the year 1801 followed a second part of this work, which was intitled The Epistle of Paul to the Romans analysed, from a Developement of those Circumstances in the Roman Church by which it was occasioned.' In the former publication he had intimated his doubts as to the success of his undertaking: and he now became convinced that he had failed to interest the religious public in his speculations. He therefore discontinued the prosecution of his original plan, meaning, however, to resume the subject at a more advanced period of life,-" When," he writes, "the fashionable levity and scepticism of the times should, in some degree, subside, and the spirit of party give way to a rational inquiry and a zeal for the truth."

In the year 1808, Dr Jones published Illustrations of the Four Gospels, founded on circumstances peculiar to our Lord and his Evangelists.' This work is distinguished by a mode of thinking peculiar to the author, and evinces an intimate acquaintance with the sacred writings and with Christian antiquity. It has been regarded as one of his ablest theological productions. Many of his illustrations' are strikingly original, and as felicitous as they are original. They discover an acute mind, always feelingly alive to the unrivalled excellence of our Lord's manner of instruction, and to the unstudied but exquisite beauties of his historians. *

Dr Jones's next theological publication is, in some respects, the most extraordinary of all his works. It is intitled Ecclesiastical Researches; or Philo and Josephus proved to be Historians and Apologists of Christ, of his Followers, and of his Gospel; and was printed in 1812. The general object and design of this treatise are sufficiently indicated by its title. The author here maintains at length the hypothesis at which he had cursorily hinted in preceding publications, that Philo and Josephus were Christians, and that under the appellation of Jews or Jewish believers they characterise those who are supposed, like themselves, to have embraced the Gospel.

In his preface, Dr Jones says

"There are three points of view in which this volume will, it is hoped, claim the attention of my readers. First, they will not fail to notice the charming character drawn by Philo of the first Jewish believers. In these Christians, he will recognise the genuine effects of the Gospel, while yet operating in its original purity. Their wisdom and unrivalled virtue must raise them not only above the suspicion, but, morally speaking, above the possibility of being themselves deceived, or of having voluntarily concurred to deceive others, in regard to the system under the influence of which they acted. Se

* Idem, p. 295.

condly, my readers will regard, with agreeable surprise, the amazing progress which the Gospel made in the world soon after its first promulgation. They will perceive, from the most unquestionable authority, that not only its prevalence, but the difficulties which it had to encounter, far exceeded the belief and even the conception of men in modern days. In a few years after the resurrection of Jesus, the word of God, like the light of the sun, pervaded the whole habitable globe and Josephus, before the close of his life, could say, that no place among the Greeks or Barbarians existed, in which it was not known and embraced. The men engaged in propagating it were not only reproached and hated, but were destroyed in heaps, as the enemies of mankind and of the Gods. Nevertheless their cause mightily prevailed. By the preaching of St Paul and others in Damascus, all the women in that town, with few only excepted, became obedient to the faith; and not only the preachers of it, but all the nation to which they belonged, in that city, perished, to the amount of 18,000. Ten hundred thousand Jews, a great proportion of whom were Christians, suffered persecution in the provinces of Egypt, during the reign of Caligula; and 50,000 fell at Alexandria in the same day, at the time in which Gibbon asserts that the destruction of the Christians by Nero was confined to the walls of Rome. Nor did the new religion gain converts only among the lower or middle classes of society, but prevailed among all descriptions of men. It forced its way into the schools of philosophy, into the seats of power, and into the palaces of princes, and made splendid captives among those whom it found most hostile by their rank and education. In this honourable number were Epaphroditus, the master of Epictetus, Clement, the cousin of Domitian, the royal family of the Adiabenes, and Philo and Josephus. Thirdly, owing to obvious causes, a wide difference necessarily subsists between the modern and the ancient sceptics. Many of the former, though they reject Christianity, may yet be honest and upright men. But they who opposed it on its first propagation, and in the ages immediately succeeding, forfeited every claim to integrity and honour. For the salutary influence which the new faith exerted, in reforming and enlightening mankind, was so obvious, and the miracles on which it rested were so unquestionable, that its divine origin could not be resisted without the consciousness of guilt. The cause of Christianity, on its first appearance, was obviously the cause of truth and virtue; and no one could set his face against it, without denying what, on one hand, he knew to be true, and asserting what, on the other, he knew to be false. They who could be free to act this part, in a question of such importance as the credibility of the Christian religion, must have been in a high degree depraved and unprincipled: and to this imputation will be found liable even those men whom Gibbon represents as adorning the age in which they lived, and exalting our notions of human nature. On the account which this celebrated historian has given of the rise and progress of Christianity, I have had frequent occasions to animadvert with great severity. Indeed, his narrative appears to me,

