The motions of the largest maffes, and the most minute particles of matter, all performed with the fame order and ease, and regulated by laws furprisingly simple and extenfive, penetrating the inmost recesses of bodies, and extended throughout the universe, evince the direction of an OMNIPOTENT ALMIGHTY POWER actuating the whole. In every part and operation of nature, the fitness of things to one another, and their fubferviency to the best ends, and to the use and felicity of intelligent beings, point out the confummate wisdom and goodness of one GREAT ARTIFICER, one ORIGINAL MIND. The course of nature is undoubtedly the effect of the inceffant direction of the DEITY, no less than its creation and original arrangement: it seems impoffible, and incomprehenfible, that any mechanical power, any organization of mere matter, could of itself, without direction, or art, produce vegetables and animals, all machines of exquifite conftruction, at all times and every where arifing, being in the strictest regularity and astonishing profufion: tafting life, and by an established order, made inftinctive and blind inftruments to bestow it upon others, and then retiring from this stage of exiftence as it were to make room for thefe. The verdure of the field, and all its flowery plants, the humble fhrub, the lofty trees, in infinite variety, are his constant care, as well as his bounteous gift. Sole giver of life, HE infpires with animation the meaneft infect, and most abject reptile, no less than the more perfect and nobler animals, and by HIS wisdom guides them all to the several ends of their existence. Every thing, in fine, on earth and in the heavens, manifefts and prefents HIM to us; and in the wonders of the lowest, as well as the most magnificent of his works, the understanding with adoration traces the per fections of a CREATOR, who is not far from any one of us, for " in his image created he man * " *If we impose a filence on our fenfes, and fhut ourselves up for a while in the inmoft receffes of our thoughts, and banish all earthly ideas, we fhall then perceive the image of the TRINITY we adore. "Let us create man "after our image," fays our CREATOR.-We must now feparate all idea of earthly parts, in order to comprehend this fublime mystery. Buried in deep contemplation, we first cannot but acknowledge a MIND, which begets IDEAS, from whence proceed inward SATISFACTION or PAIN.--The mind is the UNDERSTANDING; the ideas, if written, are expreffed by WORDS, and the satisfaction or pain is the DISPOSITION of soul resulting from both.-We cannot feparate the three;-and fuppofing the three ETERNAL, neither is one, before, or after, the other. The THOUGHT, which we perceive fprings up in our mind, is an image of the SON OF GOD.-Wherefore this SON OF GOD is called the WORD, and refulting from BOTH is the HOLY GHOST, or LOVE, for GOD is LOVE. With this conception of the Trinity, which may be seen in the works of St. AUGUSTIN and other of the ancient fathers, the Scriptures are intelligible to all perfons, and not that impoffible thing which an improper interpretation may render it. The converfion of such a man as St. PAUL furnishes one of the most complete proofs of the divine origin of our holy religion, and therefore of this truth, That SAUL, from being a zealous perfecutor of the difciples of CHRIST, became all at once a disciple himself, is a fact which cannot be controverted without overturning the credit of all history. He must therefore have been converted in the miraculous manner in which he himfelf faid he was, and of course the CHRISTIAN RELIGION be a DIVINE REVELATION; or he must have been either an IMPOSTOR, an ENTHUSIAST, or a DUPE to the fraud of others. There is not another alternative poffible. If he was an IMPOSTOR, who declared what he knew to be falfe, he must have been induced to act that part by fome motive. But the only conceivable motives for religious imposture are, the hopes of advancing one's temporal intereft, credit, or power; or the prospect of gratifying some paffion or appetite under the authority of the new religion. That none of these could be St. PAUL'S motive for profeffing the faith of CHRIST crucified, is plain from the ftate of Judaism and Christianity at the period of his forfaking the former and embracing the latter faith. Those whom he left were the disposers of wealth, of dignity, of power, in Judea: those to whom he went were indigent men, oppreffed, and kept from all means of improving their fortunes. The certain confequence therefore of his taking the part of Christianity was the lofs not only of all that he poffeffed, but of all hopes of acquiring more; whereas, by continuing to perfecure the Chriftians, he had hopes rifing almost to a certainty of making his fortune, by the favour of those who were at the head of the Jewish state, to whom nothing could fo much recommend him as the zeal which he had fhewn in that perfecution. As to credit or reputation, could the scholar of GAMALIEL hope to gain either by becoming a teacher in a college of fishermen? Could he flatter himself, that the doctrine which he taught would, either in or out of Judea, do him honour, when he knew that "it was to "the Jews a ftumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishnefs?" Was it then the love of power that induced him to make this great change? Power! over whom? over a flock of fheep whom he himself had affifted to destroy, and, whofe