abfurd credulity, at the fame time that he studies to caft the reproach of it upon others; even as fome of his fceptical brethren have betrayed a great degree of

⚫ Lutherans, Calvinifts, all interested in contradicting them,' he fcruples not, upon their authority, to pronounce it evident, that the empire of China was formed upwards of four thousand years ago: yea, he concludes that the Chinese must have been a body of people for antecedent ages. He also obferves, that he may destroy the credit of the scripture account of the flood, before which he thus affembles them, 'This people ⚫ of antiquity never heard any mention made of those inundations, the 'flight remembrance of which is preferved and changed in the fable of ⚫ the deluge of Deucalion.' Nevertheless, prone as our author is to rely upon the annals of this nation, as indeed he is upon every tale that contradicts fcripture, whoever reads what Fourmont in his Reflexions Critiques fur l'Hiftoire des Anciens Peuples, the authors of the Antient Universal History, vol. 20. page 109, &c. and others, have oppofed to the pretenfions which the Chinese make to fo high antiquity, will be fatisfied that these annals deserve no fuch regard as he pays to them. I further remark, that even Father du Halde, who profeffes himself a zealous admirer of the Chinese chronology, difagrees with him about the original of their empire; for he places Fohi its founder, about 200 years after the flood, according to the Greek verfion; which is about 800 years after it according to the Hebrew calculation, that making the flood to have happened in the 2262, but this in the 1656 year of the world. Nor does Father Regis, who died at Pekin only in the 37th year of this present century, make him to have reigned much earlier; for he only raises him 120 years beyond Du Halde. Further, Monfieur Voyeu de Brunen informs us that the Chinese themselves look on the hiftory of the times antecedent or previous to the institution of their cycle of 60 years, which he, as well as Monfieur Regis, acknowledges to have been contrived but about 1 300 years after the deluge, and according to which, they only counted the year of Christ 1750 the 47th year of the 67th cycle, (an evidence that the first cycle did not reach back to that inundation) to be very uncertain and dubious. Finally, Monfieur Freret, fpeaking of their annals, fays, They confift of two parts, whose authenticity and credit are very different. That part which begins about 200 years before Christ's birth,

enthusiasm *, while they were defirous to fix the imputation upon believers in Chrift's religion. For all circumstances do concur to overthrow the authority of this book, but our gospels have the strongest claim to credibility,

was written upon contemporary memoirs, and underwent before it was published a very accurate examination, so it may be confidered as accompanied with the strongest evidence, but that part which precedes this period hath little certainty in it. See Memoires de l' Academie Royal des Infcriptions et Belles Lettres, tom. xv. p. 57. and Bibliotheque des Sciences, tom. 7. p. 367.

* I allude to the story which Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the first deiftical writer in England, tells us of himself, as it is published by Dr. Leland, in his View of the Deistical writers, vol. 1. p. 43. from a manufcript life of that author, which had been communicated to him. As it is in itself very remarkable, and as it may be a caveat to fome perfons of a very opposite character and complexion to Lord Herbert, who are too ready to look for, and lay stress upon figns from heaven, or strong inward impreffions as guides of their judgment and conduct, and thereby to expose both their understanding and their piety to reproach, I fhall not hesitate to transcribe the paffage, befeeching them at the same time to make a due use of it, that they may retrieve their credit and honour. It runs thus, Being doubtful (he means about the publication of his book, De Veritate Religionis,' i. e. concerning the truth of religion,) ⚫ in my chamber one fair day in the fummer, my casement being open towards the fouth, the fun fhining clear, and no wind ftirring, I took my book De Veritate in my hands, and kneeling on my knees, de⚫ voutly faid these words, O thou eternal God, author of this light *" which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illumination. I "beseech thee, of thine infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request "than a finner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough, whether I "fhall publish this book: if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee, give 66 me fome fign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.' I had no ⚫ fooner spoken thefe words, but a loud, though yet gentle noise, came ⚫ forth from the heavens, (for it was like nothing on earth,) which ⚫ did fo cheer and comfort me, that I took my petition as granted, and

Thefe are books which have been handed down to us from the beginning, as the works of these four perfons, from whom they are denominated, two of them the apostles and intimate companions of Jesus, and two of them, again, their familiar acquaintances. They are free from every thing in their ftile, which is unfuitable to the age in which they are

my

*

that I had the fign I demanded; whereupon alfo I refolved to print book. This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest before the Eternal God is true; neither am I any way fuperftitiously de'ceived herein, fince I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the ⚫ferenest sky that I ever faw, being without all cloud, did to my think

ing fee that place from whence it came.' Here we fee he defires an interposition of providence by fome preternatural event to direct him, and, warmed with an opinion of the importance of his book to promote the glory of God, as was natural for its author, he fancies he received a fignal to publifh it by fome noife in the air, which might proceed from a variety of natural caufes. How would Deifts have been ready to exult and triumph in it, as an evidence of fanaticism and weaknefs of mind, if any apologist for Christianity had related such a scene as he has done, for encouraging him to print a defence of it?

