CONCLUSIOI^. 2l»1 



destruction of Jerusalem ; when many extravagant reports 

 were circulated., when men's minds were broken by terror 

 and distress, when amid the tumults that surrounded then) 

 mquiry was impracticable. These letters show incontesta 

 bly, that the religion had fixed and established itself before 

 this state of things took place. 



II, Whereas it has been insinuated that our gospels may 

 have been made up of reports and stories which were current 

 at the time, we may observe that, with respect to the epistles, 

 this is impossible, A man cannot write the history of his own 

 life from reports ; nor, what is the same thing, be led by re- 

 ports to refer to passages and transactions in which he states 

 himself to have been immediately present and active. I do 

 not allow that this insinuation is applied to the historical part 

 of the New Testament with any color of justice or probabili 

 ty ; but I say, that to the epistles it is not applicable at all, 



III, These letters prove that the converts to Christianity 

 were not drawn from the barbarous, the mean, or the igno- 

 rant set of men which the representations of infidelity would 

 sometimes make them, V/e learn from letters the charac- 

 ter, not only of the writer, but, in some measure, of the per- 

 sons to whom they are written. To suppose that these let- 

 ters were addressed to a rude tribe, incapable of thought or 

 reflection, is just as reasonable as to suppose Locke's Essay 

 on the Human Understanding to have been written for the 

 instruction of savages. Whatever may be thought of these 

 letters in other respects, either of diction or argument, they 

 are certainly removed as far as possible from the habits and 

 comprehension of a barbarous people, 



IV, St. Paul's history, I mean so much of it as may be 

 collected from his letters, is so implicated with that of the 

 other apostles, and with the substance, indeed, of the Chris- 

 tian history itself, that I apprehend it will be found impos- 

 sible to admit St, Paul's story — I do not speak of the mirac- 

 ulous part of it — to be true, and yet to reject the rest as fab- 

 ulous. For instance, can any one believe that there was 



