During many ages of misery and darkness this story gained implicit belief; but at length men arose who suspected that it was a fable and imposture, and that Jesus Christ, so far from being a God, was only a man like themselves.  But a numerous set of men, who derived and still derive immense emoluments from this opinion, in the shape of a popular belief, told the vulgar that if they did not believe in the Bible they would be damned to all eternity; and burned, imprisoned, and poisoned all the unbiassed and unconnected inquirers who occasionally arose.  They still oppress them, so far as the people, now become more enlightened, will allow.

The belief in all that the Bible contains is called Christianity.  A Roman governor of Judea, at the instance of a priest-led mob, crucified a man called Jesus eighteen centuries ago.  He was a man of pure life, who desired to rescue his countrymen from the tyranny of their barbarous and degrading superstitions.  The common fate of all who desire to benefit mankind awaited him.  The rabble, at the instigation of the priests, demanded his death, although his very judge made public acknowledgement of his innocence.  Jesus was sacrificed to the honour of that God with whom he was afterwards confounded.  It is of importance, therefore, to distinguish between the pretended character of this being as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and his real character as a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, paid the forfeit of his life to that overbearing tyranny which has since so long desolated the universe in his name.  Whilst the one is a hypocritical Daemon, who announces Himself as the God of compassion and peace, even whilst He stretches forth His blood-red hand with the sword of discord to waste the earth, having confessedly devised this scheme of desolation from eternity; the other stands in the foremost list of those true heroes who have died in the glorious martyrdom of liberty, and have braved torture, contempt, and poverty in the cause of suffering humanity. (Since writing this note I have some reason to suspect that Jesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea.

The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of Jesus was a supernatural event.  Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in unenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something divine.  This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the reveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute was death, which to doubt was infamy.

CHRISTIANITY is now the established religion:  he who attempts to impugn it must be contented to behold murderers and traitors take precedence of him in public opinion; though, if his genius be equal to his courage, and assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may exalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was persecuted in the name of his predecessor in the homage of the world.