idle tales. case they could not be certain, there is no certainty of sense in (4.) Consider the MORAL IMPOSSIBILITY of their succeeding in palming an imposition upon the world. When Christ appeared to the two disciples in their way to Emmaus, he found them sorrowfully conversing on all those things which had happened; and, on his inquiring the reason of their sorrow, they gave him such an account, as shows their desponding sentiments of their condition. Afterwards when these two were themselves convinced, and told the rest what had happened, neither believed they them. (Mark xvi. 13.) And In support of this remark, we observe, in the first place, that when, immediately upon this, Jesus himself stood in the midst the known integrity, impartiality and fidelity of the apostles, of them, they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that places them beyond every reasonable suspicion of intentional dethey had seen a spirit; and he said unto them, Why are ye ception. But, secondly, if they had testified falsely that they troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold had seen Jesus Christ risen from the dead, it was either with a my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; mutual agreement or without one. Now it could not be without for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And a mutual agreement, for an error that is not supported by unaniwhen he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his mous consent must necessarily fall of itself to the ground. And feet. (Luke xxiv. 36-40.) It is to be observed, that the print it would unavoidably have so happened, that, while one would of the nails by which he was fastened to the cross was still per- have affirmed that Christ was risen from the dead, another would fectly visible both in his hands and feet: Christ therefore appealed have asserted that he was not risen: one would have said that he to them, because they thus furnished evidence that it was he appeared to many, and another that he appeared to one only: anhimself, which no man would counterfeit. Still they believed other that he appeared to no one: one would have related the not for joy, and wondered. To remove this doubt, he further matter in one way, another in another way; and, in fine, the said to them, llave ye here any meat? And, in answer to this most honest and sincere would have acknowledged that there was inquiry, they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and of an honey- nothing at all in the affair. But, if they unanimously agreed to comb. And he took it, and did eat before them. (41-43.) At contrive this imposture, there must necessarily have been several the end of this proceeding, and then only, did they entirely be- persons who agreed together, constantly and unanimously, to relieve that he was risen from the dead. After all these proofs, late a matter as fact which they knew to be utterly false; which Thomas, one of the twelve, not being with them when Jesus had is a thing altogether impossible: 1. Because it is inconceivable appeared to them, expressed his disbelief of his resurrection, that a man should willingly expose himself to all sorts of punishwhen they told him that they had seen the Lord; and said unto ment-even to death itself, on purpose to testify a matter as fact them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and which he knew to be utterly false.-2. Though, by an unheardbut my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand of prodigy, there should have been one single person so disposed, into his side, I WILL NOT BELIEVE. At the end of eight days, yet it is the height of extravagance to imagine, that there was a when the disciples were assembled together, and Thomas was with them, Jesus came to them; and, to convince the unbeliev- great number of persons who suddenly conceived and took that dangerous resolution; especially those whose previous conduct ing apostle, and take away all pretences of incredulity for the had been quite different, having not only evinced a great degree future, he granted him the satisfaction he desired. This irrefra- of caution, but also much timidity-not to say cowardice-on gable evidence convinced Thomas, who immediately confessed several other occasions.-3. Although a very great number of him to be his Lord and his God. (John xx. 24-28.) The persons should have agreed together to attest a falsehood, yet it backwardness which the disciples manifested in believing the reis incredible that they should bear witness to it, who considered surrection of their Master, and the scrupulous incredulity of perfidy and lying as sins that were utterly inconsistent with their Thomas in particular, are not only perfectly consistent with their salvation: neither could it be supposed or expected of those who, temper and turn of mind, as set forth in other parts of their his- if they allowed the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be a mere fictory (which shows them to have been neither enthusiasts nor tion, must also allow that they had followed a phantom, a chifanatics), and on that account probable from uniformity; but merical, imaginary Messiah; and if they acknowledged that they they derive a further appearance of veracity to the historian, if had followed a phantom, they must likewise confess their own we consider that a forger of the Gospels would have apprehended mutual extravagance.-4. Such a mutual concert or agreement some detriment to his grand object, the resurrection of Jesus, never could have been so carried on, but that some of them, to from an indisposition and unwillingness in those who knew him avoid punishment, would have discovered the intrigue to the best to acknowledge their Lord again. Such frankness and simpli- Jews, with all its circumstances; it being most certain that, since city of narrative are striking presumptions (independently of the Christ had been so very basely betrayed in his lifetime, it is more positive evidence already adduced) of the reality of this capital probable that he would be so served after his death. For they event, which is the corner-stone of Christianity; and indirectly might have expected some reward from him when living, but they prove the entire conviction of the apostles themselves, that could hope for nothing from him after his death, but misery and Christ had expired on the cross. All the circumstances of this torments, shame and continual remorse, for having followed an part of the Gospel history cannot fail to make a very considerable impostor.