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says, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord." Notwithstanding this text, the reality of Job's history, and even the existence of such a person, has been always deemed a fair subject of enquiry and discussion amongst Christian divines. St. James's authority is confidered as good evidence of the existence of the book of Job at that time, and of its reception by the Jews, and of nothing more. St. Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy*, has this fimilitude: "Now, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Mofes, so do these also resist the truth." These names are not found in the Old Testament. And it is uncertain, whether St. Paul took them from fome apocryphal writing then extant, or from tradition. But no one ever imagined, that St. Paul is here asserting the authority of the writing, if it was a written account which he quoted, or making himself answerable for the authenticity of the tradition; much lefs, that he so involves himself with either

* iii. 8.

of these questions as that the credit of his own history and mission should depend upon the fact, whether " Jannes and Jambres withstood Mofes, or not." For what reason a more rigorous interpretation should be put upon other references, it is difficult to know. I do not mean, that other passages of the Jewish history stand upon no better evidence than the history of Job, or of Jannes and Jambres (I think much otherwife); but I mean, that a reference in the New Testament, to a passage in the Old, does not so fix its authority, as to exclude all enquiry into its credibility, or into the separate reasons upon which that credibility is founded; and that it is an unwarrantable, as well as unsafe rule to lay down concerning the Jewish history, what was never laid down concerning any other, that either every particular of it must be true, or the whole false.

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I have thought it necessary to state this point explicitly, because a fashion revived by Voltaire, and pursued by the disciples of his school,

school, seems to have much prevailed of late, of attacking Chriftianity through the fides of Judaifm. Some objections of this class are founded in misconstruction, some in exaggeration; but all proceed upon a fuppofition, which has not been made out by argument, viz. that the attestation, which the author and first teachers of Christianity gave to the divine miffion of Mofes and the prophets, extends to every point and portion of the Jewish history; and so extends, as to make Chriftianity responsible in its own credibility, for the circumstantial truth, I had almost said for the critical exactness, of every narrative contained in the Old Tefta

ment.

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CHAP. CHAP. IV.

Rejection of Chriftianity.

We acknowledge that the Christian religion, although it converted great numbers, did not produce an universal, or even a general conviction in the minds of men, of the age and countries in which it appeared. And this want of a more complete and extensive success, is called the rejection of the Christian history and miracles; and has been thought by some, to form a strong objection to the reality of the facts which the history contains.

The matter of the objection divides itself into two parts, as it relates to the Jews, and as it relates to Heathen nations; because the minds of these two descriptions of men may have been, with respect to Chrif tianity, under the influence of very different causes. The case of the Jews, inasmuch as

our

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our Saviour's ministry was originally addressed to them, offers itself first to our confideration.

Now, upon the subject of the truth of the Christian religion, with us there is but one question, viz. whether the miracles were actually wrought? From acknowledging the miracles we pass instantaneously to the acknowledgment of the whole. No doubt lies between the premises and the conclusion. If we believe the works, or any one of them, we believe in Jefus. And this order of reasoning is become so universal and familiar, that we do not readily apprehend how it could ever have been otherwife. Yet it appears to me perfectly certain, that the state of thought, in the mind of a Jew of our Saviour's age, was totally different from this. After allowing the reality of the miracle, he had a great deal to do to perfuade himself that Jesus was the Meffiah. This is clearly intimated by vari. ous passages of the gospel history. It appears that, in the apprehension of the writers

of

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