doctrinal difcuffions, moral precepts, and general reflections*; or if, for the fake of imitating St. Paul's ftyle, he should have thought it neceffary to intersperse his compofition with names and circumstances, he would have placed them out of the reach of comparison with the history. And I am confirmed in this opinion by an inspection of two attempts to counterfeit St. Paul's epiftles, which have come down to us; and the only attempts, of which we have any knowledge, that are at all deferving of re

*This, however, muft not be misunderstood. A perfon writing to his friends, and upon a subject in which the tranfactions of his own life were concerned, would probably be led in the course of his letter, especially if it was a long one, to refer to paffages found in his hiftory. A person addreffing an epiftle to the public at large, or under the form of an epistle delivering a discourse upon fome fpeculative argument, would not, it is probable, meet with an occafion of alluding to the circumstances of his life at all; he might, or he might not; the chance on either fide is nearly equal. This is the fituation of the catholic epiftle. Although, therefore, the prefence of these allufions and agreements bea. valuable acceffion to the arguments by which the authenticity of a letter is maintained, yet the want of them certainly forms no pofitive objection.

gard.

1

gard. One of thefe is an epiftle to the Laodiceans, extant in Latin, and preferved by Fabricius in his collection of apocryphal scriptures. The other purports to be an epiftle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, in answer to an epiftle from the Corinthians to him. This was tranflated by Scroderus from a copy in the Armenian language which had been fent to W. Whiston, and was afterwards, from a more perfect copy procured at Aleppo, published by his fons, as an appendix to their edition of Mofes Chorenenfis. No Greek copy exifts of either they are not only not fupported by ancient teftimony, but they are negatived and excluded; as they have never found admiffion into any catalogue of apoftolical writings, acknowledged by, or known to, the early ages of Chriftianity. In the firft of thefe I found, as I expected, a total evitation of circumftances. It is fimply a collection of fentences from the canonical epiftles, ftrung together with very little fkill. The fecond, which is a more verfute and fpecious forgery, is introduced with a lift of names of perfons who wrote to St.

Paul

Paul from Corinth; and is preceded by an account fufficiently particular of the manner in which the epiftle was fent from Corinth to St. Paul, and the answer returned. But they are names which no one ever heard of; and the account it is impoffible to combine with any thing found in the Acts, or in the other epiftles. It is not neceffary for me to point out the internal marks of spuriousness and impofture which these compofitions betray; but it was neceffary to obferve, that they do not afford those coincidences which we propose as proofs of authenticity in the epiftles which we defend.

Having explained the general scheme and formation of the argument, I may be permitted to fubjoin a brief account of the manner of conducting it.

I have disposed the several inftances of agreement under feparate numbers; as well to mark more fenfibly the divifions of the subject, as for another purpose, viz. that the reader may thereby be reminded that the inftances are independent of one another. I have advanced nothing which I did not

think probable; but the degree of probability, by which different inftances are fupported, is undoubtedly very different. If the reader, therefore, meets with a number which contains an inftance that appears to him unfatisfactory, or founded in mistake, he will dismiss that number from the argument, but without prejudice to any other. He will have occafion alfo to obferve, that the coincidences discoverable in fome epiftles are much fewer and weaker than what are fupplied by others. But he will add to his obfvation this important circumstance -that whatever ascertaines the original of one epiftle, in fome measure establishes the authority of the reft. For, whether these epiftles be genuine or fpurious, every thing about them indicates that they come from the fame hand. The diction, which it is extremely difficult to imitate, preferves its refemblance and peculiarity throughout all the epiftles. Numerous expreffions and fingularities of style, found in no other part of the New Teftament, are repeated in different epiftles; and occur, in their respective places, without the smallest appearance of

force

force or art. An involved argumentation, frequent obfcurities, especially in the order and transition of thought, piety, vehemence, affection, bursts of rapture, and of unparalleled fublimity, are properties, all or most of them, difcernible in every letter of the collection. But although these epiftles bear ftrong marks of proceeding from the fame hand, I think it is ftill more certain that they were originally feparate publications. They form no continued story; they compofe no regular correspondence; they comprise not the tranfactions of any particular period; they carry on no connection of argument; they depend not upon one another; except in one or two inftances, they refer not to one another. I will farther undertake to fay, that no study or care has been employed to produce or preserve an appearance of confiftency amongst them. All which obfervations fhew that they were not intended by the person, whoever he was, that wrote them, to come forth or be read together; that they appeared at first separately, and have been collected fince.