entis" will deny, because, accurate information excludes the
possibility of contradiction in authors willing to tell the truth, and
much more in inspired authors, who must be incapable of writing
anything but the truth.

The Christian, therefore, must, it seems to me, on account of
these contradictions, allow one of two things; either, that the
evangelists were fraudulent men, or else that the Gospels were
not written by the Apostles and immediate followers of Jesus:
because want of accurate information, cannot be supposed of the
Apostles and immediate followers of Jesus; as having been
constantly with him, from the beginning, to the end of his
ministery, they must have been perfectly acquainted with his
actions and doctrines. Neither can lapse of memory be urged;
because the Gospels represent Jesus as saying, John ch. xvi. 26,
that they should have the aid of inspiration, which "should, bring
all things, to remembrance;" and in Acts ch. iv. 31, all the followers
of Jesus are represented as having actually received the effusion
of the Holy Ghost: of course want of accurate information, and
lapse or memory in them cannot be supposed.

The Christian, therefore, must allow, since contradictions do exist,
if he would avoid accusing the Apostles and disciples of Jesus of
fraud, that the Gospels were not written by the Apostles and first
followers of Jesus, but that they were written by men, who had no
accurate information about the events they record. It is therefore
plain, that the miracles recorded in the Gospels, are incapable of
proof. For what Christian in his senses can ask another man to
believe accounts of miracles, which accounts, he must at the
same time allow, were written by fraudulent men, or by men who
had no accurate information upon the subjects about which they
write.

The edge of this, as I think, smites right through the neck of Mr.
Everett's argument on which his work depends, and leaves his
book--"a gasping head---a quivering trunk." Sic transit gloria
mundi.

But in order to make Mr. Everett still farther Sensible how easily
his argument can be "overturned, overturned and overturned," I
will suppose a reasonable and reasoning man, desirous to verify
the claims of the books of the New Testament as containing a
Revelation from God, to set down to scrutinize with anxious
solicitude every argument of internal and external evidence, in
favour of their authenticity, and authority, in the hope of becomi