that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find
himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to
believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to
me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two
tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not
obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it
than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than
some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal
evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts
such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could
produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural
intervention. [NOTE: It is, however, necessary to except the
declamation which says that God 'visits the sins of the fathers upon
the children'. This is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
-- Author.]

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to
Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of
hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not
see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or
gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a
man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told
him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance
required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we
have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter
themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is