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in fcience the world owes to you, I really could not tell; and I think it is very poffible, that, in fact, you are as much a ftranger to my purfuits, as I am to yours. By this I do not mean to infinuate that you have no merit as a mathematician, to which you make high pretenfions; but though for fome years I applied pretty clofely to the study of pure mathematics, and was thought to have made fome proficiency in them, it was when I had not the means of employing my time as I now do, fo that I give but little attention to thofe matters. Whatever may be the cafe with you, I find that if I particularly cultivate one branch of knowledge, it must be at the expence of others. I have there-fore made my choice of the different objects of pursuit, and shall hardly change it now, except, as 1 get older, to circumfcribe my ftudies ftill more.

If any thing would justify a retort of fuch charges of unfairness, it would be your readiness, upon every flight occafion, to bring them against me. For we do not eafily fufpect others of what we feel we are incapable of ourselves. But as I am confcious of the utmoft fairness in my own conduct, I cannot lightly believe the contrary of others.

As I obferved to Mr. Venn, in the firft theological controverfy in which I engaged, p. 9. "It "behoves us carefully to diftinguish between a "latent infincerity" (the nature and caufes of which I there explain) "under the influence of which

men deceive themselves, and that direct preva• "rication, with which thofe who are engaged in "debate are too ready to charge one another, as "if their advérfaries knowingly concealed, or op

pofed the truth. This is a crime of fo heinous "a nature, that I fhould be very unwilling to "impute it to any perfon whatever." I am therefore unwilling to charge it on you, or Mr. Badcock, notwithstanding fome appearances might feem to justify me in it.

I am the most puzzled to account for the ftrange and improbable history that you, Sir, have given of a church of orthodox Jews at Jerufalem, after the time of Adrian, and the feries of hiftorical facis, as you have the affurance to call them, for which it is not poffible that you should have any authority, in ancient or even in modern writers; and yet had you yourself been prefent at the furrender of the place, and had drawn up the terms of capitulation, you could not have given a more diftinct and pofitive account. But the fact, I believe, was, that, without any examination of your own, you took it for granted, from the authority of Motheim (who had no authority for it himself) that one leading circumftance was true, and then concluded that the other circumftances, which you have added, and therefore knew that you added, mud have been fo too. On this you have not hefitat d to relate the whole in one continued narre

ult as if you had been copying from fome ian of the time; and Grigen, who lived in those

times, and in the very country, and whofe veracity was never questioned before, is treated, without ceremony, as a wilful liar, because he has given a different account of things.

As it has been very much my object to trace effects to their caufes, and I confider the human mind, and confequently all human actions, to be fubject to laws, as regular as those which operate in my laboratory (for want of knowing or attending to which Mr. Gibbon has egregiously failed in his account of the caufes of the fpread of christianity, and you in this controversy) I had framed an hypothefis to account for Mr. Badcock's cenfure of what I faid concerning Eufebius; but not being quite fatisfied with it, I rejected it. However, notwithstanding strong appearances, I am still wit ling to hope, that the mifreprefentation, though exceedingly grofs, was not directly wilful.

LETTER

XIX.

Mifcellaneous articles, and the Conclufion.

REV. SIR,

DISP

ISPOSED as you are to make the most of every trifling overfight that you can discover in my History, and of every conceffion that I make to you, I still have no objection to acknowledge any real mistake that I have fallen into, important or unimportant; and I fhall certainly correct all fuch in any future edition of my work; and likewife, as far as I am able, in the translations that are making of it into foreign languages. I fhall now make two acknowledgments, and let our readers judge of their importance; and how little my Hiftory lofes for want of being perfectly correct in thofe particulars.

I had faid that " Valefius was of opinion that "the history of Hegefippus was neglected and "loft, because it was obferved to favour the uni"tarian doctrine," whereas I fhould have faid, "on account of the errors which it contained, and "that those errors could not be fuppofed to be any "other than thofe of the unitarians;" and if I had confulted the paffage at the time, I certainly fhould have exprefled myself in that more cautious manner.

But

But of what confequence is this circumstance to my great argument? Mr. Badcock, having looked for the paffage to which I refer, and not being able to find it, feems to have imagined that I had no fuch paffage to produce. He therefore after his infolent manner, challenges me to produce it, and to put him to fhame. That I believe to be impoffible, otherwise it would have been effectually done in my Remarks on the Monthly Review; at least, by my notice of his most shameful conduct with respect to my cenfure of Eufebius, p. 21, of which he fays nothing at all in his Letter to me. I suppose he thought it not to be regarded. However the paffage which I refer to, and which fufficiently answers my purpose, is as follows: "Moreover, thofe books of Clement contained "a fhort and compendious expofition of both "the testaments, as Photius in his Bibliotheca "witneffes; but on account of the errors with "which they abounded, being negligently kept,

they were at length loft; nor was there any "other reason, in my opinion, why the books "of Papias, Hegefippus, and others of the anci"ents are now lost *.”

You, Sir, however have obferved this paffage, and you fay, p. 4. "Valefius has indeed ex

Porro ii Clementis libri continebant brevem & compendiariam utriufquæ teftamenti expofitionem, ut teftatur Photius. in Bibliotheca. Ob errores autem quibus fcatebant, negligentius habiti, tandem perierunt. Nec alia, meo quidem judicio, caufa eft, cur Papiæ & Hegefippi, aliorumque veterum libri, interciderint. In Eufeb. Hift. Lib. v. cap. 11.

O 2

"preffed