3 BIBLE 
 
 OF DIVINE ORIGIN 
 
 p hi 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 AND SOLD AT THEIR DEPOSITOR?, NO. 144 NASSAU-STREET, NEA1 
 THE CITY-HALL, NEW- FORK ? AND BY AGENTS OF THE 
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roo. 192. 
 
 THE BIBLE 
 OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 " Well, you are in a fair way t® be gratified, for here comes 
 Cams."— Page 2. 
 
 DIALOGUE. 
 
 ZENAS ANCUS......CAIUS. 
 
 Ancus. I was lately struck with a sentiment, whether justly 
 ascribed to Lord Byron or not I am unable to say, which 
 fastened deeply on my attention. It often recurs to me as 
 an affecting truth, and I am not philosopher enough to 
 succeed in banishing it from my mind. 
 
 Zenas. Pray what is it ? 
 
 Ancus. I will repeat it. " Indisputably, the firm believers 
 in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this 
 simple reason, that, if it be true, they will have their rewin d 
 hereafter ; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but, 
 with the infidel, in his eternal sleep ; having had the assist- 
 ance of an exalted hope through life." 
 
 Vol. 6. p 2 
 
» 
 
 2 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. [342 
 
 Zcnas. So confident a sceptic as you, moved by so simple 
 a reflection ! Why, you have a hundred times laughed in 
 derision at the strongest arguments which that same Gospel 
 can advance for its support. 
 
 Ancus. Ay, Zenas, so I have ; and I proudly boasted 
 that I could confute its ablest advocates. Nor do I yet drop 
 my plume before the world. When I am alone, however, 
 Byron's remark vn\\\ steal over my feelings, and lead me 
 back to the days of my early youth. Then 1 read my Bible, 
 and heard two sermons on the Sabbath; and then, I confess, 
 Zenas, I was hapfHer than I am now. In spite of my in- 
 fidelity, I often catch myself wishing to go back to those 
 days of simplicity and ignorance. 
 
 Zenas. I am glad to hear you speak so frankly, on so, im- 
 portant a subject. My own mind is ill at ease. I am like 
 a man trying to touch ground in deep waters, who finds him- 
 self every moment sinking deeper. I have long desired 
 an opportunity of hearing a fair statement of what can be 
 urged in favor of a religion, which, if it be true, must bring 
 with it the purest joy into the soul. 
 
 Anew. Well, if you are so disposed, you are in a fair 
 way to be gratified ; for here comes Caius, a staunch "be- 
 liever in the Divine Origin of the Scriptures, and well ac- 
 % quainted with the foundations of his faith ; a little spice too 
 hot, though. 
 
 Zends. Good morning, Caius. I hope we are well 
 met. Ancus and I were this moment speaking of the 
 grounds of the Christian Faith ; and it would be gratifying 
 probably to both of us, might we on this subject enjoy the 
 privilege of your conversation, were it only for an hour. 
 
 Caius. W r ith all my heart ; and I hope, my friends, that 
 we shall enter upon the discussion with an earnest desire of 
 " baying the truth. " 
 
 Zenas. It is not controversy that I solicit. I wish to hear 
 the reasons of a Christian's belief in the divine authority 
 of the Bible. It was never made the subject of my early 
 instruction, and now I am involved in uncertainty. I desire 
 to examine the question; but I know not where to commence. 
 Sometimes my doubts rise to such a pitch, that I am ready 
 to say there is no truth in any system of religion. In such 
 moments, my heart is oppressed by despair ; and I wish 
 I had never been born. 
 
343] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 3 
 
 Caius. I trust our gracious Lord will yet bring you into 
 his marvellous light. He has himself said, that " the whole 
 have no need of a physician, but they that are sick." 
 
 Ancus. But, Caius, I forewarn you, that in me you mast 
 not expect to find a disposition so ready to yield. My 
 opinions are established ; nor have they been adopted with- 
 out investigation. I have examined all the arguments which 
 Christianity can plead, and they are very far from satisfying 
 my mind. 
 
 Caius. I deeply deplore it. Still, as the solicitude of 
 Zenas interests me, and as I hope that your heart is not so set 
 against conviction as you seem to think it, I will cheerfully 
 go into this debate. You Lell us, Ancus, that you have ex- 
 amined all the evidences of Christianity. I have often ob- 
 served this boast in the writings of infidels. All is a pretty 
 comprehensive word ; and an examination of all the evi- 
 dences of our religion, is a task requiring rather uncommon 
 qualifications as to talents, literature, patience, and industry ; 
 and if we are permitted to judge by the ablest productions of 
 freethinkers, it is one of those tasks which they have not yet 
 accomplished. I suppose you are well acquainted with the 
 original languages of our venerable oracles, the Greek and 
 the Hebrew 1 
 
 Ancus. I must confess I am not. I never fancied them. 
 
 Caius. Well, that is a great pity ; since a number of petty 
 objections, which infidels pretend to raise, are easily removed 
 by a reasonable knowledge of. those ancient, languages. But 
 a person who has examined all the evidences of revelation, 
 is, doubtless, deeply read in ecclesiastical and profane history, 
 and in the writings of the Fathers, as well as of those Hea- 
 then philosophers and historians who lived nearest the times 
 of Christ and his apostles. 
 
 Ancus. As for the Fathers and the Heathen writers, with 
 reference to this question, I never opened one of them. 
 
 Caius. Why, that takes off another vast slice of your great 
 monosyllable all. An acquaintance with those early writers 
 would soon have convinced you, that the enemies of our re- 
 ligion not only impose statements upon their followers which 
 are flatly contradicted by the united voice of all antiquity, 
 but that they disengenuously overlook those statements 
 which undeniably prove the authenticity and veracity of the 
 sacred records. You would also have learned what was 
 
4 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [344 
 
 conceded, and what denied, by those great forerunners and 
 patriarchs of freethinking, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. 
 Your time, however, has perhaps been too much occupied 
 by inquiries into the customs, institutions, and opinions of 
 the Jews, and their neighboring nations 1 
 
 Ancus. And pray, Caius, what have those to do with the 
 evidences of revelation 1 
 
 Cains. What have these to do with the evidences of re- 
 velation 1 You surprise me. Is a man qualified to examine 
 even the most important, much less, all the evidences for 
 the genuineness and truth of a piece of history, which claims 
 to belong to a very remote period, and which treats of the 
 concerns of a nation which then existed, who is ignorant 
 of the rites, customs, and institutions peculiar to that 
 period and nation ? Is he able to ascertain whether the style, 
 the accidental allusions, the constant references to persons, 
 places, and customs ; in one word, whether the whole dress 
 of that piece of history harmonizes with the age and the 
 nation of which it treats 1 Had you studied these branches 
 of antiquity, you would have seen that the sacred writers 
 undesignedly exhibit so various, familiar, and detailed a 
 knowledge of the local, political, and religious peculiarities 
 of the subject of their discourse, as stamps their productions 
 with incontrovertible marks of genuineness. You would 
 also have been enabled to laugh at a number of little quib- 
 bling objections which infidels parade with vast consequence, 
 but which are entirely the creations of their own ignorance. 
 As we cannot descend to notice all, let me give you one 
 specimen instead of many. Voltaire charges Luke with 
 contradicting himself, because in his history he represents 
 our Savior's ascension to have taken place from Bethany ; 
 but in the Acts, from the mount of Olives. The infidel did 
 not know that Bethany was a small village near Jerusalem, 
 on the mount of Olives. Such objections — and there aro 
 numbers of them — display malignity, and would never have 
 been advanced by men who had studied the subject, and 
 were properly furnished for this important inquiry. It seems, 
 then, that your boasted examination of all the evidences 
 must be set down as a rhetorical flourish. I wish to direct 
 your attention to another point. Have you ever taken a 
 comprehensive view of the mode in which the controversy 
 has been conducted 1 
 
245] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 5 
 
 Ancus. I do not understand you ; pray explain yourself. 
 
 Caius. Have you carefully observed the manner in which 
 each party manages its own side of the discussion ? The 
 advocates of revelation adduce the testimonies which prove 
 the authenticity of the sacred records, and the truth of the 
 facts which they relate, by appealing to a succession of 
 writers, consisting of enemies as well as friends, who lived 
 at, and soon after the beginning of the Christian sera. They 
 then examine the character of' the witnesses of the Gospel 
 facts ; and they show their testimony to be rational, explicit, 
 full, disinterested, and credible. And then they insist upon 
 the miracles, the prophecies, and the intrinsic excellency of 
 revealed religion. 
 
 In what manner is the argument conducted on the other 
 side 1 Do the champions of Infidelity meet this testimony'? 
 Do they neutralize it by counter testimony 1 Do they meet 
 document with document, and witness with witness 1 Do 
 they disprove any material fact, or even any minute allusion 
 or reference contained in these ancient writings ? Do they 
 convict the witnesses of the Gospel-history of incompetency 
 in regard to the soundness of their understandings, or their 
 opportunities of obtaining exact information ] Do they 
 show their number to be too small 1 Do they convict them 
 of duplicity, or concert, or dishonesty, or selfishness ? Do 
 they explain, in a rational manner, the conduct of these men, 
 who abandoned all that man holds dear, and sacrificed their 
 lives in testifying that they had personally and severally wit- 
 nessed the facts of the Gospel-history, on the supposition 
 that those facts had no foundation in truth ? 
 
 Ancus. Your language strongly implies that they do not. 
 Can you prove as well as prefer the charge 1 
 
 Caius. Tell me, Ancus, dare you, who stake so much 
 upon Vaeir correctness, affirm that they fairly meet and inva- 
 lidate this testimony 1 Do they ever attempt it, except by a 
 distorted and defective exhibition of facts, or by insinuations 
 and conjectures unsupported by proof, and discordant with 
 the established and ascertained principles of human nature] 
 No, Ancus ; they are aware that this testimony cannot be 
 shaken, and hence they seldom assail it. Lest this should 
 pass for mere declamation, I will adduce an example which 
 you yourself will acknowledge a complete illustration. That 
 ingenious but determined sceptic, Rousse;m, thus expresses 
 
6 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [346 
 
 himself: " It would be more inconceivable that several men 
 should have agreed to fabricate such a book, then that a sin- 
 gle personage should have furnished its subject. Never 
 could Jewish authors have invented either this tone of cha- 
 racter, or this morality. And the Gospel has marks of ve- 
 racity, so great, so stri/dng, and so perfectly inimitable, that 
 the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the hero." 
 " Would you not suppose that, after such concessions, the 
 man must either turn Christian, or, if he continued an infidel, 
 invalidate these proofs of .veracity 1 He does neither, 
 my good friend; but he immediately adds, "granting all 
 this, this same Gospel is full of things incredible, things that 
 are repugnant to reason, and which it is impossible for any man 
 in his senses to conceive or to admit,' 11 And this is the way 
 with the whole rzce. They direct their assaults principally 
 against the doctrines of revelation. Doubts, difficulties, ob- 
 jections, constitute the air, meat, and drink of infidels. Here 
 they revel. The Trinity is an absurdity ; it is a contradic- 
 tion of reason. The incarnation is an absurdity ; it is in- 
 comprehensible. The atonement is an absurdity ; it -is in- 
 consistent with all our ideas of justice and mercy. The 
 doctrine of a particular Providence is an absurdity ; it is 
 daily contradicted by the course of events. A religion which 
 teems with doctrines so irreconcilable with reason, is unwor- 
 thy of God. He cannot be its author. 
 
 Ancus. And can greater absurdities, more unintelligible 
 doctrines, more revolting mysteries, be imagined T" 
 
 Caius. All too fast, Ancus. Y/e are not yet prepared to 
 say any thing about the consistency of the doctrines : it is 
 with the inconsistent of the mode in which infidels reason 
 that we are at present concerned. 1 am showing you how 
 strangely they depart from all the laws of sound investigation. 
 In every other investigation, where the design is to get at the 
 truth of facts, correct inquiry universally commences with tes- 
 timony. It is so in courts of justice, in historical inquiries, 
 in natural and moral philosophy^ The proofs must be ac- 
 curately weighed ; the witnesses must be examined and 
 cross-examined ; and upon the testimony, and upon that 
 alone* the decision must rest. But the infidel inverts this 
 order. He asks not, " Has God spoken 1 — where is the 
 evidence that he has spoken]" but, ** what has he spoken]" 
 He slips by the fact, and plunges into the matter ; and when 
 
347] 
 
 THE BIELE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 7 
 
 he finds one difficulty in the matter, he regards it as a suffi- 
 cient condemnation of fifty good arguments for the fact. 
 
 And who are these men who disregard the testimony for 
 the fact, under the pretence of inconsistencies in the mat- 
 terl Is the matter of revelation a subject within their grasp I 
 Are they omniscient] Are their minds capacious like God's ? 
 Do they know all about his being, his nature, his perfec- 
 tions 1 Do their minds embrace in one view the universe, in 
 all its parts, circumstances, and relations] What profound 
 ignorance of the most common objects of sense has been 
 removed by the progress of modern science within a few 
 past years ! The very instruments employed by the wisest 
 men in exploring the secrets of nature — the retort, the cru- 
 cible, the electrical apparatus, the air-pump, the microscope, 
 the telescope — all, all proclaim their ignorance even of 
 those portions of matter which lie most within their reach. 
 Of the human mind they know nothing, save a few general 
 laws. As to what regards the union between their own 
 spirits and bodies, they grope in absolute darkness. And 
 yet these men must sit in judgment upon what is worthy or 
 unworthy of the glorious Jehovah, whom no man hath seen 
 nor can see. They penetrate and comprehend his nature 
 and essence ! They must decide how it is proper for him 
 to exist — and what system of administration is best adapted 
 to the state of the universe — and what conduct most be- 
 comes his infinite perfections ! Men, who confess their 
 incapacity to dissect a gnat, must needs, with unparalleled 
 gravity, pretend to dissect the Deity ! 
 
 Is it thus they proceed in other questions? Do they urge 
 the incomprehensibility of other truths as a demonstration 
 of their falsity? Mathematicians have not been, and arc not 
 3'et agreed, as to the meaning of the signs plus and minus, 
 in algebra; and yet all are agreed in the utility and im- 
 portance of these symbols. The doctrine of imaginary 
 quantities lias hitherto been involved in impenetrable ob- 
 scurity, even in the hands of the greatest analysts ; and yet., 
 notwithstanding this obscurity, these very expressions have 
 led to the discovery of some of the most beautiful and gene- 
 ral theorems in geometry; and have enabled analysts to 
 resolve questions which, without their aid, would have been 
 altogether untraceable. * The infinite divisibility of matter 
 
 * Edinburgh Encyclopedia, art. Imaginary Quantities 
 
e 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [348 
 
 is on either side incomprehensible, and yet who ever thought 
 that circumstance a good argument against the truth or the 
 importance of the doctrine'? Your friends, Ancus, make 
 me think of a would-be astronomer, who takes his position 
 at a telescope. We will suppose that, for the first time in 
 his life, he finds the planet Saturn. What are the sugges- 
 tions of sound reason"? "A new object is before you; be 
 modest ; use and believe your senses ; observe with accu- 
 racy ; note down with care the facts which your glass so 
 sublimely, and yet so clearly, presents to your view." But 
 what is the course adopted by our astronomer"? He imme- 
 diately exclaims, " Why, through this glass, Saturn shows 
 but two rings. This is inconsistent with reason. Every 
 man of sense knows that six would keep him tighter. And 
 what man, endowed with reason, would think of hanging 
 such a huge ball upon nothing? I'll believe none of it: 
 away with the instrument — it is all an optical illusion ; away 
 with it." Whereupon our sage calls for a sledge-hammer, 
 and falls to demolishing the faithful telescope for revealing 
 to him the glorious wonders of the heavens. Is the picture 
 like any inquirers of your acquaintance, Ancus 1 
 
 Ancus. It seems then, Caius, according to your cen- 
 sures, that testimony binds us to swallow what we know to 
 be the grossest absurdities, or even falsehoods. 
 
 Caius. Again all too quick, Ancus. Common sense 
 teaches us, that when we are required to believe upon testi- 
 mony, what we know to be an absurdity or a falsehood, 
 such knowledge is a sufficient proof to us that the testimony 
 alleged cannot be true. See to it, however, that your know- 
 ledge is absolutely perfect and certain. But where the sub- 
 ject is one which is mysterious in its own nature, or which 
 does not fall within the sphere of our senses and faculties, 
 or has never been subjected to our observation, it would be 
 the greatest folly to reject satisfactory evidence, because we 
 are required to assent to what we cannot comprehend, or 
 what may be at variance with our own experience. And 
 when we know that our love of sensual pleasures, and our 
 vicious appetites and passions, strongly incline us against 
 the truths and the duties of the Gospel, we should be doubly 
 jealous of ourselves, lest we reject the evidence on which 
 they rest, for no other reason than because we dislike them 
 In regard to these topics, the only question can be — Have 
 
349] 
 
 THE DIIiLE OF DIVIXE ORIGIN. 
 
 9 
 
 I evidence that God has spoken? And I shall act the part 
 of the mad astronomer, if I reject the attested fact that he 
 has spoken because what he has spoken is irreconcilable 
 with my prejudicate opinions. It was not my place to form 
 opinions on a subject confessedly and infinitely above my 
 reach; and if I pertinaciously adhere to these opinions, the 
 amount will be, that / reveal something to God — not God 
 something to me. 
 
 Ancas. But, Caius, all our authors deride the necessity 
 of a revelation from God. They insist that the light of 
 nature is a sufficient guide. 
 
 Caius. The wisest men of the heathen world thought and 
 felt differently. They frankly confessed their ignorance of 
 the most important supernatural truths. They longed for 
 instruction from Heaven. Into their emotions a Christian 
 can enter, for he too feels his need of imparted spiritual 
 wisdom. Will you not allow, Ancus, that those who lived 
 without the aid of revelation were best qualified to inform 
 us how far the light of nature answers as a sufficient guide 
 in religion'? 
 
 Ancus. I will. 
 
 Caius. Let me then remind you, that reason never had 
 a fairer theatre for the trial of its best powers in divinity, 
 than in ancient Greece. Were not the Greeks endowed 
 with the brightest genius? Did they not, by their wonder- 
 ful powers, carry the arts and sciences to a pitch of perfec- 
 tion which has commanded the admiration of all subsequent 
 ages 1 And yet, so far were they from proportionally im- 
 proving in their knowledge of God and of man's duty and 
 happiness, that the longer they were left to themselves, and 
 the older they grew as a nation, the more absurd were their 
 theories, and the more corrupt their morals. Let me refer 
 you to a few undeniable facts. 
 
