fictitious leprosies with drugs, and so healed the lepers, and fictitious sore arms and sore legs.

They were afraid also, lest it should be said, that Jesus's demoniacs were only persons hired to counterfeit raving madness.

Thus it was quite unnecessary for the Jesuan preachers, swindlers, or pastors, to copy from the fable of Chrishna. The real, untoward circumstances of Jesus's real life, would suggest fables to hide and explain away ill-looking events.

Again, with regard to the genuineness of Paul's Epistles. It is not easy to counterfeit a real correspondence. We have no example extant of a forgery of epistles so successful as that of Paul's would be.

A novelist's letters are not in the least like them, for the novelist writes for the general reader, and, therefore, to keep up the thread of the history, he tells the reader a great deal more than a real correspondent does. See how many things Paul omits, which would interest the reader to know; witness, his shipwrecks, his stonings, bis journies into Cilicia, his voyage to Crete; whether he travelled into the Peloponesus he has not said, nor whether he attempted to plant churches southward of Corinth. He does not inform us by what eloquence he persuaded Onesimus to return back to his master Philemon; all these omissions are the manner of the real correspondent.

Somebody, whether Mr. T. or not, has said, that the more any writing has the looks of genuineness, the more likely to be forged, for that it is the object of the forger to imitate truth as much as possible.

Here is one link wanting in the argument, for, to make it conclusive, it ought to be shown, that men always attain all their objects, and always succeed in all their endeavours.

Besides, another link is so fractured, as to be nearly useless. For, look at the real forgeries of the Jesuans, such as the passage in Josephus, and the epistles of Pilate to Tiberius, and it will be seen, that it is not always the careful endeavour of the forger to make his forgery resemble truth. So that this argument, whosever it is, for want of one, or more than one link, falls to the ground.

If it is so easy to forge thirteen Epistles of Paul, as Mr. T. maintains, I wish he would favour us with three counterfeits of his composition, that we might, by comparison, form a judgment of the facility of the attempt, and that he would let them be of as marked a character, as any of the eight following: 1 and 2 Corinth., 1 and 2 Tim., Gal., Philip, Titus and Philemon; for a mere vague declaration that it could be done, is not satisfactory.

Besides, that the thirteen Epistles were actually forged, cannot be proved any way by Mr. Taylor, for he cannot tell who forged them; and they must, whether forged or not, have been penned by somebody, and if Mr. T. cuts off all those epistles and the acts as spurious, he leaves himself no means to know enough of Paul's character, talents and circumstances, to determine that there is any thing inconsistent in the supposition, that Paul wrote them or any thing of the kind. It is impossible, therefore, for Mr. T. to prove them forged, and as tradition has allotted them to Paul, they must, in the total absence of proof to the contrary, be confined to him as his genuine letters.

The testimony of Victor Tununensis is of no weight or importance whatever in the present question.

For, that the Emperor Anastasius should publicly declare and avow his intention to corrupt the books of the New Testament, is out of the question, it is too absurd a supposition to deserve even attention. And the Emperor

could not alter those writings so as to please every body; the only course he could take to excite the least clamour, must be to make the altered copies as correct as possible, and to employ the oldest and best authorities as his guides. Those whose opinions and tenets were thwarted by this alteration, would murmur, and Victor Tununensis may be presumed to have been of that number; and as his complaint is not corroborated by other and better testimony, we may conclude that it was ill-founded.

Archbishop Lanfranc's alteration of the New Testament must be confined to England and Normandy, and no doubt the alteration was a mere rectification of the errors of copyists, or else there would have been a complaint against this meddling of his, and all would have been set right again.

As to the story of the rocket-maker, we may conclude that the best editions that could be procured, were employed for the received printed edition; and after the New Testament had come out in print, the manuscripts might be thought of little use, and taken small care of, and might fall into the hands of a rocket-maker; but when we consider how much more care is taken to make an impression faithful than a manuscript, there is no reason to think, that the edition suffered materially in point of correctness. And the errors, if any, could only be such as would affect the professors of Jesuism, and might favour ons sect of Jesuans more than another, but must be too unimportant to interest disbelievers. The same may be said with regard to the liberties taken by Erasmus with the books of the New Testament.

Having established the genuineness of the Epistles attributed to Paul of Tarsus, we will now proceed to consider, since we have discovered Paul to be the author of them, whether those epistles furnish any arguments to prove the Jesuan religion to be false.

In the first place, we collect that Jesus was crucified. 1 Cor. c. v. 23, "we preach Christ crucified;" again, "for though he was crucified through weakness," 2 Cor. c. 12. v. 4. See also, Gal. c. 3, v. 1.

We will next examine on what account Jesus was crucified.

Now there are only four causes supposeable for his being crucified : 1. On account of religion.

