THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY I From the collectihh' of^ Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. h The person charging this material is re- « sponsible for its return to the library from I which it was withdrawn on or before the | Latest Date stamped below. | h' Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN r \ i THE LIBBABY OF THE VWVERHTY OF lEtiSSIS t. < m o o ©oBc James K.ciy Jf ^C? fltilaclftlpliia JoKr.J.Ka}’ 5c C° fitt^sbui'^. THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY BY ALEXANDER, WATSON, JENYNS, LESLIE, AND PALEY IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. PUBLISHED BV JAMES KAY, JUN. AND BROTHER, PHILADELPHIA. 122 Chestnut Street—near 4th. PITTSBURGH: C. H? KAY &; CO. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1831, by James Kay, Jun. &; Co. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 6 STEREOTYPED BY J. HOWE. WATSON’S APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY- WATSON’S APOLCX5Y FOR THE BIBLE; JENYNS’S VIEW OF THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION; LESLIE’S SHORT AND EASY METHOD WITH DEISTS; PALEY’S VIEW OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. WITH ^ ^eUmfnars Biscoursr, BY ARCH. ALEXANDER, D. D. PEOrESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON IN NEW-JERSEY, ETC. ETC. PUBLISHED BY TAMES KAY, JUN. AND BROTHER, PHILADELPHIA. 122 Chestnut Street—near 4th. PITTSBURGH: C. 11. KAY & CO. ,:4K It-p i^: :i^ ? A^ ; ♦. "'v .’ ■ >**'■ V- ^ ... ’> •?''' ' ‘-.t : m\iir.''^''‘- ■-«^- • ft*.' * •^*-' - ^- "• ■■ ''. i» . ■ . ' ' " . ■* * -^v. ' • •’ ■-,‘v.NY ^ *■ ’■■“ -»• - ^■ ' ■ v 1' ^ '(•»»- i %.. , W ' V '\\d. 4 l/,i V ADVERTISEMENT. ^ The Collection of Treatises now offered to the pub 'lie, upon the Evidences of the Christian Religion, will be found to comprise, in a neat and condensed form, a body of most important argument upon this interesting subject. The Preliminary Essay of the Rev. Dr. Alex¬ ander will afford the reader a useful survey of the general topics, and also introduce more fully to his acquaintance, the celebrated authors whose works we have collected, Paley, Watson, Jenyns, and Leslie. It is believed that a large and respectable class of pri¬ vate Christians, and especially students of theology, will find it an advantage to receive, in a pocket volume, the most select fruits of learned labor in defence of our holy religion. To those whose time does not allow of extensive investigation, as well as those who con¬ sult economy, this little compilation will probably be welcome; more particularly as there is no volume, of whatever size, in the English language, which offers so valuable a syllabus of these fundamental discus sions. At a time like the present, when adventurous specu¬ lation is at its height, there is no friend of Christianity who may not profit by a recurrence to such a manual ; in which he will find spread before his mind the great proofs of religion, for the enlargement of his know¬ ledge, the resolution of his doubts, and the abundant corroboration of his faith. Any one of the works in¬ cluded is singly valuable. One or two of them, in a complete form, are exceedingly rare, and they consti 10 ADVERTISEMENT. tute together a truly Christian panoply. The Pub¬ lishers indulge some confidence, therefore, in com¬ mitting this work to the impartial and enlightened judgment of clergymen, theological students, instruct¬ ors of youth, and inquiring men of every class. It contains nothing characteristic of particular denomi¬ nations ; nothing which does not rest on the basis of our common Christianity. This Collection is neatly printed, and embellished with a likeness of Bishop Watson; and no care or labor has been spared in endeavoring to issue a book in all respects worthy of public attention. Should it meet with encouragement, it is proposed to follow it by similar collections upon allied subjects. THE PUBLISHERS. CONTENTS. VOL. 1. I. A Preliminary Discourse on the Evidences of Chris¬ tianity ; with a short account of the Treatises which these volumes contain. By Archibald Alexander, D. D., Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J.Page 15 II. An Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters, addressed to Edward Gibbon, Esq., Author of the ‘ His¬ tory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.’ By R. Watson, D. D., F. R. S., and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.45 III. An Apology for the Bible, in a Series of Letters, ad¬ dressed to Thomas Paine, Author of a Book entitled ‘ The Age of Reason, Part the Second, being an Investi¬ gation of True and of Fabulous Theology.’ By R. Wat¬ son, D. D., F. R. S., Lord Bishop of Llandaff, and Re¬ gius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cam¬ bridge.105 rV A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Re¬ ligion. By Soame Jenyns, Esq.191 V. A Short and Easy Method with the Deists. In a Letter to a Friend. By the Rev. Charles Leslie, M. A. . . 231 VoL. II. VI. A View of the Evidences of Christianity. In three Parts. By William Paley, D. D., Archdeacon of Car¬ lisle.15 ;. v ' ♦»•>%■>-'.t • •. y /•' V ' ^ S> ix 7 - K- :,t'-;>-. /vf" .f.'iif. I’Vf/' '* |_v. ,^- '(*^■•■'*1 • (!*;,*<■( Jii.>■>.-■!•iA/')'*'’' ...>i fr VVi'IfHSU'-i '^' t ‘^OfJrriAv X nrt X) ^oifcarr-'? •; ;;- io ^(; ■V3i t Sldf-^ T'Jo* rwan,^ : i:J;V.r' Sfe£.»r,;... ,3:’J>!*o 74i'..:'■-/rn ^ 'fiif nt vlirsiviO ^ ij n; y-i v:, utyK^u^. ,m' •^:>S or ^ h~’ •Tff'M jH!or>^fe ad«!,T *!,> ; ; |ii [-/.(vY ,.’^^* ,}t( :' d()X ' ' ' - V = •"'■ •' ^ '• .V - ... , 4 . . . ... . ,.rsf'f.. , :^. fffi v->iv vi JmT-**' . , ./“K » , . ■I '-y^ i v^jL’ *riT:r-.v - i? ffl. o{}-) d^KvJ •,' tf^Y-bnti A ..V loS .- <91^71 i(tj V^f * (i 4^.. - ' * ' * ■--- ■4^ ■ •y . \ * JUl.-nV./ •M' * ^ '■ hi ' ‘ •;. ij '-c .iX'/ A .r? -•;, '.-tl^ ,^p v:5^ -Jff pw W '* .i-v ■ ■■ • r 4 A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE TREATISES WHICH THESE VOLUMES CONTAIN. BY ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D. PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, N. J. 13 B ii \ ■ V. >■ ■ «* • W.- It- / -'V' >■ ^ • *• tf"- ': » V > -r ■ ;<:a, » .% - 3'>. ':-.V'^' ■ «<'• ,- V' i* ' * "S ^ ■.A » t . ■ a^.;ytK»ici.'^/^£i!jii... UJ34 • iV . ■ •'--■■■■ ^ .:i rffefAi re.. ■-iarj^’.."i;iti' SH’r r V- ^T#tjrv ,; f " -:' • *»*' . #wV ' * 0/;;4:;^fl^r o; i* .ij,; ' t . 4. ^ii ^ . .r. e .. ■;^.Hvm:. V". ^»p?' '. .Jr'* •■^ -- ■ . V . • ■ ’t .,1^. - ■ 3''s' W- ■ ' <« .rT' r». •' ■'■ • . ^.- ■ . . .; 'V :/ “>1^- s , , J ri. ‘ 'ifT ■ '-'T ’3f.-*. «• . V ■ V ■w^ > % ff >«• • .U: 4 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. Whatever may be the truth in regard to religion, it must be ad mitted to be the most important subject which can possibly occupy the thoughts of a rational creature. It cannot be wise to treat it, as many have done, with levity and ridicule : for even on the supposi¬ tion that there is no true religion, it is a serious thing that it has got such a hold of the human mind, that it cannot be shaken off; so that men of the noblest powers of intellect and the highest moral courage have been subdued and led captive by its impressions. And they who boast a complete exemption from its influence, and glory in the name of atheist or sceptic, do nevertheless often betray a mind ill at ease, and in the extremity of their distress are sometimes heard to call upon that God whose existence they have denied, and to implore that mercy which they have been accustomed to deride. It has been said, that atheists are of all men the most afraid of invisible powers; they tremble at their own shadow, and are averse to be left alone in the dark. They seem to be haunted vdth a secret apprehension that the reality of religion will at some moment flash upon their conviction. It is with them a common saying, that “ fear made the godsbut it would be much more true to assert, that fear made atheists; for what but the dread of a Supreme Being could be a motive strong enough to lead men to contend so earnestly agains the existence of God ? Few men, even among the irreligious, are willing to be reckoned atheists. Indeed, a man should first take leave of his reason before he advocates an opinion demonstrated to be false by every thing which we behold. The name deist is doubtless much more honorable than atheist; but many who pro¬ fess to believe in a great First Cause, have no more religion than the atheist: their faith has no effect upon them, and can have none, because their God is not a person —^nor an intelligent voluntary agent, by whom the world was made, but a sort of blind power, 15 DR. ALEXANDER’S 16 which pervades the universe; a kind of active principle which exerts itself in ten thousand different ways, but has no existence separate from the universe in which it dwells, and which it moulds and animates. Such a God commands no respect, and inspires no dread. No wonder that deists of this school have no religious feel¬ ings, and, except in name, are not in the least distinguished from the bhndest atheists. Epicurus did not deny the existence of the gods; but he took care to invest them with such attributes, and to remove them so far off as to have no concern whatever in the creation or government of the world. They were consequently not hkely to interfere with him in his career of pleasure. Give the sensualist a God who takes no notice of his conduct, and who possesses no attribute which will lead him to punish the guilty, and he will be well pleased with the idol, and may be disposed to contend for the reahty of his existence. It is the justice of God which drives men from his presence, to hide themselves in the dark¬ ness of infidehty. This guilty dread of the Almighty is a sure evidence that man is not in his right condition. An innocent crea¬ ture would dehght in approaching to the Best of Beings. But, leaving as incorrigible all those who deny the moral govern¬ ment of God, let us see whether they who are advocates for natural rehgion, are standing on safe and solid ground. It is a plausible argument a priori, that God would not place man in this world without furnishing him with the means of knowing, and the ability to perform his duty; and as reason is his guide in other matters, so reason must be a sufficient guide in mattei’s of religion. But what if man has forsaken the state in which his maker placed him ? We see that he is a free agent, and therefore he may have acted per¬ versely, and brought himself into difficulties out of which he cannot extricate himself He may, by his own folly, have lost a large por¬ tion of that knowledge, with which he was originally endowed. It would be very unreasonable to make this supposition, if nothing but wisdom, rectitude, and purity had ever been observed in the human kind. But when we see how much ignorance, how much palpable error, how much perverseness, how much moral disorder, and how much misery are prevalent among men, we are constrained to admit it to be probable, that the human race stand in need of something more than their own reason to guide them in the way to happiness; or even to assure them that happiness is attainable. It is in vain to talk of the powers of nature and the hght of reason. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 1 when we see millions of men groping in darkness, and stnmhling on the precipice of ruin. Man needs help; he needs instruction ; he needs a remedy for the moral disorders of his nature. And here the question occurs, has any remedy been found effectual to remove or mitigate these evils ? Has religion been able to do any thing for our race ? Alas! in regard to most rehgions, they have rather aggra¬ vated than cured the malady. We plead not for idolatry, in any of its pompous forms: it carries absurdity and impiety in its very face. It binds the soul of man with bonds the most cruel. It degrades him to the dust, and renders him capable of every thing mean and vile. There have been innumerable forms of idolatry; some of which have been more mild and less monstrous than others ; but every system of idolatry is an abomination. Towards God it is treason and rebellion; and in relation to man it is defiling and mur¬ derous. Cruelty and obscenity have ever been the characteristics of idolatry. Whether such religion is better or worse than blank" atheism, we need not stop to dispute. Both evils are deadly; and the choice would be difficult between some forms of superstition and atheism itself. When we reject all the religions which come under the denomina¬ tion of Pagan superstition, all of which are idolatrous and demo- falizing, we have cast off a large part of what has gone by this name, in all ages of the world; and would to God it were as easy to reject this whole system of absurdity, blood, and vileness from the world, as it is to exclude it from all share in our approbation! Here then is one fact for which the deist should be able to account. It is, that while the world has been for thousands of years overrun with gross idolatry, which has infected the learned and polished, as well as the rude, there have been some nations exempt from this general and debasing evil. Formerly, the small nation of the Jews, though much less learned and refined than the Egyptians, Greeks or Ro¬ mans, maintained the doctrme of the Unity of God, and the duty of rendering to him spiritual worship and cordial obedience. For nearly two tliousand years past other nations have been found, cast¬ ing off the gross superstitions of Paganism; and at this time, when we cast our eye over the map of the world, we descry some lumin¬ ous spots from which the darkness of polytheism and gross idolatry has been dispelled. Now it is a fact, obvious to every observer, that the oiily people in the world who are exempt from gross idola¬ try are those who have been enlightened by the Bible. I do not 18 DR. ALEXANDER’S except Mohammedans, for all the best parts of their system were borrowed from the Bible. They are merely a corrupt sect of Chris¬ tian heretics; for they acknowledge the divine origin of both the Jewish and Christian Scripbares, pretending, however, that these are exceedingly corrupted and interpolated. But let us return to the question which I wish the deist to exercise his ingenuity in solving. It is, how it has happened that the Bible has been the only means of destropng idolatry in the world ? This effect is not confined to ancient times: very recently, whole tribes of degraded savages have rejected their idolatrous superstitions, under the influence of Christianity. Look at the So¬ ciety and Sandwich islands:—look at the converted Greenlanders, Hottentots, Caffres, and Negroes, and explain the strange and happy transformation which has taken place. That must have been a wonderful imposture which has been attended with effects so bene¬ ficial to man. It cannot be denied, that Christianity and civilization are nearly related to each other, and that those nations which per mit and encourage the free and general reading of the Scriptures, are, everywhere, the foremost in the race of improvement, and in the enjo5rment of rational liberty. It is indeed objected by the deist, that Christianity has been the occasion of innumerable evils -that it has given rise to wars, and many bloody persecutions. Now, it would be impossible to devise an objection which has less foundation than this. I can hardly per¬ suade myself, that any man who has carefully read the New Testa¬ ment, can be serious in alleging such things against Christianity. Christ, it is true, did predict that his religion would be the occasion of strife and division, even amongst the nearest relatives ; but this not fi-om any thing in itself which naturally tended to produce such evils; but entirely from the wickedness of men, who would set themselves in opposition to the truth, and persecute those who em¬ braced it: a persecution which would be more virulent towards the members of their own families ; so that the prediction has often been verified, “ a man’s foes shall be those of his own household.” It will also be conceded, that Christianity has often been misimder- stood and grossly perverted by its professors ; and that under its sa¬ cred name, though with an opposite spirit, persecutions have been carried on, the mere recital of which is enough to make us shudder. But who does not see, that, while it is as evident as the noon-day light that this is not the genius of Christianity, the blame of these PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 19 e:nls cannot in justice be charged upon the system ? As well might we chhrge liberty with all the w'ars and all the misery, occasioned by the contests to maintain or recover this inestimable blessing. Any system, however pure and benevolent, is liable to abuse in the hands of men; and in all such cases, the system cannot be judged by its perversion and abuse, but by an impartial examination of its own genuine principles. Such an investigation Christianity challenges ; and indeed a verdict has already been given in her favor, by many of her opposers themselves. They have not been able to resist the wisdom, the purity, and the peaceful tendency of the gospel; so that unwilhng praise has been extorted from themselves. If the Christian rehgion is “a cunningly devised fable,” there are two things relative to it, which can never be satisfactorily accounted for. The one is, that a falsehood should be surrounded with so many of the evidences and circumstances, by which truth is charac¬ terized ; the other, that an imposture, proceeding from minds exceed- ingly corrupt, should be marked with such purity in its moral prin¬ ciples, and such a benevolent and peaceful tendency in all its pro¬ visions and precepts. Wliatever objections may be made to the system of Christianity, these difficulties will stand in the Way of the deist ; and he never can overcome them. Let us calmly contemplate this subject. The Christian religion is founded on facts, for the truth of which an appeal is made to tes¬ timony,—the ground on which all other ancient facts are received. If these facts did i*eally occur, then Christianity must be true. If they did not, why can it not be shown ? Was there ever a case, in wliich transactions so public, and in the truth of which so many persons were interested, w'ere so circumstanced as to baffle every efibrt to detect the fraud attempted to be imposed on the world ? Here then is a wonderful thing. The defenders of Christianity ap¬ peal to facts attested by many competent and credible witnesses; they show that these witnesses could not themselves have been deceived in the nature of the things, concerning which they give their testimony;—they demonstrate from every circumstance of their condition, that they could have had no motive for wishing to propagate the belief of these facts, if they had not been true;— that, in giving the testimony which they did, they put to risk, and actually sacrificed every thing most dear to men;—that, even if they could have been induced by some inconceivable motive to propa¬ gate what they knew to be false, it was morally impossible that 20 DR. ALEXANDER’S they could have persuaded any persons to believe them; because the things related by them being of a recent date and public nature, and the names of persons and places specified, nothing would have been easier than to disprove false assertions so situated. Moreover, the persons who first became disciples of Christ and membere of the church from the declarations of the apostles cannot be supposed to have admitted the truth of these things without examination, for every principle of self-preservation must have been awake to guard them against delusion. By attaching themselves to this new sect “ everywhere spoken against,” and persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles, they did literally forsake all that man holds most dear in this life. If there had existed no persons possessed of power and sagacity, who were deeply interested in the refutation of falsehoods which would implicate them in disgrace, the evidence would not be so overwhelming as it is; but we know, that all the power and learning of the Jewish nation, and also of the Roman Government, were arrayed against the publishers of the gospel; for just in pro¬ portion as the report of these men gained credit, the conduct of those who persecuted Christ unto death, would appear clothed in the darkest colors. Why did they not, at once, come forward and crush the imposture ? It has also been fully established by the friends of revelation, that we are in possession of the genuine re¬ cords published soon after the events occurred. There is no room for any suspicion that the gospels were the fabrication of a later age than that of the apostles ; or that they have been corrupted and in¬ terpolated, since they were written. And finally, the effects pro¬ duced by the pubhcation of these facts are such as almost to con¬ strain the behef, that the gospel narrative is true: for the rapid and extensive progress of the Christian religion can, upon no other principles, be rationally accormted for. It would be as great a miracle for a few unlearned fishermen and mechanics to be success¬ ful in founding a religion, which in a short time changed the whole aspect of the world, as any recorded in the New Testament. Now, supposing the facts in question to be true, what other, or greater evidence of their truth could we have had, than we already pos¬ sess ? What other facts of equal antiquity are half as well attested ? Let the deist choose any portion of ancient history, and adduce his testimony in proof of the facts, and then compare the evidence in their support, with that which the friends of Christianity have ex¬ hibited for all the material facts recorded in the gospel; and I shall PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 21 be disappointed if he do not, upon an impartial examination, find the latter to be much more various and convincing. But these facts are miraculous. This single circumstance is, in the deistical creed, made to outweigh all the clearest evidence which can be adduced. This therefore may be considered the root of the error; for when it comes to be fairly considered, it must ap¬ pear to be nothing better than an unfounded prejudice. Why should it be considered impossible or unreasonable for God to work a miracle ? Every event was a miracle, before any laws of nature were established. The creation of the universe was a magnificent j miracle. And if the great author of this system choose occasionally ! to regulate it by an extraordinary interposition of his power, what principle is violated ? Why should human reason so pertinaciously object, as though God had denied himself, or contradicted our rea¬ son ? But the deist insists, that never having seen miracles performed, we cannot reasonably be expected to credit them, on the report of others. And is it true, that it is unreasonable to believe what we ourselves have never experienced ? Upon this principle, the inhabit¬ ants of the tropical regions ought never to beheve in the existence of snow or ice ; and the bhnd man should obstinately refuse to be¬ lieve that there is any such thing as vision by the eyes; or the deaf man, that there is any such thing as hearing by the ears. Miracles do require more proof than common events, as do other events of an extraordinary kind, but when testimony of a certain land and degree is exhibited, the presumption naturally felt against the reahty of such events, is readily overcome in every unprejudiced mind. And if any one wishes to disprove the truth of such facts, he must do it by canvassing the evidence, and shovving that it is insufficient, or inconsistent and contradictory: or he must bring forward testi¬ mony to rebut that which has been exhibited. This is the only ra¬ tional method of proceeding in such a case; yet it has not been pur¬ sued by the opposers of Christianity. There is not to be found in the numerous attacks on the New Testament, a single example of a calm and impartial attempt to prove, by authentic testimony, that such facts as those recorded, never took place. But why has not this been done ? Why have not deists brought forward convincing testimony to prove that these histories are false and unworthy of credit; instead of dealing in irrelevant objections, and throwing out dark suspicions and innuendoes? If the truth is on their side, why have they not 2 22 DR. ALEXANDER’S been able to show that a fraud was committed, and a base impos¬ ture palmed on the world ? The true reason is, that the testimony for the facts recorded in the gospels cannot be impugned by direct attack. There is confessedly no counter testimony. There are no evidences of fraud or ill-design, in the books themselves. The his¬ torians appear to be honest men, and continually speak and act as if they had the fullest assurance of what they relate. They resort to no artifice or finesse. They use no arts to gain popularity, or to accommodate themselves to the prejudices of the people. They are so impartial, that they conceal none of those things which were un¬ favorable to their ow'n character; but freely acknowledge their own faults and errors. Impostors, in the circumstances of the apostles, never could have devised such an artless story; they never could have concealed so perfectly their own true character and design ; and they could never have produced compositions of so great ex¬ cellence. Let any man compare the genuine gospels with those spurious ones which were afterwards circulated, under the names of the apostles and apostolic men, and he will be struck with the remarkable diflference; and yet, as far as relates to natural abilities and learning, it is probable, that these latter writers were fully equal to the evangelists. It is truly wonderful, that uneducated men should have written histories so dignified unimpassioned, simple, and free from weaknesses and puerilities. Nothing can be farther removed from an artfully contrived imposture, than the gos¬ pels of the four Evangelists. But let us, for a moment, assume the hypothesis, that the Chris¬ tian religion is a cunningly devised fable. Let us take the ground occupied by the deist, and let us reason on the subject, upon these principles. And here we are at liberty to suppose any one of seve¬ ral things, still taking it for granted, that the whole narrative is false, so fi\r as miracles are concerned. In the first place, then, let us sup¬ pose that no such person as Jesus Christ ever lived upon the earth; but that the whole history from beginning to end is a forgery. The difficulty on this hypothesis will be to account for the existence of the Christian church, and for the reception of the gospels as true history; for, fix on what period you please, as that in which the im¬ postor began to publish the narrative respecting the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ, it would seem altogether impossible, when the circumstances are well considered, to conceive, how such an enterprise should succeed. Indeed, upon this supposition, the PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 23 New Testament would have carried its own refutation on its face; for it testifies that the church began to be gathered immediately upon the death of Jesus Christ, and had its commencement at Jeru¬ salem. Now on the foregoing hypothesis, the publishers of this his¬ tory began their preaching near to the time and at the place where he was said to have lived and to have performed all the mighty W'orks which are recorded in the gospels. Let us imagine, then, an impostor announcing these as facts at Jerusalem; as facts which had lately occurred, and which were witnessed by thousands— would not every man, woman, and child have exclaimed: “ This whole story is false—these things could not have happened without our hearing or knowing something of them. What an audacious falsehood! He pretends that for a long time this person, whom he calls Jesus Christ, resided among us, and preached his doctrines pubhcly, and wrought stupendous miracles; but we know all this to be false—a barefaced imposture, unsupported by the shadow of evidence.” And if we assume the ground, that the attempt was made at any other period, or in any other place, the absurd consequences flowing from this hypothesis will be equally manifest. Deists, therefore, have not commonly been fond of taldng this ground, although it is far the most consistent deistical hypothesis; for if you admit that part of the history which contains events not miraculous, you can hardly avoid receiving these also, so closely are they interwoven to¬ gether, and dependent on each other. Volney, L’Aquinio, and a few others, in the time of the French revolution, boldly advocated this theory, and denied that any such persons as Jesus Christ or his apos¬ tles ever lived in the world. Now as I said, this scheme is the most consistent for the rejecters of Christianity; but is it rational ? is it credible? I could persuade myself of the reality of a thousand well attested miracles, before I could believe that the whole world has been deceived in such a matter. Indeed, it would at one stroke de¬ stroy all the credibility of history; for if Jesus Christ never existed, from w'hom such a series of events have flowed down to our own times, how can we be satisfied that any man whose exploits are re¬ corded in history ever lived ? According to this, Volney might have saved himself the trouble of accounting for the ruin of ancient cities and empires; for perhaps, they never existed. True, he saw the splendid ruins of Palmyra; but these exquisitely wrought pil¬ lars might possibly have been a mere freak of nature, in one of her 24 DR. ALEXANDER'S wild moods. Rational belief always lies in the midst between two absurdities. While the deist shuns what he calls the weak credulity of believing in miracles, he falls into the monstrous absurdity of de¬ nying all testimony. And in this case he can be confronted, not only with the testimony of Christians, but with that of Heathen and Jewdsh writers. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, all bear ample- testimony against this visionary theory. The first of these lived during the first century of the Christian era. His character as an historian stands too high to need any eulogium or description. After giving an account of the terrible fire by which a large part of the city of Rome was consumed, and of the exertions made to rebuild and beautify the city, he adds, “But neither by human aid, nor by the cosily largesses by which he attempted to propitiate the gods, was the prince able to remove from himself the infamy w'hich had attached to him in the opinion of all, for having ordered the con¬ flagration. To suppress this rumor, therefore, Nero caused others to be accused, on whom he inflicted exquisite torments, who were al¬ ready hated by the people for their crimes, and were vulgarly de¬ nominated Christians. This name they derived from Christ their leader, who in the reign of Tiberius was put to death as a criminal, while Pontius Palate was procurator. This destructive superstition, repressed for a while, again broke out, and spread not only through Judea where it originated, but reached this city also, into which flow all things that are vile and abominable, and where they are encouraged. At first, they only were seized who confessed that they belonged to this sect; and afterwards a vast multitude, by the information of these, who were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for hatred of the human race. These, clothed in the skins of wild beasts, were exposed to derision, and were either torn to pieces by dogs, or were affixed to crosses; or when the day-light was past, were set on fire, that they might serve instead of lamps for the night.” Suetonius lived also at the close of the first and beginning of the second century. In his life of Claudius the emperor, he has these words, “ He banished the Jews from Rome who were con¬ tinually raising disturbances, Christ (Chrestus) being their leader.” And in the life of Nero, he says, “The Christians were punished, a sort of men of a new and magical religion.” But there is nothing among the testimonies of Heathen writers of this period so full and satisfactory, with regard to the existence PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 25 and wide spread of Christianity, as the Letter of Pliny the Younger, a translation of which, therefore, I will here insert, although it has been often published. “ Pliny to the emperor Trajan wisheth health, &c. It is my cus¬ tom, Sir, to refer all things to you of which I entertain any doubt; for who can better direct me in my hesitation or instruct my igno¬ rance ? I was never before present at any of the trials of Christians; so that I am ignorant both of the matter to be inquired into, and of the nature of the punishment which should be inflicted, and to what length the investigation is to be extended. I have, moreover, been in great uncertainty, whether any difference ought to be made on account of age, betw^een the young and tender, and the robust; and also whether any place should be allowed fcr repentance and pardon; or whether those who have once been Christians should be punished, although they have now ceased to be such, and w'hether punishment should be inflicted merely on account of the name W'here no crimes are charged, or whether crimes connected with the name are the proper object of punishment. This, however, is the method which I have pursued in regard to those who were brought before me as Christians. I interrogated them whether they were Christians; and upon their confessing that they were, I put the question to them a second and a third time; threatening them with capital punishment; and when they persisted in their confes¬ sion, I ordered them to be led away to execution: for whatever might be the nature of their crime, I could not doubt that perverse¬ ness and inflexible obstinacy deserve to be punished. There were j others addicted to the same insanity, whom, because they w’ere Ro- j man citizens, I have noted down to be sent to the city. In a short space, the crime diffusing itself, as is common, a great variety of cases have fallen under my cognizance. An anonymous libel w^as exhibited to me, containing the names of many persons who denied that they were Christians or ever had been; and as an evidence of their sincerity, they joined me in an address to the gods, and to your image, which I had ordered to be brought along with the images of the gods for this very purpose.