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Page 77
To conclude, if any person should feel inclined to attempt to refute
this book, let him do it like a man; without evading the question, or
equivocating, or caviling about little things. Let him consider the
principal question, and the main arguments on which he perceives
that the author relies, and not pass over these silently, and hold up
a few petty mistakes and subsidiary arguments as specimens of the
whole book. Such a mode of defence would be very disengenuous,
and with a discerning reader, perfectly futile and insufficient. It
would be as if a man prostrate, and bleeding under a lion whose
teeth and claws were infixed in his throat, should tear a handful of
hairs out of the animal�s mane, and hold them up as proofs of
victory.
In fine, let him, before his undertaking, carefully consider these
pungent words of Bishop Beveridge, �Opposite answers, and
downright arguments advantage a cause; but when a disputant
leaves many things untouched, as if they were too hot for his
fingers; and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true
state of the question: it is a shrewd sign, either that he has not
weighed things maturely, or else (which is more probable,) that he
maintains a desperate cause.�
FINIS.
APPENDIX A.#
As reasons for this assertion, (that �the account of the resurrection
given by the evangelists is no better, nay, worse, than conjecture,
as it is a mere forgery of the second century.--Vide page 86) take
the following facts, which are now ascertained, and can be
proved:--1. Several sects of Christians in the first century, in the
apostolic era, denied that Jesus was crucified, as the Basildeans,
&c. The author of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas, I think, denied
it, and the author of the gospel of Thomas certainly did. 2. The
Jewish Christians, the disciples of the twelve apostles, never
received, but rejected every individual book of the present New
Testament. They held in especial abomination the writings of Paul,
whom they called �an apostate;� and there is extant, in �
Cotelerius� Patres Apostolici,� a letter ascribed to Peter, written to
James at Jerusalem wherein he complains bitterly of Paul, styling
him �a lawless man,� and a crafty misrepresenter of him (Peter,)
and his doctrine, in that Paul represented, every where, Peter as
being secretly of the same opinions with himself; against this he
enters his protest, and declares that he reprobates the doctrine of
Paul. (See Appendix B.) 3. It is certain, that from the beginning,
the Christians were never agreed as to points of faith; and that the
apostles themselves, so far from being considered as inspired, and
infallible, were frequently contradicted, thwarted, and set at naught
by their own converts: and there were as many sects, heresies, and
quarrels, in the first century, as in the second or third. 4. Jesus and
his apostles were no sooner off the stage, than forgeries of all kinds
broke in with irresistible force: Gospels, Epistles, Acts,
Revelations without number, published in the names, and under the
feigned authority, of Jesus and his apostles, abounded in the
Christian church; and as some of these were as early in time as any
of the writings in the present canon of the New Testament, so they
were received promiscuously with them, and held in equal credit
and veneration, and read in the public assemblies as of equal
authority with those now received. 5. The very learned and pious
Dodwell, in his Dissertations on Iraeneus avows, that he cannot
find in ecclesiastical antiquities, (which he understood better than
any man of his age,) any evidence at all, that the four Gospels were
known or heard of, before the time of Trajan, and Adrian, i.e.
before the middle of the second century, i. e. nearly a hundred
years after the apostles were dead. (See Appendix C.) Long before
this time, we know that there were extant numbers of spurious
gospels, forged, and ascribed to the apostles; and we have not the
least evidence to be depended on, that those now received were not
also apocryphal. For they were written nobody certainly knows by
whom, or where, or when. They first appeared in an age of
credulity, when forgeries of this kind abounded and were received
with avidity by those whose opinions they favoured, while they
were rejected as spurious by many sects of Christians, who
asserted that they were possessed of the genuine apostles, which,
however, those who received �the four,� denied. 6. All the
different sects of Christians, without a known exception, altered,
interpolated, and without scruple garbled, their different copies of
their various and discordant gospels, in order to adapt them to their
jarring and whimsical philosophical notions, Celsus accuses them
of this, and they accuse each other. And that they were continually
tampering with their copies of the books of the New Testament, is
evident from the immense number of various readings, and from
some whole phrases, and even verses, which for knavish purposes
were foisted into the text, but have been detected, and exposed by
Griesbach, and others. They also forged certain rhapsodies under
the name of �Sybbiline Oracles,� and then adduce them as
prophetic proofs of the truth of their religion. They also
interpolated certain clumsy forgeries as prophecies of Jesus into
their copies of their Greek version of the Old Testament. 7. The
present canon of the New Testament has never been sanctioned by
the general consent of Christians. The Syrian church rejects some
of its books;--some of its books were not admitted until after long
opposition, and not until several hundred years after Jesus. The
lists of what were considered as canonical books, differ in different
ages, and some books now acknowledged by all Christians to be
forgeries, were in the second and third centuries considered as
equally apostolic as those now received, and as such, were publicly
read in the churches. 8. The reason why we have not now extant
gospels, different and contradictory to those now received, is,
because that the sect or party which finally got the better of its
adversaries, and styled itself Catholic, or orthodox, took care to
burn and destroy the heretics, and their gospels with them. They
likewise took care to hunt up and burn the books of the pagan
adversaries of Christianity, �because they were shockingly
offensive to pious ears.� 9. Semler considered the New Testament
as a collection of pious frauds, written for pious purposes, in the
latter part of the second century, (the very time assigned for their
first appearance by Dodwell.) Evanson adopts, and gives good
reasons for a similar opinion with regard to most of the books
which go to compose it. Lastly. The reason why the New
Testament canon has been so long respected, seems to have been
purely owing to the credulity of the ignorant, and the laziness,
indifference, or fears of the learned.
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