nd allusions belong to ours or to apocryphal gospels. And
to conclude, would you not require as much evidence for the
authenticity of the gospels, which relate supernatural events, as we
have for most of the classics, and yet if you examine the subject
closely, you will be satisfied to your astonishment that we have not so
much as we have for the works of Virgil or Cicero; and that we have not
by a great deal so much testimony for the miracles of Jesus, which were
supernatural events which require at least as great proof as natural
ones as we have for the deaths of Pompey and of Julius Caesar, though
you seem from your note to think otherwise. As to Celsus, Porphyry, and
Julian, if they allowed the gospels to be genuine, they might have done
so, and taken advantage of such an allowance to show that they could
net, from their contradictions, have been written by men having a
mission from the God of Truth. But Sir, is it certain that they did
acknowledge it? Since the only fragments of their works upon
Christianity we have remaining, are just such parts as their Christian
answerers have picked out, and selected; the works themselves were
carefully burned. And that these answerers have not acted fairly may be
more than suspected, I think from a hint given us by Jerom, (which you
will find in Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry) that Origen in his answer to
Celsus, sometimes fought the devil at his own weapons, i.e. lied for
the sake of the truth; and it is notorious, that the Fathers of the
church allowed this to be lawful, and practiced it abundantly. See the
note at the end.

You allow in the 20th page that the sincerity of the propagators of
opinions is no proof of their truth; and yet you seem to think, that
the twelve apostles must have been correct, because the opinions they
propagated were, you think, contrary to their prejudices as Jews. This
argument cannot, I conceive, support the consequences you lay upon it,
were it true that the apostles had abandoned their opinions as Jews
about the nature of the Messiah's Kingdom. But I believe you will not
be a little surprized, when I shall show you, that in preaching Jesus
as the Messiah they did by no means adopt the very spiritual ideas you
ascribe to them, but in fact believed that Jesus would soon return and
"restore the Kingdom to Israel" in good earnest, and in a sense by no
means spiritual. This argument, if I can establish it, you observe,
sir, no doubt, must consequen