The established maxim of these schools was, that it was not lawful only, but commendable to deceive, and assert falsehoods for the sake of promoting what they considered as the cause of truth and piety, and the effects of this maxim, which was fully acted upon by both orthodox Christians, and heretics, produced a multiplicity of false, and spurious writings wherewith the second century abounded. Nay, they did not spare from the operation of this maxim, the scriptures themselves. For they stuffed their copies of the Septuagint with a number of interpolated pretended prophecies concerning Jesus, and his death upon the cross; forgeries as weak, and contemptible, and clumsy in themselves, as they were impious and wicked. Whoever desires to see a number of them; may find them in the dispute, or dialogue of Justin with Trypho the Jew; where he will see the simple Justin bringing them out passage after passage against the stubborn Israelite, who contents himself with coolly answering, that these marvellous prophecies were not to be found in his Hebrew bible! There is also another well known, incontrovertible proof of the deceit and falsehood of the leading Christians of early times, of which every person in the least conversant with the ecclesiastical history of those times must be convinced--their pretended power of working miracles! On this subject I shall say nothing, but refer the reader to the work of Dr. Middleton already mentioned, for an ample account of their lying wonders, which they imposed as miraculous upon the simple people. With regard to the internal evidence for the authenticity of the writings; composing the New Testament, it is still less satisfactory than the external evidence. And this may be well believed, when the reader is informed that the great Semler, after spending his life in the study of ecclesiastical history; and antiquities, which he is allowed to have understood better than any before him, affirmed to his astonished coreligionists, that, except the Gospel of John, and the Apocalypse, the whole New Testament was a collection of forgeries written by the partizans of the Jewish and Gentile parties in the Christian church, and entitled apostolic, in order the better to answer their purpose. This opinion has been in part adopted in England, by a learned and shrewd clergyman named Evanson, who has almost demonstrated, that the Greek Gospel of Matthew was written in the second century after the birth of Jesus by a Gentile. For he proves that it could not be written by a Jew, on account of geographical mistakes, and manifest ignorance of Jewish customs. He also gives good reasons for rejecting the authenticity of some of the epistles. In short, he has poured such a flood of light upon the eyes of his terrified brethren, as will, ere long, no doubt enable them to see a little clearer than heretofore.