prompt and active as possible; for which reason it ought to be made an obedience of will and emulation. Upon this consideration is founded the expediency of leaving to the prince not only the government and destination of the army, but the appointment and promotion of its officers: because a design is then alone likely to be executed with zeal and fidelity when the person who issues the order, chooses the instruments, and rewards the service. To which we may subjoin, that, in governments like ours, if the direction and officering of the army were placed in the hands of the democratic part of the constitution, this power, added to what they already possess, would so overbalance all that would be left of regal prerogative, that little would remain of monarchy in the constitution, but the name and expense; nor would these probably remain long. Whilst we describe, however, the advantages of standing armies, we must not conceal the danger. These properties of their constitution, the soldiery being separated in a great degree from the rest of the community, their being closely linked amongst themselves by habits of society and subordination, and the dependency of the whole chain upon the will and favour of the prince, however essential they may be to the purposes for which armies are kept up, give them an aspect in no wise favourable to public liberty. The danger how. ever is diminished by maintaining, on all occasions, as much alliance of interest, and as much intercourse of sentiment, between the military part of the nation and the other orders of the people, as are consistent with the union and discipline of an army. For which purpose, officers of the army, upon whose disposition towards the commonwealth a great deal may depend, should be taken from the principal families of the country, and at the same time also be encouraged to establish in it families of their own, as well as be admitted to seats in the senate, to hereditary distinctions, and to all the civil honours and privileges that are compatible with their profession which circumstances of connexion and situation will give them such a share in the general rights of the people, and so engage their inclinations on the side of public liberty, as to afford a reasonable security that they cannot be brought, by any promises of personal aggrandisement, to assist, in the execution of measures which might enslave their posterity, their kindred, and their country. THE END OF THE PRINCIPLES OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND JOHN LAW, D. D. LORD BISHop of kilLALA AND ACHONRY, AS A TESTIMONY OF ESTEEM FOR HIS VIRTUES AND LEARNING, AND OF GRATITUDE FOR THE LONG AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP WITH WHICH THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN HONOURED BY HIM, THIS ATTEMPT TO CONFIRM THE EVIDENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY IS INSCRIBED, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE AND MOST OBLIGED SERVANT, W. PALEY. THE TRUTH OF THЕ SCRIPTURE HISTORY OF ST. PAUL EVINCED CHAPTER I. EXPOSITION OF THE ARGUMENT. THE volume of Christian Scriptures contains thirteen letters purporting to be written by St. Paul: it contains also a book, which, amongst other things, professes to deliver the history, or rather memoirs of the history, of this same person. By assuming the genuineness of the letters, we may prove the substantial truth of the history: or, by assuming the truth of the history, we may argue strongly in support of the genuineness of the letters. But I assume neither one nor the other. The reader is at liberty to suppose these writings to have been lately discovered in the library of the Escurial, and to come to our hands destitute of any extrinsic or collateral evidence whatever; and the argument I am about to offer is calculated to show, that a comparison of the different writings would, even under these circumstances, afford good reason to believe the persons and transactions to have been real, the letters authentic, and the narration in the main to be true. Agreement or conformity between letters Fearing the name of an ancient author, and a received history of that author's life, does not necessarily establish the credit of either; be cause, 1. The history may, like Middleton's Life of Cicero, or Jortin's Life of Erasmus, have been wholly, or in part, compiled from the letters: in which case it is manifest that the history adds nothing to the evidence already afforded by the letters; or, 2. The letters may have been fabricated cut of the history; a species of imposture which is certainly practicable; and which, without any accession of proof or authority, would necessarily produce the appearance of consistency and agreement; or, 3. The history and letters may have been founded upon some authority common to both; as upon reports and traditions which prevailed in the age in which they were composed, or upon some ancient record now lost, which both writers consulted; in which case also, the letters, without being genuine, may exhi bit marks of conformity with the history; and the history, without being true, may agree with the letters. Agreement therefore, or conformity, is only to be relied upon so far as we can exclude these several suppositions. Now the point to be noticed is, that in the three cases above enumerated, conformity must be the effect of design. Where the history is compiled from the letters, which is the first case, the design and composition of the work are in general sc confessed, or made so evident by comparison, as to leave us in no danger of confounding the | is undesignedness: and this test applies to eveproduction