CHAPTER II. Erroneous Opinions imputed to the Apostles. A SPECIES of candour which is shown towards every other book, is sometimes refused to the Scriptures; and that is, the placing of a distinction between judgment and testimony. We do not usually question the credit of a writer, by reason of an opinion he may have delivered upon subjects unconnected with his evidence: and even upon subjects connected with his account, or mixed with it in the same discourse or writing, we naturally separate facts from opinions, testimony from observation, narrative from argument. To apply this equitable consideration to the Christian records, much controversy and much objection has been raised concerning the quota tions of the Old Testament found in the New; some of which quotations, it is said, are applied in a sense, and to events, apparently different from that which they bear, and from those to which they belong, in the original. It is probable to my apprehension, that many of those quotations were intended by the writers of the New Testament as nothing more than accommodations. They quoted passages of their Scripture, which suited, and fell in with, the occasion before them, without always undertaking to assert, that the occasion was in the view of the author of the words. Such accommodations of passages from old authors, from books especially which are in every one's hands, are common with writers of all countries; but in none, perhaps, were more to be expected than in the writings of the Jews, whose literature was almost entirely confined to their Scriptures. Those prophecies which are alleged with more solemnity, and which are accompanied with a precise declaration, that they originally respected the event then related, are, I think, truly alleged. But were it otherwise; is the judgment of the writers of the New Testament, in interpreting passages of the Old, or sometimes, perhaps, in receiving established interpretations, so connected either with their veracity, or with their means of information concerning what was passing in their own times, as that a critical mistake, even were it clearly made out, should overthrow their historical credit?-Does it diminish it? Has it any thing to do with it? Another error imputed to the first Christians, was the expected approach of the day of judgment. I would introduce this objection by a remark upon what appears to me a somewhat similar example. Our Saviour, speaking to Peter of John, said, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" These words, we find, had been so misconstrued, as that a report from thence "went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die." Suppose that this had come down to us amongst the prevailing opinions of the early Christians, and that the particular circumstance, from which the mistake sprang, had been lost (which, humanly speaking, was most likely to have been the case,) some, at this day, would have been ready to regard and quote the error, as an impeachment of the whole Christian system. Yet with how little justice such a conclusion would have been drawn, or rather such a presumption taken up, the information which we happen to * John xxi. 22. ЗА possess enables us now to perceive. To those who think that the Scriptures lead us to believe, that the early Christians, and even the apostles, expected the approach of the day of judgment in their own times, the same reflection will occur, as that which we have made with respect to the more partial, perhaps, and temporary, but still no less ancient error concerning the duration of St. John's life. It was an error, it may be likewise said, which would effectually hinder those who entertained it from acting the part of impostors. The difficulty which attends the subject of the present chapter, is contained in this question; If we once admit the fallibility of the apostolic judgment, where are we to stop, or in what can we rely upon it? To which question, as arguing with unbelievers, and as arguing for the substantial truth of the Christian history, and for that alone, it is competent to the advocate of Christianity to reply, Give me the apostles' testimony, and I do not stand in need of their judgment; give me the facts, and I have complete security for every conclusion I want. But although I think that it is competent to the Christian apologist to return this answer; I do not think that it is the only answer which the objection is capable of receiving. The two following cautions, founded, I apprehend, in the most reasonable distinctions, will exclude all uncertainty upon this head which can be attended with danger. First, to separate what was the object of the apostolic mission, and declared by them to be so, from what was extraneous to it, or only incidentally connected with it. Of points clearly extraneous to the religion, nothing need be said. Of points incidentally connected with it, something may be added. Demoniacal possession is one of these points: concerning the reality of which, as this place will not admit the examination, or even the production of the argument on either side of the question, it would be arrogance in me to deliver any judgment. And it is unnecessary. For what I am concerned to observe is, that even they who think it was a general, but erroneous opinion, of those times; and that the writers of the New Testament, in common with other Jewish writers of that age, fell into the manner of speaking and of thinking upon the subject, which then universally prevailed, need not be alarmed by the concession, as though