—Moreover, they sacrificed with i wine and frankincense, and blasphemed the name of Christ; none ' of which things can those who are really Christians be constrained I to do. Therefore I judged it proper to dismiss them. Others named by the informer, at first confessed themselves to be Christians and afterwards denied it; and some asserted, that although they had C 26 DR. ALEXANDER’S been Christians, they had ceased to be such, for more than three years, and some as much as twenty years. All these worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and execrated Christ. Bui they affirmed, that this was the sum of their fault or error, that they were accustomed, on a stated day, to meet together before day, tt sing a hymn to Christ in concert, as to a God, and to bind them selves by a solemn oath not to commit any wickedness—but on the contrary to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery—also, never to violate tneir promise, nor deny a pledge committed to them. These things being performed, it was their custom to separate; and to meet again at a promiscuous, innocent meal; which, however, they had omitted, from the time of the publication of my edict, by which, according to your orders, I forbad assemblies of this sort. On receiv¬ ing this account, I judged it to be the more necessary to examine by torture, two females, who were called deaconesses. But I dis¬ covered nothing except a depraved and immoderate superstition. Whereupon, suspending further judicial proceedings, I have re¬ course to you for advice; for it has appeared to me, that the subject is highly deserving of consideration, especially on account of the great number of persons whose lives are put into jeopardy. Many persons of all ages, sexes, and conditions are accused, and many more will be in the same situation; for the contagion of this super¬ stition has not merely pervaded the cities, but also all villages and country places; yet it seems to me that it might be restrained and corrected. It is a matter of fact, that the temples which were al¬ most deserted begin again to be frequented; and the sacred solem¬ nities which had been long intermitted are again attended; and victims for the altars are now readily sold, which, a while ago, were almost without purchasers. Whence it is easy to conjecture what a multitude of men might be reclaimed, if only the door to repent¬ ance was left open.” The answer of the emperor Trajan to this remarkable letter of Pliny is also still extant; and there has never been a doubt raised respecting the genuineness of either of them. “ Trajan to Pliny—Health and happiness. “You have taken the right method, my Pliny, in dealing with those who have been brought before you as Christians; for it is impossible to establish any universal rule which will apply to all cases. They should not be sought after: but when they are brought before you and convicted, they must be punished. Nevertheless, if any one PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 27 deny that he is a Christian, and confirm his assertion by his con¬ duct ; that is, by worshipping our gods, although he may be sus¬ pected of having been one in time past; let him obtain pardon on repentance. But in no case permit a libel against any one to be re¬ ceived, unless it be signed by the person who presents it, for that would be a dangerous precedent, and in nowise suitable to the present age.” From these epistles, written at the very commencement of the second century, we learn how rapidly and extensively Christianity, notwithstanding all opposition, had spread over the Roman empire. Long before Pliny wrote, the temples and sacrifices had been almost forsaken; and even now the multitude implicated in the charge of being Christians was so great, that he suspended all judi¬ cial proceedings against them, until he should consult the emperor as to what was proper to be done. It must by this time be sufficiently evident, that they undertake the defence of a desperate cause, who maintain the hypothesis, that such a person as Christ never existed, but that he is merely a ficti¬ tious being. Let us then in the next place inquire, what M’ill be the conse¬ quences of supposing that Jesus Christ did live and teach in Judea about eighteen centuries ago, and that he was apprehended by the Jewish rulers and priests, and at their instigation was crucified under the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, in the reign of the emperor Tiberius; but that all that is recorded in the gospels re¬ specting his divine mission, his miraculous birth, his wonderful works, and his resurrection from the dead, was invented by certain fraudulent disciples after the death of their Master. This I suppose is the commonly received theory of deists, and if it cannot stand the test of a thorough scrutiny, their cause is manifestly untenable, and should be abandoned. Here again, there may be a choice in the selection of the period when these miracles began to be pub¬ lished, and these gospels to be received. If this is said to have oc¬ curred immediately after the death of Christ, the same difficulties press on the scheme, which were shown to follow upon the former hypothesis: that is, if such an imposture had been attempted, the falsehood of the history would have been evident to all the world. To one making such declarations at Jerusalem, any one of the peo¬ ple might have replied, “ The person concerning whom you testify was known to us. He spent much of his time in this city, and was 23 DR, ALEXANDER’S a teacher and public preacher, and was seized at the feast of the passover by our rulers, and delivered over to Pilate as a seditious and dangerous person; but as to what you say about his raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, health to the sick, and performing other wonderful works, there is not a word of truth in it, and such things were never heard of before—and, moreover, these books which you wish to palm upon us are utterly unworthy of credit, and are replete with falsehoods, known to be such by all the peo¬ ple of this land. How could any imp)Ostor have been successful in gaining credence to his imposture in such circumstances ? But the deist will select a later period for the commencement of the fraud. Suppose we say, a hundred years after Christ was cru¬ cified , we cannot bring it lower down without encumbering the hypothesis with greater difficulties and absurdities than by choosing this time, on account of the testimonies of numerous Christian writers in corroboration of the gospel-history. A hundred years, then, after the death of Christ, some persons undertake to give out and publish in writing that he performed those mighty works, which none before had heard a whisper of. This imposture could not then have been by the^instrumentality of the immediate followers of Christ, for these must have been dead. The question therefore naturally arises, did the Christian Church exist before this time and on what principles was it founded ? If it did not exist before! then the book now published would carry its falsehood on its face! as It describes all the particulars of the first planting of the church at Jerusalem, and its rapid extension over the world. If the church did exist a fact capable of the clearest proof—men must hrfve be¬ come the disciples of Christ without any persuasion that he was a divine messenger, or possessed any extraordinary commission: yea, the first Christians must have forsaken the religious customs of their forefathers, and exposed themselves to every species of perse¬ cution for the sake of a man who was crucified as a malefactor, and without any belief that he had risen again and was now alive. This indeed gives us a new view of the origin of Christianity, and a new view of human nature also; but is it a reasonable hypothe¬ sis ? Can any man believe it ? How, upon these principles, can we account for the extraordinary progress of Christianity ? About this time, it has been shown from the most respectable heathen his- tonans, this religion had extended over Asia Minor, and had reached Rome: but by what means was this effected, when. ac« PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 29 cording to the hypothesis, there was not a pretence of any thing miraculous? And how did these cunning impostors who now arose, contrive to persuade the Christian church that their religion was founded on these miraculous facts, which they had never heard of before ? And how did they bring it about that at once these forged books should be received by every portion of the church as the writings of the apostles and immediate followers of Christ? How wonderful, that a society existing in many different countries should be persuaded henceforth to adopt an entirely new creed, and to appeal to books as containing the true origin of their religion, which w’ere just now written by impostors, and replete with extravagant falsehoods! The whole thing is incredible, and indeed impossible. Such an imposture could not have been suc¬ cessful. It is not more certain that Christianity now exists, than that the belief of miracles was coeval with its origin. A Christian without belief of the divine mission and resurrection of Christ, is a monstrous absurdity. And why did not the early enemies of Chris¬ tianity, such as Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, lay open the impos¬ ture ? Why did they not utterly deny the facts recorded in the gospel ? This they dared not do. Instead of this, they set them¬ selves to account for these wonderful works by magic ; as did also the Jewish doctors whose opinions are in the Talmud. Tliis fact shows most conclusively that in the early ages the current of uni¬ versal tradition, as well as written records, was so strong in favor of the miracles of Christ, that they could not be successfully de¬ nied. This led the opposers of the gospel to pretend that other men had performed as great miracles as Jesus. And, perhaps, the deist could not now adopt a wiser course than to admit the mi¬ raculous facts, and reason against therh on the same principles as the old impugners of the Christian religion. From every view which we can take of this subject, it is evident, that whether the gospel be true or not, it is supported by all the testimony and by all the collateral evidence which it could have, if it were true. That is, we must believe this history, or relinquish the principles of reason which guide us in other cases. The historical evidence is the first great obstacle in the way of adopting the deistical hypothesis; the second is, that the purity, consistency, and moral excellence of these writings cannot be re¬ conciled with the idea that they are the works of vile impostors. It is an old and trite argument, that such a book as the New Testa- C 2 L 30 DR. ALEXANDER’S ment could not be the production of bad men, because it is stamped with so much holiness, and is replete with such excellent views of duty and pure morality, that men of depraved minds could have possessed neither the ability nor the will to be the authors of it. What wicked man would have ever thought of inventing such dis¬ courses as those of Christ ? Or how can it be conceived, that an impostor, in whom there must be a combination of the most de¬ grading vices, could have given such pure and perfect lessons of morality, as those contained in the Epistles of the Apostles ? If, therefore, all historical documents were buried in oblivion, there is that internal light beaming from every page of this sacred volume, which will ever recommend it to the approbation of the good. And this leads me to a remark, which may seem to be rather invidious, but which is supported by an overpowering weight of evidence,' that the true cause of deism is to be sought, not in the weakness of the evidence of divine revelation, nor in the recondite nature of the arguments by which it is supported; but in the unhappy state of mind with which the subject is approached. A heart glowing with love to God and man; in which all must acknow¬ ledge moral excellence in man consists; would so prepare the mind to appreciate the evidences of Christianity, both external and internal: that I am persuaded nothing more would be necessary to produce a strong faith in the Scriptures of the New Testament; as not only containing a true and faithful history, but as being given by divine inspiration, and therefore, an infallible rule to guide us in all matters of truth and duty. But It IS now time that I should give some account of the trea¬ tises included in the following volume. In the selection of these the writer has had no concern, but he approves of the plan of the editor, and is of opinion that by comprising so many works of standard excellence in one convenient duodecimo, he will be ren¬ dering a real service to the cause of revealed religion, and will turnish a desired accommodation to students of theology; and to others who are obliged to regard economy in the purchase of books. The grand problem which deists have hitherto failed to solve, is, to account for the existence and rapid progress of Christianity! No man was better fitted to remove this difficulty, had it been pos¬ sible, than Edward Gibbon, Esq., who had access to all the sources PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 31 of information which could be applied to the elucidation of this point. And Christianity is so thoroughly incorporated with the latter part of the history of the Roman empire, that the historian of this period is laid under a necessity of giving some opinion respecting the origin and progress of a system which soon gave complexion to all the transactions of the civilized world. Although Gibbon hated the Christian religion, and would willingly have lent his aid to banish it from the earth ; yet he was too well aware of the difficulty of the subject, to venture a direct and open attack on this citadel of truth, which had already repelled with triumph so many assaults. His attempt, therefore, was to account for this extraordinary fact by referring it to natural causes. This, indeed, was a very indirect method of attaining his end; for even if the reasons assigned had been sufficient to account for the acknow¬ ledged fact, yet these might not have been the real causes. It is a sound rule of reasoning, that the causes which we assign to ac¬ count for effects must not only be adequate, but true. If the con¬ version of the world to Christianity could possibly be accounted for without supposing the interposition of a supernatural power; it might nevertheless have been the effect of miraculous power. But if he had succeeded in his attempt, the arguments for a divine origin of our holy religion would have been greatly diminished; for it is a good rule, that what can be accounted for by natural causes, ought not to be attributed to supernatural powers. It is however, a strong presumptive proof in favor of the historical evidence of the gospels, that such a man, with the stores of an¬ cient knowledge open before him, did not venture to attack it; either by showing that the testimony was inadequate, or by ad¬ ducing other evidence to invalidate that wffiich has been given in support of Christianity. His forbearance, it is certain, was not ow’ing to a want of wall, but to a want of power; and what Gibbon perceived to be impracticable, in vain may any other in¬ fidel undertake to perform. It cannot be said, that the historian W'ent out of his w'ay to meet this question : he could not avoid it. It lay so directly in his path, that he was obliged to acknowdedge the divine origin of Christianity, or to account for its success in some other way. The latter course he chose to pursue; and we have the result of his inquiries, or more properly his conjectures, in the XV. and XVI. Chapters of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In examining this hypothesis the intelligent and k 32 DR. ALEXANDER impartial reader cannot but be struck with the uncertainty and also the inadequacy of the causes assigned for this extraordinary moral revolution, by which the whole aspect and condition of the civil¬ ized world has been entirely changed. It is a matter of some sur¬ prise, that a mind so perspicacious, and so richly furnished, should have been so far satisfied with the reasons assigned as to stake liis reputation as a man of sense and candor upon them, so as to con¬ sent to give them to the world, as an integral part of his splendid work. It is, however, no matter of wonder that he did not pro¬ duce more satisfactory reasons for this grand phenomenon. The truth is, the more closely the circumstances of the case are inves¬ tigated, the more manifest it will become, that nothing better can be said. Infidelity has here done her best, and if she has failed to achieve a victory, the blame should not be laid on her favorite champion, but on the cause, which did not admit of a more plau¬ sible defence. No sooner was the History of the Decline and Fali, published, than a host of assailants entered the field, among whom, however. Doctor Watson, then Regius Professor of Divin¬ ity at Cambridge, and afterwards bishop of Llandaffi stood pre-em¬ inent. And while G-ibbon treated his other antagonists rather cavalierly, he spoke of Watson with great respect. His work against Gibbon was published in the form of Letters to the histo¬ rian, and entitled An Apology for Christianity. This first Apology of our author has been so long out of print, or at least so little circulated in this country, that even young men of learning, who have been attentive to the progress of this controversy, are scarcely aware that such a book exists. It was judicious, there¬ fore, to give it a conspicuous place in this selection. All the friends of Christianity who are familiar with Dr. Watson’s later work, in vindication of the Bible, will be gratified to see any thin g else on this subject from his able pen. To this Apology for Christianity is appended An Address to Scoffers, which hgs been pronounced by good judges not to be surpassed in eloquence and force, by any composition in the English language. To rescue this excellent address from oblivion, is itself an object of no small importance. And it is a composition as much adapted to our own times, as to the period when it was first published. Watson’s second apology, entitled An Apology for the Bi¬ ble, is a work much better knovm in this country than the former. Phis was written in answer to the second part of Paine’s Age of PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 33 Reason. Paine had, by his political Essays, which were well suited to the spirit of the times, acquired a high reputation in this country as a clear and forcible writer. There had never appeared a work in favor of infidelity so well adapted to diffuse the poison through the mass of society. His style was perspicuous, pointed, and energetic; and was spiced with that species of profane ridi¬ cule, which is always found to be remarkably congenial with de¬ praved minds. Moreover, his apparent exemption from all consci¬ entious scruples, with an imposing confidence in the truth of his owm opinions, recommended his work to multitudes, whose con¬ stant effort had been to free themselves from the shackles of con. science, the power of which was chiefly owdng to the remains of a religious belief Such men exulted in finding their own half- formed opinions and wishes boldly brought out, and the truths which they hated, because they were annoyed by them, turned into ridicule. It is impossible to calculate how much evil was pro¬ duced by the profane writings of this impure and intemperate man. Seldom has a defender of the faith stepped forth more opportunely than did bishop Watson, on this occasion. Former infidels had for the most part fought in disguise; they did not openly declare themselves to be the enemies of the Bible. Their reasonings were often abstruse and metaphysical; or so obscure, and remote from common appi'ehension, that their books w-'ere read only by a few , of the learned. But here was a most open, undisguised, and au¬ dacious attack on Christianity; and it was circulated with an in- dustry not often exceeded. To counteract this popular and dan¬ gerous work, bishop Watson composed his answer in a perspicuous, pleasing, and popular style. His extensive learning and intimate acquaintance with the subject enabled him, with manifest ease, to detect the mistakes and expose the sophistiy of Paine, w'ho was really an ignorant man, and so little acquainted with the subject on which he undertook to write, that when he published his first part of the Age of Reason, he seems never to have read the Bible ; and acknowledges that he had no copy at hand. He afterwards procured a Bible, and in some way, w'ent over it, gleaning up such stale objections and arguments, as had been answered a hundred times; but which he brought forward with all the boasting of a man who had just made a wonderful discovery. ■ Watson, through¬ out the work, maintains his dignity and treats his antagonist with courtesy; which, taking into view- Paine’s profane raillery, was no L 34 DR. ALEXANDER’S easy task. In only one instance does he seem to yield to a feeling , of indignation ; and every reasonable man will acquit him of un¬ due severity, when he considers the provocation given by this im- ; pure infidel. And on that occasion he does no more than apply to him the words of Paul to Elymas the sorcerer, “ O full of all subtilty and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ?” It is impossible to calculate how much the Christian community is indebted to bishop Watson, for this able, popular, and seasonable vindication of the Bible, against the most virulent and audacious I assault ever made upon it. The work was extensively circulated, I and very generally read; and in most cases served as an effectual antidote to the poison of the Age of Reason. Other solid answers to Paine were published; and with a limited circulation were useful; but none of them held any competition with the Apology FOR THE Bible ; which quickly passed through numerous editions, both in Greht Britain and in this country; and produced a salutary effect far beyond any other work of a similar kind, which has been published within the recollection of the WTiter. Since, however, the heat of the controversy has subsided, this valuable work is less frequently met with; it is therefore of importance that it should have a place in a manual, where it may be perused again and again, by the rising generation. And this is the more necessary, since a new edition of “ The Age of Reason” has recently been I published in one of our large cities; and as it is evident that the rancorous spirit of infidelity will, as heretofore, gather up the blunted but envenomed shafts which have so often been repelled by the shield of truth, and will continue to renew its desperate assaults against the citadel of divine revelation, until the time shall come when the grand adversary and patron of infidelity shall be driven from the earth and confined to the bottomless pit. Some persons have expressed surprise and a degree of dissatis¬ faction at the title. Apology, which bishop Watson has chosen to give to both his vindications of divine revelation. It seemed to them that this word conveyed the idea of something defective, or erroneous ; and they have been ready to say, that neither Christi¬ anity nor the Bible needed any apology. Now, it is true, that our English word is so underetood by most who hear it; but according to its etymology and ancient use, its import is “a defence.” An A PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 35 Apology is the rendering a reason for any thing. And thus it was the usual name given by the early fathers to their defences of Christianity, .and to these bishop Watson doubtless alludes in the title which he has selected. There are few books concerning which it is more difficult to speak, without being misunderstood, than Soame Jenyns’s Inter¬ nal Evidences of the Christian Religion, which occupies the third place in this collection. That the author exhibits those argu¬ ments here, which had produced a full persuasion of the truth of the New Testament in his own mind, there is little reason to doubt: and that the perusal of this little work has wrought a sim¬ ilar conviction in the minds of many other intelligent persons, is a fact of which there is not wanting abundant proof. And, indeed, judging from the impression which this luminous argument makes on my own mind, I can scarcely conceive how any ingenuous man can resist its force. It is said, I know not upon what authority, that Jenyns began to read the New Testament, with the view of writing against it, but arose from the perusal a confirmed believer; and then gave his own recently received views and convictions, in this little work. A tradition of the same kind has been handed down respecting several other learned men; particularly the fine classical scholar Mr. West. Soame Jenyns was, no doubt, an eccentric genius, and enter¬ tained many extravagant opinions, which badly cohere with a sys¬ tem of Christian doctrines. And even in this little work on the Evidences, which I can cordially recommend in the main, I would by no means make myself responsible for every opinion which the author has expressed. There is strong evidence, however, to in¬ duce us to believe, that this ingenious writer actually experienced the salutary efficacy of those truths which he so ably defended. His Lectures on religious subjects, which were from time to time delivered to a company of select friends, breathe so much of the spirit of genuine piety, that it is hard to believe the writer was not a sincere Christian. In further attestation of the value of this work on The Inter¬ nal Evidences, it may be remarked, that Paley refers to it as containing every thing which is necessary on this branch of the subject; and accordingly he omits making any observations on this topic. The writer would also mention, that he has often heard it as- 36 DR. ALEXANDER’S serted, and never contradicted, that the late Patrick Henry, the celebrated orator of Virginia and of the American revolution, had been in early life skeptical, but was fully satisfied of the truth of the Christian religion, by the perusal of this little treatise of Soame Jenyns. And it is a well-known fact, that the work was re-print¬ ed in a pamphlet form, while he was governor of Virginia, and was widely circulated through the State ; and, as was said and be¬ lieved, under his auspices. It is, at any rate, undoubtedly true that from this period of his life he was the zealous and open advocate of divine revelation, until his dying day. This fact is not left to be handed down merely by tradition; as he took care to leave a full and explicit testimony in favor of Christianity, inserted in his last will and testament, which is on record. The subject of the internal evidences has been ably treated, by other authors. Fuller, Sumner, and Erskine have all written well on this topic ; but by none of these productions has this little work of Jenyns been at all superseded. Leslie’s Easy Method with the Deists, occupies the fourth place in this collection ; but though least, it is not the weakest in argument. This little work may be considered the standing re¬ proach of deists, ever since it was first published. It lays down certain criteria of the truth of historical facts, which it is asserted are applicable to no other than real events. It is shown that all these marks of truth are found to exist in the Mosaic and Evan¬ gelical narratives; and a challenge is given to the infidel to ad¬ duce any statement of facts, known to be false, to which they do apply. Now this is fairly bringing the subject to issue; and if the deist is unable to show that these circumstances meet in other cases, where it is acknowledged that the story is false or uncertain, then certainly, the verdict in the mind of every impartial man should be in favor of the truth of the Bible history. No answer to this work, as far as I know, has ever been attempted ; and after it has been so long before the public, it may be fairly concluded that no satisfactory answer can be given. Here then we have a demonstration of the truth of divine revelation, comprised within a few pages; and although it has been often re-published, yet it can¬ not be too frequently presented to the view of the public, and es¬ pecially of the rising generation. The last treatise in this volume is one concerning which it is wholly unnecessary for me to speak, by way of commendation. PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 37 Paley’s Evidences is a work, which by its merit has become a text-book in the higher seminaries of learning, both in Great Britain, and in this country; and as long as our educated young men are required carefully to study this manual, there will be small danger of their being led away by the plausible but flimsy objections of deists. It is of immense importance to pre-occupy the young mind with just views of the evidences of divine reve¬ lation, before they are exposed to the pestiferous assaults of infidel¬ ity. Young men whose prepossessions are in favor of the Bible, but who want proper instruction on this subject, when they come to encounter the sophistical arguments of skeptics, either expe¬ rience a subversion of their faith, or are thrown into distressing perplexity. No course of education is complete, or even safe, which does not include a thorough examination of the Evidences of the authenticity and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures. There is danger, at present, of imbibing a sickly liberality in regard to religion, the tendency of which is to place truth and error on an equal footing. It is true, in a country where so many conflicting sects exist, it is not expedient that the creed of any one Christian denomination should be inculcated in our public seminaries, to the exclusion of all others; yet certainly the fundamental principles of natural and revealed religion, in which all true Christians agree, ought not to be proscribed. There is a point beyond which con¬ cession cannot go, without an abandonment of the cause of truth, and with it, of all sound morality; for what else but truth can form the basis of pure morality? However loud may be the clamor against sectarianism^ let us not be moved by it to abandon the fortress of truth; and if the Bible is rejected, or viewed as a book of dubious authority, there remains no other solid ground on which the friends of religion and morality can make a stand. Few men have ever lived who were as well qualified to esti¬ mate the value of historic evidence, and to form an impartial judg¬ ment of the force of human testimony, as Doctor Paley. His per¬ spicacity of intellect, his sobriety of judgment, his unbiassed love of truth, and his patient investigation of all circumstances, fitted him peculiarly for the defence of the great principles of natural and revealed theology. If any fraud or imposture had existed in regard to the Christian religion, by which the minds of others had been blinded, it would be difficult, from the whole catalogue of the learned, to select a man better suited to detect and dispel the D 3 88 DR. ALEXANDER’S illusion. He is less profound than Butler, but his views and rea¬ sonings are much more on a level with the understanding of the bulk of mankind. The former collects and converges to a focus the feeble and scattered rays of light which pass unnoticed by others ; the latter, neglecting weak arguments, seizes on the strong points of evidence in every subject, and exhibits them in a light so clear and steady, that he carries along with him the convictions of every mind, not closed against the force of truth, by strong and in veterate prejudice. Thus in his Evidences he fixes on a single fact, the truth of which cannot be denied; namely, that in the commencement of the Christian religion many persons did volun tarily undergo the severest sufferings and persecutions in confirma¬ tion of their faith in this system. This fact, as we have seen, is fully attested by the highest Heathen as well as Christian author! ties, and is now questioned by none. On this single point Paley erects his battery, and his conclusion cannot be evaded without a renunciation of common sense, or of the commonly-received laws of evidence. It detracts something from the interest, and in my opinion, from the effect of this treatise, that the author con¬ sidered it necessary to descend to so many minute details, in estab¬ lishing the authenticity of the sacred books of the New Testa¬ ment. For full satisfaction to the person who wishes to go into a thorough investigation, the testimonies here adduced are too je¬ june : it would be better to refer such an inquirer to Jones and Lardner at once; and for common readers, these details only serve to interrupt the argument. To others, however, this work of Paley seems, in all respects, to approximate perfection. The pious and philanthropic Douglas, of Scotland, in a late work, ex¬ presses it as his opinion, that Euclid’s Elements, and Paley’s Evidences, are the only two treatises which are perfectly adapted to the business of elementary instruction. This praise seems to me somewhat extravagant; for in my humble opinion, Paley’s Natu¬ ral Theology is superior to his Evidences, as an elementary treatise; but this opinion from a mind so comprehensive and so highly gifted as that of the gentleman above mentioned, cannot but recommend this work to the careful perusal of all such persons as wish for full information and complete satisfaction on this mo¬ mentous subject. And in regard to the propriety of giving it a place in such a selection as this, there can be but one opinion. In¬ deed, whatever else had been included in the volume, if this had i PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 39 been omitted, it would have been considered defective, by most judicious readers. It would have been easy to swell this volume to double its present size, without a repetition of the same arguments ; but the Editor has rightly judged, that for ready circulation and convenient use, as well as on the score of economy, a book of moderate size will be best adapted to the greater number of readers. It is not recollected that any work precisely on the plan of the present publication, has been prepared. The writer has, indeed, seen, many years past, a little volume, entitled “ The Panoply,” which contained a part of what is included in this selection; but it was never widely circulated, and has been long out of print. The writer has only to add his sincere wishes for the success of this enterprise ; so that there may be encouragement for other similar publications. He is deeply persuaded, that the real welfare of this growing nation can in no way be more effectually pro¬ moted, than by inculcating sound principles of religion and mo¬ rality among the people at large; and that the greatest dangers which menace our beloved country, are to be apprehended from the progress of infidelity and vice. And let the adage that “ a grain of prevention is better than an ounce of cure,” be remem¬ bered, for it is as applicable to this subject as to any .other. Every man, therefore, who contributes any thing to the circulation of good books on the evidences of religion, is actually conferring a benefit on his country, and while he promotes the cause of Chris¬ tianity, at the same time performs the duty of a good patriot. In other countries religion is supported by the arm of civil authority, and attacks on revealed religion are punished as crimes against the state ; but here, Christianity must depend upon her own resources and when assailed, can resort to no other weapons but evidence and argument. And this state of things is not to be regretted ; for the truth is mighty, and will eventually prevail. But let all the friends of truth perform the duty which is incumbent on them in such circumstances. And especially, let the Press be put con¬ tinually into requisition for this purpose. The influence of the Press is incalculable, both for good and evil. And while so much that is corrupting to the community flows through this channel, let the friends of truth, with fidelity and energy, apply the proper remedy. AN APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, ADDRESSED TO EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. I AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. BY R. WATSON, D.D., F.R.S. AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OP CAMBRIDGE. 41 I THE AUTHOR’S ADVERTISEMENT. I KNOW not whether I may he allowed, without the imputation of vanity, to express the satisfaction I felt on being told by my book¬ seller, that another edition of the Apology for Christianity was wanted. It is a satisfaction, however, in which vanity has no part; it is altogether founded in the delightful hope, that I may have been, in a small degree, instrumental in recommending the religion of Christ to the attention of some, who might not otherwise have con¬ sidered it with that serious and unprejudiced disposition which its importance requires. The celebrity of the work which gave rise to this apology, has, no doubt, principally contributed to its circulation: could I have entertained a thought, that it would have been called for so many years after its first publication, I would have endeavored to have rendered it more intrinsically worthy the public regard. It becomes not me, however, to depreciate what the world has approved; rather let me express an earnest wish, that those, who dislike not this little book, will peruse larger ones on the same subject: in them they will see the defects of this so abundantly supplied, as will, I trust, convince them, that the Christian religion is not a system of super¬ stition, invented by enthusiasts, and patronized by statesmen for secular ends, but a revelation of the will of God. London, March 10,1791. 43 AN APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY. LETTER I. Sir ;—^it would give me much uneasiness to be reputed an enemy to free inquiry in religious matters, or as capable of being animated into any degree of personal malevolence against those who differ from me in opinion. On the contrary, I look upon the right of private judgment, in every concern respecting God and ourselves, as superior to the control of human authority; and have ever re¬ garded free disquisition as the best mean of illustrating the doctrine, and establishing the truth of Christianity. Let the followers of Mahomet, and the zealots of the church of Rome, support their several religious systems by damping every effort of the human in¬ tellect to pry into the foundations of their faith; but never can it become a Christian, to be afraid of being asked “ a reason of the faith that is in himnor a Protestant, to be studious of enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance ; nor the Church of England, to abandon that moderation by winch she permits every individual et senlire quce velit, et qu(R sentiat dicere. It is not. Sir, without some reluctance, that, under the influence of these opinions, I have prevailed upon myself to address these Letters to you; and you will attribute to the same motive my not having given you this trouble sooner. I had, moreover, an expec¬ tation, that the task would have been undertaken by some person capable of doing greater justice to the subject, and more worthy of your attention. Perceiving, however, that the tw'o last chapters, the fifteenth in pai-ticular, of your very laborious and classical his tory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, had made upon many an impression not at all advantageous to Christianity; and that the silence of others, of the clergy especially, began to be looked upon as an acquiescence in what you had therein advanced; I have thought it my duty, with the utmost respect and good-will to fv ards you, to take the liberty of suggesting to your consideration a few remarks upon some of the passages, which have been es¬ teemed (whether you meant that they should be so esteemed or not) as powerfully militating against that revelation, which still is to many, what it formerly was “ to the Greeks—foolishnessbut wliich we deem to be true, to “be the power of God unto salva¬ tion to every one that believeth.” , . , To the inquiry, by what means the Christian faith obtained so 46 Watsori^s Apology remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth you rightly answer, by the evidence of the doctrine itself, and the ruling providence of its author. But afterwards, in assigning to this secondary causes, derived from the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, you seem to some to have insinuated, that Christianity, like other im¬ postures, nught have made its way in the world, though its origin human as the means by which you suppose it was spread. It is no wish or intention of mine to fasten the odium of this insinuation upon you: I shall simply endeavor to show, that the causes you produce are either inadequate to the attainment of H ® ^ that their efficiency, great as you imagine it. Your first cause is, “ the inflexible, and, if you may use the ex¬ pression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial sprit, which instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embiacmg the law of Moses.”