initial commit of ebook 24594HEADmain

7 files changed, 2738 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/24594.txt b/24594.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..890a5d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24594.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1361 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter To the Reverend Mr. Channing
+Relative to His Two Sermons On Infidelity, by George English
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Letter To the Reverend Mr. Channing Relative to His Two Sermons On Infidelity
+
+Author: George English
+
+Posting Date: March 25, 2012 [EBook #24594]
+First Posted: February 13, 2008
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO REVEREND MR. CHANNING ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Klingman
+
+
+
+
+  A
+  Letter
+  To the
+  Reverend Mr. Channing
+  Relative to
+  His Two Sermons
+  On
+  Infidelity
+
+  By George Bethune English, A.M.
+  Boston
+  Printed for the Author
+  1813
+
+LETTER, &c.
+
+Rev. Sir,
+
+Your eloquent and interesting Sermons on Infidelity, I have read with
+the interest arising from the nature of the subject you have discussed,
+and the impressive manner in which you have treated it.
+
+As it is understood that the appearance of those Sermons was owing to a
+Book lately published by me, I request your pardon for a liberty I am
+about to take, which in any other circumstances I should blush to
+presume upon-it is sir, with deference, and great respect, to express
+my sentiments with regard to some of the arguments contained in them,
+where the reasoning does not appear to me so unexceptionable as the
+language in which it is enveloped, is eloquent and affecting.  There
+are also some opinions of yours relative to matters of fact, in those
+discourses, to which I would respectfully solicit your attention.
+
+It afforded me much pleasure, though it caused me no surprise, to
+perceive you to say in your introductory remarks, that these Sermons
+were designed to procure for the arguments for Christianity "a serious,
+and respectful attention" and, that if you should "be so happy as to
+awaken candid and patient enquiry," your "principal object will be
+accomplished" you wish, "that Christianity should be thoroughly
+examined," you do "not wish to screen it from enquiry." It would cease,
+you observe to be your support were you not "persuaded that it is able
+to sustain the most deliberate investigation."
+
+In considering Christianity as a fair subject for discussion, you do
+justice to the cause you so eloquently defend for Christianity itself
+honestly, and openly professes to offer itself, to the belief of all
+mankind solely on account of the reasons which support it; and since
+its learned, and liberal advocates always announce, and recommend it
+from the Pulpit as reasonable in itself and confirmed by unanswerable
+arguments; no one who believes them sincere can doubt, that they are
+perfectly willing to have its claims openly discussed and think
+themselves amply able to give valid reasons, "for the faith that is in
+them," and which they so earnestly invite all men to receive.
+
+You observe, p. 13, that the writings of Infidels, "have been injurious
+not so much by the strength of their arguments, as by the positive, and
+contemptuous manner In which they speak of Revelation, they abound in
+sarcasm, abuse, and sneer, and supply the place of reasoning, by wit
+and satire." If so sir, it is all in favor of the cause you defend; for
+the tiny weapons of wit, and ridicule, will assuredly fly to shivers
+under a few blows from the solid, and massy club of sound logic.  The
+man who attacks any system of Religion merely with wit, and ridicule,
+can never, I conceive, be a very formidable antagonist.
+
+The mental imbecility of the man who could touch such a subject as
+religion in any shape with no other arms, would render him a harmless
+adversary, and the intrinsic weakness of such shining but slender
+weapons, when encountered with something more solid, would eventually
+render him a contemptible one, I therefore cannot help doubting, that
+wit and ridicule alone, and unsupported by reasoning, and good
+reasoning too, could ever have been very successfully wielded against
+such a thing as the Christian Religion, by its opposers.
+
+No man it appears to me of common understanding will ever resign his
+religion on account of a few jokes, and bon mots. The adherence of such
+men as are weak enough to be subverted by such trifles can do as little
+honor to Christianity, as their abandoning it for such reasons, can
+affect it with disgrace. The belief of such men could never have been
+more than habit, and their Infidelity nothing else than a freak of
+folly, which is reproachful only to themselves.  But after all, this
+vehement objection to wit and ridicule, appears to me a little
+imprudent; for a sarcastic opponent might reply, that sceptics, have
+been not unfrequently attacked with irony most severe, and sometimes
+sorely wounded by vollies of wit shot from the pulpit, a place too
+where it can be done without fear of reprisals.  You know sir, that the
+famous Warburton, for instance, used to amuse himself with not only
+cutting down every unlucky sceptic that came in his way, but he
+absolutely cut them to pieces with the edge of ridicule, most bitterly
+envenomed too with something else. It seems therefore a little
+unreasonable, that what is fair for one party, should not be so for the
+other too.  Besides, the advocates of a cause, which is said not only
+not to fear examination, but to challenge it, should not, it appears to
+me, when taken at their words shrink, and draw back, on account of such
+trifles as wit, and ridicule; because the style of an investigation
+cannot certainly conceal the immutable distinction between a good
+argument and a bad one, from such learned and penetrating adversaries
+as the Clergy; and moreover does it appear clear that an advocate after
+asserting a proposition, and defying refutation, has any right to
+insist, that his opponent should put his arguments in just such a form
+as would be most convenient to him? What would a penetrating Lawyer
+think of the cause of his opponent, on finding him to insist upon his
+arranging his objections, and expressing his arguments just so that it
+might be most easy to him to reply to them?
+
+For my own part, I have no claims to wit, and if I have been sometimes
+sarcastic it was more than I meant to be, it was the premeditated
+consequence of bitter feelings arising from considering myself as
+having been betrayed by my credulity into taking a situation in
+society, which I had discovered I must quit at no less a hazard than
+that the destruction of all my plans and prospects for life. At any
+rate I am satisfied, that no ridicule of mine has been intentionally
+adduced by me in order to corroborate a false position, or a weak
+argument; I believe that it seldom appears except in the rear of
+something more respectable and efficient.
+
+You observe, that Christianity "deserves at least respectful, and
+serious attention, must be evident to every man who has honesty of
+mind." Nothing can be more true than this, it is a subject which does
+deserve a respectful, and serious attention: because every thing
+claiming to be from God ought to be carefully, coolly, and respectfully
+examined on these accounts.
+
+1. If it be from God it is of the highest importance to the welfare of
+mankind that its truth should be investigated thoroughly, and settled
+firmly.
+
+2. Because if it is not from God it must be the fruit of either of
+error or fraud, if of the first it ought to be rejected as a delusion;
+if of the second it ought to be cast off as a deception practiced in
+the name of the God of truth, and therefore disrespectful to him.
+
+It also merits, you most truly say, a respectful examination on account
+of the character of its founder, for the character of Jesus you justly
+consider as too excellent and unexceptionable to be reproached.
+Whatever may be said concerning the moral excellence of that person's
+character I will cheerfully assent to, and I could not listen without
+disgust to language impeaching his moral purity. This I can do without
+ceasing to suppose him an enthusiast; for there appears to me to be too
+many marks of it in the New Testament for the idea to be set aside by a
+few eloquent exclamations, and notes of admiration; if I am wrong in
+this idea or in others, I will not prove indocile to arguments that
+shall sufficiently show the contrary.
+
+You observe, p. 16. "another consideration which entitles Christianity
+to respectful attention is this. That Jesus Christ appeared at a time
+when there prevailed in the east a universal expectation of a
+distinguished personage who was to produce a great and happy change in
+the world. This expectation was built on writings which claimed to be
+prophetic, which existed long before Jesus was born."
+
+I cannot help thinking the very great stress which has been laid upon
+this "rumour spread all over the east" a little unreasonable.
+
+For 1. "A rumour" is not as I apprehend an adequate foundation on which
+to build such a thing as the Christian religion, which claims to be
+derived from heaven.
+
+2. Those who have brought forward with so much earnestness this popular
+rumour, have not, I conceive, paid due attention to the causes that
+might naturally have produced it, which were possibly these. There is
+in the Jewish prophets frequent mention of a great deliverer, and it is
+represented that he should appear in the time when the Jewish nation
+should be suffering under most grievous afflictions, and who should
+deliver them therefrom, Now was it not perfectly natural for the Jews,
+dispersed over Asia, to expect, and to circulate the notion of this
+deliverer when their own sufferings, inflicted by their enemies, were
+intolerable? If you will open Josephus, you will there read that about
+and after the time of the crucifixion of Jesus the Jews were dreadfully
+oppressed by the Romans, and were designedly driven to desperation, by
+Florus with the express purpose of exciting a rebellion, and thus
+prevent their accusing him of his crimes before the tribunal of Caesar.
+Was it at all unnatural therefore for the Jews thus oppressed, and
+reading in their sacred books, that they should be delivered from their
+oppressors by the appearance of their great deliverer when their
+sufferings were at the heighth; was it extraordinary that the Jews,
+writhing under the lash of tyrannical conquerors, and considering their
+then circumstances, to expect this deliverer at that time?  And to
+conclude, does it, after all, appear that this rumour prevailed in the
+life time of Jesus, or not till about thirty years after his
+crucifixion?
+
+You add, "now this is a remarkable circumstance which distinguishes
+Jesus from the founders of all other religions." This was no doubt a
+slip of the memory, as so learned a man as Mr. Channing, no doubt knows
+that the Mahometans, who are the most numerous sect of religionists now
+in the world, affirm, that there was a very general expectation of
+their victorious prophet Mahomet, about the time of his birth grounded
+on tradition, and, as they say, originally on very many texts of the
+Old Testament, which texts, with divers more from the New Testament,
+are urged by the Mahometan Divines as to the same purpose: these texts,
+and their irrelevancy are collected and shown by Father Maracci in his
+first Dissertation prefixed to his edition of the Koran, printed at
+Padua 1698. Collins, in his answer to the Bishop of Litchfield, and
+Coventry, states this fact, and refers to "Addison's first state of
+Mahometanism" p. 35. "Life of Mahomet" before four treatises concerning
+the doctrine of the Mahometans, p. 9.  Maracci's Appendix ad Prodromum
+primum.p. 36-46.
+
+In p. 18, you say, that the prophecies with regard to the Messiah,
+"describe a deliverer of the human race very similar to say the least
+to the character in which Jesus appeared."  I must confess that after
+reading again the prophecies collected in the third chapter of "The
+Grounds of Christianity examined" this similarity still remains
+invisible to me. I hope you will not be offended at my avowing that you
+appear to me to be sensible of the difficulty of this affair of the
+Messiahship, for you content yourself with adducing that characteristic
+of the Christ recorded in the Old Testament, his teaching and
+enlightening the Gentiles with the knowledge of God, and true religion,
+as applicable to Jesus, and sufficient to prove him the Messiah. Yet
+supposing that this characteristic would apply to Jesus, it would not,
+I think, be sufficient to prove him to be the Messiah or Christ: since
+this characteristic is merely one among twenty other marks given, and
+required to be found.
+
+2. It would, it appears to me, prove Mahomet the Messiah sooner than
+Jesus; since Mahomet in person converted more Gentiles to the knowledge
+and worship of one God during his life time, than Christianity did in
+one hundred years.
+
+3. But what is still more to the purpose, it cannot, I conceive, apply
+to Jesus at all, since he did not fulfill even this solitary
+characteristic; for he did not preach to the Gentiles, but confined his
+mission and teaching to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  It
+was Paul who established Christianity among the Gentiles.
+
+In p. 18, you appear to admit that all the characteristic marks of the
+Messiah were not manifested in Jesus, but will be manifested at some
+future period. To which a Jew might answer, by politely asking you,
+whether then you do not require too much of him for the present, in
+demanding faith upon credit?
+
+But that when Jesus of Nazareth in this future time shall fulfill the
+prophecies; will it not be time enough to believe him to be the Messiah?
+
+You ask, p. 19, "was ever character more pacific than that of Jesus?