they had any thing to fear from it, for the truth of Christianity. The doctrine was not what Christ brought into the world. It appears in the Christian records, incidentally and accidentally, as being the subsisting opinion of the age and country in which his ministry was exercised. It was no part of the object of his revelation, to regulate men's opinions concerning the action of spiritual substances upon animal bodies. At any rate it is unconnected with testimony. If a dumb person was by a word restored to the use of his speech, it significs little to what cause the dumbness was ascribed; and the like of every other cure wrought upon those who are said to have been possessed. The malady was real, the cure was real, whether the popular explication of the cause was well founded, or not. The matter of fact, the change, so far as it was an object of sense, or of testimony, was in either case the same. Secondly, that, in reading the apostolic writings, we distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments. Their doctrines came to them by revelation properly so called; yet in propound- | Christianity answerable with its life, for the caring these doctrines in their writings or discourses, cumstantial truth of each separate passage of the they were wont to illustrate, support, and enforce Old Testament, the genuineness of every book, them, by such analogies, arguments, and consider- the information, fidelity, and judgment of every ations, as their own thoughts suggested. Thus writer in it, is to bring, I will not say great, but the call of the Gentiles, that is, the admission of unnecessary difficulties, into the whole system. the Gentiles to the Christian profession without a These books were universally read and received previous subjection to the law of Moses, was im- by the Jews of our Saviour's time. He and his parted to the apostles by revelation, and was at- apostles, in common with all other Jews, referred tested by the miracles which attended the Chris- to them, alluded to them, used them. Yet, except tian ministry among them. The apostles' own where he expressly ascribes a divine authority to assurance of the matter rested upon this founda- particular predictions, I do not know that we can tion. Nevertheless, Saint Paul, when treating strictly draw any conclusion from the books beof the subject, offers a great variety of topics in its ing so used and applied, beside the proof, which proof and vindication. The doctrine itself must it unquestionably is, of their notoriety, and recepbe received: but it is not necessary, in order to tion at that time. In this view, our Scriptures defend Christianity, to defend the propriety of afford a valuable testimony to those of the Jews. every comparison, or the validity of every argu- But the nature of this testimony ought to be unment, which the apostle has brought into the dis-derstood. It is surely very different from what it cussion. The same observation applies to some is sometimes represented to be, a specific ratificaother instances; and is, in my opinion, very well tion of each particular fact and opinion; and not founded; "When divine writers argue upon any only of each particular fact, but of the motives aspoint, we are always bound to believe the conclu-signed for every action, together with the judg sions that their reasonings end in, as parts of di- ment of praise or dispraise bestowed upon them. vine revelation: but we are not bound to be able Saint James, in his Epistle, says, "Ye have to make out, or even to assent to, all the premises heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the made use of by them, in their whole extent, un- end of the Lord." Notwithstanding this text, the less it appear plainly, that they affirm the pre-reality of Job's history, and even the existence of mises as expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them."*" CHAPTER III. such a person, has been always deemed a fair subject of inquiry and discussion amongst Christian divines. Saint James's authority is considered as good evidence of the existence of the book of Job at that time, and of its reception by the Jews; and of nothing more. Saint Paul, in his The Connexion of Christianity with the Jewish second Epistle to Timothy,† has this similitude: History. Now, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth." These names are not found in the Old Testament. And it is uncertain, whether Saint Paul took them from some apocryphal writing then extant, or from tra UNDOUBTEDLY our Saviour assumes the divine origin of the Mosaic institution: and, independently of his authority, I conceive it to be very difficult to assign any other cause for the commence-dition. But no one ever imagined, that Saint Paul ment or existence of that institution; especially is here asserting the authority of the writing, if it for the singular circumstance of the Jews' ad- was a written account which he quoted, or making hering to the unity, when every other people slid himself answerable for the authenticity of the trainto polytheism; for their being men in religion, dition; much less, that he so involves himself with children in every thing else; behind other nations either of these questions, as that the credit of his in the arts of peace and war, superior to the most own history and mission should depend upon the improved in their sentiments and doctrines re- fact, whether Jannes and Jambres withstood Molating to the Deity.t Undoubtedly, also, our Sa-ses, or not. For what reason a more rigorous inviour recognizes