CONCLUSION. 213 



ecptioii is not to be deemed occult or imaginary, because it 

 IS incapable of being drawn out in words, or of being con- 

 veyed to the apprehension of the reader in any other way 

 than by sending him to the books themselves. 



And here, in its proper place, comes in the argument 

 which it has been the office of these pages to unfold. St- 

 Paul's epistles are connected with the history by their par- 

 ticularity, and by the numerous circumstances which are 

 found in them. When we descend to an examination and 

 comparison of these circumstances, we not only observe the 

 history and the epistles to be independent documents un- 

 known to, or at least unconsulted by each other, but we find 

 the substance and oftentimes minute articles of the history 

 recognized in the epistles, by allusions and references which 

 can neither be imputed to design, nor, without a foundation 

 in truth, be accounted for by accident ; by hints and expres- 

 s'ons and single words, dropping as it were fortuitously from 

 the pen of the WTiter, or drawn forth each by some occasion 

 proper to the place in which it occurs, but widely removed 

 from any view to consistency or agreement. These we know 

 are effects which reality naturally produces, but which, with- 

 out reality at the bottom, can hardly be conceived to exist. 



When, therefore, with a body of external evidence which 

 is relied upon, and which experience proves may safely be 

 relied upon, in appreciating the credit of ancient writings, 

 we combine characters of genuineness and originality which 

 are not found, and which, in the nature and order of things, 

 cannot be expected to be found in spurious compositions, 

 whatever difficulties we may meet with in other topics of 

 the Christian evidence, we can have little in yielding our 

 assent to the following conclusions : that there was such a 

 person as St. Paul ; that he lived in the age which we 

 ascribe to him ; that he went about preaching the religion 

 of which Jesus Christ was the founder ; and that the letters 

 which we now read were actually written by him upon the 

 subject, and in the course of that his ministry. 



