(which you think applies to the case), I am of opinion he would not have used that illustration in preference to what he has used, which is obvious and satisfactory.

Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul, were written by him or not, is, in your judgment, a matter of indifference. So far from being a matter of indifference, I consider the genuineness of St Paul's epistles to be a matter of the greatest importance: for if the epistles, ascribed to Paul, were written by him (and there is unquestionable proof that they were), it will be difficult for you, or for any man upon fair principles of sound reasoning, to deny that the Christian religion is true. The argument is a short one, and obvious to every capacity. It stands thus: St Paul wrote several letters to those whom, in different countries, he had converted to the Christian faith; in these letters he affirms two things; first, that he had wrought miracles in their presence; secondly, that many of themselves had received the gift of tongues, and other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. The persons to whom these letters were addressed, must, on reading them, have certainly known, whether Paul affirmed what was true, or told a plain lie; they must have known, whether they had seen him work miracles; they must have been conscious, whether they themselves did or did not possess any miraculous gifts. Now, can you, or can any man, believe, for a moment, that Paul (a man certainly of great abilities) would have written public letters full of lies, and which could not fail of being discovered to be lies, as soon as his letters were read? Paul could not be guilty of falsehood in these two points, or in either of them; and if either of them be true, the Christian religion is true. References to these two points are frequent in St Paul's epistles: I will mention only a few. In his epistle to the Galatians, he says (chap. iii. 2, 5), “This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit (gifts of

the Spirit), by the works of the law? He ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you." To the Thessalonians he says (1 Thess. i. 5), “Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost." To the Corinthians he thus expresses himself (1 Cor. ii. 4): "My preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit, and of power;" and he adds the reason for his working miracles—— "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." With what alacrity would the faction at Corinth, which opposed the apostle, have laid hold of this, and many similar declarations in the letter, had they been able to have detected any falsehood in them! There is no need to multiply words on so clear a point. The genuineness of Paul's epistles proves their authenticity, independently of every other proof: for it is absurd in the extreme, to suppose him, under circumstances of obvious detection, capable of advancing what was not true: and if Paul's epistles be both genuine and authentic, the Christian religion is true. Think of this argument.

You close your observations in the following manner: "Should the Bible (meaning, as I have before remarked, the Old Testament) and Testament hereafter fall, it is not I that have been the occasion." You look, I think, upon your production with a parent's partial eye, when you speak of it in such a style of self-complacency. The Bible, sir, has withstood the learning of Porphyry and the power of Julian, to say nothing of the Manichean Faustus. It has resisted the genius of Bolingbroke, and the wit of Voltaire, to say nothing of a numerous herd of inferior assailantsand it will not fall by your force. You have barbed anew the blunted arrows of former adversaries; you have feathered them with blasphemy and ridicule;

dipped them in your deadliest poison; aimed them with your utmost skill; shot them against the shield of faith with your utmost vigour; but, like the feeble javelin of aged Priam, they will scarcely reach the mark-will fall to the ground without a stroke.

LETTER X.

THE remaining part of your work can hardly be made the subject of animadversion. It principally consists of unsupported assertions, abusive appellations, illiberal sarcasms, strifes of words, profane babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called. I am hurt at being, in mere justice to the subject, under the necessity of using such harsh language; and am sincerely sorry that, from what cause I know not, your mind has received a wrong bias in every point respecting revealed religion. You are capable of better things; for there is a philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas, when you speak of the Supreme Being as the Creator of the universe. That you may not accuse me of disrespect, in passing over any of your work without bestowing proper attention upon it, I will wait upon you through what you call your Conclusion.

You refer your reader to the former part of the Age of Reason; in which you have spoken of what you esteem three frauds-mystery, miracle, and prophecy. I have not at hand the book to which you refer, and know not what you have said on these subjects. They are subjects of great importance, and we probably should differ essentially in our opinion concerning them but I confess I am not sorry to be excused from examining what you have said on these points. The specimen of your reasoning, which is now before me, has taken from me every inclination to trouble

either my reader or myself, with any observations on your former book.

You admit the possibility of God's revealing his will to man: yet "the thing so revealed," you say, "is revelation to the person only to whom it is made; his account of it to another is not revelation." This is true; his account is simple testimony. You add, "there is no possible criterion to judge of the truth of what he says. This I positively deny; and contend that a real miracle, performed in attestation of a revealed truth, is a certain criterion by which we may judge of the truth of that attestation. I am perfectly aware of the objections which may be made to this position. I have examined them with care.

I ac

knowledge them to be of weight; but I do not speak unadvisedly, or as wishing to dictate to other men, when say, that I am persuaded the position is true. So thought Moses, when, in the matter of Korah, he said to the Israelites, "If these men die the common death of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me." So thought Elijah, when he said, "Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day, that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant." And the people, before whom he spake, were of the same opinion; for, when the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-sacrifice, they said, “The Lord he is the God." So thought our Saviour, when he said, the "works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me;" and "If I do not the works of my Father. believe me not." What reason have we to believe Jesus speaking in the Gospel, and to disbelieve the Mahomet speaking in the Koran? Both of them lay claim to a Divine commission; and yet we receive the words of the one as a revelation from God, and we reject the words of the other as an imposture of man. The reason is evident. Jesus established his

pretensions not by alleging any secret communication with the Deity, but by working numerous and indubitable miracles in the presence of thousands, and which the most bitter and watchful of his enemies could not disallow; but Mahomet wrought no miracles at all. Nor is a miracle the only criterion by which we may judge of the truth of a revelation. If a series of prophets should, through a course of many centuries, predict the appearance of a certain person, whom God would, at a particular time, send into the world for a particular end; and at length such a person should appear, in whom all the predictions were minutely accomplished; such a completion of prophecy would be a criterion of the truth of that revelation, which that person should deliver to mankind. Or if a person should now say (as many false prophets have said, and are daily saying), that he had a commission to declare the will of God; and, as a proof of his veracity, should predict that, after his death, he would rise from the dead on the third day; the completion of such a prophecy would I presume, be a sufficient criterion of the truth of what this man might have said, concerning the will of God. Now I tell you," says Jesus to his disciples, concerning Judas, who was to betray him, "before it come, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. In various parts of the gospels, our Saviour, with the utmost propriety, claims to be received as the messenger of God, not only from the miracles which he wrought, but from the prophecies which were fulfilled in his person, and from the predictions which he himself delivered. Hence, instead of there being no criterion by which he may judge of the truth of the Christian revelation, there are clearly three. It is an easy matter to use an indecorous flippancy of language in speaking of the Christian religion, and, with a supercilious negligence, to class Christ and his apostles amongst the impostors who have figured