+Can any religion breathe a milder temper than his? Into how many
+ferocious breasts has it already infused the kindest and gentlest
+spirit? And after all these considerations is Jesus to be rejected
+because some prophecies which relate to his future triumphs are not yet
+accomplished?"  This argument I can easily conceive must have had great
+weight with such a man as Mr. Channing, whose heart accords with every
+thing that is mild and amiable. But after all my dear sir, what are
+"all these considerations" to the purpose? Show that Jesus was as
+amiable and as good as the most vivid imagination can paint; nay, prove
+him to have been an angel from heaven, and it will not, it seems to me,
+at all tend towards demonstrating him to be the Messiah of the Old
+Testament, and if his religion was as mild as doves, and as beneficent
+as the blessed sun of heaven, still I might respectfully insist, that
+unless he answers to the description of the Messiah given in the Old
+Testament, it is all irrelevant, and "some prophecies" (or even one)
+unaccomplished, which it is expressly said should be accomplished at
+the appearance of the Messiah, are quite sufficient I conceive to
+nullify his claims.
+
+In the 29th page you say that "the Gospels are something more than
+loose and idle rumours of events which happened in a distant age, and a
+distant nation. We have the testimony of men who were the associates of
+Jesus Christ; who received his instructions from his own lips and saw
+his works with their own eyes."
+
+I presume that after what I have represented to Mr. Cary upon the
+subject of the Gospels according to Matthew and John, who know are the
+only Evangelists supposed to have heard with their ears, and seen with
+their eyes the doctrines and facts recorded in those books, you will be
+willing to allow, that this is very strong language. You observe in
+your note to p. 19, that the other writings of the New Testament,
+(except Luke, Acts, and Paul's Epistles) "may be all resigned, and our
+religion and its evidences will be unimpaired." This language too
+appears to me to be too strong, since if you give up all but the
+writings you mention we shall by no means have "the testimony of men
+who were the associates of Jesus Christ, who received his instructions
+from his own lips, and saw his works with their own eyes," for in
+giving up so much do you not resign the gospels according to Matthew
+and John?
+
+2. It requires some softening I think on these accounts; since 1. Luke
+was not an eyewitness of the facts he records in his gospel, it is only
+a hearsay story. 2. It contradicts the other gospels.
+
+3. It has been grossly interpolated.
+
+4. The learned Professor Marsh in his dissertation upon the three first
+gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (in his notes to Michaelis'
+Introduction to the N. T.) represents, and gives ingenious reasons to
+prove, that those gospels are Compilations from pre-existing documents,
+written by nobody knows who.  So that the pieces from which the three
+first gospels were composed were, according to this Hypothesis,
+anonymous, and the gospels themselves written by we do not know what
+authors; and yet, you know sir, that these patch-work narratives of
+miracles have passed not only for credible, bat for inspired!
+
+5. The Book of Acts was rejected by the Jewish Christians, as
+containing accounts untrue, and contradictory to their Acts of the
+Apostles.  It was rejected also by the Encratites, and the Severians,
+and I believe by the Marcionites.  The Jewish Christians were the
+oldest Christian Church, and they pronounced that the Book of Acts in
+our Canon was written by a partizan of Paul's; and it will be
+recollected that our Book of Acts is in fact, principally taken up in
+recording the travels and preaching of Paul, and contains little
+comparatively of the other Apostles. The Jewish Christians had a Book
+of Acts different from ours. And besides the fact, that the oldest
+Christian church, the mother church of Judea, with whom we should
+expect to find the truth if any where, rejected the Acts, Chrysostom
+Bishop of Constantinople, at the end of the 4th century, in a homily
+upon this Book says, that "not only the author and collector of the
+Book, but the Book itself was unknown to many." This mother church had
+not only a book of Acts of the apostles different from ours, but also a
+gospel of their own, called the gospel of the twelve apostles, which is
+supposed by the learned in important particulars to differ from ours.
+According to Augustine however, this gospel was publickly read in the
+churches as authentick for 300 years. This gospel in the opinion of
+Grabe, Mills, and other learned men, was written before the gospels now
+received as canonical. See Toland's Nazarenus.
+
+6. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, those to the Ephesians, and
+Colossians, are nearly proved to be apocryphal by Evanson, and about
+the rest there are some suspicious circumstances. You refer the reader
+of your Sermons in that note to Paley's Evidences, 9th chapter, for
+evidence for the authenticity of the rest of the gospels; but if the
+reader goes there he will find, that all the testimony Paley quotes for
+the first 200 years after Christ except that of Papias, Irenaeus, and
+Tertullian, (the value of whose testimony to the authenticity of the
+gospels, has been considered in the 16th ch. of my work; and which may
+further appear from these circumstances, that Irenaeus considered the
+Book of Hermas an inspired Scripture as much as he did the four
+gospels, and that Tertullian contended stoutly for the inspiration of
+the ridiculous book of Enoch, one of the most stupid forgeries that
+ever was seen,) the quotations and supposed allusions in the earlier
+fathers are uncertain, since it is acknowledged by Dodwell, and also by
+others, that it cannot be shown with any certainty, whether these
+quotations and 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 consequently subvert a very considerable part of
+your system, by which you endeavour to account for the discrepancies
+which you do allow as yet to subsist between the prophecies of the
+Messiah, and Jesus of Nazareth. I beseech you therefore to heed me
+carefully.
+
+In Luke i. verse 32. The angel tells Mary that her son Jesus should be
+great, and be called: the son of the Highest and the Lord God shall
+give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
+the house of Israel forever and to his kingdom there shall be no end,
+and in verse 67, &c. Zachariah, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost
+too, thus praises God concerning Jesus "Blessed be the Lord God of
+Israel, because he hath visited and redeemed his people, and he hath
+raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
+David; as he spake by the month of his holy prophets which have been
+since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and
+from the hand of all that hate us, &c. that we being delivered from the
+hand of our enemies should serve him with holiness and righteousness
+before him all the days of our lives."  [See the Original.] You see,
+sir the notion that these words allude to, they certainly appear to me
+to mean something else than deliverance from spiritual foes.  See also
+in the 2d ch. 25 verse, where Simeon a man who was "looking for the
+consolation of Israel" and was full of the Holy Ghost, expresses
+similar sentiments. And Anna the prophetess also spake concerning Jesus
+to all who "were expecting deliverance in Jerusalem," i.e. undoubtedly
+deliverance from the Romans. The carnal ideas of the Apostles with
+regard to the nature of their Master's Kingdom, and their consequent
+expectations with regard to Jesus, before his crucifixion, are
+acknowledged; and in the 24th chapt. of Luke 21st v. they say in
+despair, "But we trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed
+Israel." And after the resurrection, and just before the ascension of
+Jesus, after they had been for forty days "instructed in the things
+pertaining to the kingdom of God," which was the same as that of the
+Messiah, by Jesus himself, they do not seem to have had the least idea
+of the metaphysical kingdom of modern Christians, for they ask him,
+"Lord wilt thou now (or at this time) restore the kingdom to Israel?"
+And his answer is, not that it should never be restored, but that "it
+was not for them to know the times, and the seasons," see Acts 1. And
+even after the day of Pentecost, ch. iii. verse 19, Peter tells the
+Jews to repent, that their sins may be blotted out "when the times of
+refreshing [i.e. of deliverance] shall come from the face of the Lord,
+and he shall send Jesus Christ [i.e.  the Messiah] before preached, (or
+promised) unto you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of
+the restoration of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all
+his holy prophets since the world began." From this we see, that the
+Apostles thought that Jesus was gone to heaven for a time, and was to
+return again [there is no mention whatever in the Prophets of a double
+coming of the Messiah] and fulfill the prophecies with regard to "the
+restoration of all things" to a paradisiacal state, and the temporal
+kingdom of the Messiah sitting upon the throne of David in Jerusalem,
+all which is contained in the words of "the holy prophets" which have
+been since the world began. And what sort of a kingdom it was to be
+will appear from the not very spiritual description of the reign of
+Jesus upon earth during the Millennium, described in the 20th chapter
+of Revelations, and not only so, but the author of that book represents
+the final, and permanent state of the blessed as fixed, not in heaven,
+as modern Christians suppose, but on a new earth, or the earth renewed,
+and in a superb city, called "the new Jerusalem."
+
+In fact, the ideas of the twelve Apostles upon the subject of the
+kingdom of the Messiah were precisely as carnal as those of their
+unbelieving brethren of the Jewish nation.  They believed, as has been
+shown abundantly in the 15th chapter of "The Grounds of Christianity
+Examined," that their Master Jesus would come again, as he had told
+them he would, in that generation, and perform for Israel all the
+glorious things promised; that he would come in a cloud with power and
+great glory, and all the holy angels with him; that many from the east,
+and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
+that kingdom; and that the disciples were to eat and drink at Jesus'
+table in his kingdom, and were to sit on twelve thrones judging the
+twelve tribes of Israel. The author of the book of Revelations, after
+describing the magnificence and felicity of Jesus' kingdom upon earth,
+represents him as saying that he should come quickly: and in the first
+chapters, that they who had pierced him should see him coming in the
+clouds. The Apostles, as appears from the epistles, were on tiptoe with
+expectation, and frequently assured their converts that "the Lord is at
+hand, the judge stood before the door, &c."  And to conclude, Can you
+not now, sir, conceive, and guess the cause of the gradual
+disappearance of the Jewish Christians after "that generation had
+passed away?" The fact was, that the Jewish Christians never dreamed of
+that figment a spiritual Messiah. They expected that Jesus would come
+again in "that generation" as he had told them he would; he did not
+come; in consequence the Jewish Church, after waiting, and waiting a
+great while, dwindled into annihilation.
+
+You conclude your most eloquent sermons by an appeal to the feelings in
+behalf of opinions which ought I think to be defended by reason and
+proof rather than by sentiment. You complain of ridicule in an
+examination of this kind. I hope you will excuse my expressing some
+doubts whether eloquent sentiment, and appeals to the feelings are less
+exceptionable in a discussion of the causes why we ought to give
+Christianity a respectful and dispassionate examination. If I were so
+happy as to be so eloquent as you, and in a manner which such power of
+persuasion as you possess would give me ability to do, had described
+the burnings, the tortures, the murders, and the plundering of the
+Jew's during the last thousand years, in order to cause my readers to
+wish to find reason to hate Christianity; would you not have said it
+was unfair? It cannot be necessary to inform so finished a scholar as
+Mr. Channing, that in a discussion about the truth of a system the
+consideration of the consequences of the system's being proved to be
+false, is irrelevant and contrary to rule. You will say that you were
+not discussing the truth of a system, but the reasons why we should
+give it a respectful examination. This is true-The question you advised
+your auditors to examine was, whether the Christian religion was true
+or otherwise. Be it so. I appeal then to your candour, whether it was
+the way to send them to the important enquiry unprejudiced and
+unbiased, to impress them by authority, and by arguments which are good
+only when used as subsidiary to proof or demonstration and by
+terrifying them with what you imagine would be the consequences of
+finding that Christianity is unfounded? Ah sir, does the advocate of a
+cause "founded on adamant" wish to dazzle the judges and fascinate the
+jury before he ventures to bring the merits of his cause to trial? Must
+they be made to shed tears, must their hearts be made to feel that you
+are right, in order that their understandings may be able to perceive
+it? Should the learned and able champion of a system, who offers it as
+true, and to be received only because it is true, when its claims are
+threatened with a scrutiny, lay so much stress upon its supposed
+utility when the question is its truth? Is it an argument that
+Christianity is true, because if false, you think we should have no
+religion left? This argument no doubt looks ludicrous to you, and yet I
+am told that it has been gravely offered by some well meaning men after
+reading your sermons, who thought it of no small weight. You may see
+from this, my dear sir, how easily simplicity is satisfied.
+
+You lay great stress upon the comforts derived from believing
+Christianity true. But ought men to be encouraged to lean and build
+their hopes on what may perhaps when examined turn out to be a broken
+reed? The expiring Indian dies in peace-holding a cow's tail in his
+hand. If he was in his full health, and vigour of understanding, would
+you think It charitable to let that man remain uninformed of his
+delusion in trusting to such a staff of comfort? Would you not
+endeavour to enlighten him, and make him ashamed of his superstition? I
+know you would, and you would do him a kindness deserving his
+gratitude. To conclude, the Christian religion is either a divine and
+solid foundation of morals, hope, and consolation, or it is not. If it
+is, there is no reason in the world to fear, that it can be undermined,
+or hurt in the least. To believe so would be I conceive to doubt the
+Providence of God. For it cannot be supposed, that a religion really
+given by the Almighty and All wise can be undermined by a wretched
+mortal, a child of dust and infirmity; the supposition is monstrous,
+and therefore no examination of its claims ought to be deprecated, or
+frowned at by those who think it "founded on adamant," for no man
+shrinks at having that examined which he is positively confident of
+being able to prove.