-5. Lastly, there is no doubt but that the very same impression on the mind of every impartial and discerning reader. principles which had dissolved their mutual fidelity would more There is a certain limit to which an impostor, aided by ingenuity probably break off their mutual treachery. And since their love and experience, may be allowed to proceed with little danger of and affection for their Master, supported by the persuasion that detection; but an undeviating consistency with itself, and a strict he was the Messiah, could not sustain that mutual fidelity, which conformity to the maxims of experience, through a circumstan-made them say, no very long time before, Let us go also, that tial history of a great variety of extraordinary transactions, is beyond his ability, and only attainable by the honest votary of truth. Thus the incredulity of the apostles, in the first instance, and their reluctant, slow, and gradual assent to the belief of the fact of their Master's resurrection (which was such as is always yielded to evidence that contradicts prejudices strongly imbibed), concur to prove the absolute impossibility of their being them selves deceived in that fact. They beheld Jesus, not once only, nor in a transient manner, but for forty days together, and knew him to be alive by many infallible proofs. They had the testimony and assurance not of one sense only, but of all the senses. They saw him with their eyes, they heard him with their ears, with their hands they touched and felt him, and they tasted of the bread and fish which he gave them; he ate and drank with them, he conversed with them, he explained to them the Scriptures, and he wrought miracles before them himself. The fondest enthusiast could not be deceived in these particulars; but supposing that one man might be deceived, could all the apostles ?-Could above five hundred brethren at once be deceived?-If in this Luke xxiv. 9. 11. Other instances of unbelief in the disciples may be seen in verse 12. of the same chapter, also in Mark xvi. 11. and John xx. 15. 25. a Wakefield's Internal Evidences of Christianity, remark xxx. p. 106. we may die with him (John xi. 16.), so that they fled and left him wholly to the power of his enemies; can it be reasonably supposed that, having been undeceived in the opinion they had entertained concerning the Messiah, they should yet (notwithstanding their shame, fear, and rejected condition), presently after unanimously agree to maintain and affirm a horrible lie, for the express purpose of disgracing their nation, by laying an imaginary crime to their charge, and persist in maintaining it, so that not one of them should recant or contradict himself, but all of them should unanimously suffer the severest torments, to affirm that they had seen what they had really never seen? It was, therefore, morally impossible that they should attempt, or succeed in the attempt, to palm an imposition on the world. (5.) Observe the FACTS which they themselves avow. Had they been metaphysical reasonings, depending on a chain of principles and consequences; had they been periods of chronology depending on long and difficult calculations; had they been distant events, which could only have been known by the relations of others; in such cases their reasonings might have been suspected: but they are facts which are in question, real 3 See pp. 60. 62-66. supra, in which this subject is fully discussed. facts which the witnesses declared they had seen with their own | believed without a single doubt. But in this book, lying is exeyes, at different places, and at several times. Had they seen Jesus Christ? Had they touched him? Had they sat at table with him, and eaten with him? Had they conversed with him? All these are questions of fact: it was impossible they could have been deceived in them. hibited as a supreme object of the divine abhorrence, and the scriptural threatenings. From the invention and propagation of this falsehood, therefore, they could expect nothing hereafter, but the severest effusions of the anger of God.—For what, then, was all this loss, danger, and suffering incurred? For the privilege of telling an extravagant and incredible story to mankind, and of founding on it a series of exhortations to repentance, faith, and holiness; to the renunciation of sin, and the universal exercise of piety, justice, truth, and kindness; to the practice of all that conduct, which common sense has ever pronounced to be the duty, honour, and happiness of man; and the avoidance of all that which it has ever declared to be his guilt, debasement, and misery? Such an end was never even wished, much less seriously proposed by an impostor. At the same time, they lived as no impostors ever lived; and were able to say to their converts, with a full assurance of finding a cordial be (6.) Consider, farther, the AGREEMENT of their evidence. They all unanimously deposed that Christ rose from the dead. It is very extraordinary that a gang of five hundred impostors (we speak the language of infidels),—a company, in which there must necessarily be persons of different capacities and tempers, the witty and the dull, the timid and the bold :-it is very strange that such a numerous body as this should maintain an unity of evidence. This, however, is the case of the witnesses for the resurrection of Jesus. What Christian ever contradicted himself? What Christian ever impeached his accomplices! What Christian ever discovered this pretended im-lief of the declaration, Ye are witnesses, and God also, how posture? (7.) Observe the TRIBUNALS before which they stood and gave evidence, and the innumerable multitude of people by whom their testimony was