"Hence after making proper deduction for all that can be accounted for in this way, laying out of the question at the same time all that we may justly suppose were the mere glosses of the historian, or the lubricous figures of the poet, which are very peculiar to the ancient style of writing; after making due allowances also for interpolations, or what in more modern times have been considered _pious frauds!_ and after rejecting every thing (if any such there be) which savors of gross imposition! if there be any thing left to support the truth of divine revelation, then it may rationally be believed. "3. The facts on which revelation is predicated are unlike every thing of which we have any positive knowledge. "Of the truth of this proposition you must be sensible; yea, unless the revelation had been made directly to ourselves, it is impossible that it should be otherwise than true. Neither of us have ever seen any thing miraculous! The ancients, however, were carried away with this _supposition_; the same as the moderns have been with the idea of witches, wizards, ghosts, apparitions, &c. and many things which once would have been considered _ominous_, are now rationally accounted for. In this way, things once supposed to be _miraculous_ also, may have lost their supposed divine qualities. "This much, however, I believe, and of this much I have no doubt, that Paul and the other apostles were convinced of the truth and the salutary effects of the moral precepts which had been taught and practised by Christ; and they were willing to preach and enforce them by all the means in their power, even at the risk of their lives. Believing this, and practising accordingly, constituted them wise and good men; and happy would it have been for the Christian world if they had always followed in their steps, without ever undertaking to dictate to others, either modes or forms of worship, or to use coercive means to compel men to the faith. "That the apostles also believed in the resurrection, and also in eternal life, I have no doubt; this sentiment, however, was neither new nor peculiar to them, but had been held long before, not only by the pharisees, among the Jews, but by some of the Grecian philosophers; and the truth of it I am not at all disposed to dispute; yet nevertheless, whether the evidences on which it was founded were not originally mere _visionary_, like the appearance of Mr A. before mentioned, is the subject under consideration.