BEFORE reviewing the facts and personages, as recorded in the Old and New Testaments, it will be in order to notice the Jews, as Jehovah’s chosen race. The subject will not admit of demonstration; it must be approached and examined in the same manner as the Alkoran of Mahomet.

In order to get at the truth, so as to arrive at something like certainty, and as Infinite Wisdom makes the choice, we must inquire—For what end were they chosen? and did they answer the end of such choice? If they were really chosen by the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, they must, however strange they acted as a nation, have fulfilled the purpose of their choice; because, whatever they did, was known to Jehovah before the choice was made. How, then, can we reconcile expressions of regret and disappointment by Jehovah after he had selected them as his own peculiar people—such as, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me?” And again—“He hated his own inheritance,”—and also his stirring up and supporting heathen kings to subjugate them as slaves. Is this not the language of disappointment and regret? In fact, no learned divine can get over this striking truth that the Bible fully holds out in the plainest manner, that Jehovah was disappointed in his choice of the Jews as his favorite people. Were they, then, chosen to raise up and support the religion given to them by God himself? No, impossible! they continually rebelled against Jehovah and worshipped strange Gods; and even Solomon himself built temples for idolatry, contrary to express command. Jehovah says of the Jewish nation—that he did not choose them because they were better than others, for they were always a stiff-necked people; but because he loved their fathers. Poor, miserable reasoning, indeed; to choose one of the most contemptible races of men, because their ancestors, some hundreds of years before, had superior qualities to their degenerate race.

Again, another reason given why Jehovah continued to protect them, is, that the promises before made to Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, bound him in honor so to do. Did not Infinite Wisdom foresee that the seed of Abram would not follow in the faithful footsteps of their great progenitor? If this was not foreseen, then we can discover clearly the reason why Jehovah complains of their rebellious conduct. It will be a vain attempt in ministers of the gospel, to reconcile those complaints, if Jehovah had foresight of what the seed of Abram would do. If “God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,” how did it happen that he appeared so regardless of the fate of mankind, as to allow some hundreds of years to pass away from the time of the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel, till his visit to the tent of Abram, during which time, according to Bible history, Jehovah had no worshippers on earth? The whole of mankind were left to make the best of their deserted situation; to worship the Gods of their imagination; and they founded mighty empires, and became powerful on the earth.

Before the Lord called on Abram and Sarah in their tent, something like the following mode of reasoning probably took place in the mind of the Jewish God:—

“I have made a world and peopled it with inhabitants; Adam and Eve rebelled against me; their descendants followed in the footsteps of their progenitors; I have destroyed them all (eight only excepted,) from whom I expected better things. But, alas! they have also sinned against me; and to such a height of wickedness did they arrive, that they began to build a tower to reach my holy habitation. I have sent them off in confusion: and now I have no church, no worshippers,—not even a song of praise to my name. I possess universal empire, without even one single subject to obey me. What is to be done? A thought has struck me:—I will call on honest old Abram.”

And here let me remind the reader, that the Bible clearly represents the Jewish God as being as changeable in his disposition and mode of acting as mortals. Like man, he is sometimes in a state of inaction, towards the fate of his offspring: at other times, he arouses from this torpor, and is the most sensitive and active. Sometimes he appears to repent of some failure in the calculations he has made concerning his creatures; attempts to rectify the error, and again blunders. He at one time says: “fury is not in me,” then again he is all fury. No truth is more striking than this,—that the Jehovah of the Bible is not, cannot be, the universal governor of the universe, but merely a creature of the imagination, whose power is confined, having no existence without the covers of the Bible.

But to return to Abram:—Jehovah either goes to him, or sends to him delegates, to acquaint him of the choice he is about to make of “Abram and his seed forever.” This is but the beginning of a new experiment on the human race. And here does it not plainly appear, that Jehovah’s mode of acting, in this case, is unworthy of the governor of the world? Does it not prove his total disregard for the welfare of the rest of mankind? Good heavens! the believers, one and all, of such absurdities, have ever been, and are still insane.