examined, by Jews and heathens, by philosophers and rabbies, and by an infinite number of persons who went annually to Jerusalem; for Providence so ordered those circumstances, that the testimony of the apostles might be unsuspected. holily, and justly, and unblamably, we behaved ourselves among you that believe. That this was their true character is certain from the concurrent testimony of all antiquity. Had they not nobly recorded their own faults, there is not the least reason to believe that a single stain would have ever rested upon their character. If, then, the apostles invented this story, they invented it without the remotest hope or prospect of making it [to be] believed; a thing which was never done by an imProvidence continued Jerusalem forty years after the resur- postor; propagated it without any interest, without any hope rection of Christ, that all the Jews in the then known world of gain, honour, power, or pleasure, the only objects by which might examine the evidence concerning it, and obtain authen-impostors were ever allured; and with losses and sufferings tic proof of the truth of Christianity. The apostles, we repeat, which no impostor ever voluntarily underwent proposed as maintained the resurrection of Jesus Christ before Jews and their only end, or at least the only end which has ever been pagans, before philosophers and rabbies, before courtiers, before discovered to mankind, an object which no impostor ever purlawyers, before people who were expert in examining and cross-sued or even wished; and during their whole progress through examining witnesses, in order to lead them into self-contradic- life, lived so as no impostor ever lived; and so as to be the most tion. Had the apostles borne their testimony in consequence perfect contrast ever exhibited by men, to the whole character of a preconcerted plot between themselves, is it not morally of imposition." certain that, as they were examined before such different and capable men, some one would have discovered the pretended fraud (8.) Take notice, also, of the TIME when this evidence was given. If the apostles had first published this resurrection several years after the time which they assigned for it, unbelief might have availed itself of the delay. But only three days after the crucifixion of Christ they declared that he was risen again, and they re-echoed their testimony in a singular manner at the feast of Pentecost, when Jerusalem expected the spread of the report, and endeavoured to prevent it; while the eyes of their enemies were yet sparkling with rage and madness, and while Calvary was yet dyed with the blood they had shed there. Do impostors take such measures? Would they not have waited till the fury of the Jews had been appeased; till the judges and public officers had been changed; and till the people had been less attentive to their depositions? (9.) Consider the PLACE where the apostles bore their testimony to the resurrection. Had they published this event in distant countries beyond mountains and seas, it might have been supposed that distance of place rendering it extremely difficult for their hearers to obtain exact information had facilitated the establishment of the error. But the apostles preached in Jerusalem, in the synagogues, in the prætorium: they unfolded and displayed the banners of their Master's cross, and set up tokens of his victory, in the very spot on which the infamous instrument of his sufferings had been set up. (10.) Consider the MOTIVES which induced the apostles to publish the fact of Christ's resurrection. It was not to acquire fame, riches, glory, or profit:-by no means. On the contrary, they exposed themselves to sufferings and death, and proclaimed the truth from a conviction of its importance and certainty. "Every where they were hated, calumniated, despised, hunted from city to city, cast into prison, scourged, stoned and crucified. And for what were all these excruciating sufferings endured? Gain, honour, and pleasure are the only gods to which impostors bow. But of these the apostles acquired, and plainly laboured to acquire neither. What then was the end for which they suffered? Let the infidel answer this question. As they gained nothing, and lost every thing, in the present world; so it is certain that they must expect to gain nothing, and suffer every thing, in the world to come. That the Old Testament was the word of God, they certainly VOL. I. P possible to account for the striking CONTRAST between the (11.) If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, it is impusillanimous conduct of the prejudiced apostles during their Master's life and the fearlessly courageous conduct of the same apostles after his resurrection." During the life of Christ, we see them limited in their conceptions; confounded by whatever was spiritual and sublime in their Master's doctrine; prepossessed by the idea which then prevailed among the Jewish people, that the Law of Moses and the Temple at Jerusalem were to subsist for ever; full of prejudices concerning the nature of Messiah's kingdom; disputing for the chief place in it, at the very time when Jesus Christ was discoursing to them concerning his death; and considering his public death as an obstacle to his reign and an indelible opprobrium. If the apostles had always retained the character which they exhibit in the Gospels, it cannot be doubted, but that Christianity would have been buried in the tomb of its Founder. But let us prosecute our inquiries, and study the Acts of the Apostles, the narrative of which commences where the evanascension of Christ. There we behold the apostles endued with gelical history terminates, viz. after the death, resurrection, and the profoundest knowledge of the Gospel, emancipated from all their obstinate prejudices, notwithstanding these were founded on national self-love, on religious zeal, and on the dazzling prospects which they had conceived for themselves. They have and it is evident that they fully understood that the kingdom for ever renounced all their gross ideas of earthly elevation; which they were commissioned to establish