chapter xxii.

After the tribes were separated, it was common for the prophets to oppose each other. The kings, also, of each nation aided in the destruction of the prophets, and were worshippers of strange gods. And yet it is recorded, that Jehovah chose Jeroboam to be king over Israel,--the very man who introduced the worship of idols, to the entire exclusion of the worship of the God of Abram! This choice of Jehovah laid the foundation of scenes of bloodshed too horrid to be ascribed to the all-wise Author of Nature. It could not have been worse, had the Devil been the chooser.

For years after the Israelites became two distinct nations, we read of little else than quarrels and bloodshed; and the prophets of Judah (called the prophets of Jehovah) were much worse than those called false prophets. This can be easily accounted for, as the Jewish religion was then the most intolerant of any on earth. The Kings of Judah gave orders, in the name of the Lord, to destroy all the heathen, as the enemies of Jehovah. The prophets followed up the same practice; at the same time, the prophets of the heathen gods were less cruel, and, morally speaking, much better men. According to what is recorded, whenever power was in the hands of the Kings of Judah, or their prophets, no mercy was shown to the opposite party; and as to prophets, they seemed to spring up like mushrooms, for it was often inquired by kings, is there not a man of God here?

A few remarks on the prophets of those times may be here made. Elijah seems to have had delegated to him almost unlimited power; for lo! he, under pretence of having orders from Jehovah, anointed kings agreeably to his pretended orders. He then foretold what the Lord intended should be done to certain kings and their families. Those kings, then, thus anointed by the authority of Elijah, received orders to destroy such and such families; so that after Jehovah had separated the Israelites into two kingdoms by setting up Jeroboam, nothing but cruelty and murder followed, in consequence of the Lord's making so bad a choice.

It would, judging from what transpired, have been better not to have changed the dynasty, but to let Solomon's heirs continued to have reigned over the whole of the Israetish nation; for in this state of Jewish history, idolatry, murder, carnage, and every bad passion was let loose; and the kings of each nation of the Jews, by the direction of these upstart prophets, showed no mercy to those of their brethren who had, by the fortune of war, fallen into their power. All this horrid state of things originated from Jeroboam being made king, and setting up idolatry throughout the land. Can we then admit, for a moment, that the Sovereign Ruler of all brought on such a wretched state of things, or ascribe to him so foolish a choice as the appointment of Jeroboam to be King of Israel? No! it is utterly impossible.

But to return to the prophets. Elijah and Elisha were, at this time, the Lord's servants. Elijah was foremost, and Elisha acted as his servant. The following circumstance brought Elijah into direct conflict with the kingdom of Israel, and the then called false prophets:--Ahaziah, then King of Israel and Samaria, met with an accident, and was sick; and he sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub whether he would recover or not Now, Elijah was sent, or, he said he was sent, to say to the messenger, "_Is it because there is not a God in Israel, that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?_" The King of Israel then inquired what sort of a man it was who thus remonstrated with the messenger? And from the account given, he found it to be Elijah, the prophet of Judah; consequently a prophet of the Lord. Elijah was sitting on a hill, and the king sent a captain and fifty men to bring him before him; and this was the order:--"_Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered, and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty._" And again, another captain and fifty went, and shared the same fate. Then the third captain and fifty were sent; but the captain of the last fifty fell on his knees before-the prophet, and begged for his life, and for the lives of his-men. The Lord then ordered Elijah to go down with the captain to the king.

Now I ask the reader, if his mind is prepared to, believe that these two slaughters, consisting of one hundred men, with their two captains, were brought on them by fire from heaven, as a judgment? What was their crime? They acted as they were ordered by the king. Here we may discover the falsity of the statement; for if any punishment was to follow in sending for the prophet, ought not Ahaziah to have been the victim? This wanton shedding of blood, by the mere calling down from heaven judgments, by an old fellow wrapped up in a bear's-skin, and called a man of God, is too barefaced a lie for the present state of society. There is not one word of truth in the whole marvellous story. Jehovah's murdering the people for the vices of their rulers, is anti-republican; and if men would consult their reason, and employ common sense, the Christian priesthood would be ashamed to preach of a God of mercy, and, at the same time, ascribe to him injustice and cruelty.

Elijah and his man Friday, Elisha, appear to be two of the most cruel of all the band of pretended men of God. They, according to what is recorded, seem to have had a sort of general license to kill and destroy every thing that came in their way. All the prophets and worshippers of the god Baal-zebub, the then worship of the kingdom of Israel and Samaria, were put to death by the stratagem and order of Elijah; and after him, Elisha received an affront by being called "_old bald head_" and for this great offence, the Lord sent two she bears out of the woods, and devoured forty and two little children! The nonsense of the Koran cannot come up to this account. During the lives of Elijah and Elisha, Jehovah could attend to little else than their concerns, for they were forever praying for something to incommode or destroy human beings.

What man is there, at the present day, who can believe that the Author of Nature gave to a mortal, power to withhold the rain or the dews of heaven from descending on the earth, as is recorded was given to Elijah, who told Ahab, King of Israel, (1 Kings xvii., 1,) "_As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my words_"? This miracle is referred to by a New Testament writer, but it is not the more true on that account. I have, however, said enough of Elijah, and, as he is about to go up into heaven, I have no wish to follow him.

