Catholic is as reasonable in his demands. He only asks a little credulity to believe the inspired when _they profess to be so_. It is truly a childish request, begging the question at every word. To believe the Bible to be inspired is the grand point. The reasoning you employ is in perfect consonance with the absurdity of your wishes. You disbelieve a history if you find it inconsistent, but revere it, and swear by the author, if he wrote by inspiration. Swedenburgh could not wish more faith in his adherents. You say _receive it_, as the inquisitors said _imprimatur_; but philosophers weigh the ground of their belief; they detect the Bible writers, prophets, and inspired men, in palpable contradictions in history; and you will obstinately insist on our believing the most improbable of all their stories, because their absurdity persuades the faithful that they were revealed by their God in dreams.----You have acknowledged yourself, in a subsequent letter, that the history and mystery of the Bible are so interwoven, that if one falls the other cannot be maintained. Why did God mingle his important and sublime precepts with such ridiculous trash, so as to induce mankind