was a spiritual kingdom,-that the Jewish nation were no longer the peculiarly favoured people of God,-that the Levitical worship was about to cease,-that the religion which they preached was to be common to all nations, and that they considered their Master's death in its true point of view, as the best means of proving the truth of his divine mission, as the foundation of the covenant of grace, the most powerful motive to holiness, and his resurrection as the pledge of our resurrection. During the life of Christ, we see them in a state of uncertainty, incessantly asking for new proofs, exciting impatience by the nature of their questions, and deserving their Master's reproach of being persons of "little faith." Only fifty days after his death we see them decided, convinced, persuaded, speaking with that noble firmness which is inspired by a thorough conviction and knowledge of the truth, delivering the doctrine which they taught as certain and indubitable, as resting upon facts 1 Dwight's System of Theology, vol. ii. p. 529. which all their senses had witnessed. No more fluctuationno more doubt-no more uncertainty. WE KNOW is their expression. "That which we have seen with our eyes, which wE have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life,..... declare we unto you" (1 John i. 1. 3.); and they announce it with a tone of authority which well became the ambassadors of heaven, but which was ill suited to persons in their condition and of their education. Before their Master's death we see them cowardly, trembling, timid in the extreme, feeble sheep, who were scattered the moment their shepherd was smitten. After that event they became altogether new men; firm, courageous, and intrepid; they astonished Judæa, Greece, and Asia Minor by their doctrine, and by their eloquence. They spoke before the people; they spoke before the tribunals of justice, and also to kings, with singular boldness and freedom. They confounded the wisdom of the Areopagus; they made a proconsul tremble on his throne; and they extorted from a king, before whom they were accused, a public acknowledgment of their innocence. That very apostle, who had been so intimidated by the voice of a female servant that he denied his Master, a few days after his death, when they were summoned before the very same magistrates who had caused him to be crucified, dared to reproach them to their face with having put to death "the Holy One and the Just, the Prince of Life." The menaces of their judges dismayed them not. "Whether it be right in the sight of God," they said, "to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Acts iv. 19, 20.) They braved the hatred, and they triumphed over all the power of the synagogue. Unappalled by torments, they rejoiced to be deemed worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. Labours most abundant, perilous journeys, pains both in body and in mind, renunciation of all property, resignation to every evil, nay, even the sacrifice of their lives,-they accounted nothing hard or difficult. And (which is most astonishing of all) this courage was not a sudden burst of transient enthusiasm: it never relaxed for an instant, notwithstanding the numerous and diversified trials to which they were exposed on the contrary, it was manifested for many years, and finally was crowned by a violent death. If, from their public conduct as related in the Acts of the Apostles, we turn to the epistles or letters written by these men after their Master's resurrection, we shall find their whole souls laid open. What noble and elevated sentiments do we read in them! What courage, yet what resignation! What holy joy amid the dangers which menaced them; and the evils that befell them! What profoundness in their doctrine! What sublime and affecting instructions! What tender solicitude for the rising churches! What ardent charity for all men,-yea even for their persecutors! How was so sudden and so marvellous a change wrought in the apostles? Is it possible to conceive such striking differences in the same individuals? They were less than men, they became more than heroes. But the notion, that the Gospel is the invention of man, assigns no cause for this strange revolution; which, however, may be readily comprehended and accounted for, if Jesus be the Messiah, and if, according to his promise, he poured down upon them the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In short, the conclusion resulting from the striking contrast in the conduct of the apostles, before and after their Master's death, is so convincing and persuasive, that, even if the apostles had not informed us that they had received extraordinary gifts, it is impossible to conceive how any other means can or could be imagined, which can account for that astonishing difference.1 the Apostles were written by Luke, received by the church, and no falsehood was ever detected in that book by Jew or Gentile. The primitive Christian writers attest its truth and authenticity, and heathen authors record some of the important facts which are related by the evangelical historian. In the second chapter, we are informed that the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ took place on the day of Pentecost, at Jerusalem, where they were assembled after his ascension2 in obedience to his command, waiting for that very performance of his promise (Acts i. 25.), both as a proof of his resurrection from the dead, and also to qualify them to spread the belief of it throughout the world. This was a public FACT, and it produced its proper effect; for, in consequence of it, not fewer than three thousand of those very persons, who but just before had joined in putting Christ to a painful and ignominious death, immediately submitted to be baptized in his name, and made an open profession of their faith in him, as the true Messiah that was to come. To the gift of tongues was added a number of undoubted miracles publicly wrought before Jews and heathens indiscriminately, in confirmation of the apostles' testimony concerning Jesus Christ. These miracles are related in the Acts of the