 The wisest of their philosophers acknowledged, that, on a 
 variety of the most important subjects, they knew nothing 
 With certainty. 
 
 They acknowledged, that it was by tradition, or divine 
 teaching, that they arrived at all their religious truths: — 
 Plato, in Timceus, Gorgias, Philebus, and Phcedo. 
 
 They acknowledged their need of heavenly instruction, 
 in very affecting terms: — Plato, in Philebus and Alcibiades. 
 
 The great legislators of heathen antiquity, by claiming a 
 
10 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIV^TE ORIGIN. 
 
 [350 
 
 divine origin for their institutions, evinced how deep was the 
 sentiment of the times in favor of communications from 
 Heaven. Minos pretended to be inspired by Jupiter; Ly- 
 curgus by Apollo ; Zaleucus by Minerva ; Numa by the 
 nymph Egeria. 
 
 The actual state of religion and morals was corrupt be- 
 yond description. 
 
 Ancus. But, Caius, the principles of genuine morality 
 were well understood long before the era of the Christian 
 faith. Many of the best principles of the Gospel may be 
 found in the writings of the best heathen sages. 
 
 Caius. It is true, that the great principles of morality 
 were clearly laid down by divine authority in the writings 
 of God's ancient people — how well these principles were 
 understood among the heathen, is abundantly manifest from 
 their practice. How could their morals be otherwise than 
 debauched, whose views of God were so prodigiously false 
 and corrupt ? Some one has justly said, Show me your gods, 
 and I will tell you your morals; and tell me your morals, 
 and I will show you your gods. Yet we do not deny, Ancus, 
 that amidst this awful darkness there were some gleams of 
 light. How far this concession furnishes an argument in 
 proof of the sufficiency of the light of nature, I submit 
 to your own judgment. For what, pray tell me, would 
 have been the efficacy of a few moral maxims, scattered 
 here and there in the writings of different philosophers ; 
 never collected into a moral code; never published and 
 explained to the common people ; never clothed with the 
 requisite authority and sanction of laws given by a Supreme 
 Legislator, for the violation of which men are bound to 
 appear before Him in judgment; and the whole mixed up 
 by those who recorded them, with other principles too 
 licentious and vile to be repeated 1 — You perceive, then , that, 
 even where all the circumstances of the case were most propi- 
 tious to her efforts, the light of nature has completely failed. 
 
 Zems. The point is undeniable. And if such was her 
 failure under those advantages, it is easy to see what is to 
 be expected from her guidance among nations abandoned to 
 a savage state. We need only contemplate the condition of 
 our own American savages, to learn how successful a teacher 
 of religion reason proves to be, when left to her own unaided 
 powers. 
 
THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 11 
 
 Caius. Nay, Zenas, I can send you to stronger evidence 
 than the barbarous tribes you mention. I will send you to 
 one who was no savage — to David Hume, the prince of free 
 inquirers. He strenuously maintains that polytheism must 
 have been the first religion ; and that the doctrine of the 
 divine unity and infinity, simplicity and spirituality, origi- 
 nated in the disposition of the vulgar to praise and pane- 
 gyric. Essays, vol. ii. 403 — 440. And as to the principles 
 of morality, his natural light led him to inculcate, that moral, 
 intellectual, and corporeal virtue, are all of the same kind ; 
 that adultery must be practised, if men would obtain all the 
 advantages of life ; that suicide is lawful ; and that there is 
 no God ! 
 
 Zenas. I cannot bring myself to believe that indecencies 
 and blasphemies so monstrous ever proceeded even from a 
 savage, much less from a philosopher and a moralist 
 
 Caius. I call upon you, Ancus, to deny, if you are able, 
 that these are the sober speculations of Mr. Hume. 
 
 Ancus. I have nothing to do with the speculations of Mr. 
 Hume. It will be well if you can defend your own. Ac- 
 cording to your views, those who are left to the unaided light 
 of nature are involved in a state of hopeless ignorance and 
 misery. Your Deity, who, you say, possesses infinite good- 
 ness, bestor/s that light, which all need, upon only a small 
 portion of mankind. The rest are left to perish for the 
 want of a revelation. Away with the gross injustice and 
 partiality of such a system. I, for one, cannot endure it. 
 
 Caius. Will you inform me, Ancus, which you esteem 
 the greatest blessings and enjoyments of human existence ? 
 
 Ancus. Willingly. I would rank good bodily health, 
 sound mental faculties improved by education, civil liberty, 
 a competence of wealth, and the social and domestic rela- 
 tions, among the chief sources of happiness. 
 
 Caius. And you would number disease, pain* ignorance, 
 insanity, oppression, slavery, loss of beloved friends, and 
 pinching poverty, among the principal calamities 1 
 
 Ancus. Indeed I would. r ^ 
 
 Caius. Now carefully survey the condition of our race. 
 Count the multitudes who are pining away under the wast- 
 ing power of these calamities, and how small is the pro- 
 portion of those whom you find enjoying the blessings which 
 you have enumerated ! I turn you over to your own dim- 
 
12 
 
 THE BIBLE CP DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [352 
 
 cultics. How will you reconcile these facts, which occur 
 under your own observation, with impartial justice ? All 
 men possess an equal capacity and feel an equal thirst for 
 happiness, and yet the gift, instead of being extended to all, 
 is conferred upon only a small number of mankind ; and 
 what renders your difficulty greater, it is often conferred 
 upon the least deserving : the rest are left to perish amidst 
 privations and sufferings at which our feelings recoil. If you 
 cannot endure partiality in the one case, how will you en- 
 dure it in the other? — Your system, Ancus, furnishes no 
 explanation of these difficulties. You want a key, which 
 can be found onlv in the sacred writings. It is the common 
 sense and conviction of mankind in every age, that man is 
 an apostate, guilty being. The verbal and sacrificial acknow- 
 ledgments of every nation of which I have ever heard, pro- 
 claim it. This awful truth is authoritatively declared in the 
 word of God. It will also be the decision of every honest 
 mind that carefully scrutinizes itself. It follows, that God 
 lies under no obligation to bestow any favors upon any of our 
 race, farther than he sees it to be best on the whole. Facts 
 speak for themselves : ask them, and they will tell you that, 
 whilst God is the fountain of all good, he does not bestow 
 either his temporal or his moral gifts in the same measure 
 upon all. Revelation also explains the nature of his afflic- 
 tive dispensations toward those who fear him : they arc 
 needed paternal chastenings. It further reveals a future 
 judgment, at which infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy, will 
 rectify all. And, doubtless, were the reasons of his adminis- 
 tration to be brought forth, throughout the universe there 
 would be heard but one voice, " Righteous art thou, O Lord, 
 and upright are thy judgments." 
 
 Ancus. After all, I see no necessity for an extraordinary 
 interposition of God. In my own character I daily observe 
 the principles of order and virtue. It is true, I do not wholly 
 escape the sins and errors to which man is liable, but I sin- 
 cerely deplore them, and I earnestly strive to avoid them. 
 I trust there is but little in my conduct deserving of disap- 
 probation ; and that when God beholds my repentance, he 
 will graciously cover my sins. 
 
 Cains. Far be it from me, my friend, to depreciate your 
 excellent qualities. Still, the question of our acceptance 
 with God is too solemn, too important, to rest upon the es- 
 
353] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 13 
 
 teem of our fellow-men. In the first place, consider well, 
 Ancus, by whom the judgment is to be passed. Have you 
 to deal with your fellow-man, who regards you with the 
 partiality of gratitude as a benefactor, and takes cognizance 
 only of your external acts ; or with that Being whom you 
 can lay under no obligation ; who will try you by the strict- 
 est justice ; whose eye glances through the inmost recesses 
 of your heart ; and whose decision will include its most 
 secret motives and ends 1 
 
 Then, by what standard will the trial be conducted 1 by 
 the loose and variable principles of morality which govern 
 society, or by the spiritual, holy, and immutable laws of an 
 infinitely perfect Lawgiver 1 Unless you have gone the 
 length of Mr. Hume, you will acknowledge him essentially 
 and infinitely holy, just, and benevolent. If such his attri- 
 butes, what does he deserve at your hands 1 Nothing below 
 the habitual supreme love, homage, and service of every 
 moral creature. In him also you live, move, and have your 
 being. To obey and honor him should therefore be the 
 commanding principle in every thought, word, and deed. 
 The least failure here, a Being who has such claims must 
 regard as a violation of his right, and is an infraction of his 
 law. The reasonableness of all this you cannot deny. If 
 such is to be the standard, what will, what must be the de- 
 cision] And dare you say, " My heart and life meet the 
 standard ; I am assured of my acceptance upon the ground 
 of my merit F* 
 
 Let me next inquire, are you certain that the light of rea- 
 son warrants the expectation of the forgiveness of your sins 
 on the ground of your repentance ? As sin lieth at the door, 
 your reason cannot be certain that vengeance lies not near 
 it too. Have you offended God 1 Then you have no claim 
 upon his favor — your right is forfeited. He is under no 
 obligation to forgive. If he does forgive, he must do it of 
 his own free choice. And if he does not tell you that he 
 chooses to forgive you, whence can your reason infer that 
 he will 1 Nay, reason rather decides, that indignation against 
 sin, and punishment upon the guilty, are inseparably connect- 
 ed with the idea of infinite, perfect justice. Then again ; 
 whence can reason infer that repentance is the ground on 
 which God will forgive sin 1 Can your repentance undo your 
 past defection 1 Alas ! it is irrevocable ; tears and groans 
 
14 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVIXE ORIGIN 
 
 [3o4 
 
 cannot recall it. The claim for perfect and supreme service 
 and homage continues : it is not suspended an instant. 
 More than justice demands of you for the instant you can- 
 not render, do your very best. Not a single exercise, affec- 
 tion, or act, can you withhold from the present demand, and 
 transfer it as a satisfaction for a past delinquency. Still you 
 look back, and with dread you behold the Amk claud of 
 guilt, fraught with danger, pursuing and lowering on your 
 rear. If you reason from experience, you find that repent- 
 ance has no influence over the past. If you forfeit your 
 property or your reputation by vice, the bitterest regrets 
 cannot recall them : even these penalties your repentance 
 cannot remove. Your experience, therefore, is directly 
 opposed to the efficacy of repentance in procuring the re- 
 mission of punishment. 
 
