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might succeed in his tricks. For as the end of those tricks was only to enforce a doctrine setting forth "righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come;" as he never imposed upon his hearers but that he might take advantage of his success to recommend with greater weight a life of self-denial and mortification; as, far from flattering their hopes of greatness, he told them that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; as he preached humility, and the blessings of a lowly state; there was no sort of probability that he should make his impositions turn to good account.

Acting as he did then, he could have no hope of success in any system of cheat; every thing that the men he addressed wished him not to be, he was. Mahomet courted the people on whom he wished to impose his religion; Christ reproved those to whom he preached his. Mahomet knew that much foreign aid was necessary to make his imposture pass; Christ disdained to owe the success of his divine mission to any extraneous support. The latter did all things openly; the former trusted for his safety to secrecy.

What recommended the Gospel, that book of tricks,* (for such it is, if it be not a divine revelation, and its morality and religion might as well be interwoven with

the whole art of conjuration," or "Baron Munchausen's wonderful Adventures") to the early Roman converts, children of the great empire, and proud as

* "Should--consult me on his choice of books," says a writer to whom I have before referred, "I would not fail to recommend the collection called the Scriptures to his particular attention, as containing (with other matter of inferior value) a most valuable treasure of the ological, moral, and political science; but I would not advise him wholly to submit his understanding to any book whatever; because all books without exception, having been written by men, women, or children, are liable both to original error, and subsequent corruption; whereas the human mind, being the immediate offspring of God, is and must be superior in dignity and authority to any human production"—

us be candid; the Romans of that day were as clever as we

as if all human productions, (by which are meant wriuen productions) did not spring from the human mind!

Now it is very evident that this writer thinks of the Scriptures as containing some gross lies; that he does not at all think of them as "given by inspiration of God," or of such moment as that we may not add to nor diminish from" them one tittle. I affirm therefore, that he cannot conscientiously recommend this book to his youthful son, for as (such are the prejudices of the world!) by nine tenths of those with whom that son mixes he will hear the miracles recorded in holy writ spoken of as true, he will run the greatest danger of getting an habitual belief of stories wild as the poet's wildest dreams; he will run the risk of acquiring a borrowed faith, and one which must miserably impede him in his search after truth. Let his father then, if he be consistent, above all things keep this book out of his son's hands. There are very many others into which the religion and morality of the Gospel are transfused, purified, as this writer must think, from the nonsense with which they are there united. With a previous intimation that these absurdities are such, and by no means the recorded acts of a being, who could have peformed deeds ten thousand times more wonderful, the New Testament may indeed be put into the hands of youth as a book of amusement; but as there is always the danger which I have before set forth (viz. that as they will, before they have got the power of judging for themselves, hear more people speak of these asserted miracles as real facts, than as comical fables) therefore the writer in question would do better to recommend as a book of mere amusement the Persian Tales, of which nobody ventures to affirm that they are true. And to inculcate morality, let me suggest to this advocate for the exalted powers of the human mind, the propriety of recommending in preference to the "collection called the Scriptures" "the collection called" Miss Edgworth's Moral Tales. As for hocks of religion, he will readily find a hundred to suit his purpose, without having recourse to one, not only containing, as he must think, "matter of inferior value," but of most pernicious tendency.

I cannot but feel amused when I consider what an odd jumble of good sense, and nonsense, the Scriptures must appear to those, who believe of them as the author above quoted does; how surprised they must feel to find the same man now preaching the sublimest truths in religion and morality; now telling tales as silly as were ever dictated by the fumes of a heated imagination,

