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Page 76
I have now finished my work, which I have written in order to
exculpate myself, and to do justice to others; and having
re-examined every link of the chain of my argument, I think it amply
strong to support the conclusions attached to it. Though there
might have been drawn from the Old and New Testaments, many
additional arguments corroborative of what has been said, yet, at
present, I shall add no more; as I think that what has been brought
forward has just claims to be considered by the impartial as quite
sufficient to prove these two points--that the New Testament can
neither subsist with the Old Testament, nor without it; and that the
New Testament system was built first upon a mistake, and
afterwards buttressed up with forged and apocryphal documents.
Let the candid now judge, whether the author, knowing these
things, or, at least persuaded of their truth, could have persisted in
affirming, (in a place where sincerity is expected), in the name of
the Almighty, that the claims of the New Testament were valid,
without being a hypocrite, and an impostor.
Let them also consider, whether, after being unable to obtain a
satisfactory refutation of the objections contained in this volume,
his resigning a profession whose duties obliged him to say what he
was convinced was false, was conduct to be reprehended. And
lastly, he appeals to the good sense of the public, for a decision,
whether, with such objections and difficulties weighing upon his
mind, as he has now exposed, his conduct in that respect can
reasonably be attributed to the unmanly influence of caprice and
fickle-ness, (as has been circulated by some who had an interest in
making it believed;) or to the just influence of motives deserving a
better name.
With regard to the unfortunate people whose arguments have been
brought forward in this volume, we have, reader, now gone over,
and distinctly felt, the whole ground of the controversy between
them and their persecutors, mentioned in the Preface. And as they
make use of the Old Testament as a foundation, admitted, and
necessarily admitted by Christians, to be of divine authority, and
are surrounded by the bulwarks they have raised out of the
demolished entrenchments of their adversaries, I do not see but
that �their castle�s strength may laugh a siege to scorn.� And after
reviewing, and revolving, over and over in my own mind the
arguments on both sides, I am obliged to believe, that the stoutest
Polemical Goliath who may venture to attack it, especially their
strong hold--their arguments about the Messiahship, will find to
his cost, that when his weak point is but known, the mightiest
Achilles must fall before the feeblest Paris, whose arrow is--aimed
at his heel.
The author hopes, and thinks he has a right to expect, that whoever
may attempt to answer his book, will do it fairly, like a man of
candour; without trying to evade the main question--that of the
Messiahship of Jesus. He fears, that he shall see an answer
precisely resembling the many others he has seen upon that
subject. Except two--those of Sukes, and Jeffries. (who
acknowledge that miracles have nothing to do with the question of
the Messiahship, which can be decided by the Old Testament only;)--
all that he has ever met with, evade this question, and slide
over to the ground of miracles. Such conduct in an answerer of this
book would be very unfair, and also very absurd. For the case is
precisely resembling the following--A father informs by letter his
son in a foreign country, that he is about to send him a Tutor,
whom he will know by the following marks; �He is learned in the
mathematics, and the physical sciences; acquainted with the
learned languages, and an excellent physician; of a dark
complexion; six feet high, and with a voice loud, and
commanding.� By and by, a man comes to the young man,
professing to be this tutor sent to him by his father. On examining
the man, and comparing him with the description in his father�s
letter, he finds him totally unlike the person he had been taught to
expect. Instead of being acquainted with the sciences, therein
mentioned, he knows nothing about them; instead of being �six
feet high, of a dark complexion, and with a voice loud and
commanding,� he is a diminutive creature of five feet, of a light
complexion, with a voice like a woman�s.
The young man, with his father�s letter in his hand, tells the
pretended tutor, that he certainly cannot be the person he has been
told to expect. The man persists, and appeals to certain �wonderful
works� he performs in order to convince the young man, that he is
acquainted with the sciences aforesaid, and that he is also six feet
high; of a dark complexion; and talks like an Emperor! The young
man replies. �Friend, you are either an enthusiast, a mad man, or
something worse. As to your � signs and wonders,� I have been
warned in my father�s letter to pay no regard to any such things in
this case. Besides, you ought to be sensible, that your identity with
the person I am taught by my father�s letter to expect, can be only
determined by comparing you with the description of him given
therein. Whether your �wonderful works� are real miracles or not, I
neither know, nor care. At any rate, they cannot, in the nature of
things, be any thing to the purpose in; this case. For you to pretend,
that they prove what you offer them to prove, is quite absurd; you
might as well, and as reasonably, pretend, that they could prove
Aristotle to have been Alexander; or the Methodist George
Whitfield to be the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte!�
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