I will only mention his ascension. It appears that all the towns and villages round about had heard, by what means I know not, that Elijah was soon to be taken up into heaven; for wherever he and Elisha went, the people said unto Elisha, _know you wot that Elijah is about to be taken from you?_ and Elisha nodded an assent, and said, "_hold your peace._" It appears as if Elijah endeavored to evade Elisha's presence when he would be taken up; but Elisha stuck to him until up he went in a chariot of fire, with horses of the same; and Elisha saw it, and cried out, "_My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!_" In going up, his mantle fell off, Elisha taking it, and with it, the prophetic spirit of his master. Elisha then followed on in the footsteps of his predecessor; and his first act was, to call on his God to destroy some little children, for the enormous crime of calling so odd a looking fellow, "_old bald head_" In truth, we discover in most of the prophets such a spirit of intolerance and rage towards those who were so unfortunate as to differ from or oppose them, that they ought to be considered prophets of the Devil, and not servants of him whose wisdom, power and goodness are stamped on all the works of this mighty universe.

The prophet Jonah seems to have been a man every way unfit for the prophetic service; for when ordered to go to Nineveh, to cry against the wickedness of its inhabitants, he ran away; and, according to the record, his, disobedience produced a violent storm, and when the sailors found that he was out of his road to Nineveh, they cast lots to find out the person who had caused the storm, and the lot fell on Jonah, who confessed himself to be the guilty person. He then told them to cast him into the sea, as the only way to save themselves and the ship. It is written what followed. Another blunder again in the choice of Jonah; and miracles must be performed to cause this run-away prophet to reach his destination. He then again made an attempt to preach repentance to the Ninevites; and they, hearing of the destruction against them, repented, and this made the prophet stark mad; for his consequence as a prophet being hurt, he exclaimed, that _he was tired of life_. Poor, paltry trash for the employment of a God, to reason with and coax a hotheaded creature like Jonah! but, like all the rest of such tales, there is not one word of truth in the whole concern.

Before taking leave of the prophets of the Old Testament, a few remarks may suffice to point out their real character. From the time that Jehovah adopted the seed of Abram for his chosen people, nothing but trouble and vexation on his part occurred; and on the part of the descendants of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, one disaster after another followed in quick succession. Under whatever form of government they lived, they strayed from his commands, and in spite of his watchfulness, his chosen people would worship strange gods, for which offence they were punished. Heathen kings were stirred up against them, and their subjugation was the consequence. They then cried unto the Lord, and matters were made up for a while. The same scenes again took place, and punishments followed. From the beginning of the Jewish dispensation until it ended, there was continual quarrelling between Jehovah and his favorites, and some of those quarrels were so contemptible that they would disgrace a foolish old man and a peevish wife disputing how the firebrands should be put together, by an evening fire-side. The prophets, also, partook of the same spirit; they abused each other, and sometimes came to blows: they would lie and deceive in the name of the Lord.

But the worst part of the Jewish dispensation commenced with the reign of their kings. Saul was first chosen by Jehovah himself; and, admitting the account to be true, the only crime that is laid to his charge is, the sparing of Agag, the King of the Amalekites, although he had destroyed every other being, both old and young. For this one act of humanity, Saul and his family were rejected by Jahovah. David, his successor, obeyed the Lord in all things respecting religious worship; but he committed adultery and murder, thereby forfeiting his life by the law of Moses. But he was forgiven, and the child, the fruit of his adulterous intercourse, was, by the Lord of Hosts, destroyed. Solomon, his son, and the son also of his companion in guilt, was made king. Solomon worshipped idols at times, throughout his reign, and Jehovah was angry, and resolved to try another line of kings. Jeroboam was then anointed king over ten tribes, and the family of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob were split in twain.

Now, mark! This separation was in consequence of Solomon's idolatry. We might expect, judging from Jehovah's former disappointment, that Jeroboam would entirely devote himself and his people to the worship of the God of Israel. But behold! Jeroboam began with setting up two golden calves, in direct opposition, to the law of Moses, and also to the command of Jehovah, who had raised him from a state of servitude to sit on a throne, savage and only at times departed from the Lord, but Jeroboam excluded every vestige of the worship of Jehovah from his kingdom. This, then, is a just statement of the conduct of those kings selected by the Lord of Hosts, as recorded in the Old Testament And can it be possible that Infinite Wisdom should have been thus disappointed by those whom he had chosen? The just conclusion, then, is, that the Ruler of all worlds had no concern in putting up or pulling down any of the Kings of Israel or Judah. The history is, from first to last, a cheat on the human race, and blasphemy against the only true God.

From the time that Jeroboam was made king until the tribes were carried away into captivity, idolatry was the sin complained of by all the prophets; it was the constant burden of all their prophecies; and the prophets, one and all, intermixed with their complaints the prediction that the Lord had not entirely cast them off, but that the time would come when he would _raise up unto them a prophet like unto Moses_. Such predictions, often repeated by all the prophets together with continued references to their future renovation and restoration, is what caused a general expectation of some mighty deliverer that would, _in the fullness of time_, appear among them.