These heavenly visiters find Abram and Sarah living comfortably in their tent, watching flocks and herds. They (the angels) are treated with the hospitality common in pastoral life. They have their feet washed; they are invited to dine on the best; the calf is immediately killed; and Sarah, was not slow on her part, in the cooking department, from which, one might be induced to think, that over the door of the tent was written: “Dinners Dressed at the Shortest Notice.”—Soon after being seated, the messengers make known their errand; Abram was much pleased; Sarah laughed outright. The promise was now ratified that had before been made to Abram, that his seed should be as the sand of the sea in number, for that Sarah should have a son in her old age. This, to say the least of it, was good pay for a good dinner.

Here, then, the reader will please to notice, was the final settlement as it regards the Jews being the chosen people of God. And here the following ceremony took place:—Three men, angels, or messengers, came from Heaven; they had their feet washed, agreeably to eastern custom; they sat down and did eat, and we may suppose did also drink with Abram and Sarah; one of the three was called the Lord.

I have here strictly adhered to the Bible history of this surprising account; and if it be not literally true, the choice of the Jews, and also the whole of the Jewish and Christian theology, falls prostrate. The account winds up with the departure of the angels to Sodom; where, after having dined with Abram, they took supper with Lot. The day following, Sodom was burnt by fire from Heaven; Lot’s wife (by way of making the most of her) was turned into a pillar of salt, because she looked back on her old habitation. What became of the angels, Heaven only knows!

But to return to the Jews, as a nation. For what purpose were they chosen? It could not be to establish and support the only true religion on earth, whereby they became the constant and obedient servants of the Most High, because they continued to rebel against Jehovah; and in spite of all his commands to the contrary, to worship other gods, which conduct provoked the Lord to anger, and the most dreadful punishment followed for their disobedience. They were not chosen to convert other nations to the faith and worship of the God of Israel, because they were ordered to take the property and destroy the inhabitants of towns and cities, with whom they had not the most distant quarrel. Once more,—Were they chosen for the purpose that Jehovah should be their God, and that they should be his people? No, because they, time after time, rejected his authority as their God, and worshipped strange gods, unknown to their fathers; for which He sent “prophets and holy men” to remonstrate with them. But they killed the prophets; and, as a nation, never were for any length of time converted to, nor obeyed, the God of Israel.

It was promised to Abram, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” When and how have the nations ever been blessed? As for the poor Jews, no curse ever fell so heavy on mortals as fell on them, in consequence of their considering themselves God’s chosen people, and other nations treating them as such. For eighteen hundred years, Christians have plundered and murdered them, because they have faithfully worshipped (since He cast them off) the God of their fathers, against whom (when under his protection) they continued to rebel.

The Jews are a strange people. Strange and hard has been their fate; and it can be easily accounted for, from their being originally cheated into the fact that they were God’s chosen people to the exclusion of the rest of the human race. Christians ask how it could have been possible for Moses or any other person to induce them to believe that they were so chosen, when miracles and wonders were performed in their behalf, if no such things did in reality take place? The answer is easy:—Christians suppose that the books of the Old Testament were written at the time the generation lived, before whose eyes those wonders were performed. This is a fatal mistake. Those miracles and wonders, no doubt, were ante-dated, and brought forward to the Jews in after times, as proofs of what Jehovah had done for their forefathers; for it clearly appears from the internal evidence of Jewish history, that the five books said to have been written by Moses, were not known to the Jews, as a nation, till after the reigns of David, Solomon, and many others. At what time the five books were first made known to the descendants of Abram, is not ascertained; but, whenever it was, they contained the history of the Abrahamic family, including all the miracles and wonders performed by Jehovah in their behalf.

