preach it to them in all its purity; to guard them against the errors of mistaken, or the designs of wicked men. You then, who can read your Bible, turn to this passage, and you will find that the angel did not say, "Behold, Christ is gone before you into Galilee,"-but, "Behold, he goeth before you into Galilee."

I know not what Bible you made use of in this quotation; none that I have seen render the original word by he is gone :-it might be properly rendered, he will go and it is literally rendered, he is going.— This phrase does not imply an immediate setting out for Galilee. When a man has fixed upon a long journey to London or Bath, it is common enough to say, he is going to London or Bath, though the time of his going may be at some distance. Even your dashing Matthew could not be guilty of such a blunder as to make the angel say he is gone; for he tells us immediately afterwards, that, as the women were departing from the sepulchre to tell his disciples what the angels had said to them, Jesus himself met them. Now, how Jesus could be gone into Galilee, and yet meet the women at Jerusalem, I leave you to explain, for the blunder is not chargeable upon Matthew. I excuse your introducing the expression-" then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee," for the quotation is rightly made: but had you turned to the Greek Testament, you would not have found in this place any word answering to then; the passage is better translated-and the eleven. Christ had said to his disciples, (Matt. xxvi. 32.) "After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee:"-and the angel put the women in mind of the very expression and prediction-" He is risen, as he said; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee." Matthew, intent upon the appearance in Galilee, of which there were, probably, at the time he wrote, many living witnesses in Judea, omits the mention of many appearances taken. notice of by John, and, by this omission, seems to connect the day of the resurrection of Jesus, with that

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of the departure of the disciples for Galilee. You seem to think this a great difficulty, and incapable of solution; for you say " It is not possible, unless we admit these disciples the right of wilful lying, that the writers of these books could be any of the eleven persons called disciples; for if, according to Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, on the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven; yet the writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting was that same day in a house at Jerusalem; and, on the other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a house at Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says, the meeting was in a mountain in Galilee and consequently the evidence given in those books destroys each other."-When I was a young man in the university, I was pretty much accustomed to drawing of consequences; but my Alma Mater did not suffer me to draw consequences after your manner; she taught me-that a false position must end in an absurd conclusion. I have shown your position that the eleven went into Galilee on the day of the resurrection-to be false, and hence your consequence that the evidence given in these two books. destroys each other-is not to be admitted. You ought, moreover, to have considered, that the feast of unleavened bread, which immediately followed the day on which the passover was eaten, lasted seven days; and that strict observers of the law did not think themselves at liberty to leave Jerusalem, till that feast was ended; and this is a collateral proof that the disciples did not go to Galilee on the day of the resurrection.

You certainly have read the New Testament, but not, I think, with great attention, or you would have known who the apostles were. In this place you reckon Luke as one of the eleven, and in other places

you speak of him as an eye-witness of the things he relates you ought to have known that Luke was no apostle; and he tells you himself, in the preface to his gospel, that he wrote from the testimony of others. If this mistake proceeds from your ignorance, you are not a fit person to write comments on the Bible; if from design (which I am unwilling to suspect), you, are still less fit; in either case it may suggest to your readers the propriety of suspecting the truth and accuracy of your assertions, however daring and intemperate." Of the numerous priests or parsons of the present day, bishops and all, the sum total of whose learning," according to you, "is a bab, and hic, hæc, hoc, there is not one amongst them," you say, "who can write poetry like Homer, or science like "Euclid."-If I should admit this (though there are many of them, I doubt not, who understand these authors better than you do), yet I cannot admit that there is one amongst them, bishops and all, so ignorant as to rank Luke the evangelist among the apostles of Christ. I will not press this point; any man may fall into a mistake, and the consciousness of this fallibility should create in all men a little modesty, a litthe diffidence, a little caution, before they presume to call the most illustrious characters of antiquity liars, fools, and knaves.

You want to know why Jesus did not show himself to all the people after his resurrection. This is one of Spinoza's objections; and it may sound well enough in the mouth of a Jew, wishing to excuse the infidelity of his countrymen; but it is not judiciously adopted by Deists of other nations. God gives us the means of health, but he does not foree us to the use of them: he gives us the powers of the mind, but he does not compel us to the cultivation of them he gave the Jews opportunities of seeing the miracles of Jesus, but he did not oblige them to believe them. They who persevered in their incredulity after the resurrection of Lazarus, would have persevered also after the resur

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rection of Jesus. Lazarus had been buried four days, Jesus but three; the body of Lazarus had begun to undergo corruption, the body of Jesus saw no corruption; why should you expect, that they would have believed in Jesus on his own resurrection, when they had not believed in him on the resurrection of Lazarus? When the Pharisees were told of the resurrection of Lazarus, they, together with the chief priests, gathered a council, and said- What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him :-then from that day forth they took counsel together to put him to death." The great men at Jerusalem, you see, admitted that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead; yet the belief of that miracle did not generate conviction that Jesus was the Christ; it only exasperated their malice, and accelerated their purpose of destroying him. Had Jesus shown himself after his resurrection, the chief priests would probably have gathered another council, have opened it with, What do we? And ended it with a determination to put him to death. As to us, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, which we have in the New Testament, is far more convincing, than if it had been related that he showed himself to every man in Jerusalem; for then we should have had a suspicion, that the whole story had been fabricated by the Jews.

You think Paul an improper witness of the resurrection; I think him one of the fittest that could have been chosen; and for this reason-his testimony is the testimony of a former enemy. He had, in his own miraculous conversion, sufficient ground for changing his opinion as to a matter of fact; for believing that to have been a fact, which he had formerly, through extreme prejudice, considered as a fable. For the truth of the resurrection of Jesus he appeals to above two hundred and fifty living witnesses; and before whom does he make this appeal?-Before his enemies, who were able and willing to blast his cha

racter, if he had advanced an untruth.-You know, undoubtedly, that Paul had resided at Corinth near two years; that, during a part of that time, he had testified to the Jews, that Jesus was the Christ; that, finding the bulk of that nation obstinate in their unbe lief, he had turned to the Gentiles, and had converted many to the faith in Christ; that he left Corinth, and went to preach the gospel in other parts; that, about three years after he had quitted Corinth, he wrote a letter to the converts which he had made in that place, and who after his departure had been split into different factions, and had adopted different teachers, in opposition to Paul. From this account we may be certain, that Paul's letter, and every circumstance in it, would be minutely examined. The city of Corinth was full of Jews; these men were, in general, Paul's bitter enemies; yet, in the face of them all, he asserts, "that Jesus Christ was buried; that he rose again the third day; that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; that he was afterwards seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part were then alive. An appeal to above 250 living witnesses is a pretty strong proof of a fact; but it becomes irresistible, when that appeal is submitted to the judgement of enemies. St. Paul, you must allow, was a man of ability; but he would have been an idiot, had he put it in the power of his enemies to prove, from his own letter, that he was a lying rascal. They neither proved, nor attempted to prove, any such thing; and, therefore, we may safely conclude, that this testimony of Paul to the resurrection of Jesus was true; and it is a testimony, in my opinion, of the greatest weight.

You come, you say, to the last scene, the ascension; upon which, in your opinion, "the reality of the future mission of the disciples was to rest for proof."-I do not agree with you in this. The reality of the future mission of the apostles might have been proved, though Jesus Christ had not visibly