Apostles, and were published among the people who witnessed them. They were not, like the miracles of Christ, confined to Judæa or to Galilee, but they were performed wherever the Gospel was spread, before Jews and heathens indiscriminately, and with the express design of confirming their mission from their Master. Their miracles, too, were subjected, like those of Christ, to the most rigorous investigation; and their adversaries and persecutors were compelled, as we have already seen,4 to admit them as facts, and to acknowledge among themselves that their publicity rendered it impossible to deny their reality. There was no want of inclination among the chief men of Judea to deny the apostolical miracles; but the public notoriety of the facts rendered such a denial impossible. Though they did not hesitate to persecute the Christians, their persecution was vain. The people who heard the narratives and doctrines of the apostles, and who saw that both were confirmed by unquestionable miracles, neither did nor could resist their conviction. Upon these proofs and assurances, by the clear evidence and power of truth, "the word of God mightily grew and prevailed" against all that prejudice, malice, and every vice could do to oppose it, in Rome and at Jerusalem itself. For, in that very city, where Jesus Christ had been crucified, and where it would have been impossible to make proselytes, if his resurrection had not been evidently proved BEYOND the POSSIBILITY of a confutation, great numbers were daily added to the church. A church was immediately founded at Jerusalem; and both the body of the people and their bishops (who were fifteen in number), to the final destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian, were Jews by nation. In other parts of the world, also, the church daily received new accessions of converts; so that, within thirty years after Christ's resurrection, one of those apostles appealed to it as a well-known fact, that the Gospel had been carried into all the countries of the then known world. (Col. i. 6.) "Collect," says the eloquent Saurin, to whom we are indebted for some of the preceding observations;-" collect all these proofs together; consider them in one point of view, and see how many extravagant suppositions must be advanced, if the resurrection of our Saviour be denied. It must be supposed that guards, who had been particularly cautioned by their officers, sat down to sleep; and that, nevertheless, they deserved credit when they said the body of Jesus Christ was stolen. It must be supposed that men who had been imposed on in the most odious and cruel manner in 4. Lastly, the MIRACLES performed by these witnesses in the the world, hazarded their dearest enjoyments for the glory name of Jesus Christ (one of which has already been noticed), of an impostor. It must be supposed that ignorant and illiteafter the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, rate men, who had neither reputation, fortune, nor eloquence, and the success which attended their preaching throughout the possessed the art of fascinating the eyes of all the church. world, are God's testimony to the fact of Christ's resurrection It must be supposed, either that five hundred persons were from the dead, as well as to their veracity in proclaiming it. all deprived of their senses at a time, or that they were all deceived in the plainest matters of fact; or that this multiNo subject was ever more public, more investigated, or bet-tude of false witnesses had found out the secret of never conter known, than the transactions of the apostles. Luke, an his-tradicting themselves or one another, and of being always torian of great character, who witnessed many of the things uniform in their testimony. It must be supposed that the which he relates, published the Acts of the Apostles among the most expert courts of judicature could not find out a shadow people who saw the transactions. It would have blasted his of contradiction in a palpable imposture. It must be supcharacter to have published falsehoods which must instantly be detected it would have ruined the character of the church to have received, as facts, notorious falsehoods. Now the Acts of 1 Anspach, Cours d'Etudes de la Religion Chrétienne, part ii. tom. i. pp. 278-281. On the subject of the Ascension, see the Appendix, No. III. The circumstances of the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pen tecost are considered in the Appendix, No. IV. 4 See pp. 81. 82, 83. 103. supra. On the difficulties attendant on the first propagation of Christianity, see the Appendix, No. V. posed that the apostles, sensible men in other cases, chose | they were not real :-7. If they were committed to writing precisely those places and those times which were most un-at, or very near, the time when they are said to have been favourable to their views. It must be supposed that millions done, and by persons of undoubted integrity, who tell us that madly suffered imprisonments, tortures, and crucifixion, to they had been eye-witnesses of the events which they relate; spread an illusion. It must be supposed that ten thousand by persons, who, having sufficient opportunity of knowing miracles were wrought in favour of falsehood, or all these the whole truth of what they bear testimony to, could not facts must be denied. And then it must be supposed that possibly be deceived themselves; and who, having no conthe apostles were idiots, that the enemies of Christianity ceivable motive nor temptation to falsify their evidence, canwere idiots, and that all the primitive Christians were not, with the least shadow of probability, be suspected of inidiots." tending to deceive other people :-8. If there be no proof, When all the preceding considerations are duly weighed, nor well-grounded suspicion of proof, that the testimony of it is impossible not to admit the truth of Christ's resurrec- those, who bear witness to these extraordinary facts, was tion, and that in this miracle are most clearly to be discerned ever contradicted even by such as professed themselves open the four first of the criteria already