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are; as acute reasoners; contemporary with the first promulgators of that faith which they embraced, and therefore furnished with better evidence of its truth; more prejudiced in its disfavour, because to them it was new, and as such received with jealousy; whilst the belief of our forefathers, friends, and teachers, gives us a prejudice in its favour. Can any thing good come out of Judæa ? must have been the first exclamation of a Roman to whom the Gospel was preached. Can that be false which all the wisest men we know, agree to believe? is ours, if there enter into our composition one single spark of modesty. We set out predisposed to believe; they set out predisposed to reject. And yet they believed: they believed because they had indubitable evidence at hand, and they resorted to it because they not only hardened not their hearts, but they strove to be convinced; that is, they strove to find out the truth. It was certainly not the amusement they afford as ingenious fables, which could recommend the Scriptures to any Roman: his own poets and historians were a hundred times as entertaining: the East might now, and probably could then, furnish him with stories infinitely more interesting; the Arabian Nights are beyond all comparison more so.

In that book which the Jews so much treasure, and not to believe which written by inspired penmen, is to tolerate greater absurdities than belief involves, the advent of a Messiah is certainly foretold, and his character pointed out, as the people in question themselves confess. Did the character of Jesus Christ, (who came by the way, at the exact time when the Messiah was expected, though the Jews confessing themselves unable to account for their disappointment, have now fixed. on some future period for the advent) did, I say, the character of Jesus Christ agree with that of the promised Redeemer ? Was he born of a virgin? Was he “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief?" Was his Gospel a blessing to mankind such as they had never before received? Did he promulgate a doc

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If he was, and did all this, then is his word true, for it is the word of God himself. And that he was, and did all this, the Jews themselves perforce, and unwillingly bear testimony; for what testimony can be stronger than their silence ?

Thus then, unless the Jews have been deceived from generation to generation, and their testimony, though that of enemies, be partially favourable; unless the most generally received authorities be false; the most confessedly authentic histories untrue; miracles wrought without an end; unless the life of Jesus Christ were as the lives of other men: his Gospel not perfect, and not to be interpreted in the most obvious sense; his knowledge borrowed, and his disciples, who died for their faith, impostors; unless the nature of men were different 1800 years ago from what it now is; their pursuits, wishes, and enjoyments utterly dissimilar from those of modern men-a Messiah was predicted; Jesus Christ was that Messiah; the New Testament is his word; and his word is the word of God.

CHAPTER VI.

On the Inspiration of the Writers in the New Testa

CHRIST, who

ment.

who took so much pains to establish his doc

trines by miracles, would have given himself a world of trouble in vain, if he had not exerted his power to have

those doctrines recorded, or if he had suffered them to be recorded by men who could have misrepresented them. For the world to whom he was sent, he might almost as well never have lived, if his doctrines have not descended pure to our times. But it is evident that they must have done so; for the same benevolence which led our Saviour to publish his saving doctrines to some men, must dispose him to wish that all men should have the benefit of them; and the same power which enabled him to work so many other miracles in favour of the truths he taught, must also enable him to have those truths faithfully recorded. He, who could read the thoughts of his followers "long before" would be able to select honest men for his historians. But as honesty would not have been enough coupled with ignorance, nay united with human infirmity; and as Christ possessed both the will, and the power, to have his Gospel free from imperfection; therefore he (or what is the same thing his Father) must have inspired those whom he called to embody that Gospel. If then, we allow that the writers of the New Testament were those very individuals whom Christ fixed on for this purpose, we are, I think, constrained to grant also, that they were inspired. The apostles, if they were the beings thus fixed on, must, I say, have been inspired, for else Christ had done and suffered a deal in vain ; and we of the present day are not sure that after all his preaching, and all'his sufferings, we have those very doctrines which he taught; for which he worked so many miracles; for which he died. The same spirit who enabled the apostles to speak in other tongues than their own, must also by the same supernatural assistance have enabled them. to write" the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" in their own tongue. If thus inspired, they evidently could not err in what they wrote; if they could, they are not the beings whom Christ designed to record his doctrines; and, that supposed, let us be informed by whom they were recorded,and where they are. Our Saviour must, as a consistent being, have exerted his power to have them committed to writing, for else, as I have already said, he

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