with original history, or of mistak-ry supposition; for, whether we suppose the ing it for an independent authority. The history to be true, but the letters spurious agreement, it is probable, will be close and uni- or, the letters to be genuine but the history form, and will easily be perceived to result false; or, lastly, falsehood to belong to both from the intention of the author, and from the the history to be a fable, and the letters ficplan and conduct of his work. Where the let-titious: the same inference will result—that ters are fabricated from the history, which is either there will be no agreement between the second case, it is always for the purpose of them, or the agreement will be the effect of imposing a forgery upon the public; and in design. Nor will it elude the principle of this order to give colour and probability to the rule, to suppose the same person to have been fraud, names, places, and circumstances, found the author of all the letters, or even the auin the history, may be studiously introduced thor both of the letters and the history; for into the letters, as well as a general consist- no less design is necessary to produce coinciency be endeavoured to be maintained. But dence between different parts of a man's own here it is manifest that whatever congruity ap writings, especially when they are made to pears, is the consequence of meditation, ar- take the different forms of a history and of oritifice, and design. The third case is that ginal letters, than to adjust them to the cir wherein the history and the letters, without cumstances found in any other writing. any direct privity or communication with each With respect to those writings of the New other, derive their materials from the same Testament which are to be the subject of our source; and, by reason of their common ori-present consideration, I think, that, as to the ginal, furnish instances of accordance and cor- authenticity of the epistles, this argument, respondency. This is a situation in which we where it is sufficiently sustained by instances, must allow it to be possible for ancient writ-is nearly conclusive; for I cannot assign a supings to be placed; and it is a situation in which position of forgery, in which coincidences of it is more difficult to distinguish spurious from the kind we inquire after are likely to appear. genuine writings, than in either of the cases As to the history, it extends to these points. described in the preceding suppositions; inas- -It proves the general reality of the circummuch as the congruities observable are so far stances: it proves the historian's knowledge accidental, as that they are not produced by of these circumstances. In the present inthe immediate transplanting of names and cir- stance it confirms his pretensions of having cumstances out of one writing into the other. been a contemporary, and in the latter part of But although, with respect to each other, the his history, a companion, of St. Paul. In a agreement in these writings be mediate and word, it establishes the substantial truth of secondary, yet is it not properly or absolutely the narration; and substantial truth is that, undesigned because, with respect to the com- which, in every historical inquiry, ought to mon original from which the information of be the first thing sought after and ascertainthe writers proceeds, it is studied and factiti-ed: it must be the groundwork of every other The case of which we treat must, as to observation. the letters, be a case of forgery: and when the The reader then will please to remember writer who is personating another, sits down this word undesignedness, as denoting that up to his composition-whether he have the his-on which the construction and validity of our tory with which we now compare the letters, argument chiefly depend. or some other record before him; or whether As to the proofs of undesignedness, I shall he have only loose tradition and reports to go in this place say little; for I had rather the by he must adapt his imposture, as well as reader's persuasion should arise from the inhe can, to what he finds in these accounts; stances themselves, and the separate remarks and his adaptations will be the result of coun- with which they may be accompanied, than sel, scheme, and industry: art must be em- from any previous formulary or description of ployed; and vestiges will appear of manage-argument. In a great plurality of examples, ment and design. Add to this, that, in most I trust he will be perfectly convinced that no of the following examples, the circumstances in which the coincidence is remarked, are of too particular and domestic a nature, to have floated down upon the stream of general tradition. ous. Of the three cases which we have stated, the difference between the first and the two others is, that in the first the design may be fair and honest, in the others it must be accompanied with the consciousness of fraud; but in all there is design. In examining, therefore, the agreement between ancient writings, the character of truth and originality design or contrivance whatever has been exercised: and if some of the coincidences alleged appear to be minute, circuitous, or oblique, let him reflect that this very indirectness and subtility is that which gives force and propriety to the example. Broad, obvious, and explicit agreements prove little; because it may be suggested that the insertion of such is the ordinary expedient of every forgery: and though they may occur, and probably will occur in genuine writings, yet it cannot be pro ved that they are peculiar to these. Thus what St. Paul declares in chap. xi. of 1 Cor |