+
+2.  If this foundation be not divine and solid it ought I conceive to
+be undermined, and abandoned. For willfully, and knowingly to suffer
+confiding men to be duped, or allured into building their hopes and
+consolation upon a delusion, is in my opinion to maltreat, and to
+despise them. And to suffer them to be imposed upon is both unbrotherly
+and dishonest. And to advocate, or to insinuate a defense of an unsound
+foundation upon the principle of pious frauds, viz. because it is
+supposed by its defenders to be useful, you will no doubt agree with me
+is both absurd, and immoral. For in the long run truth is more useful
+than error, "nothing (says Lord Bacon) is so pernicious as deified
+error." And it must not be supposed, or insinuated, that the good God
+has made it necessary, that the morals, comfort, and consolation of his
+rational creatures should be founded on, or be supported by a mistake
+and a delusion; for it would be virtually to deny his Providence.  In
+fine, Christianity come to us as from God, and says to us, "He that
+believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned."
+Therefore, he that receives such extraordinary claims without
+examination, is "in my opinion, a wittol; and he who suffers himself to
+be compelled to swallow such pretensions without the severest scrutiny,
+according to my notions of things, has no claims to be considered as a
+man of common sense.
+
+Before I close my letter, it occurs to me to observe, that you appear
+to me to have misconceived the state of the case, in representing in
+your sermons, that if you give up Christianity you will have no
+religion left. Christianity, if I understand it, is properly contained
+and taught in the New Testament alone. I am not aware, my dear sir,
+that if you were to give up the New Testament you would be without a
+religion, or even what you acknowledge as divine revelation. It appears
+to me, that a Christian might, if he chose, give up the New Testament
+and place himself on the footing of the devout Gentiles mentioned in
+the Acts, who worshipped the one God, and kept the moral law of the Old
+Testament. You will recollect, that I have not attempted to affect the
+authority of the Old Testament which you acknowledge to contain a
+Divine revelation. I never shall because, I would never quarrel with
+any thing merely for the sake of disputing.  Whether the Old Testament
+contains a revelation from God, or not, its moral precepts are, as far
+as I know unexceptionable; there is not, I believe, any thing
+extravagant or impracticable in them, they are such as promote the good
+order of society. Its religion in fact is merely Theism garnished, and
+guarded by a splendid ritual, and gorgeous ceremonies; the belief of it
+can produce no oppression and wretchedness to any portion of mankind,
+and for these reasons I for one will never attempt to weaken its
+credit, whatever may be my own opinion with regard to its supernatural
+claims.
+
+In fact, to speak correctly, the Old Testament is at this moment the
+sole true canon of Scripture, acknowledged as such by genuine
+Christianity; it was the only canon which was acknowledged by Christ,
+and his immediate Apostles. The books of the New Testament are all
+occasional books, and not a code or system of religion; nor were they
+all collected into one body, nor declared by any even human authority
+to be all canonical till several hundred years after Jesus Christ. They
+are books written by Christians, and contain proofs of Christianity
+alleged from the Old Testament, but contain Christianity itself no
+otherwise, it appears to me, than as explaining, illustrating, and
+confirming Christianity supposed to be taught in the Old Testament.
+They are mostly, where they inculcate doctrines, Commentaries on the
+Old Testament deriving from thence, and giving what the writers
+imagined to be contained in and hidden under the letter of it.  And
+upon the same principle that the books of the New Testament were
+received as canonical, so was the Pastor of Hermas, the Book of Enoch,
+and others, just as highly venerated by the early Christians. But they
+did not at first, as I apprehend their expressions, rank them with the
+Old Testament, which was called "the Scriptures," by way of excellence.
+The Old Testament was in fact supposed by the writers of the New, to
+contain Christianity under the bark of the letter; and they represent
+Christianity as having been preached to the ancient Jews under the
+figure of types, and allegories. See Gal. iii. 8. Heb. xi. and the
+first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, ch. x. In a word, the
+Apostles professed to "say none ether things than those which the
+prophets and Moses did say." Acts xxvi. 22,
+
+Jesus and his Apostles do frequently, and emphatically style the books
+of the Old Testament "The Scriptures," and refer men to them as their
+rule, and canon. And Paul says, Acts xxiv. 14, "After the [Christian]
+way, which ye call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers;
+believing all things that are written in the law, and the prophets."
+But it does not appear, that any new books were declared by them to
+have that character. Nor was there any new canon of Scripture, or any
+collection of books as Scripture made whether of Gospels or Epistles
+during the lives of the Apostles; as is well known to you.--And if
+neither Jesus nor his apostles declared any other books to be canonical
+besides those of the Old Testament, I would ask the Christian who did?
+Or who had a right and authority to declare or make any books
+canonical? If Christianity required a new canon, or new digest of laws,
+it should seem that it ought to have been done by Jesus and his
+apostles, and not left to be executed by any after them: especially not
+left to be settled long after their deaths by weak, enthusiastic,
+ignorant, silly and factious men, such as the fathers, who were so
+badly informed of the genuine writings of the founders of their
+religion, that they were, when they came to collect and make a new
+canon, greatly divided: about the genuineness of all books bearing the
+names of the apostles, and contended with one another bitterly about
+their authority; and after all decree to be genuine some which are
+palpably forgeries.
+
+But the truth is, that the present New Testament Canon, was collected
+and established by the Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christians
+received none of them, but acknowledged nothing for Scripture but the
+books of the Old Testament which was the sole Canon left them by the
+twelve apostles.  Their Gospel and Acts, if my memory does not deceive
+me, they regarded as histories only. They were merely a small body of
+Jews who thought that Jesus was the Messiah of the Old Testament. This
+article was the only one which made them Heretical: In all other
+respects they were as other Jews after the way which their countrymen
+called heresy, so worshipped they the God of their Fathers at the
+National Temple; believing and preaching "no other things than what
+[they imagined] Moses and the Prophets did say."
+
+I have made this statement and representation, sir, on two accounts.
+
+1. In order to repel the shocking and groundless imputation which I
+understand that some pains have been taken to fix upon me, I do not
+mean by you, sir, for you know the contrary that the object of my late
+publication was to aim at destroying all religion, and the annihilation
+of the publick worship of God, a charge which I reject with horror, and
+also with bitter indignation, that it should ever have been attributed
+to me. God forbid! that the publick worship and stated reverence which
+all ought to pay to the Great and Tremendous Being from whom we receive
+life and its every blessing; and to whose Providence we are subject;
+and by whose goodness we are sustained, should ever be caused to be
+neglected, or forgotten, by any man, or by the subvertion of any
+opinions whatever. The propriety of the publick worship of God stands
+independent and without need of support from the peculiar doctrines of
+any sect. And the idea that this great duty would be superceded by the
+dismission of the New Testament is so utterly groundless and absurd:
+that to make it appear so, any man has only to recollect that the
+public worship of the Supreme existed before the New Testament was
+written or thought of; and to look round the world and see millions of
+men worshipping God in houses of prayer, who know nothing about the New
+Testament except by report. I regard, sir, the imputation I have spoken
+of, as either a gross mistake of the simple, or a cunning and
+deliberate calumny of the crafty. I have made this statement and
+representation to show, that it does not follow, that in giving up the
+New Testament Christians will be deprived of all religion. For in
+retaining the Old Testament they would adopt nothing new, and would
+retain nothing but what they now acknowledge as containing a divine
+revelation; and in giving up the New Testament they would not, as I
+think has been shown, give up a jot of what had ever any right to the
+name of Scripture.
+
+Whether however, people give up both, or retain one, or both, is their
+concern. I have stated what I have merely to show, that in giving up
+the New Testament they would not necessarily give up more than a part
+of their bibles, or any part of their bible, except that whose
+authenticity cannot be proved; nor any more of their faith, than that
+part of it which for almost eighteen hundred years has produced
+interminable disputes among themselves and misfortunes, and causeless
+reproach to others.
+
+"With great regard, and the most respectful esteem, I subscribe myself,
+Reverend Sir, Your obliged and humble servant
+
+GEO. BETHUNE  ENGLISH.
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+Jerom speaking of the different manner which writers found themselves
+obliged to use, in their controversial, and dogmatical writings,
+intimates, that in controversy whose end was victory, rather than
+truth, it was allowable to employ every artifice which would best serve
+to conquer an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius,
+Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against
+Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery
+problems they baffle what was contrived against them by the spirit of
+the devil: and because they are sometimes forced to speak, they speak
+not what they think, but what is necessary against those who are called
+Gentiles. I do not mention the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian,
+Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilarius, lest I be thought not so
+much defending myself, as accusing others, &c."  Op. Tom. 4. p. 2.
+p.:256.  Middleton's Free Enquiry, p. 158. It is remarkable that the
+names mentioned by Jerom are the names of the early apologists for
+Christianity. When the Church got the upper hand however, they found a
+better way to confute those wicked men, Celsus and Porphyry, than by
+"slippery problems" and by speaking "not what they thought (to be true)
+but what was necessary against those who are called Gentiles," viz. by
+seeking after, and burning carefully their troublesome works. Of the
+fathers of the Church who were its pillars, leaders, and great men. Dr.
+Middleton observes in his Preface to his Enquiry, &c, p. 31, as
+follows: "I have shown by many indisputable facts, that the ancient
+Fathers were extremely credulous and superstitious, possessed with
+strong prejudices, and an enthusiastic zeal in favor not only of
+Christianity in general, but of every particular doctrine, which a wild
+imagination could engraft upon it, and scrupling no art or means by
+which they might propagate the same principles. In short they were of a
+character front which nothing could be expected that was candid and
+impartial; nothing but what a weak or crafty understanding could supply
+towards confirming those prejudices with which they happened to be
+possessed, especially where religion was the subject, which above all
+other motives strengthens every bias, and inflames every passion of the
+human mind.  And that this was actually the case, I have shown also, by
+many instances in which we find them roundly affirming as true things
+evidently false and fictitious; in order to strengthen as they fancied
+the evidences of the Gospel or to serve a present turn of confuting an
+adversary: or of enforcing a particular point which they were labouring
+to establish."
+
+In p. 81 of the Introductory Discourse, he says, "Let us consider then
+in the next place what light these same forgeries [those of the Fathers
+of the fourth century] will afford us in looking backwards also into
+the earlier ages up to the times of the Apostles. And first, when we
+reflect on that surprising confidence and security with which the
+principal fathers of this fourth age have affirmed as true what they
+themselves had either forged, or what they knew at least to be forged;
+it is natural to suspect, that so bold a defiance of sacred truth could
+not be acquired, or become general at once, but must have been carried
+gradually to that heighth, by custom and the example of former times,
+and a long experience of what the credulity and superstition, of the
+multitude (i.e. of Christians) would bear."
+
+"Secondly, this suspicion will be strengthened by considering, that
+this age [the 4th century] in which Christianity was established by the
+civil power, had no real occasion for any miracles. For which reason,
+the learned among the Protestants have generally supposed it to have
+been the very era of their cessation and for the same reason the
+fathers also themselves when they were disposed to speak the truth,
+have not scrupled to confess, that the miraculous shifts were then
+actually withdrawn, because the church stood no longer in need of them.
+So that it must have been a rash and dangerous experiment, to begin to
+forge miracles, at a time when there was no particular temptation to
+it; if the use of such fictions had not long been tried, and the
+benefit of them approved; and recommended by their ancestors; who
+wanted every help towards supporting themselves under the pressures and
+persecutions with which the powers on earth were afflicting them.''