 Nor is this all. Let us suppose that, on the grounds you 
 state, all is well in your own case. Yet, for one thus situ- 
 ated, there are multitudes polluted by every species of crime ; 
 the pests of society, hardened in impenitence. Do the prin- 
 ciples upon which you rest bring a ray of light and hope to 
 these ? If the question of acceptance is to be tried upon 
 merit or repentance, what will, what must be their doom ? 
 
 And let it be farther noted, Ancus, that you are very far 
 from exhibiting, in your own person, a fair example of the 
 light of unaided reason. You are indebted, beyond calcula- 
 tion, to the light of revelation. This I know you are dis- 
 posed to deny. But would you test the point of what your 
 reason can accomplish in divine knowledge with fairness, 
 you must conceive of yourself as having been wholly re- 
 moved, even from your birth, from the influence of all the 
 light which God has at any period communicated from 
 heaven. What a contrast between the results of such a 
 state and your present attainments would then have been 
 witnessed ! 
 
 It is, therefore, demonstrable, that the light of nature does 
 not afford the knowledge of divine forgiveness. And yet 
 that knowledge is necessary to the sinner's return unto God. 
 Without it, how deep must have remained his ignorance, 
 his terror, his despair ! Hence, if the offended God designed 
 to exercise mercy toward the guilty, it was absolutely ne- 
 cessary that he should reveal his gracious determination. 
 That revelation, it is reasonable to believe, would be accom 
 
355] 
 
 THE BIBLE OP DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 15 
 
 panied by adequate proofs of its divine origin. The proofs 
 requisite must be sufficient to command a rational belief, to 
 quiet apprehension, and to inspire a lively hope. 
 
 If ever an occasion presented, on which it was a glorious 
 act in God to put forth his hand, it was when he revealed 
 his purpose of mercy. Even could reason have surmised 
 the probable exercise of this attribute, yet the uncertainty 
 suspended over the sinner's fate would have consumed his 
 spirit. In such a case, it would have been a condescensisn 
 infinitely desirable in Divine goodness, to have taken the 
 guilty wanderer by the hand, and imparted to him the assur- 
 ance of peace. 
 
 Ancus. It would be uncandid in me to deny the weight 
 of your suggestions. But my difficulties do not end here. 
 Should it be granted that a supernatural revelation is neces- 
 sary, what is our evidence that it is contained in that book 
 which Christians call the Bible ? You will not deny, that a 
 multitude of writings, falsely ascribed to the apostles, were 
 extensively circulated at a very early period. In the midst 
 of such a number and variety of romances, all claiming di- 
 vine authority, how was it possible to distinguish the good 
 from the bad, the genuine from the spurious 1 And by what 
 rule can the authentic Scriptures now be ascertained, after 
 the lapse of nearly twenty centuries 1 
 
 Caius. Our bankers could easily answer that question. 
 Whatever spurious paper may be in circulation, they always 
 know their own bills. The apostles wrote the different 
 books of the New Testament, and entrusted them to the 
 churches which they had just planted. The churches were 
 faithful in ascertaining and preserving the sacred books dis- 
 tinct from others which were forged ; and by a transmission 
 more sure than exists in the case of any other literary pro- 
 ductions, they have been brought down to the present age. 
 The precepts, doctrines, and example of Jesus Christ, were 
 designed to endure, for the government and direction of man- 
 kind, unto the end of time. Now, Ancus, what does common 
 sense teach us to expect from the Founder and the first 
 propagators of a religion upon which they considered the 
 salvation of the latest generations to depend ? 
 
 Is it reasonable to suppose, that Jesus Christ would have 
 neglected to adopt the most infallible and permanent methods 
 
16 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. [356 
 
 for perpetuating the knowledge of his will ? No method was 
 so sure as that of written documents. 
 
 Is it reasonable to suppose, that the paternal care and zeal 
 so manifest in the apostles, would have permitted them to 
 neglect furnishing the churches, planted by their hands, with 
 authentic accounts of the doctrines and life of their divine 
 Master, whose constant attendants they had been, and whose 
 witnesses they were unto the ends of the earth ? 
 
 Is it reasonable to suppose, that the converts of the apos- 
 tles would have omitted soliciting their spiritual fathers to 
 prepare such authentic records, not only for their own gui- 
 dance, but also for that of their successors'? 
 
 And after such important authentic documents were pre- 
 pared by the apostles, and deposited in the archives of the 
 first churches, is it reasonable to suppose, that the early 
 Christians, whose love for the Gospel surpassed that of mi- 
 sers for gold, would have permitted the sacred trust to be 
 confounded with forgeries destitute of satisfactory proof of 
 their genuineness ? 
 
 Common sense does not hesitate to reply, that, under such 
 circumstances, all these suppositions violate the principles 
 of our nature. And what we perceive to be so agreeable to 
 the anticipations of common sense, we can prove to have 
 actually taken place, by a mass of testimony incomparably 
 more weighty and worthy of confidence, than exists in sup- 
 port of the genuineness and authenticity of any other writ- 
 ings of a remote age. Permit me, Aneus, to ask, upon what 
 grounds do you receive the works of Cicero as genuine ?* 
 
 Ancus. Upon the testimony of those writers who lived in 
 the orator's day and immediately after. 
 
 Caiiis. And why do you select their testimony ? 
 • Ancus. That needs hardly to be answered. Those writ- 
 ers, whether friends or enemies, were deeply interested in 
 the subject. Both parties had abundant means of ascertain- 
 ing which were Cicero's genuine productions. There are 
 also many internal marks of style and manner which may 
 aid us in the examination. 
 
 Caius. And does this testimony fully satisfy you ? 
 
 Ancus. It does, fully. 
 
 Caius. Now, Ancus, listen to the following facts ; and 
 * Cicero died 43 years before Christ. 
 
357] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 17 
 
 then I would ask you, with what consistency can you conti- 
 nue to receive the works of Cicero as genuine ; and, in oppo- 
 sition to your own views of satisfactory testimony, reject 
 the Sacred Scriptures as forgeries 1 
 
 1. The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, all the 
 Epistles of Paul, except that to the Hebrews, and the first 
 Epistles of John and Peter, were known and received as 
 genuine from the beginning. They were never called into 
 question. They are all contained in the earliest catalogues ; 
 in the Catalogue of Origen, A. D. 210; of Eusebius, 315; 
 of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, 315 ; of Cyril, Bishop 
 of Jerusalem, 340 ; of the Council of Laodicea, 364 ; of 
 Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, 370; of Gregory 
 Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople, 375 ; of Philostrius, 
 Bishop of Brixia, in Venice, 380 ; of Jerome, 382 ; of Au- 
 gustin, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, 394 ; of the third Coun- 
 cil of Carthage, 394. Many others might be mentioned. 
 These catalogues, you perceive, were made by different 
 men, in parts of the world remote from one another, and 
 at successive periods. 
 
 All these books have, moreover, been most abundantly 
 cited, as divinely inspired Scripture, by the earliest Christian 
 writers, residing in almost every part of the world. Such a 
 universal agreement of writers from the first date of Chris- 
 tianity, in quoting the same books, and no other, as inspired 
 Scripture, is (if the fact be true, and it is undeniable) a 
 demonstrative indication that the Canon was ascertained 
 with certainty. It can be accounted for upon no other sup- 
 position, than either that those writers had never seen any 
 other books claiming to be divine, or, if they knew of other 
 books, that they also knew them to be unworthy of credit ; 
 and hence, that they did not esteem them as divine in their 
 origin. 
 
 It is also undeniable, that all the books above mentioned 
 were publicly read, as the word of God, in the worship of 
 the primitive churches. 
 