the prophetic character of many of their ancient writers. So far, therefore, we are bound as Christians to go. But to make * Burnet's Expos. art. 6. as to exclude all inquiry into its credibility, or into the separate reasons upon which that credibility is founded; and that it is an unwarrantable, as well as unsafe rule to lay down concerning the Jewish history, what was never laid down concerning any other, that either every particular of it must be true, or the whole false. terpretation should be put upon other references, it is difficult to know. I do not mean, that other passages of the Jewish history stand upon no better evidence than the history of Job, or of Jannes and Jambres, (I think much otherwise;) but I "In the doctrine, for example, of the unity, the mean, that a reference in the New Testament, to eternity, the omnipotence, the omniscience, the omni-a passage in the Old, does not so fix its authority, presence, the wisdom, and the goodness, of God; in their opinions concerning Providence, and the creation, preservation, and government of the world." Campbell on Mir. p. 207. To which we may add, in the acts of their religion not being accompanied either with cruelties or impurities: in the religion itself being free from a species of superstition which prevailed universally in the popular religions of the ancient world, and which is to be found perhaps in all religions that have their origin in human artifice and credulity, viz. fanciful connexions between certain appearances and actions, and the destiny of nations or individuals. Upon these conceits rested the whole train of auguries and auspices, which formed so much even of the serious part of the religions of Greece and Rome, and of the charms and incantations which were practised in those countries by the common people. From every thing of this sort the religion of the Jews, and the Jews alone, was free. -Vide Priestley's Lectures on the Truth of the Jewish and Christian Revelation, 1794. I have thought it necessary to state this point explicitly, because a fashion, revived by Voltaire, and pursued by the disciples of his school, seems to have much prevailed of late, of attacking Christianity through the sides of Judaism. Some objections of this class are founded in misconstruction, some ir. exaggeration; but all proceed upon a supposition, * Chap. v. 11. Chap. iii. 8. which has not been made out by argument, viz. | salem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill ? that the attestation, which the Author and first But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing teachers of Christianity gave to the divine mission to him: do the rulers know indeed that this is the of Moses and the prophets, extends to every point very Christ? Howbeit we know this man, whence and portion of the Jewish history; and so extends he is, but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth as to make Christianity responsible in its own whence he is. Then cried Jesus in the temple as credibility, for the circumstantial truth (I had al- he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye most said for the critical exactness) of every nar-know whence I am: and I am not come of myrative contained in the Old Testament. CHAPTER IV, Rejection of Christianity. WE acknowledge that the Christian religion, although it converted great numbers, did not produce a universal, or even a general conviction in the minds of men, of the age and countries in which it appeared. And this want of a more complete and extensive success, is called the rejection of the Christian history and miracles; and has been thought by some to form a strong objection to the reality of the facts which the history contains. The matter of the objection divides itself into two parts; as it relates to the Jews, and as it relates to Heathen nations: because the minds of these two descriptions of men may have been, with respect to Christianity, under the influence of very different causes. The case of the Jews, inasmuch as our Saviour's ministry was originally addressed to them, offers itself first to our consideration. self, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know him, for I am from him, and he hath sent me. Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come. And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than those which this man hath done?” This passage is very observable. It exhibits the reasoning of different sorts of persons upon the occasion of a miracle, which persons of all sorts are represented to have acknowledged as real. One sort of men thought, that there was something very extraordinary in all this; but that still Jesus could not be the Christ, because there was a circumstance in his appearance which militated with an opinion concerning Christ, in which they had been brought up, and of the truth of which, it is probable, they had never entertained a particle of doubt, viz. that "When Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." Another sort were inclined to believe him to be the Messiah. But even these did not argue as we should; did not consider the miracle as of itself decisive of the question; as what, if once allowed, excluded all farther debate upon the subject; but founded their opinion upon a kind of comparative reason miracles than those which this man hath done?" "Now, upon the subject of the truth of the Christian religion; with us, there is but one ques-ing, "When Christ cometh, will he do more tion, viz. whether the miracles were actually wrought? From