and to endeavour to find out the unrevealed mysteries of the divine nature, argues a presumptuous and vain curiosity, and cannot but offend that great Being, who would not permit our ancestors to draw near and gaze when he descended upon Mount Sinai.

Mr. Sam. What good has your religion done to mankind? Have not Christians, by their persecutions, destroy. ed more of the human race than have been destroyed by the plague?

men.

Mr. Levi. If I were to tell you, Sir, of the crimes of some of our countrymen, you would reply, that Judaism is not chargeable with the crimes of its professors. Permit me to make a similar reply in defence of Christianity. The spirit inculcated in the New Testament, is not a spirit of persecution, but of love to both the bodies and souls of When Christianity is perverted, and rendered an engine of the state, it ceases to be the religion of Jesus Christ. Christians are not answerable for the blood which has been shed by men bearing the Christian name. The Christianity which I have embraced is the Christianity of the New Testament. I do not think myself bound, nor have I an inclination, to defend any other. What does the New Testament, therefore, say upon this subject? Where do Christ and his apostles teach us to injure one another? Is there any thing conducive to the glory of God, and to the good of mankind, which they have not taught, both by their precepts and by their example? Whether it be true or false, Christianity is a religion which is safe; and it is worthy of God whether he be the author of it or not. Where are the perfections of the Deity placed in a more amiable light than in the New Testament, or where do you find a more divine morality? We are not merely taught by it to love God: but, if we cordially receive its doctrines, we shall be irresistibly induced to love him. The great difference between the Old Testament and the New is this. In the former, many important blessings are promised; in the latter, they are declared to have been conferred. If the Christian religion be true, (which I cannot doubt,) and if I embrace it in reality as well as by profession, I become a partaker of those blessings.

Mr. Sam. Why did not Jesus give our fathers such a

proof of his being the Messiah as would, have overcome their incredulity?

Mr. Levi. What greater evidence can you require than the miracles which Jesus and his apostles wrought. Was it not enough for the dead to be raised, for the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk? But these miracles produced no better effect upon our ancestors, than the miracles of Moses did upon Pharaoh. The truth is, that both the one and the other possessed an obduracy and enmity of heart which it was not in the power of miracles to remove. They hated the light, and would not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved. Read the 22d psalm: you will there see the enmity of our ancestors against the Messiah predicted.

Mr. Sam. If they did what was predicted, where lay their crime?

Mr. Levi. This objection will not be esteemed valid at the bar of God. The revealed will of God, and not his secret purposes, ought to be the rule of our actions.

Mr. Sam. Can an inspired book contain such errors and contradictions, and things so incredible, as are to be found in the gospels?

Mr. Levi. If by errors you mean the errors of transcribers, they are not to be placed to the account of the inspired writers, and they are so unimportant as not in the least to affect the truth of any doctrine or of any fact. contained in the sacred volume. As to incredibility, what is there in the New Testament more incredible than in the Old? Or what is there in either beyond the power of God to effect? Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?—It is not to be wondered at that in the book of divine revelation there should be obscurities, and even seeming contradictions, the former of which cannot now be elucidated, nor the latter reconciled, owing to the length of time which has elapsed since the various parts of it were written; nor that there should be doctrines in it beyond the reach of our limited understanding.-But were the difficulties in the Old Tes tament and in the New more numerous and important than they are, do you find nothing, Sir, in the books of nature and of providence, which has a tendency to try your VOL. II.

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faith? May not an atheist tell you of rocks in the sea, hurtful instead of being useful, and bearing no marks of wise contrivance; of lions, also, and tigers; and of toads, serpents, and noxious insects? And may he not mention many instances in which the wicked have prospered, and the righteous have suffered adversity? Yet you do not on these accounts disbelieve a superintending providence, or the manifestation of the divine wisdom in the works of creation. In arguing with such a person you would say, that a few objections, and those doubtful, and relating to things of which we have an imperfect knowledge, ought not to be opposed to the wisdom of God in his works, visible in numberless instances, and to the universal experience and historical testimony of his kind providence. Now what I wish is, that you would only view the Old and New Testaments with the same candour. I mention the Old Testament as well as the New: for the one has its difficulties as well as the other. I do not say this to disparage the sacred volume handed down to us by our ancestors. It deserves my reverence and my love. I receive it as the word of God. Let all that has been written concerning the rabble of heathen deities be compared with the 103d and 104th psalms, or with many other parts of the Jewish Scriptures. As well might you compare the grossest darkness with the bright beams of yonder luminary. That luminary, however, has its spots; the works of creation have their seeming defects: providence has its mysteries which we cannot unfold; and the Jewish Scriptures have their difficulties. Is it any wonder then that the Christian Scriptures should not be without theirs?

