y 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 father's
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 woman's.

The young man, with his father's 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 t