ΤΟ TWO DEISTICAL WORKS, ENTITLED "THE NEW TRIAL OF THE WITNESSES," &c. Longa est injuria, Longæ ambages; sed summa sequar vestigia rerum.— -VIRGIL. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.-Rom. i. 22. And David took a stone and flang it, and smote the Philistine in his fore- LONDON: PRINTED FOR R. HUNTER, 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. 1824. PREFACE. No writings have been more misapplied than the Epistles of Paul: and it is remarkable that the persons who are loudest in their praise have been foremost to pervert them in the support of Antichristian doctrines and of dogmas unfriendly to the improvement of mankind. This circumstance has created a strong prejudice against this Apostle, especially in the advocates of freedom, if they happened not to be believers in revelation. Nor is there any method so effectual to vindicate his character from the charges imputed to him in sceptical publications, as to place his writings in their true point of light. When these are viewed in their native force and simplicity; when examined in connection with the circumstances that called them forth; when the tenets and character are brought to light of those false teachers whom Paul nobly opposed;-then, and not till then, the imputations of enemies and the perversions of mistaken friends, like thick clouds, will disperse, and the author will stand forth as the sun, with unrivalled splendour and purity. It was this conviction that led me to offer, in the first part of this work, an account of Antichrist and its propagation, as a previous requisite to give a complete answer to the work entitled "Not Paul but Jesus.” To the second part, which contains my answer |