 Thus, whatever doubts may have existed in the minds of 
 some individuals, for two or three centuries, in regard to the 
 second and third Epistles of John, the second of Peter, those 
 of James and Jude, that to the Hebrews, and the Apoca- 
 lypse, yet those books, which contain the whole body of 
 
 facts, doctrines, and precepts, constituting our Christian faith, 
 Vel. 6. Q 
 
18 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. [358 
 
 we have received, by an unbroken, unquestionable tradition, 
 from the very hands of the apostles. I might here also 
 urge the faithful scrutiny and watch exercised by the early 
 Christians with respect to the sacred Canon, evinced by the 
 very fact that the last named books were for some time 
 viewed by them with jealousy. But I proceed to observe, 
 
 2. That to the same truth we have the assent of all the 
 enemies of the Christian religion, without a single excep- 
 tion, from the earliest day of its publication. Both Jews 
 and Pagans were, from the first, the fierce and untiring op- 
 posers of the Gospel. All the wealth, all the learning, all 
 the talent, and all the religion of the Jewish and heathen 
 worlds, was interested and united in putting down the new 
 superstition and its troublesome advocates. Why did they 
 not, when it could have been accomplished with ease, ex- 
 pose forgeries so impudent and gross 1 But they never 
 denied the authenticity of these writings. The charge of 
 fraud was never whispered during the first four centuries. 
 I appeal to the apostate Emperor Julian, in the fourth cen- 
 tury ; to the learned Porphyry, in the third ; and to the no 
 less celebrated Celsus, in the second. The assent of these 
 bitter and laborious enemies of Christianity to the genuine- 
 ness and authenticity of the holy writings, is entitled to the 
 greatest consideration. 
 
 You cannot but perceive, that the testimony which sup- 
 ports the claims of the books of the New Testament, began 
 with their first publication ; was accessible to friend and foe ; 
 was continued down, unbroken and unimpeached, to modern 
 times ; and thus fully squares with your own standard of evi- 
 dence. You cannot consistently move a doubt as to the 
 genuineness of these writings, which does not impeach the 
 credibility of all history ; which does not undermine our 
 confidence in all documentary evidence ; which does not 
 affect, with even greater force, the genuineness and autho- 
 rity of every other ancient literary production. 
 
 Ancus. I confess that the reasons which you urge in proof 
 of the genuineness of the Christian records are forcible. 
 They shall receive my earnest and early consideration. 
 What advantage, however, is to be derived from the most 
 unquestionable evidence on this point, whilst the contents of 
 these records are unworthy of belief? They are stuffed with 
 the most improbable events. Those who say they witnessed 
 
359] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 19 
 
 them, were illiterate men, weak of brain, liable to be deceived 
 by appearances, and interested in believing, and causing 
 others to believe, the truth of the new religion. In short, 
 they were either deceived, or they were deceivers ; perhaps 
 a little of both. 
 
 Caius. I follow you into this field as to a banquet. Upon 
 the truth of the witnesses whose testimony is recorded in 
 these books, I am willing to join issue. Their testimony 
 has every mark of veracity stamped upon its front. 
 
 You say tho apostles and witnesses of Jesus Christ were 
 liable to be deceived by appearances. Were they not the 
 constant attendants, the familiar friends of their Master ; 
 who were with him from the beginning ; who went in and 
 out with him all the time from his baptism to his ascension, 
 (Acts, 1 : 21, 22.) witnessing all, hearing all, entrusted with 
 all ? A more favorable opportunity of detecting fraud, and 
 obtaining the most exaet information, cannot be imagined. 
 
 You say they were liable to be deceived by appearances, 
 &S if the events to which they testify were not real ; as if 
 they were delusive shadows. But what do these writers 
 relate 1 They relate the discourses, the journeys, the actions, 
 the sufferings, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension 
 of their Lord. They relate facts — broad, palpable facts ; 
 subjected to the examination of the senses of all the wit- 
 nesses ; most open to scrutiny ; great in number, and wit- 
 nessed by hundreds and thousands besides themselves. Well 
 might they say, " That which we have heard, which we have 
 seen icith our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands 
 have handled, of the word of life, (see particularly Luke, 24: 
 39.) declare we unto you? 1 If the senses of all these wit- 
 nesses, constantly agreeing in their testimony, were deceived 
 by appearances ; if, when they saw Jesus perform superna- 
 tural works, they yet saw him not ; if, when they conversed 
 and ate with him, and felt him, after his resurrection, they 
 yet did not converse and eat with him, and feel him, then it 
 is high time that we begin to suspect our own senses, and to 
 disbelieve our own consciousness. Then all testimony rest- 
 ing upon the senses of witnesses, which has always been 
 regarded the strongest, must henceforth be rejected, and held 
 most deceptive and treacherous. 
 
 You say they were ignorant, weak men. Ignorant of 
 werldly science they indeed were ; but what evidence Gan 
 
20 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [360 
 
 you produce of their weakness ? Were they weak in under- 
 standing 1 The want of strong sense and sound judgment 
 could not have been great in men who, by artless and per- 
 suasive means, Were able to conquer all the prejudice, wis- 
 dom, policy, and power of the whole world. Idiots could 
 not have invented a religion, the foundations of which have 
 survived the assaults of an unparalleled enmity, and the 
 changes of nearly two thousand years. Men, whom infidels 
 believe capable of devising and propagating such a system 
 of imposture, were surely possessed of a degree of reason 
 and judgment adequate to their bearing rational testimony 
 in matters of fact falling under their own observation. 
 
 Were they possessed by a blind credulity 1 What occa- 
 sion can you produce which exhibits a neglect of the fullest 
 evidence 1 Do their deep-rooted prejudices against their 
 Master's spiritual empire, their constant doubts, objections, 
 and unbelief, prove them credulous 1 Were they credulous 
 in regard to the grand fact and doctrine of the Gospel, the 
 resurrection of their Lord 1 Although it was expressly pre- 
 dicted by his own lips, they did not expect it. When it was 
 reported, they did not believe it. They rejected all testis 
 mony but that of their own senses. Luke, 24: 36 — 43. 
 Mark, 16 : 14. John, 20: 24—30. 
 
 Were they fanatics and enthusiasts ? What marks of fa- 
 naticism can you discover? Fanatics rush headlong into 
 their wild schemes, but the conviction of these men was 
 produced with the utmost difficulty ; it was the work of 
 nearly four years' constant attendance on the instructions 
 and miracles of their Master. Zealous and indefatigable 
 they were in their vocation ; but on the supposition of the 
 truth of their religion, their ardor was not greater than such 
 a cause demanded. In the midst of all their zeal, their dis- 
 course and conduct was sober, rational, chastened by gra- 
 vity, uniform, full of innocence and meekness, mildness and 
 prudence. 
 
 You say they were liable to be deceived. But was not 
 the prospect before them sufficiently appalling to render 
 them most critically scrupulous, before they ventured to 
 engage in the new religion 1 What was the prospect 1 daz- 
 zling to the senses — calculated to throw their reason off its 
 guard ] Their Master most faithfully destroyed every hope 
 of earthly emolument. He set before them persecution and 
 
361] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 death. He required them to surrender all that is endeared 
 to man helow, as the sole condition of their employment as 
 his witnesses. If ever men were goaded, by all that flesh 
 can hope or dread, to look sharp to the grounds of their 
 duty, the apostles were those men. 
 
 Not the slightest vestige of evidence, therefore, exists, 
 that the apostles were deceived in the matters which they 
 recorded. If they were deceived, it is a fact of which no 
 rational solution can bs- given. He who attempts to account 
 for a fact so opposite to all the principles of our nature, must 
 give us something more than a bare perhaps. 
 
 There are but two suppositions remaining. If they were 
 not deceived, they either fabricated the history which they 
 have left us, and hence they deserve to be viewed as falsi- 
 fiers, and their writings as impious falsehoods; or the events 
 which they relate, occurred as they are related ; and there- 
 fore, instead of inventors of falsehoods, and deceivers, they 
 are to be regarded as credible witnesses, and all their state- 
 ments are to be received as sacred truth. This you deny. 
 Now for the trial. 
 
 You affirm they were deceivers, falsifiers, and therefore 
 they are unworthy of belief. 
 
 Falsifiers and deceivers, unless they are mad, never invent 
 facts recent of occurrence ; never name dates, places, and 
 persons. But these witnesses proclaim the particulars of 
 their history, immediately after they were transacted. In 
 the most public and fearless manner, and without the least 
 softening, they publish facts, most galling and offensive to 
 their enemies. They mention names, times, and circum- 
 stances, so minutely as to place their own detection and 
 exposure within the power of a slight investigation. This 
 is not the course of men who are conscious of inventing 
 enormous and provoking lies. Mat. 1-1 : 13 — 22 ; 15 : 29 — 
 30. John, 11. Acts, 2; 3; 4. 
 
 Falsifiers and deceivers devise their crafty plots always 
 with a view to some personal advantage. Interest moves, 
 and the fear of injury restrains them. But these writers 
 and witnesses invent and propagate the most wanton false- 
 hoods ; and they pretend to supernatural powers, not only 
 without regard to personal advantage, but with an absolute 
 certainty of extreme loss and suffering. They uniformly 
 manifest a thorough contempt of all worldly interest. When 
 
Of* 
 
 TUE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [302 
 
 money is offered them, they spurn it. Acts, 8 : 18 — 20 ; 
 20: 33, 34. When honors, they refuse them. Acts, 8: 
 18 — 20.; 14 : 13, 14. And what is still more opposite to 
 the character and conduct of deceivers, in publishing and 
 testifying the Gospel facts, they relinquish, without a single 
 earthly compensation, their occupations, their country, their 
 homes, their reputation; and, persisting in their disinterested 
 course to the very end, they gladly lay down their lives, as 
 the last arid most solemn pledge of their veracity. Oh, 
 Ancus, is this the character 'and part of deceivers? 
 