illustrated. And with enemies to their persons, characters, and views, though the regard to the two last criteria, we may observe, that Bap- facts were first published upon the spot where they are said tism and the Lord's Supper were instituted as perpetual me- to have been originally performed, and among persons, who morials of the death of Jesus Christ; and that the observ- were engaged by private interest, and furnished with full auance of the weekly festival of the Lord's day (or Sunday) thority, inclination and opportunity, to have manifested the commemorates his resurrection. They were not instituted falsity of them, and to have detected the imposture, had they in after-ages, but at the very time when the circumstances to been able :-9. If, on the contrary, the existence of these facts which they relate took place; and they have been observed be expressly allowed by the persons who thought themselves without interruption through the whole Christian world, in most concerned to prevent the genuine consequences which all ages, from that time down to the present. Besides, Christ might be deduced from them; and there were, originally, no himself ordained apostles, and other ministers of his Gospel, other disputes about them, but to what sufficient cause they to preach and administer the sacraments, and that always, were to be imputed :—10. If, again, the witnesses, from "even unto the end of the world." (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Ac- whom we have these facts, were many in number, all of cordingly, they have continued to this day; so that the them unanimous in the substance of their evidence, and all, Christian ministry is, and always has been, as notorious in as may be collected from their own conduct, men of such unpoint of fact, as the tribe of Levi among the Jews. And as questionable good sense as secured them against all delusion the æra and object of their appointment are part of the Gos- in themselves, and of such undoubted integrity and unimpel narrative, if that narrative had been a fiction of some sub-peached veracity as placed them beyond all suspicion of any sequent age, at the time of its fabrication no such order of design to put an imposture upon others,—if they were men, men could have been found, which would have effectually who showed the sincerity of their own conviction by acting falsified the whole story. The miraculous actions of Christ under the uniform influence of the extraordinary works which and his apostles being affirmed to be true no otherwise than they bore witness to, in express contradiction to all their foras there were at that identical time (whenever the deist will mer prejudices and most favoured notions; in express consuppose the Gospel history to be forged) not only sacraments tradiction to every flattering prospect of worldly honour, or ordinances of Christ's institution, but likewise a public profit, and advantage, either for themselves or for their ministry of his institution to dispense them; and it being friends; and when they could not but be previously assured impossible upon this hypothesis, that there could be any such that ignominy, persecution, misery, and even death itself things before they were invented, it is as impossible they most probably would attend the constant and invariable pershould be received and accredited when invented. Hence it severance in their testimony:-11. If these witnesses, in orfollows, that it was as impossible to have imposed these mira- der that their evidence might have the greater weight with a culous relations upon mankind in after-ages, as it would have doubting world (each nation being already in possession of been to make persons believe they saw the miracles, or were an established religion), were themselves enabled to perform parties concerned in the beneficial effects resulting from such extraordinary works, as testified the clear and indisputhem, if they were not. table interposition of a divine power in favour of their veracity; and after having undergone the severest afflictions, vexations, and torments, at length laid down their lives, in Such is the diversified and authentic testimony for the mi- confirmation of the truth of the facts asserted by them :racles recorded in the Scriptures, especially those related in 12. If the evidence for such miracles, instead of growing the New Testament; and as the various parts of which this less and less by the lapse of ages, increases with increasing proof of the inspiration of the Bible consists are necessarily years:-13. If those persons, who both testify and admit placed at some distance from each other, we shall conclude them, seem, on the one hand, to aim at nothing else but their this branch of the evidence by a brief recapitulation of the own salvation and that of their brethren; and, on the other scattered arguments, together with a few additional sugges- hand, if they are persuaded that their salvation is inconsist tions. If, then, we have found, after a minute investigation, ent with imposture and deceit :-14. If great multitudes of that the miraculous facts which are proposed for our belief, the contemporaries of these witnesses, men of almost all naand upon the credit of which a particular system of doctrines tions, tempers, and professions, were persuaded by them and precepts depends, are such, 1. As do not imply a self- that these facts were really performed in the manner related, contradiction in them:-2. If they appear to have been done and gave the strongest testimony, which it was in their publicly, in the view of a great multitude of people, and with power to give, of the firmness of their belief of them, both the professed intention of establishing the divine authority of by immediately breaking through all their ancient attachthe person or persons who performed them:-3. If they ments and connections of friendships, interest, country, and were many in number, instantaneously performed, and, inde- even of religion, and by acting in express contradiction to pendently of second causes, frequently repeated, and repeat- them:-15. If the revolutions introduced