hristian, who acknowledges the Old Testament to be a
Revelation, upon which a new Revelation, that of the New Testament, is
founded and erected. To him the Jew argues, that if the Old Testament be
a Divine Revelation, then the New Testament cannot be a Revelation,
because it contradicts, and is repugnant to, the Old Testament, the more
ancient, and acknowledged Revelation. Now God cannot be the author of
two Revelations, one of which is repugnant to the other. One of them is
certainly false. And if the Christian, conscious of the difficulty of
reconciling the New, with the Old, Testament, attempts to support the
New, at the expense of the Old, Testament, upon which the former is, and
was, built by the founders of Christianity; then the Jew would tell
him, that he acts as absurdly as would the man who should expect to make
his house the firmer, by undermining, and weakening its foundation.

So that whether the Christian affirms, or denies, he is ruined either
way. For he is reduced to this fatal dilemma. If the Old Testament
contains a Revelation from God, then the New Testament is not from God,
for God cannot contradict himself: and it can be proved abundantly, that
the New Testament is contradictory, and repugnant to the Old and to
itself too. If, on the other hand, the Old Testament contains no
Revelation from God, then the New Testament must go down at any rate
because it asserts that the Old Testament does contain a Revelation from
God, and builds upon it, as a foundation.--E.

* There was nothing which gave the author, in writing this Book, so much
uneasiness, at the apprehension of being supposed to entertain
disrespectful sentiments of the Founder of the Christian Religion. I
would most earnestly entreat the reader to believe my solemn assurances,
that by nothing that I have said, or shall be under the necessity of
saying, do I think, or mean to intimate the slightest disparagement to
the moral character of one, whose purity of morals, and good intentions,
deserve any thing else but reproach. That he was an enthusiast, I do not
doubt, that he was a wilful impostor I never will believe. And I protest
before God, that from the apprehensions above-mentioned alone, I would
have confined the contents of this volume to myself, did I not feel
compelled to justify myself for having quitted a profession: and did I
not, above all, think it my duty, to make a well meant attempt, which I
hope will be seconded, to vindicate t