ExroyiTiON OF the argument. 9 



arise from the instances themselves, and the separate re- 

 marks with which they may be accompanied, than from any 

 previous formulary or description of argument. In a great 

 plurality of examples, I trust he will be perfectly convinced 

 that no design or contrivance whatever has been exercised ; 

 and if some of the coincidences alleged appear to be minute, 

 circuitous, or oblique, let him reflect that this very indirect- 

 ness and subtilty is that which gives force and propriety to 

 the example. Broad, obvious, and exphcit agreements prove 

 little, because it may be suggested that the insertion of such 

 is the ordinary expedient of every forgery ; and though they 

 may occur, and probably will occur in genuine writings, yet 

 ;t cannot be proved that they are peculiar to these. Thus 

 A^hat St. Paul declares in chapter eleven of first Corinthians, 

 concerning the institution of the Lord's supper, " For I have 

 received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. 

 That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was be- 

 trayed, took bread ; and when he had given thanks, he 

 brake it, and said. Take, eat ; this is my body, which is 

 broken for you : this do in remembrance of me;" though it 

 be in close and verbal conformity with the account of the 

 same transaction preserved by St. Luke, is yet a conformity 

 of which no us.e can be made in our argument ; for if it 

 should be objected that this was a mere recital from the 

 gospel, borrowed by the author of the epistle, for the pur- 

 pose of setting off his composition by an appearance of agree- 

 ment with the received account of the Lord's supper, I 

 should not know how to repel the insinuation. In like man- 

 ner, the description which St. Paul gives of himself in his 

 epistle to the Philippians, 3:5, " Circumcised the eighth 

 day a£ the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a lie 

 brew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 

 concerning zeal, persecuting the church ; touching the right- 

 eousness which is in the law, blameless" — is made up of 

 particulars so plainly delivered concerning him in the Acta 

 of the Apostles, the epistle to the Romans, and the epistle 



o 