+
+"Thirdly, if we compare the principal fathers of the fourth with those
+of the earlier ages. We shall observe the same characters of zeal and
+piety in them all, but more learning, more judgment, and less credulity
+in the later fathers. If these then be found either to have forced
+miracles themselves, or to have propagated what they knew to be forged,
+or to have been deluded so far by other people's forgeries as to take
+them for real miracles; (of the one or the other of which they were all
+unquestionably guilty) it will naturally excite in us the same
+suspicion of their predecessors, who in the same cause, and with the
+same zeal were less learned and more credulous, and in greater need of
+such arts for their defence and security.
+
+"Fourthly. As the personal characters of the earlier fathers give them
+no advantage over their successors, so neither does the character of
+the earlier ages afford any real cause of preference as to the point of
+integrity above the latter. The first indeed are generally called and
+held to be the purest: but when they had once acquired that title from
+the authority of a few leading men; it is not strange to find it
+ascribed to them by every body else; without knowing or inquiring into
+the grounds of it. But whatever advantage of purity those first ages
+may claim in some particular respects, it is certain that they were
+defective in some others, above all which have since succeeded them.
+For there never was any period of time in all ecclesiastical history,
+in which so many rank heresies were publicly professed, nor in which so
+many spurious books were forged and published by the Christians, under
+the name of Christ, and the apostles, and the apostolic writers, as in
+those primitive ages; several of which forged hooks are frequently
+cited and applied to the defence of Christianity by the most eminent
+fathers of the same ages, as true and genuine pieces, and of equal
+authority with the scriptures themselves. And no man surely can doubt
+but that those who would either forge or make use of forged books,
+would in the same cause and for the same ends, make use of forged
+miracles." Let the reader remember that the Gospels according to
+Matthew and John are forgeries, and then apply this reasoning of Dr.
+Middleton's to the miracles contained in those Gospels. With regard to
+all the miracles of the New Testament, we know them only by report, and
+it is an acknowledged, because a demonstrable fact, that the age in
+which the accounts of these miracles were published, was an age
+overflowing with imposture and credulity. "Such," says Bishop Fell,
+"was the license of fiction in the first ages, and so easy the
+credulity, that testimony of the facts of that time is to be received
+with great caution, as not only the pagan world, but the church of God,
+has just reason to complain of its fabulous age." Stillingfleet says,
+"that antiquity is defective most where it is most important, In the
+awe immediately succeeding that of the apostles." Now be it
+recollected, that the Gospels first appeared in this age of fraud and
+credulity; and be it further remembered, that the authenticity of the
+Gospels, according to Matthew and John can be subverted, if marks of
+imposture, which would cause the rejection of any other books, are
+sufficient to affect the authenticity of those received as sacred. It
+is to be remarked farther, that the church in its first ages was full
+of forged hooks, giving accounts of the same events, different from
+those of the books of the New Testament. The different sects, and the
+church itself, was torn by as many schisms then as it ever has been
+since, who mutually accuse each other of corrupting the Christians
+scriptures, and of lying, and cheating most abominably.
+
+All reasoning therefore from books published at this time, and whose
+authenticity is supported only by the testimony of acknowledged liars;
+and which have been tampered with too as these certainly were, is
+exceedingly unsatisfactory.  And yet such is the basis on which rests
+the credibility of the miracles of the New Testament.  Dr. Middleton,
+after having shown, beginning at the earliest of the fathers
+immediately after the apostles, that they were all most amazingly
+credulous and superstitious: and having demonstrated from their own
+words, that from Justin Martyr downwards they were all liars, observes
+as follows, p. 157, Free Inquiry: "Now it is agreed by all, that these
+fathers, whose testimonies I have been just reciting were the most
+eminent lights of the fourth century; all of them sainted by the
+catholic church, and highly reverenced at this day in all churches, for
+their piety, probity, and learning.  Yet from the specimens of them
+above given, it is evident, that they would not scruple to propagate
+any fiction, how gross so ever, which served to promote the interest
+either of Christianity in general, or of any particular rite or
+doctrine which they were desirous to recommend. St. Jerom in effect
+confesses it, for after the mention of a silly story, concerning the
+Christians of Jerusalem, who used to shew in the ruins of the temple,
+certain stones of a reddish color, which they pretended to have been
+stained by the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain
+between the temple and the altar, he adds, but I do not find fault with
+an error which flows from a hatred of the Jews, and a pious zeal for
+the Christian faith. If the miracles then of the fourth century, so
+solemnly attested by the most celebrated and revered fathers of the
+church, are to be rejected after all as fabulous, it must needs give a
+fatal blow to the credit of all the miracles even of the preceding
+centuries; since there is not a single father whom I have mentioned in
+this fourth age, who for zeal and piety may not be compared with the
+best of the more ancient, and for knowledge, and for learning be
+preferred to them all. For instance, there was not a person in all the
+primitive church more highly respected in his own days than St.
+Epiphanius, for the purity of his life as well as the extent of his
+leaning. He was master of five languages, and has left behind him one
+of the most useful works which remain to us from antiquity. St. Jerom,
+who personally knew him, calls him the father of all bishops, and a
+shining star among them; the man of God of blessed memory; to whom the
+people used to flock in crowds, offering their little children to his
+benediction, kissing his feet, and catching the hem of his garment.
+This holy man and light of the church, the great man of his day,
+asserts upon his own knowledge, "that in imitation of our Saviour's
+miracle at Cana in Galilee several fountains and rivers in his days
+were annually turned into wine. A fountain at Cibyra, a city of Caria,
+and another at Gerasa in Arabia, prove the truth of this. I myself have
+drunk out of the fountain at Cibyra, and my brethren out of the other
+at Gerasa; and many testify the same thing of the river Nile in Egypt."
+Advers. Haeres, 1. 2, c. 130. Middleton's Inquiry, p. 151, 152] "All
+the rest (Dr. Middleton goes on to say) were men of the same character,
+who spent their lives and studies in propagating the faith, and in
+combating the vices and the heresies of their times. Yet none of them
+have scrupled, we see, to pledge their faith for the truth, of facts
+which no man of sense can believe, and which their warmest admirers are
+forced to give up as fabulous. If such persons then could willfully
+attempt to deceive; and if the sanctity of their characters cannot
+assure us of their fidelity, what better security can we have from
+those who lived before them? Or what cure for our scepticism with
+regard, to any of the miracles above mentioned? Was the first asserter
+of them, Justin Martyr more pious, cautious, learned, judicious, or
+less credulous than Epiphanius? Or were those virtues more conspicuous
+in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, than in
+Athanasius, Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerom, Austin? Nobody, I dare say,
+will venture to affirm it. If these later fathers, then, biased by a
+false zeal or interest, could be tempted to propagate a known lie, or
+with all their learning and knowledge could be so weakly credulous as
+to believe the absurd stories which they themselves attest, there must
+be always reason to suspect, that the same prejudices would operate
+even more strongly in the earlier fathers, prompted by the same zeal
+and the same interests, yet endued with less learning, less judgment,
+and more credulity.
+
+Such Christian reader, were the fathers, the leaders, and the great men
+of the church, and the apologists for your religion. And it is upon the
+credibility of these convicted knaves that ultimately, and
+substantially depends your belief. For it is upon their testimony and
+tradition that you receive and believe in the authenticity of the N.T.,
+its doctrines and miracles.
+
+I hope that if you choose to build your faith upon the testimony of
+such witnesses, that you will not think it unreasonable in me to
+presume to doubt the truth of opinions and miracles supported by the
+testimony of men like the fathers. I am willing, because I think it
+reasonable, to let every man follow his own judgment, and do I ask too
+much to be permitted without offence to enjoy the same liberty with
+regard to these things; which I conceive no fair man will now say, (if
+what has been brought forward be true) are positively provable as true,
+and worthy of unhesitating assent.
+
+For the case is thus. The gospels are accused of being written by
+credulous and superstitious authors whose names are not certainly
+known; as containing too inconsistent and contradictory accounts of
+prodigies and miracles; and also palpable marks of forgery.  Now to
+convince a thinking man, that histories of such suspected character,
+containing relations of miracles, are divine or even really written, by
+the persons to whom they are ascribed, and not either some of the many
+spurious productions, with which it is notorious and acknowledged, the
+age in which they appeared abounded, calculated to astonish the
+credulous and superstitious! or else writings of authors who were
+themselves infected with the grossest superstitious credulity, what is
+the testimony?
+
+For the first hundred years after the lives of the supposed authors,
+none at all. And the earliest fathers who speak of them are all
+convicted of gross credulity, and incapacity to distinguish genuine
+from, fictitious writings, (for they admitted as genuine scripture many
+books confessedly nonsensical forgeries,) but what is worse, are
+manifestly guilty by the evidence of their own words of having been
+palpable liars, cheats, and forgers. But, "it is an obvious rule in the
+admission of evidence in any cause whatsoever, that the more important
+the matter to be determined by it is, the more unsullied, and
+unexceptionable ought to be the characters of the witnesses to be. And
+when no court of justice among us in determining a question of fraud to
+the value of sixpence will admit the testimony of witnesses who are
+themselves notoriously convicted of the same offence of which the
+defendant is accused;"  how can it be expected that any reasonable
+unprejudiced person should reasonably be required to admit similar
+evidence, i.e. the testimony of such men as the fathers in favor of the
+divine authority of books which are accused of being the offspring of
+fraud and credulity; and which relate too to a case of the greatest
+importance possible, not to himself only, but to the whole human race?!
+
+For my own part, I cannot; and I think I could not without renouncing
+all those rules and principles of evidence, and of good sense, which in
+all other cases are universally respected. And when we consider the
+character of those by whom these histories were first received and
+believed, the unreasonableness of insisting upon the belief of these
+accounts will appear aggravated. What was the character of the early
+Gentile Christians? This we can ascertain from only two sources--the
+writings of their leaders, and those of their heathen contemporaries.
+According to the latter they were very weak and credulous. The
+primitive Christians were perpetually reproached for their gross
+credulity by all their enemies. Celsus says that they cared neither to
+receive nor to give any reason of their faith, and that it was an usual
+saying with them, do not examine, but believe only, and thy faith will
+save thee. Julian affirms, that the sum, of all their wisdom was
+comprised in this single precept, believe. The Gentiles, says Arnobius,
+make it their constant business to laugh at our faith, and to lash our
+credulity with their facetious jokes.
+
+"The fathers on the other hand, defend themselves by saying, that they
+did nothing more: on this occasion than what the philosophers had
+always done; that Pythagoras' precepts were inculcated by an ipse
+dixit, and that they had found the same method useful with the vulgar,
+who were not at leisure to examine things; whom they taught therefore
+to believe, even without reasons: and that the heathens themselves,
+though they did not confess it in words, yet practiced the same in
+their acts." Middleton's Free Enquiry. Introduc. Disc. p. 92. Lucian
+says, "that whenever any crafty juggler expert in his trade, and who
+knew how to make a right use of things, went over to the Christians, he
+was sure to grow rich immediately, by making a prey of their
+simplicity." [De Morte Pereg.]
+
+If we turn to the writings of the earliest fathers; from these writings
+of the great men of the Church at that time we shall form but a very
+mean idea of the understandings of the little ones, since their
+writings are not one whit superior to the "godly Epistles" of the
+lowest orders of fanatics in the last, and present century, they are
+remarkable for nothing more than manifesting the extreme simplicity,
+and credulity, together with the sincere piety of the writers. The
+fathers who succeeded them were better informed, but not at all behind
+them in credulity, and enthusiasm.  Tertullian, the most powerful mind
+among them during the first two hundred years, reasons as follows.
