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I can only understand, that water rose against gravity from the internal parts of the earth forming a canopy, or large pie-crust of salt water, propped up by the VACUUM that must of course be formed below, and by mountain tops, instead of beef steaks and potatoes!! The hypothesis is false on the face of it; and yet for false philosophy like this, under the title of the word of God, we must pay a tax that would redeem the national debt in less than thirty years, by continually applying the interest of the redeemed debt to the redemption of more.

I have no means of knowing whether the public in general be interested in the opinion of Geologists at present on this subject; but I may, in brief, observe that they are divided into two sects. The Platonists, who believe, that continents are thrown up by the force of internal fires, and probably occasioned by water gaining access to the metallic bases of the alkalies and earths. And the Wermerians, (from the name of their founder) who believe, that the earth was originally covered with water, which retired, from the giving way, in part, of the earth that supported it. Both causes have been known to act in small spaces; but the grand change has, no doubt, been gradually effected in the course of ages. How can we suppose the vast continents and mountains of America and Asia suddenly thrown up from the bottom of the sea?

To give the Devil his due, I may here observe, that Parson Irving has verifyed the adage, that children and fools speak the truth, when he said, "all the literary and scientific men of the day are infidels." How can they be otherwise? I know not one who will say, on my honor, as a gentlemen, I believe in Christianity.' I know not one who does not avow the contrary, to his confidential friends!

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CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN A DOCTOR OF, MEDICINE AND A UNITARIAN PREACHER, BOTH OF DUNDEE.

(Continued from page 288.)

PRIEST TO THE DOCTOR.

YOUR last letter truly astonished me. I was not a little surprised to find you accusing me of studiously avoiding to

come to the point. Surely, when you wrote such an accusation, you must have forgotten the contents of my last letter. In that letter, I entered into a fair investigation of the merits of all the objections you brought forward against Christianity; and though I may not have answered them to your satisfaction, you might at least have given me the credit of attending to them

I would not be afraid of the judgment of an unprejudiced man, if our correspondence were submitted to his scrutiny, I would not be afraid to subunit to the determination of such a man the questions" who has written, in the correspondence, which has taken place, with the greater dogmatism?" and "who has reasoned with the greater fairness?"

But is our correspondence a controversy? Is it a battle? I hope not. When I wrote my remarks on the tract of Carlile, which you lent me, I wrote them not as a controversialist, but with the friendly design of leading you to reflect more seriously than you seem to have done on the the evidences of Christianity. I was cheered on to undergo the risk of the labour of a lengthened discussion with you, by the consideration that I might be of service to you, by leading you to reverence the character and the authority of Jesus, and if I had believed that your correspondence would be dictated not by a love of truth, but by a love of victory, you would not have been troubled with one single line from my pen. But let me not yet impute such a motive to you, notwithstanding that what I have already perused of your writings would excite considerable suspicions to this effect. Let me have the charity that "hopeth all things," and not condemn till I have a stronger evidence still.

You recur to the old objection concerning the sun, and you argue that if the diurnal motion of the earth had ceased, this event would have produced a derangement in our globe that would have overwhelmed the land with water, and convulsed in ruin every city and habitable spot in the world. Now, if it be admitted, that the miracle actually took place, I should like to see your demonstration, that the same power which performed the miracle could not prevent this calamitous consequences. If it be admitted that the deity saw it proper to perform the miracle, he would see it equally proper to prevent these calamitous consequences; and, therefore, I should like to see your demonstration that he could not prevent them. Invoke to your aid then all the philosophers. You may except however the shades of Sir Isaac Newton and the truly honourable Mr. Boyle, They stu

died what you call superstition as assiduously as they did

science.

You have "studiously avoided" in your reply on this subject, what I said on it in my last letter. I could submit, I think, what I have said there on the subject to the judgment of the unprejudiced.

You say in reply to what I have said on the conduct of the Israelites to the Cananites, that I must have strange ideas of the divine being. But this, Doctor, is replying indeed to what I have said on the subject; but it is not refuting it.

I told you, you would laugh at the balloon. Now, do you really think, Docter, that when I compared the doubts of a man respecting the ascension of a balloon to the doubts of an unbeliever respecting the ascension of Jesus, I believed that Jesus ascended by means of the same substance by which a balloon ascended? You seem to think so. All that I intended by the comparison was simply this, that the narrative of Sadler's ascension might have been as plausibly doubted by one who had never heard of such an event, as that of the ascension of Jesus can be by an unbeliever.

