2. Because Christianity would be but little the gainer by overthrowing the credebility of Eusebius in this instance, at so dear an expence, as the necessary destruction of his credibility in all others. If we are not to give Eusebius credit for ability and integrity, to make a fair and accurate quotation, upon a matter that could have no room for mistake, or excuse for ignorance; if on such a matter he would knowingly and wilfully deceive us; and the variations of the text of Philo, from the quotations he has given us, be held a sufficient demonstration that he has done so: there remains no alternative, but that his testimony must lose its claim on our confidence, in all other cases whatever with the credit of Eusebius must go, all that Eusebius's authority upheld, and the three first ages of Christianity, will remain without an historian, or but as

But the evidences of the Christian religion are not yet in this distress.

The testimony of Eusebius on this subject, is neither more nor less valid, for any confirmation or impeachment it might receive, from any extant copies of the writings of Philo.

3. Because, nothing is more likely, than that the text of Philo, might have been altered purposely to produce such an appearance of discrepancy, and so to supply to Christians, (what 'tis known they would stop at no means to come by,) a caveat and evitation of the most unguarded and portentous giving-of-tongue, that ever fell from so shrewd and able an historian; and,

4. Because, nothing is more certain, than that no writings have ever been safe from such interpolations; the text of the New Testament itself, at this day, presenting us with innumerable texts, which were not contained in its earlier copies, and being found deficient of many texts that were in those copies.*

5. We have certainly Eusebius's testimony in this chapter, and in such a state as that it may be depended on, as being bona fide his testimony, really and fairly exhibiting to us, what his view and judgment of Christianity was, or (the Christian is welcome to the alternative!)

* See Chapter 16.

6. And Eusebius's testimony is valid to the full effect for which we claim it, and that is, to the proof of what the origin of the Christian scriptures was, AS IT APPEARED TO

HIM.

7. And the validity of his testimony cannot be impeached in this particular instance, without overthrowing the authority of evidence altogether, opening the door to everlasting quibbling, turning history into romance, and making the admission of facts to depend on the caprice or prejudice of a party.*

8. And if what Eusebius has delivered in this chapter, cannot be reconciled to what he may seem to have delivered in other parts of his writings, it will be for those who refuse to receive his testimony, here, to show how, or where he ever hath, or could have, delivered a contrary testimony more explicitly, intelligibly, and positively, than he has this.

9. Nor can they claim from us, that we should respect his testimony in any other case, when they themselves refuse to respect it, where it stands in conflict with their own foregone conclusion.

10. And if, what he may any where else have said, be found utterly irreconcileable with what he hath here delivered, so as to convict him of being an author who cared not what he said; the Christian again is welcome to the conclusion on which his own argument will drive him, i. e. the total destruction of all evidence that rests on the veracity of Eusebius.

11. And if Eusebius be not competent testimony to what Christianity was in his day, as it appeared to him; we hold ourselves in readiness to receive and respect any other testimony of the same age, which those who shall bring it forward, shall be able to show to be superior to that of Eusebius.

12. But the conflict itself, which this most important passage has excited in the learned world, has thoroughly winnowed it from all the chaff of sophistication, and in the admissions of those who have contended most strenuously against its pregnant consequences; we possess the strongest species of evidence of which any historical document whatever, is capable.

* In these Corollaries, be it observed, we respect the wide distinction between his testimony to miracles; in which he speaks as a divine, from whom therefore truth is not to be too rigidly expected; and his testimony as an historian, from whom nothing but truth is to be endured.

13. The learned Basnage* has been at the pains of examining with the most critical accuracy, the curious treatise of Philo, on which our Eusebius builds his argument, that the ancient sect of the Therapeute were really Christians so many centuries before Christ, and were actually in possession of those very writings which have become our gospels and epistles.

14. Gibbon, with that matchless power of sarcasm, which, in so little said, conveys so much intended, and which carries instruction and conviction to the mind, by making what is said, knock at the door to ask admission for what is not said,† significantly tells us that, "by prov ing that this treatise of Philo was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius, and a crowd of modern Catholics, that the Therapeute were neither Christians nor monks. It still remains probable, (adds the historian), that they changed their name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian Ascetics."-Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 15, note.

15. Under the overt sense of this important criticism, the sagacious historian protects his call on our observance of the monstrous absurdity of a modern theologian attempting to demonstrate what primitive Christianity was, in spite of the only authority from which our knowledge of primitive Christianity can be derived, and challenging our surrender to his peculiar view of the subject, in preference to the conclusions of a crowd of modern Catholics, who are certainly as likely to know, and as able to judge, as himself.