+
+"The Son of God was crucified: it is no shame to own it, because it is
+a thing to be ashamed of. The Son of God died: it is wholly credible,
+because it is absurd. When buried he rose again to life: it is certain,
+because it is impossible." De Carne Christi, Section 5.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Letter To the Reverend Mr. Channing
+Relative to His Two Sermons On Infidelity, by George English
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO REVEREND MR. CHANNING ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24594.txt or 24594.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/9/24594/
+
+Produced by Charles Klingman
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/24594.zip b/24594.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c214178
--- /dev/null
+++ b/24594.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73a6b23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #24594 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24594)
diff --git a/old/20080213-24594.txt b/old/20080213-24594.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96f10cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/20080213-24594.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1361 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary, by George English
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary
+       Containing Remarks upon his Review of the Grounds of
+       Christianity Examined by Comparing the New Testament to
+       the Old
+
+Author: George English
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2008 [EBook #24594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO THE REVEREND MR. CARY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Klingman
+
+
+
+
+  A
+  Letter
+  To the
+  Reverend Mr. Channing
+  Relative to
+  His Two Sermons
+  On
+  Infidelity
+
+  By George Bethune English, A.M.
+  Boston
+  Printed for the Author
+  1813
+
+LETTER, &c.
+
+Rev. Sir,
+
+Your eloquent and interesting Sermons on Infidelity, I have read with
+the interest arising from the nature of the subject you have discussed,
+and the impressive manner in which you have treated it.
+
+As it is understood that the appearance of those Sermons was owing to a
+Book lately published by me, I request your pardon for a liberty I am
+about to take, which in any other circumstances I should blush to
+presume upon-it is sir, with deference, and great respect, to express
+my sentiments with regard to some of the arguments contained in them,
+where the reasoning does not appear to me so unexceptionable as the
+language in which it is enveloped, is eloquent and affecting.  There
+are also some opinions of yours relative to matters of fact, in those
+discourses, to which I would respectfully solicit your attention.
+
+It afforded me much pleasure, though it caused me no surprise, to
+perceive you to say in your introductory remarks, that these Sermons
+were designed to procure for the arguments for Christianity "a serious,
+and respectful attention" and, that if you should "be so happy as to
+awaken candid and patient enquiry," your "principal object will be
+accomplished" you wish, "that Christianity should be thoroughly
+examined," you do "not wish to screen it from enquiry." It would cease,
+you observe to be your support were you not "persuaded that it is able
+to sustain the most deliberate investigation."
+
+In considering Christianity as a fair subject for discussion, you do
+justice to the cause you so eloquently defend for Christianity itself
+honestly, and openly professes to offer itself, to the belief of all
+mankind solely on account of the reasons which support it; and since
+its learned, and liberal advocates always announce, and recommend it
+from the Pulpit as reasonable in itself and confirmed by unanswerable
+arguments; no one who believes them sincere can doubt, that they are
+perfectly willing to have its claims openly discussed and think
+themselves amply able to give valid reasons, "for the faith that is in
+them," and which they so earnestly invite all men to receive.
+
+You observe, p. 13, that the writings of Infidels, "have been injurious
+not so much by the strength of their arguments, as by the positive, and
+contemptuous manner In which they speak of Revelation, they abound in
+sarcasm, abuse, and sneer, and supply the place of reasoning, by wit
+and satire." If so sir, it is all in favor of the cause you defend; for
+the tiny weapons of wit, and ridicule, will assuredly fly to shivers
+under a few blows from the solid, and massy club of sound logic.  The
+man who attacks any system of Religion merely with wit, and ridicule,
+can never, I conceive, be a very formidable antagonist.
+
+The mental imbecility of the man who could touch such a subject as
+religion in any shape with no other arms, would render him a harmless
+adversary, and the intrinsic weakness of such shining but slender
+weapons, when encountered with something more solid, would eventually
+render him a contemptible one, I therefore cannot help doubting, that
+wit and ridicule alone, and unsupported by reasoning, and good
+reasoning too, could ever have been very successfully wielded against
+such a thing as the Christian Religion, by its opposers.
+
+No man it appears to me of common understanding will ever resign his
+religion on account of a few jokes, and bon mots. The adherence of such
+men as are weak enough to be subverted by such trifles can do as little
+honor to Christianity, as their abandoning it for such reasons, can
+affect it with disgrace. The belief of such men could never have been
+more than habit, and their Infidelity nothing else than a freak of
+folly, which is reproachful only to themselves.  But after all, this
+vehement objection to wit and ridicule, appears to me a little
+imprudent; for a sarcastic opponent might reply, that sceptics, have
+been not unfrequently attacked with irony most severe, and sometimes
+sorely wounded by vollies of wit shot from the pulpit, a place too
+where it can be done without fear of reprisals.  You know sir, that the
+famous Warburton, for instance, used to amuse himself with not only
+cutting down every unlucky sceptic that came in his way, but he
+absolutely cut them to pieces with the edge of ridicule, most bitterly
+envenomed too with something else. It seems therefore a little
+unreasonable, that what is fair for one party, should not be so for the
+other too.  Besides, the advocates of a cause, which is said not only
+not to fear examination, but to challenge it, should not, it appears to
+me, when taken at their words shrink, and draw back, on account of such
+trifles as wit, and ridicule; because the style of an investigation
+cannot certainly conceal the immutable distinction between a good
+argument and a bad one, from such learned and penetrating adversaries
+as the Clergy; and moreover does it appear clear that an advocate after
+asserting a proposition, and defying refutation, has any right to
+insist, that his opponent should put his arguments in just such a form
+as would be most convenient to him? What would a penetrating Lawyer
+think of the cause of his opponent, on finding him to insist upon his
+arranging his objections, and expressing his arguments just so that it
+might be most easy to him to reply to them?
+
+For my own part, I have no claims to wit, and if I have been sometimes
+sarcastic it was more than I meant to be, it was the premeditated
+consequence of bitter feelings arising from considering myself as
+having been betrayed by my credulity into taking a situation in
+society, which I had discovered I must quit at no less a hazard than
+that the destruction of all my plans and prospects for life. At any
+rate I am satisfied, that no ridicule of mine has been intentionally
+adduced by me in order to corroborate a false position, or a weak
+argument; I believe that it seldom appears except in the rear of
+something more respectable and efficient.
+
+You observe, that Christianity "deserves at least respectful, and
+serious attention, must be evident to every man who has honesty of
+mind." Nothing can be more true than this, it is a subject which does
+deserve a respectful, and serious attention: because every thing
+claiming to be from God ought to be carefully, coolly, and respectfully
+examined on these accounts.
+
+1. If it be from God it is of the highest importance to the welfare of
+mankind that its truth should be investigated thoroughly, and settled
+firmly.
+
+2. Because if it is not from God it must be the fruit of either of
+error or fraud, if of the first it ought to be rejected as a delusion;
+if of the second it ought to be cast off as a deception practiced in
+the name of the God of truth, and therefore disrespectful to him.
+
+It also merits, you most truly say, a respectful examination on account
+of the character of its founder, for the character of Jesus you justly
+consider as too excellent and unexceptionable to be reproached.
+Whatever may be said concerning the moral excellence of that person's
+character I will cheerfully assent to, and I could not listen without
+disgust to language impeaching his moral purity. This I can do without
+ceasing to suppose him an enthusiast; for there appears to me to be too
+many marks of it in the New Testament for the idea to be set aside by a
+few eloquent exclamations, and notes of admiration; if I am wrong in
+this idea or in others, I will not prove indocile to arguments that
+shall sufficiently show the contrary.
+
+You observe, p. 16. "another consideration which entitles Christianity
+to respectful attention is this. That Jesus Christ appeared at a time
+when there prevailed in the east a universal expectation of a
+distinguished personage who was to produce a great and happy change in
+the world. This expectation was built on writings which claimed to be
+prophetic, which existed long before Jesus was born."
+
+I cannot help thinking the very great stress which has been laid upon
+this "rumour spread all over the east" a little unreasonable.
+
+For 1. "A rumour" is not as I apprehend an adequate foundation on which
+to build such a thing as the Christian religion, which claims to be
+derived from heaven.
+
+2. Those who have brought forward with so much earnestness this popular
+rumour, have not, I conceive, paid due attention to the causes that
+might naturally have produced it, which were possibly these. There is
+in the Jewish prophets frequent mention of a great deliverer, and it is
+represented that he should appear in the time when the Jewish nation
+should be suffering under most grievous afflictions, and who should
+deliver them therefrom, Now was it not perfectly natural for the Jews,
+dispersed over Asia, to expect, and to circulate the notion of this
+deliverer when their own sufferings, inflicted by their enemies, were
+intolerable? If you will open Josephus, you will there read that about
+and after the time of the crucifixion of Jesus the Jews were dreadfully
+oppressed by the Romans, and were designedly driven to desperation, by
+Florus with the express purpose of exciting a rebellion, and thus
+prevent their accusing him of his crimes before the tribunal of Caesar.
+Was it at all unnatural therefore for the Jews thus oppressed, and
+reading in their sacred books, that they should be delivered from their
+oppressors by the appearance of their great deliverer when their
+sufferings were at the heighth; was it extraordinary that the Jews,
+writhing under the lash of tyrannical conquerors, and considering their
+then circumstances, to expect this deliverer at that time?  And to
+conclude, does it, after all, appear that this rumour prevailed in the
+life time of Jesus, or not till about thirty years after his
+crucifixion?
+
+You add, "now this is a remarkable circumstance which distinguishes
+Jesus from the founders of all other religions." This was no doubt a
+slip of the memory, as so learned a man as Mr. Channing, no doubt knows
+that the Mahometans, who are the most numerous sect of religionists now
+in the world, affirm, that there was a very general expectation of
+their victorious prophet Mahomet, about the time of his birth grounded
+on tradition, and, as they say, originally on very many texts of the
+Old Testament, which texts, with divers more from the New Testament,
+are urged by the Mahometan Divines as to the same purpose: these texts,
+and their irrelevancy are collected and shown by Father Maracci in his
+first Dissertation prefixed to his edition of the Koran, printed at
+Padua 1698. Collins, in his answer to the Bishop of Litchfield, and
+Coventry, states this fact, and refers to "Addison's first state of
+Mahometanism" p. 35. "Life of Mahomet" before four treatises concerning
+the doctrine of the Mahometans, p. 9.  Maracci's Appendix ad Prodromum
+primum.p. 36-46.
+
+In p. 18, you say, that the prophecies with regard to the Messiah,
+"describe a deliverer of the human race very similar to say the least
+to the character in which Jesus appeared."  I must confess that after
+reading again the prophecies collected in the third chapter of "The
+Grounds of Christianity examined" this similarity still remains
+invisible to me. I hope you will not be offended at my avowing that you
+appear to me to be sensible of the difficulty of this affair of the
+Messiahship, for you content yourself with adducing that characteristic
+of the Christ recorded in the Old Testament, his teaching and
+enlightening the Gentiles with the knowledge of God, and true religion,
+as applicable to Jesus, and sufficient to prove him the Messiah. Yet
+supposing that this characteristic would apply to Jesus, it would not,
+I think, be sufficient to prove him to be the Messiah or Christ: since
+this characteristic is merely one among twenty other marks given, and
+required to be found.
+
+2. It would, it appears to me, prove Mahomet the Messiah sooner than
+Jesus; since Mahomet in person converted more Gentiles to the knowledge
+and worship of one God during his life time, than Christianity did in
+one hundred years.
+
+3. But what is still more to the purpose, it cannot, I conceive, apply
+to Jesus at all, since he did not fulfill even this solitary
+characteristic; for he did not preach to the Gentiles, but confined his
+mission and teaching to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  It
+was Paul who established Christianity among the Gentiles.
+
+In p. 18, you appear to admit that all the characteristic marks of the
+Messiah were not manifested in Jesus, but will be manifested at some
+future period. To which a Jew might answer, by politely asking you,
+whether then you do not require too much of him for the present, in
+demanding faith upon credit?
+
+But that when Jesus of Nazareth in this future time shall fulfill the
+prophecies; will it not be time enough to believe him to be the Messiah?
+
+You ask, p. 19, "was ever character more pacific than that of Jesus?