You proceed to ask me where heaven is? But I have nothing to do with that question1. The question is "was Jesus seen to ascend from his disciples?" I have nothing to do with the question "Where did he go?" What you say about his travelling through space with his body full of wounds is truly lamentable. Does it follow that because when Thomas felt his body there were the marks of wounds upon it, (not wounds mind you, but the marks of wounds) he still retained these marks when he ascended 2.

You have laid aside, I see, the "rams horns," but you still laugh at the jubilee trumpets. However, you do not laugh at the real fact, but a foolery; for which your own imagination only is responsible. According to your representation, the sound of the trumpets beat down the walls of Jericho. Does the Old Testament say so? Did I say so? Is the circumstance of the downfall of the walls of Jericho following the sound of the trumpets, and the circumstance of

1 That and the word God is the all in all of superstition. There is the error of all. There is no God-no heaven. Who says nay, and saying, proves it? R. C.

2 Wounds heals, and the flesh grows together again. But Jesus is made to say to Thomas-Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side! R. C.

the downfall being caused by the sound, one and the same thing? What you say relative to mistranslation is also lamentable. You would not surely have every translator and every printer inspired. Must every transcriber, every translator, and every printer be inspired to prevent the objections of unbelievers3. I am sure, Doctor, that when you think at your leasure on your assertion that a mistranslation is sufficient to invalidate the whole story, you will wonder at it.

You still talk with the "determined confidence" of which you accuse me on the subject of the miraculous conception. Yet while you talk on that subject in a strain altogether un-. worthy of an enquirer, you have not refuted what I advanced. I may therefore reasonably save myself the trouble of animadverting farther at present on your highly indecent treatment of it.

You assert that I have not brought forward one witness to attest the fact of the ascension of Jesus. In your last letter you admitted that Mark and Luke asserted the ascension of Jesus. I proved also that the Apostle Paul asserts it. That these three have asserted the fact you do not deny. Now if Jesus had not really ascended from his disciples, is it conceivable that these writers could have asserted it without the fear of contradiction.

You think my reference to John chap. xx. ver. 17, very weak. Now I did not refer to this passage as a proof that John saw Jesus ascending from his disciples, but as a proof that he believed that Jesus ascended. But will you prove to me that he did not believe this on sufficient evidence. I think such a passage a stronger proof of the fact than a direct and express assertion of it. No forger designing to relate the ascension of Jesus, would have thought of the round about process of putting an indirect allusion to it in the mouth of Jesus, when speaking to Mary Magdalene, but he would have said at once that he saw the event.

You insinuate that the conduct of Mary was suspicious. Where did you learn this? Such an insinuation is utterly unworthy of you. You say that when I claim assistance from Peter, I unhappily go to the wrong book-namely the book of the Acts. But when you produce arguments to prove it likely, that Luke would put declarations of the exaltation of

3 How else are we to distinguish the divine inspiration from the human error? R. C.

Jesus in the mouth of Peter without authority, I will admit that I have gone to the wrong book *.

Unsuccessful in your last letter, in your endeavour to prove a contradiction between Mark and Luke, you now try to prove one between Matthew and Luke. Matthew says, (you argue) that Jesus commanded his disciples to meet him in Galilee, and Luke in the Acts says, that he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, and continues in his Gospel to assert that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany. Now, Sir, when Jesus commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem, i. e. to reside in it, or to make it their place of residence, it was just before be led them out to Bethany, situated a short distance from Jerusalem. In Luke chap. xxiv. ver. 49, we read "and behold I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endowed with power from on high." Then in verse 50, we read that he led them out as far as Bethany, and in verse 52, that when Jesus had ascended they" returned to Jerusalem with great joy," to the place where Jesus commanded them te reside, till the fulfillment of the promise of his father. Where the contradiction then? They had been in Galilee. before they were commanded to reside in Jerusalem, and therefore the command to go to Galilee, and the command to reside in Jerusalem after they had been in Galilee, are not contradictory.

If I were disposed to assume the air of a dogmatist, I might do it with some reason in my treatment of the following specimen of reasoning: I allude to your assertion, that with regard to the resurrection, I am still deficient in what should constitute the principal proof, namely, men who saw Jesus in the sepuchre, and also saw him arise. You surely do not doubt that Jesus was crucified 5, that Jesus died, and you will also not doubt that it is as difficult to resuscitate a dead man as a buried man. The question, therefore, whether he was seen laid in a sepulchre is a secondary question. But if this secondary question is not to be determined by the authority of Matthew and Luke, by whose authority will you have it determined?

When you demand that witnesses should be produced,

• Peter is no where made a witness of the ascension of Jesus when speaking for himself. R. C.

toto.

Yes, the Doctor has expressed his disbelief of such a man as Jesus in

R. C.

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