The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-24 00:00:00

And in the admissions of the most learned critics, as to the
infinitely suspicious origination of the present Received
Text (e).—By evidence internal, In innumerable texts
therein contained, betraying a comparatively modern cha-
racter, referring to circumstances which did not exist till
later ages, and quoting other Scriptures which bad pre-
viously formed the faith of the first Christian Churches, but
which, without any assignable reason, or, alleged authority,
have since been rejected (f ).

111. THAT THE PERSONS OF WHOM THEY TREAT,
NEVER EXISTED; because demonises, devils, ghosts, an-
gels, hobgoblins,(g), persons who had once been dead, who
could walk on water, ride in the air, &c. such as Satan
and Jesus Christ, are the persons of whom these Scrip-
tures treat.; and that such persons never existed is demon-
strable :-Ist, From the utter incongruity of such figments
with the immutable laws of sound reason ; 2dly, From
the total absence of all historical reference to their exist-
ence; and 3dly, From innumerable passages of these
Scriptures themselves, which fully ad►nit the merely vi-
sionary Hypostasis of their fabulous hero (h).

IV. THAT THE EVENTS WHICH THEY RELATE NEVER
HAPPENED, is demonstrable (further thanes a consequence
of the preceding proposition), from the fact, that some,
many, or all of these events, had I?een previously related
of the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, and more
especially of the Indian idol CHRISHNA, whose religion,
with less. alteration than time and translations have made
in the Jewish Scriptures, may be traced in every dogma
and every ceremony of the Evangelical Mythology.

MEN AND BILETIMEN,

If these things can be denied or disproved---Your Mi-
nisters and Preachers are earnestly called on to do so. Your
Missionaries who boast their readiness to carry their Gospel
to the remotest shores of the earth, are again and again
entreated to become its advocates before assemblies of in.,
telligent and learned men, here, in their native land; where,
upon due notice of their intentions, and upon the condition
of allowing' themselves to be respectfully questioned, and
learnedly replied to, they will be received with honor, and
heard with attention.

By the Assembled Society,
ROBERT TAYLOR, A. B. and M. R. C. S.
Orator of the Areopagus, and Chaplain of the
Society of Universal Benevolence.
Areopagus of the Christian
Evidence Society, London, Feb. 1827.

Tickets of Admission, Terms of Subscription, Seats in
the Areopagus, &c. upon application (post paid) to the
Reverend Orator, 17, Carey-street, Lincoln's-Inn, or at
the Chapel of Universal Benevolence, immediately after the
performance of DIVINE SERVICE.
After the manifesto had been read, the witness
proceeded :
I, on a subsequent Tuesday evening, the 6th of
February, went to the Areopagus, and paid one shil-
ling for admission, and got a ticket entitling me to
enter the body of the chapel. I delivered the ticket
to the person at the inner door; there were present
about 100 when I went in ; they afterwards increa-
sed to 200 ; they were of all ages, from ten upwards.
—The pulpit stood in the usual place; in the front
of it there was a platform, two chairs and
st table; there was also a pole in imitation
of a staff with a crown on the top of it.—
at seven o'clock
,Mr. Taylor appeared on the plat-
form,and was,received with cheers. He was dress-
ed in the black robes of a clergyman; at the . same
time a person named Thomas Rushfield, ascended
the pulpit. He was similarly attired. Rushfield
is an oil and colour-man, residing in Union-
street, Smithfield. After the cheers had subsided,
Mr. Taylor sat down in one of the chairs. There
ma a bell rung by.a person who entered the pulpit.
I have a note of what I then heard. I took it at the
time in pencil, I have since written it out. The Chair-
man, I mean the person in the pulpit, after ringing the
bell, said," theßev. Orator will speak on the testimony
of the subsequent witnesses of the truth of the
Christian religion, from a work written by Dr.
Chalmers, and published in the Edinburgh Ency-
, clopadia." Part of the book was read from the
pulpit by the Chairman.—Mr. Taylor then rose,
and said, if the advocates of Christianity
could have produced a more able advocate than
Dr. Chalmers • they would have done it. The
first words I took down were, " Shall God lay
perjury to the soul, and diet for Jesus" and " no,
I answered; " that there was no authority for its
title page; that the translators rendered the New
Tektament falsely," the name was not known for
220 years afterwards. The next words were " St.
Paul has denied the miracles of Christ; his ghost
appeared to .500 at once, but they were asleep."—
(at this expression there was a loud laugh, many
other passages were received with loud cheers.)—
" He (Christ) rose again, but it is according to the
scriptures."
Mr. Taylor here asked for a copy of the witness's
notes.

The witness then proceeded. The next words
which I took down were—" The authority of the
Gospel is fatal to St. Paul, and the authority of t.
Paul is fatal to the Gospel."—(A laugh.) Mr.
Taylor then took up a New Testignent, and refer-
red to the 2d Corinthians, 3d chap., Gth verse—

" Who also bath made us able ministers of the new tes-
tament ; not of the letter, but of the spirit ;. for the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
After the defendant read these passages, he went
on to say, Etat "the excuse of ministers to evade
discussion was a farewell." He said, " The won-
der-working God—that is the name which the deist
never uses but with awe !" The next passage,
(continued the witness) which I took a note of was
this—

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL.--That passage, my
Lord, is set out in the indictment.
The witness continued—l heard the defendant
say, " I Should like to know who was the eye-
witness between the devil and Christ, when he
spent his holidays in the wilderness." The de-
fendant afterward said, in allusion to the miracle of
the pigs, that t, pigs were the first martyrs for
Christ ; ' and he went on to ask, whether the devils
drowned the pigs, or did the pigs drown the devil.
He then said, that " whenever we worshipped the
Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world, we
ought also to worship the pigs." (At this there was a
loud laugh.) Mr. Taylor afterwards declared, that
" Johanna Southcote bad more followers in three
years tbah the Christian religion had in three hun-
dred." He then turned to the 2d Timothy
4th chapter, 14th verse, and said, " Alexander
the coppersmith, did much evil, and the Lord re-
warded him according to his works," and then fol-
lowed
" Alexander, the coppersmith, with a ham-
mer to beat out the Apostle's brass"—(great laughter)
—he added, " I would have proved them the
greatest of liars and scoundrels."—" My reason for
abjuring Christianity and their's for continuing it is,
it is a religion which cannot stand alone, or they
would have come forward in its defence." The next
words which I took a note of, continued the witness,
were " Christianity is a wicked and mischievous
fable, and they know it to be so." When this dis-
course, which continued about an hour, was over,
the person in the pulpit asked, " Is' there any gen-
tleman willing or able to answer the Reverend Ora-
tor, let him come forwrqd, and he may depend upon
being heard and attended to ?" No person having
answered, Mr. Taylor called upon the Rev. A.
Fletcher by name, saying that if he presented him-
self, he should have the use of his rostrum. —There
was no answer. Mr. Taylor then said, " I shall ad-