27th is received, and, as you request, a copy of
the syllabus is now enclosed. It was originally written to Dr. Rush. On
his death, fearing that the inquisition of the public might get hold of
it, I asked the return of it from the family, which they kindly complied
with. At the request of another friend, I had given him a copy. He lent
it to his friend to read, who copied it, and in a few months it appeared
in the Theological Magazine of London. Happily that repository is
scarcely known in this country; and the syllabus, therefore, is still a
secret, and in your hands I am sure it will continue so.

But while this syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in its
true and high light, as no impostor himself, but a great reformer of the
Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with
him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of
Spiritualism: he preaches the efficacy of repentance towards forgiveness
of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it, &c. &c. It
is the innocence of his character, the purity and sublimity of his moral
precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologues
in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes, indeed,
needing indulgence to eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies, too, may be
founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. Among the
sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many
passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely
benevolence; and others again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity,
so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it
impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same
being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore to him
the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery
of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul
was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.
These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me
to try to sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that
his part composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been
given to us by man. The syllabus is therefore of his doctrine, not
all of mine: I read them as I do those of other ancient and modern
moralists, with a mixture of approbation and dissent.

I rejoice, with you, to see an encouragin