not a faithful impartial history, but a disgusting tissue of misrepresentations and falsehoods, disguised under studied embellishments of language, and dictated by pride, ignorance, and malice. His assertions, while aiming to degrade Christ and his followers, are diametrically opposite to the truth. Philo and Josephus furnish happy materials to refute and expose him; and they will appear to rise from the grave, as if to avenge the insults offered to the sacred cause of truth and virtue, by this insidious and haughty sceptic."

The following paragraphs, selected from the conclusion of the work, will serve still further to illustrate the scope of the singular hypothesis which the author has so warmly undertaken to support:

"The providence of God has preserved the means of filling up, to a considerable extent, the chasm which has occasioned so much regret, doubt, and uncertainty in ecclesiastical history, from the apostolic age to the days of Justin Martyr. The writings of Philo and Josephus comprehend, one after another, the leading events which befel the Jews, from the advent of Christ to the close of the first century; and these, in an eminent degree, illustrate and confirm the truth of the evangelical records. These authors were men of distinguished probity and talents: they were not only spectators of, but agents in the great transactions which they record; and as they could not themselves be mistaken, they were raised by their integrity and honour above the wish of deceiving others."

"However small might have been the number of those who believed in Jesus at the period of his crucifixion, that number continually increased, as the genius of his religion and the evidences of his divine mission gradually developed themselves; till, about the destruction of the Jewish state, the nation was divided into two parties-the more virtuous and enlightened, who enlisted under the banners of Christ; and the incorrigibly wicked, who evaded the justice of his claims, by plunging in atheism and idolatry. The signs exhibited by our Lord, and the consequent diffusion of Christianity, awakened expectation, and produced disputes and convulsions, which could proceed from no other causes; and the certainty of these convulsions, recorded by Philo and Josephus as having occurred, not only in Jerusalem, but in Alexandria, Rome, and all the cities of the empire, absolutely proves the reality of those causes. If we judge of the efficacy and propagation of the Gospel from the facts recorded by these writers, it is impossible not to infer but that its teachers were actually invested with the miraculous powers ascribed to them in the New Testament. Thousands and tens of thousands, supposed to this day to have been strictly Jews, embraced it solely by virtue of those powers; and being determined to support and to promote it, suffered death in attestation of its truth."

"As Philo and Josephus defend the Christians under the name of Jews, so we may conclude that Apion, Helicon, and others, who opposed and defamed the Jews, were opponents and defamers of the

Christians and their cause. The works of those adversaries who were contemporary with Philo and Josephus, and whose malice and misrepresentations contributed to call forth their writings, have unfortunately been lost; but we clearly see, in the language and quotations of their illustrious antagonists, the nature of those arts to which they had recourse, in order to defeat the gospel."