acknowledging the miracles, Another passage in the same evangelist, and we pass instantaneously to the acknowledgment observable for the same purpose, is that in which of the whole. No doubt lies between the premises he relates the resurrection of Lazarus: "Jesus," and the conclusion. If we believe the works, or he tells us (xi. 43, 44,) "when he had thus spoken, any one of them, we believe in Jesus. And this cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth: and order of reasoning is become so universal and fa- he that was dead came forth, bound hand and miliar, that we do not readily apprehend how it foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound could ever have been otherwise. Yet it appears about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, to me perfectly certain, that the state of thought, Loose him, and let him go." One might have in the mind of a Jew of our Saviour's age, was suspected, that at least all those who stood by the totally different from this. After allowing the sepulchre, when Lazarus was raised, would have reality of the miracle, he had a great deal to do to believed in Jesus. Yet the evangelist does not so persuade himself that Jesus was the Messiah. represent it:-"Then many of the Jews which This is clearly intimated by various passages of came to Mary, and had seen the things which the Gospel history. It appears that, in the ap- Jesus did, believed on him; but some of them prehension of the writers of the New Testament, went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them the miracles did not irresistibly carry, even those what things Jesus had done." We cannot supwho saw them, to the conclusion intended to be pose that the evangelist meant by this account, to drawn from them; or so compel assent, as to leave leave his readers to imagine, that any of the specno room for suspense, for the exercise of candour, tators doubted about the truth of the miracle. Far or the effects of prejudice. And to this point, at from it. Unquestionably he states the miracle to least, the evangelists may be allowed to be good have been fully allowed: yet the persons who witnesses; because it is a point, in which exag-allowed it, were, according to his representation, geration or disguise would have been the other capable of retaining hostile sentiments towards way. Their accounts, if they could be suspected Jesus. "Believing in Jesus" was not only to beof falsehood, would rather have magnified, than|lieve that he wrought miracles, but that he was diminished, the effects of the miracles. the Messiah. With us there is no difference John vii. 21-31. "Jesus answered, and said between these two things: with them, there was unto them, I have done one work, and ye all mar-the greatest; and the difference is apparent in vel.—If a man on the sabbath day receive circum- this transaction. If Saint John has represented cision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; the conduct of the Jews upon this occasion truly are ye angry at me, because I have made a man (and why he should not I cannot tell, for it rather every whit whole on the sabbath-day? Judge makes against him than for him), it shows clearly not according to the appearance, but judge righte- the principles upon which their judgment proous judgment. Then said some of them of Jeru-ceeded. Whether he has related the matter truly or not, the relation itself discovers the writer's | own opinion of those principles: and that alone possesses considerable authority. In the next chapter, we have a reflection of the evangelist, entirely suited to this state of the case: "but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet believed they not on him."* The evangelist does not mean to impute the defect of their belief to any doubt about the miracles; but to their not perceiving, what all now sufficiently perceive, and what they would have perceived, had not their understandings been governed by strong prejudices, the infallible attestation which the works of Jesus bore to the truth of his pretensions. Jesus work what miracles he would, still the answer was in readiness, "that he wrought them by the assistance of Beelzebub." And to this answer no reply could be made, but that which our Saviour did make, by showing that the tendency of his mission was so adverse to the views with which this being was, by the objectors themselves, supposed to act, that it could not reasonably be supposed that he would assist in carrying it on. The power displayed in the miracles did not alone refute the Jewish solution, because the interposition of invisible agents being once admitted, it is impossible to ascertain the limits by which their efficiency is circumscribed. We of this day may be disposed, possibly, to think such opinions too absurd to have been ever seriously entertained. I am not bound to contend for the credibility of the opinions. They were at least as reasonable as the belief in witchcraft. They were opinions in which the Jews of that age had from their infancy been instructed; and those who cannot see enough in the force of this reason, to account for their conduct towards our Saviour, do not sufficiently consider how such opinions may sometimes become very general in a country, and with what pertinacity, when once become so, they are, for that reason alone, adhered to. In the suspense which these notions, and the prejudices resulting from them, might occasion, the candid and docile and humble minded would probably decide in Christ's favour; the proud and obstinate, together