—Yes, Sir, we are agreed that the zeal of the Christians was inflexible ; “neither death, nor life, nor pnncipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,” coffid bend it mto a separation “ from the love of God which was inflexible obstinacy, in not blaspheming the name of Christ, which everywhere exposed them o persecution; and which even your amiable and philosophic ffi proper, for want of other crimes, to punish with dLth of tbp province. We are agreed, too, that the zeal of the pristians was intolerant; for it denounced “tribulation and fhZ ^ p Gentile : it would not tolerate in Christian worship those who supplicated the image of Ciesar, who bowed down at the altars of I^gamsm, who mixed with the votaries of Venus or w^al lowed in the filth of Bacchanalian festivals. ’ though we are thus far agreed with respect to the inflexi- w!i?pW*^. intolerance of Christian zeal, yet, as to the principle from which It was derived, we are Mo coslo divided in opinion. You de- Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more ade- quate and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth of Christianity. What! thmk you that it was a zeal derived from the unsocial spirit of Judaism, which inspired Peter with courage to upbraid the whole people of the Jews, in the very capital of jSde^ wth having delivered up Jesus, with having denied him in the pre^nce of Pilate, w/ith having desired a murderer to be granted ffiem m his stead, with having killed the Prince of life?” Was it principle that the same apostle, in conjunction with John when summoned, not before the dregs of the people (whose iudg- ments they might have been supposed capable of misleading'! and and despised,} but before the rulers Stioii ftribunal of the Jewish nation, and commanded by them to teach no more in the name of 47 for Christianity. Jesus_boldly answered, “ that they could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard? They had seen with their eyes, they had handled with their hands, the word of lifeand no hu¬ man jurisdiction could deter them from being faithful witnesses of what they had seen and heard. Here, then, you may perceive the genuine and undoubted origin of that zeal, which you ascribe to what appeal’s to me a very insufficient cause; and which the Jewsh rulers were so far from considering as the ordinary effect of their rehgion, that they were exceedingly at a loss how to account for it;_“now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they mai- velled.” The apostles, heedless of consequences, and regardless of every thing but truth, openly everywhere professed themselves witnesses of the resurrection of Christ; and with a confidence which could proceed from nothing but conviction, and which pricked the Jews to the heart, bade “ the house of Israel kno\v assuredly, that God had made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ.” I mean not to produce these instances of apostolic zeal as direct proofs of the truth of Chftstianity; for every religion, nay, every absurd sect of every religion, has had its zealots, who have not scrupled to maintain their principles at the expense of their lives : and we ought no more to infer the truth of Christianity from the mere zeal of its propagators, than the truth of Mahometanism from that of a Turk. When a man suffers himself to be covered with infamy, pillaged of his property, and dragged at last to the block or the stake, rather than give up his opinion; the proper inference is, not that his opinion is true, but that he believes it to be true; and a question of serious discussion immediately presents itself—upon what foundation has he built his belief? This is often an intricate inquiry, including in it a vast compass of human learning. A Bra- min or a Mandarin, who should observe a missionary attesting the truth of Christianity wfith his blood, would, notwithstanding, have a right to ask many questions, before it could be expected that he should give an assent to our faith. In the case, indeed, of the apostles, the inquiry would be much less perplexed; since it would briefly resolve itself into this—whether they were credible reporters of facts, which they themselves professed to have seen—and it would be an easy matter to show, that their zeal in attesting what they were certainly competent to judge of, could not proceed from any alluring pi’ospect of worldly interest or ambition, or from any other probable motive than a love of truth. But the credibility of the apostles’ testimony, or their competency to judge of the facts which they relate, is not now to be examined; the question before us simply relates to the principle by which their zeal was excited: and it is a matter of real astonishment to me, that any one conversant with the history of the first propagation of Christianity, acquainted with the opposition it everywhere met with from the people of the Jews, and aware of the repugnancy which must ever subsist between its tenets and those of Judaism, 48 WatsorCs Apology indeed, believed in one God, and abomi¬ nated idolatrjr; but this detestation of idolatry, had it been unac- of the resurrectmn of Christ, would probably have been just as inefficacious in exciting the zeal of the Christian to undertaKe the conversion of the Gentile world, as it had for ages been in exciting that of the Jew. But supposing, what ^ proved, and what I am certain cannot be ad- insnfrld ^ ^ derived from the Jewish religion th?ffi«rinl!?n^ */p fortitude to oppose themselvel to rntPmS Paganism; wrhat was it that encouraged them to conversion of their own countrymen? Amongst the superstibous observance of idolatrous rites; fr^t? opportunity of “declar- confirming their zealous opposition to Polytheism, or of Protestations, their attachment to the Chris- 1 ®^® ^-^cn, at least, the C8.use you have assigned for Christian zeal ceases to operate; and we must look out for some pSr P^oiple than a zeal against idolatiy, or we shall never be- able satisfactorily to explain the ardor with which the apostles pressed the disciples of Moses to become the disciples of Christ Agam: Does a determined opposition to, and an open abhorrence tn ™?rutest part of an established religion, appear to you to be the most likely method of conciliating to another faith those S ® y.ou contend, could neither mix ti ® their convivial entertainments, nor partake wuththem in the celebraPon of their solemn festivals: they could neither associate with them in their hymeneal nor funeral rites • they could not culttvate their arts, or be spectators of their shows • m short, m order to escape the rites of Polytheism, they were in obliged, to renounce the commerce of ma4ind, and rip? amusements of life. Now, how such an extrava- intemperate zeal as you here describe, can, humanly Spp o?- npe of the chief causes of the quick propagation of Christianity, m opposition to all the estabhshed of pagamsm, is a circumstance I can by no means compre- nend. Ihe Jesuit missionaries, whose human prudence no one ^ contrary way of thinking; and brought a deserved censure upon themselves, for not scrupling to nSli p" ???? a in 3,p n n«e of idolatrous ceremomes. Upon the whole it appears to me, that the Christians were in nowise indebted to the Jewish religion lor the zeal with which they propagated the Gospel amongst Jews as well as Gentiles; and that such a zeal as you describe, let Its principle be what you please, could never have been devised by any human understanding as a probable mean of promoting the pro- gress of a reformation in religion, much less could it have been thought of or adopted by a few ignorant and unconnected men. in expatiating upon this subject you have taken an opportunity of 49 for Christianity. remarking, that “ the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had be¬ held with careless indifference the most amazing miracles—and that, in contradiction to eveiy known principle of the human mind, that singular people (the Jews) seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses.” This observation bears hard upon the veracity of the Jewish Scriptures; and, was it true, would force us either to reject them, or to admit a position as extraordinary as a miracle itself—that the testimony of others produced in the human *mind a stronger degree of conviction, concerning a matter of fact, than the testimony of the senses themselves. It happens, however, in the present case, that we are under no necessity of either rejecting the Jewish Scriptures, or of admitting such an ab¬ surd position; for the fact is not true, that the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua beheld with careless indifference the miracles related in the Bible to have been performed in their favor. That these miracles were not sufficient to awe the Israelites into a uni¬ form obedience to the Theocracy, cannot be denied; but whatever reasons may be thought best atiapted to account for the propensity of the Jews to idolatry, and their frequent defection from the wor¬ ship of one true God, a “ stubborn incredulity ” cannot be admitted as one of them. To men, indeed, whose understandings have been enlightened by the Christian revelation, and enlarged by all the aids of human learning; who are under no temptations to idolatry from without, and whose reason from within would revolt at the idea of wor¬ shipping the infinite Author of the universe under any created symbol; to men who are compelled, by the utmost exertion of their reason, to admit as an irrefragable truth, what puzzles the first prin¬ ciples of all reasoning, the eternal existence of an uncaused being; and who are conscious that they cannot give a full account of any one phenomenon in nature, from the rotation of the great orbs of the universe to the germination of a blade of grass, without having recourse to him as the primary incomprehensible cause of it; and who, from seeing him everywhere, have, by a strange fatality (con¬ verting an excess of evidence into a principle of disbelief), at times doubted concerning his existence anywhere, and made the very universe their God; to men of such a stamp, it appears almost an incredible thing, that any human being, which had seen the order of nature interrupted, or the uniformity of its couree suspended, though but for a moment, should ever afterwards lose the impression of reverential awe which they apprehend would have been excited in their minds. But whatever effect the visible interposition of the Deity might have in removing the scepticism, or confirming the faith, of a few philosophers, it is with me a very great doubt, whether the people in general of our days would be more strongly affected by it than they appear to have been in the days of Moses. Was any people under heaven to escape the certain destruction impending over them, from the close pursuit of an enraged and irresistible enemy, by seeing the waters of the ocean “ becoming a E 50 Walson's Apology wall to them on their right hand and on their left:” they would I apprehend, be agitated by the very same passions w'e are told the Israelites were, when they saw the sea returning to his strength and swallowing up the host of Pharaoh; they « woSld fear the S th^ would believe the Lord,” and they would express their faith ana their fear by praising the Lord; they would not behold such a peat work Avith ‘< careless indifrerence,’4ut with astonishmeS and ^he slightest vestige of stubborn incredulity m their song of gratitude. No lengfh of ime would be abp to blot from their minds the memory of such a transaction, or induce a doubt concerning its author: though hiS thirst might make them Jail out fori4ter aSd bread, with a desponding and rebellious importunity. Israelites regarded with indifference” the amazing miracles wrought; for, when the law was declared to them Itoto people saw the thiinderings, and the of the tempest, and the mountain smoking; mid when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off- and hey said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we wift hear • Tut let not God speak with us, lest we die.” This again Sir is the a^d^rJtf language of the contemporaries of Moses w/ consider whether this is the lai^age of stobborn incredulity, and careless indifference.” We are toM, in Scripture, too, that whilst any of the “contemno- the7ord^?^ff Joshua were alive, the whole people served was^nevpr miracles had made was never effaced; nor the obedience, which might have been thSr^rnn^^^^ Consequence, refused, till Moses and Joshua, « oi.ffi! contemporaries, were gathered unto their fathers; till other generation after them arose, which knew not the Lord nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” But “ the neoule Joshua, and all the days of the. elders that outlived J^oshua, who had seen all the great works of* the Lord that he did for Israel.” you. Sir, unacquainted with Scripture, or nfr to f the weight of its testimony; but as the words of wm Jot derived your observation, wdl not support you m imputing “ careless indifference ” to the con- of Moses, or “pubbom incredulity” to the forefathers M the Jews, I know np what dan have induced you to pass so se- upon them, except that you look upon a lapse into that Jhlf pm mfidehty. In answer to this I would remark, that with equal soundness of argument we ought to infer, that every one, who transgresses a religion, disbelieves it; and that everv in- n diS- cqmmimity incurs civil pains and penalti4, is existence of the authority by which they are inflicted. The sanchons of the Mosaic law were, in your opinion within the narrow limits of this life; in that particular, then, they must have resembled the sanctions of all other civil 51 for Christianity, laws: “ transgress and die” is the language of every one of them, as well as that of Moses; and I know not what reason we have to expect, that the Jews, who were animated by the san hopes of temporal rewards, impelled by the same fears of tempoi-al punish¬ ments, with the rest of mankind, should have been so singular in their conduct, as never to have listened to the clamors of passion before the still voice of reason; as never to have preferred a present gratification of sense, in the lewd celebration of idolatrous rites, before the rigid observance of irksome ceremonies. Before I release you from the trouble of this Letter, I cannot help observing, that I could have washed you had furnished your reader with Limborch’s answers to the objections of the Jew Orobio, con¬ cerning the perpetual obligation of the law of Moses. You have indeed mentioned Limborch with respect, in a short note; but though you have studiously put into the mouths of the Judaising Christians in the apostolic days, and with great strength inserted into your text, whatever has been said by Orobio or others against Christianity, from the supposed perpetuity of the Mosaic dispensa¬ tion ; yet you have not favored us with any one of the numerous replies which have been made to these seemingly strong objections. You are pleased, it is true, to say, “ that the industiy of our learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic teach¬ ers.” It requires. Sir, no learned industry to explain what is so ob¬ vious and so express, that he who runs may read it. The language of the Old Testament is this: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made w’ith their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” This, methinks, is a clear and solemn declaration; there is no ambiguity at all in it; that the covenant with Moses was not to be perpetual, but was in some fu- ^ture time to give way to a “ new covenant.” I will not detain you with an explanation of what Moses himself has said upon this sub¬ ject; but you may try, if you please, whether you can apply the following declaration, which Moses made to the Jews, to any pro¬ phet or succession of prophets, with the sa,me propriety that you can to Jesus Christ: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto thee: unto him shall ye hearken.” If you think this ambiguous or obscure, I answer, that it is not a history, but a prophecy; and, as such, un¬ avoidably liable to some degree of obscurity, till interpreted by the event. Nor was the conduct of the apostles more ambiguous than the language of the Old Testament: they did not indeed at first com¬ prehend the whole of the nature of the new dispensation; and when they did understand it better, they did not think proper upon every occasion to use their Christian liberty; but, with true Christian charity, accommodated themselves in matters of indifference to the prejudices of theii' weaker brethren. But he w’ho changes his con- 52 Watson^s Apology duct with a change of sentiments, proceeding from an increase of knowledge, is not ambiguous in his conduct; nor should he be ac¬ cused ol a culpable duplicity, who, in a matter of the last import¬ ance, endeavors to conciliate the good-will of all, by conforming in a lew innocent observances to the particular persuasions of different men. One remark more, and I have done. In your account of the gnostics, you have given us a very minute catalogue of the objec¬ tions which they made to the authority of Moses, from his account of tlm creation, of the patriarchs, of the law, and of the attributes of me Deity. 1 have not leisure to examine whether the Gnostics of former ages really made all the objectiops you have mentioned ; I take It lor granted, upon your authority, that they did: but I am certain, if they did, that the Gnostics of modem times have no reason to be puffed up Avith their knowledge, or to be had in admiration as men of subtle penetration or refined erudition: they are all mis- erab^ copiers of their brethren of antiquity; and neither Morgan, noi Tindal, nor Bolingbroke, nor Voltaire, have been able to pro¬ duce scarce a single new objection. You think that the Fathers have not properly answered the Gnostics. I make no question. Sir, you are able to answer them to your own satisfaction, and informed of every thmg that has been said by our “ industrious divines” upon the subject; and we should have been glad, if it had fallen in with your plan to have administered together with the pojson its anti¬ dote: but, since that is not the case, lest its malignity should spread too far, I must just mention it to my younger readers, that Leland and others, in their replies to the modern deists, have given very tuff, and, as many learned men apprehend, very satisfactory am swers to every one of the objections which you have derived from the Gnostic heresy. I am, &c. LETTER II. Sir;—“T he doctrine of a future life, improved by every addi¬ tional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth, is the second of the causes to which you attribute the quick increase of Christianity. Now, if we impartially consider the circumstances of the persons to whom the doctrine, not simply ol a future life, but of a future life accompanied with punishments well as rewards; not only of the immortality of the soul, but of the immortality of the soul accompanied with that of the resurrec¬ tion, was delivered; I cannot be of opinion, that, abstracted from the supernatural testimony by which it was enforced, it could have met with any very extensive reception amongst them. t w as not that kind of future life which they expected ; it did not hold out to them the punishments of the infernal regions as aniles 53 for Christianity. fabulas. To the question, Quid si post mortem maneant animi ? they could not answer with Cicero and the philosophers —Beatos esse concedo; because there was a great probability that it might be quite otherwise with them. I am not to learn, that there are passages tr be picked up in the writings of the ancients, which might be pro¬ duced as proofs of their expecting a future state of punishment for the flagitious; but this opinion was worn out of credit before the time of our Saviour: the whole disputation in the first book of the Tusculan Questions goes upon the other supposition. Nor was the absurdity of the doctrine of future punishments confined to the writings of the philosophers, or the circles of the learned and polite; for Cicero, to mention no others, makes no secret of it in his public pleadings before the people at large. You, yourself. Sir, have re¬ ferred to his oration for Cluentius: in this oration, you may remem¬ ber, he makes great mention of a very abandoned fellow, who had forged I loiow not how many wills, murdered I know not how many wives, and perpetrated a thousand other villanies; yet even to this profligate, by name Oppianicus, he is persuaded that death was not the occasion of any evil.’*' Hence, I think, we may conclude, that such of the Romans as were not wholly infected with the anni¬ hilating notions of Epicurus, but entertained (whether from remote tradition or enlightened argumentation) hopes of a future life, had no manner of expectation of such a life as included in it the severity of punishment denoimced in the Christian scheme against the wicked. Nor was it that kind of future life which they wished: they would have been glad enough of an Elysium, which could have admitted into it men who had spent this life in the perpetration of every \nce which can debase and pollute the human heart. To abandon every seducing gratification of sense, to pluck up every latent root of ambition, to subdue every impulse of revenge, to divest themselves of every inveterate habit in which their glory and their pleasure consisted; to do all this and more, before they could look up to the doctrine of a future life without terror and amazement, was not, one would think, an easv undertaking: nor was it likely, that many would forsake the religious institutions of their ancestors, set at naught the gods under whose auspices the capitol had been founded, and Rome made mistress of the world; and suflfer them¬ selves to be persuaded into the belief of a tenet, the very mention of which made Felix tremble, by any thing less than a full convic¬ tion of the supernatural authority of those who taught it. The several schools of Gentile philosophy had discussed, with no small subtlety, every argument w'hich reason could suggest, for and against the immortality of the soul; and those uncertain glimmer¬ ings of the light of nature would have prepared the minds of the * Nam nunc quidem quid tandem mali illi mors attulit ? nisi fortS ineptiis ac fabulis ducimur, ut existimemus apud inferos impiorum sup- plicia perferre, ac plures illic otfendisse inimicos quam hie reliquisse— quae si falsa sint, id quod omnes intelligunt, &c. E2 4 54 Watson*s Apology learned for the reception of the full illustration of this subject by the Gospel, had not the resurrection been a part of the doctrine therein advanced. But that this corporeal frame, Avhich is hourly mouldering away, and resohmd at last into the undistinguished mass of elements from which it was at first derived, should ever be “ clothed with immortality; that this corruptible should ever put on incorruptionis a truth so far removed from the apprehension of philosophical research, so dissonant from the common conceptions of mankind, that amongst all ranks and persuasions of men it was esteemed an impossible thing. At Athens, the philosophers had listened with patience to St. Paul, whilst they conceived him but a “setter forth of strange gods;” but as soon as they comprehended, that by the avaa-raffii he meant the resurrection, they turned from him with contempt. It was principally the insisting upon the same topic, which made Festus think “ that much learning had made him mad.” And the questions, “ How are the dead raised up ?” and, “With what body do they come ?” seem, by Paul’s solicitude to an¬ swer them with fullness and precision, to have been not unfrequently proposed to him by those who were desirous of becoming Christians. The doctrine of a future life, then, as promulged in the Gospel, being neither agreeable to the expectations, nor corresponding with the wishes, nor conformable to the reason of the Gentiles, I can discover no motive (setting aside the true one, the divine power of its first preachers,) which could induce them to receive it; and, in con¬ sequence of their belief, to conform their loose morals to the rigid standard of Gospel purity, upon the mere authority of a few con¬ temptible fishermen of Judea. And even you, yourself. Sir, seem to have changed your opinion concerning the efficacy of the expect¬ ation of a future life in converting the heathens, when you observe, in the following chapter, that “ the pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected the inestimable pres¬ ent of life and immortality which was offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth.” Montesquieu is of opinion, that it will ever be impossible for Christianity to establish itself in China and the East, from the cir¬ cumstance that it prohibits a plurality of wives. How then could it have been possible for it to have pervaded the voluptuous capital, arid traversed the utmost limits of the empire of Rome, by the feeble efforts of human industry, or human knavery ? But the Gentiles, you are of opinion, were converted by their fears; and reckon the doctrine of Christ’s speedy appearance, of the millennium, and of the general conflagration, amongst those additional circumstances which gave weight to that concerning a future state. Before I proceed to the examination of the efficiency of these several circumstances in alarming the apprehensions of the Gentiles, w’^hat if I should grant your position ? Still the main ques¬ tion recurs. From what somce did they derive the fears which converted them ? Not surely from the mere human labors of men who w'ere everywhere spoken against, made a spectacle of, and considered as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things; 55 for Christianity. not surely from the human powers of him, who professed himself “ rude in speech, in bodily presence contemptible,” and a despiser of “the excellency of speech, and the enticing words of men’s wis- [ dom.” No, such wretched instruments were but ill fitted to inspire I the haughty and the learned Romans with any other passions than those of pity or contempt. Now, Sir, if you please, we will consider that universal expecta¬ tion of the approaching end of the world, which, you think, had such great influence in converting the pagans to the profession of Christianity. The near approach, you say, of this wonderful event had been predicted by the apostles, “ though the revolution of seven¬ teen centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the mysteri¬ ous language of prophecy and revelation.” That this opinion, even in the times of the apostles, had made its way into the Christian church, I readily admit; but that the apostles ever either predicted this event to others, or cherished the expectation of it in themselves, does not seem probable to me. As this is a point of some difficulty and importance, you will suffer me to explain it at some length. It must be owned, that there are several passages in the writings of the apostles, which, at the first view, seem to countenance the opinion you have adopted. “ Now,” says St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, “ it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” And in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians he comforts such of them as were sorrowing for the loss of their friends, by assuring them, that they were not lost for ever; but that the Lord, when he came, would bring them with him; and that they would not, in the participation of any blessings, be in anywise behind those who should happen then to be alive : “ We,” says he (the Christians of whatever age or country, agreeable to a frequent use of the pronoun we), “ which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep; for the Lord lumself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then w^e which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord.” In his Epistle to the Philippians he exhorts his Christian brethren not to disquiet themselves with carking cares about their temporal concerns, from this powerful consideration, that the Lord was at hand: “ Let your moderation be Imown unto all men; the Lord is at hand: be careful about nothing.” The apostle to the Hebrews inculcates the same doclrine, admonishing his converts “ to provoke one another to love, and to good works; and so much the more, as they saw^ the day approaching.” The age in which the apostles lived is frequently called by them the end of the world, the last days, the last hour. I think it unnecessa^. Sir, to trouble you with an expli¬ cation of these and other similar texts of Scripture, which are usually adduced in support of your opinion; since I hope to be able to give you a direct proof, that the apostles neither comforted them¬ selves, nor encouraged others, with the delightful hope of seeing 56 Watson's Apology their master coming again into the world. It is evident, then, that St. John, who survived all the other apostles, could not have had any such expectation; since, in the book of the Revelation, the future events of the Christian church, which were not to take place, many of them, till a long series of years after his death, and some of which have not yet been accomplished, are there minutely described. St. Peter, in like manner, strongly intimates, that the day of the Lord might be said to be at hand, though it was at the distance of a thousand years or more; for in replying to the taunt of those who did then, or should in future ask, “ Where is the promise of his coming?” he says, “Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day: The Lord i§ not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness.” And he speaks of putting off his tabernacle, as the Lord had showed him; and of his en¬ deavor, that the Christians after his decease might be able to have these things in remembrance: so that it is past a doubt, he could not be of opinion, that the Lord would come in his time. As to St. Paul, upon a partial view of whose writings the doctrine concerning the speedy coming of Christ is principally founded, it is manifest, that he was conscious he should not live to see it, notwithstanding the expression before-mentioned, “we which are alive;” for he foretells his own death in express terms: “ The time of my depar ture is at hand;” and he speaks of his reward, not as immediately to be conferred on him, but as laid up, and reserved for him till some future day. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness* which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.’ There is, moreover, one passage in his writings, which is so express* and full to the purpose, that it will put the matter, I think, beyond all doubt; it occurs in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: they, it seems, had, either by misinterpreting some parts of his former letter to them, or by the preaching of some, who had not the spirit of truth; by some means or other, they had been led to expect the speedy coming of Christ, and been greatly disturbed in mind upon that account. To remove this error, he writes to them in the follow¬ ing very solemn and affectionate manner: “We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand; let no man deceive you by any means.” He then goes on to describe a falling away, a great corruption of the Christian church, which was to happen before the day of the Lord. Now, by this revelation of the man of sin, this mystery of iniquity, which is to be consumed with the spirit of his mouth, destroyed by the brightness of his coming, we have every reason to believe, is to be understood the past and present abominations of the church of Rome. How then can it b*? said of Paul, who clearly foresaw this corruption above seventeen hundred years ago, that he expected the coming of the Lord in his 57 for Christianity. owTi day ? Let us press, Sir, the mysterious language of prophecy and revelation as closely as you please; but let us press it truly; and we may, perhaps, find reason from thence to receive, with less reluctance, a religion, which describes a corruption, the strangeness of which, had it not been foretold in unequivocal terms, might have amazed even a friend to Christianity. I will produce you. Sir, a prophecy, which, the more closely you press it, the more reason you will have to believe, that the speedy coming of Christ coiild never have been “ predicted” by the apostles. Take it, as translated by Bishop Newton: “jBpt the Spirit speakelh {^expre^sly, that in the latter times, some shall apostatize from the ^failh; _giYing he_ed to erroneous spirits, and doctrines concerning <'’^^^ons, through the hypocrisy of liars; having their conscience ^-^seared with a red-hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding, rTo abstain from meats.” Here you have an express prophecy ; the. /'Spirit hath spoken it; that in the latter times, not immediately, but, ; "af'some distant period, some should apostatize from the faith; some, / '"who had been Christians, should in truth be so no longer, but should.. ,i"gr?eTieed to erroneous spirits, and doctrines concerning demons. ■ ^Pss this expression closely, and you may, perhaps, discover in it , fKe erroneous tenets, and the demon or saint worship, of the church' . qf Rome, Through the hypocrisy of liars: you recognize, no doubt, -^hejp-riesthoo3/ and the martyrologists. Having their conscience '.seared with a red-hot iron: callous, indeed, must his conscience be, 3 ^ho Iraflics in indulgence. Forbidding to marry, and commanding :to abstain from meats: this language needs no pressing; it dis->. •;covers, at once, the unhappy votaries of monastic life, and the (mortal sin qf eating flesh oh fast days. If, notwithstanding what has been said, you should still be of opinion, that the apostles expected Christ would come in their time ; it will not follow', that this their error ought in any w'ise to diminish their authority as preachers of the Gospel. I am sensible this posi¬ tion may alarm even some well-wishers to Christianity; and supply its enemies with what they will think an irrefragable argument. The apostles, they will say, were inspired with the spirit of truth; and yet they fell into a gross mistake, concerning a matter of great importance; how is this to be reconciled ? Perhaps, in the following manner:—When the time of our Saviour’s ministry w as nearly at an end, he thought proper to raise the spirits of his disciples, who were quite cast dowm with what ho had told them about his design of leaving them; by promising, that he would send to them the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth; who should teacli them all things, and lead them into all truth. And we know, that this his promise was accomplished on the day of Pentecost, when they w ere all filled with the Holy Ghost; and we know farther, that from that time forward they were enabled to speak with tongues, to w'ork miracles, to preach the word with power, and to comprehend the mystery of the new dispensation which was committed unto them. But w'e have no reason from hence to conclude, that they were im.