became as a Jew; and to the uncircumcised as one uncircumcised, he was “all things to all men!” and for this conduct he gives you his reason, viz. “that he was determined at any rate to gain some.”  If this be double dealing, dissimulation, and equivocation, I cannot help it; it is none of my concern, I leave it to the Commentators, and the reconciliators, the disciples of Surenhusius; let them look to it; perhaps they can hunt up some “traditionary rules of interpretation among the Jews,” that will help them to explain the matter.

Lastly, it has been said that there was no occasion for Jesus, or his Apostles to be very explicit with respect to the abolition of the laws of Moses, since the Temple was to be soon destroyed, when the Jewish worship would cease of course.

This argument, flimsy as it is, is nevertheless the instar omnium of the Christian Divines to prove the abolishment of this Law:  (for the other arguments adduced by them as prophecies of it from the 1 ch. of Isaiah, and some of the Psalms, are nothing, to the purpose; they being merely declarations of God, that he preferred obedience in the weightier matters of the Law; Justice, Mercy, and Holiness, to ceremonial observances; and that repentance was of more avail with him than offering thousands of rams, and fed beasts,) and this argument like so many others, when weighed in the balance, will be “found wanting.”

For, as the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar certainly did not abolish the Law, so neither did the destruction by Titus, do it.  And as it would be notoriously absurd to maintain the first, so it is equally so to maintain the last, position.  Besides, a very considerable part of that Law can be, and for these seventeen hundred years, has been kept without the Temple.  As for example, circumcision, distinction of meats, and many others.  And when, if ever, they shall return to their own land, and rebuild the Temple, they will then, according to the Old Testament, observe the whole, and with greater splendour than ever.

CHAPTER XII.

On the character of Paul and his manner of
reasoning.

As Christians lay great stress upon their argument for the truth of their Religion, derived from the supposed miraculous conversion of Paul; and since almost the whole of Systematic Christianity is built upon the foundation of the Epistles ascribed to him, we shall pay a little more attention to his character and writings.

Paul was evidently a man of no small capacity, a fiery temper, great subtilty, and considerably well versed in Jewish Traditionary, and Cabbalistic Learning, and not unacquainted with the principles of the Philosophy called the “Oriental.”  He is said by Luke to have been converted to Christianity by a splendid apparition of Jesus, who struck him to the ground by the glory of his appearance.  But