Ib. p. 37.

  ‘Shep.’  Those believers, whose faith is to rely on the truth of the
          Christian history, rest their assent on a written report made
          by eye-witnesses; which report the various Churches and sects,
          jealous of one another, took care to preserve genuine and
          uncorrupted, at least in all material points, and all the
          religious writers in every age since have amply attested.

A divine of the present day who shall undertake the demonstration of the truth of Christianity by external evidences, or historically, must not content himself with assuming or asserting this.  He must either prove it; or prove that such proof is not necessary.  I myself should be quite satisfied if I proved the former position in respect to the fourth Gospel, and showed that the evidence of the other three was equivalent to a record by an eye-witness:  which would not be at all inconsistent with my contending at the same time for the authenticity of the first Gospel, or rather for the Catholic interpretation of the title-words [Greek:  Kata Matthaion], as the more probable opinion, which a sound divine will neither abandon nor overload, neither place it in the foundation, nor on the other hand suffer it to be extruded from the wall.  Believe me, there is great, very great, danger in these broad unqualified assertions that Skelton deals in.  Even though the balance of evidence should be on his side, yet the inquirer will be unfavourably affected by the numerous doubts and difficulties which an acquaintance with the more modern works of Biblical criticism will pour upon him, and for which his mind is wholly unprepared.  To meet with a far weaker evidence than we had taken it for granted we were to find, gives the same shake to the mind, that missing a stair gives to the body.

Ib. p. 243.

  ‘Temp.’  You, Mr. Dechaine, seem to forget that God is just; and you,
          Mr. Shepherd, that he is merciful

  ‘Dech.’  I insist, that, as God is merciful, he will forgive.

  ‘Shep.’  And I insist, that, as he is just, he will punish.

  ‘Temp.’  Pray Mr. Dechaine, are you able, upon the Deistical scheme to
          rid yourself of this difficulty?

  ‘Dech.’  I see no difficulty in it at all.  God gives us laws only for
          our good, and will never suffer those laws to become a snare
          to us, and the occasion of our eternal misery.

Here is the ‘cardo’!  The man of sense asserts that it is necessary for the good of all, that a code of laws should exist, while yet it is impossible that all should at all times be obeyed by each person:  but what is impossible cannot be required.  Nevertheless, it may be required that no ‘iota’ of any one of these laws should be wilfully and deliberately transgressed, nor is there any one for the transgression of which the transgressor must not hold himself punishable.  “And yet”