Note 62 — REMARKS ON A LATE BOOK, &c.

The reader sees I complaisantly allow the writer’s representation of the cases both of Pilate and Gallio; though much might, with good reason, be objected to each of them. For, 1. If I should lay any stress on the acts of Pilate, which, he owns, if admitted, would overturn the whole use of his evidence, I should but follow in this the best authorities, and those too supported by such reasonings as the Inquirer would find it difficult to confute. And, 2. As to Gallio’s case, however inattentive he might be to the fame of Paul’s miracles, the passage alledged is certainly insufficient to prove it. Acts, chap. xviii. 17. For, indeed, the Inquirer did not so much as apprehend the purpose of the sacred writer in that whole narration; which manifestly was not to signify to us Gallio’s inattention to the Apostle’s miracles, but his candour, and prudent conduct in refusing to interfere in religious matters, and in chusing rather to overlook an act of violence done in his presence (which, though strictly speaking illegal, he might probably think not altogether undeserved of the malicious intolerating Jew), than gratify the complainant’s passion in punishing either Paul or his heathen advocates. For this is the sense of those words, He cared for none of these things; which the writer ought to have seen is so far from proving Gallio’s disregard of miracles, that, had he been Paul’s convert, the very same thing had been observed of him.