As to the "_speaking with tongues and prophesying_," these are pretensions, which may be acknowledged without much difficulty. _Tongues_ are the organs most men speak with. As to _prophesying_, it was an operation that might as well be performed after the fact as before the fact: witness in Luke 22:64, "Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?" Read the Bible over from beginning to end, a _prophet_, whatever else be meant, if there be anything else meant, you will find to have been _a politician: to prophesy_ was to talk _politics_. Make a new translation, or, what would be shorter, a list of _corrigenda_, and instead of _prophet_ put _politician_,--a world of labour, now employed in explanations, will be saved. CHAPTER XIV. _Acts, part false, part true: Author not Saint Luke._ SECTION 1. BY THE FALSE PARTS, THE GOSPEL NOT AFFECTED: MOST PARTS TRUE. In regard to the Acts, a notion, generally, not to say universally, received, is--that it had Saint Luke for its author: and that, accordingly, it may with propriety be regarded as a continuation of the Gospel of that Evangelist, written by the same hand. Were this conception a correct one, whatsoever shock were given to the credit of the Acts, would unavoidably extend itself to the Gospel history: at any rate, to that part of it which bears the name of Luke. Before this chapter is at an end,--the reader, if the author is not much mistaken, will not only be convinced that that opinion is untenable, but see no small ground for wondering, how by any person, by whom any survey had been taken of the two objects in that point of view, any such notion should ever have come to be entertained. Another memento, of which, if made before, even the repetition may in this place, perhaps, be not without its use, is--that, from nothing that is here said, is any such conception meant to be conveyed, as that the history called _The Acts_, is from beginning to end, like that of Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of Britain_, a mere falsity. In a great part, perhaps even by much the greatest, it is here looked upon as true: in great part true, although in no inconsiderable part incorrect, to say no worse: and, in particular, on every point, on which the colour of the marvellous is visible. As to the sort and degree of evidence due to it, one general assumption there is, by which the whole of this inquiry has, from first to last, been guided. This is--that, in relation to one and the same work, whatsoever be the subject of it, credence may, without inconsistency or impropriety, by one and the same person, be given and withholden: given, on this or that occasion; withholden, on this or that other occasion: given, in so far as the truth of the contents seems probable; withholden, as far as it seems improbable.