2. As being a slave.

3. For giving umbrage to the Roman government; and

4. For robbery.

First, he could not have been crucified on account of religion, for the Roman civil authorities never interfered with the religious questions and disagreements among the Jews, they tolerated their culte, but never inquired into particulars. They only required that their harangues or arguments should be conducted within doors, or that they would not raise too large a concourse in the open air. John the Baptist was not beheaded for setting up a new sect of religion; but because he drew a concourse into the wilderness. This, the Romans would not suffer, because it might be the means of raising an insurrection; and the disturbance caused by Judas of Galilee, and Theudas, made them the more strict and jealous in that particular.

Secondly. He could not have been crucified as a slave, for he was not a slave; if he had been, we should have heard of Jesus's master.

Thirdly.-Jesus could not have been crucified for giving umbrage to the Roman government, such as, by setting up for a king, or raising a rebellion; for we read in 1 Cor. c. 15, v. 4, that Jesus" was buried." Now, the sentence of crucifixion implies, that the condemned shall hang on the cross until the flesh is picked off from his bones by the birds, and

till the skeleton dropped off for want of support. But as Jesus was buried, he must have been taken down by the favour of the governor; yet the governor dared not have shown him that favour, if Jesus had been crucified on a political account, for then he might have been taken down alive, and have renewed his attempts.

Fourthly. There now remains but one supposition, and that must be the true one, and there is no possibility to avoid it; that is, that Jesus was charged at least with a robbery. That crime of the robbery of a freebooter, was punishable by the Roman law by crucifixion, as we have it in Horace

Non fur ca ne pascas in cruce corvos.

"You are not a robber, that you may not be food for ravens on the 39 cross."

We will now proceed to enquire whether Jesus was innocent or guilty of the robbery of a freebooter, with which he was charged before the procurator Pontius Pilate.

Now we read in 1 Cor. c. 11. v. 23, that "Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread."

Mind, reader, the word "betrayed." He can betray no trust, who is not trusted. Jesus's residence at night, was a secret, and that secret was entrusted to some one, who betrayed him. Now, it is manifest, that Jesus was endeavouring to elude the ministers and officers of the law; he needed not otherwise have strove to keep his residence at night a secret. If he did not positively go and surrender himself up to take his trial, he need not have skulked away into secrecy, unless he had been conscious that he was guilty.

We find, moreover, that Jesus made but a very indifferent defence at his trial; for we have in 1 Tim. c. 6. v. 13, "Christ Jesus, who, before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession;" or a good profession as it ought to have been translated; for we are not obliged to suppose that he actually confessed the robbery. Mind, reader, a good profession is a very different thing from a justification or clearing of himself. Goodness is a term of indeterminate signification; it is elastic, it can expand, and contract, and take all shapes; but justice is rigid, and preserves its forms and dimensions unaltered. Observe, that it is Jesus's party who speak here, the other side is not heard; who would have explained goodness to mean evil, for goodness is thus convertible. The right and reasonable interpretation of Jesus's good profession is, that he wandered from the subject, that he did not keep to the point, that he did not repel the charges, that his answer was unsatisfactory, and he was cast for death. This tallies with, and explains the reason of his keeping his residence at night, a secret, only known to real or supposed friends.

We pass on now to consider the miracle of Jesus's resurrection.

But, if Jesus had the governor Pilate for his friend, which he had, as has been already shown, then he did not die of crucifixion, for there was nothing to cause his death. He had received no wound in any vital part of his body, only his hands and feet were hurt, of this injury he might soon be healed. Jesus's was only a sham death; he was taken down alive from the cross at night, by direction or permission from Pilate, his friends only gave out that he had been buried, to prevent farther enquiry about him, while his wounds were healing; so that he might without anything wonderful, be seen alive by Peter and the rest of the cleven, because he had not been dead; thus, from the indulgence of Pilate, or his accessibleness to bribery, was trumped up the nonsensical story of Jesus's resurrection from the dead.

Again, from the false miracle of Jesus's resurrection, we discover that all his other miracles were false miracles; for a superior being would not suffer true and false miracles to be mixed together, because the false miracles would discredit the true ones, and render them useless.

That miracles have been attributed to Jesus, we collect from Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. ii. v. 3. and 4, " by the Lord, (that is Jesus) and was confirmed unto us by those that heard him; God also bearing them witness, with signs and wonders." Besides, the same is impliedly intimated when Paul also pretends to call his conjuring tricks, or his miracles by confederacy, real miracles, in Rom. c. xv. v. 19, and in 2 Cor. c. xii. v. 12.

That Jesus, after his escape from death by crucifixion, lived in Arabia, we collect from Gal. c. i. v. 16, 17. "I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia." Mark the antithesis between the apostles and somebody else, of at least as much importance with the party as the apostles, that is, Jesus. Paul went into Arabia to have an interview with Jesus, at the first when he came over to Jesus's side.

