immortality, is doubtful? In fine, that man is a creature formed without a purpose, left to the accidents of chance, and neither under obligation to practice virtue, nor subject to apprehensions for the commisson of vice. Such is the pure Deist's real condition; and such, surely, is far from a state of "consolation." (see page 5-12).

"These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations, (which by the bye is a book of riddles that requires a Revelation to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God. It is therefore proper for us to know, who told us so, that we may know what credit to give to the report. The answer to this question is, that nobody can tell, except that we tell one another so. The case, however, historically appears to be as follows:

:

When the Church Mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us, whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testament, are in the state in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.

Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected several, they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people since calling themselves Christians, had believed otherwise; for the belief of the one, comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of; they called themselves by the general name of the Church, and this is all we know of the matter.

As we have no other internal evidence or authority for believing these books to be the word of God, than what I have mentioned, which is no evidence or authority at all, I come in the next place, to examine the internal evidence contained in the books themselves."

When Mr. Paine said, that nobody could tell who told us that the Scriptures are the word of God, or which amounts to the same thing, that we know not upon what

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authority we are called upon to believe them, he spoke of his own individual knowledge; but it cannot reasonably be expected, that the ignorance of one man should stamp a similar ignorance upon all mankind; or because Mr. Paine knew nothing of the matter, that therefore no one else does. Before I attempt to shew that we possess an unexceptionable authority for surrendering our assent to the sacred volume, it will be proper to call the reader's attention once more to Mr. Paine's ready talent at unqualified assertion. He speaks here, as he has done before, of the "Church Mythologists," without condescending to tell us whom he meant, or when they existed; but, from the context, seems to associate them with the moment they established their system." Now, if by "the system," he meant Christianity, that moment must have happened between the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and Nero; for before the time of the first we find no mention of it, and before the death of the last, it had spread into almost every province of the Roman Empire, was zealously and widely cherished at Rome itself, and had even received the countenance of some attendants of the Royal Palace. During this interval lived our blessed Lord, his Apostles, and many distinguished individuals, of whom the two last were founders andpromoters of Christian Churches in many parts of the then known world. Which of all these were the "Church Mythologists?" That Mr. Paine did not so consider our Saviour, he has admitted where he says, that "not one line of the history of his life is of his own writing;" (see page 49 &c.) that it will not apply to the Evangelists is clear from the evidence delivered in page 64 &c. and the same evidence is equally valid when extended to the writings of the Apostles. If Mr. Paine, quitting this untenable ground, shifts his charge to a later period, he will have a tenfold greater difficulty to encounter, for then it may be shown, that Christianity had before such period promulged its doctrines far and wide over the civilized world; and had every where institutions, teachers, and a multitude of disciples; so that if a body of men had ris

en up with views similar to those that Mr. Paine ascribes to the "Church Mythologists," it would have been impossible for them to have altered any article of faith, or to have palmed upon so widely scattered, and independent a multitude, any fictions of their own. No concert could have been formed and managed between bodies of men so remote from each other; no artifice could erase, "alter of dress" up the words of the original text which they had in their possessions. It would not have been sufficient to have secured the co-operation of one or two individuals in each society, although even that is more than could possibly have been obtained, they who had been long accustomed to hear it, must also have been brought into the conspiracy, or a general oblivion have been found to blot out their remembrance of those truths upon which they had founded all their hopes, and by which they had regulated all their conduct. If the Epistle to the Romans could have been perverted by imperial influence, how was that to the Corinthians?-how that to the Galatians?-how that to the Thessalonians &c. &c.

That Mr. Paine may render his absurdity more complete, he says, in the second paragraph, above quoted, that they (the Church Mythologists) managed them (the sacred Scriptures) as they pleased." This assertion, which is positive enough, and bespeaks an intimate acquaintance with the transaction to which it alludes, would, we might have thought, have been followed by some authority to establish it, or some reference to the persons engaged in it; but, instead of this, after getting through half a dozen lines, Mr. Paine confesses, that "who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of; they called themselves by the general name of the Church, and this is all we know of the matter."

But so far from the Canon of the sacred Scripture resting upon the dark assurance which he imputes to it, it is established upon an evidence to which no prophane writings can lay any pretension. First, with respect to the New Testament, it is certain that the Books which we

now receive as composing it, were received in the same state, and the same sense, before the third century, for they were referred to by a multitude of men living remote from, and independent of each other, all of whom were interested in their truth and genuineness. (see page 65 &c.) Nor would it have been possible for any council, suppose that of Laodicea, to have "added, altered, abridged or dressed them up," for, admitting that they had used such liberties with the sacred volume, would not detection have followed in a thousand instances by those who were not of that council; and who, therefore, were not participators in any of the benefits that might accrue from such liberties? Assuredly it must. We have besides this irresistible argument, another of a very extraordinary and unexpected kind, delivered to us by that indefatigable missionary, Dr. Buchanan, who found in the midst of a Country of Idolaters, a Christian Church, which, in all human probability, was established by one of the Apostles of our Lord; and, therefore, could not have formed a party in any confederacy that might afterwards exist to "alter, abridge, or dress up" the sacred writings; and, consequently, the agreement of their doctrinal belief, with the articles contained in the received volume in Christian Countries, (which is minute and particular) is a proof of the authenticity and genuineness of both.

When Mr. Paine said, that "they (meaning some Council) decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made should be the word of God, and which should not, "he implied, and wished to be understood, more than he dare express. We, though bound by the vote of an œcumenical Council to admit, not only matters of dicipline, but articles of faith, are not by that vote divested of the free exercise of our reason, as to the validity of the evidence upon which that vote has been founded. Thus, in the present case, if the vote of a Council declared which books should he accepted as authentic, and which should not, we have, independent of that Council, the concurrent testimonies of a multitude of learned men, beginning

contemporaneously with the Apostles, and uninterruptedly descending to the present hour, all tending to the establishment of the same conclusion with the vote itself; so that when we bow to the decision of that Council, we do no more than we should have done had no such vote ever passed. The vote, however, was indispensible, for immediately after the promulgation of Christianity, many characters arose; some actuated with injudicious zeal, and others impelled by wicked designs, who endeavoured to impose other books into the Church besides those which had been currently and unquestionably believed from the earliest times; and of which the archetypes were still remaining. A public and authoritative declaration of the Books which were to be regarded as Canonical, was therefore, necessary, for the benefit of those who had neither ability nor leisure to examine the books themselves.

There is an insiduous implication in the expression, "should be the word of God," which it may be proper briefly to expose. The Council which sate in judgment upon the sacred writings, had no intention of framing a word of God out of the Books they examined; but to deelare which Books were supported by that evidence that proved them TO BE the word of God.

Having established the authenticity of the New Testa ment, it will not be difficult thence to educe the authenticity of the Old. Indeed, it follows by way of corollary, for our blessed Lord and his disciples, make constant reference to the Old Testament, and never once impute to the Jews, who were its appointed custodes, either corruption or suppression of any part of it. Besides this, we have the fact, perhaps a providential one, that the holy Scriptures existed in three distinct copies, (viz.) the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint: although the two last, were copies of the first, yet the peculiar circumstances under which each retained its purity, and, consequently, acted as a check upon the other two, are sufficiently cogent to establish the incorruption of all. The Samaritans and Israelites were rival nations, and, therefore,