The Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul 107 The eighteenth century was the darkest period religiously in the history of England since the time of the Reformation. I t was the age of the great deists, agnostics, rationalists and unbelievers, when “all men of rank are [were] thought to be infidels.” Like so many of the literary men of his time, George Lyttelton and his friend Gilbert West were led at first to re- ject the Christian religion. On the Sabbath forenoon before he died, in an interview with Dr. Johnson, Lyttelton said, “When I first set out in the world I had friends who en- deavored to shake my belief in the Christian religion. I saw difficulties which staggered me,” etc. In his biography of Lord Lyttelton, Dr. Johnson adds, “He had, in the pride of juve- nile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, enter- tained doubts of the truth of Christianity.” His intimacy with Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Pope and others of the same kind had no doubt influenced him in this direction. Rev. T. T. Biddolph tells us that both Lyttelton and West, “men of acknowledged talents, had imbibed the principles of infidelity. * * * Fully persuaded that the Bible was an imposture, they were determined to expose the cheat. Lord Lyttelton chose the Conversion of Paul and Mr. West the Resurrection of Christ for the subject of hostile criticism. Both sat down to their respective tasks full of prejudice; but the result of their sep- arate attempts was, that they were both converted by their efforts to overthrow the truth of Christianity. They came together, not as they expected, to exult over an imposture exposed to ridicule, but to lament over their own folly and to felicitate each other on their joint conviction that the Bible was the word of God. Their able inquiries have furnished two of the most valuable treatises in favor of revelation, one entitled ‘Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul’ and the other ‘Observations on the Resurrection of Christ.’ ” West’s book was the first published. Lyttelton’s work appeared at first anonymously in 1747, when he was thirty-eight years of age. The edition which lies before me contains seventy-eight
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