LET. I would gently admonish the inXVII. fidels, if they touch upon this fub ject again, to behave with better manners than they have done in their 34th page. The excellent Pascal has obferved, as many others have done before and after him, that the Evangelifts, by differing in fome things from each other, have afforded us a proof of their not having written in concert, and that fuch difference is so far an argument in their favour. The obfervation is fenfible and juft. Not fo the inference drawn by the objectors, P. 35. that therefore" contradiction "in evidence is a mark of truth." For Mr. Pafca! did not allow, or fuppofe, any more than we do, that the Edit. See likewife Dr. South's 7th Sermon of his 3d Volume, and Macknight's Harmony. Evan Evangelifts, when rightly understood LET. and explained, really contradicted each XVII. other. His words, as cited by themfelves, are, "Les faibleffes les plus "APPARENTES font de forces," &c. This is a piece of coin from the mint of Ferney, and bears ftrongly imprest upon it the image and fuperfcription of the coiner. P. 35. by John, the heavens were opened, "and a voice was heard, declaring "his divine origin: fuch a prodigy "must have awakened the attention "of all Judea; yet we find the histo"rians totally filent." "When Christ was baptized What hiftorians? A pagan hiftorian would not concern himself with the report of a Jewish prodigy; nor would a Jewish hiftorian have related a circumftance favourable to Chriftianity, LET. unless he had himself become a Chrif XVII. tian. But would any writer of common fenfe have hazarded the relation of fuch a fact, as having happened in the prefence of a multitude of wit- It was too nearly related to the birth of the wonderful child which occafioned it, and concerning which Jofephus thought that queftions might be asked. For otherwife, is it not equally strange, that he fhould be totally filent concerning the life and death of Chrift, and the appearance of a new religion which had extended itself to Rome, and attracted the notice of the hiftorians there? Yet, if the the celebrated paffage be an interpo- LET. lation, (as thefe gentlemen deem it XVII. to be) of fuch events has Jofephus faid nothing, though falling within a period, the transactions of which are by him minutely and exactly related. But though Jofephus was filent, and had good reafons for being fo, it evidently appears from the often cited paffage of Macrobius, that Herod's laughter of the infants in Judea was a thing well known in his time, and was not contefted by heathens. We may add, as in the cafe above, that St. Matthew must have been out of his fenfes to have told * "Inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes "Rex Judæorum intra bimatum juffit occidi"Macrob. Saturnal. Lib. 11. Cap. 4. See at large on this fubject, Lardner's Credibility, Part. 1. B. 11. Ch. 11. and Findlay against Voltaire, P. 541. fuch LET. fuch a story as this, had it been otherXVII. wife than true; nor is there any thing in the character of Herod that renders it improbable.-Quite the contrary. As to the fneers upon interpolations and pious frauds, in P. 36, I am sorry occafion has ever been given for them. We want no fuch aids. Magna eft veritas, et prævalebit. I only wish that our adverfaries, in their reprefentations of the Scriptures and Chriftianity, were never guilty of frauds which are not quite fo pious. The purport, in few words, of all the parade and flourish, P. 37, is this. "Our Lord and St. Paul foretold the "end of the world, as an event that "fhould happen in their time. It did "not fo happen; therefore they were "under a mistake and delufion." Our Lord, Luke xxi, in that figu rative |