his fellow-labourers, but because the natural warmth of his temper, the unremitting activity of his exertions, the fervor of his piety, and the deep sense he expresses of the infinite importance of the sacred cause in which he was engaged, and his own unworthiness for such an office, are circumstances, all of which seem to superficial and hasty reasoners, to render the charge of enthusiasm against him more plausible than against any or all of his associates. Therefore if it can plainly and briefly be repelled from him, much more is it void of every semblance of reason when urged against any of the remaining apostles.

In truth, I trust, I may confidently appeal to the candid judgment of every one of my readers, whether on reviewing the facts I have related of the apostles' conduct, (and I am not conscious of having omitted any fact of importance,) we can possibly believe they were in any degree enthusiasts, if that name implies weakness and folly, heat and violence, error and delusion. Have we not proved that they were free from the melancholy, the abstraction, the austerity of enthusiasm ?—that they were ready to labour with their own hands for their support; attentive to the common relations and duties of life; careful to preserve regularity; subordination and peace, in the society over which they presided; perpetually and successfully on their guard against every occurrence which might afford any reasonable ground for suspecting the purity of their intentions, and thus impeding the success of their ministry; conceding to well-meaning prejudice, as far as concession was allowable; not inattentive to their safety when their duty did not demand its sacrifice; considerate and cautious, temperate and decorous, meek and charitable; utterly remote from the blind precipitance, the outrageous fury, the unyielding obstinacy of enthusiastic minds. In the name of truth and reason, can we in plainness and simplicity of mind assert-nay more, stake our immortal happiness on the truth of the assertion—that men who so lived, and so acted, were either interested selfish impostors on the one hand, or wild and visionary fanatics on the other, or a mixture of both together at once artful enough to deceive mankind, and at the same time mad enough to sacrifice themselves—and this, to carry on a deceit, which, instead of being (as some have wickedly and falsely termed it) a pious

fraud, would have been the most impious and blasphemous imposture, which human imagination can conceive; exalting á crucified deceiver, a man rejected and abandoned of God, as the Son of God and Judge of the world. Such an imposturé would have been also of the most cruel and treacherous kind; involving their converts in the most severe distresses and persecutions, nay exposing them to the most cruel tortures and deaths. And still further to aggravate the guilt of this deceit, the more humble and benevolent, the more virtuous and pious men were, the more likely it was that they should become the victims of this fatal delusion, the conductors of which on this supposition practised on the virtues of their unhappy dupes, whom they exposed to almost certain misery, by flattering them with the hopes of another life; hopes which these deceivers could not but know were grounded on facts palpably false, but which they solemnly attested as true. No surely, such cool art united with such wild fanaticism, is a contradiction in nature, Such sacrifices for such a deception, are wholly unparalleled and incredible.

* Vide this point excellently illustrated by Doddridge, in his second sermon on the Evidences of Christianity, Head the 2d. In Pistorius's Notes on Hartley, vol. 3, from p. 613 to 619, and Lord Lyttleton on the Conversion of St. Paul, p. 22.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS WERE FREE FROM THE CHARACTERS OF ENTHUSIASM, PROVED IN THIS CHAPTER, OF THE HISTORICAL WORKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

SECTION I.

The Style and Temper in which the Historical Works of the New Testament are composed, considered.

In the preceding chapters I have endeavoured to prove that the apostles and evangelists were free from the two primary and essential characteristics of fanaticism, weak credulity and imperious dogmatism. I have also traced their conduct; and I trust this has appeared rational, temperate, and meek; the very reverse of that, which the impetuousity of enthusiasm would naturally produce. I now proceed to consider their writings, the style in which they are composed, the temper of mind which they display, and the facts which they detail; in all, I trust, we shall perceive "those things which become sound doctrine," and evince a divine original.

What then are the characters which reason would lead us to expect, and which experience proves generally prevail in the compositions of enthusiasts? In such men the imagination is violently heated, a confusion of ideas ensues, the style becomes forced and obscure, full of mysterious and metaphorical, dark and distorted allusions. With this obscurity is most frequently combined an exaggerated and extravagant strain of thought and expression. Nothing is attributed to natural causes; every thing is spiritualized and magnified; common events are

described as secret providences, uncommon as decided miracles. But neither the obscurity nor the exaggerations of enthusiasm are so conspicuous or so offensive, as the heat and violence, the arrogance and bitterness, which are too frequently found in such men, as conceive themselves to be the only favourites of heaven, and pronounce the rest of mankind to be alienated from, and offensive to God; and who naturally betray this selfexaltation and uncharitableness by a strain of affected humility and real ostentation, by overbearing dogmatism and virulent invective.

Thus obscurity and extravagance, self-exaltation and uncharitableness, are the natural characters of enthusiastic compositions. Now compare these with the style of the historical works of the New Testament, and the contrast is surely most clear and decisive. In these compositions simplicity of style and structure, and its attendant perspicuity, form the leading features. Every thing is clear, unforced, unadorned; the sentences are short and intelligible; the language plain and natural-no superfluous or far-fetched epithets, no accumulation of synonymous, or nearly synonymous words, to amplify or impress the ideas of the speaker; no involved circumlocutions; no effort to express things in a bold, emphatical manner. This simplicity of style and structure is essentially connected with, and evidently arises from the simplicity of the design.* The writers of these narrations appear solely, "as Christ's humble attendants, selected for introducing to the knowledge of others this infinitely higher character, who is himself in a pre-eminent sense, the mouth and the oracle of God." It is this subordinate part which they professedly and uniformly act. Struck with the ineffable dignity of the Messiah whom they serve, they lose no opportunity of exhibiting him to the world, and appear to consider the introduction of their own opinions conjectures or reasonings, unless where they make a part of the narration, as an impertinence. They sink themselves in order to place him in the most conspicuous point of view; they preach not themselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord. Hence in the historical part of the

Vide Dr. George Campbell's preliminary dissertation to his translation of the Gospels, in 2 vols. 4to. Lond. 1789-vol. 1st, 3d dissertation, s. 4, p. 66, s. 18, p. 82, and s. 24, p. 95.

New Testament, we never find the least trace of any attempt to shine by studied expression, composition, or sentiment. Plainness of language is always preferred, because the best adapted to all capacities, though in a style by no means slovenly, yet in little points, as about those grammatical accuracies which do not affect the meaning and perspicuity of the sentence, rather careless than curious. In this sort of simplicity our Lord's biographers peculiarly excel. And surely this is very opposite to the turgid and obscure productions of a mind inflated and confused by fanaticism.

But the turn of thought and expression, is not only clear and intelligible, but in the highest degree moderate and calm. So far from exaggerating trifles into importance, and indulging the extravagancies of enthusiasm, that the most striking displays of wisdom, the most engaging exertions of beneficence, calculated to rouse the warmest admiration and gratitude, are related with perfect coolness, without any marks of wonder, or exclamations of sympathy. Nay further, the most stupendous exertions of miraculous power; the course of nature suspended; all manner of diseases healed by a word; the winds and waves controlled by their Master's voice; and even the depths of the grave yielding back the dead to life at his command-events such as these, the history of which we cannot peruse without astonishment, which seem necessarily to call forth the strongest expressions of wonder and reverence, the boldest flights of enraptured eloquence; even these are related as coolly as the most common occurrences; laid before the reader with all their minutest circumstances, but laid before him briefly and plainly, without any attempt to magnify their greatness or their consequences.

The same calmness of mind is equally conspicuous in the unimpassioned, but not unfeeling manner, in which the evangelists relate the cruel sufferings of their divine Lord, as well as the obstinacy, the perverseness, the insatiable malignity of his enemies. In all their narrations not one opprobrious epithet, not one severe expression escapes them. Can any thing more strongly distinguish them from fanatics, whose fury and hatred perpetually burst forth, when roused by opposition of any kind, much more when such opposition inflicts the severest personal

VOL. I.

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