"You may perhaps object here and say, all this is to no purpose, as christianity was well established before; and had existed for nearly three centuries, and increased too, notwithstanding the many most bitter and cruel persecutions. Therefore what you say respecting Constantine only proves that christianity has been corrupted, but it is no objection against its truth. Very good. If the facts above stated are admitted, let them prove what they will, I am not the author of those facts, nor accountable for what is proved by them. The conversion of Constantine, however, if correct, bears some analogy to the conversion of St. Paul: hence, the supposition that one is not correct, brings a little doubt over the mind respecting the truth of the other: for both being by means which were supernatural; if both are supported on equal testimony, why should they not both share the same fate in our minds? Both were equally possible; it is the want of probability, therefore, arising from the want of equal evidence in its favour, which leads us to reject the truth of the circumstances attending the conversion of Constantine, rather than those attending the conversion of St. Paul. The conversion of Constantine also, if genuine, seems to have been designed for a very different object, and was attended with a very different effect. This would incline me to believe in the validity of that of the apostle's, rather than that of the emperor. Nevertheless, as it respects the facts; he who caused a light at mid-day, above the brightness of the sun, might as easily have painted the sign of the cross on his disk; and he who spake to Saul from Heaven, with an audible voice, in the Hebrew tongue, might as easily have painted letters and words in Greek, so that they might be distinctly read in the firmament! "Leaving all ancient miracles and revelation, I will come down to those of our own times, and in our own country.--Strange to tell, there is a sect of people now among us, who sprang up less than half a century ago, whose religion is professedly founded on miracles and revelation. On miracles wrought by the first founders of the sect, as by Christ and his apostles, and on a revelation also made directly to them, and through them to the believers, as by the inspired writers of the new testament. They appear to be something similar in sentiment, as it respects the person of Christ, to the ancient Arians; with this difference only, they conceived that as Christ made his first appearance in Jesus, the son of a _carpenter_, so he has made his second appearance in Ann, the daughter of a _blacksmith_, whom they call _mother_; and they consider their church the _New Jerusalem_, that holy city which was to come down from God out of Heaven.