- raediately inspired with the apprehension of whatever might be 58 Watson's Apology known; that they became acquainted with all kinds of truth. They were undoubtedly led into such truths as it was necessary for them to know, in order to their converting the world to Christianity; but, in other things, they were probably left to the exercise of their un¬ derstanding, as other men usually are. But surely they might be proper witnesses of the life and resurrection of Christ, though they were not acquainted with every thing which might have been known; though, in particular, they were ignorant of the precise time when our Lord would come to judge the world. It can be no impeachment, either of their integrity as men, or their ability as historians, or their honesty as preachers, of the Gospel, that they were unacquainted with what had never been revealed to them; tliat they followed their own understandings where they had no better light to guide them; speaking from conjecture, when they could not speak from certainty; of themselves, when they had no commandment of the Lord. They knew but in part, and they pro¬ phesied but in part; and concerning this particular point, Jesus himself had told them, just as he was about finally to leave them, that J was not for them to “ know the times and the seasons, which the Father had put in his own power.” Nor is it to be wondered at, that the apostles -were left in a state of uncertainty concerning the time in which Christ should appear; since beings far more exalted, and more highly favored of heaven than they, were under an equal degree of ignorance: “ Of that day,” says our Saviour, “ and of that hour, knoweth no one; no, not the angels w'hich are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.” 1 am afraid. Sir, I have tired you wdth Scripture quotations; but if I have been fortunate enough to convince you, either that the speedy coming of Christ was never expected, much less “ predicted,” by the apostles; or that their mistake in that particular expectation can in no degree diminish the general weight of their testimony as historians, I shall not be sorry for the ennui I may have occasioned you. The doctrine of the Millennium is the second of the circumstances which you produce as giving weight to that of a future state; and you represent this doctrine as having been “carefully calculated by a succession of the fathers, from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, down to Lactantius;” and observe, that when “ the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside ;” and in the notes you refer us, as a proof of what you ad¬ vance, to “ IreniBus, the disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John,” and to the second dialogue of Justin with Trypho. I wish. Sir, you had turned to Eusebius, for the character of this Papias, who had seen the ajKistle St. John: you would there have found him represented as little better than a credulous old w'oman; very averse from reading, but mightily given to picking up stories and traditions next to fabulous; amongst which, Eusebius reckons this of the Millennium one. Nor is it, I apprehend, quite certain, that Papias ever saw, much less discoursed, as seems to be insinu¬ ated, with the apostle St. John. Eusebius thinks rather, that it was John the presbyter he had seen. But what if he had seen the 59 for Christianity, apostle himself? Many a weak-headed man had undoubtedly seen him as well as Papias; and it w^ould be hard indeed upon Chris¬ tians, if they were compelled to receive, as apostolical traditions, the wild reveries of ancient enthusiasm, or such crude conceptions of ignorant fanaticism as nothing but the rust of antiquity can render venerable. As to the works of Justin, the very dialogue you refer to contams a proof, that the doctrine of the Millennium had not, even in his time, the universal reception you have supposed: but, that many Christians of pure and pious principles rejected it. I wonder how this passage escaped you; but it may be that you followed Tillot- son, who himself follow'ed Mede, and read in the original ov instead of av ; and thus inwardly violated the idiom of the language, the sense of the context, and the authority of the best editions.* In the note you observe, that it is unnecessary for you to mention all the intermediate lathers between Justin and Lactantius, as the fact, you say, is not disputed. In a man who has read so many books, and to so good a purpose, he must be captious indeed, who cannot excuse small mistakes. That unprejudiced regard to truth, how'eyer, which is the great characteristic of every distinguished historian, will, I am persuaded, make you thank me for recalling to your memory, that Origen, the most learned of all the fathers, and Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, usually, for his immense erudition, surnamed the Great, were both of them prior to Lactantius, and both of them im- pugners of the Millennium doctrine. Look, Sir, into Mosheim, or almost any w'riter of ecclesiastical history, and you will find the op¬ position of Origen and Dionysius to this system particularly noticed: look into so common an author as Whitby, and in his learned trea¬ tise upon this subject you will find that he has w'ell proved these two propositions: first, that this opinion of the Millennium was never generally received in the church of Christ; secondly, that there is no just ground to think it w^as derived from the apostles. From hence, I think, we may conclude, that this Millennium doctrine (which, by the by, though it be new-modelled, is not yet thrown aside) could not have been any very serviceable scaffold in the erection of that mighty edifice, which has crushed by the weights of its materials, and debased by the elegance of its structure, the * .tastin, in answering the question proposed by Trypho, Whether the Christians believed the doctrine of the Millennium, says, SLuoXoynoa yv ffoi tv ttjs Kadapag.] Medus (quern seqiiitur Tillotsonus, Reg. Fidei per iii. sect. ix. p. 756, & seq.) legit rwv ti rrjg Kadapag. Vehementer errant viri praeclari. And in Jebb’s Edit. an. 1719, we have the following note ; “ Doctnna itaque de Millennio, neque erat universalis ecclesise traditio, nec opinio de fide recepta,” &c. GO Walson's Apology stateliest temples of heathen superstition. With these remarks T teke leave of the Millennium; j^ust observing, tLt yourXd cn-- cumstance, the general conflagration, seems to be effectuallv in eluded m your first, the speedy coming of Christ. I ^m? &c ^ LETTER III. five'S to the primi- rrZf ^7^1 ■ ■ t.® of the secondary causes of the ranid growth of Christianity. I should be willing tJ account the miracles not merely ascribed to the primitive church, but really performed fife GeSf c^use.of the conversion of fjf ’^.o^tiles. But waiving this consideration, let us see whether powers, which you ascribe to the primitive church were m any eminent degree calculated to spread the belief of Clwistianity, amongst a great and enlightened people. as faithful. o"n women foture history, or to guide the present administration of the church ” You speak of ‘ the expulsion of demons as an ordinarv trifmnh rif reh^on, usually performed in a public mannerrand ^h^X pa tient was relieved by the skill or the power of the exoS the vfJ' quished demon was heard to confess that he wXone of thXweH =sl~rir“" ss=!"HHS crease ol Christianity, have not converted half her nnmhoisa tr, testantism, and the other half to infidelity ? Neither the sword of tlie Xont^Sw egT”^ ChLp: M\aX e^Xshed" it axiionf, ragans { i beg I may not be misunderstood • T dn upon me to say, that all the miracles recorded in the liistoiv of tbV mmiuve church after the apostolical age were f„,S i, ' Sect- bu?r‘deliver any opinion upon that were forgeries must® inTa. foaS^ag^'b"' ,t“ 61 for Christianity. have rather impeded than accelerated the progress of Christianity; and it appears very probable to me, that nothing- but the recent prevailing evidence of real, unquestioned, apostolical miracles, could have secured the infant church from being destroyed by those which were falsely ascribed to it. It is not every man who can nicely separate the corruptions of religion from religion itself; nor justly apportion the degrees of credit due to the diversities of evidence; and those who have ability for the task are usually ready enough to emancipate them¬ selves from Gospel restraints (which thwart the propensities of sense, check the ebullitions of passion, and combat the prejudices of the world at eveiy turn), by blending its native simplicity with the supemtitions which have been derived from it. INo argument is so well suited to the indolence or the immorality of mankind, as that priests of all ages and religions are the same: we see the preten¬ sions of the Romish priesthood to miraculous powers, and w e know them to be false ; w'e are conscious, that they at least must sacrifice their integrity to their interest, or their ambition; and being per¬ suaded, that there is a great sameness in the passions of mankind, and in their incentives to action; and knowing that the history of past ages is abundantly stored with similar claims to supernatural authority, w^e traverse back, in imagination, the most distant regions of antiquity; and finding, from a superficial view, nothing to dis¬ criminate one set of men, or one period of time, from another, w e hastily conclude, that all revealed religion is a cheat, and that the miracles attributed to the apostles themselves are supported by no better testimony, nor more worthy our attention, than the prodigies of Pagan story, or the lying wonders of Papal artifice. 1 have no intention, in this place, to enlarge upon the many circumstances by which a candid inquirer after truth might be enabled to dislingnisn a pointed difference between the miracles of Christ and his apostles, and the tricks of ancient or modern superstition. One observation I would just suggest to \mu upon this subject: the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament are so intimately united whth the narration of common events, and the ordinary transactions of life, that you cannot, as in profane history, separate the one from the other. My meaning will be illustrated by an instance; Tacitus and Suetonius have handed down to us an account of niany great actions performed by Vespasian; amongst the rest, they inform us of Iris having wrought some miracles, of his having cured a lame man, and restored sight to one that was blind. But what they tell us of these miracles is so unconnected with every thing that goes before and after, that you may reject the relation of them without ‘ injuring, in any degree, the consistency of the narration of the other circumstances of his life: on the other hand, if you reject the rela¬ tion of the miracles said to have been performed by Jesus Christ, you must necessarily reject the account of his whole life, and of several transactions, concerning Avhich we have the undoubted tes¬ timony of other writers besides the evangelists. But if this argu¬ ment should not strike you, perhaps the following observation may F 62 Watson’’s Apology tend to remove a little of the prejudice usually conceived against Go pel mnacles, by men of lively imaginations, from the gross for- genes at ributed to the first ages of the church. ^ •in physics are sometimes happily illustrated by an hypothesis; and the most recondite truths of mathematical invesligated from an absurd position: what suDpL7th^ tW^ method of arguing in the case before us ? Let us Sid Ld thaf f ^e^/e^'elation was to be promulged to man- Knid, and that twelve unlearned and unfriended men, inhabitants odious and despicable in the eyes of Europe in^an^LiS be endowed .with the faLlty of speSc- mg Janguages they had never learned, and performing works sur- a^partfcSar *tr?ith ^being strongly impressed with fu-F u m they were commissioned to promulo-ate feSouit alUh"through the barbarous regionToSLt’ out through all the learned and polished states of Europe • m-eachino- eveywhere with unremitted sedulity a new religion^wwkine st/ Fo "tW mission,tnT?omZnS^^^^ fpirS Ss ^ seal of their conversion) a variety Sf ^ appear probable to you, that after the ^eath of these men, and probably after the deaths of most of their imme- zealously attached to the faith they had seen so miraculously confirmed, that none would ever attempt o impose upon the credulous or the ignorant, by a fictitious clSm to supernatural powers ? w^ould none of them aspire to the gift of the^ddusiZs''S-T'heaf ™stake frenzy for tiluminatiol and me aeiusions of a heated brain for the impulses of the Snh-it ? would none undertake to cure inveterate Cder? to LS dP mens, or to raise the dead t As far as I can aZSd we ouaht from such a position, to deduce, by every rule of probable reason’ mg the precise conclusion, which was fa fact trifled in enabled r & every species of ndracles, which Heaven had Sher ftom mSoFde? “f P®''®’™' counterfeited, the imbecililv n? ibo^' "'•erested cunning, either through 11 ^ iniquity of mankind; and we might iust as chastitv in the wnihfV^^^^ charity, or virtuS as thatXrp Z"" plenty of pretenders to tLse yriues, as that there never were any real miracles performed fmm considering the great store of those Uich have been forged. ’ prfsZtLe^irnZ.?”'^ has happened, there are miny in the preiSices a&st I m"" Sir, in the number), whose fVint it ^ wiiraculous events have arisen to that height nowe\er great, to e.stabhsh their credibilitv. I bea uardnn fnr Z tW mir reasoning, prejudice; I have no design to give offence by that word; they may, with equal right, throw fhe smne imimta tion upon mine; and I think it just as illiberal in divines ™VtSibute had Ihfi f ^ divine to professional bias. I have not had so little intercourse with manldnd, nor shunned so much the 63 for Christianity. delightful freedom of social converse, as to be ignorant, that there are many men of upright morals and good understandings, to whom, as you express it, “ a latent and even involuntaiy scepticisin ad¬ heres and who would be glad to be persuaded to be Christians: and how severe soever some men may be in their judgments con¬ cerning one another; yet we Christians, at least, hope and believ^ that the great Judge of all will make allowance for “our habits of study and reflection,” for various circumstances, the efficacy of which, in giving a particular bent to the understandings of men, we can neither comprehend nor estimate. For the sake of such men, if such should ever be induced to throw an hour away in the perusal of these Letters, suffer me to step for a moment out of my way, whilst I hazard an observation or two upon the subject. knowledge is rightly divided by Mr. Locke into intuitive, sensi¬ tive, and demonstrative. It is clear, that a past miracle can neither be the object of sense nor of intuition, nor consequently of demon¬ stration ; we cannot then, philosophically speaking, be said to know, that a miracle has ever been performed. But, in all the great con¬ cerns of life, we are influenced by probability rather than loiow- ledge: and of probability, the same great author establishes two foundations; a conformity to our own experience, and the testi¬ mony of others. Now it is contended, that by the opposition of these two principles probability is destroyed; or, in other terms, that human testimony can never influence the mind to assent to a proposition repugnant to uniform experience.—Whose experience do you mean ? You will not say, your own; for the experience of an individual reaches but a little way 5 and, no doubt, you daily assent to a thousand truths in politics, in physics, and in the business of common life, which you have never seen verified by experience. —You wall not produce the experience of your friends; for that can extend itself but a little W’ay beyond your own.—But by uniform experience, I conceive, you are desirous of understanding the expe¬ rience of all ages and nations since the foundation of the world. I answer, first; how is it that you become acquainted with the expe¬ rience of all ages and nations? You will reply, from history. Be it so : peruse then by far the most ancient records of antiquity; and if you find no mention of miracles in them, I give up the point. Yes; but every thing related therein respecting miracles is to be reckoned fabulous. Why ? Because miracles contradict the experience of all ages and nations. Do you not perceive, Sir, that you beg the very question in debate ? for we affirm, that the great and learned nation of Egypt, that the heathen inhabiting the land of Canaan, that the numerous people of the Jews, and the nations which, for ages, sur¬ rounded them, have all had great experience of miracles. You cannot otherways obviate this conclusion, than by questioning the authenticity of that book, concerning which, Newton, when he was writing his commentaiy on Daniel, expressed himself to the person'^ from whom I had the anecdote, and which deserves not to be lost: * Dr. Smith, late Master of Trinity College. 64 Watsori’s Apology “I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible, than in anv profane history whatsoever.” ^ However, I mean not to pre.ss you with the argument ad verecun K ’ needless to solicit your modesty, when it may be possible pel naps, to make an impression upon your judgment: I answer fiierelore in the second place, that the admi^ion of the principle by which you reject miracles will lead us into absurdity. The laws ot gravitation are the most obvious of all the laws of nature • UnZFnrTnAh ^f the globe must of necessity have had tUo 1 hem. There was a time when no one was acquainted ningnetism: these suspend in many instances the laws ol gravity : nor can I see, upon the principle in question, how the rest of mankind could have credited the testimony of their first d P rejected it, would have been to reject io In j L should ascend gradually from increasing rapidity through t^e air • cies STmn ^ n of a partfcular spe- cies of non ore, should remain suspended, in opposition to the action ol Its gravity, IS consonant to the laws of nature. I grant it: but natSeTit%o7h •? contrary, I say not to^the laws of nature, but to the umform experience of all preceding aees and imbvSf^i particular point of time, the testimony of an tbm^f 1 '''' ^ individuals, who should have reported themselves eye-witnesses of such a fact, ought, according to vC argumentation, to have been received as fabulous. And whafare SeThevTofdfffp'''''';^^'^^ suspended? are they not different to different men, according to the diversities i^iowledge? and if any one of them eleciriH?vrimTf’n'^^'‘? operations of magnetism or all thP r2 of m ^ ™o ^lone, whilst it JniUd ? ^ unacquainted with it; the effects of toTbP^Pv^ ® ™heard-of in the annals, and contrary to the experience of mankind; and therefore ought not, in your encp S believed. Nor do I understand what dXfer- S n * *ere could be betjveen the effects of such nature, and a miracle; for it is a matter of no moment, in thiU view, whether the suspension of the known laws effected, that is, whether a miracle be performed, by th^e mediation of other laws that are unknown, or by the ministi^ bJ commissioned; since it is impossible for us to tif I ’ contradictoiy to the constitution of the universe *SendedTTiH^r-'''’®V'^^“''^ appear to us general, should not be n 1 ^ ^ action overruled by others, still more general, ffiough less knovyn; that is, that miracles should not be performed before such a being as man, at those times, in those places, andTn- der those circumstances, which God, in his universal providence, had preordained. I am, &c. ^ ’ for Christianity. 65 I ' * LETTER IV. Sir ; —I readily acknowledge the utility of yonr fourth cause, the virtues of the first Christians,” as greatly conducing to the spreading of their religion; but then you seem to quite mar the compliment you pay them, by representing their virtues as proceed¬ ing either from their repentance for having been the most aban¬ doned sinners, or from the laudable desire of supporting the reputa¬ tion of the society in which they were engaged. That repentance is the first step to virtue, is true enough; but I see no reason for supposing, according to the calumnies of Celsus and Julian, “that the Christians allured into their party men, who washed away in the waters of baptism the guilt for which the tem¬ ples of the gods refused to grant them any expiation.” The apostles. Sir, did not, like Romulus, open an asylum for debtors, thieves, and aiurderers; for they had not the same sturdy means of securing their adherents from the grasp of civil power; they did not per¬ suade them to abandon the temples of the gods, because they could there obtain no expiation for their guilt, but because every degree of guilt was expiated in them with too great facility: and every vice practised, not only without remorse of private conscience, but ■ with the powerful sanction of public approbation. “ After the example,” you say, “ of their Divine Master, the mis¬ sionaries of the Gospel addressed themselves to men, and especially to women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very often by the effects, of their vices.”—This, Sir, I really think, is not a fair repre¬ sentation of the matter; it may catch the applause of the unlearned, embolden many a stripling to cast off for ever the sweet blush of modesty, confirm many a dissolute veteran in the practice of his impure habits, and suggest great occasion of merriment and wanton mockery to the flagitious of every denomination and every age; but still it will want that foundation of truth, which alone can recom¬ mend it to the serious and judicious. The apostles. Sir, were not like the Italian Fratricelli of the thirteenth, nor the French Turlu- pins of the fourteenth century; in all the dirt that has been raked up against Christianity, even by the worst of its enemies, not a speck of that kind have they been able to fix, either upon the apos¬ tles, or their Divine Master. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, Sir, was not preached in single houses or obscure villages, not in subterrane¬ ous caves and impure brothels, not in lazars and in prisons; but in the synagogues and in the temples, in the streets and the market-places of the great capitals of the Roman provinces; in Jerusalem, in Corinth, and in Antioch, in Athens, in Ephesus, and in Rome. Nor do I anywhere find, that its missionaries were ordered particularly to address themselves to the shameless w'omen you mention; I do in¬ deed find the direct contrary; for they were ordered to turn away from, to have no fellowship or intercourse with such as were wont “ to creep into houses, and lead captive silly w'omen laden with F2 66 Watson’'s Apology sins, led away with divers lusts.” And what if a few women, who j had either been seduced by their passions, or had fallen victims to i the licentious manners of their age, should be found amongst those | who were most ready to receive a religion that forbad all impurity ? I do not apprehend that this circumstance ought to bring an insinua¬ tion of discredit, either upon the sex, or upon those who wrought their reformation. That the majority of the first converts to Christianity were of an inferior condition in life may readily be allowed ; and you yourself ! have in another place given a good reason for it; those who are distinguished by riches, honors, or knowledge, being so very incon¬ siderable in number when compared with the bulk of mankind: but though not many mighty, not many noble were called; yet some mighty, and some noble, some of as great reputation as any of the age in which they lived, were attached to the Christian faith. Short indeed are the accounts, which have been transmitted to us, of the first propagating of Christianity; yet even in these we meet with the names of many, who would have done credit to any cause : I will not pretend to enumerate them all; a few of them will be sufficient to make you recollect, that there w^ere, at least, some con¬ verts to Christianity, both from among the Jews and the Gentiles, whose lives wmre not stained with inexpiable crimes. Amongst these wm reckon Nicodemus. a ruler of the Jews ; Joseph of Ari- mathea, a man of fortune and a counsellor; a nobleman and a cen¬ turion of Capernaum; Jairus, Crispus, Sosthenes, rulers of syna¬ gogues ; Apollos, an eloquent and learned man; Zenas, a Jewish lawyer; the treasurer of Candace queen of ^Ethiopia; Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band; Dionysius, a member of the Are¬ opagus at Athens; and Sergius Paulus, a man of proconsular or prEetorian authority, of whom it may be remarked, that if he re¬ signed his high and lucrative office, in consequence of his turning Christian, it is a strong presumption in its favor; if he retained it, wm may conclude, that the profession of Christiarrity was not so utterly incompatible with the discharge of the offices of civil life as you sometimes represent it. This catalogue of men of rank, for¬ tune, and knowledge, who embraced Christianity, might, was it necessary, be much enlarged; and probably another conversation with St. Paul wmuld have enabled us to grace it with the names of Festus, and king Agrippa himself: not that the writers of the books of the New Testament seem to have been at all solicitous in men¬ tioning the great or the learned who were converted to the faith; had that been part of their design, they would, in the true style of impostors, have kept out of sight the publicans and sinners, the tanners and the tentmakers, with whom they conversed and dwelt; and intro¬ duced to our notice none but those who had been “ brought up with Herod, or the chief men of Asia”—whom they had the honor to number amongst their friends. That the primitive Christians took great care to have an unsullied reputation, by abstaining from the commission of whatever might lend to pollute it, is easily admitted; but wm do not so easily grant, 67 for Christianity. that this care is a “ circumstance which usually attends small as¬ semblies of men, when they separate themselves from the body of a nation, or the religion to which they belonged.” It did not attend the Nicolaitanes, the Simonians, the Menandrians, and the Carpo- cratians in the first ages of the church, of which you are speaking ; and it cannot be unknowm to you, Sir, that the scandalous vices of these very early sectaries brought a general and undistinguished censure upon the Christian name; and, so far from promoting the increase of the church, excited in the minds of the Pagans an ab¬ horrence of whatever respected it: it cannot be unknown to you, Sir, that several sectaries both at home and abroad might be men¬ tioned, who have departed from the religion to which they be¬ longed ; and which, unhappily for themselves and the community, have taken as little care to preserve their reputation unspotted as those of the first and second centuries. If then the first Christians did take the care you mention (and I am wholly of your opinion in that point), their solicitude might as candidly, perhaps, and as rea¬ sonably be derived from a sense of their duty, and an honest en¬ deavor to discharge it, as from the mere desire of increasing the honor of their confraternity by the illustrious integrity of its mem¬ bers. You are eloquent in describing the austere morality of the primi¬ tive Christians, as adverse to the propensities of sense, and abhor¬ rent from all the innocent pleasures and amusements of life; and you enlarge, whh a studied minuteness, upon their censures of lux¬ ury, and their sentiments concerning marriage and chastity: but in this circumstantial enumeration of their errors or their faults (which I am under no necessity of denying or excusing) you seem to forget the very purpose for which you profess to have introduced the men¬ tion of them ; for the picture you have drawn is so hideous, and the coloring so dismal, that instead of alluring to a closer inspection, it must have made every man of pleasure or of sense turn from it with horror or disgust; and so far from contributing to the rapid growth of Christianity by the austerity of their manners, it must be a wonder to any one, how the first Christians ever made a single convert. It was first objected by Celsus, that Christianity was a mean religion, inculcating such a pusillanimity and patience under affronts, such a contempt of riches and worldly honors, as must weaken the nerves of civil government, and expose a society of Christians to the prey of the first invaders. This objection has been repeated by Bayle; and though fully answered by Bernard and others, it is still the favorite theme of every esprit fort of our owm age: even you. Sir, think the aversion of Christians to the business of war and government, “a criminal disregard to the public welfare.” To all that has been said upon this subject it may with justice, I think, be answered, that Christianity troubles not itself with ordering the constitutions of civil societies, but levels the weight of all ite influence at the hearts of the individuals which compose them; and, as Origen said to Celsus, was every individual in every nation a Gospel Christian, there w'ould be neither internal 68 Watsori^s Apology injustice, nor external war; there would be none of those passions which embitter the intercourses of civil life, and desolate the globe! trin^ li ^ religion, that it inculcatef doc- tiines, which, if universally practised, would introduce universal ?r exalted happiness amongst mankind ? ^ misapprehension of the design of the Christian dispensation, or from a very ignorant interpretation of the particular injunctions, forbidding us to make riches or honors a piimary pursuit, or the prompt gratification of revenge a first prin- W? ?ehlio?troffer individual Christian is obliged by ^ ^ a ^ assassin, and his property to the p underer; or that a society of Christians may not repe^ in the best manner they are able, the unjust assaults of LstileSsion tbp precepts in the Gospel, which debar a man from the possession of domestic comforts, or deaden the activilv of bis private friendships, or prohibit the exertion of his utmost ability in the Cbris'tW heatum is no part of the Christian s creed: his virtue is an active virtue; and we^iustlv refer to the school of Epicurus the doctrines concerning abstinence moot ofcultivation of friendship, from the manage! ment of public affairs, as suited to that selfish indolence which was the favonte tenet of his philosophy. I am, &c. LETTER V. union and the discipline of the Christian church ” or, as you are pleased to style it, of the Christian republic, is the last of the five secondary causes, to which you have referred the ?aS and extensive spread of Christianity. ^It must be acSiowleS that union essentially contributes to the strength of every asso^ia’ religious ; but, unfortulately for JSur argu¬ ment, and much to the reproach of Christians, nothing\as be^en more wanting amongst them, from the apostolic age to our own than union.^ ^ I of Apollos, and I of CephL,Zd I of Christ, are expressions of disunion, which we meet with in the earliest period of church history: and we cannot look into the writ- mgs of any, either friend or foe to Christianity, but we find the one of them lamenting, and the other exulting in an immense catalogue of sectaries i and lx.th of them thereby fumishtorus w^AgStt the divisions Avith respect to doctrine, wor¬ ship, and discipline, which have ever subsisted in the church, must fteSs orS’e'^renfW*® Christianity, and to alienate grant, that there was a certain community of doctrine, an intercourse of hospitality, and a confederacy of discipline estab- for Christianity. 69 listied amongst the individuals of every church; so that none could be admitted into any assembly of Christians, without undergoing a previous examination into his manner of life"^ (which shows, by the by, that every reprobate could not, as the fit seized him, or his inte¬ rest induced him, become a Christian), and without protesting in the most solemn manner, that he would neither be guilty of murder, nor adultery, nor theft, nor perfidy; and it may be granted also, that those, who broke this compact, were ejected by common consent from the confraternity into which they had been admitted: it may be farther granted, that this confederacy extended itself to inde¬ pendent churches; and that those who had, for their immoralities, been excluded from Christian community in any one church, were rarely, if ever, admitted to it by another; just as a member who has been expelled any one college in a university, is generally thought unworthy of being admitted by any other; but it is not ad¬ mitted, that this severity and this union of disciphne could ever have induced the Pagans to forsake the gods of their countiy, and to expose themselves to the contemptuous hatred of their neighbors, and to all the severities of persecution, exercised, with unrelenting barbarity, against the Christians. The account you give of the origin and progress of episcopal jurisdiction, of the pre-eminence of the metropolitan churches, and of the ambition of the Roman pontiff, I believe to be in general ac¬ curate and true; and I am not in the least surprised at the bitter¬ ness which now and then escapes you in treating this subject: for to see the most benign religion, that imagination can form, becoming an instrument of oppression; and the most humble one adm-inister- ing to the pride, the avarice, and the ambition of those who wished to be considered as its guardians, and who avowed themselves its professors, would extort a censure from men more attached probably to church authority than yourself: not that I think it either a very candid, or a very useful undertaking, to be solely and industriously engaged in portraying the characters of the professors of Christianity in the worst colors; it is not candid, because ‘ the great law of im¬ partiality, which obliges an historian to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the Gospel,” obliges him also not to conceal, or to pass over with niggard and reluctant men¬ tion, the illustrious virtues of those who gave up fortune and fame, atl their comforts, and all their hopes in this life, nay, life itself, rather than violate aiw one of the precepts of that Gospel, which, from the testimony of inspired teachers, they conceived they had good reason to believe: it is not useful, because “ to a careless ob¬ server,” (that is, to the generality of mankind) '‘their faults may seem to cast a shade on the faith which they professed ;” and may really infect the minds of the young and unlearned especially, with prejudices against a religion, upon their rational reception or rejec- * Nonnulli prcepositi sunt, qui in vitam et mores eorum, qui admit- tuntur, inquirant, ut non concessa facientes candidates religionis ar-. ceant a suis conventibiis. Orig. con. Cels, lib ii. 5 70 Walsori's Apology tion of which, a matter of the utmost importance may (believe me, Sir, it may, for aught you or any person else can prove to the con¬ trary) entirely depend. It is an easy matter to amuse oin-selves and others with the immoralities of priests and the ambition of prelates, with the absurd virulence of synods and councils, with the ridicu¬ lous doctrines which visionary enthusiasts or interested churchmen have sanctified with the name of Christian; but a display of inge¬ nuity or erudition upon such subjects is much misplaced ; since it excites, almost in every person, an unavoidable suspicion of the purity of the source itself, from which such polluted streams have been derived. Do not mistake my meaning; I am far from wishing that the clergy should be looked up to with a blind reverence, or their imperfections screened by the sanctity of their functions, from the animadversion of the world ; quite the contrary; their conduct, I am of opinion, ought to be more nicely scrutinized, and their de¬ viation from the rectitude of the Gospel more severely censured, than that of other men; but great care should be taken, not to represent their vices, or their indiscretions, as originating in the principles of their religion. Do not mistake me: I am not here beg¬ ging quarter for Christianity; or contending, that even the princi¬ ples of our religion should be received with implicit faith; or that every objection to Christianity should be stifled, by a representation of the mischief it might do if publicly promulged : on the contrary, we invite, nay, we challenge you, to a direct and liberal attack; though oblique glances, and disingenuous insinuations, we are will¬ ing to avoid; well knowing, that the character of our religion, like that of an honest man, is defended with greater difficulty against the suggestions of ridicule, and the secret malignity of pretended friends, than against positive accusations, and the avowed malice of open enemies. In your account of the primitive church you set forth, that “ the want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occa¬ sional assistance of the prophets ; who were called to that function without distinction of age, sex, or natural abilities.”