Mr. Sam. What is your opinion, Mr. Levi, concerning divine inspiration?

Mr. Levi. I believe, Sir, that every good man is under the influence of the Spirit of God. This is more the case at some times than at others, because there is frequently an extraordinary necessity for the divine interposition to comfort, to direct, to guide into necessary truth, and to recover from dangerous error, But the inspiration of the sacred writers was of a different kind. Their writings are public fountains, in which all necessary truth is preserved, that the world may drink of their salubrious waters.

Mr. Sam. Jesus promised to bring all things to the remembrance of his disciples. Did the Spirit of God dictate every word and phrase in which they composed the history of their master?

Mr. Levi. Not in such a way as to set aside the exercise of their thinking powers, or the peculiarities of their style.

Mr. Sam. You believe that they were preserved from flagrant errors?

Mr. Levi. I certainly do.

Mr. Sam. Then tell me ingenuously what you think of the two first chapters of Matthew. Do not the guidance of the wise men by a star, and Herod's command that the young children at Bethlehem should be slain, appear like legendary tales? If Josephus had heard of these things, would he not have related them? Besides, you are a better philosopher than not to know the impossibility of a person's being directed to a house by the appearance of a star over it.

Mr. Levi. When God is about to perform wonderful things, he often uses extraordinary methods for the ac complishment of his purpose. Witness the wonders performed in the land of Egypt, which, I doubt not, are ranked by unbelievers with legendary tales, notwithstanding there were many hundred thousand spectators. In the two chapters you speak of, nothing unworthy of God is record

ed.

The Messiah was to be the Saviour of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews. Why then should the early exhi bition of him to the Gentiles excite our astonishment? The star I suppose to have been an appearance at no very great height in the atmosphere: the same word is used by Greek writers to express what we call a shooting star. Now if some such meteor was seen by the Magi, was it impossible for God to inform them of its import?-As to the murder of the young children, I grant that Josephus might be acquainted with it, as well as with Herod's other cruelties. But it is very unsafe to infer from the silence of any author, that a fact recorded by another cannot be true. The facts related by every historian are very far from being all that occurred in the times of which he writes. Many things are related by every historian which are

emitted by cotemporary writers. The fact in question is omitted by three out of four of the evangelists. Add to this, Josephus, like the rest of his countrymen, was preju diced against Jesus; and therefore it is not surprising if he should have carefully avoided the recording of those things which related to him. If the paragraph in his history which relates to him be authentic, yet it is extremely imperfect, and avoids entering into particulars; and if it be spurious, which is very probable, it will follow, that, notwithstanding the notoriety of the life and death of Jesus, he has preserved a determined and stubborn silence concerning him, either from hatred to the Christians, whom he would not deign to mention, or rather perhaps out of regard to Vespasian, whom he had flattered by calling him the Messiah.

Mr. Sam. How can such an ignorant application of prophecy be accounted for, as is to be found in those chapters? In Hosea, where it is said, "I called my son out of Egypt," a past event is referred to, and not a future one predicted.

Mr. Levi. I grant that those words refer to the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan. But our sacred books contain prophetic histories, as well as express predictions. And although the connexion between those histories and the future events to which they referred may not have been always pointed out by the Holy Spirit, as it has been in this instance, and in the lamentation of the mothers for their children at the time of the Babylonish captivity, yet there is such a striking resemblance between many of them and the history of Jesus, that I cannot but think that this resemblance was intended to be one among the numerous proofs of his divine mission. In the history of Joseph in particular, Rollin has pointed out this resemblance in a great number of instances.

Mr. Sam. Why was the resurrection of Lazarus mentioned only by John? The three other historians could not forget so wonderful a fact.

Mr. Levi. As they wrote their histories many years before John wrote his, it is probable that Lazarus was then alive, and that the relation of it by them might have exposed him to the malice of the Jews.

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