very Shepherd had lately been murdered! Perhaps it was with the view of gratifying some licentious paffion, under the authority of the new religion, that that he commenced a teacher of that religion! This cannot be alledged; for his writings breathe nothing but the strictest morality, obedience to magistrates, order, and government, with the utmost abhorrence of all licencioufnefs, idleness, or loose behaviour, under the cloke of religion. We no where read in his works, that faints are above moral ordinances; that dominion is founded in grace; that monarchy is defpotism which ought to be abolished; that the fortunes of the rich ought to be divided among the poor; that there is no difference in moral actions; that any impulfe of the mind are to direct us against the light of our reafon and the laws of nature; or any of those wicked tenets by which the peace of fociety has been often difturbed, and the rules of morality often broken, by men pretending to act under the farction of divine revelation. He makes no diftinctions like the impoftor of Arabia in favour of himfelf; nor does any part of his life, either before or after his converfion to Christianity, bear any mark of a libertine difpofition. As among the Jews, so among the Christians, his conversation and manners were blameless.-It has been fometimes objected to the other apoftles, by those who were refolved not to credit their testimony, that, having been deeply engaged with JESUS during his life, they were obliged, for the fupport of their own credit, and from having gone too far to return, to continue the fame profeffions after his death; but this can by no means be faid of St. PAUL. On the contrary, whatever force there may be in that way of reasoning, it all tends to convince us, that St. PAUL must naturally have continued a Jew, and an enemy to CHRIST JESUS. If they were engaged on one fide, he was as ftrongly engaged on the other. If fhame withheld them from changing fides, much more ought it to have stopped him; who, from his fuperior education, must have been vaftly more fenfible to that kind of fhame than the mean and illiterate fishermen of Galilee. The only other difference was, that they, by quitting their Mafter after his death, might have preserved themselves; whereas he, by quitting the Jews, and taking up the cross of CHRIST, certainly brought on his own deftruction. As St. PAUL was not an IMPOSTOR, fo it is plain he was not an ENTHUSIAST. Heat of temper, melancholy, ignorance, and vanity, are the ingredients of which enthusiasm is compofed; but from all these, except the first, the apoftle appears to have been wholly free. That he had great fervour of zeal, both when a Jew and when a Chriftian, in maintaining what he thought to be right, cannot cannot be denied ; but he was at all times fo much mafter of his temper, as, in matters of indifference, to " become all things to all men," with the most pliant condefcenfion, bending his notions and manners to theirs, as far as his duty to God would permit; a conduct compatible neither with the stiffness of a bigot, nor with the violent impulfes of fanatical delufion. That he was not melancholy, is plain from his conduct in embracing every method which prudence could fuggeft to escape danger and fhun perfecution, when he could do it without betraying the duty of his office, or the honour of his GOD. A melancholy enthufiaft courts perfecution; and when he cannot obtain it, afflicts himself with abfurd penances: but the holiness of St. PAUL confifted only in the fimplicity of a godly life, and in the unwearied performance of his apostolical duties. That he was ignorant, no man will allege who is not grofsly ignorant himself; for he appears to have been master not only of the Jewish learning, but also of the Greek philosophy, and to have been very conversant even with the Greek poets. That he was not credulous, is plain from his having resisted the evidence of all the miracles performed on earth by CHRIST, as well as those that were afterward worked by the apoftles; to the fame of which, as he lived in Jerufalem, he could not poffibly have been a stranger. And that he was as free from vanity as any man that ever lived, may be gathered from all that we fee in his writings, or know of his life. He represents himself as the least of the apostles, and not meet to be called an apostle. He fays that he is the chief of finners; and he prefers, in the strongest terms, univerfal benevolence to faith, and prophecy, and miracles, and all the gifts and graces with which he could be endowed. Is this the language of vanity or enthusiasm? Did ever fanatic prefer virtue to his own religious opinions, to illuminations of the spirit, and even to the merit of martyrdom ? Having thus fhewn that St. PAUL was neither an IMPOSTOR nor an ENTHUSIAST, it remains only to be inquired, whether he was DECEIVED by the fraud of others: but this inquiry needs not be long, for who was to deceive him? A few illiterate filhermen of Galilee? It was morally impoffible for fuch men to conceive the thought of turning the most enlightened of their opponents, and the cruelleft of their perfecutors, into an apoftle, and to do this by a fraud in the very inftant of his greatest fury against them and their Lord. But could they have been fo extravagant as to conceive fuch a thought, it was phyfically impoffible for them to execute it in the manner in which we find his converfion to |