s or inferences, which are
delivered in precisely the same manner and with the same assumption
of authority. And this, I think, would be an insuperable task; at
least, it seems so, for you Rationalists decide this matter very
differently. When any of you favor me with your sketches of the true
heaven-descended Pauline theology, I find them widely different
from each other. Your 'religious element' is of the most variable
volume. Some of you include nearly the whole creed of ordinary
orthodoxy; others, fifty or even eighty per cent. less, both in
bulk and weight."

"Perhaps so."

"Perhaps so! But then, what becomes of your principle, that you may
separate the pure 'religion element,' as conveyed to the minds of the
sacred writers by direct illumination, from the errors of vicious
logic which have been permitted to mingle with it? To me it appears
any thing but easy to separate the functions of a revealer of truly
inspired truth from the vitiating influences of a fallacious logic.
The 'heavenly vision,' however 'obedient' a Paul may be to it, will
be but obscurely represented, and suffer egregiously from that
distorted image which the ill-constructed mirror will convey to us.
--But once more, I think you do not hold Paul's rhetoric to be always
of the first excellence?"

"Certainly not; I think his representations are often as faulty as his
logic is vicious; especially when, under the influence of his Jewish
education, he throws old Gamaliel's mantle over his shoulders, and dotes
about 'allegories' founded on the Old Testament."

"Fair and candid once more; but then, I suppose you will admit that
the divine truths which he was, nevertheless, commissioned to teach
mankind, will, like any other truths, be much affected by the mode
in which they are represented to the imagination; will become brighter
or more obscure, more animated or more feeble, and even more just or
distorted, as this task is wisely and judiciously, or preposterously
performed?"

"No doubt."

"Then it appears, I think, that, if there were nothing to control the
Apostle Paul's manner of exhibiting divine verities, even in relation
only to the imagination, there might be all the difference between
sober truth and fanatical perversions of it. I might, in the same manner,
proceed to show that the feelings, uncontrolled by a superior influence,
would be also likely to give distortion or exaggeration to the doctrines.
But it is enough. It appears very