+Can any religion breathe a milder temper than his? Into how many
+ferocious breasts has it already infused the kindest and gentlest
+spirit? And after all these considerations is Jesus to be rejected
+because some prophecies which relate to his future triumphs are not yet
+accomplished?"  This argument I can easily conceive must have had great
+weight with such a man as Mr. Channing, whose heart accords with every
+thing that is mild and amiable. But after all my dear sir, what are
+"all these considerations" to the purpose? Show that Jesus was as
+amiable and as good as the most vivid imagination can paint; nay, prove
+him to have been an angel from heaven, and it will not, it seems to me,
+at all tend towards demonstrating him to be the Messiah of the Old
+Testament, and if his religion was as mild as doves, and as beneficent
+as the blessed sun of heaven, still I might respectfully insist, that
+unless he answers to the description of the Messiah given in the Old
+Testament, it is all irrelevant, and "some prophecies" (or even one)
+unaccomplished, which it is expressly said should be accomplished at
+the appearance of the Messiah, are quite sufficient I conceive to
+nullify his claims.
+
+In the 29th page you say that "the Gospels are something more than
+loose and idle rumours of events which happened in a distant age, and a
+distant nation. We have the testimony of men who were the associates of
+Jesus Christ; who received his instructions from his own lips and saw
+his works with their own eyes."
+
+I presume that after what I have represented to Mr. Cary upon the
+subject of the Gospels according to Matthew and John, who know are the
+only Evangelists supposed to have heard with their ears, and seen with
+their eyes the doctrines and facts recorded in those books, you will be
+willing to allow, that this is very strong language. You observe in
+your note to p. 19, that the other writings of the New Testament,
+(except Luke, Acts, and Paul's Epistles) "may be all resigned, and our
+religion and its evidences will be unimpaired." This language too
+appears to me to be too strong, since if you give up all but the
+writings you mention we shall by no means have "the testimony of men
+who were the associates of Jesus Christ, who received his instructions
+from his own lips, and saw his works with their own eyes," for in
+giving up so much do you not resign the gospels according to Matthew
+and John?
+
+2. It requires some softening I think on these accounts; since 1. Luke
+was not an eyewitness of the facts he records in his gospel, it is only
+a hearsay story. 2. It contradicts the other gospels.
+
+3. It has been grossly interpolated.
+
+4. The learned Professor Marsh in his dissertation upon the three first
+gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (in his notes to Michaelis'
+Introduction to the N. T.) represents, and gives ingenious reasons to
+prove, that those gospels are Compilations from pre-existing documents,
+written by nobody knows who.  So that the pieces from which the three
+first gospels were composed were, according to this Hypothesis,
+anonymous, and the gospels themselves written by we do not know what
+authors; and yet, you know sir, that these patch-work narratives of
+miracles have passed not only for credible, bat for inspired!
+
+5. The Book of Acts was rejected by the Jewish Christians, as
+containing accounts untrue, and contradictory to their Acts of the
+Apostles.  It was rejected also by the Encratites, and the Severians,
+and I believe by the Marcionites.  The Jewish Christians were the
+oldest Christian Church, and they pronounced that the Book of Acts in
+our Canon was written by a partizan of Paul's; and it will be
+recollected that our Book of Acts is in fact, principally taken up in
+recording the travels and preaching of Paul, and contains little
+comparatively of the other Apostles. The Jewish Christians had a Book
+of Acts different from ours. And besides the fact, that the oldest
+Christian church, the mother church of Judea, with whom we should
+expect to find the truth if any where, rejected the Acts, Chrysostom
+Bishop of Constantinople, at the end of the 4th century, in a homily
+upon this Book says, that "not only the author and collector of the
+Book, but the Book itself was unknown to many." This mother church had
+not only a book of Acts of the apostles different from ours, but also a
+gospel of their own, called the gospel of the twelve apostles, which is
+supposed by the learned in important particulars to differ from ours.
+According to Augustine however, this gospel was publickly read in the
+churches as authentick for 300 years. This gospel in the opinion of
+Grabe, Mills, and other learned men, was written before the gospels now
+received as canonical. See Toland's Nazarenus.
+
+6. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, those to the Ephesians, and
+Colossians, are nearly proved to be apocryphal by Evanson, and about
+the rest there are some suspicious circumstances. You refer the reader
+of your Sermons in that note to Paley's Evidences, 9th chapter, for
+evidence for the authenticity of the rest of the gospels; but if the
+reader goes there he will find, that all the testimony Paley quotes for
+the first 200 years after Christ except that of Papias, Irenaeus, and
+Tertullian, (the value of whose testimony to the authenticity of the
+gospels, has been considered in the 16th ch. of my work; and which may
+further appear from these circumstances, that Irenaeus considered the
+Book of Hermas an inspired Scripture as much as he did the four
+gospels, and that Tertullian contended stoutly for the inspiration of
+the ridiculous book of Enoch, one of the most stupid forgeries that
+ever was seen,) the quotations and supposed allusions in the earlier
+fathers are uncertain, since it is acknowledged by Dodwell, and also by
+others, that it cannot be shown with any certainty, whether these
+quotations and 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 consequently subvert a very considerable part of
+your system, by which you endeavour to account for the discrepancies
+which you do allow as yet to subsist between the prophecies of the
+Messiah, and Jesus of Nazareth. I beseech you therefore to heed me
+carefully.
+
+In Luke i. verse 32. The angel tells Mary that her son Jesus should be
+great, and be called: the son of the Highest and the Lord God shall
+give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
+the house of Israel forever and to his kingdom there shall be no end,
+and in verse 67, &c. Zachariah, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost
+too, thus praises God concerning Jesus "Blessed be the Lord God of
+Israel, because he hath visited and redeemed his people, and he hath
+raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
+David; as he spake by the month of his holy prophets which have been
+since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and
+from the hand of all that hate us, &c. that we being delivered from the
+hand of our enemies should serve him with holiness and righteousness
+before him all the days of our lives."  [See the Original.] You see,
+sir the notion that these words allude to, they certainly appear to me
+to mean something else than deliverance from spiritual foes.  See also
+in the 2d ch. 25 verse, where Simeon a man who was "looking for the
+consolation of Israel" and was full of the Holy Ghost, expresses
+similar sentiments. And Anna the prophetess also spake concerning Jesus
+to all who "were expecting deliverance in Jerusalem," i.e. undoubtedly
+deliverance from the Romans. The carnal ideas of the Apostles with
+regard to the nature of their Master's Kingdom, and their consequent
+expectations with regard to Jesus, before his crucifixion, are
+acknowledged; and in the 24th chapt. of Luke 21st v. they say in
+despair, "But we trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed
+Israel." And after the resurrection, and just before the ascension of
+Jesus, after they had been for forty days "instructed in the things
+pertaining to the kingdom of God," which was the same as that of the
+Messiah, by Jesus himself, they do not seem to have had the least idea
+of the metaphysical kingdom of modern Christians, for they ask him,
+"Lord wilt thou now (or at this time) restore the kingdom to Israel?"
+And his answer is, not that it should never be restored, but that "it
+was not for them to know the times, and the seasons," see Acts 1. And
+even after the day of Pentecost, ch. iii. verse 19, Peter tells the
+Jews to repent, that their sins may be blotted out "when the times of
+refreshing [i.e. of deliverance] shall come from the face of the Lord,
+and he shall send Jesus Christ [i.e.  the Messiah] before preached, (or
+promised) unto you, whom the heavens must receive until the times of
+the restoration of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all
+his holy prophets since the world began." From this we see, that the
+Apostles thought that Jesus was gone to heaven for a time, and was to
+return again [there is no mention whatever in the Prophets of a double
+coming of the Messiah] and fulfill the prophecies with regard to "the
+restoration of all things" to a paradisiacal state, and the temporal
+kingdom of the Messiah sitting upon the throne of David in Jerusalem,
+all which is contained in the words of "the holy prophets" which have
+been since the world began. And what sort of a kingdom it was to be
+will appear from the not very spiritual description of the reign of
+Jesus upon earth during the Millennium, described in the 20th chapter
+of Revelations, and not only so, but the author of that book represents
+the final, and permanent state of the blessed as fixed, not in heaven,
+as modern Christians suppose, but on a new earth, or the earth renewed,
+and in a superb city, called "the new Jerusalem."
+
+In fact, the ideas of the twelve Apostles upon the subject of the
+kingdom of the Messiah were precisely as carnal as those of their
+unbelieving brethren of the Jewish nation.  They believed, as has been
+shown abundantly in the 15th chapter of "The Grounds of Christianity
+Examined," that their Master Jesus would come again, as he had told
+them he would, in that generation, and perform for Israel all the
+glorious things promised; that he would come in a cloud with power and
+great glory, and all the holy angels with him; that many from the east,
+and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in
+that kingdom; and that the disciples were to eat and drink at Jesus'
+table in his kingdom, and were to sit on twelve thrones judging the
+twelve tribes of Israel. The author of the book of Revelations, after
+describing the magnificence and felicity of Jesus' kingdom upon earth,
+represents him as saying that he should come quickly: and in the first
+chapters, that they who had pierced him should see him coming in the
+clouds. The Apostles, as appears from the epistles, were on tiptoe with
+expectation, and frequently assured their converts that "the Lord is at
+hand, the judge stood before the door, &c."  And to conclude, Can you
+not now, sir, conceive, and guess the cause of the gradual
+disappearance of the Jewish Christians after "that generation had
+passed away?" The fact was, that the Jewish Christians never dreamed of
+that figment a spiritual Messiah. They expected that Jesus would come
+again in "that generation" as he had told them he would; he did not
+come; in consequence the Jewish Church, after waiting, and waiting a
+great while, dwindled into annihilation.
+
+You conclude your most eloquent sermons by an appeal to the feelings in
+behalf of opinions which ought I think to be defended by reason and
+proof rather than by sentiment. You complain of ridicule in an
+examination of this kind. I hope you will excuse my expressing some
+doubts whether eloquent sentiment, and appeals to the feelings are less
+exceptionable in a discussion of the causes why we ought to give
+Christianity a respectful and dispassionate examination. If I were so
+happy as to be so eloquent as you, and in a manner which such power of
+persuasion as you possess would give me ability to do, had described
+the burnings, the tortures, the murders, and the plundering of the
+Jew's during the last thousand years, in order to cause my readers to
+wish to find reason to hate Christianity; would you not have said it
+was unfair? It cannot be necessary to inform so finished a scholar as
+Mr. Channing, that in a discussion about the truth of a system the
+consideration of the consequences of the system's being proved to be
+false, is irrelevant and contrary to rule. You will say that you were
+not discussing the truth of a system, but the reasons why we should
+give it a respectful examination. This is true-The question you advised
+your auditors to examine was, whether the Christian religion was true
+or otherwise. Be it so. I appeal then to your candour, whether it was
+the way to send them to the important enquiry unprejudiced and
+unbiased, to impress them by authority, and by arguments which are good
+only when used as subsidiary to proof or demonstration and by
+terrifying them with what you imagine would be the consequences of
+finding that Christianity is unfounded? Ah sir, does the advocate of a
+cause "founded on adamant" wish to dazzle the judges and fascinate the
+jury before he ventures to bring the merits of his cause to trial? Must
+they be made to shed tears, must their hearts be made to feel that you
+are right, in order that their understandings may be able to perceive
+it? Should the learned and able champion of a system, who offers it as
+true, and to be received only because it is true, when its claims are
+threatened with a scrutiny, lay so much stress upon its supposed
+utility when the question is its truth? Is it an argument that
+Christianity is true, because if false, you think we should have no
+religion left? This argument no doubt looks ludicrous to you, and yet I
+am told that it has been gravely offered by some well meaning men after
+reading your sermons, who thought it of no small weight. You may see
+from this, my dear sir, how easily simplicity is satisfied.
+
+You lay great stress upon the comforts derived from believing
+Christianity true. But ought men to be encouraged to lean and build
+their hopes on what may perhaps when examined turn out to be a broken
+reed? The expiring Indian dies in peace-holding a cow's tail in his
+hand. If he was in his full health, and vigour of understanding, would
+you think It charitable to let that man remain uninformed of his
+delusion in trusting to such a staff of comfort? Would you not
+endeavour to enlighten him, and make him ashamed of his superstition? I
+know you would, and you would do him a kindness deserving his
+gratitude. To conclude, the Christian religion is either a divine and
+solid foundation of morals, hope, and consolation, or it is not. If it
+is, there is no reason in the world to fear, that it can be undermined,
+or hurt in the least. To believe so would be I conceive to doubt the
+Providence of God. For it cannot be supposed, that a religion really
+given by the Almighty and All wise can be undermined by a wretched
+mortal, a child of dust and infirmity; the supposition is monstrous,
+and therefore no examination of its claims ought to be deprecated, or
+frowned at by those who think it "founded on adamant," for no man
+shrinks at having that examined which he is positively confident of
+being able to prove.
