tianity to reply, Give me the Apostles' testimony, and I do not stand in need of their judgment; give me the facts, and I have complete security for every conclusion I want.

But although I think that it is competent to the Christian apologist to return this answer, I do not think that it is the only answer which the objection is capable of receiving. The two following cautions, founded, I apprehend, in the most reasonable distinctions, will exclude all uncertainty upon this head, which can be attended with danger.

First, to separate what was the object of the apostolic miss on, and declared by them to be so, from what was extraneous to it, or only incidentally connected with it. Of points clearly extraneous to the religion, nothing need be said. Of points incidentally connected with it, something may be added. Demoniacal possession is one of these points; concerning the reality of which, as this place will not admit the examination, nor even the production of the arguments on either side of the question, it would be arrogance in me to deliver any judgment. And it is unnecessary. For what I am concerned to observe is, that even they who think it was a general, but erroneous opinion of those times, and that the writers of the New Testament, in common with other Jewish writers of that age, fell into the manner of speaking and of thinking

upon the subject, which then universally prevailed, need not be alarmed by the concession, as though they had anything to fear from it, for the truth of Christianity. The doctrine was not what Christ brought into the world. It appears in the Christian records, incidentally and accidentally, as being the subsisting opinion of the age and country in which His ministry was exercised. It was no part of the object of His revelation to regulate men's opinions concerning the action of spiritual substances upon animal bodies. At any rate it is unconnected with testimony. If a dumb person was by a word restored to the use of his speech, it signifies little to what cause the dumbness was ascribed: and the like of every other cure wrought upon those who are said to have been possessed. The malady was real, the cure was real, whether the popular explanation of the cause was well-founded or not. The matter of fact, the change, so far as it was an object of sense, or of testimony, was in either case the same.

Secondly, that in reading the apostolic writings we distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments. Their doctrines came to them. by revelation properly so called; yet in propounding these doctrines in their writings or discourses they were wont to illustrate, support, and enforce them, by such analogies, arguments, and considerations as their own thoughts suggested. Thus

the call of the Gentiles, that is, the admission of the Gentiles to the Christian profession without a previous subjection to the law of Moses, was imparted to the Apostles by revelation, and was attested by the miracles which attended the Christian ministry among them. The Apostles' own assurance of the matter rested upon this foundation. Nevertheless, Saint Paul, when treating of the subject, offers a great variety of topics in its proof and vindication. The doctrine itself must be received: but it is not necessary, in order to defend Christianity, to defend the propriety of every comparison, or the validity of every argument, which the Apostle has brought into the discussion. The same observation applies to some other instances: and is, in my opinion, very well founded: "When Divine writers argue upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in, as parts of Divine revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to assent to, all the premises made use of by them, in their whole extent, unless it appear plainly that they affirm the premises as expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them," 45

Burnet's Expos., art. 6.

These concessions of our author are questionable and unnecessary. Demoniacal possession, as described in the

New Testament, can never be reduced to the class of ordinary diseases; and the supposition that the writers adopted a general, but erroneous, opinion of the times," affects not only their perspicacity, but that of our Lord Himself, who, in the plainest terms, recognizes the fearful nature of the malady (see Mark v. 8). We are too ignorant of the mutual relations of body and spirit to warrant dogmatism on such a subject; and certainly no one can ever prove that demoniacal possession is impossible. Still graver objections apply to the second remark, that a distinction is to be drawn between the arguments and the conclusions of the Apostles. This were to reduce the greater part of the New Testament to the level of a human composition. It is surprising, too, that so acute a writer as Paley should not have perceived that the possibility of error in the reasoning introduces the same possibility into the conclusion; at least, if the Apostles be supposed to have written throughout as reasonable men. The other alternative, viz. that while in their arguments they were left to themselves, and possibly to error, a sudden afflatus of inspiration guarded the conclusion, introduces the "mechanical" theory of inspiration in its nakedest form, the theory according to which the writers were mere amanuenses of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in attempting to escape a supposed diffi culty, the explanation leads to greater. The Apostles wrote throughout each in his own style, and according as education, temperament, or circumstances prompted him: but each also under such a guidance of the Holy Spirit as effectually controlled even the outward vehicle of the words, much more the premises on which the conclusions are founded. No theory of inspiration short of this could be of much value to the Christian believer. It may be added that no false reasoning on the part of the New Testament writers has been alleged to justify the distinction. Obscurities and difficulties may be expected to disappear with the progress of biblical learning.-EDITOR.

CHAPTER III.

THE CONNEXION OF CHRISTIANITY WITH THE JEWISH HISTORY.

UNDOUBTEDLY our Saviour assumes the Divine origin of the Mosaic institution: and, independently of His authority, I conceive it to be very difficult to assign any other cause for the commencement or existence of that institution; especially for the singular circumstance of the Jews adhering to the unity of the Godhead, when every other people slid into polytheism; for their being men in religion, children in every thing else; behind other nations in the arts of peace and war, superior to the most improved in their sentiments and doctrines relating to the Deity. Undoubtedly, also, our Saviour recog

"In the doctrine, for example, of the unity, the eternity, the omnipotence, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the wisdom, and the goodness of God; in their opinions concerning providence, and the creation, preservation, and government of the world." Campbell on Mir. p. 207. To which we may add, in the acts of their religion not being accompanied either with cruelties or impurities; in the