folly in this instance far exceeded their knavery in others, yet, on infidel principles, all is to be reconciled with the subtlety and management of the most finished art.

But let us suspend our emotions of astonishment, and examine the issue of this strange transaction. The ties, it should seem, of kindred villainy are thus rudely and irreparably dissolved. The plans of associate imposture are relinquished. Each party is now left to the prosecution of his own schemes, and the unsupported suggestions of his own wisdom. What then does the history report of the result? "So Barnabas took Mark, and sailed towards Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches." That is to say, Notwithstanding the failure of this last motive, which, on all known principles of human conduct, could be conceived capable of preserving them in a course of miserable fraud; at the very moment when every temptation to desert it was under the fresh excitement of angry feeling; these compounds of inconsistency quenched their resentment without coming to a reconciliation; consulted their safety in the intemperance of dispute; and after the display of impatient animosity, resumed with the

most servile tameness their task of deceit. And beyond all this-as if the climax of anomalies were yet unfinished-submitted to tread again separately the ground of their associated labours, stifling every impulse to self excuse, or mutual crimination, the one so natural to their present situation, the other tacitly demanded of them by the notoriety of their former friendshipcontenting themselves with cementing the fabrics of their broken compact, under every circumstance that could render such employment irksome and disgusting: and pursuing the same course of collusive falsehood, when the last impediment to its abandonment was removed, not only without any conceivable inducement, but in direct opposition to one of the most powerful principles that can actuate the conduct of human nature.

Candour may, and does demand, that we examine every opinion which we venture to condemn: yet what candour can suffice for the investigation of this hypothesis? In tracing these and a thousand absurdities, into which it would lead us throughout the whole of Apostolic History, there is scarcely a single part of the research, that would not require the concession of common sense-and this, not with reference to matters, in which common sense will confess its insufficiency, but in those very

regions where it feels itself at home, and is sure of its perceptions. Such frequent admissions of monstrous and unwarrantable assumptions must either produce a painful irritation, or endanger the distinctness of our moral vision. We can scarcely look long on objects that have been systematically distorted, without acquiring some degree of kindred obliquity. In the examination of the case before us, we need some system of moral arithmetic, to estimate fully its amount of improbability. It is impossible to concentrate its absurdities into any single proposition, that shall adequately express their aggregated enormity. In passing through the details of which it is made up, we are under the necessity of relinquishing, at each step, the conclusion we had formed, and of starting with the concession of some new extravagance. Thus we lose the power of contemplating the error at one view; as travellers, in approaching the summit of the Alps, become by degrees insensible to their height, because, in exact proportion as they ascend, they lose sight of the level from which they set out, and from which the calculation ought to be made.

Were it consistent with our present purpose to analyze the materials of which infidelity is compounded, or to trace its progress in the human mind, we might not only protest against

the wrongs of prostituted reason, but retort upon those who profess to monopolize it, the charges they fling on the votaries of truth. To undertake the task of inventing miracles, in order to get rid of those which are proposed to us, is, to say the least, an unprofitable waste of creative talent. To give our credence to imaginary wonders, whilst we refuse it to those which are said to be authenticated-and this when in one case there are reasons assigned for their existence, and nothing but the bare convenience of believing them in the otheris rather a paradoxical use of our discerning faculties. To betake ourselves to a chaos of manifest contradictions, that we may avoid the seeming improbability of a coherent system, is to evince a folly that invokes compassion; to escape at once from faith to credulity; and rush headlong from every decision of judgment, into all the caprices of a furious enthusiasm.

The paths of truth and error may, on our entrance, appear alike obstructed. We may be obliged to dismiss some prejudices, be they either good or bad; to encounter some apparent inconsistencies; and sometimes to grant that things may be true, which, on their first appearance, we feel disposed to deny. But there is this essential difference between them. In one, the prospect opens as we proceed; incongruities

reduce themselves to consistency and order; conjectures are found to confirm each other, or receive the sanction of demonstrable knowledge. In the other, the case is not unfrequently reversed; and, with whatever ease it may have been begun, or with whatever pertinacity pursued, every difficulty involves accumulated embarrassments, till the course is found at length to terminate in some obvious absurdity, or some dark confusion of dogmatism and doubt.

Whilst the infidel hypothesis destroys itself, how simple and conclusive is the Christian solution. Not only in the transaction we have just examined, but throughout the whole history of early Christianity, the truth of the Gospel will be found both necessary and sufficient to account for the phenomena, which it every where presents. If, by a professed departure from the ordinary process of cause and effect, a miraculous cure appears to have been wrought, the explanation at once accounts for the fact; the means alledged are equal to the end; and the occasion is enough to warrant the means. Peter addresses the astonished multitude, "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers hath glorified his son Jesus and his name, through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and