might have been to have entered into such a conspiracy against the world, it is incredible that their son, Jesus Christ, should become the agent of it, as his was to be all loss, and no gain.

Hence then, instead of "hearsay upon hearsay," to give credibility to this narrative, we have a chain of stronger arguments to support it, than can be brought forward to establish any fact in profane history. We have more than that evidence which will always satisfy the candid mind; and he who asks for further proof, does not ask with a wish to be satisfied, but to shew that he can demand more, than reason can supply.

"It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the Heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world; and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the Heathen mythology, were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing, at that time, to believe a man to have been celestially begotten: the intercourse of gods with women, was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story, therefore, had nothing in it, either new, wonderful, or obscene: it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people, called Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was those people only, that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the Heathen mythology, never credited the story.”

This paragraph is calculated to make a very false impression upon the ignorant mind. How many have read it and believed, that the miraculous birth of our Saviour, was a fable, grounded upon no better authority than the birth of a Hercules. Why did not Mr. Paine, when he declared, that there was nothing "new, or wonderful" in it, produce, at least, one precedent to countenance his assertion? I will tell the disciples of Mr. Paine why: because there was no one to produce. And if the Heathen

mythology had, at that time, some "repute in the world," still let the Reader be informed, that that mythology itself, rested, altogether, on evidence out of the reach of legitimate History; so that the "fashion," was grown quite out of practice, as far as regarded either the "intercourse of gods with women," or the "deification" of men. More than one, and, probably, more than two thousand years had passed away, since these allegorical fictions were pretended to be "new;" a pretension unsupported by the least evidence. It is a much more reasonable conjecture, that they arose out of perverted traditions, derived from the Pelasgian ancestors of the Grecians, who derived them from the immediate descendants of Noah, blended with Chaldaic and Ægyptian Idolatry; and enlarged with such additions, as the warm imaginations of a superstitious people, could impart to them. When tradition is once diverted from its channel, and blends its waters with the streams of contiguous nations, it loses its own purity, and partakes of the qualities of those with which it is intermingled: and, as it removes from its source, it changes not only its nature, but its name also.

So" new and wonderful" would have been the revival of any part of the Heathen mythology to the Gentiles, that if another Alcmena had produced another Hercules, they would have attached no credit to the narrative; although they scrupled not to assign a place in the Pantheon, to that extraordinary personage; much less would they have credited the story of a Virgin's having brought forth a child, because they had neither precedent to justify such an aberration from nature, nor antecedent authority to expect it. It may, moreover, be observed, that the Heathen mythology fabled the birth of no demigod, without fabling at the same time, an illustrious course of exploits, to rivet the astonished eye in admiration, on his stupendous powers; powers that differed not in kind,, but degree, from his humbler, and more mortal contempo-. raries; than whom he was seldom wiser or better. Though some were the leaders of armies, and others the founders,

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of cities, yet many exhibited lives that were voluptuous, debauched, cruel, or contemptible. Is there any resemblance in all this, to the silent virtues, the pure benevolence, the unostentatious miracles, and the divine morality of our blessed Saviour? When compared together, they resemble two diverging lines, which, if observed, as Mr. Paine has done, in single points, may appear to be parallel; but, when continuously traced, are found to proceed together not an infinitesimal of space; and the further they are pursued, the more remote are they asunder. Still Mr. Paine, truly, says, "the Gentiles believed it, (the miraculous conception) but adds, that "the Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the Heathen mythelogy, never credited the story." Mr. Paine would wish us to infer from this remark, that the reason why “the Jews never credited the story," was, because" they be lieved in one God, and no more, and rejected the Heathen mythology." How plain a tale shall put him down! Know then, that, although, to the Gentiles such a birth, and such a character, were most unexpected, and extraordinary events, yet the Jews had, for more than seven hundred years before, been told, that such a birth was to take place among them. "A Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son" was the language of prophecy contained in a Book which they revered as sacred, and were daily accustomed to read. They, therefore, expected such an event. They were, at that very time, looking for it. What will the disciples of Mr. Paine, say to this? Which had the greater reason to believe it; the Jews, or the Gentiles? But, then, "the Jews never credited the story." I will explain to Mr. Paine's disciples why they did not; but, first, let me observe, that the Jews, who were immediately interested in the truth or falshood of it, have never been able to offer one satisfactory reason to disprove it. Even Judas, whom they bribed, did not, although he was competent to have done so, if the whole had been a contrivance, impute any thing of deception to Christ. Would

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they not have been glad to have had from such a witness, a charge against his pretensions to divinity, and an exposure of the confederacy, by which the scheme of his ministry was conducted, rather than one that should merely render him obnoxious to the Roman Governor? Such allegations, if supported, would have answered every purpose; for his Disciples would have quitted him as a cheat, and the progress of proselytism would instantly have ceased. But nothing of this kind was attempted. The true reason why the Jews rejected him, was because they expected, in the fulfilment of the prophecy of Moses which declared, that "God should raise up among them, a Prophet like unto him," the coming of a temporal prince who would emancipate them from the Romans, and restore them to power and independence, as he had formerly done from the hands of the Egyptians. They preferred that brief prediction, which admitted of a construction, that flattered their worldly interests, to the more detailed prophecy of Isaiah, which told them, that their Messias should be "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief." They had, like the modern Deists, drawn out a plan for the Almighty, and were not disposed to admit of any other. This was their reason for discrediting the story, and not, as Mr. Paine untruly intimates, because they "rejected the Heathen mythology." Herod, a man not less jealous of his enemies than cruel to his friends, seems to have attached some credit to the report of our Saviour's birth, and probably expected to be supplanted in his Government by it; or he would not have carried his brutal massacre into execution.

Mr. Paine, in this Paragraph, resembles a man aiming a destructive blow at a stately pillar, in the hope of its demolition; whereas, it receives the stroke unshaken, and returns the weapon with all its force upon the impotent assailant. For he acknowledges, that the Jews, "had kept strictly to the belief of one God, whilst the Gentiles, that is, all the other nations of the world, had a belief in a mul

titude of divinities. "How will he explain this? That the Grecians were a people as intelligent as the Jews, and the Romans fell short of neither, cannot be denied. How came it, then, that one small nation alone, should arrive at a truth, which Mr. Paine has implied, in another place, to be obvious to the commonest understanding; so much so, as to be the only foundation of the religion and morality of mankind? It will admit of no other reply, than the direct revelation of God himself to the Jewish people. And thus, whilst he fancied himself destroying the pillar of Revealed Religion, the stroke recoils upon himself, and lays him prostrate at its base.

"It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the Heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed, was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of Heroes changed into the canonization of Saints. The Mythologists had gods for every thing; the Christian Mythologists had saints for every thing. The Church became as crowded with the one, as the Pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place e of both. The Christian theory is little else than the Idolatry of the purposes of ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the and revepower nue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy, to abolish the amphibious fraud."

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What Mr. Paine means by the Christian Church" springing out of the tail of the Heathen mythology," he has, with more candour and explicitness than is his custom, declared in the sequel of this Paragraph: namely, the re-. duction of the plurality of gods to the Christian trinity of persons in one God. The succession of the statue of Mary to the statue of Diana of Ephesus;—and the changing the deification of Heroes, into the canonization of Saints,

Before I offer any objection to these charges, it cannot