and who had been seized and carried away
by him bodily, in the presence of their neighbors and friends. Then
some of his arguments took for granted points of importance which I was
particularly anxious to have proved. Much of his reasoning seemed
conclusive enough, but when sound and unsound arguments are so blended
in the same book, the unsound ones seem to lessen the credit and the
force of the sound ones.

On the subject of the evidences, Baxter, like Grotius, was behind the
times. His works might be satisfactory enough to people of his own day,
but they were not adapted to the minds of people of the present day.

6. The works of Paley and Butler gave me the greatest satisfaction.
Paley, both in his Natural Theology and in his evidences of
Christianity, seemed to be almost all that I could desire, and I rested
in him for a length of time with great satisfaction. But I read him only
once, and I ought, for a time at least, to have made him my daily study,
and imprinted his work on my mind, as I did the work of Grotius.

7. Many writers on the Bible attempted to settle points which could not
be settled. They tried to make out the authors of all the books in the
Bible, and this was found impossible. Different writers ascribed books
to different authors. The Book of Job was ascribed by one writer to Job
himself, by another to Moses, and by a third to Elihu. The Book of
Ecclesiastes was ascribed by some to Solomon, by others to a writer of a
later age. Writers differed with regard to the authorship of many of the
Psalms and many of the Proverbs. They differed with regard to the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation, and even with
regard to some of the Gospels. They multiplied controversies instead of
ending them, and in some cases made matters seem doubtful that were not
so.

8. The writers on evidences often attempted to prove points which were
not true, and which, if they had been true, would have been no credit to
the Bible or Christianity. Some of them spent more time in laboring to
prove that Christianity taught doctrines which it did not teach, than in
proving that the doctrines which it did teach were 'worthy of all
acceptation.' Some left the impression that Christianity was a mass of
vain, improbable, and incomprehensible doctrines, calculated neither to
satisfy man's intellect nor his conscience, neither to renovate his
heart, nor improve his life, nor increase his happiness. Such wr