—That the gift of prophecy was one of the spiritual gifts by which some of the first Christians were enabled to co-operate with the apostles in the gene¬ ral design of preaching the Gospel; and that this gift, or rather, as Mr. Locke thinks, the gift of tongues (by the ostentation of which, many of them were prompted to speak in their assemblies at the same time), was the occasion of some disorder in the church of Corinth, which required the interposition of the apostle to compose, is confessed on all hands. But if you mean, that the prophets w'ere ever the sole pastors of the faithful; or that no provision was made by the apostles for the good government and edification of the church, except what might be accidentally derived from the occa¬ sional assistance of the prophets, you are much mistaken; and have undoubtedly forgot what is said of Paul and Barnabas having or¬ dained elders in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch; and of Paul’s com¬ mission to Titus, whom he had left in Crete, to ordain elders in every city ; and of his instructions both to him and Timothy, con for Christianity. 71 cemiiig the qualiilcations of those whom they were to appoint bishops; one ol which was, that a bishop should be able, by sound cwctrine, to exhort and to convince the gainsayer. Nor is it said that this sound doctrine was to be conununicated to the bishop by j^oph^y, or that all persons, without distinction, might be called to that ofhce; but a bishop was “to be able to teach,” not what he had learned by prophecy, but what Paul had publicly preached; the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same comnut thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others mso. And in evety place almost, where prophets are mentioned, they are jomed \\ath apostles and teachers, and other ministers of the Gospel; so that there is no reason for your representing them as a IS met order of men, who were by their occasional assistance to supply the want of discipline and human learning in the church. It would be taking too large a field to inquire, whether the prophets you speak of w^ere endowed with ordinary or extraordinary gifts : whether they always spoke by the immediate impulse of the Spirit, c Tir® “the analogy offaitli;” whether their gift consisted m the foretelling of future events, or in the interpreting of Scripture to the edification and exhortafion and comfort of the church, or in both; I will content myself with observing, that he will judge vei-y improperly concerning ^e prophets of the apostolic church, who them of their office or importance from your description of In speaking of the community of goods, which, you say, was adopted for a short time m the primitive church, you hold as incon- elusive the arguments of Mosheim; who has endeavored to prove, tliat It was a community quite different from that recommended by Pythagoras or Plato; consisting principally in a common use, derived from an unbounded liberality, which induced the opulent to share their nches with their indigent brethren. There have been others, as well as Mosheim, who have entertained this opinion; and it is not quite so indefensible as you represent it; but whether it be easonable or absurd, need not now be examined; it is far more necessary to take notice of an expression which you have used, and wmeh may be apt to mislead unwary readers into a very injurious suspicion concerning the integrity of the apostles. In process of ime, you observe, “ the converts who embraced the new religion were permitted to retain the possession of their patrimony.”_This expression, “perniitted to retain,” in ordinary acceptation, implies an antecedent obligation to part with: now. Sir, I have not the shadow of a doubt in alfii-mmg, that we have no account in Scrip- ure of any such obli^tiqn being imposed upon the converts to Christianity, either by Christ himself, or by his apostles, or by any other authority; nay, m the very place where this community of goods IS treated of, there is an express proof (I know not how your impartiality has happened to overlook it) to the contraiy. When reter was about to inflict an exemplary punishment upon Ananias (not for keeping back a part of the price, as some men are fond of representing it, but) for his lying and hypocrisy, in offering a part 72 Watsoii's Apology of the price of his land as the whole of it; he said to him, “ Whilst it remained (unsold) was it not thine own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?” From this account it is evident, that Ananias was under no obligation to part with his patrimony; and, after he had parted with it, the price was in his own power: the apostle would have “ permitted him to retain” the whole of it, if he had thought fit ,• though he would not permit his prevarication to go unpunished. You have remarked, that “ the feasts of love, the agapce, as they were called, constituted a very pleasing and essential part of public worship.”—Lest any one should from hence be led to suspect, that these feasts of love, this pleasing part of the public worship of the primitive church, resembled the unhallowed meetings of some im¬ pure sectaries of our own times, I will take the liberty to add to your account a short explication of the nature of these agapae. Tertullian, in the 39th chapter of his Apology, has done it to my hands. “ The nature of our supper,” says he, “ is indicated by its name; it is called by a word, which, in the Greek language, signi¬ fies love. We are not anxious about the expense of the entertain¬ ment ; since we look upon that as gain which is expended with a pious purpose, in the relief and refreshment of all our indigent.— The occasion of our entertainment being so honorable, you may judge of the manner of its being conducted: it consists in the dis¬ charge of religious duties ; it admits nothing vile, nothing immodest. Before we sit down, prayer is made to God. The hungry eat as much as they desire, and eveiy one drinks as much as can be useful to sober men. We so feast, as men who have their minds impressed with the idea of spending the night in the worship of God; we so converse, as men who are conscious that the Lord heareth them,” &c. Perhaps you may object to this testimony in favor of the in¬ nocence of Christian meetings, as liable to partiality, because it is the testimony of a Christian; and you may, perhaps, be able to { )ick out, from the writings of this Christian, something that looks ike a contradiction of this account: however, I will rest the matter upon this testimony for the present; forbearing to quote any other Christian writer upon the subject, as I shall in a future Letter pro¬ duce you a testimony superior to every objection. You speak too of the agapiE as an essential part of the public worship : this is not acco^ing to your usual accuracy; for, had they been essential, the edict of a Heathen magistrate would not have been able to put a stop to them ; yet Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, expressly says, that the Christians left them off upon his publishing an edict prohibiting assemblies ; and we know, that, in the council of Carthage, in the fourth century, on. account of the abuses which attended them, they began to be interdicted, and ceased almost universally in the fifth. I have but two observations to make upon what you have ad¬ vanced concerning the severity of ecclesiastical penance : the first is, that even you yourself do not deduce its institution from the Scripture, but from the power which eveiy voluntary society has 73 for Christianity. over its own members; and therefore, however extravagant, or however absurd; however opposite to the attributes of a commis¬ erating God, or the feelings of a fallible man, it may be thought; or upon whatever trivial occasion, such as that you mention of calum¬ niating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon, it may have been inflicted; Christ and his apostles are not answerable for it. The other is, that it was, of all possible expedients, the least fitted to ac¬ complish the end for which you think it was introduced, the propa gation of Christianity. The sight of a penitent humbled by a pub¬ lic confession, emaciated by fasting, clothed in sackcloth, prostrated at the door of the assembly, and imploring for years together the pardon of his offences, and a readmission into the bosom of the church, was a much more likely means of deterring the Pagans from Christian community, than the pious liberality you mention was of alluring them into it. This pious liberality. Sir, would ex¬ haust even your elegant powers of description, before yOu could exhibit it in the amiable manner it deserves; it is derived from the “ new commandment of loving one anotherand it has ever been the distinguishing characteristic of Christians, as opposed to every other denomination of men, Jew’s, Mahometans, or Pagans. In the times of the apostles, and in the first ages of the church, it showed itself in voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor and the persecuted, the infirm and the unfortunate; as soon as the church was permitted to have permanent possessions in land, and acquired the protection of the civil power, it exerted itself in the erection of hospitals of every kind ; institutions these, of charity and humanity, w’liich were forgotten in the laws of Solon and Lycurgus; and for even one example of which, you will, I believe, in vain explore the boasted annals of Pagan Rome. Indeed, Sir, you will think too injuriously of this liberality, if you look upon its origin as supersti¬ tious ; or upon its application as an artifice of the priesthood, to se¬ duce the indigent into the bosom of the church; it was the pure and uncorrupted fruit of genuine Christianity. You are much surprised, and not a little concerned, that Tacitus and the younger Pliny have spoken so slightly of the Christian sys¬ tem ; and that Seneca and the elder Pliny have not vouchsafed to mention it at all. This difficulty seems to have struck others, as well as yourself; and I might refer you to the conclusion of the second volume of Dr. Lardner’s Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion, for full satisfaction in this point; but perhaps an observation or two may be sufficient to diminish your surprise. Obscure sectaries of upright morals, when they separate them¬ selves from the religion of their country, do not speedily acquire the attention of men of letters. The historians are appreltensive of depreciating the dignity of their learned labor, and contami¬ nating their splendid narration of illustrious events, by mixing with it a disgusting detail of religious combinations: and the philosophers are usually too deeply engaged in abstract science, or in exploring the infinite intricacy of natural appearances, to busy themselves G 74 Watson^s Apology with what they, perhaps hastily, esteem popular superstitions. His¬ torians and philosophers, of no mean reputation, might be mention¬ ed, I believe, who were the contemporaries of Luther and the first reformers; and who have passed over, in negligent or contemptuous silence, their daring and unpopular attempts to shake the stability of fet. Peter s chair. Opposition to the religion of a people must become general, before it can deserve the notice of the civil ma¬ gistrate ; and till it does that, it will mostly be thought below the animadversion of distinguished writers. This remark is peculiarly applicable to the case in point. The first Christians, as Christ had foretold, were “hated of all men for his name’s sake:” it was the name itself, not any vices adhering to the name, which Pliny pun¬ ished ; and they w'ere everywhere held in exceeding contempt, till their numbers excited the apprehension of the ruling powders. The philosophers considered them as enthusiasts, and neglected them; the priests opposed them as innovators, and calumniated them; the great overlooked them, the learned despised them; and the curious alone, who examined into the foundation of their faith, believed them. But the negligence of some half dozen of writers (most of them, how^ever, bear incidental testimony to the truth of several facts respecting Christianity), in not relating circumstantially the origin, the progress, and the pretensions of a new sect, is a very insufficient reason for questioning, either the evidence of the prin¬ ciples upon which it was built, or the supernatural power by which It was supported. ^ The Roman historians, rnoreover, were not only culpably incu¬ rious concerning the Christians, but unpardonably ignorant of what concerned either them or the Jews: I say, unpardonably ignorant; because the means of information were within their reach: the writings of Moses were eve^where to be had in Greek; and the works of Josephus were published before Tacitus wrote his history; and yet even Tacitus has fallen into great absurdity, and self-con¬ tradiction, in his account of the Jews; and though Tertiillian’s zeal carried him much too far, when he called him Mendaciurum loquacisstmus, yet one cannot help regretting the little pains he took to acqnire proper information upon that subject. He derives the mime of the Jew’s, by a forced interpolation, from mount Ida in Crete ;* and he represents them as abhorring all Idnds of images in public worship, and yet accuses them of having placed the image of an ass in the holy of holies; and presently after he tells us, that Rompey, when he profaned the temple, found the sanctuary entirely empty. Similar inaccuracies^ might be noticed in Plutarch, and other writers who have spoken of the Jew’s; and you yourself have referred to an obscure passage in Suetonius, as offering a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians of Rome were confounded with each other, ’^y then should W’e think it remarkable, that a few celebrated writers, w’ho looked upon the Christians as an obscure * Inclytum in Greta Warn rnontem, accolas Waeos aucto in barbarum cognomeiito Judcecs vocitari. Tac. Hist. lib. 5, sub init. 75 for Christianity. sect of the Jews, and upon the Jews as a barbarous and detested people, whose history was not worth the perusal, and who were moreover engaged in the relation of the great events which either occasioned or accompanied the ruin of their eternal empire ; why should we be surprised, that men occupied in such interesting sub¬ jects, and influenced by such inveterate prejudices, should have left us but short and imperfect descriptions of the Christian system ? “ But how shall we excuse,” you say, “ the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic W'orld, to those evidences, which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses ?” “ The laws of nature were perpetually suspended for the benefit of the church: but the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle.” To their shame be it spoken, that they did so: “ and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the w'orld.” To this objection I answer, in the first place, that we have no reason to believe that miracles w^ere performed as often as philosophers deigned to give their attention to them; or that, at the period of time you allude to, the laws of nature were “ perpetually” suspended, for the benefit of the church. It may be, that not one of the few heathen writers, whose books have escaped the ravages of time, w as ever present when a miracle was wrought; but will it follow, because Pliny, or Plutarch, or Galen, or Seneca, or Suetonius, or Tacitus, had never seen a mira¬ cle, that no miracles were ever performed? They, indeed, were learned and observant men; and it may be a matter of surprise to us, that miracles so celebrated, as the friends of Christianity sup¬ pose the Christian ones to have been, should never have been men¬ tioned by them, though they had not seen them; and had an Adrian or a Vespasian been the authors of but a thousandth part of the miracles you have ascribed to the primitive church, more than one, probably, of these very historians, philosophers as they were, would have adorned his history with the narration of them: for though they turned aside from the awful spectacle of the miracles of a poor despised apostle; yet they beheld with exulting complacency, and have related with unsuspecting credulity, the ostentatious tricks of a Roman emperor. It was not for want of feith in miraculous events, that these sages neglected the Christian miracles, but for want of candor and impartial examination. I answer, in the second place, that in the Acts of the Apostles we have an account of a great multitude of Pagans of everj' condition of life, who v^ere so far from being inattentive to the evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence to their senses, that they contemplated them with reverence and wonder ; and, for¬ saking the religion of their ancestors, and all the flattering hopes of W'orldly profit, reputation, and tranquillity, adhered with astonishing resolution to the profession of Christianity. From the conclusion of the Acts, till the time in w hich some of the sages you mention flour¬ ished, is a very obscure part of church history; yet we are certain, that )nany of the Pagan, and W’e have some reason to believe, that 76 Watsori^s Apology not a few of the philosophic world, during that period, did not turn spectacle of miracles, but saw and believed ; and that a few others should be found, who probably had never seen, and therefore would not believe, is surely no very extraor- should we not answer to objections, such as these the bolJness of St. Jerome; and bid Celsus, and Forphyiy, and Julian, and their followers, learn the illustrious char¬ acters of the men who founded, built up, and adorned the Chris¬ tian church ? Why should we not tell them, with Arnobius, of the orators, the grammarians, the rhetoricians, the lawyers, the physi¬ cians, the philosophers, “ who appeared conscious of the alterations in the moral and phypcal government of the worldand, from that consciousness, forsook the ordinary occupations of life and study, and attached themselves to the Christian discipline ?t ^ I answer in the last place, that the miracles of Christians were 1 ilfif to magic; and were for that reason thought un- iTh,? T referred to. Suetonius, emails the Christians, men of a new and magical mSi I "T'ble that you laugh at those “sagacious Som- iHa S? ’^he original word by magical; and, adopt¬ ing the idea of Mosheim, you think it ought to be rendered mis- Permcious: unquestionably it frequently has that meah- ing, with due deference, however, to Mosheim and yourself, I can- not help being of opinion, that in this place, as descriptive of the Christian religion, it is rightly translated magical. The Theodosian .^or disscnting from such respectable authority, and in it, I conjecture, you wall find good reason for ®P“^ion.§ Nor ought any friend to Christianity to be Suetonius applying the word magical to the Christian religion; for the miracles wrought by Christ and his apostles principally consisted in alleviating the distresses, by curing the obstinate diseases of human kind; and the proper meLing of branS, ^ higher and more Lly branch of the art of healin g.|| The elder Pliny lost his life in ah Celsus, Porphyrius, Julianus, rabidi adversus Cliristiim canes discant eorum sectatores, qiii putant Ecclesiam nullos Philosoptios et "«hos habuisse Doctores; quanti et quales viri earn fuuda tantum slninUrUnr *^™®'^erintque; et desinant fidem nostram rusticte i“P'=n*«'n agnosen,,,.- t Arnob. con, Gen. lib. xi. I nha puperstitionis novie et maleJiccB. Suet, in Nero. c. xvi nitudinem wa^ejices ob facinorum mag- nni 1 n'Jis wagMs vel magicis containinibus adsuetu^ qui maleficus vulgi consuetudine nuncupatur. ix. Cod. Theodos. tit xvi. II Pony, speaking of the origin of magic, says, Natam primum e medi- salutari irrepsisse velut alliorem savetio- T^mque medictnavt. He afterwards says, that it was mixed with mathe maucai arts; and thus magi and mathematici are joined by Plinv as malefict and magtet are in the Theodosian Code. Plin. Nat Histf’lib. G* !• * 77 for Christianity. eruption of Vesuvius, about forty-seven years after the death of Christ: some fifteen years before the death of Pliny, the Christians were pereecuted at Rome for a crime, of which every person knew them imiocent; but from the description, which Tacitus gives, of the low' estimation they were held in at that time (for which, how¬ ever, he assigns no cause; and therefore we may reasonably con¬ jecture it was the same for which the Jews were everywhere be¬ come so odious, an opposition to polytheism), and of the extreme sufferings they underwent, w'e cannot be much surprised, that their name is not to be found in the works of Pliny or of Seneca: the sect itself must, by Nero’s persecution, have been almost destroyed in Rome; and it would have been uncourtly, not to say unsafe, to have noticed an order of men, whose innocence an emperor had determined to traduce, in order to divert the dangerous, but de¬ served stream of popular censure from himself Notwithstanding this, there is a passage in the Natural History of Pliny, which, how' much soever it may have been overlooked, contains, I think, a very strong allusion to the Christians; and clearly intimates, he had heard of their miracles. In speaking concerning the origin of magic, he says; there is also another faction of magic, derived from the Jew's, Moses, and Lotopea, and subsisting at present.’'' The word faction does not ill denote the opinion the Romans entertained of the reli¬ gious associations of the Christians ;t and a magical faction implies their pretensions, at least, to the miraculous gifts of healing; and its descending from Moses is according to the custom of the Ro¬ mans, by which they confounded the Christians with the Jew's; and its being then subsisting, seems to have a strong reference to the rumors Pliny had negligently heai’d reported of the Christians. Submitting each of these answers to your cool and candid con¬ sideration, I proceed to take notice of another difficulty in your fifteenth chapter, - which some have thought one of the most im¬ portant in your whole book; the silence of profane historians con¬ cerning the preternatural darkness at the crucifixion of Christ. You know. Sir, that several learned men are of opinion, that profane his¬ tory is not silent upon this subject; I will, however, put their author¬ ity for the present quite out of the question. I will neither trouble you with the testimony of Phlegon, nor with the appeal of Tertul- lian to the public registers of the Romans; but meeting you upon your own ground, and granting you every thing you desire, I will endeavor, from a fair and candid examination of the histoiy of this event, to suggest a doubt, at least, to your mind, whether this was * Est et alia magices factio, a Mose etiamnum et Lotopea Jiidfeis pen¬ dens. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxx. c. ii. Edit. Hardn. Dr. Lardner and others have made slight mention of this passage, probably from their reading in bad editions Jamne for etiamnum, a Mose et Jamne et Jotape Judceis pen dens. t Tertnllian reckons the sect of the Chrisians, inter licitas factiones. Ap. c. xxxviii. G2 78 Watson's Apology “ the greatest phenomenon, to which the mortal eye has been wit¬ ness, since the creation of the globe.” This darkness is mentioned by three of the four evangelists; St. Matthew thus expresses himself: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hourSt. Mark says: “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the vyhole land until the ninth hour;” St. Luke : “And it wms about the sixth hour, and there wms darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour; and the sun wms darkened.” The three evangelists agree, that there was darkness; and they agree in the extent of the darkness: for it is the'same expression 'in the original, which our translators have rendered earth in Luke, and land in the two other accounts; and they agree in the duration of the darkness, it lasted three hours. Luke adds a particular circumstance, “ that the sun was darkened.” I do not know whether this event be anywhere else mentioned in Scripture, so that our inquiry can neither be ex¬ tensive nor difficult. In philosophical propriety of speech, darkness consists in the total absence of light, and admits of no degrees; how-ever, in the more common acceptation of the word, there are degrees of darkness, as well as of light; and as the evangelists have said nothing, by which the particular degree of darkness can be determined, we have as much reason to suppose it was slight, as you have that it wms exces¬ sive ; but if it was slight, though it had extended itself over the surface of the whole globe, the difficulty of its not being recorded by Pliny or Seneca vanishes at once.* Do you not perceive. Sir, ' upon wffiat a slender foundation this mighty objection is grounded ; when w^e have only to put you upon proving, that the darkness at the crucifixion 'was of so unusual a nature, as to have excited the particular attention of all mankind, or even of those who wmre wit¬ nesses to it ? But I do not mean to deal so logically with you ; rather give me leave to spare you the trouble of your proof by proving, or showing the probability at least, of the direct contrary. There is a circumstance mentioned by St. John, which seems to indicate, that the darkness was not so excessive as is generally supposed; for it is probable, that, during the continuance of the darkness, Jesus spoke l»th to his mother, and to his beloved disciple, whom he saw from the cross; they were near the cross ; but the soldiers wffiich sur¬ rounded It must have kept them at too great a distance for Jesus to have seen them and kno-ivn them, had the darkness at the crucifix¬ ion been excessive, like the preternatural darkness rvhich God brought upon the land of Egypt; for it is expressly said, that, during * The author of L’Ev^angile cle la Raison is mistaken in saving that Uie evangelists speak of a thick darkness ; and that mistake has led him into another, into a disbelief of the event, because it has not been men¬ tioned by the writers of the times: Ces historiens (the Evangelists) out le iront de nous dire, qu’a sa mort la terre a ete couverte d’6paisses tene- bres en plein midi et en pleine lune ; comme si tons les ecrivains de ce tems-la n’auroiont pas remarquoun si dtrange miracle! L’Evan. de la 79 for Cliristianily. the continuance of that darkness, “ they saw not one another.” The expression in St. Lnke, “ the sun was darkened,” tends rather to confirm than to overthrow this reasoning. I am sensible this ex¬ pression is generally thought equivalent to another; the sun was eclipsed; but the Bible is open to us all; and there can be no pre¬ sumption in endeavoring to investigate the meaning of Scripture for ourselves. Luckily for the present argumentation, the very phrase of the sun’s being darkened, occurs, in so mkny words, in one other place (and in only one) of the New Testament; and from that place you may possibly see reason to imagine, that the darkness iviight not, perhaps, have been so intense as to deserve the particu¬ lar notice of the Roman naturalists: “ And he opened the bottom¬ less pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun w’^as darkened,* and the air, by reason of the smoke of the pit.” If we should say, that the sun at the cru¬ cifixion was obnubilated, and darkened by the intervention of clouds, as it is here represented to be by the intervention of a smoke like the smoke of a furnace, I do not see what you could ob¬ ject to our account; but such a phenomenon has surely no right to be esteemed the greatest that mortal eye has ever beheld. I may be mistaken in this interpretation; but I have no design to misrepre¬ sent the fact, in order to get rid of a difficulty; the darkness may have been as intense as many commentators have supposed it: but neither they nor you can prove it was so; and I am surely under no necessity, upon this occasion, of granting you, out of deference to any commentator, what you can neither prove nor render prob¬ able. But you still, perhaps, may think, that the darkness, by its extent, made up for this deficiency in point of intenseness. The original word, expressive of its extent, is sometimes interpreted by the whole earth; more frequently, in the New Testament, of any little por¬ tion of the earth: for we read of the land of Judah, of the land of Israel, of the land of Zabulon, and of the land of Nephthalim; and it may very properly, I conceive, be translated in the place in ques¬ tion by region. But why should all the world take notice of a dark¬ ness which extended itself for a few miles about Jerusalem, and lasted but three hours ? The Italians, especially, had no reason to remark the event as singular; since they were accustomed at that time, as they are at present, to see the neighboring regions so dark¬ ened for days together by the eruptions of .^tna and Vesuvius, that no man could know his neighbor.! We learn from the Scripture account, that an earthquake accompanied this darkness; and a dark clouded sk}^, I apprehend, very frequently precedes an earthquake ; * - Kai tGKOTiaOr) b rjXiOi. Attok. IX. 2. t-nos autem tenebras cogiteinus tantas, quantos quondam eriiptione EtnEoruiu ignium jinitimas regiones obscuravisse dicuntnr, ul per bidunin nemo hominem homo agnosceret. Cic. de Nat. Deo. lib. ii. And Pliny, in describing the eruption of Vesuvius, which suffocated his uncle, says : Dies alibi, illic nox omnibus noctibus nigrior densiorquo. 80 WatsorCs Apology but its extent is not great, nor is its intenseness excessive, nor is the phenomenon itself so imusual, as not commonly to pass unnoticed in ages of science and history. I fear I may be liable to misrepre- senfetion in this place; but I beg it may be observed, that however slight in degree, or however confined in extent the darkness at the crucifixion may have been; I am of opinion, that the power of God was as supematurally exerted in its production and in that of the earthquake which accompanied it, as in the opening of the graves, and the resurrection of the saints, which followed the resurrection of Christ. In another place, you seem not to believe “that Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death, which he liM pronounced against an innocent person.” And the same reason which made him silent as to the death, ought, one Avould suppose, to have made him silent as to the miraculous events which accom- pi^ed it; and if Pilate, in his dispatches to the emperor, transmit¬ ted no account of the darkness (how great soever you suppose it to have been) which happened in a distant province ; I cannot appre¬ hend, that the report of it could have ever gained such credit at Rome as to induce either Pliny or Seneca to mention it as an au¬ thentic fact. I am, &c. LETTER VI. Sir I mean not to detain you long with my remarks upon your sixteenth chapter; for in a short Apology for Christianity, it cannot be expected mat I should apologize at length for the indiscretions or the first Christians. Nor have I any disposition to reap a mali¬ cious pleasure from exaggerating, which you have had so much good-natured pleasure in extenuating, the truculent barbarity of their Roman persecutors. M. de Voltaire has embraced every opportunity of contrasting the persecuting temper of the Christians with the mild tolerance of the ancient heathens; and I never read a page of his upon this subject without thinlang Christianity materially, if not intentionally, obliged | to him, lor his endeavor to depress the lofty spirit of religious bigotry. I may with justice pay the same compliment to you; and 1 do it with sincerity; heartily wishing, that, in the prosecution of your work, ymi may render every species of intolerance universally detestable. There is no reason why you should abate the asperity ot yoim invective; since no one can suspect you of a design to tra¬ duce Christianity under the guise of a zeal against persecution; or n any one should be so simple, he need but open the Gospel to be convinced, that such a scheme is too palpably absurd to have ever entered the head of any sensible and impartial man. 1 wish, for the credit of human nature, that I could find reason to 81 for Christianity. agree with you in what you have said of the “ universal toleration of Polytheism; of the mild indifference of antiquity; of the Roman princes beholding, without concern, a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their gentle sway.” But there are some passages in the Roman History which make me hesitate at least in this point, and almost induce me to believe, that the Romans were exceedingly jealous of all foreign religions, whether they were ac¬ companied wdth immoral manners or not. It was the Roman custom, indeed, to invite the tutelary gods of the nations, which they intended to subdue, to abandon their charge, and to promise them the same, or even a more august w'orship, in the city of Rome ;* * * § and their triumphs were graced as much with the exhibition of their captive gods, as with the less humane one of their captive kings.t But this custom, though it filled the city with hundreds of gods of every country, denomination, and quality, can¬ not be brought as a proof of Roman toleration; it may indicate the excess of their vanity, the extent of their superstition, or the refine¬ ment of their policy; but it can never show, that the religion of individuals, when it differed from public wisdom, w^as either con¬ nived at as a matter of indifference, or tolerated as an inalienable rig] it of human nature. . Upon another occasion, you. Sir, have refeped to Livy as relat¬ ing the introduction and suppression of the rites of Bacchus ; and in'that very place w^e find him confessing, that the prohibiting all foreign religions, and abolishing every mode of sacrifice w'hich dif¬ fered from the Roman mode, was a business frequently intrusted bv their ancestors to the care of the proper magistrates; and he gives this reason, for the procedure: that nothing could contribute more effectually to the ruin of religion, than the sacrificing after an external rite, and not after the manner instituted by their fathers.^ Not thirty years before this event, the Praetor, in conformity to a decree of the senate, had issued an edict, that no one should pre¬ sume to sacrifice in any public place after a new or foreign manner.^ * In oppugnationibus, ante omnia solitum a Romanis sacerdotibus evocari deum cujus in tutela id oppidum esset; promittique illi eundem, aut ampliorem apud Romanos cultum. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxviii. c. iv. f Roma triumphantis quotiens Ducis inclita currura Piausibusexceptit, totiens altaria Divum Addidit spoliis sibimet nova numina fecit.— Pruden. J Ciuoties hoc patrum avorumque setate negotium est magistratibus datum, ut sacra externa fieri vetarent? sacrificulos vatesque foro, circo, urbe prohiberent? vaticinos libros conquirercnt comburerentque? omnem disciplinam sacrificandi, priEterquam more Romano, abqlerent? Judica- bant enim prudentissimi viri oinnis divini humanique juris, nihil seque dissolvendiB religionis esse, quam ubi non patrio, sed externo ritu sacri- ficaretur. Liv. lib. xxxix. c. xvi. .-a a- § Ut quicumque librot vaticinos precationesve, aut artem saciiticandi conscriptam haberet, eos libros omnes litterasque ad se ante Kalendas Apriles deferret; neu quis in publico sacrove loco, novo aut externo ritu Bacrificaret. Liv. lib. xxv. c. i. 82 MVatsoii’s Apology And in a still more early period, the asdiles had been commanded to take care toat no gods were w’orshipped except the Roman gods: and that the Roman gods were worshipped after no manner but the established manner of the country.-'' But to come nearer to the times of which you are writing. In Dion Cassius you may meet with a great courtier, one of the interior cabinet, and a polished statesmp, in a set speech upon the most momernous subject, expressing himself to the emperor in a manner agreeable enough to the practice of antiquity, but utterly incon- remote idea of religious toleration. The speech alluded to, contains, I confess it, nothing more than the advice of an individual; but it ought to be remembered, that that individual was Majcenas, that the advice was given to Augustus, and that the occasion of giving it was no less important than the settling the lorm ol the Roman government. He recommends it to Ciesar to vvorship the gods himself according to the established form, and to force all others to do the same, and to hate and to punisk all those who should attempt to introduce foreign religions :t nay, he bids an eye upon the philosophers also : so that free thinlving, free speaking at least, upon religious matters, was not quite so safe under the gentle sway of the Roman princes, as, thank God, it is under the much more gentle government of our In the Edict of Toleration published by Galerius after six years’ unremitted persecution of the Christians, we perceive his motive tor persecution to have been the same with that which had influ¬ enced the conduct of the more ancient Romans, an abhorrence of all mnovahons m religion. You have favored us with the transla- tion ol this edict, in which he says, “ we were particularly desirous of reclaiming into the way of reason and nature,” ad. honas menies (a good pretence this for a polytheistic persecutor) “the deluded renounced the religion and ceremonies insti¬ tuted by their fathers;” this is the precise language of Livy de¬ scribing a persecution of a foreign religion three hundred years be- tore, turba erat nec sacrificantium nec precantium deos patrio more. And the very expedient of forcing the Christians to deliver ^ which was practised in this persecution and which Mosheim attributes to the advice of Hierocles, and you to that of the philosophers of those times, seems clear to me from the places m Livy before quoted, to have been nothing but an old piece of state policy, to which the Romans had recourse as dange? apprehended their established religion to be in any ^^In^e preamble of the letter of toleration, which the emperor * Datum inde negotium aidilibus, nt animadverterent, ne qui ni^i Komam dn, neu quo alio more quam patrio, colerentur, Liv. 1. iv. c.’xxx. t Taara re arw irparre, Kai Trpoaeri ro psv Oeiov TTavrt] navrois avros re crejjy, Kara ra rarpia, Kai raf aXXaj ripav avayKa^e’ raf hvdov ras Ti nepi avro Kai niaei Kai Ko'Xa^e. Dion. Cas. lib. lii. 83 for Christianity, Maxirain reluctantly wrote to Sabinus about a year after the pub¬ lication of Galerius’s Edict, there is a plain avowal of the reasons which induced Galerius and Diocletian to commence their perse¬ cution ; they had seen the temples of the gods forsaken, and were determined by the severity of punishment to reclaim men to their worship.