notions and superstitious prejudices of those whom they were reported, and who, on that account, might be prone to receive them unexamined.  Now, we have documents in plenty, which abundantly prove, along with the virtues, the extreme credulity and simplicity of the Primitive Christians, whose maxim was, “believe, but do not examine, and thy faith shall save thee.”  Another very good reason why they might be suffered to pass without, examination is, that the miracles of the gospels were entirely unknown to, or at least acknowledged by, any heathen or Jew of the age in which they are recorded to have happened.  Nobody seems to have known a syllable about them but the apostles and their converts.  Even the books of the New Testament were not generally known to the heathens until some hundred years after the birth of Jesus; and it seems from the few fragments of their works come down to us, that the only notice they did take of them, was to accuse them of telling lies and old wives fables.  And as for the Jews, the origin and early propagation of Christianity was so very obscure, that those who lived nearest the times of the apostles, do not seem to have known any thing about them, or their doctrines.

Though a little out of place, yet I will here adduce a fact which illustrates and exemplifies the power of enthusiasm, to make people believe they saw what they did not see.  Lucian gives an account of one Peregrinus, a philosophist very famous in his time, who had a great number of disciples.  He ended his life by throwing himself, in the presence of assembled thousands, into a burning pile.  Yet such was the enthusiastic veneration of his followers, that some of his disciples did solemnly aver, that they had seen him after his death, clothed in white, and crowned; and they were believed, insomuch that altars and statues were erected to Peregrinus as to a demi-god.  See Lucian’s account.

APPENDIX B.

See Cotelerius “Patres Apostolic,” Tom. 1, p. 602. 
Extract of a letter from Peter to James, prefixed to the
Clementines.

“For, if this be not done, (says Peter, after entreating James not to communicate his preachings to any Gentile without previous examination,) our speech of truth will be divided into many opinions, nor do I know this thing as being a prophet, but as seeing even now the beginning of this evil.  For some from among the Gentiles have rejected my legal preaching, embracing the trifling, and lawless doctrine of a man who is an enemy; and these things, some have endeavoured to do now in my own lifetime, transforming my words by various interpretations, to the destruction of the Laws:  as if I had been of the same mind, but dared not openly profess it, (see Galatians ii. 11, 12, &c.,) which be far from me!  For this were to act against the law of God, spoken by Moses, and which has the testimony of our Lord for its perpetual duration; since he thus has said, “Heaven and