Testament, by far the most singular, and, at the same time, the most particularized, is that of Jesus himself. His lowliness and meekness, the tenderness of his compassion, the firmness with which he resisted temptation, his forbearance, his mercy towards his enemies, his subjection to the will of the Father, his devotional spirit, his unwillingness to be made public, his boldness in reproving hypocrisy, his patience and fortitude, his custom of converting every occurring circumstance into a channel for doctrine and instruction, his paternal love for his disciples, his perfect gentleness, yet irresistible authority, with many other traits of grace and virtue, constitute, as a whole, a character which has no parallel-original and perfect. Now, in a circumstantial statement of the conduct and behaviour of a fictitious personage, it would be very difficult for a single author to sustain the description of such a character in all its peculiarity and in all its perfection. But, when we see a character, thus peculiar and thus perfect, unfolded with the most beautiful precision, and presented to us in all its parts without any real deviation or inconsistency, by four distinct and independent writers, we are compelled to confess that, for such a result, nothing whatever can account, but actual and unvarnished truth. V. The numerous correct allusions made in the New Testament to the manners and customs prevailing among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, at the time when the books contained in it were written, have already been adduced in evidence of the genuineness of those books. Such allusions may also be fairly pleaded in proof of the authenticity of the narrative-of the veracity and accuracy of the narrators. Very important, in the same point of view, are the confirmations of various parts of the Gospel history, derived from the pages of Jewish, Greek, and Roman historians. That Christ was not an imaginary person, that he really lived, and that he was the founder of the Christian religion, are facts, as has been already hinted, which rest on the testimony, not only of the evangelists and apostles, but of heathen authors; more particularly of Lucian, Suetonius, and Tacitus. By the last of these writers are expressly, though incidentally, recorded, the country of Jesus, the era in which he lived, the government to which he was subject, the extensive diffusion of the principles which he promulgated, and his ignominious and violent death: Annal. lib. XV, cap. 44.* There are other circumstances, of minor im * "Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis pœnis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor portance, in which an exact coincidence has been observed between the New Testament and the records of profane history. To mention a single instance the address of the apostle Paul to the Athenians was occasioned, as we read in the book of Acts, by his having observed in their city an altar inscribed to the unknown God. Now, the existence of altars at Athens, dedicated to unknown Gods, is expressly mentioned by Pausanias and Philostratus. A curious story is moreover related by Diogenes Laertius respecting the lustration of the city by Epimenides, on the occasion of a great pestilence which occurred some hundred years before the Christian era. Victims were then slain in various parts of the Areopagus; and, over the same places, anonymous altars were erected to the several propitious, but unknown, deities, by whom the plague was stayed; In Epimenide, lib. 1, cap. x, § 3. Between Luke, the largest writer of narrative in the New Testament, and Josephus, the great historian of the Jews, who wrote during the first century, there have been discovered two or three apparent discrepancies of statement, which, were they irreconcilable, might be accounted for by the supposition of a slight degree of inaccuracy on the part of either historian; but which the indefatigable Lardner has, in fact, succeeded in reconciling. On the other hand, the accordances between the history of Josephus and those of Luke and the other evangelists, in relation more especially to the various Jewish and Roman governors, whether princes, priests, or procurators, who lived in Palestine during the age of Christ and his apostles, are (as we have already observed) numerous, peculiar, and precise; see Lardner's Credibility, vol. 1, part i. If it be urged that the circumstances related in the Gospel history, which have thus received confirmation from Jewish and heathen authors, were not the miracles of Christ and his apostles-it ought to be observed, that the accounts of those nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, perprocuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Repressaque in præsens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non modo per Judæam originem ejus mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt." "For the purpose, therefore, of putting an end to the report (of his having caused the conflagration of Rome,) Nero falsely accused, and most cruelly punished, a class of persons, hated for their crimes, who . were commonly called Christians. Christ, the author of that name, was put to death as a malefactor by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, during the reign of Tiberius. But this injurious superstition, although repressed for a short time, again broke out, not only in Judea, where the evil originated, but also in Rome, whither there is a conflux, from every part of the world, of all atrocious or shameful things." miracles in the New Testament, are in so perfectly natural a manner wrought up with the rest of the narrative, and the events, miraculous and not miraculous, so intimately interwoven, that, on receiving a sufficient evidence of the truth of one part of the history, we cannot easily refuse to allow the authenticity of the whole. The collateral testimonies of Jews and Gentiles to the miracles of Christianity are, however, neither scanty nor obscure. Josephus, in a passage of his Jewish Antiquities, of which the genuineness, although doubted by some persons, is supported by numerous critical evidences, has expressly mentioned the miracles and resurrection, as well as the life and death of Jesus lib. xvIII, ch. iii, § 3.* Pontius Pilate recorded the miracles of Christ in that journal of his government which, in conformity with a well-known practice of the Romans, he appears to have transmitted to the metropolis, to be enrolled in the archives of the empire. These Acta Pilati are mentioned by Tertullian and Eusebius, and were expressly appealed to as affording a proof of the truth of the Christian miracles, by Justin Martyr, in his public apology, addressed to the emperor Antoninus and his senate: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. II, cap. 2. Tertull. Apol. cap. 21. Justin. Apol. 1, pp. 65. 72. Ed. * Γίνεται δὲ κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον Ιησοῦς, σοφὸς ἀνὴς, εἴγε ἄνδρα αὐτὸν λέγειν χρή· ἦν γὰς παραδόξων ἔργων ποιητὴς, διδασκαλος ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἡδονῇ τἀληθῆ δεχομένων· καὶ πολλοὺς μὲν Ιουδαίους, πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ελληνικοῦ ἐπηγάγετο. ὁ Χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν. καὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδείξεί τῶν πρώτων ἀνδρῶν παρ' ἡμῖν, σταυρῷ ἐπιτετιμηκότος Πιλάτου, οὐκ ἐπαύσαντο οὗ γε πρῶτον αὐτὸν ἀγαπήσαντες. ἐφάνη γὰρ αὐτοῖς τρίτην ἔχων ἡμέραν πάλιν ζῶν, τῶν θείων προφητῶν ταῦτά τε καὶ ἄλλα μύρια θαυμάσια περὶ αὐτοῦ εἰςηκότων. εἰς ἔτι νῦν τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἀπὸ τοῦδε ὠνομασμένων οὐκ ἐπέλιπε τὸ φῦλον. "At that time there arose Jesus, a wise man, if, indeed, he ought to be called a man; for he was a worker of miracles, and a teacher of those persons who gave a willing ear to the truth; and he was followed by many persons, both Jews and Greeks. He was (or was called) Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of our leading men, had caused his crucifixion, those who had formerly loved him still persevered in their attachment. For, on the third day, he again appeared to them, alive-the inspired prophets having declared these and a multitude of other wonderful things respecting him. Up to the present day the people, who from him have derived the name of Christians, continue to subsist." This passage is found in all the copies of the works. of Josephus now extant, whether printed or manuscript, and also in certain ancient translations of them: and it is quoted by Eusebius and many other fathers, in the fourth century. The objections to its genuineness are ably answered in Horne's Introd. vol. 2, p. 1, chap. vii. Ben. That the miracles of Christ and his apostles actually took place was, also, more or less directly allowed by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, who, unable to refute the evidences of their reality, contented themselves with attributing these wonderful works to the power of magic; and a somewhat similar admission is made by those Jewish enemies of Christianitythe authors of the 'Talmud: see Lardner, 4to edit., vol. iii. 557, vol. iv, 113-149, 209-250, 311–348. VI. In the preceding sections, our attention has been almost exclusively directed to the credibility of the four historical writers of the New Testament-Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These writers, however, were far indeed from being the only Christian witnesses of the truth of that miraculous history which is recorded in their Gospels. All the twelve apostles (Matthias having been substituted for Judas) and others of the earliest followers of Christ, persons who had heard his doctrine and beheld his actions, were engaged in the same work. They proclaimed the principles of Christianity, and adduced the miracles of Christ, as well as their own, in proof of the divine origin of the religion which they taught: see Acts x, 39, &c. That preeminent miracle, the spontaneous resurrection of their Divine Master from the dead, was more especially a fact to which they all appealed, and with the truth of which (according to their own account of the matter) they were all personally acquainted: for the apostle Paul assures us that the risen Jesus had appeared first to Peter, then to all the apostles together, and afterwards "to five bundred brethren at once:" 1 Cor. xv, 6. Now, the numerous individuals who were thus engaged in bearing their testimony to the miraculous history of the Gospel, went forth as preachers of Christianity into every part of those very countries where the miracles of Christ are said to have taken place, and at a period when the whole circumstances of the case were fresh in the recollection of their hearers: and, although they were surrounded by a host of inveterate enemies, were carried before many formidable tribunals, and were subjected to the most severe examinations, (see, for example, Acts iv. xxiv, xxv, xxvi;) no want of consistency appears to have been discovered in their testimony; nor is there the slightest ground to suppose that their story met with any refutation. To consider this branch of the subject with somewhat more of precision, it is plain that these earliest propagators of the Gospel, in their capacity of witnesses of the miracles and resurrection of Christ, were neither deceived nor deceivers. That they were not deceived appears from two considera tions. First, that the apostles-the principal persons thus engaged, and who had been present with Jesus during the whole course of his ministry-were no enthusiasts or fanatics: for the four Gospels (considered as genuine and generally credible histories) afford abundant evidence that they were simple, sober, and unsophisticated persons; that, so far from being distinguished by eager credulity, they were full of fears, prone to distrust, and peculiarly slow and cautious in the reception of Christian truth. Secondly, that the very numerous miracles, to the performance of which they bore testimony, are described as having been subjected to their frequent, yet cool and deliberate observation, and as being at the same time of far too decided a character to admit of any mistake or delusion. When, for example, the Lord Jesus, after he had publicly expired on the cross, and had been as publicly watched in his grave, repeatedly appeared alive in the midst of their company, conversed with them, ate with them, and showed them his wounds when they saw him, heard him, and handled him, -it is certain that they could not be deluded, when they admitted the fact of his resurrection. That the apostles were not deceivers, is a point equally susceptible of moral demonstration. The entire candour and honesty manifested by two of their number, in recording the humiliation of their master, as well as their own faults and those of their brethren, have already been noticed; nor can any thing be more evident than the simplicity and godly sincerity which distinguish the Epistles of Paul, Peter, James, Jude, and John. Jesus himself was denominated the Truth; and from various passages of the New Testament it is manifest, that a deep sense of the importance of truth was one principal characteristic of his followers. The personal virtue of the apostles is indeed indisputable; they were engaged in propagating the strictest code of morality which had ever been heard of in the world; and they were thus engaged, under sanctions and motives of unspeakable weight and moment. More especially, it was a doctrine explicitly recognized among them, that Satan was the father of lies, and that liars were exposed to eternal punishment in the world to come see John viii, 44; Rev. xxii, 15. The veracity of the apostles may also be justly measured by their disinterestedness. They sought no temporal advantages; they pursued no outward emoluments; they engaged in a career fraught with inconveniences, dangers, labours, and sorrows; they gave up all that was naturally dear to them, and sacrificed their pleasures, their comforts, and their worldly |