 They invent falsehoods, and yet not an individual of their 
 number, not one of their many accomplices, was ever in- 
 duced, either by the wit of their adversaries, or the power 
 •of their bribes, or the fear of suffering, or by exquisite tor- 
 tares, to betrav the fraud — not even the traitor Judas. 
 
 They invent falsehoods with the avowed purpose of re- 
 quiring all men to believe them with an unhesitating faith ; 
 and yet, when the whole field of fiction lies before them, 
 and they are free to choose, they come forward with false- 
 hoods, which are repugnant to the appetites, passions, habits, 
 pleasures, prejudices, and religion, of the whole world. 
 The Author of their religion they represent as obscure in 
 his parentage; mean in his outward state; subject to hunger 
 and thirst, poverty and sorrow; hated by his countrymen; 
 betrayed, forsworn, and forsaken, by his own disciples; and 
 dying the death of an accursed, ignominious malefactor, upon 
 the cross. Thus wilfully and needlessly they render their 
 fiction a stumbling-block to the Jew, and foolishness to the 
 Greek. Those deceivers must be mad indeed, who invent 
 falsehoods which arc sure, by their natural tendency, to de- 
 feat every rational end that can be proposed. 
 
 They invent falsehoods so remarkably absurd, that infi- 
 dels have pronounced the sentence of fatuity upon those 
 who believed, as well as upon those who contrived them; 
 and yet, within a short period, not by force, not by strata- 
 gem, not by eloquence, not by worldly influence, all classes, 
 all orders of men, believe these ridiculous inventions, and 
 are ready to lay down their lives in their defence ! 
 
 They invent falsehoods, which awoke the attention of 
 the world wherever they were published, and drew down 
 upon the deceivers a storm of indignation ; and yet not one 
 of all these falsehoods, extraordinary as they were, lias ever 
 
363] 
 
 THE BIBLE OP DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 been detected and disproved. From the hour of its first 
 publication until now, not one of all the enemies of the Gos- 
 pel, whether Jew or Pagan, with every advantage on his 
 s^ide, has succeeded in detecting these witnesses in a single 
 mis-statement. With what ease, for example, might the 
 Jewish Sanhedrim, forewarned of the event by the Savior 
 himself, and intent upon defeating it as they were, have de- 
 tected and exposed the tale of the resurrection of Christ, 
 had it not been a truth too firm to be overthrown ! What 
 would so triumphantly have crushed this troublesome com- 
 bination, as to have convicted them of this capital and gross 
 imposture 1 Truly the infidels of those days must have been 
 marvellously deficient in intellect — living at the very time, 
 and in the very region where these impudent fabrications 
 were first issued, and with the police and the wealth of the 
 country at their backs — not to succeed in doing what an 
 infidel, eighteen hundred years after, without adequate 
 knowledge, without access to any other means than the bare 
 writings of these impostors, is able to accomplish with the 
 greatest ease ! Prodigious ! Why, Ancus, modern infidels, 
 according to all this, must be a race of intellectual giants ! 
 
 Ancus. You are pushing on at a furious rate. Will you 
 just give me leave to ask why Jesus did not discover him- 
 self, after his resurrection, to the Jewish and Roman autho- 
 rities'? This would have put an effectual end to all doubt 
 and uncertainty. One of the apostles himself acknowledges 
 (Acts, 10 : 40, 41.) that Jesus did not appear after his 
 resurrection to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen 
 before of God; that is, to his apostles. This looks like 
 collusion. Why show himself only to his friends, if he 
 wished the world to believe him arisen from the dead? 
 
 Caius. Why do you object to the testimony of his friends, 
 if they can be proved to have been sufficiently numerous, 
 and if their qualifications to bear testimony were unimpeach- 
 able'? This is an objection often heard from scoffers; but I 
 request your particular attention to this question. But far- 
 ther — the fact to be proved in this miracle was the identity 
 of the person : of course, no witnesses were competent but 
 those who possessed the most intimate knowledge of the 
 person and character of Jesus Christ before his death. 
 Such witnesses alone could testify that he, whom they had 
 seen and handled after his return to life, was the same per- 
 
24 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [304 
 
 son with whom they had spent several years before he was 
 slain by his enemies upon the cross. Were the priests, and 
 elders, and the Roman authorities, competent to bear such 
 testimony? Had Jesus complied with your requisition, you 
 would still have objected, and with greater effect than you 
 can object at present, that neither the multitude nor their 
 leaders were able to identify his person, because their inter- 
 course with him, previous to his death, had been so tran- 
 sient and slight. Whereas I conceive, Ancus, that his 
 appearing to the eleven apostles, with Matthias, (compare 
 Luke, 24 : 33, with Acts, 1 : 26, and 1 Cor. 15 : 5,) the 
 witnesses before chosen of God, is the capital circumstance 
 which the evidence required to render it adequate: it is 
 that which constitutes its distinguishing value. 
 
 But let us return to the general question. The supposi- 
 tion, then, that these men were deceivers and falsifiers, is 
 utterly incredible. If they were deceivers and falsifiers, 
 and if these facts are the results of their invention, they 
 acted a part which outrages all the laws of human conduct. 
 All confidence in the veracity of witnesses, possessing full 
 and accurate knowledge of the concerns which they mi- 
 nutely detail, and giving, the highest and best marks of 
 integrity, must for ever cease. Nothing, therefore, is left 
 but to reject your position, that these men were interested 
 deceivers, and that they fabricated the facts which they 
 have committed to writing and sealed with their blood. 
 
 We must, therefore, regard them as holy men ; faithful 
 witnesses, whose testimony is true, and should be received 
 with profound veneration and confidence. Other most weighty 
 evidences might be brought, would our time permit. It is 
 the only view which not only explains their conduct, but 
 accords with their moral character throughout, with the 
 doctrines which they announce, and with the style and man- 
 ner of their narrative. Their whole lives were (patterns 
 unto others, of unexceptionable purity, temperance, pa- 
 tience, integrity, devotion, and charity. On all occasions 
 they manifest an abhorrence of falsehood, and the most 
 solemn regard for truth : thev teach and enforce the omni- 
 science, holiness, and justice of God; and a future judgment, 
 in which every idle word shall be condemned : they tell a 
 simple unvarnished tide, without concealment, and they 
 leave it to work its own effects : they betray no concern as 
 
365] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 25 
 
 to its reception : they relate the most uncommon events, 
 they state the most sublime and comprehensive doctrines, 
 and the most exalted hopes, in a calm, unmoved and dig- 
 nified way, becoming men who spoke under a superior 
 guidance. If enough had not already been adduced, I 
 might now insist on the confirmation which the veracity of 
 the sacred writers receives from coetaneous heathen authors. 
 
 Zenas. I lately saw an infidel publication, in which the 
 assertion was confidently made, that 44 no writers of anti- 
 quity, but such as were interested, have written any thing 
 respecting Jesus Christ;" and that 44 Tacitus has not only 
 taken no notice of" the occurrences related in the Gospels, 
 44 but even as to the person, called Jesus, his history is 
 wholly silent." 
 
 Caias. How gross, how impudent a departure from truth ! 
 Tacitus, (A. D. 110,) as you well know, bears a direct and 
 particular testimony to the great events of the Gospel 
 history. Annals, b. 15. They are also noticed by Sueto- 
 nius, Claud, chap. 25, Nero, chap. 16. These works are 
 in the hands of every reader of the ancient classics. The 
 calumny will therefore have weight with none but the wilfully 
 blind. Why should I repeat the nasaes of Celsus, Porphyry 
 and Julian % And nothing can be more satisfactory than the 
 confirmation of the credibility of the sacred writers, exhi- 
 bited in the celebrated letters of Pliny to the Emperor 
 Trajan, (A. D. 100.) Plinii Epist. lib. 10 : 97. 
 
 In every point of view, therefore, the veracity of the 
 Gospel historians is established on an immovable basis. 
 Than theirs, no evidence can be more full, no knowledge of 
 facts more particular, no motives more disinterested and 
 honorable, no narrative better attested and sealed. Their 
 claims to our undivided credence cannot be evaded. They 
 cannot be evaded by asserting that they were themselves 
 deceived, for so were they situated, in regard to the trans- 
 actions of which they testify, that this was impossible ; nor 
 by asserting that they were deceivers, for the part which 
 they acted is wholly irreconcilable with all the principles of 
 deception. The falsehood of their testimony, under these 
 circumstances, would be a violation of all the laws of our 
 moral constitution, inexplicable upon any known principle, 
 and unsupported by proof. To set aside, therefore, these 
 evidences of their veracity, and to believe {heir testimony 
 
 Vol. 6. Q 2 
 
26 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [366 
 
 false, displays a degree of credulousness, of readiness to 
 believe what is unaccountable and unsupported by proof, 
 which defies a remedy from reason.* 
 
 I have been particular in evincing the credibility of tlie 
 evangelical writers, on account of its vast importance in this 
 debate. If their credibility is firmly established, and the 
 denial of it gives the death-blow to all our belief of truth 
 resting upon the testimony of others, then the great question 
 of the divine origin of the Bible is decided. 
 