in the moral and ed for a series of years together:-4. If they were of an in- religious world, since the period wherein these facts are said teresting nature in themselves, of such à nature that the to have happened, have been just such as they would, prosenses of mankind could clearly and fully judge of them-bably, have been, upon a supposition of the truth of them, likely to have made strong impressions on the minds of all and cannot possibly be accounted for from any other adequate who beheld and heard of them, and, for that reason probably, cause:-16. If those who refuse to acknowledge all these were much attended to, talked of, and investigated at the miraculous matters of fact, must unavoidably fall into a great time when they were wrought:-5. If public ceremonies number of self-evident contradictions, as, for instance, to bewere instituted in memory of the miraculous facts, and have lieve that the wisest among men are the most foolish, and the been observed in all succeeding ages ever since they were so most constant the most deceitful:-17. If all these matters of instituted :-6. If the effects produced by them were not fact are so strictly united to one another, that it is impossible transient, but lasting; such as must have existed for many to admit the one without acknowledging the other also; and so years, and were capable, all the while, of being disproved if inseparably interwoven with some other indisputable matters 1 Saurin's Sermons, translated by Mr. Robinson, vol. ii. serm. viii. p. 221. nouncing our sense and reason:-18. Lastly, if we have all the of fact, that they cannot be called in question without reThe reader who is desirous of investigating all the circumstances of our Saviour's resurrection, will find them considered and illustrated in Mr. proof, which the exactest rules of the severest criticism can West's well-known treatise on the Resurrection, in the late Dr. Townson's require, to evince that no alterations have been made in the Discourses, originally published in 1792, 8vo. and reprinted in the second volume of his works, and especially in Dr. Cook's "Illustration of the Ge- original records and writings left us by these witnesses in neral Evidence of Christ's Resurrection." 8vo. 1808. any material article of their evidence, since their first publi X. GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT FURNISHED BY MIRACLES. superstitious notions and prejudices of the vulgar, who were, therefore, disposed to receive them: hence, they gained an easy reception amongst them. But the miracles recorded in the Bible were opposed to all the then established religions in the world; and those wrought by Christ and his apostles actually overthrew the religious establishments of all countries. So that, if they forced themselves on the belief of mankind, it was merely by the power of the irresistible evidence with which they were accompanied. cation, either through accident or design; but that they have been transmitted to us in all their genuine purity, as they were left by their authors.In such a situation of things, where so great a variety of circumstances, where indeed all imaginable circumstances, mutually concur to confirm, strengthen, and support each other's evidence, and concentre, as it were, in attestation of the same interesting series of events, without a single argument on the other side, but the mere extraordinariness of the facts,-shall we not be justly accused of indulging in an unreasonable incredulity in denying our assent to them? And will not such incredulity be as dangerous as it is ridiculous? If facts attested in so clear, decisive, and unexceptionable a manner, and delivered down to posterity with so many conspiring signs and monuments of truth, are, nevertheless, not to be believed; it is impossible for the united wisdom of mankind to point out any evidence of historical events, which will justify a wise and cautious man for giving credit to them, and, consequently, with regard to past ages, all will be clouds and thick darkness to us; all will be hesitation and scepticism: nor will any thing be credible, which comes not confirmed to us by the report of our own senses and experience. In short, where there is the strongest assurance of the existence of any par-miracles under persecution; none of them sealed their testimony ticular series of past facts, which we are capable of acquiring, according to the present frame of our nature, and the state of things in the world, to reject these facts after all, and to pretend to excuse ourselves from not believing them, upon the bare suspicion of a possibility that they may be false, is a most absurd contradiction to the principles of common sense, and to the universal practice of mankind.1 XI. A COMPARISON of the Scripture Miracles with pretended Pagan and Popish Miracles. Notwithstanding the mass of evidence above adduced, the opposers of revelation have endeavoured to weaken its force, or, rather, to set it aside altogether, by insinuating that there are particular accounts of miraculous facts, which are as well authenticated as those related in the Scriptures, and that the latter are to be rejected as false and incredible. But counterfeited miracles are no proof that there never were real miracles; and the more these pretended miracles are investigated, the more defective is the evidence adduced for them. For, 1. In the first place, the scene of most of them is laid in distant countries and remote ages; whereas the miracles, recorded in the Scriptures, were wrought in an age and period whose history is well known, and as fully ascertained as the history of the last century. 2. Secondly, the more ancient heathen miracles are acknowledged, by the adversaries of Christianity, to have been performed in ages of gross ignorance, when the common people were very liable to be deceived. They were solitary exertions of power, rarely attempted, which could not be subjected to the test of a rigorous scrutiny, being in almost every instance wrought in secret recesses of the temples, generally in the night-time, and before only one or two persons who had come with the expectation of seeing a miracle, and so might easily be imposed upon; or who, being the accomplices of the priests in their frauds, were hired to announce that a miracle had taken place. Whereas the miracles related in the Scriptures were wrought before multitudes, who had every possible opportunity of investigating them, and most of whom were adversaries to the persons by whom the miracles were wrought. 