* In short, the system recommended by Mascenas, of forcing every person to be of the emperor’s religion, and of hating and punishing every innovator, contained no new doctrine; it was correspondent to the practice of the Roman senate, in the most illustrious times of the republic, and seems to have been generally adopted by the emperors in their treatment of Christians, whilst they themselves were Pagans; and in their treatment of Pagans, after they them¬ selves became Christians ; and if any one should be willing to de¬ rive those laws against heretics (which are so abhorrent from the mild spirit of the Gospel, and so reproachful to the Roman code) from the blind adherence of the Christian emperors to the intoler¬ ant policy of their Pagan predecessors, something, I think, might be produced in support of liis conjecture. But I am sorry to have said so much upon such a subject. In en¬ deavoring to palliate the severity of the Romans towards the Chris¬ tians, you have remarked,-'* it was in vain that the oppressed be¬ liever asserted the inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment.” “ Though his situation might excite the pity, his argu¬ ments could never reach the understanding, either of the philoso¬ phic, or of the believing part of the Pagan world.” How is this, Sir ? are the arguments for liberty of conscience so exceedingly in¬ conclusive, that you think them incapable of reaching the under¬ standing, even of philosophers? A captious adversary would em¬ brace with avidity the opportunity this passage affords him, of blotting your character with the odious stain of being a pei-secutor; a stain which no learning can wipe out, which no genius or ability can render amiable. I am far from entertaining such an opinion of your principles; but this conclusion seems fairly deducible from what you have said, that the minds of the Pagans were so pre-oc- cupied with the notions of forcing, and hating, and punishing those who differed from them in religion, that arguments for the inalien¬ able rights of conscience, which would have convinced yourself and every philosopher in Europe, and staggered the resolution of an inquisitor, were incapable of reaching their luideretandings, or making any impression on their hearts; and you mighf perhaps, have spared yourself some perplexity in the investigation of the motives which induced the Roman emperors to persecute, and the Roman people to hate the Christians, if you had not overlooked the t 'EvveiSov ax.^Sov airavrag av0pa)7raf, Kara\£i(pQti •X J5 ‘h-ti '•<- er. • I -!•! l( i V A. AN APOLOGY FOR THE BIBLE. LETTER I. Sir ;—I have lately met with a book of yours, entitled, “ The Age of Reason, part the second, being an investigation of true and of fabulous theologyand think it not inconsistent with my station, and the duty I owe to society, to trouble you and the world with some observations on so extraordinary a performance. Extraordinary I esteem it; not from any novelty in the objections which you have produced against revealed religion (for I find little or no novelty in them), but from the zeal with which you labor to disseminate your opinions, and from the confidence with which you esteem them true. You perceive, by this, that I give you credit for your sin¬ cerity, how much soever I may question your wisdom, in writing in 5 uch a manner on such a subject; and I have no reluctance in acknowledging, that you possess a considerable share of energy of language, and acuteness of investigation; though I must be allowed to lament, that these talents have not been applied in a manner more useful to hmnan kind, and more creditable to yourself. I begin with your preface. You therein state, that you had long had an intention of publishing your thoughts upon religion, but that jrou had originally reserved it to a later period in life. I hope there is no want of charity in saying, that it would have been fortunate for the Christian world, had your life been terminated before you had fulfilled your intention. In accomplishing your purpose you will have unsettled the faith of thousands; rooted from the minds of the unhappy virtuous all their comfortable assurance of a future recom- pense ; have annihilated in the minds of the flagitious all their fears of future punishment; you wall have given the reins to the domination of every passion, and have thereby contributed to the introduction of the public insecurity, and of the private unhappiness, usually, and almost necessarily accompanying a state of corrupted morals. No one can think worse of confession to a priest, and subsequent absolution, as practised in the church of Rome, than I do; but I cannot, with you, attribute the guillotine-massacres to that cause. Men’s minds were not prepared, as you suppose, for the commission of all manner of crimes, by any doctrines of the church of Rome, corrupted as I esteem it, but by their not thoroughly believing even that religion. What may not society expect from those, who shall imbibe the principles of your book ? A fever, which you, and those about you, expected wmuld prove mortal, made you remember, with renewed satislactiop, that you 106 Watson's Apology had written the former part of your Age of Reason; and you know’, tlierefore, you say, by experience, the conscientious trial of your own principles. I admit this declaration to be a proof of the sin¬ cerity of your persuasion, but I cannot admit it to be any proof of the truth of your principles. What is conscience ? Is it, as has been thought, an internal monitor implanted in us by the Supreme Being, and dictating to us, on all occasions, wdiat is right or wuong ? Or is it merely our own judgment of the moral rectitude or turpitude of our own actions ? I take the word (with Mr. Locke) in the latter, as in the only intelligible sense. Now who sees not, that our judgments of virtue and vice, right and wrong, are not always formed from an enlightened and dispassionate use of our reason, in the investigation of truth ? They are more generally formed from the nature of the I’eligion W’e profess; from the quality of the civil government under W’hich we live; from the general manners of the age, or the par¬ ticular manners of the persons with whom we associate; from the education we have had in our youth; from the books we have read at a more advanced period; and from other accidental causes. Who sees not, that, on this account, conscience may be conformable or repugnant to the law of nature ? may be certain, or doubtful ? and that it can be no criterion of moral rectitude, even when it is certain, because the certainty of an opinion is no proof of its being a right opinion ? A man may be certainly persuaded of an error in reasoning, or of an untruth in matters of fact. It is a maxim of every law, human and divine, that a man ought never to act in op¬ position to his conscience ; but it will not from thence follow, that he will, in obeying the dictates of his conscience, on all occasions act right. An inquisitor, who burns Jews and heretics; a Robes¬ pierre, who massacres innocent and harmless women; a robber, who thinks that all things ought to be in common, and that a state of property is an unjust infringement of natural liberty;—these, and a thousand perpetrators of different crimes, may all follow the dic¬ tates of conscience; and may, at-the real or supposed approach of death, remember “ with renewed satisfaction” the worst of their transactions, and experience, without dismay, “ a conscientious trial of their principles.” But this their conscientious composure can be no proof to others of the rectitude of their principles, and ought to be no pledge to themselves of their innocence in adhering to them. I have thought fit to make this remark, with a view of suggesting to you a consideration of great importance, whether you have ex¬ amined calmly, and according to the best of your ability, the argu¬ ments by which the truth of revealed religion may, in the judgment of learned and impartial men, be established ? You will allow, that thousands of learned and impartial men (I speak not of priests, who, liowever, are, I trust, as learned and impartial as yourself, but of laymen of the most splendid talents), you will allow, that thousands of these, in all ages, have embraced revealed religion as true. Whether these men have all been in an error, enveloped in the darkness of ignorance, shackled by the chains of superstition, whilst for the Bible. 107 you and a few others have enjoyed light and liberty, is a question I submit to the decision of your readers. , . • » If you have made the best examination you can, and yet reject revealed religion as an imposture, I pray that God may pardon what I esteem your error. And whetlier you have made this exaimna- tioii or not, does not become me or any man to determine. That Gospel, which you despise, has taught me this moderation; it has said to me, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his owm master he standeth or falleth.” I think that you are error; but whether that error be to you a vincible or an invincible error, I presume not to determine. I know, indeed, where it is ^aid, “ that, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, loolisli- ness: and that if the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. The consequence of your unbelief must be left to the just and mer¬ ciful judgment of him, who alone knoweth the mechanisin and the liberty of our understandings; the origin of our opinions; the strength of our prejudices; the excellencies and the delects ot our reasoning faculties. . I shall, designedly, write this and the folloxving Letters in a popu¬ lar manner; hopto.g that thereby they may stand a chance O- being perused by that c-ass of readers, for whom your work seenas to be parlicularfy calc’^iated, and who are the most likely to be iiyuied by it The reall i .earned are in no danger of being infected by the poison of infideli'*. ; they will excuse me, therefore, for having en¬ tered as little as possible into deep disqmsitions concerning the au¬ thenticity of the Bible. The subject has been so learnedly, and so frequently handled by other writers, that it does not want (I had almost said, it does not admit) any farther proof And it is the more necessary to adopt this mode of answering your book, because you disclaim all learned appeals to other books, and undertake to prove, from the Bible itself, that it is unworthy of credit. I hope to show, from the Bible itself the direct contrary. But in case any of your readers should think that you had not put forth all your streno-lh, by not referring for proof of your opinion to ancient au- ihorsl lest they should suspect, that all ancient authors are in your favor; I will venture to affirm, that had you made a learned appeal to all the ancient books in the world, sacred or profane, Christian, Jewish, or Pagan, instead of lessening, they would have established tiie credit and authority of the Bible as the word of God. , Quittinf your preface, let us proceed to the wnrk itself; in which there is much repetition, and a defect of proper arranger^nt. 1 will follow your track, however, as nearly as I can. The hmt question you propose for consideration is, “Whether there ^ cient authority for believing the Bible to be the word of God, or whether there' is not ?” You determine this question in the negative, upon what vou are pleased to call moral evidence. You hold it impossible, that the Bible can be the word of God, because it is therein said, that the Israelites destroyed the Canaamtes by the ex¬ press command of God; and to believe the Bible to be true, we must, i^ou affirm, unbelicve all our belief of the m.oral jusnee ot 108 Watson's Apology God ; for wherein, you ask, could crying or smiling infants offend ? u acute a reasoner should attempt to disparage the Bible, by bringing forward this exploded and frequently refuted objection of Morgan, Tmdal, and Bolingbroke. You profess your- seli to be a deist, and to believe that there is a God, who created the universe, and established the laws of nature, by which it is sus¬ tained in existence. You profess, that, from the contemplation of the works of God, you derive a Imowledge of his attributes ; and you reject the Bible, because it ascribes to God things inconsistent ^s you suppose) with the attributes which you have discovered to belong to him.; in particular, you think it repugnant to his moral justice, that he should doom to destruction the crying or smiling in¬ fants of the Canaanites. Why do you not maintain it to be repugnant to his moral justice, that he should sutler crying or smiling infants to be swallowed up by an earthquake, drowned by an inundation consumed by a fire, starved by a famine, or destroyed by a pesti¬ lence. The word of God is in perfect harmony with his work • crying or smiling infants are subjected to death in both. We be¬ lieve that the earth, at the express command of God, opened her mouth, and swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their wives, their^ sons, and their little ones. '^This you esteem so repug- n^t to God s moral justice, that you spurn, as spurious, the book in which the circumstance is related. When Catania, Lima, and Lis¬ bon, were severally destroyed by earthquakes, men with their wives, their sons, and their little ones, were swallowed up alive ■ why do you not spurn, as spurious, the book of nature in which this lact IS certmnly wntten, and from the perusal of which you infer n ^ Pi'obably, reply, that the evils, which tlm Canaanites suffered from the express command of God, were different from those which are brought on mankind by tlie operahon of the laws of nature. Different! in what? Not in the magnitude of ^e eyil; not in the subjects of sufferance; not in the authw of it; for my philosophy, at least, instructs me to believe, that God not only prim.arilv formed, but that he hath, through all ages, executed the laws of nature; and that he will, through all eternity, administer them for the general happiness of his creatures whether we can, on every occasion, discern that end or not. I am far from being guilty of the impiety of questioning the exist¬ ence of the moral justice of God, as proved either by natural or re¬ vealed religion ; what I contend for is shortly this That you have no right, in fairness of reasoning, to urge any apparent deviation from moral justice as an argument against revealed religion, be¬ cause you do not urge an equally apparent deviation from it as an argument against natural religion; yoai reject the former, and admit the latter, without adverting, that, as to your objection, they must stand or fall together. As to the Canaanites, it is needless to enter into any proof of the depraved state of their morals; they were a wicked people in the time of Abraham, and they, even then, were devoted to destruction by God; but their iniquity w»s not then full. In the time of Moses, 109 for the Bible. they were idolaters, sacrificers of their own crying or smiling infants; devourers of human flesh; addicted to unnatural lust; immersed in the filthiness of all manner of vice. Now, I think, it will be impos¬ sible to prove, that it was a proceeding contraiy to Gods moral justice to exterminate so wicked a people. He made the Israelites the executors of his vengeance; and, in doing this, he gave such an evident and terrible proof of his abomination of vice, as could not fail to strike the surrounding nations with astonishment and terror, and to impress on the minds of the Israelites what they weie to ex¬ pect if they followed the example of the nations whom he com¬ manded them to cut off. “Ye shall not commit any of these abomi¬ nations, that the land spue not you out also, as it spued out the nations that w'ere before you.” How strong and descriptive this lanauaae! The vices of the inhabitants were so abominable, that the very land was sick of them, and forced to vomit them forth, as the stomach disgorges a deadly poison. I have often wondered what could be the reason, that men, not destitute of talents, should be desirous of undermining the authority of revealed religion, and studious in exposing, with a malignant and illiberal exultation, every little difficulty attending the Scrip¬ tures, to popular animadversion and contempt. I am not willing to attribute this strange propensity to what Plato attributed the atheism of his time; to profligacy of manners ; to affectation of singularity; to gross ignorance, assuming the semblance of deep research anil superior sagacity ; I had rather refer it to an impropriety of judg¬ ment, respecting the manners and mental acquirements of human Idnd in the first ages of the world. Most unbelievers argue as if thev thought, that man, in remote and rude antiquity, in the very birth and infancy of our species, had the same distinct conceptions of one eternal, invisible, incorporeal, infinitely wise, powerful, and good God, which they themselves have now. This I look upon as a great mistake, and a pregnant source of infidelity. Human kind, bv long experience, by the institutions of civil society; by the cut i- vation of arts and sciences; by, as I believe. Divine instruction ac- tuallv given to some, and traditionally communicated to all; is m a far more distinguished situation, as to the powers of the mind, man it was in the childhood of the world. The history of man is the history of the providence of God; yvho, willing the stipreme felici y of all his creatures, has adapted his government to the capacity oi those, who, in different ages, were the subjects of it. The history of any one nation throughout all ages, and that of all nations in the same age, are but separate parts of one great plan, winch God is carrying on for the moral melioration of mankind. But who can comprehend the whole of this immense design? The shortness of life, the weakness of our faculties, the inadequacy of our means ol information, conspire to make it impossible for us, worms ot the earth! insects of an hour! completely to understand any one ot its parts. No man, who well weighs the subject, ought to be surprised, that in the histories of ancient times many things should occur K . 110 Waliion'’ii Apology foi’eign to our manners, the propriety and necessity of which we camiot clearly apprehend. It appears incredible to many, that God Almighty should have had colloquial intercourse with our first parents; that he should have contracted a kind of friendship for the patriarchs, and entered into covenants with them; that he should have suspended the laws of nature in Egypt; should have been so apparently partial as to become the God and governor of one particular nation ; and .should have so far demeaned himself as to give to that people a burthensome ritual of worship, statutes, and ordinances, many of which seem to be heneath the dignity of his attention, unimportant and impolitic. I have conversed with many deists, and have al¬ ways found, that the strangeness of these things was the only reason for their disbelief of them ; nothing similar has happened in their lime; they will not, therefore, admit that these events have really taken place at any time. As well might a child, when arrived at a state of manhood, contend, that he had never either stood in need of or experienced the fostering care of a mother’s-kindness, the wearisbme attention of his nurse, or the instruction and discipline of his schoolmaster. The Supreme Being selected one family from an idolatrous world ; nursed it up, by various acts of his providence, into a great nation ; communicated to that nation a knowledge of his holiness, justice, mercy, power, and wisdom; disseminated them, at various times, through every part of the earth, that they might be a “ leaven to leaven the whole lump,” that they might assure all other nations of the existence of one supreme God, the creator and preserver of the world ; the only proper object of ado¬ ration. With what reason can we expect, that what w^as done to one nation, not out of any partiality to them, but for the general goou, should be done to all ? that the mode of instruction, which was suited to the infancy of the world, should be extended to the maturity of its manhood, or to the imbecility of its old age ? 1 own to you, that when I consider how nearly man, in a savage state, ap¬ proaches to the brute creation, as to intellectual excellence; and when I contemplate his miserable attainments, as to the knowledge of God, in a civilized state, when he has had no divine instruction on the subject, or when that instruction has been forgotten (for all men have known something of God from tradition), 1 cannot but admire the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, in having let himself down to our apprehensions; in having given to man¬ kind, in the earliest ages, sensible and extraordinary proofs of his existence and attributes; in having made the Jewish and Christian dispensations mediums to convey to all men, through all ages, that knowledge concerning himself, which he had vouchsafed to give immediately to the first. I owm it is strange, very strange, that he should have made an immediate manifestation of himself in the first ages of the wmrld ; but what is there that is not strange ? It is strange that you and I are here; that there is water, and earth, and air, and fire; that there is a sun, and moon, and stare; that there is generation, corruption, reproduction. I can account ultimately for Ill for the Bible. none of these things, witliout recurring to him who made every thing. I also am Ws workmanship, and look up to him with hope of preservation through all eternity; I adore him for his word as well as for his work: his w'ork I cannot comprehend, but his word hath assured me of all that I am concerned to know; that he hath prepared everlasting happiness for those who love and obey him. This you wall call preachment; I wall have done with it; but the subject is so vast, and the plan of Providence, in my opinion, so ob¬ viously wise and good, that I can never think of it wathout having ray mind filled with piety, admiration, and gratitude. In addition to the moral evidence (as you are pleased to think it) against the Bible, you threaten, in the progress of your work, to produce such other evidence as even a priest cannot deny. A phi¬ losopher in search of truth forfeits with me all claim to candor and impartiality, when he introduces railing for reasoning, vulgar and illiberal sarcasm in the room of argument. I will not imitate the example you set me ; but examine what you shall produce, with as much coolness and respect, as if you had given the priests no pro¬ vocation ; as if you were a man of the most unblemished character, subject to no prejudices, actuated by no bad designs, nor liable to have abuse retorted upon you with success. LETTER n. Before you commence your grand attack upon the Bible, you W'ish to establish a difference between the evidence necessai-y to prove the authenticity of the Bible, and that of any other ancient nook. I am not surprised at your anxiety on this head ; for all wri¬ ters on the subject have agreed in thinking, that St. Austin reason¬ ed well, when, in vindicating the genuineness of the Bible, he asked: “What proofs have we that the works of Plato; Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and other profane authors, W'ere wu’itten by those whose names they bear, unless it be that this has been an opinion generally received at all times, and by all those who have lived since these authors?” This writer was convinced, that the evi¬ dence, which established the genuineness of any profane book, would establish that of a sacred book; and I profess myself to be of the same opinion, notwithstanding what you have advanced to the contrary. In this part your ideas seem to me to be confused ; I do not say that you, designedly. Jumble together mathematical science and historical evidence ; the knowledge acquired by demonstration, and the probability derived from testimony. You know but of one an¬ cient book, that authoritatively challenges universal consent and belief, and that is Euclid’s Elements. If I were disposed to make frivolous objections, I should say, that even Euclid’s Elements had 112 Walsoii’s Apology not met with universal consent; that there had been men, both in ! ancient and modem times, who had questioned the intuitive evi¬ dence of some of his axioms, and denied the justness of some of his demonstrations: but, admitting the truth, I do not see the perti¬ nency of your observation. You are attempting to subvert the au¬ thenticity of the Bible, and you tell us that Euclid’s Elements are certainly true. What then? Does it follow that the Bible is cer¬ tainly false ? The most illiterate scrivener in the kingdom does not waiit to be informed, that the examples in his Wingate’s Arithmetic are proved by a different kind of reasoning from that by which he persuades himself to believe, that there was such a person as Henry VIII. or that there is such a city as Paris. It may be of use, to remove this confusion in your argument, to state, distinctly, the difference between the genuineness, and the authenticity, of a book. A genuine book is that which was written by the person whose name it bears, as the author of it. An authen¬ tic book is that which relates matters of fact, as they really happen¬ ed. A book may be genuine, without being authentic; and a book may be authentic, without being genuine. The books written by Richardson and Fielding are genuine books, though the histories of Clarissa and Tom Jones are fables. The history of the island of Formosa is a genuine book; it was written by Psalmanazar; but it is not an authentic book (though it was long esteemed as such, and translated into different languages), for the author, in the latter part of his life, took shame to hhnself for having imposed on the world,' and confessed that it was a mere romance. Anson’s Voyage may be considered as an authentic, book, it, probably, containing a true narration of the principal events recorded in it; but it is net a gen¬ uine book, having not been written by Walters, to whom it is as¬ cribed, but by Robins. This distinction, betw^een the genuineness and authenticity of a book, will assist us in detecting the fallacy of an argument, which you state with great confidence in the part of your work now under consideration, and which you frequently allude to, in other parts, as conclusive evidence against the truth of the Bible. Your argu¬ ment stands thus: if it be found that the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, were not written by Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, every part of the authority and authenticity of these Ixioks is gone at once. I presume to think otherwise. The genuineness of riiese books (in the judgment of those who say that they were written by these authors). will certainly be gone; but their au¬ thenticity may remain; they may still contain a true account of real transactions, though the names of the writers of them should be found to be different from what they are generally es¬ teemed to be. Had, indeed, Moses said that he wrote the five first books of the Bible ; and had Joshua and Samuel said that they wrote the books which are respectively attributed to them ; and had it been found, that Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, did not write these books; then, I grant, the authority of the whole would have been gone at once ; 113 for the Bible. hese men would have been found liars, as to the genuineness of he books; and this proof of their want of veracity, in one point, A'ould have invalidated their testimony in every other; these Dooks would have been justly stigmatized, as neither genuine nor luthentic. A history may be true, though it should not only be ascribed to 1 wrong author, but though the author of it should not be known; inonymous testimony does not destroy the reality of facts, whether aatural or miraculous. Had Lord Clarendon published his History of the Rebellion, without prefixing his name to it; or had the His¬ tory of Titus Livius come downi to us under the name of Valerius Flaccus, or Valerius Maximus; the facts mentioned in these histories would have been equally certain. As to your assertion, that the miracles recorded in Tacitus, and in other profane historians, are quite as .well authenticated as those of the Bible; it being a mere assertion, destitute of proof, may be properly answered by a contrary assertion. I take the liberty then to say, that the evidence for the miracles recorded in the Bible is, both in kind and degree, so greatly superior to that for the prodigies mentioned by Livy, or the miracles related by Tacitus, as to justify us in giving credit to the one as the work of God, and in withhold¬ ing it from the other as the effect of superstition and imposture. Tliis method of derogating from the credibility of Christianity, by opposing to the miracles of our Saviour the tricks of ancient impos¬ tors, seems to have originated with Hierocles in the fourth century ; and it has been adopted by unbelievers from that time to this; with this difference, indeed, that the heathens of the third and fourth century admitted that Jesus wrought miracles; but, lest that admission should have compelled them to abandon their gods and become Christians, they said, that their Apollonius, their Apu- leius, their Aristeas, did as great: whilst modern deists deny the fact of Jesus having ever wrought a miracle. And they have some reason for this proceeding; • they are sensible, that the Gospel mira¬ cles are so different, in all their circumstances, from those related in Pagan story, that, if they admit them to have been performed, they must admit Christianity to be true; lienee they have fabricated a kind of deistical axiom; that no human testimony can establish the credibility of a miracle. This, though it has been a hundred times refuted, is still insisted upon, as if its truth had never been questioned, and could not be disproved. You “ proceed to examine the authenticity of the Bible; and you begin, you s^, ivith what are called the five books of Moses; Gene¬ sis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Your intention, you profess, is to show that these books are spurious, and that Moses is not the author of them; and still farther, that they were not written in the time of Moses, nor till several hundred years after¬ wards; that they are no other than an attempted history of the life of Moses, and of the times in which he is said to have lived, and also of the times prior thereto, written by some very ignorant and stupid pretender to authorship, several hundred years after the death K 2 114 Watson’s Apology of Moses.” In this passage the utmost force of your attack on the authority of the five books of Moses is clearly stated. You are not the first who has started this difficulty; it is a difficulty, indeed, of modern date; having not been heard of, either in the synagogue, or out of it, till the twelfth century. About that time Aben Ezra, a Jew of great erudition, noticed some passages (the same that you have brought forward) in the five first books of the Bible, which he thought had not been written by Moses, but inserted by some person after the death of Moses. But he was far from maintaining, as you do, that these books were written by some ignorant and stupid pre¬ tender to authorship, many hundred years after the death of Moses. Hobbes contends, that the books of Moses are so called, not from their having been written by Moses, but from their containing an account of Moses. Spinoza supported the same opinion; and Le Clerc, a very able theological critic of the last and present century, once entertained the same notion. You see that this fancy has had some patrons before you; the merit or the demerit, the sagacity or the temerity of having asserted, that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, is not exclusively yours. Le Clerc, indeed, you must not boast of When his judgment was matured by age, he was ashamed of what he had WTitten on the subject in his younger years; he made a public recantation of his error, by annexing to his commentary on Genesis a Latin dissertation, concerning Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, and his design in composing it. If in your future life you should chance to change your opinion on the subject, it will be an honor to your character to emulate the integ¬ rity, and to imitate the example of Le Clerc. The Bible is not the only book which has undergone the fate of being reprobated as spurious, after it had been received as genuine and authentic for many ages. It has been maintained, that the history of Herodotus was written in the time of Constantine; and that the classics are forgeries of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. These extrava gant reveries amused the world at the time of their publication, and have long since sunk into oblivion. You esteem all prophets to be such lying rascals, that I dare not venture to predict the fate of your book. Before you produce your main objections to the genuineness of the books of Moses, you assert, “ that there is no affirmative evidence that Moses is the author of them.” What! no affirmative evidence! In the eleventh century Maimonides drew up a confession of faith for the Jews, which all of them at this day admit; it consists of only thirteen articles; and two of them have respect to Moses; one affirming the authenticity, the other the genuineness of his books The doctrine and prophecy of Moses is true. The law that we have was given by Moses. This is the faith of the Jews at present and has been their faith ever since the destruction of their city anc temple ; it was their faith in the time when the authors of the New Testament wrote ; it was their faith during their captivity in Baby Ion ; in the time of their kings and judges; and no period can bf shown, from the age of Moses to the present hour, in which it was 115 for the Bible. not their faith. Is this no affirmative evidence? I cannot desire a stronger. Josephus, in his book against Apion, writes thus; “We have only two and twenty books which are to be believed as of divine authority, and which comprehend the histoiy of all ages: five belong to Moses, which contain the original of man, and the tradition of the succession of generations, down to his death, which takes in a compass of about three thousand years.” Do you consider this as no affirmative evidence? Why should I mention Juvenal speaking of the volume which Moses has written ? Why enumerate a long list of profane authors, all bearing testimony to the fact of Moses being the leader and the lawgiver of the Jewish nation; and if a lawgiver, surely a writer of the laws. But what says the Bible ? In Exodus it says, “ Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,'.q.nd took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people.” In Deuteronomy it says, “ And it came to pap, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, imtil they were finished (this surely imports the finishing a laborious work), that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” This is said in Deuteronomy, which is land of repetition or abridgment of the four preceding books; and it is well known, that the Jews gave the name of the Law to the first five books of the Old Testament. What possible doubt can there be that Moses wrote the books in question ? I could accumulate many other passages from the Scrip¬ tures to this purpose; but if what I have advanced will not con¬ vince you that there is affirmative evidence, and of the strongest kind, for Moses’s being the author of these books, nothing that I can advance wdll convince you. What if I should grant all you undertake to prove (the stupidity and ignorance of the writer excepted)? What if ! should admit, that Samuel, or Ezra, or some other learned Jew, composed these books, from public records, many years after the death of Moses ? Will it follow that there was no truth in them ? According to my logic, it will only follow, that they are not genuine books; every fact re¬ corded in them may be true, whenever, or by whomsoever they were written. It cannot be said that the Jews had no public records; the Bible furnishes abundance of proof to the contrary. I by no means admit, that these books, as to the main part of them, -were not written by Moses; but I do contend, that a book may contain a true history, though we Imow not the author of it; or though we may be mistaken in ascribing it to a wrong author. The first argument you produce against Moses being the author of these books is so old, that I do not know its original author ; and it is so miserable a one, that I wonder you should adopt it. “ These books cannot be written by Moses, because they are wrote in the third person; it is always, 'The Lord said unto Moses, or Moses said unto the Lord. This,” you say, “ is the style and manner that his¬ torians use in speaking of the person whose lives and actions they 116 Watson'^s Apology are writing.” This observation is true, but it does not extend far ' enough; for this is the style and manner, not only of historians writing of other persons, but of eminent men, such as Xenophon i and Josephus, writing of themselves. If General Washington should write the history of the American war, and should, from his great modesty, speak of himself in the third person, would you think it I reasonable, that, two or three thousand years hence, any person ' should, on that account, contend, that the history was not true? ; C^sar writes of himself in the third person: it is always, Caesar made | a speech, or a speech was made to Caesar, C®sar crossed the Rhine, | Caesar invaded Britain; but every schoolboy knows, that this circum- ' sta,nce cannot be adduced as a serious argument against Caesar's being the author of his own Commentaries. But Moses, you urge, cannot be the author of the book of Num¬ bers, because he says of himself, “that Moses was a very meek man, above all the men that were on the face of the earth.” If he said this of himself, he was, you say, “ a vain and arrogant cox¬ comb (such is your phrase!), and unworthy of credit; and if he did not say it, the books are without authority.” This your dilemma is perfectly harmless ; it has not a horn to hurt the weakest logician. If Moses did not write this little verse, if it was inserted by Samuel, or any of his countrymen, who knew his character and revered his memory, will it follow that he did not write any other part of the book of Numbers ? Or if he did not write any part of the book of Numbers, will it follow that he did not write any of the other books of which he is usually reputed the author ? And if he did write this of himself, he was justified by the occasion which extorted from him this commendation. Had this expression been Avritten in a modern style and manner, it would probably have given you no offence. For who would be so fastidious as to find fault with an illustrious man, who being calumniated by his nearest relations, as guilty of pride and fond of power, should vindicate his character by saying, my temper was naturally as meek and unassuming as that of any man upon earth ? There are occasions, in which a modest man, who speaks truly, may speak proudly of himself, without for¬ feiting his general character; and there is no occasion, which either more requires, or more excuses this conduct, than when he is re¬ pelling the foul and envious aspersions of those, who both knew his character and had experienced his kindness: and in that predica¬ ment stood Aaron and Miriam, the accusers of Moses. You your¬ self have, probably, felt the sting of calumny, and have been anxious to remove the impression. I do not call you a vain and ar¬ rogant coxcomb for vindicating your character, when in the latter part of this very work you boast, and I hope truly, “that the man ' does not exists that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, in the American revolution, or in the French revo¬ lution; or that I have in any case returned evil for evil.” I know not what kings and priests may say to this; you may not have re¬ turned to them evil for evil, because they never, I believe, did you for the Bible. 