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assist our frail natures in the discharge of our duty, we may, I think, reasonably conclude that our efforts will not prove the less successful.

LETTER II.

To a person disposed to govern his life on the reasonable principles with which we concluded our last; or, indeed, from any motives, solicitous respecting futurity; it will become a natural and interesting enquiry, Whether Christianity be true or not? Whether motives so cogent, and rules of conduct so reasonable in themselves, have been connected (in order to secure to them a more decided weight and influence) with an imposing tale of divine and miraculous authority, or whether the system actually comes from Gon himself? -Whether, in short, Christianity be a pious fraud, or a Divine revelation?

to your reason. It is not my intention, as I have before intimated, (nor indeed is it within my ability) to enter at large on the subject; it is unnecessary too, since it has been ably done by others; but I may dispose you to a more ready entrance on the enquiry by one very simple, yet compendious, argument on the subject.

The Apostles of CHRIST were clearly either enthusiasts or impostors, or they were divinely commissioned. They were deceived, or else they wilfully attempted to deceive; or, if neither of these, they were, what they pretended to be, the messengers of a Divine revelation. This will not be disputed. Now I venture to affirm, that, the more acutely you examine the subject, or scrutinize their narratives, with a view to detect either of the above unfavourable characters in their authors, the more impossi-ble you will find it to succeed. For, as to the first supposition, that "of their being deceived;" consider how this could be the case with regard to some of the most important miracles they relate; could they not, for example, be certain whether they actually saw (not one or

two persons, but) multitudes (not once or twice, but) over and over again, instantaneously, completely, and publicly cured of blindness, lameness, palsy, withered limbs, and in short, of all the various distempers that afflict mankind? Whether they actually saw, or not, thousands fed and filled with a few loaves and fishes; and whether the fragments of these meals, gathered up by themselves before the multitudes, did, or did not, actually fill seven or twelve baskets? Could they be deceived as to the fact they asserted (and died to attest) of repeatedly seeing, feeling, eating, and conversing with their crucified Master, after his resurrection from a death publicly inflicted by his enemies? And, not to be tedious, could they be deceived as to the fact, whether they themselves possessed, and in numerous instances exercised, the power of working miracles of as unquestionable a nature as those attributed to their Lord? And, finally, whether they were, or not, miraculously, visibly, and instantaneously gifted with the capacity of fluently speaking all the various languages of their various converts through every part of the then known world? Could

they possibly (in this particular) impose on themselves, and also on those they addressed? Let this be considered, and let the inference I draw, viz. that "the Apostles were not deceived," be resisted; if possible.

Now let us proceed to the opposite supposition, that of "their having been impostors ; that, though not themselves deceived, they deceived others. The credulity of mankind has, in all ages, been wonderfully great; but let us examine, whether many of the circumstances attending the origin and promulgation of Christianity are not of a nature to have operated most powerfully against an unfounded assent; and from the known tendencies of human nature to have required, in order to satisfy most minds, an almost irresistible degree of proof and conviction of its divine authority.

For, first; the nature, frequency, and publieity of most of the miracles, asserted to have been performed by CHRIST and his Apostles, rendered it nearly as impossible for the spectators to have been deceived by trick, contrivance, or legerdemain, as for the Apostles to have been so. Even the conviction. produced by wit

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nessing one or two miracles would naturally be weakened, unless actually confirmed by the fuvourable testimony of the numerous spectators of so many other wonders: among which spectators, it is to be remembered, were to be found. the determined and watchful enemies of their persons and doctrines; individuals generally of the most consequence, learning, and discernment in the community..

Secondly; it is to be considered too, that it was not an indolent assent that was demanded,. but an absolute subjection of the whole heart and life to a specific system of conduct. The believers were required to sacrifice their strongest passions, their fixed habits of life, and their rooted prejudices of opinion; to be prepared to encounter (what, in fact, they gene rally did encounter) persecution, contempt, domestic alienations of affection, loss of property, and loss of life. And yet thousands, not only in Judea where CHRIST was crucified as a malefactor, but throughout Greece and Rome, Asia and Europe, renounced the religion of their country, to embrace such doctrines, proceeding from such a personage, preached by

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