16. Nor are we to overlook the palpable inference, that a demonstration that this treatise of Philo was written as early as the time of Augustus; so far from demonstrating the conclusion which the demonstrator aims to establish, demonstrates all the premises and grounds of the very opposite conclusion.

* Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. 1. 2, c. 20, et seq.

+ Could any jibe be keener than his remark on the convenience of the time fixed on by divine providence, for the introduction of Christianity; when the Pagan philosophers, and the Pagans generally, were become quite indifferent to the old forms of idolatry :-"Some deities of a more recent and fashionable cast, might soon have occupied the deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if in the decisive moment, the wisdom of providence had not interposed a genuine revelation.”—Chap. 15. How honest must the Pagan priests have been, to have owned that their revelations were not genuine!

17. The apology for this dilemma, so sarcastically suggested by Gibbon, that "it is probable that these Therapeutæ changed their name," conveys the real truth of the matter, in the equally suggested probability, that their name was changed for them. It was not they who embraced Christianity, but Christianity that embraced them.

18. We know that those most admired compositions of Shakspeare and Otway, the "Hamlet" and "Venice Preserved," as now presented to the public, are but little like the first draughts of them, as they fell from the pen of those great authors; yet no one doubts their proper origination, nor thinks of ascribing the merit of them to any other than those authors, though they be re-edited with thousands of various readings, and we are now content to recognise as the best copies, the "Hamlet" according to Malone or Garrick, and the "Venice Preserved" according to Colley Cibber.

19. Considering the remote antiquity in which all evidence on the subject must necessarily be obscured. So positive and distinct an avowal as this, of the very highest authority that could possibly be, or be pretended, that the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, constituted the sacred writings of the ancient sect of the Therapeuta, before the era which modern Christians have unluckily assigned as that of the birth of Christ; supported as that avowal is, by internal evidence and demonstrations of those scriptures themselves, even in the state in which they have come down to us, and explaining and accounting as that avowal does, for, all the circumstances and phænomena that have attended those scriptures, which no other hypothesis can explain or account for, without calling in the desperate madness of supposing the operation of supernatural causes :-we hold ourselves to have presented a demonstration of certainty, than which history hath nothing more certain-that the writings contained in the New Testament, are hereby clearly traced up to the Therapeutan monks before the Augustan age; and that no ancient, or equally ancient work, was ever by more satisfactory evidence, shown to have been the composition of the author to whom it has been ascribed, than that by which the writings of the New Testament are proved to have been the works of those monks.

20. To be sure they have been re-edited from time to time, and all convenient alterations and substitutions made upon them, "to accommodate them to the faith of the

orthodox."* Some entire scenes of the drama have been rejected, and some suggested emendations of early critics have been adopted into the text; the names of Pontius Pilate, Herod, Archelaus, Caiaphas, &c. picked out of Josephus's and other histories, have been substituted in the place of the original dramatis persona: and since it has been found expedient to conceal the plagiarism, to pretend a later date, and a wholly different origination, texts have been introduced, directly impugning the known sentiments and opinions of the original authors: by an exquisite shuffle of ecclesiastical management, what was really the origination of Christianity, has been represented as a corruption of it. The epocha and reign of monkish influence and monkish principles, has been wilfully misdated; those who are known, and demonstrated by the clearest evidence of independent history, to have existed for ages before the Christian era, are represented to have sprung up, in the second, third, or fourth century of that era; and in spite of the still remaining awkwardness and hideousness of the dilemma, that so pure and holy a religion, should come so soon to have been so universally misunderstood; the monks who originated, are branded as the monks who corrupted; the makers for the marrers : and it has remained for Protestant illumination, after sixteen hundred years of dark ages, to discover evidence that escaped the observance of the very authorities from which it is derived, and to show us divine inspiration, and more than human means for the exaltation and improvement of the human character, in the hands of monks and solitaires, eremites and friars.

21. We have here the clearest and most complete solution of the difficulty that seems to have so much perplexed the faith of the Unitarian Christian, Evanson, in his Dissonance of the Four Gospels ; namely that though

* See Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society.

+ This very ingenious and interesting work, as published by one who was a preacher in the Unitarian connection, and who professes himself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, is another, added to the many instances we meet with, of the correct and even powerful acting of the mind, in most able criticism, in deep research, and shrewd discernment, while yet labouring under an insanity, with respect to some particular modifications of thought, so egregious as to betray itself even to the observance of a child. Mr. Evanson rejected the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, and very many parts of St. Luke; he rejected the Epistles to the Romans, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to Titus, and the Hebrews, the two Epistles of Peter, the three of John, and the Revelations; each of which he convicts of evident interpolation, and strong marks of forgery; yet, he believed in the resurrection of Christ, and "in all the obvious and simple, but important truths, of the new covenant of the gospel," Page 289, (the last.)