117 any harm; but you have done them all the harm you could, and that without provocation. 1 think it needless to notice your observation upon what you call the dramatic style of Deuteronomy; it is an ill-founded hypothesis. You might as well ask where the author of Caesar’s Commentaries got the speeches of Caesar, as where the author of Deuteronomy got the speeches of Moses. But your argument, that Moses was not the author of Deuteronomy, because the reason given in that book for the observation of the sabbath is different from that given in Exodus, merits a reply. You need not be told, that the very name of this book imports, m Greek, a repetition of a law; and that the Hebrew doctors have called it by a word of the same meaning. In the fifth verse of the first chapter, it is said in our Bibles, “ Moses began to declare this law;” but the Hebrew'words, more properly translated, import, that Moses “ began, or determined, to explain the law.” This is no shift of mine to get over a difficulty; the words are so rendered in most of the ancient versions, and by Eagius, Vetablus, and Le Clerc, men eminently skilled in the Elebrew language. This repetition and explanation of the law was a wise and benevolent proceeding in Moses; that those who were either not born, or were mere infants, when it was first (forty years before) delivered in Horeb, might have an opportunity of knowing it; especially as Moses their leader was soon to be taken from them, and they were about to be settled in the midst of nations given to idolatry and sunk in vice. Kow where is the wonder, that some variations, and some additions, should he made to a law, w'hen a legislator thinks fit to republish it many years after its first promulgation ? . . With respect to the sabbath, the learned are divided in opinion concerning its Origin ; some contending that it was sanctified iTom the creation of the wnrld; that it W'as observed by the patriarchs before the flood ; that it was neglected by the Israelites during their bondage in Egypt; revived on the falling of manna in the wilder¬ ness; and enjoined, as a positive law, at Mount Sinai. Otheis esteem its institution to have been no older than the age of Moses, and argue, that w'hat is said of the sanctification of the sabbath in the book of Genesis, is said by way of anticipation. T. here may be truth in both these accounts. To me it is probable, that the memory of the creation was handed dowm from Adam to all his posterity; and that the seventh day was, for a long time, held sacred by all nations in commemoration of that event; but that the peculiar rigidness of its observance was enjoined by Moses to the Israelites alone. As to there being tw'o reasons given for its being kept holy- one, that on that day God rested from the work of creation-—the other, that on that day God had given them rest from the servitude of Egypt—I see no contradiction in the accounts. If a rnan, in writing the history of England, should inform his readers, that me parliament had ordered the 5th of November to be kept holy, be¬ cause on that day God had delivered the nation from a bloody- intended massacre by gunpowder; and if, in another part of his 118 Watsori’s Apology history, he should assign the deliverance of our church and nation from popery and arbitrary power, by the arrival of King William, as a reason for its being kept holy; would any one contend, that he s was not justified in both these ways of expression, or that we ought : from thence to conclude that he was not the author of them both ? You think “that law in De\iteronomy inhuman and brutal, which authorizes parents, the father and the mother, to bring their owm children to have them stoned to death for what it is pleased to call stubbornness.” You are aware, I suppose, that paternal power amongst the Romans, the Gauls, the Persians, and other nations, j was of the most arbitrary kind; that it extended to the taking away i the life of the child. I do not know whether the Israelites in the time of Moses exercised this paternal power; it was not a custom adopted by all nations, but it was by many; and in the infancy of society, before individual families had coalesced into communities, it was probably very general. Now Moses, by this law, which you esteem brutal and inhuman, hindered such an extravagant power from being either introduced or exercised amongst the Israelites. This law is so far from countenancing the arbitrary power of a father over the life of Ins child, that it takes from him the power of accusing the child before a magistrate; the father and the mother of the child must agree in bringing the child to judgment; and it is not by their united will that the child was to be condemned to death; the elders of the city were to judge whether the accusation was true; and the accusation was to be, not merely, as you in- sinuate, that the child was stubborn, but that he was “ stubborn and rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard.” Considered in this light, you must allow the law to have been a humane restriction of a power improper to be lodged wfith any parent. That you may abuse the priests, you abandon your subject^— “ priests (you say) preach up Deuteronomy, for Deuteronomy preaches up tithes.” I do not know that priests preach up Deuteronomy more tlian they preach up other books of Scripture; but I do know that tithes are not preached up in Deuteronomy more than in Leviticus, in Numbers, in Chronicles, in Malachi, in the law, the history, and the prophets of the Jewish nation. You go on, “it is from this book, chap, xxv, ver. 4, they have taken the phrase and applied it to tithing, ‘ thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the cornand that this might not escape observation, they have, noted it in the table of contents at the head of the chapter, though it is only a single verse of less than two lines. O priests! priests! ye are willing to be compared to an ox for the sake of tithes!” I cannot call this reasoning, and I will not pollute my page by giving it a proper appellation. Had the table of contents, instead of sim-, ply saying, the ox is not to be muzzled, said, tithes enjoined, or priests to be maintained, there would have been a little ground for your censure. Whoever noted this phrase at the head of the chap¬ ter had better reason for doing it than you have attributed to them. They did it, because St. Paul had quoted it, when he wms proving to the Corinthians, that they w’ho preached the Gospel had a right for the Bible. 119 to live by the Gospel; it was Paul, and not the priests, who first apphed &is phrase to tithing. St. Paul, indeed, did not avail him¬ self of the right he contended for; he was not, therefore, interested in what he said. The reason on which he grounds the right, is not merely this quotation which you ridicule ; nor the appointment of the law of Moses, which you think fabulous; nor the injunction of Jesus, which you despise; no, it is a reason founded in the nature of things, and which no pliilosopher, no unbeliever, no man of com¬ mon sense can deny to be a solid reason; it amounts to this, that the lalwrer is worthy of his hire.” Nothing is so much a man’s own os his labor and ingenuity; and it is entirely consonant to the law of nature, that by the innocent use of these he should provide for his subsistence. Husbandmen, artists, soldiers, physicians, law¬ yers, all let out their labor and talents for a stipulated reward: why may not a priest do the same? Some accounts of you have been published in England; but, conceiving them to have proceeded from a design to injure your character, I never read them. I know nothing of vour parentage, your education, or condition in life. You may have been elevated by your birth above the necessity of ac- quinng the means of sustaining life by the labor of either hand or head: if this be the case, you ought not to despise those wdio have come into the world in less favorable circumstances. If your origin has been less fortunate, you must have supported yourself, either by manual labor, or the exercise of your genius. Why should you Imnk that conduct disreputable in priests, which you probably con¬ sider as laudable in yourself? I know not whether you have not as pat a dislike of kings as of priests : but, that you may be induced to think more favorably of men of my profession, I will just men- tion to you, that the payment of tithes is no new institution, but pt they w'ere paid in the most ancient times, not to priests only, but tpin^. I could give you a hundred instances of this: tAvo may be sufficient. Abraham paid tithes to the king of Salem, four hundred years before the law of Moses was given. The king of alem was ppst also of the most high God. Priests, you see, existed m the world, and were held in high estimation, for kings w'ere priest^ long before the impostures, as you esteem them, of the Jewish and Christian dispensations were heard of But as this in¬ stance IS taken from a book which you call “a book of contradic¬ tions and lies”—the Bible, I will give you another, from a book, to which, as it is written by a profane author, you probably will not object. Diogenes Leartius, in his Life of Solon, cites a letter of Pisistratus to that lawgiver, in which he says, “ I, risistratus, the tyrant, am contented with the stipends which were paid to those who reigned before me; the people of Athens set apwt a tenth of the fruits of their land, not for my private use, but to be expended in the public sacrifices, and for the general good.” 120 Watson’s Apology LETTER III. Having done with what you call the grammatical evidence that Moses was not the author of the books attributed to him, you come to your historical and chronological evidence ; and you begin with Genesis. Your first argument is taken from the single word Dan being fSund in Genesis, when it appeai-s from the book of Judges, that the town of Laish Avas not called Dan till above three hundred and thirty years after the death of Moses; therefore, the writ^ of Genesis, you conclude, must have lived after the town of Laish had the name of Dan given to it. Lest this objection should not be obvious enough to a common capacity, you illustrate it in the following manner: “ Havre-de-Grace was called Havre-Marat in 1793; should then any dateless writing be found, in after times, with the name of Havre-Marat, it would be certain evidence that such a writing could not have been written till after the year 1793.” This is a WTong conclusion. Suppose some hot republican should at this day publish a new edition of any old history of France, and instead of Havre-de-Grace should write Havre-Marat; and that two or three thousand years hence a man, like yourself, should, on that account, reject the whole history as spurious, would he be jus¬ tified in so doing? Would it not be reasonable to tell him, that the name Havre-Marat had been inserted, not by the original author of the history, but by a subsequent editor of it; and to refer him, for a proof of the genuineness of the book, to the testimony of the whole French nation? This supposition so obviously applies to your difficulty, that I cannot but recommend it to your impartial at¬ tention. But if this solution does not please you, I desire it may be proved, that the Dan, mentioned in Genesis, was the same town as the Dan, mentioned in Judges. I desire, farther, to have it proved, that the Dan, mentioned in Genesis, was the name of a town, and not of a river. It is merely said, Abram pursued them, the enemies of Lot, to Dan. Now a river was full as likely as a town to stop a pursuit. Lot, we know, was settled in the plain of Jordan ,* and Jordan, we know, was composed of the united streams of two rivers, called Jor and Dan. Your next difficulty respects its being said in Genesis, “ These are the kings that reigned in Edam before there reigned any king over the children of Israel: this passage could only have been written, you say (and I think you say rightly), after the first king began to reign over Israel; so far frorn being written by Moses, it could not have been written till the time of Saul at the least.” I admit this inference, but I deny its application. A small addition to a book does not destroy either the genuineness or the authenticity of the whole book. I am not ignorant of the manner in which commentators have answered this objection of Spinoza, without making the concessions which I have made ; but I have no scruple in admitting, that the passage in question, consisting of nine verees for the Bible. 121 containing the genealogy of some kings of Edom, might have been inserted in the book of Genesis, after the book of Chronicles (which was called in Greek by a name importing that it contained things left out in other books) was written. The learned have shown, that interpolations have happened to other books j but these inser¬ tions bv other hands have never been considered as invalidating the authority of those books. “Take away from Genesis,” you say, “the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, traditionary or invented absurdi¬ ties, or of downright lies.”—What! is it a story then, that the world had a begiiming, and that the author of it was God ? If you deem this a story, I am not disputing with a deistical philosopher, but with an atheistic madman. Is it a story, that our first parents fell from a paradisiacal state; that this earth was destroyed by a deluge; that Noah and his family were preserved in the ark, and that the world has been repeopled by his descendants? Look into a book so common, that almost eve^ body has it, and so excellent that no person ought to be without it—Grotius on the truth of the Christian religion, and you will there meet with abundant testimony to the truth of all the principal facts recorded in Genesis. The testimony is not that of Jews, Christians, and priests; it is the testimony of the philosophers, historians, and poets of antiquity. The oldest book in the world is Genesis; and it is remarkable, that those books, which come nearest to it in age, are those which make, either the most distinct mention, or the most evident allusion to the facts re¬ lated in Genesis, concerning the formation of the world from a chaotic mass, the primeval innocence and subsequent fall of man, the longevity of mankind in the first ages of the world, the depravi¬ ty of the antediluvians, and the destruction of the world. Read the tenth chapter of Genesis. It may appear to you to contain no¬ thing but an uninteresting narrative of the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth; a mere fable, an invented absurdity, a down¬ right lie. No, sir, it is one of the most valuable, and the most ven¬ erable records of antiquity. It explains what all profane historians were ignorant of—the origin of nations. Had it told us, as other books do, that one nation had sprung out of the earth they inhabit¬ ed ; another from a cricket or a grasshopper; another from an oak; another from a mushroom; another from a dragon’s tooth ; then, indeed, it would have merited the appellation you, with so much temerity, bestow upon it. Instead of these absurdities, it gives such an account of the peopling the earth after the deluge as no other book in the world ever did give; and the truth of which ail other books in the world, which contain any thing on the subject, confirm. The last verse of the chapter says, “ These are the fami¬ lies of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth, after the flood.” It would require great learning to trace out, precisely, either the actual situation of all the countries in which these founders of em» L 122 Watson^s Apology pires settled, or to ascertain the extent of their dominions. This, 1 however, has been done by various authors, to the satisfaction of all | competent judges ; so much, at least, to my satisfaction, that had I I no other proof of the authenticity of Genesis. I should consider this as sufiicient. But, without the aid of learning, any man who can barely read his Bible, and has but heard of such people as the As¬ syrians, the Elamites, the Lydians, the Medes, the lonians, the Tliracians, will readily acknowledge, that they had Assur, and i Elam, and Lud, and Madai, and Javan, and Tiras, grandsons of Noah, for their respective founders; and knowing this, he will not, I hope, part with his Bible, as a system of fables. I am no enemy to philosophy; but when philosophy would rob me of my Bible, I must say of it, as Cicero said of the twelve tables, this little book alone exceeds the libraries of all the philosophers in the weight of its authority, and in the extent of its utility. From the abuse of the Bible you proceed to that of Moses, and again bring forward the subject of his wars in the land of Canaan. There are many men who look upon all war (would to God that all men saw it in the same light!) with extreme abhorrence, as afflict¬ ing mankind with calamities not necessary, shocking to humanity, and repugnant to reason. But is it repugnant to reason, that God should, by an express act of his providence, destroy a wicked na¬ tion ? I am fond of considering the goodness of God as the leading principle of his conduct towards mankind, of considering his justice as subservient to his mercy. He punishes individuals and nations with the rod of his wrath; but I am persuaded that all his punish¬ ments originate in his abhorrence of sin; are calculated to lessen its influence ; and are proofs of his goodness; inasmuch as it may not be possible for Omnipotence itself to communicate supreme hap¬ piness to the human race, whilst they continue servants of sin. The destruction of the Canaanites exhibits to all nations, in all ages, a signal proof of God’s displeasure against sin ; it has been to others, and it is to ourselves, a benevolent warning. Moses would have been the wretch you represent him, had he acted by his own authority alone ; but you may as reasonably attribute cruelty and murder to the judge of the land in condemning criminals to death, as butchery and massacre to Moses in executing the command of God. The Midianites, through the counsel of Balaam, and by the vi¬ cious instrumentality of their women, had seduced a part of the Israelites to idolatry; to the impure worship of their infamous god Baalpeor: for this offence, twenty-four thousand Israelites had per¬ ished in a plague from heaven, and Moses received a command from God “ to smite the Midianites who had beguiled the people.” An army w'as equipped, and sent against Midian. When the army returned victorious, Moses and the princes of the congregation went to meet it; “ and Moses was wroth with the officers.” He observed the women captives, and he asked with astonishment, “ Have ye saved all the women alive ? Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit tres- 123 for the Bible. pass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation.” He then gave an order, that the boys and the women should be put t6 death, but that the yourig maidens should be kept alive for themselves. I see nothing in this proceed¬ ing, but good policy, combined with mercy. The young men might have become dangerous avengers of, what they would esteem, dieir country’s wrongs; the mothers might have again allured the Israelites to the love of licentious pleasures and the practice ot idolatry, and brought another plague upon the congregation ; bi^ the young maidens, not being polluted by the flagitious habits ot their mothers, nor likely to create disturbance by rebellion, were kept alive. You give a different turn to the matter; you say, “ that thirty-two thousand women-children were consigned to debaucliery by the order of Moses.” Prove this, and I will allow that Moses was the horrid monster you make him; prove this, and I will allotv that the Bible is what you call it, “ a hook of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy;” prove this, or excuse my warmth if I say to you, as Paul said to Elymas the sorcerer, who sought to turn away Sergius Paulus from the faith, “ O full of all subtilty, and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” I did not, when I beo-an these Letters, think that I should have been moved to this severity of rebuke, by any thing you could have written; but when so gross a misrepresentation is made of God’s proceedings, ccwln^s would be a crime. The women-children were not reserved for the purposes of debauchery, but of slavery; a custom a-bhorrent from our manners, but everywhere practised in former times, and still practised in countries where the benignity of the Christian religion has not softened the ferocity of human nature. You here admit a part of the account given in the Bible respecting the expedition against Midian to be a true account; it is not unreasonable to desire that you will admit the whole, or show sufficient reason why you admit one part, and reject the other. I will mention the part to which you have paid no attention. The Israelitish army consisted but of twelve thousand men, a mere handful when opposed to the people of Midian; yet, when the officers made a muster of their troops after their return from the war, they found that they had not lost a single man! This circumstance struck them as so decisive an evidence of God’s interposition, that out of the spoils they had taken thev offered “ an oblation to the Lord, an atonement for their souls.” Do but believe what the captains of thousands, and the captains of hundreds, believed at the time when these things hap¬ pened, and wm shall never more hear of your objections to the Bible, from its account of the wars of Moses. You produce tivo or three other objections respecting the gen¬ uineness of the first five books of the Bible. I cannot stop to notice them: every commentator answers them in a manner suited to the apprehension of even a mere English reader. You calculate, to the thousandth part of an inch, the length of the iron bed of Og the king of Basan; but you do not prove that the bed was too big for the 124 Watson's Apology body, or that a Patagonian would have been lost in it. You make no allowance for the size of a royal bed ; nor ever suspect, that king Og might have been possessed with the same kind of vanity, which occupied the mind of king Alexander, when he ordered his soldiers to enlarge the size of their beds, that they might give to the Indians, in succeeding ages, a great idea of the prodigious stature of a Mace¬ donian. In many parts of your work you speak much in commen¬ dation of science. I join with you in every commendation you can give it; but you speak of it in such a manner, as gives room to be¬ lieve, that you are a great proficient in it; if this be the case, I would recommend a problem to your attention, the solution of which you will readily allow to be far above the powers of a man conversant only, as you represent priests and bishops to be, in hie, hcBC, hoc. The problem is this, to determine the height to which a human body, preserving its similarity of figure, may be augmented, before it will perish by its own weight. When you have solved this problem, we shall loiow whether the bed of the king of Basan was too big for any giant; whether the existence of a man twelve or fifteen feet high is in the nature of things impossible. My phi¬ losophy teaches me to doubt of many things; but it does not teach me to reject every testimony which is opposite to my experience : had I been born in Shetland, I could, on proper testimony, have be¬ lieved in the existence of the Lincolnshire ox, or of the largest dray-horse in London; though the oxen and horses in Shetland had not been bigger than mastiffs. LETTER IV. Having finished your objections to the genuineness of the books of Moses, you proceed to your remarks on the book of Joshua; and from its internal evidence you endeavor to prove, that this book was not written by Joshua. What then ? what is your conclusion ? “ that it is anonymous and without authority.” Stop a little; your conclusion is not connected with your premises; your friend Euclid would have been ashamed of it. “ Anonymous, and therefore with¬ out authority ?” I have noticed this solecism before; but as you frequently bring it forward, and, indeed, your book stands much in need of it, I will submit to your consideration another observation on the subject—the book called Fleta is anonymous, but it is noton that account without authority. Domesday book is anonymous, and was written above seven hundred years ago ; yet our courts of law do not hold it to be without authority, as to the matters of fact re¬ lated in it. Yes, you will sav, but |his book has been preserved with singular care amongst the records of the nation. And who told you that the Jews had no records, or that they did not preserve them with singular care ? Josephus says the contrary: and, in the 125 for the Bible. Bible itself, an appeal is made to many books which have perished ; such as the books of Jasher, the book of Nathan, of Abijah, of Iddo, of Jehu, of natural history by Solomon, of the acts of Manasseh, and others which might be mentioned. If any one having access to the iournals of the lords and commons, to the books of the treasuiy, war office, privy council, and other public documents, should at this day write a history of the reigns of George the First and Second, and should publish it without his name, would any man, three or four hundreds or thousands of years hence, question the authority of that book, when he knew that the w'hole British nation had re¬ ceived it as an authentic book from the time of its first public^on to the age in which he lived ? This supposition is in point. The books of the Old Testament were composed from the records of the Jewish nation, and they have been received as true by that nation, from the time in Avhich they were wTitten to the present day. Dodsley’s Aimual Register is an anonymous book, we only know the name of its editor ^ the New Annual Register is an anonymous book; the Review's are anonymous books; but do w'e. or will our posterity, esteem these books as of no authority ? On the contrary, they are admitted at present, and will be received in after ages, as authoritative records of the civil, military, and literal histcwy oi England and of Europe. So little foundation is there for our being startled by your assertion, “ it is anonymous and without authority. If I am right in this reasoning (and I protest to you that I do imt see any error in it), all the arguments you adduce in proof that the book of Joshua was not written by Joshua, nor that ot Samuel by Samuel, are nothing to the purpose for Avhich you have brought them forward : these books may be books of authority, though ail you advance against the genuineness of them should be granted. No article of faith is injured by allowing, that there is no such posi¬ tive proof, when or by whom these, and some other books ot Holy Scripture were written, as to exclude all possibility ot doubt and cavil. There is no necessity, indeed, to allow this. The chrono¬ logical and historical difficulties, which others before you have pro¬ duced, have been answered, and, as to the greatest part ot them, so well answ'ered, that I wdll not waste the reader s time by enter¬ ing into a particular examination of them. You make yourself merry wdth what you call the tale oi the sun standing still upon mount Gibeon, and the moon in the valley ot Aialon ; and you say, that “ the story detects itself, because there is not a nation in the world that knows any thing about it. How can you expect that there should, when there is not a nadion in the world whose annals reach this era by many hundred years It happens, however, that you are probably mista_ken as to the lact: a confused tradition concerning this miracle, and a similar one in the time of Ahaz, when the sun went back ten degrees, has been pre¬ served amongst one of the most ancient nations, as we are mtormed by one of the most ancient historians. Herodotus, m his Euterpe, speaking of the Egyptian priests, says, “they told me, that the sun had four times deviated Irom his course, having twice risen where L2 126 Watsori's Apology he urufOTmly goes down, and twice gone down where he uniformly nses. This, however, had produced no alteration in the climate of £.gypt; tne fruits of the earth, and the phenomena of the Nile, had always been the same.” (Beloe’s Trans.) The last part of this ob¬ servation confirms the conjecture, that this account of the Egyptian priests had a reference to the two miracles respecting the sun men¬ tioned in Scripture; for they were not of that kind, which could introduce any change in climates or seasons. You would have been contented to admit the account of this miracle as a fine piece of poetical imagery; you may have seen some Jewish doctors, and some Christian commentators who consider it as such, but improp¬ erly, in my opinion. I think it idle, at least, if not impious, to un¬ dertake to explain how the miracle wms performed; but one, who IS not able to explain the mode of doing a thing, argues ill if he thence infers that the thing w'as not done. We are perfectly igno¬ rant how the sun was formed, how the planets were projected at the creation, how thev are still retained in their orbits by the power of gravity ; but we admit, notwithstanding, that the sun was formed that the planets were then projected, and that they are still retained m their orbits. The machine of the universe is in the hand of God ; he can stop the motion of any part, or of the whole of it, with less trouble, and less danger of injuring it, than you can stop your watch. In testimony of the reality of the miracle, the author of the book says, “ IS not this written in the book of Jasher?” No author in his senses would have appealed, in proof of his veracity, to a book which did not exist, or in attestation of a fact, which, though it did fhTArr T T 'W^^fely, therefore, conclude, that at the time the book of Joshua w^as written, there w'as such a book as the book of Jasher, and that the miracle of the sun’s stand¬ ing still was recorded in tliat book. But this observation, you wall say, does not prove the fact of the sun having stood still; I have not produced it as a priwf of that fact; but it proves, that the author of the book of Joshua believed the fact, and that the people of Is¬ rael admitted the authority of the book of Jasher. An appeal to a fabulous book would have been as senseless an insult upon their understanding, as it would have been upon ours, had Rapin ap- tle^of^IlLting^^^^^^^ Nights’ Entertainments as a proof of the ba^ I cannot atMbute much weight to your argument against the genuineness of the book of Joshua, from its being said, that “Joshua burned Ai, and made it a heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. Joshua lived twentv-four years after the burning of Ai: and f he wrote his history in the latter part of his life, what absurdity s there in saying Ai is still in ruins, or Ai is in ruins to this very day ( A young man, who had seen the heads of the rebels in 1745 when they were first stuck upon poles at Temple Bar, might, twenty’ years afterwards, m attestation of his veracity in speaking of the fact, have justly said, and they are there to this very day. A^Tioever ^ f ^^“hew, it was written not many centuries, probably (I had almost said certainly) not a quarter of one centui^ 127 for the Bible. after the death of Jesus; yet the author, speaking of the potter’s field, which had been purchased by the chief priests with the money they had given Judas to betray his master, says, that it was therefore called the field of blood unto this day; and in another place he says, that the story of the body of Jesus being stolen out of the sepulchre was commonly reported among the Jews until this day. Moses, in his old age, had made use of a similar expression, when he put the Israelites in mind of what the Lord had done to the Egyptians in the Red Sea, “ the Lord has destroyed them unto this day.” (Deut. xi. 4.) . , , , t In the last chapter of the book of Joshua it is related, that J ostiua assembled all the tribes of Israel to Shechem; and there, in tlm presence of the elders and principal men of Israel, he recapitulated, in a short speech, all that God had done lor their nation, from the calling of Abraham to that time when they were settled in the land which God had promised to their forefathers. In finishing his speech, he said to them, “ Choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dw^ell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other Gods.” Joshua urged farther, that God would not suffer them to worship other gods in fellowship with him; they answ’ered, that “ they would serve the Lord.’ Joshua then said to them, “ ye are witnesses against yourselves, that ye have chosen you the Lord to serve him. And they said. We are witnesses.” Here was a solemn covenant betw'een Joshua on the part of the Lord, and all the men of Israel on their own part. 