+
+2.  If this foundation be not divine and solid it ought I conceive to
+be undermined, and abandoned. For willfully, and knowingly to suffer
+confiding men to be duped, or allured into building their hopes and
+consolation upon a delusion, is in my opinion to maltreat, and to
+despise them. And to suffer them to be imposed upon is both unbrotherly
+and dishonest. And to advocate, or to insinuate a defense of an unsound
+foundation upon the principle of pious frauds, viz. because it is
+supposed by its defenders to be useful, you will no doubt agree with me
+is both absurd, and immoral. For in the long run truth is more useful
+than error, "nothing (says Lord Bacon) is so pernicious as deified
+error." And it must not be supposed, or insinuated, that the good God
+has made it necessary, that the morals, comfort, and consolation of his
+rational creatures should be founded on, or be supported by a mistake
+and a delusion; for it would be virtually to deny his Providence.  In
+fine, Christianity come to us as from God, and says to us, "He that
+believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned."
+Therefore, he that receives such extraordinary claims without
+examination, is "in my opinion, a wittol; and he who suffers himself to
+be compelled to swallow such pretensions without the severest scrutiny,
+according to my notions of things, has no claims to be considered as a
+man of common sense.
+
+Before I close my letter, it occurs to me to observe, that you appear
+to me to have misconceived the state of the case, in representing in
+your sermons, that if you give up Christianity you will have no
+religion left. Christianity, if I understand it, is properly contained
+and taught in the New Testament alone. I am not aware, my dear sir,
+that if you were to give up the New Testament you would be without a
+religion, or even what you acknowledge as divine revelation. It appears
+to me, that a Christian might, if he chose, give up the New Testament
+and place himself on the footing of the devout Gentiles mentioned in
+the Acts, who worshipped the one God, and kept the moral law of the Old
+Testament. You will recollect, that I have not attempted to affect the
+authority of the Old Testament which you acknowledge to contain a
+Divine revelation. I never shall because, I would never quarrel with
+any thing merely for the sake of disputing.  Whether the Old Testament
+contains a revelation from God, or not, its moral precepts are, as far
+as I know unexceptionable; there is not, I believe, any thing
+extravagant or impracticable in them, they are such as promote the good
+order of society. Its religion in fact is merely Theism garnished, and
+guarded by a splendid ritual, and gorgeous ceremonies; the belief of it
+can produce no oppression and wretchedness to any portion of mankind,
+and for these reasons I for one will never attempt to weaken its
+credit, whatever may be my own opinion with regard to its supernatural
+claims.
+
+In fact, to speak correctly, the Old Testament is at this moment the
+sole true canon of Scripture, acknowledged as such by genuine
+Christianity; it was the only canon which was acknowledged by Christ,
+and his immediate Apostles. The books of the New Testament are all
+occasional books, and not a code or system of religion; nor were they
+all collected into one body, nor declared by any even human authority
+to be all canonical till several hundred years after Jesus Christ. They
+are books written by Christians, and contain proofs of Christianity
+alleged from the Old Testament, but contain Christianity itself no
+otherwise, it appears to me, than as explaining, illustrating, and
+confirming Christianity supposed to be taught in the Old Testament.
+They are mostly, where they inculcate doctrines, Commentaries on the
+Old Testament deriving from thence, and giving what the writers
+imagined to be contained in and hidden under the letter of it.  And
+upon the same principle that the books of the New Testament were
+received as canonical, so was the Pastor of Hermas, the Book of Enoch,
+and others, just as highly venerated by the early Christians. But they
+did not at first, as I apprehend their expressions, rank them with the
+Old Testament, which was called "the Scriptures," by way of excellence.
+The Old Testament was in fact supposed by the writers of the New, to
+contain Christianity under the bark of the letter; and they represent
+Christianity as having been preached to the ancient Jews under the
+figure of types, and allegories. See Gal. iii. 8. Heb. xi. and the
+first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, ch. x. In a word, the
+Apostles professed to "say none ether things than those which the
+prophets and Moses did say." Acts xxvi. 22,
+
+Jesus and his Apostles do frequently, and emphatically style the books
+of the Old Testament "The Scriptures," and refer men to them as their
+rule, and canon. And Paul says, Acts xxiv. 14, "After the [Christian]
+way, which ye call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers;
+believing all things that are written in the law, and the prophets."
+But it does not appear, that any new books were declared by them to
+have that character. Nor was there any new canon of Scripture, or any
+collection of books as Scripture made whether of Gospels or Epistles
+during the lives of the Apostles; as is well known to you.--And if
+neither Jesus nor his apostles declared any other books to be canonical
+besides those of the Old Testament, I would ask the Christian who did?
+Or who had a right and authority to declare or make any books
+canonical? If Christianity required a new canon, or new digest of laws,
+it should seem that it ought to have been done by Jesus and his
+apostles, and not left to be executed by any after them: especially not
+left to be settled long after their deaths by weak, enthusiastic,
+ignorant, silly and factious men, such as the fathers, who were so
+badly informed of the genuine writings of the founders of their
+religion, that they were, when they came to collect and make a new
+canon, greatly divided: about the genuineness of all books bearing the
+names of the apostles, and contended with one another bitterly about
+their authority; and after all decree to be genuine some which are
+palpably forgeries.
+
+But the truth is, that the present New Testament Canon, was collected
+and established by the Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christians
+received none of them, but acknowledged nothing for Scripture but the
+books of the Old Testament which was the sole Canon left them by the
+twelve apostles.  Their Gospel and Acts, if my memory does not deceive
+me, they regarded as histories only. They were merely a small body of
+Jews who thought that Jesus was the Messiah of the Old Testament. This
+article was the only one which made them Heretical: In all other
+respects they were as other Jews after the way which their countrymen
+called heresy, so worshipped they the God of their Fathers at the
+National Temple; believing and preaching "no other things than what
+[they imagined] Moses and the Prophets did say."
+
+I have made this statement and representation, sir, on two accounts.
+
+1. In order to repel the shocking and groundless imputation which I
+understand that some pains have been taken to fix upon me, I do not
+mean by you, sir, for you know the contrary that the object of my late
+publication was to aim at destroying all religion, and the annihilation
+of the publick worship of God, a charge which I reject with horror, and
+also with bitter indignation, that it should ever have been attributed
+to me. God forbid! that the publick worship and stated reverence which
+all ought to pay to the Great and Tremendous Being from whom we receive
+life and its every blessing; and to whose Providence we are subject;
+and by whose goodness we are sustained, should ever be caused to be
+neglected, or forgotten, by any man, or by the subvertion of any
+opinions whatever. The propriety of the publick worship of God stands
+independent and without need of support from the peculiar doctrines of
+any sect. And the idea that this great duty would be superceded by the
+dismission of the New Testament is so utterly groundless and absurd:
+that to make it appear so, any man has only to recollect that the
+public worship of the Supreme existed before the New Testament was
+written or thought of; and to look round the world and see millions of
+men worshipping God in houses of prayer, who know nothing about the New
+Testament except by report. I regard, sir, the imputation I have spoken
+of, as either a gross mistake of the simple, or a cunning and
+deliberate calumny of the crafty. I have made this statement and
+representation to show, that it does not follow, that in giving up the
+New Testament Christians will be deprived of all religion. For in
+retaining the Old Testament they would adopt nothing new, and would
+retain nothing but what they now acknowledge as containing a divine
+revelation; and in giving up the New Testament they would not, as I
+think has been shown, give up a jot of what had ever any right to the
+name of Scripture.
+
+Whether however, people give up both, or retain one, or both, is their
+concern. I have stated what I have merely to show, that in giving up
+the New Testament they would not necessarily give up more than a part
+of their bibles, or any part of their bible, except that whose
+authenticity cannot be proved; nor any more of their faith, than that
+part of it which for almost eighteen hundred years has produced
+interminable disputes among themselves and misfortunes, and causeless
+reproach to others.
+
+"With great regard, and the most respectful esteem, I subscribe myself,
+Reverend Sir, Your obliged and humble servant
+
+GEO. BETHUNE  ENGLISH.
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+Jerom speaking of the different manner which writers found themselves
+obliged to use, in their controversial, and dogmatical writings,
+intimates, that in controversy whose end was victory, rather than
+truth, it was allowable to employ every artifice which would best serve
+to conquer an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius,
+Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against
+Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery
+problems they baffle what was contrived against them by the spirit of
+the devil: and because they are sometimes forced to speak, they speak
+not what they think, but what is necessary against those who are called
+Gentiles. I do not mention the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian,
+Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilarius, lest I be thought not so
+much defending myself, as accusing others, &c."  Op. Tom. 4. p. 2.
+p.:256.  Middleton's Free Enquiry, p. 158. It is remarkable that the
+names mentioned by Jerom are the names of the early apologists for
+Christianity. When the Church got the upper hand however, they found a
+better way to confute those wicked men, Celsus and Porphyry, than by
+"slippery problems" and by speaking "not what they thought (to be true)
+but what was necessary against those who are called Gentiles," viz. by
+seeking after, and burning carefully their troublesome works. Of the
+fathers of the Church who were its pillars, leaders, and great men. Dr.
+Middleton observes in his Preface to his Enquiry, &c, p. 31, as
+follows: "I have shown by many indisputable facts, that the ancient
+Fathers were extremely credulous and superstitious, possessed with
+strong prejudices, and an enthusiastic zeal in favor not only of
+Christianity in general, but of every particular doctrine, which a wild
+imagination could engraft upon it, and scrupling no art or means by
+which they might propagate the same principles. In short they were of a
+character front which nothing could be expected that was candid and
+impartial; nothing but what a weak or crafty understanding could supply
+towards confirming those prejudices with which they happened to be
+possessed, especially where religion was the subject, which above all
+other motives strengthens every bias, and inflames every passion of the
+human mind.  And that this was actually the case, I have shown also, by
+many instances in which we find them roundly affirming as true things
+evidently false and fictitious; in order to strengthen as they fancied
+the evidences of the Gospel or to serve a present turn of confuting an
+adversary: or of enforcing a particular point which they were labouring
+to establish."
+
+In p. 81 of the Introductory Discourse, he says, "Let us consider then
+in the next place what light these same forgeries [those of the Fathers
+of the fourth century] will afford us in looking backwards also into
+the earlier ages up to the times of the Apostles. And first, when we
+reflect on that surprising confidence and security with which the
+principal fathers of this fourth age have affirmed as true what they
+themselves had either forged, or what they knew at least to be forged;
+it is natural to suspect, that so bold a defiance of sacred truth could
+not be acquired, or become general at once, but must have been carried
+gradually to that heighth, by custom and the example of former times,
+and a long experience of what the credulity and superstition, of the
+multitude (i.e. of Christians) would bear."
+
+"Secondly, this suspicion will be strengthened by considering, that
+this age [the 4th century] in which Christianity was established by the
+civil power, had no real occasion for any miracles. For which reason,
+the learned among the Protestants have generally supposed it to have
+been the very era of their cessation and for the same reason the
+fathers also themselves when they were disposed to speak the truth,
+have not scrupled to confess, that the miraculous shifts were then
+actually withdrawn, because the church stood no longer in need of them.
+So that it must have been a rash and dangerous experiment, to begin to
+forge miracles, at a time when there was no particular temptation to
+it; if the use of such fictions had not long been tried, and the
+benefit of them approved; and recommended by their ancestors; who
+wanted every help towards supporting themselves under the pressures and
+persecutions with which the powers on earth were afflicting them.''