 Zenas. How does that .appear? 
 
 Caius. We are then bound to believe all that these wit- 
 nesses affirm. Consequently we must believe in the reality 
 of the miracles, which they affirm were performed by Jesus 
 Christ and his apostles, as the credentials of their divine 
 commission. 
 
 Zenas. Will you show me the force of the evidence aris- 
 ing from miracles, which proves a divine commission? 
 
 Caius. Most willingly. If Jesus Christ required the Jews to 
 change their institutions and to receive him as their Messiah, 
 they had a right to demand unquestionable proofs that his 
 mission was divine and his authority supreme. Now what 
 kind of attestation would best satisfy this demand ? Not the 
 doctrines taught, for the divine origin and authority of these 
 is the main thing to be proved, and the last to be inferred ; 
 and therefore it would be reasoning in a circle, to prove the 
 divine commission of the teacher by the doctrines. Nor 
 would holiness of life alone constitute the requisite proo£ 
 This would prove the teacher a good man, whose lessons 
 were worthy of attention; but it would not give the sanction 
 of God's authority to what he might deliver. But if, when 
 he required them to receive his words as a revelation from 
 
 * How justly is the character of the unhappy sceptic delineated by 
 a writer of the seventeenth century. "A sceptic in religion is one 
 who hangs in the balance with all sorts of opinions ; whereof not one 
 but stirs him, and none sways him. A man guiltier of credulity than 
 he is taken to be; for it is out of his belief of every thing that he be- 
 lieves nothing. Each religion scares him from its contrary, none 
 persuades him to itself. He would be wholly a Christian, but that he 
 is something of an Atheist; and wholly an Atheist, but that he is 
 partly a Christian ; and a perfect heretic, but that there are so many 
 to distract him. He finds reasons in all opinions, iruth in none. In- 
 deed, the least reason perplexes him, and the best will not satisfy him 
 He finds doubts and scruples better than resolves them, and is always 
 too hard for himself" 
 
367] THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 27 
 
 F 
 
 God, and to convince them that he spoke by divine autho- 
 rity, he should exert supernatural power, and produce effects 
 wholly different from what arc regularly experienced as the 
 constant course of nature ; if, for example, he should restore 
 the dead to life, or feed a hungry multitude, consisting of 
 several thousand men, with a few loaves, under such cir- 
 cumstances as to make it evident, that the result was not 
 fraudulent nor accidental, nor effected by second causes, 
 but that it was supernatural, and connected with his charac- 
 ter as a messenger from heaven ; it is clear that such works 
 would afford a glorious demonstration that God had truly 
 sent him. The Deity would not lend his Almighty power 
 in giving sanction to the impious appeal of an impostor. If 
 God hears him, and sets his hand and seal to his word by 
 enabling him to work miracles, it is a most solemn acknow- 
 ledgment, that he has commissioned him to speak and to 
 act in his name and by his authority. 
 
 Ancus. I have insuperable difficulties in regard to the 
 miracles of Christ and his apostles. — Miracles are impossible. 
 
 Caius. Surely you are not serious. Is it because there 
 exists no adequate cause to perform them ? But you deny 
 neither the Being nor the omnipotence of God. It is as 
 easy for omnipotence to restore the dead to life, as it was 
 to create the first human being. Or is it because the perform- 
 ance of miracles is unworthy of God ? They were per- 
 formed to restore the soul of man to the enjoyment of for- 
 feited bliss, and that has been evinced an end infinitely 
 worthy of God. As soon as you can disprove the existence 
 of God, or show that he regards our race with indifference, 
 you may prove that miracles are impossible. 
 
 Ancus. But miracles are so improbable. There is nothing 
 in our experience like them ; nay, our experience is against 
 them. Every one regards the accounts of prodigies with 
 suspicion, and in proportion to the strangeness of a man's 
 story, is the unbelief which it provokes. 
 
 Caius. I grant that the uncommonness of an event should 
 excite our caution in believing its report ; but would it not 
 be preposterous on that ground to reject it ? Does the cir- 
 cumstance of its being strange and prodigious disprove it ? 
 The uncommonness of miracles, or their being dissimilar to 
 all that we have ever experienced, does not justify you in 
 discrediting them, unless you can prove that there is no God 
 
28 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
 
 [368 
 
 able to produce them ; or that the restoration of peace and 
 heaven to guilty man, is an object beneath the divine re- 
 gard ; or that miracles do not afford a proper sanction of 
 revelation ; or that the testimony of those who both witness- 
 ed and performed them is undeserving of credit. 
 
 Zenas. It would gratify me to hear your views of Mr. 
 Hume's famous argument against miracles. He maintains 
 that no miracle can be proved by human testimony. His 
 reasoning may be summed up in a few words. A miracle is 
 a violation of the laws of nature ; but those laws have been 
 established by a firm and unalterable experience. Hence he 
 infers that it will always be more probable that the testimony 
 in favor of a miracle should be false, than that uniform and un- 
 alterable experience should be violated. 
 
 Caius. When Mr. Hume says that the laws of nature are 
 established by a firm and unalterable experience, he must 
 mean one of two things : he means either that experience 
 universidly and without a single deviation has found the laws 
 of nature to have their common and regular operation ; or 
 that, in most instances, or in his own personal experience, the 
 laws of nature have been found firm and unalterable. In 
 either case his argument is powerless. If he chooses the first 
 sense, he is guilty of assuming the point in debate as a thing 
 granted. The point to be settled, is, whether God, for im- 
 portant ends, has not, in a few instances, suspended the or- 
 dinary operation of the laws of nature, and produced effects 
 different from what would have resulted, had those laws 
 been suffered to take their usual course. For example, has 
 not God, in some instances, restored the dead to life ; thus 
 making these instances exceptions to the common laws which 
 control the mortality of our race ? This Mr. Hume denies. 
 What is his argument ? He says uniform, that is universal 
 experience is against it : that is, an experience which admits 
 of no exceptions. Of course, this experience includes all the 
 instances of death that have ever occurred, and leaves no 
 room for a single restoration to life. Thus he takes for 
 granted the very point which he undertook to disprove. He 
 first asserts that the law of mortality, admitting no subse- 
 quent alteration, has been established by a firm and uniform 
 experience — that is, universally ; and then it was easy indeed 
 to draw the sweeping conclusion, that no instance of return 
 to life was ever experienced. It is no wonder that no tes- 
 
369] 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORXGI$. 
 
 29 
 
 timony can prove what never happened. If he chooses the 
 second sense of bis own premises, he fares still worse ; for 
 his own personal experience on the subject of the restoration 
 of the dead to life, must have been so limited, that hundreds 
 of miracles of that kind might have been performed, and 
 his experience would still have been firm and unalterable. 
 Should credible witnesses explicitly and solemnly assert that 
 they had seen a dead person restored to life, would it im- 
 peach their testimony, should ten thousand Mr. Humes, 
 multiplied by ten thousand more, assert that they had never 
 experienced such a deviation from the laws of nature 1 Is 
 there not room for truth to exist on both sides 1 Does Mr. 
 Hume's experience, and that of the witnesses, relate to the 
 same individual fact 1 If they did, there would be a con- 
 tradiction, and both could not be true. So that Mr. Hume's 
 argument is either an assumption of the very point in dispute ; 
 or it is so feeble and inconclusive, that an illiterate clown 
 might confute it. I have myself tried the experiment with 
 a sensible child. 
 
 From all that has been said, it follows that the miracles 
 which Jesus Christ performed, prove that he was the Son of 
 God, the Savior of the world ; and that the evangelical 
 teachers and writers, in their official character, acted by the 
 command, and under the direction of God ; and, therefore, 
 that what they have written is his own word. 
 
 Zenas. I wish to ask whether it does not follow, that the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament must be received as the 
 authentic word of God, revealed to the patriarchs and pro- 
 phets before the advent of the Messiah \ 
 
 Cuius. Such a consequence cannot be avoided, and it 
 was my intention to have deduced it. To those writings, as 
 being a revelation of God's will to the Jews, and as intro- 
 ductory to the facts, and the additional divine communications 
 of the Gospel, there are particular and frequent appeals in 
 every portion of the New' "Testament. The Old and New 
 Testaments are so interlinked, that they stand or fall toge- 
 ther ; they are the two essential parts of one grand system. 
 Let me not, however, forget to suggest, that, independent of 
 the authority ascribed to them in the Now Testament, the 
 sacred books of the Jews possess intrinsic evidences of their 
 divine origin. 
 
 But, gentlemen, we have in reserve another mighty evi- 
 
30 
 
 THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN". 
 
 [370 
 
 dence of the divine origin of the Bible : an evidence which 
 applies to both Testaments ; which is still going on with in- 
 creasing power ; and which sets all cavilling at defiance. It 
 is that which results from the prophecies, and their fulfil- 
 ment. A prophecy is a prediction of an event, or of a se- 
 ries of events, contingent and still future, the knowledge 
 of which could have been derived by the prophet from no 
 earthly source. Now, if such a prediction is accurately and 
 minutely accomplished, it proves that its author must have 
 been taught by omniscience itself. God alone knows the end 
 from the beginning, and can declare it before it comes to 
 pass. For examples, I refer you to the prophecies which re- 
 late to the person, sufferings, and glories of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Gen. 3 : 15 ; 12 : 3 ; 18 : 18 ; 49 : 10. Numb. 24 : 
 17. Dan. 9 : 25, 26. Is. 7 : 14. 11 : 1—10. Mic. 5 : 2. 
 Hag. 7 : 9. Compare also, Zech. 11 : 12, with Mat. 26: 
 15; Isa. 53 : 5, 9, 12; Zech. 12: 10; and Ps. 22: 7, 8, 
 16, 18, with John, 20 : 25, 27, and Matt. 27 : 39, 43, 46, 
 57—60. 
 
