6. The works of Paley and Butler gave me the greatest satisfaction. Paley, both in his Natural Theology and in his evidences of Christianity, seemed to be almost all that I could desire, and I rested in him for a length of time with great satisfaction. But I read him only once, and I ought, for a time at least, to have made him my daily study, and imprinted his work on my mind, as I did the work of Grotius.
7. Many writers on the Bible attempted to settle points which could not be settled. They tried to make out the authors of all the books in the Bible, and this was found impossible. Different writers ascribed books to different authors. The Book of Job was ascribed by one writer to Job himself, by another to Moses, and by a third to Elihu. The Book of Ecclesiastes was ascribed by some to Solomon, by others to a writer of a later age. Writers differed with regard to the authorship of many of the Psalms and many of the Proverbs. They differed with regard to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation, and even with regard to some of the Gospels. They multiplied controversies instead of ending them, and in some cases made matters seem doubtful that were not so.
8. The writers on evidences often attempted to prove points which were not true, and which, if they had been true, would have been no credit to the Bible or Christianity. Some of them spent more time in laboring to prove that Christianity taught doctrines which it did not teach, than in proving that the doctrines which it did teach were 'worthy of all acceptation.' Some left the impression that Christianity was a mass of vain, improbable, and incomprehensible doctrines, calculated neither to satisfy man's intellect nor his conscience, neither to renovate his heart, nor improve his life, nor increase his happiness. Such writers served the cause of infidelity rather than the cause of Christ.
9. Some, like Hartwell Horne, gave so many rules for interpreting the Bible, and required such a multitude of rare qualifications to fit a man for being a Bible student, that they left the impression on one's mind that the Book must be utterly unintelligible to people at large. And they directed the attention of their readers so much to matters of little or no moment, that they lost sight of the matters which the Bible was specially intended to teach and impress on men's minds and hearts.