It is easy to perceive, how the Jews might be brought to believe all that was written concerning God’s choice of them, as his peculiar people. An ambitious leader and legislator could, without much difficulty, soon establish them firmly in the conviction that they were Jehovah’s chosen people. It would flatter their vanity; and the credulity of the human mind is such, even now, that we need not wonder that the Jews, as a nation, gave credence to the tales of former times concerning their being the especial favorites of Jehovah. The Jews, then, no doubt were cheated into the firm conviction (by their early leaders) that they, of all people on earth, were the chosen of Heaven. This will account for their keeping themselves as a separate people—the heaviest curse that could befal them, and which remains on them till this day.

According to the Bible, the dealings of Jehovah towards mankind in general, and of the Jews in particular, will bear out the following remarks:—That, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, and the descendants of Noah were dispersed abroad on the earth, the Bible God forsook the earth for some hundred years. He had no worshippers on earth. He then descends and selects one family to be called after his name. From that moment, Jehovah appears to direct his whole attention to the family concerns of his new choice. Troubles come on in quick succession; Abram’s domestic jars claim his attention and superintendence. Sarah and her maid servant quarrel; the maid is turned out of doors, about a child who claimed Sarah’s husband as its father.

The Lord interfered and matters were made up. But soon another misunderstanding arose between Sarah and Hagar about the child who had ill-behaved himself towards Abram’s wife. Sarah became enraged, and got the better of the Lord; and Abram and she drove Hagar and her son out of the house for good and all. The Lord again made the best of the matter by sending an angel who took charge of Hagar’s son; and Abram and Sarah lived happy, and directed all their attention to little Isaac.

To return to the Jews, as a nation. Did they answer the end for which they were chosen? Most undoubtedly they did. For, as “known unto the Lord are all his works from the beginning” whatever his dealings were towards them, in punishing them for their rebellion and disobedience, and whatever suffering they endured in consequence of their departure from his commands, are included in his choice; and are the ends for which they were chosen. Here, then, we have arrived at the ends for which they were selected,—he knowing that they would continue to transgress, and also that such transgression would call forth his anger; and that punishment would follow from their disobedience. These are the only ends that we can discover by their being chosen, and these ends were fully answered.

And as Jehovah is represented as acting the same as men act under similar circumstances, the following remarks are in accordance with his dealings with the people of his choice, namely: that after Jehovah had driven the inhabitants of Babel abroad on the face of the earth, and not having any church or worshippers in the world, he became weary of this state of inaction, and, sighing for something to do, he chose the descendants of Abram for his future operations on the earth. And from that moment, the Jews required all his attention; his anger was always raging: he had no repose whatever.

In the course of his watching over them, he occasionally stirred up the heathen against them, and suffered them to become bondmen and slaves. Then, again, they had arms put into their hands, and he marched out in aid of their victories; and then the “Lord of Hosts was his name.” Then, as if he had forgotten the promises made to their forefathers, he repents of the neglect shown to them; again renews the combat and orders them to war against nations, and to spare neither old age nor infancy. So that, by turns, hating them and showing them no mercy; then again, repenting of his severe conduct towards them, proclaiming to the world that the Lord of Hosts or battle is his name,—the Bible account of Jehovah confirms us, in concluding, that, he chose the family of Abram for no other purpose than to disturb and brutalize the rest of the world.

The Jews, and their God, seem to be objects of pity and contempt. Pity for the poor Jews, for their unfortunate fate; and as for Jehovah, if the Bible be true, from the moment he adopted them as his favorites, he became subject to rage, furious anger, grief, repenting of the choice he had made; and finally casting them off. These, then, are some of the glorious ends for which they were chosen. To conclude—Of all the impositions that ever have been palmed on the inhabitants of the earth, destructive of “peace on earth and good will towards men” that of the Jews being God’s chosen people, is one of the greatest; the Jehovah of the Bible, being nothing but an imaginary God, to cheat the World into the faith of his being the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe.