enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance; nor the church of England, to abandon that moderation by which she permits every individual et sentire quæ velit, et quæ sentiat dicere.

It is not, Sir, without some reluctance, that, under the influence of these opinions, I have prevailed upon myself to address these letters to you; and you will attribute to the same motive my not having given you this trouble sooner. I had moreover an expectation, that the task would have been undertaken by some person capable of doing greater justice to the subject, and more worthy of your attention. Perceiving, however, that the two last chapters, the fifteenth in particular, of your very laborious and classical history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, had made upon many an impression not at all advantageous to Christianity; and that the silence of others, of the clergy especially, began to be looked upon as an acquiescence in what you had therein advanced; I have thought it my duty, with the utmost respect and goodwill towards you, to take the liberty of suggesting to your consideration a few remarks upon some of the passages which have

been esteemed (whether you meant that they should be so esteemed or not) as powerfully militating against that revelation, which still is to many, what it formerly was to the Greeks-foolishness; but which we deem to be true, to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.

To the inquiry by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth, you rightly answer, by the evidence of the doctrine itself, and the ruling providence of its Author. But afterwards, in assigning for this astonishing event five secondary causes, derived from the passions of the human heart and the general cir cumstances of mankind, you seem to some to have insinuated, that Christianity, like other impostures, might have made its way in the world, though its origin had been as human as the means by which you suppose it was spread. It is no wish or intention of mine, to fasten the odium of this insinuation upon you: I shall simply endeavour to shew, that the causes you produce are either inadequate to the attainment of the end proposed; or that their efficiency,

great as you imagine it, was derived from other principles than those you have thought proper

to mention.

Your first cause is, "the inflexible, and, it you may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses."-Yes, Sir, we are agreed that the zeal of the Christians was inflexible; neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, could bend it into a separation from the love of God, which was in Christ Jesus their Lord: it was an inflexible obstinacy, in not blaspheming the name of Christ, which every where exposed them to persecution; and which even your amiable and philosophic Pliny thought proper, for want of other crimes, to punish with death in the Christians of his province. We are agreed, too, that the zeal of the Christians was intolerant; for it denounced tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that did evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: it would not tolerate in Christian

worship those who supplicated the image of Casar, who bowed down at the altars of Paganism, who mixed with the votaries of Venus, or wallowed in the filth of Bacchanalian festivals.

But though we are thus far agreed with respect to the inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet, as to the principle from which it was derived, we are toto cœlo divided in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth of Christianity. What! think you that it was a zeal derived from the unsocial spirit of Judaism, which inspired Peter with courage to upbraid the whole people of the Jews in the very capital of Judæa, with having delivered up Jesus, with having denied him in the presence of Pilate, with having desired a murderer to be granted them in his stead, with having killed the Prince of life? Was it from this principle that the same Apostle in conjunction with John, when summoned, not before the dregs of the people (whose judgments they might have been supposed capable of misleading, and whose resentment they might have despised), but before the rulers and the elders

and the scribes, the dread tribunal of the Jewish nation, and commanded by them to teach no more in the name of Jesus-boldly answered, that they could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard. They had seen with their eyes, they had handled with their hands, the word of life; and no human jurisdiction could deter them from being faithful witnesses of what they had seen and heard. Here then you may perceive the genuine and undoubted origin of that zeal, which you ascribe to what appears to me a very insufficient cause; and which the Jewish rulers were so far from considering as the ordinary effect of their religion, that they were exceedingly at a loss how to account for it-now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled. The Apostles, heedless of consequences, and regardless of every thing but truth, openly everywhere professed themselves witnesses of the resurrection of Christ; and with a confidence which could proceed from nothing but conviction, and which pricked the Jews to the heart, bade the house of Israel know assuredly, that God had made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ,