therefore these orders of priests are no evidence to the matters of fact which are reported of their gods.

"Now to apply what has been said. You may challenge all the Deists in the world to show any action that is fabulous, which has all the four rules or marks before mentioned. No, it is impossible. And (to resume a little what is spoken to before) the histories of Exodus and the Gospel never could have been received, if they had not been true; because the institution of the priesthood of Levi, and of Christ; of the Sabbath, the Passover, of Circumcision, of Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, &c, are there related, as descending all the way down from those times, without interruption. And it is full as impossible to persuade men that they had been circumcised or baptized, had circumcised or baptized their children, celebrated passovers, sabbaths, sacraments, &c, under the government and administration of a certain order of priests, if they had done none of these things, as to make them believe that they had gone through seas upon dry land, seen the dead raised, &c. And without believing these, it was impossible that either the Law or the Gospel could have been received.

"And the truth of the matters of fact of Exodus and the Gospel, being no otherwise pressed upon men, than as they have practised such public institutions, it is appealing to the senses of mankind for the truth of them; and makes it impossible for any to have invented such stories in after ages, without a palpable detection of the cheat when first invented; as impossible as to have imposed upon the senses of mankind, at the time when such public matters of fact were said to be done." (1)

But other evidence of the truth of the Gospel history, beside that which arises from this convincing reasoning, may be adduced.

In the first place, the narrative of the evangelists, as to the actions, &c, of Christ, cannot be rejected without renouncing all faith in his. tory, any more than to deny that he really existed.

"We have the same reason to believe that the evangelists have given us a true history of the life and transactions of JESUS, as we have that Xenophon and Plato have given us a faithful and just narrative of the character and doctrines of the excellent SOCRATES. The sacred writers were, in every respect, qualified for giving a real circumstantial detail of the life and religion of the person whose memoirs they have transmitted down to us. They were the select companions and familiar friends of the hero of their story. They had free and liberal access to him at all times. They attended his public discourses, and in his moments of retirement he unbosomed his whole soul to them without disguise. They were daily witnesses of his sincerity and goodness of

(1) See Note B at the end of this chapter, in which the same kind of argument is illustrated by the miraculous gift of tongues.

heart. They were spectators of the amazing operations he performed, and of the silent unostentatious manner in which he performed them. In private he explained to them the doctrines of his religion in the most familiar, endearing converse, and gradually initiated them into the principles of his Gospel, as their Jewish prejudices admitted. Some of these writers were his inseparable attendants, from the commencement of his public ministry to his death, and could give the world as true and faithful a narrative of his character and instructions, as Xenophon was enabled to publish of the life and philosophy of Socrates. If PLATO hath been in every respect qualified to compose an historical account of the behaviour of his master in his imprisonment; of the philosophic discourses he addressed to his friends before he drank the poisonous bowl; as he constantly attended him in those unhappy scenes; was present at those mournful interviews; (2)—in like manner was the Apostle JOHN fitted for compiling a just and genuine narration of the last consolatory discourses our Lord delivered to his dejected followers, a little before his last sufferings, and of the unhappy exit he made, with its attendant circumstances, of which he was a personal spectator. The foundation of these things cannot be invalidated, without invalidating the faith of history. No writers have enjoyed more propitious, few have ever enjoyed such favourable opportunities for publishing just accounts of persons and things as the evangelists. Most of the Greek and Roman historians lived long after the persons they immortalize, and the events they record. The sacred writers commemorate actions they saw, discourses they heard, persecutions they supported; describe characters with which they were familiarly conversant, and transactions and scenes in which they themselves were intimately interested. The pages of their history are impressed with every feature of credibility: an artless simplicity characterizes all their writings. Nothing can be farther from vain ostentation and popular applause. No studied arts to dress up a cunningly-devised fable. No vain declamation after any miracle of our SAVIOUR they relate. They record these astonishing operations with the same dispassionate coolness, as if they had been common transactions, without that ostentatious rhodomontade which enthusiasts and impostors universally employ. They give us a plain, unadorned narration of these amazing feats of supernatural power— saying nothing previously to raise our expectation, or after their performance breaking forth into any exclamation-but leaving the reader to draw the conclusion. The writers of these books are distinguished above all the authors who ever wrote accounts of persons and things,

(2) Quid dicam de Socrate, (says Cicero,) cujus morti illachrymari soleo, Platonem legens.-De Natura Deorum, p. 329, Edit. Davies, 1723.-See also PLATO's Phædo, passim, particularly pages 311, 312.—Edit. Forster, Oxon. 1741.

for their sincerity and integrity. Enthusiasts and impostors never proclaim to the world the weakness of their understanding, and the defects of their character. The evangelists honestly acquaint the reader with the lowness of their station, the indigence of their circumstances, the inveteracy of their national prejudices, their dulness of apprehension, their weakness of faith, their ambitious views, and the warm contentions they agitated among themselves. They even tell us how they basely deserted their Master, by a shameful precipitate flight, when he was seized by his enemies; and that after his crucifixion, they had all again returned to their former secular employments-for ever resigning all the hopes they had once fondly cherished, and abandoning the cause in which they had so long been engaged, notwithstanding all the proofs which had been exhibited, and the conviction they had before entertained, that JESUS was the Messiah, and that his religion was from God. A faithful picture this, held up to the reader, for him to contemplate the true features of the writer's mind. Such men as these were as far from being deceived themselves, as they were incapable of imposing a falsehood upon others. The sacred regard they had for truth appears in every thing they relate. They mention, with many affecting circumstances, the obstinate, unreasonable incredulity of one of their associates not convinced but by ocular and sensible demonstration. They might have concealed from the world their own faults and follies—or if they had chosen to mention them, might have alleged plausible reasons to soften and extenuate them. But they related, without disguise, events and facts just as they happened, and left them to speak their own language. So that to reject a history thus circumstanced, and impeach the veracity of writers furnished with these qualifications for giving the justest accounts of personal characters and transactions, which they enjoyed the best opportunity for accurately observing and knowing, is an affront offered to the reason and understanding of mankind; a solecism against the laws of truth and history, which would, with equal reason lead men to disbelieve every thing related in HERODOTUS, THUCYDIDES, DIODORUS SICULUS, LIVY, and TACITUS; to confound all history with fable and fiction; truth with falsehood, and veracity with imposture; and not to credit any thing how well soever attested;-that there were such kings as the Stuarts, or such places as Paris and Rome, because we are not indulged with ocular conviction of them. The truth of the Gospel history [independent of the question of the inspiration of the sacred writers] rests upon the same basis with the truth of other ancient books, and its pretensions are to be impartially examined by the same rules by which we judge of the credibility of all other historical monuments. And if we compare the merit of the sacred writers, as historians, with that of other writers, we shall be convinced, that they are inferior to none who ever wrote, either with regard to knowledge of

persons, acquaintance with facts, candour of mind, and reverence for truth." (HARWOOD's Introduction to the New Testament.)

A second source of evidence to the truth of the history of the evangelists, may be brought from the testimonies of adversaries and heathens to the leading facts which they record.

No public contradiction of this history was ever put forth by the Jewish rulers to stop the progress of a hateful religion, though they had every motive to contradict it, both in justification of themselves, who were publicly charged as "murderers" of the "Just One," and to preserve the people from the infection of the spreading delusion. No such contradiction has been handed down, and none is adverted to or quoted by any ancient writer. This silence is not unimportant evidence; but the direct testimonies to the facts are numerous and important.

We have already quoted the testimonies of Tacitus and Suetonius to the existence of Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Christian religion, and of his crucifixion in the reign of Tiberius, and during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, the time in which the evangelists place that event. Other references to heathen authors, who incidentally allude to Christ, his religion, and followers, might be given; such as Martial, Juvenal, Epictetus, Trajan, the younger Pliny, Adrian, Apuleius, Lucian of Samosata, and others; some of whom also afford testimonies to the destruction of Jerusalem, at the time, and in the circumstances predicted by our Saviour, and to the antiquity and genuineness of the books of the New Testament. But as it is well observed by the learned Lardner, in his "Collection of Jewish and Heathen Testimonies," (vol. iv, p. 330,) "Among all the testimonies to Christianity which we have met with in the first ages, none are more valuable and important than the testimonies of those learned philosophers who wrote against us; CELSUS, in the second century, PORPHYRY and HIEROCLES in the third, and JULIAN in the fourth." Referring to LARDNER for full information on this point, a brief exhibition of the admissions of these adversaries will be satisfactory.

CELSUS wrote against Christianity not much above one hundred and thirty years after our Lord's ascension, and his books were answered by the celebrated ORIGEN. The following is a summary of the references of this writer to the Gospel history, by Leland. (Answer to Christianity as old as the Creation, vol. ii, c. 5.) The passages at large may be seen in Lardner's Testimonies.

"Celsus, a most bitter enemy of Christianity, who began in the second century, produces many passages out of the Gospels. He represents Jesus to have lived but a few years ago. He mentions his being born of a virgin; the angel's appearing to Joseph on occasion of Mary's being with child; the star that appeared at his birth; the wise men that came to worship him when an infant; and Herod's massacreing the

children; Joseph's fleeing with the child into Egypt by the admonition of an angel; the Holy Ghost descending on Jesus like a dove when he was baptized by John, and the voice from heaven declaring him to be the Son of God; his going about with his disciples, his healing the sick and lame, and raising the dead; his foretelling his own sufferings and resurrection; his being betrayed and forsaken by his own disciples; his suffering both of his own accord and in obedience to his heavenly Father; his grief and trouble, and his praying, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! the ignominious treatment he met with; the robe that was put upon him, the crown of thorns, the reed put into his hand; his drinking vinegar and gall, and his being scourged and crucified; his being seen after his resurrection by a fanatical woman, (as he calls her, meaning Mary Magdalen,) and by his own companions and disciples; his showing them his hands that were pierced, the marks of his punishment. He also mentions the angels being seen at his sepulchre, and that some said it was one angel, others, that it was two; by which he hints at the seeming variation in the accounts given of it by the evangelists.

"It is true, he mentions all these things only with a design to ridicule and expose them. But they furnish us with an uncontested proof, that the Gospel was then extant. Accordingly he expressly tells the Christians, These things we have produced out of your own writings, p. 106. And he all along supposeth them to have been written by Christ's own disciples, that lived and conversed with him; though he pretends they feigned many things for the honour of their Master, p. 69, 70. And he pretends, that he could tell many other things relative to Jesus, beside those things that were written of him by his own disciples; but that he willingly passed by them, p. 67. We may conclude from his expressions, both that he was sensible that these accounts were written by Christ's own disciples, (and indeed he never pretends to contest this,) and that he was not able to produce any contrary accounts to invalidate them, as he certainly would have done, if it had been in his power: since no man ever wrote with greater virulence against Christianity than he. And indeed, how was it possible for ten or eleven publicans and boatmen, as he calls Christ's disciples by way of contempt, (p. 47,) to have imposed such things on the world, if they had not been true, so as to persuade such vast multitudes to embrace a new and despised religion, contrary to all their prejudices and interests, and to believe in one that had been crucified !

"There are several other things, which show that Celsus was acquainted with the Gospel. He produces several of our Saviour's sayings, there recorded, as that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God; that to him who smites us on one cheek, we must turn the other;