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THE

TRUTH

OF THE

Scripture History of St. Paul

EVINCE D.

CHAP. I.

EXPOSITION OF THE ARGUMENT.

THE

HE volume of Christian scriptures contains thirteen letters purporting to be written by St. Paul; it contains also a book, which amongst other things, profeffes to deliver the hiftory, or rather memoirs of the hiftory, of this fame perfon.

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By affuming the genuineness of the letters, we may prove the fubftantial truth of the history; or, by affuming the truth of the history, we may argue ftrongly in fupport of the genuineness of the letters. But I affume neither one nor the other. The reader is at liberty to fuppofe these writings to have been lately discovered in the library of the Efcurial,, and to come to our hands deftitute of any extrinfic or collateral evidence whatever; and the argument I am about to offer is calculated to fhew, that a comparison of the different writings would, even under these circumstances, afford good reason to believe the perfons and tranfactions to have been real, the letters authentic, and the narration in the main to be

true.

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Agreement or conformity between letters bearing the name of an ancient author, and a received history of that author's life, does not neceffarily eftablish the credit of either because,

1. The history may, like Middleton's Life of Cicero, or Jortin's Life of Erafmus, have been wholly, or in part, compiled

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