"The rising church of Christ had nothing to support it but the wisdom and works of its founder; and all the violent passions of men, as so many convulsive elements, conspired to shake it to pieces. If any impression could have been made upon it, Apion and his coadjutors would not have failed to produce it, in circumstances so favourable. They had wit, learning, eloquence, reputation, and all the powers of the world on their side; they had every opportunity to ascertain the real truth, and every advantage for bringing to light any falsehood or imposture in the cause which they undertook to combat. Yet, if we look to the dispute between them and Philo and Josephus, we can venture to pronounce that the victory is signally on their side [the side of the latter]; since we see them characterised by sobriety of mind, by a zeal for truth, by the reasonableness and importance of the system which they defended, as well as by very superior learning and talents. Indeed, so far are they raised in these respects above their antagonists as is the pole above the centre of the earth.*

Those who are acquainted with ecclesiastical history, are sufficiently aware that the sects of ancient ascetics described by Josephus and Philo, under the appellations of Essenes and Therapeutæ, and commonly regarded as Jews, are, by some modern writers, maintained to have been Christians; but no one before Dr Jones seems to have thought of adopting so sweeping a conclusion as that the two historians, just mentioned, are to be considered as chroniclers of the early triumphs of Christianity; or, as he strongly states, that "When we read in Philo and Josephus of pagan converts made to Judaism, we are always to understand them as meaning that refined and spiritual Judaism which was taught by Christ and his apostles.+ There is no novelty certainly in the opinion that Philo was a Christian; but it has also been asserted that he was a Heathen, or at least a Platonist; and, judging from his writings, the probability seems stronger in favour of his being a follower of the Athenian philosopher than of the founder of Christianity. As for Josephus, it is well known that, except the disputed and certainly spurious passage already alluded to, there is nothing in his works which, independent of Dr Jones's hypothesis, can be construed into the shadow of an argument for the notion that he was a professor of Christianity. It may be added, that, though Josephus certainly possessed talents and learning, his adulation towards Vespasian + Idem, p. 231.

* Ecclesiastical Researches, ad finem.

proclaims the man of the world and the time-serving courtier, displaying in his temper and conduct no visible traces of that poverty and spirit which we are told is one of the indispensable qualifications of the Christian character.

Dr Jones published, in 1813, a Sequel to the Ecclesiar cal Researches,' in which he endeavoured to trace the origin he introductory chapters in Matthew's and Luke's Gospels fron Josephus, and to deduce the peculiar articles of the orthodox faith from the Gnostics, who opposed the Gospel in the days of Christ and his apostles. In 1819, he published, under the signature of 'Essenus,' a New Version of the first three Chapters of Genesis. This tract owed its origin to Mr Bellamy's translation of the Bible, which had then in part recently made its appearance. The following year the simultaneous publication of a number of deistical productions induced Dr Jones to draw up A Series of important Facts demonstrating the Truth of the Christian Religion, drawn from the Writings of its Friends and Enemies in the First and Second Centuries.' His next publication was a Reply to two Deistical Works, entitled "A New Trial of the Witnesses, &c." and Gamaliel Smith's "Not Paul but Jesus." In the title of this piece he assumed the name of Ben David.'

The last production of a theological character which Dr Jones committed to the press appeared in 1823, under the title of 'Three Letters addressed to the Editor of the Quarterly Review, in which is demonstrated the Genuineness of the three Heavenly Witnesses, 1. John v. 7, by Ben David.' The object of this tract was to prove that this much disputed verse, which nearly all the most eminent theologians and hermeneutical writers of modern times have pronounced to be a forgery, was the genuine composition of the author of the epistle; and that instead of its having been foisted into the text, as is commonly maintained, for the purpose of supporting the doctrine of the Trinity, it was actually. expunged by the earlier fathers, as furnishing a strong argument in favour of the proper humanity of Jesus Christ. This pamphlet, it is said, exhibits in the liveliest colours the sanguine temper of the author's mind, and displays great ingenuity as well as enthusiasm in the maintenance of a favorite hypothesis.

6

*

Besides the writings already mentioned on topics connected. with his profession as a divine, he published many papers in the first series of the Monthly Repository.' The chief object of most of them was to vindicate and establish his hypothesis concerning Josephus and Philo; and to support the argument in his last tract on the authenticity of the text concerning the Heavenly Witnesses. His last contributions related to the Baptismal Con

* Monthly Repos. u. a. p. 295.