 But there is one prediction which deserves particular at- 
 tention. It is that recorded in Deut. 28th. The Prophet 
 had conducted the nation of Israel to the borders of Canaan. 
 He then uttered a prophetic description, extending through 
 more than three thousand years, of their national crimes ; 
 the judgments by which God would punish them ; the ruin 
 of their state by the Romans ; the horrors of the siege of 
 Jerusalem ; their dispersion among all the nations of the 
 earth ; and the light in which they should be regarded, and 
 the treatment which they should experience in the various 
 countries of their exile. To complete this picture, add Lev. 
 26: 44, and Jer. 30: 10, 11 ; 31 : 35—37. There we be- 
 hold this people, in their scattered, homeless state, preserved 
 separate from every other nation to the latest posterity, and 
 we are taught to look forward to their restoration, when 
 they shall once more be gathered unto Zion. Weigh these 
 predictions with a candid spirit, comparing them with past 
 and present history, and you will not be able long to resist 
 the conviction, that the prophets were inspired by God ; and 
 that a book, which, can plead such an attestation, contains his 
 revealed will, and should be the only fountain of our senti- 
 ments, and the only standard of our practice in religion. 
 
 This leads me to remark, that whatever a book, confirmed 
 
1 
 
 371] THE BIBLE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 31 
 
 to be divine n its origin bv such evidences, asserts concern- 
 ing the mode of its communication from heaven, cannot 
 reasonably be called into question. If, then, it declares that 
 the evangelical teachers and writers, as well as the Hebrew 
 prophets, spoke and wrote under the immediate direction of 
 the Spirit of God, its affirmation is entitled to our unhesi- 
 tating confidence. John, 14 : 16 — 26 ; 16 : 13. 1 Cor. 2 : 
 4, 10, 13 ; 7 : 40 ; 14 : 37. Gal. 1 : 11, 12. 1 Pet. 1 : 
 10, 12. 2 Pet. 1 : 21. 2 Tim. 3 : 16. Hence the Sacred 
 Scriptures were written by divine inspiration. \ 
 
 The time now bids us draw our conference to a close. 
 Before we part, however, allow me to say a word in regard 
 to the matter of the Gospel. Especially unto those who 
 have formed a just conception of themselves, it is a doctrine 
 " worthy of all acceptation." It was designed for those who 
 need a physician ; hence it is not strange that men who 
 imagine themselves " whole," should treat it with neglect or 
 scorn. It is a doctrine according to godliness. In the highest 
 degree will it be found adapted to the sinful, forlorn, and 
 perishing condition of man, and honorable to the character 
 and government of Jehovah. He who has studied his own 
 heart, must be conscious of a degree of moral disorder, 
 which all the doctrines and precepts of ancient and modern 
 sages can never remove ; of a pollution unfitting him for Aie 
 intimate communion of beings perfect in holiness, which 
 all the tears of the bitterest regret can never wash away ; 
 of a want of peace and consolation which all the pleasures 
 of the world can never satisfy. I 
 
 But let him turn his attention to the Gospel message. In 
 the mediation of the Son of God, let him contemplate the 
 reconciliation of that holiness and justice which fill him with 
 dread, with that boundless love and mercy which alone are 
 commensurate to his guilt. Let him revolve the Gospel 
 scheme as proposing the pardon of his sins and the purifi- 
 cation of his heart ; as proposing to free him from the do- 
 minion of those lusts which make him loath his very ex- 
 istence, and to associate him with those holy beings from 
 whose fellowship he is now excluded. Let him follow out 
 the scheme of redemption in all its holy influences, diffusing 
 truth, love and happiness through the various relations of 
 the human family ; and then let him ask, is this the Gospel 
 which to me has proved so long a rock of offence ? And 
 
32 
 
 THE BIBLE OP DIVINE ORIGIN 
 
 [372 
 
 what is there in all this to offend me 1 Why should it not 
 rather command my veneration, my gratitude, my submission 1 
 
 Let it be approached under the solemn conviction of 
 your need of illumination from heaven, and with humble 
 and hearty prayers for the blessing and direction of God, 
 and I am persuaded you will find it the only religion which 
 the world has ever seen, that manifests the divine Majesty 
 as a suitable object of supreme affection, reverence, and 
 trust ; the only religion which provides a ransom for the 
 guilty soul, whilst in the very act it upholds the government 
 of God, and magnifies his violated law ; the only religion 
 which brings peace to the conscience, hope to the mind, 
 and holiness to the heart and life. 
 
 Instead of ascribing to the Bible the crimes of those who 
 have inconsistently styled themselves its friends, let us rather 
 ask, from what grosser crimes have not these very persons 
 been restrained by its mighty influence? How can thai 
 which, in its nature and tendency^ is a pure and perfect 
 antidote, be the cause of disease? The disease rages, be- 
 cause the antidote is despised and rejected. In truth, if the 
 world has ever contained those who have 44 stood in the 
 breach," who have opposed with any success the torrent of 
 iniquity, who have borne an honorable and a soul-moving 
 testimony for God and for righteousness, let it be ascribed 
 to the true and only cause — the Bible. Thousands and 
 millions have been converted by it to purity and joy; and 
 but for it they would have remained the disgrace of their 
 species, the curses of the world. 
 
 Were all the philosophers, from Socrates to Newton, to 
 be united in the effort, they never could produce a book so 
 benevolent in its design ; so original, and yet so true, in its 
 views ; so efficacious in its operation ; so sublime in its dis- 
 coveries. That it contains mysteries which angels desire 
 to look into, is rather a confirmation than an objection. In 
 one word, "study the Holy Scriptures; therein are con- 
 tained the words of eternal life." "They have God for 
 their author, salvation for their end, and truth, without any 
 mixture of error, for their matter." And " we appeal to 
 the infidel himself, whether he does not approach the Bible 
 with awe, read it with fear, and close it with a painful 
 
 CONVICTION OF ITS DIVINE AUTHORITY/* 
 
 Note. — A premium of fifty dollars, proposed by a benevolent indi- 
 vidual, was awarded to the authors of this Tract and Tract No. 2*27. 
 
32 THE BIBLE OP DIVINE ORIGIN, 
 
 " Can any safe criterion be established," inquired one 
 who doubted the truth of Christianity, " by which true mi- 
 racles may -be distinguished from such as are false 1 We ? 
 find accounts of miracles in Heathen histories ; and the 
 church of Rome boasts the performance of miracles to this 
 very day." 
 
 " The follow*^ rules," it was replied, u may be consi- 
 sidered as conclusive: 
 
 1. " The miracles must have been performed in the t pre- 
 sence of multitudes, as well as before a few individuals. 
 
 2. 44 They must have been open to the inspection of ene- 
 mies as well as friends. 
 
 3. " They must have been such as were addressed to the 
 senses of the witnesses. 
 
 4. " They must have been such as to forbid tbe possibility 
 of confederacy and fraud. 
 
 5. " They must have been predicted by the performer, 
 and they must immediately have followed the prediction 
 without the intervention of second causes." 
 
 6. u They must have been performed for some extraordi- 
 nary end, and by a super rid tural power. 
 
 u Let these rules be applied to the miracles of Christ ; such 
 as those recorded in John, 9. Matt. 9 : 2—8. Mark, 11 : 4 
 —12. Matt. 14 : 15—21. Mark 6 : 35—44. John 6 : 5— 
 13. John 2 i\l — 10. and ihen to the pretended Pagan and 
 Popish miracles ; and it will not be difficult to distinguish 
 truth from falsehood. 
 
 THE BIBLE ITS OWN INTERPRETER. 
 
 A careful, eandid comparison of parallel passages of Scripture, 
 will remove a multitude or Infidel objections. : Worthy of all at- 
 tention is the remark; of Bishop Horsley: " It; were to be wished 
 that no Bibles were printed without references*^ Particular -dili- 
 gence should J^e used.Tn^oij^afingjQie. jferatfel texts of the Old 
 and New Testaments. ^ i/(ifape^ole,^o -sxty ope who has not 
 made the experiment, JEMpCjf ^roficjer/cy jriay~TJe made in that 
 knowledge which mal^^wis^Unto salyatior/, by studying {lie Scrip- 
 tures in this manner/ v;ithoiU, any otb6r com^nMmtary or exposition 
 than what the different j)a^of s th'e'?acre4' volume mutually furnish 
 f^| each, other. Le^the^fofi^ifU^erate Christian study them in this 
 manner,* and let^him new^r^f^ip pray for -the illumination of that - 
 Spirit by which these bkoMrt&i dictated ; aftd the whole compass 
 of abstruse philosoply and lycotyKte history shallfurnish no argument 
 with which the perverse fti\\X/Q{ man shall be able to shake this 
 learned Christian's faith. "L^'W y 
 
 No. 192, / ) J /O / J ■ - 
 
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