5. In the fifth place, the heathen miracles are vouched to us by no such testimony as can induce a prudent man to give them any credit. They are not reported by any eye-witnesses of them, nor by any persons on whom they were wrought. Those who relate them do not even pretend to have received them from eyewitnesses: we know them only by a number of vague reports, the original of which no one can exactly trace. Thus, the miracles ascribed to Pythagoras were not reported until several hundred years after his death, and those of Apollonius one hundred years after his death. If, indeed, any of the heathen miracles, whether ancient or modern, had any witnesses, none of them travelled from country to country; none of them published these concerning them with their blood. In all these respects, the evidence attending the Christian miracles has infinitely the advantage of the proofs by which the heathen wonders are supported. The miracles of Christ are vouched to posterity by the testimony of many eye-witnesses, who preached in every country immediately after they were wrought; who all concurred in the same reports; and who had no temptations from interest to forge such stories, but rather innumerable temptations to the contrary, because, by preaching the history of their master, they every where exposed themselves to the severest persecution, and often to death itself. Further, these witnesses to the miracles of Jesus rendered their testimony credible, by performing similar miracles, so that when mankind saw what things they accomplished, they could entertain no doubt concerning the other. These miracles were also recorded by four historians, whose memoirs not only agree in the accounts they give of Christ's miracles, but are also confirmed by the reports given of them by numerous other eyewitnesses, in their discourses to the Gentiles, among whom they travelled and preached. 6. Lastly, the more ancient heathen miracles were nowhere credited by the intelligent and judicious; and the belief of them among the vulgar, produced no effects by which the certain persuasion entertained by mankind concerning them could be demonstrated. They were wrought to confirm no doctrine, or else to establish idolatry, and consequently could not be done by divine power. On the contrary, the testimony of the apostles and eye-witnesses of the Christian miracles was embraced by thousands in every country, among whom were many persons distinguished by their birth, their learning, and their good sense; and all of whom forsook the religion in which they had been educated, and embraced the Christian profession; though such conduct exposed them to the severest persecutions and sufferings, and even to loss of life. The preceding facts and reasoning equally destroy the credit of the lying wonders, which have been appealed to in behalf of Christianity itself. They were all performed in support of the faith established, and, what is worthy of notice, they happened for the most part in the night-time, at the sepulchres of the martyrs, or in deserts, or in the recesses 3. Thirdly, the heathen priests, being mostly persons of high of churches, and before no witnesses. Or, if a single witness rank, were regarded with the utmost veneration by the common or two were admitted, they were generally friends to the people, who would eagerly and implicitly receive every account cause, on account of which the miracle was to be exhibited; of miracles said to be wrought by them. In like manner, such and therefore they were in a disposition to be imposed upon miracles, as their sovereigns and legislators pretended to perform, by every cunning pretender. Further, as these miracles were were readily and implicitly received by the multitude; and even performed in support of a religion already believed by the persons of better understanding, from fear or flattery, might multitude to be divine, the reports of wonders, said to be affect to believe them. This circumstance completely discredits wrought in its behalf, would have been eagerly credited withthe two miracles said to be performed by Vespasian at Alexan-out examination. Or, if any one, more judicious than the dria, during his contest for the empire, and which are examined in a subsequent page. In short, it is certain that none of the heathen miracles underwent any proper examination; while those of Christ and his apostles, who had no lustre of birth or dignity to dazzle or procure the veneration of the multitude, were subjected to the strictest possible examination of their adversaries, who in no one instance could gainsay or deny them. 4. Fourthly, the heathen miracles were performed for the support of the established religion, and were all engrafted upon the Abbadie, Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne, tome ii. pp. 147-119. Squire's Indifference for Religion inexcusable, sect. 48. rest, entertained any doubts concerning them, he might refrain from publishing his scruples, out of respect to the cause in which he was engaged. On this account they suffered the reports of such things to pass uncontradicted: or, perhaps, out of a mistaken zeal, they joined the multitude in dounded to the whole body. Such is the evidence of the spreading reports of matters, from which so much credit re 2 2 Thess. ii. 9. Tspara sufous; which words, Grotius rightly observes, do not mean false miracles, but miracles which establish false doctrines. The antagonists of Christianity have triumphantly demanded, at what time miracles ceased to be performed? And, why are they not now wrought? These questions admit of easy and satisfactory answers. The miracles may be said to cease, with respect to our belief, when we can no |