to boast. But compare them if you will; I ana not afraid of the issue.-The just line of com parison is with the most celebrated books, in the eastern and western parts of the world, before the coming of Christ. Let the sages of Greece and Rome; let the votaries of Brahma, and of Fo, produce their sacred books for a critical inspection on this point. I am confident that every fair opponent will, without a moment's hesitation, give the palm to the men of Galilee.

But whence comes it to pass, that these unlettered men should be able to write the best, the most instructive book which the world contains; and that none since, in any country or age, have been able to improve upon it, or write a better? Some adequate cause must be assigned. Those who, instead of a satisfactory answer, would laugh, and ridicule the book, must retire from the field occupied by fair reasoners, and respectable antagonists, to the ground allotted to the unreputable corps of buffoons. When they are gone, let the others judge, who acts the wisest part,—the opponent of the gospel, who rejects the most improving book that was ever written? or the christian who receives it, and accounts for its pre-eminence, from its being written by the inspira tion of infinite wisdom.?

SECTION II.

There are no false Principles in the New
Testament.

WHEN I read the writings of those ancient historians, orators, poets, or philosophers, which are so highly celebrated as to form the text-books of modern education, I am grieved to see the multitude of false principles with which they abound. Ambition is fostered and recommended: the love of fame encouraged : military glory is displayed before the youthful throng, in the most fascinating colors and those are represented as the first of human kind, who bear away the laurels from the ensanguined field. Literary pride is fanned, and incense offered to adepts in science. Admiration of wealth and distinction is generated; and the profanum vulgus (the poor people) is pointed at as an object of hatred or contempt.

From these revered, may I not add idolized authors, I turn to the New Testament; and I find myself in a new world. What a difference of mind and heart! A spark of the same spirit I do not perceive: I cannot discover one false principle from beginning to end. If it be said, I am a partial judge, I challenge the acutest unbeliever to peruse the book with this view.

Let him point out one false principle stated with approbation, or recommended to imitation; and I will give up its claim to divine authority. But no such thing is to be found.

Jews ?"

Here is a remarkable phenomenon which must be accounted for by deists, in a satisfactory manner. Will it be said, "They were But does this remove the difficulty? How came they to be wiser than other people? Merely their being Jews, will not solve the difficulty. Josephus was a Jew. He lived nearly at the same time with the writers of the New Testament. But in "The Antiquities of his nation," and in his "History of the War with the Romans," it is easy to detect a considerable number of false principles. Philo, his cotemporary, is chargeable with the same faults. The talmuds, the productions of the most learned Rabbi's of a following age, are still

worse.

But what is more remarkable, we do not find a freedom from false principles in christian writers, though they derived their ideas of truth and duty from the New Testament. Commentaries have been written on this book

in almost every age. With a pure text before them, they have had every advantage for furnishing the world with a pure comment: but they do not succeed. In the ancient fathers, how easy is it to perceive the false principles of converted pagans and philosophers. In late

ter ages, the false principles of the Feudal system often rise before our eyes. Every commentary of the last century, without exception, though it was more enlightened than any preceding, will furnish the attentive reader with many examples of the same thing. How extraordinary must this appear to the adept in moral science! Some fishermen of Galilee wrote a book, in which not one false principle is to be found. There is no other book, in which they are not to be found. We find them crowded in the wisest of the ancient heathens. They are to be found in cotemporary and succeeding Jews. They are to be found in christian commentators, from the days of the apostles to the present time. Nor would the most enlightened disciples of Jesus, who now adorn his church, be able wholly to escape the same censure. Were they to attempt to write a history like that of the gospel, how many errors should we find, and how many faults!

Let him who rejects the New Testament, assign a reason for this. Will he say, "Though christians have not been able to write a book without interspersing false principles, a Hume, a Gibbon, a Voltaire, a Rousseau, could with ease accomplish it?" May not a christian with justice retort, "What they could do, is best known by what they have done?" But do we not perceive in them, false principles, and evil dispositions without number? Were this a

treatise, and not a sketch, how easy would it be to bring them forward justifying a disregard of God and of his worship, and patronizing or recommending pride, ambition, sensuality, a contempt of others, &c. &c. &c. It will, indeed, be obvious to the most inadvertent observer, that no standard of moral sentiments and conduct is lower than theirs. Still, then, the New Testament stands alone, and without a rival. Divine inspiration will account for its superiority and singularity. Let him, who will not allow this, assign a more satisfactory reason.

SECTION III.

The New Testament is in direct Opposition to every depraved Principle in Human Nature. LAWS, it has been asserted, must be suited to the dispositions and manners of the people for whom they are made. Divine rectitude scorns the idea. Let laws, it says, be perfectly good, however bad the persons for whom they are de signed. The former is, indeed, the dictate of human policy; and men, guided by no higher principles, have acted according to it, both in ancient and modern times. This was the wis