Moreover, Jesus's miracles being proved to be all false ones, he is thereby demonstrated to be neither the Son of God, nor the Christ, or Messiah.

Before I quit the subject of the genuineness of Paul's Epistles, I have to remark, that the sect of the Ebionites rejected from being held as their scriptures, these epistles of Paul's, not on the ground of their spuriousness, but because he was an apostate from the religion of the Jews, to which they adhered as well as to Jesuism. Now, if the Ebionites had thought the epistles spurious, that alone would have been a sufficient reason for rejecting them; yet they lived at a time early enough to know whether they were spurious or genuine. Irenæus (Book i. chap. 26.) says to this effect. Theodoret also, in Book 1.

The Encratita, another sect, spoke greatly to the disadvantage of Paul, and rejected both his Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles also, probably because Luke was a companion of Paul.-Eusebius, Book iv. chap. 27, of his Ecclesiastical History.

Thirdly, we come to speak of the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles, attributed to Luke.

And by going over nearly the same ground, as in regard to the Epistles of Paul, we may prove the Acts to have really been written by Luke.

That the Acts were from the first attributed to one of Paul's compani ons, appears from the use of the first person plural, we, from the time that Paul arrived at Troas.

The Acts of the Apostles is a valuable book to disbelievers, because it helps to the knowledge more of detailed particulars, and of things which cannot be inferred from Paul's Epistles.

Mr. Taylor, I think, has somewhere pointed out two murders, that is, the poisoning of Ananias and Sapphira his wife. But another murder is detected by means of the Acts, that is, of Judas, who was stabbed by James the brother of John.

First, in regard to the poisoning of Ananias and Sapphira, we read, chap. 5th, that both Ananias and his wife died suddenly, a coincidence that establishes that both died a violent death. But the apostles waited at table upon the church of the Jesuans; therefore, the apostles must have poisoned them. In confirmation of that already obvious conclusion, which is apparent enough from the trumping up of the idle story of the miraculous death of Ananias and his wife; for those are the people in want

of the story of a miracle, who have guilty deeds to conceal by means of it; but besides this, in chap. 6, we find the apostles turned off from the place of waiters at table, probably from fear that they should physic other members of the Jesuan church.

Secondly, in respect to the murder of Judas by James, we have it in Acts, c. i. v. 18, that Judas "purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Falling headlong is a phrase for hanging himself. It means, that he stood upon something, while he tied the rope round his neck, then, jumping from the place, he remained suspended. The Acts says that he hung himself. But who saw him hang himself? If any body had been present, he would have cut Judas down. Therefore he could only have been found hanging with his bowels gushing out, through a stab which he had received in the belly. He could not have committed suicide, as is pretended in the Acts of the Apostles; for, if Judas stabbed himself first, he could not hang himself afterwards; and if he hung himself first, he could not stab himself afterwards; therefore he must have been murdered.

Now, in order to find out the murderer, I divide society into two parts, the adherents of Jesus, and the rest of the world. Which party trumped up the story of the miracle? Jesus's party. The miracle then was useful to Jesus's party, and some one of that party committed the murder. Now, to fix upon the individual who murdered Judas, we find, (Acts, c. xii. v. 1, 2.) that James, the brother of John, was put to death by Herod; and he is the only one of Jesus's adherents, who is mentioned in the Acts to have suffered death from the law; James, therefore, was the murderer. James stabbed Judas, and Peter assisted to hang him. You see, that the reason why James was put to death by Herod is not stated in the Acts; because James had committed a crime, and the Jesuan writer could not flatly deny it, but endeavours, by the manner of his omission, to have it thought, that James was persecuted by Herod on account of religion.

Herod seeing that it pleased the Jews, not that he had put James to death, for that he would have done at all events, whether it pleased the Jews or not; but seeing that what follows would please the Jews, proceeded further to apprehend Peter also. But the angel of the Lord appeared in the shape of a sum of money, and persuaded the keepers to let Peter escape from prison.

We see, that Herod did not lean to the side of severity but of lenity: for he would not have apprehended the accessory Peter, if it had been the wish of the Jews to have justice fully executed.

In the Acts, we discover the iniquity of the Apostles in other respects, besides the three murders already pointed out. But it may be asked, why was not the poisoning of Ananias and Sapphira punished in the same way as the stabbing of Judas? 1 answer, that a case of poisoning could not be made out clear enough for conviction, from the want of skill in medicine in those days.

We discern the iniquity of Peter, in Acts c. 2, v. 23. where he says to the Jews, "Jesus have ye taken, and by wicked hands crucified and slain." Now the Jews could not have been wicked in that instance: for they had not power to crucify; it was the Romans that crucified Jesus. Those Jews who had been robbed by Jesus had a right to accuse him; the witnesses who saw him commit the robbery had a right to declare what they saw; and the Roman judge Pontius Pilate has a right to pronounce a sentence of crucifixion, which the Roman law annexed to the crime of rob