ports and ftories, which were current at the time, we may obferve that, with refpect to the epiftles, this is impoffible. A man cannot write the hiftory of his own life, from reports; nor, what is the fame thing, be led by reports to refer to paffages and tranfactions in which he ftates himself to have been immediately prefent and active. I do not allow that this infinuation is applied to the hiftorical part of the New Testament with any colour of juftice or probability; but I fay, that to the epiftles it is not applicable at all.

II. These letters prove that the converts to Chriftianity were not drawn from the barbarous, the mean, or the ignorant fet of men, which the reprefentations of infidelity would fometimes make them. We learn from letters the character not only of the writer, but, in fome measure, of the perfons to whom they are written. To fuppofe that these letters were addreffed to a rude tribe, incapable of thought or reflection, is just as reasonable as to fuppofe Locke's Effay on the Human Understanding to have been written for the inftruction of savages, Whatever,

Whatever may be thought of these letters in other refpects, either of diction or argument, they are certainly removed as far as poffible from the habits and comprehenfion of a barbarous people.

IV. St. Paul's history, I mean so much of it as may be collected from his letters, is fo implicated with that of the other apostles, and with the fubftance indeed of the Chrif tian history itself, that I apprehend it will be found impoffible to admit St. Paul's story (I do not speak of the miraculous part of it) to be true, and yet to reject the rest as fabulous. For inftance, can any one believe that there was fuch a man as Paul, a preacher of Christianity in the age which we affign to him, and not believe that there were also at the fame time fuch men as Peter and James, and other apostles, who had been companions of Chrift during his life, and who after his death published and avowed the fame things concerning him which Paul taught? Judea, and especially Jerufalem, was the scene of Chrift's ministry. The witneffes of his miracles lived there. St. Paul, by his own account, as well as that ́

of

of his hiftorian, appears to have frequently visited that city; to have carried on a communication with the church there; to have affociated with the rulers and elders of that church, who were fome of them apostles; to have acted, as occafions offered, in correfpondence, and fometimes in conjunction with them. Can`it, after this, be doubted, but that the religion and the general facts relating to it, which St. Paul appears by his letters to have delivered to the feveral churches which he established at a diftance, were at the fame time taught and published at Jerufalem itself, the place where the bufiness was tranfacted; and taught and published by those who had attended the founder of the inftitution in his miraculous, or pretendedly miraculous, ministry?

It is obfervable, for fo it appears both in the epiftles and from the Acts of the Apoftles, that Jerufalem, and the fociety of believers in that city long continued the centre from which the miffionaries of the religion iffued with which all other churches maintained a correfpondence and connection, to which they referred their doubts, and to

whose

whofe relief, in times of public distress, they remitted their charitable afliftance. This obfervation I think material, because it proves that this was not the cafe of giving out accounts in one country of what is tranfacted in another, without affordingt he hearers an opportunity of knowing whether the things related were credited by any, or even published, in the place where they are reported to have paffed.

V. St. Paul's letters furnish evidence (and what better evidence than a man's own letters can be defired?) of the foundness and fobriety of his judgment. His caution in distinguishing between the occafional fuggeftions of infpiration, and the ordinary exercife of his natural understanding, is without example in the hiftory of human enthufiasm. His morality is every where calm, pure, and rational: adapted to the condition, the activity, and the business of social life, and of its various relations; free from the over-fcrupuloufnefs and aufterities of fuperftition, and from, what was more perhaps to be apprehended, the abstractions of quietism, and the foarings and extravagancies of fana

ticism.

ticifm. His judgment concerning a hefitating confcience; his opinion of the moral indifferency of many actions, yet of the prudence and even the duty of compliance, where non-compliance would produce evil effects upon the minds of the perfons who obferved it, is as correct and just as the most liberal and enlightened moralift could form at this day. The accuracy of modern ethics has found nothing to amend in these determinations.

What Lord Littelton has remarked of the preference ascribed by S. Paul to inward rectitude of principle above every other religious accomplishment is very material to our prefent purpose. "In his first epistle to the "Corinthians, ch. xiii. ver. 1-3, St. Paul "has these words: Though I speak with the "tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as founding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all myf“teries and all knowledge, and though I have "all faith, fo that I could remove mountains, "and have not charity, I am nothing. And thongh I beftow all my goods to feed the poor,

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