with the giddy and the thoughtless, almost universally against him. The ninth chapter of Saint John's Gospel contains a very circumstantial account of the cure of a blind man: a miracle submitted to all the scrutiny and examination which a sceptic could propose. If a modern unbeliever had drawn up the interrogatories, they could hardly have been more critical or searching. The account contains also a very curious conference between the Jewish rulers and the patient, in which the point for our present notice is their resistance of the force of the miracle, and of the conclusion to which it led, after they had failed in discrediting its evidence. "We know that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he is." That was the answer which set their minds at rest. And by the help of much prejudice, and great unwillingness to yield, it might do so. In the mind of the poor man restored to sight, which was under no such bias, and felt no such reluctance, the miracle had its natural operation. "Herein," This state of opinion discovers to us also the says he, "is a marvellous thing that ye know not reason of what some choose to wonder at, why the from whence he is, yet he hath opened mine Jews should reject miracles when they saw them, eyes. Now we know, that God heareth not sin- yet rely so much upon the tradition of them in ners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, their own history. It does not appear, that it had and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the ever entered into the minds of those who lived in world began, was it not heard, that any man the time of Moses and the prophets, to ascribe opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If their miracles to the supernatural agency of evil this man were not of God, he could do nothing." beings. The solution was not then invented. We do not find that the Jewish rulers had any The authority of Moses and the prophets being other reply to make to this defence, than that established, and become the foundation of the which authority is sometimes apt to make to ar-national polity and religion, it was not probable gument, "Dost thou teach us?" If it shall be inquired, how a turn of thought, so different from what prevails at present, should obtain currency with the ancient Jews; the answer is found in two opinions which are proved to have subsisted in that age and country. The one was, their expectation of a Messiah of a kind totally contrary to what the appearance of Jesus bespoke him to be; the other, their persuasion of the agency of demons in the production of supernatural effects. These opinions are not supposed by us for the purpose of argument, but are evidently recognised in Jewish writings, as well as in ours. And it ought moreover to be considered, that in these opinions the Jews of that age had been from their infancy brought up; that they were opinions, the grounds of which they had probably few of them inquired into, and of the truth of which they entertained no doubt. And I think that these two opinions conjointly afford an explanation of their conduct. The first put them upon seeking out some excuse to themselves for not receiving Jesus in the character in which he claimed to be received; and the second supplied them with just such an excuse as they wanted. Let * Chap. xii. 37. that the later Jews, brought up in a reverence for that religion and the subjects of that polity, should apply to their history a reasoning which tended to overthrow the foundation of both. II. The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz. contempt prior to examination. The state of religion amongst the Greeks and Romans, had a natural tendency to induce this disposition. Dionysius Halicarnassensis remarks, that there were six hundred different kinds of religions or sacred rites exercised at Rome.* The superior classes of the community treated them all as fables. Can we wonder then, that Christianity was included in the number, without inquiry into its separate merits, or the particular grounds of its pretensions? It might be either true or false for any thing they knew about it. The religion had nothing in its character which immediately engaged their notice. It mixed with no politics. It produced no tine writers. It contained no curious speculations. When it did reach their knowledge, I doubt not * Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 371. Yet Christianity was still making its way: and, amidst so many impediments to its progress, so much difficulty in procuring audience and attention, its actual success more to be wondered at, than that it should not have universally conquered scorn and indifference, fixed the levity of a voluptuous age, or, through a cloud of adverse prejudications, opened for itself a passage to the hearts and understandings of the scholars of the age. but that it appeared to them a very strange system, illiterate; which prejudice is known to be as ob--so unphilosophical,-dealing so little in argu-stinate as any prejudice whatever. ment and discussion, in such arguments however and discussions as they were accustomed to entertain. What is said of Jesus Christ, of his nature, office, and ministry, would be, in the highest degree, alien from the conceptions of their theology. The Redeemer and the destined Judge of the human race, a poor young man, executed at Jerusalem with two thieves upon a cross! Still more would the language in which the Christian doctrine was delivered, be dissonant and barbarous to their ears. What knew they of