CONCLUSION.
I have now finished my work, which I have written in order to exculpate myself, and to do justice to others; and having re-examined every link of the chain of my argument, I think it amply strong to support the conclusions attached to it. Though there might have been drawn from the Old and New Testaments, many additional arguments corroborative of what has been said, yet, at present, I shall add no more; as I think that what has been brought forward has just claims to be considered by the impartial as quite sufficient to prove these two points—that the New Testament can neither subsist with the Old Testament, nor without it; and that the New Testament system was built first upon a mistake, and afterwards buttressed up with forged and apocryphal documents.
Let the candid now judge, whether the author, knowing these things, or, at least persuaded of their truth, could have persisted in affirming, (in a place where sincerity is expected), in the name of the Almighty, that the claims of the New Testament were valid, without being a hypocrite, and an impostor.
Let them also consider, whether, after being unable to obtain a satisfactory refutation of the objections contained in this volume, his resigning a profession whose duties obliged him to say what he was convinced was false, was conduct to be reprehended. And lastly, he appeals to the good sense of the public, for a decision, whether, with such objections and difficulties weighing upon his mind, as he has now exposed, his conduct in that respect can reasonably be attributed to the unmanly influence of caprice and fickle-ness, (as has been circulated by some who had an interest in making it believed;) or to the just influence of motives deserving a better name.
With regard to the unfortunate people whose arguments have been brought forward in this volume, we have, reader, now gone over, and distinctly felt, the whole ground of the controversy between them and their persecutors, mentioned in the Preface. And as they make use of the Old Testament as a foundation, admitted, and necessarily admitted by Christians, to be of divine authority, and are surrounded by the bulwarks they have raised out of the demolished entrenchments of their adversaries, I do not see but that their castles strength may laugh a siege to scorn. And after reviewing, and revolving, over and over in my own mind the arguments on both sides, I am obliged to believe, that the stoutest Polemical Goliath who may venture to attack it, especially their strong hold—their arguments about the Messiahship, will find to his cost, that when his weak point is but known, the mightiest Achilles must fall before the feeblest Paris, whose arrow is—aimed at his heel.
The author hopes, and thinks he has a right to expect, that whoever may attempt to answer his book, will do it fairly, like a man of candour; without trying to evade the main question—that of the Messiahship of Jesus. He fears, that he shall see an answer precisely resembling the many others he has seen upon that subject. Except two—those of Sukes, and Jeffries. (who acknowledge that miracles have nothing to do with the question of the Messiahship, which can be decided by the Old Testament only;)— all that he has ever met with, evade this question, and slide over to the ground of miracles. Such conduct in an answerer of this book would be very unfair, and also very absurd. For the case is precisely resembling the following—A father informs by letter his son in a foreign country, that he is about to send him a Tutor, whom he will know by the following marks; He is learned in the mathematics, and the physical sciences; acquainted with the learned languages, and an excellent physician; of a dark complexion; six feet high, and with a voice loud, and commanding. By and by, a man comes to the young man, professing to be this tutor sent to him by his father. On examining the man, and comparing him with the description in his fathers letter, he finds him totally unlike the person he had been taught to expect. Instead of being acquainted with the sciences, therein mentioned, he knows nothing about them; instead of being six feet high, of a dark complexion, and with a voice loud and commanding, he is a diminutive creature of five feet, of a light complexion, with a voice like a womans.
The young man, with his fathers letter in his hand, tells the pretended tutor, that he certainly cannot be the person he has been told to expect. The man persists, and appeals to certain wonderful works he performs in order to convince the young man, that he is acquainted with the sciences aforesaid, and that he is also six feet high; of a dark complexion; and talks like an Emperor! The young man replies. Friend, you are either an enthusiast, a mad man, or something worse. As to your signs and wonders, I have been warned in my fathers letter to pay no regard to any such things in this case. Besides, you ought to be sensible, that your identity with the person I am taught by my fathers letter to expect, can be only determined by comparing you with the description of him given therein. Whether your wonderful works are real miracles or not, I neither know, nor care. At any rate, they cannot, in the nature of things, be any thing to the purpose in; this case. For you to pretend, that they prove what you offer them to prove, is quite absurd; you might as well, and as reasonably, pretend, that they could prove Aristotle to have been Alexander; or the Methodist George Whitfield to be the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte!
To conclude, if any person should feel inclined to attempt to refute this book, let him do it like a man; without evading the question, or equivocating, or caviling about little things. Let him consider the principal question, and the main arguments on which he perceives that the author relies, and not pass over these silently, and hold up a few petty mistakes and subsidiary arguments as specimens of the whole book. Such a mode of defence would be very disengenuous, and with a discerning reader, perfectly futile and insufficient. It would be as if a man prostrate, and bleeding under a lion whose teeth and claws were infixed in his throat, should tear a handful of hairs out of the animals mane, and hold them up as proofs of victory.
In fine, let him, before his undertaking, carefully consider these pungent words of Bishop Beveridge, Opposite answers, and downright arguments advantage a cause; but when a disputant leaves many things untouched, as if they were too hot for his fingers; and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true state of the question: it is a shrewd sign, either that he has not weighed things maturely, or else (which is more probable,) that he maintains a desperate cause.