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morality, obedience to magiftrates, order and government, with the utmost abhorrence of all licentiousness, idleness, or loose behaviour, under the cloak of religion. We no where read in his works, that faints are above moral ordinances; that dominion and property is founded in grace; that there is no difference in moral actions; that any impulfes of the mind are to direct us against the light of our reason, and the laws of nature; or any of thofe wicked tenets, from which the peace of fociety has been disturbed, and the rules of morality have been broken by men pretending to act under the fanction of a divine revelation. Nor does any part of his life, either before or after his converfion to christianity, bear any mark of a libertine difpofition. As among the Jews, fo among the chriftians, his converfation and manners were blamelefs. Hear the appeal that he makes to the Theffalonians, upon his doctrine and behaviour among them: "Our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; ye are witneffes, and God alfo, how holily and juftly, and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe."

1 Theff. ii. 10.* And to the Corinthians he fays, We have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man. 2 Cor. vii. 2.†

It was not then the defire of gratifying any irregular paffion, that could induce St. Paul to turn chriftian, any more than the hope of advancing himself either in wealth, or reputation, or power. But ftill it is poffible, fome men may fay (and I would leave no imaginable objection unanswered) that though St. Paul could have no selfish or interested view in undertaking such an impofture, yet, for the fake of its moral

*If St. Paul had held any fecret doctrines, or Efoteric (as the philofophers call them) we should have probably found them in the letters he wrote to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, his bofom friends and difciples. But both the theological and moral doctrines are exactly the fame in them, as those he wrote to the churches. A very ftrong prefumptive proof of his being no impoftor! Surely, had he been one, he would have given fome hints, in thefe private letters, of the cheat they were carrying on, and fome fecret directions to turn it to fome worldly purpose of one kind or another. But no fuch thing is to be found in any one of them. The fame difinterested, holy, and divine fpirit breathes in all thefe, as in the other more public epifties.

+ See alfo Cor. i. 12. and iv. 2.

doctrines, he might be inclined to support the christian faith, and make use some pious frauds to advancé a religion, which, though erroneous and falfe in its theological tenets, and the facts upon which it is grounded, was, in its precepts and influence, beneficial. to mankind.

Now it is true, that fome good men in the heathen world have both pretended to divine revelations, and introduced or fupported religions they knew to be falfe, under a notion of public utility: But befides that this practice was built upon maxims difclaimed by the Jews (who, looking upon truth, not utility, to be the basis of religion, abhorred all fuch frauds, and thought them injurious to the honor of God) the circumstances they acted in were different from thofe of St. Paul.

The first reformers of favage, uncivilized nations, had no other way to tame those barbarous people, and to bring them to fubmit to order and government, but by the reverence which they acquired from their patience. The fraud was therefore

alike beneficial both to the deceiver and the deceived. And in all other inftances which can be given of good men acting this part,

they not only did it to ferve good ends, but were fecure of its doing no harm. Thus, when Lycurgus perfuaded the Spartans, or Numa the Romans, that the laws of the one were infpired by Apollo, or those of the other by Egeria, when they taught their people to put great faith in oracles, or in augury, no temporal mischief, either to them, or their people, could attend the reception of that belief. It drew on no perfecutions, no enmity with the world. But at that time, when St. Paul undertook the preaching of the gofpel, to perfuade any man to be a chriftian, was to persuade him to expofe himself to all the calamities human nature could fuffer. This St. Paul knew ; this he not only expected, but warned those he taught to look for it too. 1 Theff. iii. 4. 2 Cor. vi. 4, 5. Ephe. vi. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Phil. i. 28, 29, 30. Col. i. 9, 10, 11. Rom. viii. 35, 36. The only fupport that he had himself, or gave to them, was, "That if they fuffered with Christ, they should be also glorified together.” And that "he reckoned that the fufferings of the prefent time were not worthy to be compared with that glory." Rom. viii. 17, 18. So likewife he writes to the Theffalonians,

c. 2

"We ourselves glory in you, in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your perfecutions and tribulations that you endure; which is a manifeft token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which also ye fuffer. Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense [or repay] tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you who are troubled reft with us, when the Lord Jefus fhall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, Theff. i. 4, 5, 6, 7. And to the Corinthians he fays, "If in this life only we have hope in Chrift, we are of all men the most miferable." How much reafon he had to fay this, the hatred, the contempt, the torments, the deaths endured by the chriftians in that age, and long afterwards, abundantly prove. Whoever profeffed the gofpel under thefe circunftances, without an entire conviction of its being a divine revelation, must have been mad; and if he made others profefs it by fraud or deceit, he must have been worfe than mad; he must have been the moft hardened villain that ever breathed. Could any man, who had in his nature the leaft fpark of humanity, fubject his fellow

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