grace, of redemption, of justification, of the blood of Christ shed for the sins of men, of reconcilement, of mediation? Christianity was made up of points they had never thought of; of terms which they had never heard. And the cause, which is here assigned for the rejection of Christianity by men of rank and learning among the Heathens, namely, a strong antecedent contempt, accounts also for their silence concerning it. If they had rejected it upon examination, they would have written about it; they would have given their reasons. Whereas, what men repudiate upon the strength of some prefixed persuasion, or from a settled contempt of the subject, of the persons who propose it, or of the manner in which it is proposed, they do not naturally write books about, or notice much in what they write upon other subjects. It was presented also to the imagination of the learned Heathen under additional disadvantage, by reason of its real, and still more of its nominal, connexion with Judaism. It shared in the obloquy and ridicule with which that people and their religion were treated by the Greeks and Romans. They regarded Jehovah himself, only as the idol of the Jewish nation, and what was related of him, as The letters of the Younger Pliny furnish an of a piece with what was told of the tutelar example of the silence, and let us, in some meadeities of other countries: nay, the Jews were in sure, into the cause of it. From his celebrated a particular manner ridiculed for being a credu- correspondence with Trajan, we know that the lous race; so that whatever reports of a miraculous Christian religion prevailed in a very considerable nature came out of that country, were looked degree in the province over which he presided; upon by the heathen world as false and frivolous. that it had excited his attention; that he had inWhen they heard of Christianity, they heard of quired into the matter, just so much as a Roman it as a quarrel amongst this people, about some magistrate might be expected to inquire, viz. articles of their own superstition. Despising, whether the religion contained any opinions dantherefore, as they did, the whole system, it was gerous to government; but that of its doctrines, not probable that they would enter, with any de- its evidences, or its books, he had not taken the gree of seriousness or attention, into the detail of trouble to inform himself with any degree of care its disputes, or the merits of either side. How or correctness. But although Pliny had viewed little they knew, and with what carelessness they Christianity in a nearer position than most of his judged, of these matters, appears, I think, pretty learned countrymen saw it in; yet he had regardplainly from an example of no less weight than thated the whole with such negligence and disdain of Tacitus, who, in a grave and professed discourse upon the history of the Jews, states, that they worshipped the effigy of an ass.* The passage is a proof, how prone the learned men of those times were, and upon how little evidence, to heap together stories which might increase the contempt and odium in which that people was holden. The same foolish charge is also confidently repeated by Plutarch. + It is observable, that all these considerations are of a nature to operate with the greatest force upon the highest ranks; upon men of education, and that order of the public from which writers are principally taken: I may add also, upon the philosophical as well as the libertine character; upon the Antonines or Julian, not less than upon Nero or Domitian; and more particularly, upon that large and polished class of men, who acquiesced in the general persuasion, that all they had to do was to practice the duties of morality, and to worship the deity more patrio; a habit of thinking, liberal as it may appear, which shuts the door against every argument for a new religion. The considerations above-mentioned, would acquire also strength from the prejudice which men of rank and learning universally entertain against any thing that originates with the vulgar and Tacit. Hist. lib. v. c. 2. (farther than as it seemed to concern his administration,) that, in more than two hundred and forty letters of his which have come down to us, the subject is never once again mentioned. If, out of this number, the two letters between him and Trajan had been lost; with what confidence would the obscurity of the Christian religion have been argued from Pliny's silence about it, and with how little truth! The name and character which Tacitus has given to Christianity, "exitiabilis superstitio," (a pernicious superstition,) and by which two words he disposes of the whole question of the merits or demerits of the religion, afford a strong proof how little he knew, or concerned himself to know, about the matter. I apprehend that I shall not be contradicted, when I take upon me to assert, that no unbeliever of the present age would apply this epithet to the Christianity of the New Testament, or not allow that it was entirely unmerited. Read the instructions given by a great teacher of the religion, to those very Roman converts of whom Tacitus speaks; and given also a very few years before the time of which he is speaking; and which are not, let it be observed, a collection of fine sayings brought together from different parts of a large work, but stand in one entire passage of a public letter, without the intermixture of a single thought which is frivolous or exceptionable: -Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which |