thofe fufficiently accurate, and unquestionably juft, are given by St. Paul to his converts in three feveral epiftles*. The relative duties of hufbands and wives, of parents and children, of masters and fervants, of Christian teachers and their flocks, of governors and their fubjects, are set forth by the fame writert, not indeed with the copiousness, the detail, or the diftinctness, of a moralist, who fhould, in these days, fit down to write chapters upon the subject, but with the leading rules and principles in each; and, above all, with truth, and with authority. Laftly, the whole volume of the New Testament is replete with piety; with, what were almost unknown to heathen moralifts, devotional virtues, the moft profound veneration of the Deity, an habitual sense of his bounty and protection, a firm confidence in the final refult of his councils and difpenfations, a difpofition to refort, upon all occafions, to his mercy, for the supply of human wants, for affiftance in danger, for relief from pain, for the pardon of fin. CHAP. CHA P. III. The candour of the writers of the New Teftament. I MAKE this candour to confist, in their putting down many paffages, and noticing many circumstances, which no writer what ever was likely to have forged; and which no writer would have chofen to appear in his book, who had been careful to prefent the story in the most unexceptionable form, or who had thought himself at liberty to carve and mould the particulars of that story, according to his choice, or according to his judgement of the effect, A ftrong and well-known example of the fairness of the evangelifts, offers itself in their account of Chrift's refurrection, namely, in their unanimously ftating, that, after he was rifen, he appeared to his difciples alone. I do not mean, that they have used the exclufive word alone; but that all the instances which they have recorded of his appearance, are inftances of appearance to his disciples; that their reasonings upon it, and allufions to it, are confined to this fuppofition; and that, by one of them, Peter is made to say, "Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly, not to all the people, but to witneffes chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rofe from the dead*." The commoneft understanding must have perceived, that the hiftory of the refurrection would have come with more advantage, if they had related that Jefus appeared, after he was risen, to his foes as well as his friends, to the scribes and pharifees, the Jewish council, and the Roman governor; or even if they had afferted the public appearance of Chrift in general unqualified terms, without noticing, as they have done, the prefence of his difciples upon each occafion, and noticing it in fuch a manner as to lead their Acts x. 40, 41. readers readers to fuppofe that none but difciples were present. They could have represented it one way as well as the other. And if their point had been, to have the religion believed, whether true or falfe; if they had fabricated the ftory ab initio, or if they had been difpofed, either to have delivered their teftimony as witneffes, or to have worked up their materials and information as hiftorians, in such a manner as to render their narrative as fpecious and unobjectionable as they could; in a word, if they had thought of any thing but of the truth of the cafe, as they understood and believed it; they would, in their account of Chrift's several appearances after his refurrection, at leaft have omitted this restriction. At this diftance of time, the account as we have it, is perhaps more credible than it would have been the other way; because this manifeftation of the hiftorian's candour, is of more advantage to their tef timony, than the difference in the circumftances of the account would have been to the nature of the evidence. But this is an effect which the evangelists would not fore |