* This was with regard to them all, before the end of the centu ry about the thirty-third or thirty-fourth year of which Christ died, and with regard to three of them, the gofpels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, beyond difpute, long before its conclufion. About this date of the gofpels, we have the unanimous teftimony of the antient church, which, in a fact of this nature, hath the force of a demonstration. For none of the Christian fathers make the three former evangelists to have wrote later than thirty years or thereabouts, after our Lord's crucifixion; and all of them agree, that John, who wrote last, published his gospel, before the conclufion of the century, while not a few have faid, that he did so before the destruction of Jerufalem, which happened in the year 70.-There are, befides, indications in the three first gofpels themselves, from their manner of recording Chrift's predictions about the overthrow of the city, and temple of Jerufalem, and the calamities coming on the Jewish people, as was observed in the

faid to have been written, and from every thing in the representations they give of the state of Judea former fection, p. 479. that they were written earlier than those events; nor have there been wanting learned moderns, who have thought that there are notes of the fame time in John's gospel, from its fuitablenefs for fhewing the heinous and inexcufable guilt of that nation, and juftifying the providence of God in their impending ruin, and from the mention of the five porches at the pool of Bethesda as still subsisting, chap. v. 2. and from some other circumstances. Moreover, as it cannot be pretended, there are any marks in the three first gospels at least, even upon the most rigorous and critical examination of them, which betray their being written fince the destruction of the Jewish ftate, fo there is a peculiar argument, that Luke's gospel was compofed a confiderable while before it. For, it was written before his book of the Acts of the Apostles, as appears from the beginning of this last book, The former treatife have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jefus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up,' Acts, i. 1. 2. But he ends his history of the travels and atchievements of the apoftles there, with the two years imprisonment of Paul at Rome, from which he is supposed to have been released in the year 63. instead of proceeding to write an account of his death and martyrdom for the name of Chrift, which by none is made posterior to the year 65. Now, for this no reason can be affigned, except that he wrote it before they happened. His gofpel, therefore, must have been written before that imprisonment, in which his fucceeding book of the Acts terminates. And this obfervation fhews more abundantly the impertinence and weakness of Mr. Voltaire's cavil, that Matthew's gospel was written after the destruction of Jerufalem, from the mention Jefus is there represented to make of Zacharias, fince Luke also, in his gospel, declares him to have spoken of him, whose gospel there is so clear proof was written long before the breaking out of the Jewish war, about the commencement of which, the death of Jofephus's Zacharias was procured.

I shall only add, as little is there room to question these gospels were written by the perfons whofe names they bear. If Matthew and John fpeak of themselves in the third perfon in their gofpels, Matt. ix. 9. John, xiii, 23. it is no unufual thing for writers or fpeakers to use

and other countries, of the offices and employments there held, and of the speeches and actions of the perfons who are introduced, which looks like the forgery and invention of a later period. For all is agreeable to the accounts we have of the condition of thefe places, of the dignities enjoyed in them, of the characters, and even names of thofe that filled fuch pofts, and of the opinions and fentiments that then prevailed there, by other authors.-There is a moft striking fairness and impartiality apparent in thefe books. For the writers of them tell us fuch things of Jefus Chrift, as were in their own nature calculated to create offence, or in the judgment of the world feemed exceptionable, without palliating; and they record the faults of themselves and their friends, their dulness of understanding, their want of faith, their forgetfulness, their ambitious disputes about worldly pre-eminence, their cowardly defer

this ftyle, both in the Old and New Testament. If they are entitled, The gofpels according to fuch perfons, this is no evidence, especially against universal tradition from the begiaring, that they were not the writers of them, and that others only collected them from their fermons. For without examining, whether the titles were not added by others rather than the hiftorians themselves, unquestionably they may fignify, that the men therein mentioned penned each the book respectively, to which fuch title with his name is prefixed, according to the ufe of the praepofition κατα among the Greeks. So αι κατ' Αννίβαν #gažas, Polyb. 3. 6. is, the actions done by Hannibal. And they must be understood to denote this here; even that every gofpel was written by the perfon, according to whom it is faid in its title to be. For fo Luke wrote the gofpel entitled, according to Luke, as may be argued from comparing Luke, i. 3. Acts, i. 1, 2. xvi. 10. &c. and John wrote the gospel entitled, according to John, as is evident from John xxi. 24.