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dit, or of external proof, between these and the received epiftles; or rather, who will not acknowledge the evidence of authenticity to be confirmed by the want of success which attended imposture.

When we take into our hands the letters which the fuffrage and confent of antiquity hath thus tranfmitted to us, the first thing that strikes our attention is the air of reality and business, as well as of feriousness and conviction, which pervades the whole. Let the sceptic read them. If he be not senfible of these qualities in them, the argument can have no weight with him. If he be; if he perceive in almost every page the language of a mind actuated by real occafions, and operating upon real circumftances, I would with it to be observed, that the proof which arises from this perception is not to be deemed occult or imaginary, because it is incapable of being drawn out in words, or of being conveyed to the apprehenfion of the reader in any other way, than by fending him to the books themselves.

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the argument which it has been the office of these pages to unfold. St. Paul's epiftles are connected with the history by their particularity, and by the numerous circumftances which are found in them. When we defcend to an examination and comparifon of these circumstances, we not only observe the history and the epiftles to be independent documents unknown to, or at leaft unconfulted by, each other, but we find the fubftance, and oftentimes very minute articles, of the hiftory, recognized in the epiftles, by allufions and references, which can neither be imputed to defign, nor, without a foundation in truth, be accounted for by accident, by hints and expreffions, and fingle words dropping as it were fortuitoufly from the pen of the writer, or drawn forth, each by fome occafion proper to the place in which it occurs, but widely removed from any view to confiftency or agreement. These, we know, are effects which reality naturally produces, but which, without reality, at the bottom, can hardly be conceived to exist.

When therefore, with a body of external

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evidence, which is relied upon, and which experience proves may fafely be relied upon, in appreciating the credit of ancient writings, we combine characters of genuinenefs and originality which are not found, and which, in the nature and order of things, cannot be expected to be found in fpurious compofitions; whatever difficulties we may meet with in other topics of the Chriftian evidence, we can have little in yielding our affent to the following conclufions: that there was fuch a perfon as St. Paul; that he lived in the age which we afcribe to him; that he went about preaching the religion of which Jefus Chrift was the founder; and that the letters which we now read were actually written by him upon the fubject, and in the course of that his ministry.

And if it be true that we are in poffeffion of the very letters which St. Paul wrote, let us confider what confirmation they afford to the Christian history. In my opinion they fubftantiate the whole tranfaction. The great object of modern research is to come at the epiftolary correfpondence of the times. Amidst the obfcurities, the filence, or the

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contradictions of hiftory, if a letter can be found, we regard it as the discovery of a land-mark; as that by which we can correct, adjust, or supply the imperfections and uncertainties of other accounts. One caufe of the fuperior credit which is attributed to letters is this, that the facts which they disclose generally come out incidentally, and therefore without defign to mislead the public by falfe or exaggerated accounts. reafon may be applied to St. Paul's epiftles with as much juftice as to any letters whatever. Nothing could be farther from the intention of the writer than to record any part of his history. That his history was in fact made public by these letters, and has by the fame means been transmitted to future ages, is a fecondary and unthoughtof effect. The fincerity therefore of the apoftle's declarations cannot reasonably be difputed; at leaft we are fure that it was not vitiated by any defire of fetting himself off to the public at large. But these letters form a part of the muniments of Chriftianity, as much to be valued for their contents, as for their originality. A more inestimable

eftimable treasure the care of antiquity could not have fent down to us. Befide the proof they afford of the general reality of St. Paul's history, of the knowledge which the author of the Acts of the Apostles had obtained of that history, and the confequent probability that he was, what he profeffes himself to have been, a companion of the apostle's; befide the fupport they lend to these important inferences, they meet fpecifically fome of the principal objections upon which the adversaries of Christianity have thought proper to rely. In particular they show,

I. That Christianity was not a story set on foot amidst the confufions which attended and immediately preceded the deftruction of Jerufalem; when many extravagant reports were circulated, when men's minds were broken by terror and distress, when amidst the tumults that furrounded them enquiry was impracticable. Thefe letters fhow inconteftably that the religion had fixed and established itself before this state of things took place.

II. Whereas it hath been infinuated, that our gofpels may have been made up

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