+
+"Thirdly, if we compare the principal fathers of the fourth with those
+of the earlier ages. We shall observe the same characters of zeal and
+piety in them all, but more learning, more judgment, and less credulity
+in the later fathers. If these then be found either to have forced
+miracles themselves, or to have propagated what they knew to be forged,
+or to have been deluded so far by other people's forgeries as to take
+them for real miracles; (of the one or the other of which they were all
+unquestionably guilty) it will naturally excite in us the same
+suspicion of their predecessors, who in the same cause, and with the
+same zeal were less learned and more credulous, and in greater need of
+such arts for their defence and security.
+
+"Fourthly. As the personal characters of the earlier fathers give them
+no advantage over their successors, so neither does the character of
+the earlier ages afford any real cause of preference as to the point of
+integrity above the latter. The first indeed are generally called and
+held to be the purest: but when they had once acquired that title from
+the authority of a few leading men; it is not strange to find it
+ascribed to them by every body else; without knowing or inquiring into
+the grounds of it. But whatever advantage of purity those first ages
+may claim in some particular respects, it is certain that they were
+defective in some others, above all which have since succeeded them.
+For there never was any period of time in all ecclesiastical history,
+in which so many rank heresies were publicly professed, nor in which so
+many spurious books were forged and published by the Christians, under
+the name of Christ, and the apostles, and the apostolic writers, as in
+those primitive ages; several of which forged hooks are frequently
+cited and applied to the defence of Christianity by the most eminent
+fathers of the same ages, as true and genuine pieces, and of equal
+authority with the scriptures themselves. And no man surely can doubt
+but that those who would either forge or make use of forged books,
+would in the same cause and for the same ends, make use of forged
+miracles." Let the reader remember that the Gospels according to
+Matthew and John are forgeries, and then apply this reasoning of Dr.
+Middleton's to the miracles contained in those Gospels. With regard to
+all the miracles of the New Testament, we know them only by report, and
+it is an acknowledged, because a demonstrable fact, that the age in
+which the accounts of these miracles were published, was an age
+overflowing with imposture and credulity. "Such," says Bishop Fell,
+"was the license of fiction in the first ages, and so easy the
+credulity, that testimony of the facts of that time is to be received
+with great caution, as not only the pagan world, but the church of God,
+has just reason to complain of its fabulous age." Stillingfleet says,
+"that antiquity is defective most where it is most important, In the
+awe immediately succeeding that of the apostles." Now be it
+recollected, that the Gospels first appeared in this age of fraud and
+credulity; and be it further remembered, that the authenticity of the
+Gospels, according to Matthew and John can be subverted, if marks of
+imposture, which would cause the rejection of any other books, are
+sufficient to affect the authenticity of those received as sacred. It
+is to be remarked farther, that the church in its first ages was full
+of forged hooks, giving accounts of the same events, different from
+those of the books of the New Testament. The different sects, and the
+church itself, was torn by as many schisms then as it ever has been
+since, who mutually accuse each other of corrupting the Christians
+scriptures, and of lying, and cheating most abominably.
+
+All reasoning therefore from books published at this time, and whose
+authenticity is supported only by the testimony of acknowledged liars;
+and which have been tampered with too as these certainly were, is
+exceedingly unsatisfactory.  And yet such is the basis on which rests
+the credibility of the miracles of the New Testament.  Dr. Middleton,
+after having shown, beginning at the earliest of the fathers
+immediately after the apostles, that they were all most amazingly
+credulous and superstitious: and having demonstrated from their own
+words, that from Justin Martyr downwards they were all liars, observes
+as follows, p. 157, Free Inquiry: "Now it is agreed by all, that these
+fathers, whose testimonies I have been just reciting were the most
+eminent lights of the fourth century; all of them sainted by the
+catholic church, and highly reverenced at this day in all churches, for
+their piety, probity, and learning.  Yet from the specimens of them
+above given, it is evident, that they would not scruple to propagate
+any fiction, how gross so ever, which served to promote the interest
+either of Christianity in general, or of any particular rite or
+doctrine which they were desirous to recommend. St. Jerom in effect
+confesses it, for after the mention of a silly story, concerning the
+Christians of Jerusalem, who used to shew in the ruins of the temple,
+certain stones of a reddish color, which they pretended to have been
+stained by the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain
+between the temple and the altar, he adds, but I do not find fault with
+an error which flows from a hatred of the Jews, and a pious zeal for
+the Christian faith. If the miracles then of the fourth century, so
+solemnly attested by the most celebrated and revered fathers of the
+church, are to be rejected after all as fabulous, it must needs give a
+fatal blow to the credit of all the miracles even of the preceding
+centuries; since there is not a single father whom I have mentioned in
+this fourth age, who for zeal and piety may not be compared with the
+best of the more ancient, and for knowledge, and for learning be
+preferred to them all. For instance, there was not a person in all the
+primitive church more highly respected in his own days than St.
+Epiphanius, for the purity of his life as well as the extent of his
+leaning. He was master of five languages, and has left behind him one
+of the most useful works which remain to us from antiquity. St. Jerom,
+who personally knew him, calls him the father of all bishops, and a
+shining star among them; the man of God of blessed memory; to whom the
+people used to flock in crowds, offering their little children to his
+benediction, kissing his feet, and catching the hem of his garment.
+This holy man and light of the church, the great man of his day,
+asserts upon his own knowledge, "that in imitation of our Saviour's
+miracle at Cana in Galilee several fountains and rivers in his days
+were annually turned into wine. A fountain at Cibyra, a city of Caria,
+and another at Gerasa in Arabia, prove the truth of this. I myself have
+drunk out of the fountain at Cibyra, and my brethren out of the other
+at Gerasa; and many testify the same thing of the river Nile in Egypt."
+Advers. Haeres, 1. 2, c. 130. Middleton's Inquiry, p. 151, 152] "All
+the rest (Dr. Middleton goes on to say) were men of the same character,
+who spent their lives and studies in propagating the faith, and in
+combating the vices and the heresies of their times. Yet none of them
+have scrupled, we see, to pledge their faith for the truth, of facts
+which no man of sense can believe, and which their warmest admirers are
+forced to give up as fabulous. If such persons then could willfully
+attempt to deceive; and if the sanctity of their characters cannot
+assure us of their fidelity, what better security can we have from
+those who lived before them? Or what cure for our scepticism with
+regard, to any of the miracles above mentioned? Was the first asserter
+of them, Justin Martyr more pious, cautious, learned, judicious, or
+less credulous than Epiphanius? Or were those virtues more conspicuous
+in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, than in
+Athanasius, Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerom, Austin? Nobody, I dare say,
+will venture to affirm it. If these later fathers, then, biased by a
+false zeal or interest, could be tempted to propagate a known lie, or
+with all their learning and knowledge could be so weakly credulous as
+to believe the absurd stories which they themselves attest, there must
+be always reason to suspect, that the same prejudices would operate
+even more strongly in the earlier fathers, prompted by the same zeal
+and the same interests, yet endued with less learning, less judgment,
+and more credulity.
+
+Such Christian reader, were the fathers, the leaders, and the great men
+of the church, and the apologists for your religion. And it is upon the
+credibility of these convicted knaves that ultimately, and
+substantially depends your belief. For it is upon their testimony and
+tradition that you receive and believe in the authenticity of the N.T.,
+its doctrines and miracles.
+
+I hope that if you choose to build your faith upon the testimony of
+such witnesses, that you will not think it unreasonable in me to
+presume to doubt the truth of opinions and miracles supported by the
+testimony of men like the fathers. I am willing, because I think it
+reasonable, to let every man follow his own judgment, and do I ask too
+much to be permitted without offence to enjoy the same liberty with
+regard to these things; which I conceive no fair man will now say, (if
+what has been brought forward be true) are positively provable as true,
+and worthy of unhesitating assent.
+
+For the case is thus. The gospels are accused of being written by
+credulous and superstitious authors whose names are not certainly
+known; as containing too inconsistent and contradictory accounts of
+prodigies and miracles; and also palpable marks of forgery.  Now to
+convince a thinking man, that histories of such suspected character,
+containing relations of miracles, are divine or even really written, by
+the persons to whom they are ascribed, and not either some of the many
+spurious productions, with which it is notorious and acknowledged, the
+age in which they appeared abounded, calculated to astonish the
+credulous and superstitious! or else writings of authors who were
+themselves infected with the grossest superstitious credulity, what is
+the testimony?
+
+For the first hundred years after the lives of the supposed authors,
+none at all. And the earliest fathers who speak of them are all
+convicted of gross credulity, and incapacity to distinguish genuine
+from, fictitious writings, (for they admitted as genuine scripture many
+books confessedly nonsensical forgeries,) but what is worse, are
+manifestly guilty by the evidence of their own words of having been
+palpable liars, cheats, and forgers. But, "it is an obvious rule in the
+admission of evidence in any cause whatsoever, that the more important
+the matter to be determined by it is, the more unsullied, and
+unexceptionable ought to be the characters of the witnesses to be. And
+when no court of justice among us in determining a question of fraud to
+the value of sixpence will admit the testimony of witnesses who are
+themselves notoriously convicted of the same offence of which the
+defendant is accused;"  how can it be expected that any reasonable
+unprejudiced person should reasonably be required to admit similar
+evidence, i.e. the testimony of such men as the fathers in favor of the
+divine authority of books which are accused of being the offspring of
+fraud and credulity; and which relate too to a case of the greatest
+importance possible, not to himself only, but to the whole human race?!
+
+For my own part, I cannot; and I think I could not without renouncing
+all those rules and principles of evidence, and of good sense, which in
+all other cases are universally respected. And when we consider the
+character of those by whom these histories were first received and
+believed, the unreasonableness of insisting upon the belief of these
+accounts will appear aggravated. What was the character of the early
+Gentile Christians? This we can ascertain from only two sources--the
+writings of their leaders, and those of their heathen contemporaries.
+According to the latter they were very weak and credulous. The
+primitive Christians were perpetually reproached for their gross
+credulity by all their enemies. Celsus says that they cared neither to
+receive nor to give any reason of their faith, and that it was an usual
+saying with them, do not examine, but believe only, and thy faith will
+save thee. Julian affirms, that the sum, of all their wisdom was
+comprised in this single precept, believe. The Gentiles, says Arnobius,
+make it their constant business to laugh at our faith, and to lash our
+credulity with their facetious jokes.
+
+"The fathers on the other hand, defend themselves by saying, that they
+did nothing more: on this occasion than what the philosophers had
+always done; that Pythagoras' precepts were inculcated by an ipse
+dixit, and that they had found the same method useful with the vulgar,
+who were not at leisure to examine things; whom they taught therefore
+to believe, even without reasons: and that the heathens themselves,
+though they did not confess it in words, yet practiced the same in
+their acts." Middleton's Free Enquiry. Introduc. Disc. p. 92. Lucian
+says, "that whenever any crafty juggler expert in his trade, and who
+knew how to make a right use of things, went over to the Christians, he
+was sure to grow rich immediately, by making a prey of their
+simplicity." [De Morte Pereg.]
+
+If we turn to the writings of the earliest fathers; from these writings
+of the great men of the Church at that time we shall form but a very
+mean idea of the understandings of the little ones, since their
+writings are not one whit superior to the "godly Epistles" of the
+lowest orders of fanatics in the last, and present century, they are
+remarkable for nothing more than manifesting the extreme simplicity,
+and credulity, together with the sincere piety of the writers. The
+fathers who succeeded them were better informed, but not at all behind
+them in credulity, and enthusiasm.  Tertullian, the most powerful mind
+among them during the first two hundred years, reasons as follows.
+
+"The Son of God was crucified: it is no shame to own it, because it is
+a thing to be ashamed of. The Son of God died: it is wholly credible,
+because it is absurd. When buried he rose again to life: it is certain,
+because it is impossible." De Carne Christi, Section 5.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary, by George English
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTER TO THE REVEREND MR. CARY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 24594.txt or 24594.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/5/9/24594/
+
+Produced by Charles Klingman
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.net/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.net
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/20080213-24594.zip b/old/20080213-24594.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c1a8f68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/20080213-24594.zip