By Lord Lyttelton, Analyzed and Condensed by Rev. J. L. Campbell, D.D., Cambridge, Massachusetts.
ANALYZED AND CONDENSED BY REV. J. L. CAMPBELL, D.D., CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
The object of this paper is to present in an abbreviated form the famous argument of Lord Lyttelton in defense of Christianity based on the conversion of the Apostle Paul. A few words about the man himself and about the interesting circumstances in which this treatise was written will properly introduce the subject.
George Lyttelton was born at Hagley, Worcestershire, England, January 17, 1709, and died on Tuesday morning, August 22, 1773, aged sixty-four years. He belonged to a distinguished “family of long descent and gentle blood, dwelling for centuries on the same spot.” Educated at Eton and Oxford, he soon afterwards entered Parliament, “and for many years the name of George Lyttelton was seen in every account of every debate in the House of Commons.” From this, he advanced successively to the position of lord, commissioner of the treasury, and of chancellor of the exchequer, after which he was raised to the peerage. He was also a man of letters and his closing years were devoted almost wholly to literary pursuits. He was a writer of verse as well as prose and Dr. Samuel Johnson has furnished us with his biography in his “Lives of the Poets.” Outside of his books, which comprise nine octavo volumes, his Memoirs and Correspondence make two additional volumes that were compiled and edited by Robert Phillimore in 1845.
The eighteenth century was the darkest period religiously in the history of England since the time of the Reformation. It 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 reject 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 endeavored 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 juvenile confidence, with the help of corrupt conversation, entertained 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 separate 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 compact pages. It is addressed in the form of a letter to Gilbert West. In the opening paragraph he says, “The conversion and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation.” Dr. Johnson remarked that it is a treatise “to which infidelity had never been able to fabricate a specious answer.” Dr. Philip Doddridge, who became Lyttelton’s most intimate religious friend, speaks of it as “masterly,” and, “as perfect in its kind as any our age has produced.” Testimonials of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely.
Let us now turn to an examination of the book itself. Lyttelton naturally begins by bringing before us all the facts that we have in the New Testament regarding the conversion of St. Paul; the three accounts given in the Acts; what we have in Galatians, Philippians, Timothy, Corinthians, Colossians and in other places. (Acts 9:22-26; Gal. 1:11-16; Phil. 3:4-8; 1 Tim. 1:12, 13; 1 Cor. 15:8; 2 Cor. 1:1; Col. 1:1, etc.) Then he lays down four propositions which he considers exhaust all the possibilities in the case.
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Either Paul was “an impostor who said what he knew to be false, with an intent to deceive;” or
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He was an enthusiast who imposed on himself by the force of “an overheated imagination;” or
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He was “deceived by the fraud of others;” or, finally,
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What he declared to be the cause of his conversion did all really happen; “and, therefore the Christian religion is a divine revelation.”