'The text then says, “ so Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem, and Joshua wTote these words in the book of the law of God.” Here is a proof of two things; first, that there was then, a few' years after the death of Moses, existing a book called the Book of the Law of God; the same, without doubt, which Moses had written, and com¬ mitted to the custody of the Levites, that it might be kept in the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it might be a witness against them; secondly, that Joshua wrote a part at least of his own trans¬ actions in that very book, as an addition to it. It is not a proof that he wrote all his owm transactions in any book; but I submit entirely to the judgment of every candid man, whether this proof of his having recorded a veiy material transaction, does not make it prob¬ able that he recorded other material transactions; that he wrote the chief part of the book of Joshua; and that such things as hap¬ pened after his death have been inserted in it by others in order to render the liistory more complete. 'The book of Joshua, chap, vi, ver. 26, is quoted in the first book of Kings, chap, xvi, ver. 34. “In his (Ahab’s) days did Hiel, the Bethelite, build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abirara, his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by 128 Watson^s Ajiology Joshua, the son of Nun.” Here is a proof that the book of Joshua is older than the first book of Kings : but that is not all which may reasonably be inferred, I do not say proved, from this quotation. It may be inferred from the phrase, according to the word of the Lord, wliich he spake by Joshua, the son of Nun, that Joshua wrote down the word which the Lord had spoken. In Baruch (which, though an apocryphal book, is authority for this purpose) there is a similar phrase, as thou spakest by thy servant Moses, in the day when thou didst command him to write thy law. I think it unnecessary to make any observation on what you say relative to the book of Judges; but I cannot pass unnoticed your censure of the book of Ruth, which you call “ an idle bungling stoiy, foolishly told, no body knows by whom, about a strolling country girl creeping slily to bed to her cousin Boaz; pretty stuff; indeed,” you exclaim, “ to be called the word of God!” It seems to me, that you do not perfectly comprehend what is meant by the ex¬ pression, the word of God, or the divine authority of the Scriptures: I will explain it to you in the words of Dr. Law, late bishop of Car¬ lisle, and in those of St. Austin. My first quotation is from bishop Law’s Theory of Religion, a book not undeserving your notice. “ The true sense, then, of the divine authority of the books of the Old Testament, and which, perhaps, is enough to denominate them in general divinely inspired, seems to be this; that as in those times God has all along, beside the inspection, or superintendency of his general providerice, interfered upon particular occasions, by giving express cornmissions to some persons (thence called prophets) to de¬ clare his will in various manners and degrees of evidence, as best suited the occasion, time, and nature of the subject; and in all other cases left them wholly to themselves: in like manner he has inter¬ posed his more immediate assistance (and notified it to them, as they did to the world) in the recording of these revelations; so far as that was necessary, amidst the common (but from hence termed sa¬ cred) history of those times, and mixed with various other occur¬ rences, in which the historian’s own natural qualifications were sufficient to enable him to relate things with all the accuracy they required.” The passage from St. Austin is this, “I am of opinion, that those men, to whom the Holy Ghost revealed what ought to be received as authoritative in religion, might write some things as men with historical diligence, and other things as prophets by divine in¬ spiration ; and that these things are so distinct, that the former may be attributed to themselves, as contributing to the increase of know¬ ledge, and the latter to God speaking by them things appertaining to the authority of religion.” Whether this opinion be right or wrong, I do not here inquire; it is the opinion of many learned men and good Christians: and, if you will adopt it as your opinion, you will see cause, perhaps, to become a Christian yourself; you will see cause to consider chronological, geographical, or genealogical errors, apparent mistakes or real contradictions as to historical facts; need¬ less repetitions and trifling interpolations; indeed, you will see cause to consider all the principal objections of your book to be ab- 129 for the Bible. solutely without foundation. Receive but the Bible as composed by upright and well-informed, though, in some points, fallible men (for I exclude all fallibility when they profess to deliver the word of God), and you must receive it as a book revealing to you, in many parts, the express will of God ; and in other parts, relating to you the ordinary history of the times. Give but the authors of the Bible that credit which you give to our historians; believe them to de¬ liver the word of God, when they tell you that they do so ; believe, when they relate other things as of themselves and not of the Lord, that they wrote to the best of their knowledge and capacity, and you will be in your belief something very different from a deist; you may not be allowed to aspire to the character of an orthodox believer, but you will not be an unbeliever in the divine authority of the Bible ; though you should admit human mistakes and human opinions to exist in some parts of it. This I take to be the first step towEirds the rcniovcil of th© doubts of ruuny scoptical uion, and when they are advanced thus far, the grace of God, assisting a teachable disposition, and a pious intention, may carry them on to perfection. _ •, c1 Jenitent sinners, through the intercession of a mediator; the 170 Watsoii^s Apology deist is harassed with apprehension, lest the moral justice of God should demand, with inexorable rigor, punishment for transgression. The Christian has no doubt concerning the lawfulness and the efficacy of prayer ^ the deist is disturbed on this point by abstract considerations concerning the goodness of God, which wants not to be entreated; concerning his foresight, which has no need oi our information; concerning his immutability, which cannot be changed throu""!! our supplication. The Christian admits the providence oi God, and the liberty of human actions; the deist is involved in great difficulties, when he undertakes the proof of either, i he Christian has assurance, that the Spirit of God will help his inhnn- ities; the deist does not deny the possibility, that God may have access to the human mind, but he has no ground to believe the tact of his either enlightening the understanding, influencing the will, or purifying the heart. LETTER IX. “ Those,” you say, “ who are not much acquainted with ecclesi¬ astical history, may suppose, that the book called the New Testa¬ ment has existed ever since the time of Jesus Christ, but the fact is historically otherwise ; there was no such book as the New Tes¬ tament till more than three hundred years after the time that Christ is said to have lived.” This paragraph is calculated to mislead common readers; it is necessary to unfold its meaning. The book, called the New Testament, consists of twenty-seven different parts; concerning seven of these, viz. the Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, the second of Peter, the second of John, the third of John, that of Jude, and the Revelations, there were at first some doubts; and the question, whether they should be received intb the canon, might be decided, as all questions concerning opinions must be, by vote. With respect to the other twenty parts, those w'ho are most acquainted with ecclesiastical history will tell you, as Du Pin does after Eusebius, that they were owned as canonical at all times, and by all Christians. Whether the council of Laodicea was held be¬ fore or after that of Nice, is not a settled point; all the books of the New Testament, except the Revelation, are enumerated as canoni¬ cal in the Constitutions of that, council; but it is a great mistake to suppose, that the greatest part of the books of the New Testament, were not in general use among Christians, long before the council of Laodicea was held. This is not merely my opinion on the sub¬ ject, it is the opinion of one much better acquainted with ecclesias¬ tical history than I am; and, probably, than you are—Mosheim. “ The opinions,” says this author, “ or rather the conjectures, of the learned, concerning the time when the books of the New Testin merit were collected into one volume, as also about tire authors of for the Bible. 171 that collection, are extremely different. This important question is attended with great and almost insuperable difficulties to us in these latter times. It is, however, sufficient for us to know, that, before the middle of the second century, the greatest part of the books of the New Testament were read in every Christian society through¬ out tlie world, and received as a divine rule of faith and manners. Hence it appears, that these sacred writings were carefully sepa¬ rated from several human compositions upon the same subject, cither ])y some of the apostles themselves, who lived so long, or by their disciples and successors, who were spread abroad through all nations. We are well assured, that the four Gospels were collected during the life of Sl John, and that the three first received the ap¬ probation of this divine apostle. And why may we’ not suppose, that the other books of the New Testament were gathered together at the same time ? What renders this highly probable is, that the most urgent necessity required its being done. For, not long after Christ’s ascension mto heaven, several histories of his life and doc¬ trines, full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by persons, whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and ignorance. Nor was this all; productions appeared, which were imposed on the world by fraudulent men as the writings of the holy apostles. These apocryphal and spurious writings must have produced a sad con¬ fusion, and I'endered both the history and the doctrine of Christ un¬ certain, had not the rulers of the church used all possible care and diligence in separating the books, that were truly apostolical and divine, from all that spurious trash, and conveying them down to posterity in one volume.” Did you ever read the apology for the Christians, which Justin Martyr presented to the emperor Antoninus Pius, to the senate, and people of Rome ? I should sooner expect a falsity in a petition, which any body of persecuted men, imploring justice, should pre¬ sent to the king and parliament of Great Britain, than in this apology. Yet in this apology, which was presented not fifty years after the death of St. John, not only parts of all the four Gospels are quoted, but it is expressly said, that on the day called Sunday a portion of them was read in the public assemblies of the Christians. I forbear pursuing this matter further, else it might easily be shown, that probably the Gospels, and certainly some of St. Paul’s epistles, were knowTi to Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp, contemporaries TA'ith the apostles These men cotdd not quote or refer to books which did not exist; and therefore, though you could make it out, that the fx)ok called the New Testament did not formally exist un¬ der that title till three hundred and fifty years after Christ, yet I hold it to be a certain fact, that all the books of which it is com¬ posed were written, and most of them received by all Christians, within a few years after his death. You raise a difficulty relative to the time which intervened be- tiveen the death and resurrection of Jesus, who had said, that the Son of JMan should be three days and three nights in the heart of 172 Watson's Apology the earth. Are you ignorant, then, that the Jews used the phrase three days and three nights, to denote what we understand by three days? It is said in Genesis, chap. vii. 12, “The rain was iipon the earth forty days and forty nights; and this is equivalent to the ex¬ pression (ver 17.) “ And the flood was forty days upon the earth.” Instead then of saying, three days and three nights, let us simply say three days; and you will not object to Christ’s being three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, in the heart of the earth. 1 do not say that he was in the grave the whole of either Friday oi Sunday ; but a hundred instances might be produced, from writers of all nations, in which a part of a day is spoken of as the Avhole. Thus much for the defence of the historical part of the New Tes lament. You have introduced an account of Faustus, as denying the genuineness of the books of the New Testament. Will you per¬ mit that great scholar in sacred literature, Michaelis, to tell you something about this Faustus ? “ He was ignorant, as were most of the African writers, of the Greek language, and acquainted with the New Testament merely through the channel of the Latin trans¬ lation: he was not only devoid of a sufficient fund of learning, but illiterate in the highest degree. An argument which he brings against the genuineness of the Gospel affords sufficient ground for this assertion; for he contends, that the Gospel of St. Matthew could not have been written by St. Matthew himself, because he is always mentioned in the third person.” You know who has ar¬ gued like Faustus, but I did not think myself authorized on that account to call you illiterate in the highest degree ; but Michaelis makes a still more severe conclusion concerning Faustus, and he extends his observation to every man who argued like him. “ A man capable of such an argument must have been ignorant, not only of the Greek writers, the knowledge of which could not have been expected from Faustus, but even of the Commentaries of Ca3sar. And were it thought improbable, that so heavy a charge could be laid with justice on the side of his knowledge, it would fall with double weight on the side of his honesty, and induce us to suppose, that, preferring the arts of sophistry to the plainness of truth, he maintained opinions which he believed to be false.” (Marsh’s Transl.) Never more, I think, shall we hear of Moses not being the author of the Pentateuch, on account of its being written in the third person. Not being able to produce any argument to render questionable either the genuineness or the authenticity of St. Paul’s Epistles, you tell us, that “ it is a matter of no great importance by whom they were written, since the writer, whoever he was, attempts to prove his doctrine by argument: he does not pretend to have been witness to any of the scenes told of the resurrection and ascension, and he declares that he had not believed them.” That Paul had so far resisted the evidence which the apostles had given of the re¬ surrection and ascension of Jesus, as to be a persecutor of the dis¬ ciples of Christ, is certain; but I do not remember the place where 173 for the Bible. he declares that he had not believed them. The high priest and the senate of the children of Israel did not deny the reality of the miracles which had been wrought by Peter and the apostles; they did not contradict their testimony concerning the resurrection and the ascension ; but whether they believed it or not, they were fired with indignation, and took counsel to put the apostles to death; and this was also the temper of Paul; whether he believed or did not believe the story of the resurrection, he was exceedingly mad against the saints. The writer of Paul’s Epistles does not attempt to prove his doctrine by argument; he in many places tells us, that his doctrine was not taught him by man, or any invention of his own, which required the ingenuity of argument to prove it: “I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel, which was preached of me, is not after man; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Paul does not pretend to have been a witness of the story of the resurrection, but he does much more; he asserts, that he was himself a witness of the resurrection. After enumerating many appearances of Jesus to his disciples, Paul says of himself, “ La^t of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” Whether you will admit Paul to have been a true witness or not, you cannot deny that he pretends to have been a witness of the resurrection. The story of his being struck to the ground, as he was journeying to Damascus, has nothing in it, you say, miraculous or exhaordinary: you represent him as struck by lightning. It is somewhat extraor¬ dinary for a man, who is struck by lightning, to have, at the very time, full possession of his understanding; to hear a voice issuing from the lightning, speaking to him in the Hebrew tongue, calling him by his name, and entering into conversation with him. His companions, you say, appear not to have suffered in the same man¬ ner : the greater the wonder. If it was a common storm of thunder and lightning which struck Paul and all his companions to the ground, it is somewhat extraordinary that he alone should be hurt; and that, notwithstanding his being struck blind by lightning, he should in other respects be so little hurt, as to be immediately able to walk into the city of Damascus. So difficult is it to oppose truth by an hypothesis ! In the character of Paul you discover a great deal of violence and fanaticism; and such men, you observe, are never ^ good moral evidences of any doctrine they teach. Read, Sir, Lord Lyttleton’s Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul, and I think you will be convinced of the contrary. That elegant writer thus expresses his opinion on this subject: “ Besides all the proofs of the Christian religion, which may be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connexion it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the mira¬ cles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his resurrection by all the other apostles, I think the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, is, of itself, a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation.” I hope this opinion will have some weight with you; it is not the opinion of a lying P2 174 Waison'^s Apology Bible-prophet, of a stupid evangelist, or of an a 6 ab priest, but of a learned layman, whose illustrious rank received splendor from his talents. You are displeased with St. Paul “for setting out to prove the resurrection of the same body.” You know, I presume, that the resurrection of the same body is not, by all, admitted to be a scrip¬ tural doctrine. “In the New Testament (wherein, I think, are con¬ tained all the articles of the Christian faith), I find our Saviour and the apostles to preach the resurrection of the dead, and the resur¬ rection from the dead, in many places ; but I do not remember any place where the resurrection ot the same body is so much as men¬ tioned.” This observation of Mr. Locke I so far adopt, as to deny that you can produce any place in the writings of St. Paul, wherein he sets out to prove the resurrection of the same body. I do not uestion the possibility of the resurrection of the same body, and I am not ignorant of the manner in which some learned men have ex¬ plained it (somewhat after the way of your vegetative speck in the kernel of a peaeh); but as you are discrediting St. Paul’s doctrine, you ought to show, that what you attempt to discredit is the doc¬ trine of the apostle. As a matter of choice, you had rather have a better body—you will have a better body, “ your natural body will be raised a spiritual body,” your corruptible will put on incorrup¬ tion. You are so much out of humor with your present body, that you inform us, every animal in the creation excels us in something. Now I had always thought, that the single circumstance of our hav¬ ing hands, and their having none, gave us an infinite superiority, not only over insects, fishes, snails, and spiders (which you repre¬ sent as excelling us in locomotive powers), but over all the animals of the creation; and enabled us, in the language of Cicero, describ¬ ing the manifold utility of our hands, to make as it were a new na¬ ture of things. As to what you say about the consciousness of ex¬ istence being the only conceivable idea of a future life, it proves nothing, either for or against the resurrection of a body, or of the same body; it does not inform us, whether to any or to what sub¬ stance, material or immaterial, this consciousness is annexed. I leave it, however, to others, who do not admit personal identity to consist in consciousness, to dispute with you on this point, and will¬ ingly subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Locke, “ that nothing but con¬ sciousness can unite remote existences into the same person.” From a caterpillar’s passing into a torpid state resembling death, and afterwards appearing a splendid butterfly, and from the (sup¬ posed) consciousness of existence which the animal had in these dij^rent states, you ask, Why must I believe, that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue in me the consciousness of existence hereafter ? 1 do not dislike analogical reasoning, when applied to proper objects and kept within due bounds; but where IS it said in Scripture, that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue in you the consciousness of existence? Those, who admit a conscious state of the soul between death and the fesiurection, will contend, that the soul is the substance in which 175 for the Bible. consciousness is continued without interruption: those, who deny the intermediate state of the soul as a state of consciousness, will contend, that consciousness is not destroyed by death, but suspended by it, as it is suspended during a sound sleep, and that it may as easily be restored after death as after sleep, during which the facid- ties of the soul are not extinct but dormant. Those, who think that the soul is nothing distinct from the compages of the body, not a substance but a mere qualify, wdll maintain, that the consciousness appertaining to every individual person is not lost when the body is destroyed; that it is known to God, and may, at the general resur¬ rection, be annexed to any system of matter he may think fit, or to that particular compages to which it belonged in this life. In reading your book I have been frequently shocked at the viru¬ lence of your zeal, at the indecorum of your abuse, in applying vul¬ gar and offensive epithets to men, who have been held, and who will long, I trust, continue to be holden, in high estimation. I know that the scar of calumny is seldom wholly effiiced, it remains long after the wound is healed; and your abuse of holy men and holy things will be remembered when your arguments against them are refuted and forgotten. Moses you term an arrogant coxcomb, a chief assassin; Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, monsters and im¬ postors; the Jewish kings, a parcel of rascals; Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, liars; and Paul a fool, for having written one of the sublimest compositions, and on the most important subject, that ever occupied the mind of man—the lesson in our burial ser¬ vice : this lesson you call a doubtful jargon, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of the bell at the funeral. Men of low condition! pressed down, as you often are, by calamities generally incident to human nature, and groaning under burthens of misery peculiar to your condition, what thought you when you heard this lesson read at the funeral of your child, your parent, or your friend? Was it mere jargon to you, as destitute of meaning as the tolling of a bell ? No. You understood from it, that you w'ould not all sleep, but that you would all be changed in a moment at the last trump; you un¬ derstood from it, that this corruptible must put on incorruption, that this mortal must put on immortality, and that death would be swal¬ lowed up in victory; you understood from it, that if (notwithstand¬ ing profane attempts to subvert your faith) ye continue stedfast, un¬ movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, your labor will not be in vain. You seem fond of displaying your skill in science and philosophy; you speak more than once of Euclid; and, in censuring St. Paul, you intimate to us, that when the apostle says, “ one star differeth from another star in glory,” he ought to have said, in distance. All men see that one star differeth frorn another star in glory or bright¬ ness ; but few men know, that their difference in brightness arises from their difference in distance; and I beg leave to say, that even you, philosopher as you are, do not know it. You make an assump¬ tion, which you cannot prove, that the stars are equal in magnitude, and placed at different distances fiom the earth; but you catiiiot 176 Watson^s Apology prove that they are not different in magnitude, and placed at equal distances, though none of them may be so near to the earth as to have any sensible annual parallax. I beg pardon of my readers for touching upon this subject; but it really moves one’s indignation, tc see a smattering in philosophy urged as an argument against the veracity of an apostle. “ Little learning is a dangerous thing.” Paul, you say, affects to be a naturalist; and to prove (you might more properly have said illustrate) his system of resurrection from the principles of vegetation: “ Thou fool,” says he, “ that which thou sow^est is not quickened except it die;” to which one might re¬ ply, in his own language, and say, “ Thou fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die not.” It may be seen, I think, from this passage, who affects to be a naturalist, to be ac¬ quainted with the microscopical discoveries of modern times; which were probably neither known to Paul, nor to the Corinthians; and which, had they been known to them both, would have been of little use in the illustration of the subject of the resurrection. Paul said, “that w'hich thou sowest is not quickened except it die.” Every husbandman in Corinth, though unable, perhaps, to define the term death, would understand the apostle’s phrase in a popular sense, and agree with him, that a grain of wheat must become rot¬ ten in the ground before it could sprout; and that, as God raised from a rotten grain of wheat, the roots, the stem, the leaves, the ear of a new plant, he might also cause a new body to spring up from the rotten carcass in the grave. Doctor Clarke observes, “ In like manner as in every grain of corn there is contained a minute, insen¬ sible seminal principle, which is itself the entire future blade and ear, and in due season, when all the rest of the grain is corrupted, evolves and unfolds itself visibly to the eye; so our present mortal and corruptible body may be but the exuvice, as it were, of some hidden, and, at present, insensible principle (possibly the present seat of the soul), which, at the resurrection, shall discover itself in its proper form.” 1 do not agree with this great man (for such I es¬ teem him) in this philosophical conjecture ; but the quotation may serve to show you, that the germ does not evolve and unfold itself visibly to the eye till all the rest of the grain is corrupted; that is, in the language and meaning of St. Paul, till it dies. Though the authority of Jesus may have as little weight with you as that of Paul, yet it may not be improper to quote to you our Saviour’s ex¬ pression, when he foretells the numerous disciples which his death would produce: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” You perceive from this, that the Jews thought the death of the grain was necessary to its reproduction. Hence, every one may see what little reason you had to object to the apostle’s popular illustration of the possibility of a resurrection. Had he known as much as any naturalist in Europe does, of the progress of an animal from one state to another, as from a worm to a butterfly (which, you think, applies to the case), I am of opinion he would not have used that for the Bible. 177 llustrarion in preference to what he has used, which is obvious and satisfactory. Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by him or not, is, in your judgment, a matter of indifference. So far from being a matter of indifference, I consider the genuineness of St. Paul’s epistles to be a matter of the greatest importance; for, if the epistles ascribed to Paul were written by him (and there is un¬ questionable proof that they were,) it will be difficult for you, or for any man, upon fair principles of sound reasoning, to deny that the Christian religion is true. The argument is a short one, and obvious to every capacity. It stands thus:—St. Paul WTote several letters to those whom, in different countries, he had converted to the Christian faith; in these letters he affirms two things:—First, that he had wrought miracles in their presence. Secondly, that many of themselves had received the gift of tongues, and other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. The persons to whom these letters were addressed must, on reading them, have certainly known, wdiether Paul affirmed what was true, or told a plain lie ; they must have known, whether they had seen him work miracles ; they must have been conscious, whether they themselves did or did not possess any miraculous gifts. Now can you, or any man, believe for a moment, that Paul (a man, certainly, of great alDilities) would have written public letters, full of lies, and which could not fail of being discovered to be lies, as soon as his letters were read ? Paul could not be guilty of falsehood in these two points, or in either of them; and if either of them be true, the Christian reli¬ gion is true. References to -these two points are frequent in St. Paul’s epistles. I will mention only a few. In his Epistle to the Galatians, he says (chap. hi. 2—5.) “This only w’ould I learn of you, received ye the Spirit (gifts of the Spirit) by the w^orks of the law ? He ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you.” To the Thessalonians he says (1 Thess. chap. i. 5.) “ Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost.” To the Corinthians he thus expresses himself (I Cor. ii. 4.) “ My preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power and he adds the reason for his working miracles, “ That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” With what alacrity would the faction at Corinth, which opposed the apos¬ tle, have laid hold of this and many similar declarations in the let¬ ter, had they been able to have detected any falsehood in them ? There is no need to multiply words on so clear a point; the genu¬ ineness of Paul’s Epistles proves their authenticity, independently of every other proof; for it is absurd in the extreme to suppose him, under circumstances of obvious detection, capable of ad¬ vancing what was not true ; and if Paul’s Epistles be both genuine and authentic, the Christian religion is true. Think of this ar¬ gument. You close your observations in the following manner:—“Should the Bible (meaning, as I have before remarked, tho Old Testament) 17S Walson^s Apology and Testament hereafter fall, it is not I that have been the occa¬ sion.” You look, I think, upon your production with a parent’s partial eye, when you speak of it in such a style of self-compla¬ cency. The Bible, Sir, has withstood the learning of Porphyry, and the power of Julian, to say nothing of the Manichean Faustus; it has resisted the genius of Bolingbroke, and the wit of Voltaire, to say nothing of a numerous herd of inferior assailants; and it will not fall by your force. You have barbed anew the blunted arrows of former adversaries; you have feathered them with blasphemy and ridicule; dipped them in your deadliest poison; aimed them with your utmost skill; shot them against the shield of faith with your utmost vigor; but, like the feeble javelin of aged Priam, they will scarcely reach the mark, will fall to the ground without a stroke. LETTER X. The remaining part of your work can hardly be made the subject of animadversion. It principally consists of unsupported assertions, abusive appellations, illiberal sarcasms, “ strifes of words, profane babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” I am hurt at being, in mere justice to the subject, under the necessity of using such harsh language; and am sincerely sorry, that, from what cause I know not, your mind has received a wrong bias in every point respecting revealed religion. You are capable of bet¬ ter things; for there is a philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas, when you speak of the Supreme Being, as the Creator of the universe. That you may not accuse me of disrespect, in passing over any part of your work, without bestowing proper attention upon it, I wall w'ait upon you through what you call your con¬ clusion. You refer your reader to the former part of the Age of Reason ; in which you have spoken of what you esteem three frauds, mys¬ tery, miracle, and prophecy. I have not at hand the book to which you refer, and know not what you have said on these subjects; they are subjects of great importance, and we, probably, should differ essentially in our opinion concerning them; but, I confess, I am not sorry to be excused from examining what you have said on these points. The specimen of your reasoning, which is now be¬ fore me, has taken from me every inclination to trouble either my reader, or myself, wdth any observations on your former book. You admit the possibility of God’s revealing his will to man; yet “the thing so revealed,” you say, “is revelation to the person only to whom it is made ; his account of it to another is not revela¬ tion.” This is true; his account is simple testimony. You add there is no “ possible criterion to judge of the truth of what he for the Bible. 179 says.” This I positively deny; and contend, that a real miracle, performed in attestation of a revealed truth, is a certain criterion by which we may judge of the truth of that attestation. I am per¬ fectly aware of the objections which may be made to this position ; I have examined them with care; I acknowledge them to be of weight; but I do not speak unadvisedly, or as wishing to dictate to other men, when I say, that I am persuaded the position is true. So thought Moses, when, in the matter of Korah, he said to the Israel¬ ites, “ If these men die the common death of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me.” So thought Elijah, when he said, “ Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day, that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servantand the people, before whom he spake, were of the same opinion; for, when the lire of the Lord foil, and consumed the burnt-sacrifice, they said, “The Lord he is the God.” So thought our Saviour, when he said, ** The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me ; and, “if I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.” IVIiat re^on have we to believe Jesus speaking in the Gospel, and to disbelieve Mahomet speaking in the Koran? Both of them lay claim to a Divine commission; and yet we receive the words of the one as a revelation from God, and we reject the words of the other as an imposture of man. The reason is evident; Jesus established his pretensions, not by alleging any secret communication with the Deity, but by working numerous and indubitable miracles in the presence of thousands, and which the most bitter and watchful of his enemies could not disallow; but Mahomet wrought no miracles at all: nor is a miracle the only criterion by which w^e may judge of the truth of a revelation. If a series of prophets should, through a course of many centuries, predict the appearance of a certain person, w'hom God would at a particular time send into the w’orld for a particular end, and at length a person should appear, in whom all the predictions w^ere minutely accomplished ; such a completion of prophecy would be a criterion of the truth of that revelation which that pereon should deliver to mankind. Or if a person should now say (as many false prophets have said, and are daily saying), that he had a commission to declare the will of God; and, as a proof of his veracity, should predict, that, after his death, he would rise from the dead on the third day ; the completion of such a prophecy would, I presume, be a sufficient criterion of the truth of what this man might have said concerning the will of God. “ Now I tell you (says Jesus to his disciples, concerning Judas, who was to betray him) before it come, that when it is come to pass ye may be¬ lieve that I am he.” In various parts of the Gospels our Saviour, with the utmost propriety, claims to be received as the messenger of God, not only from the miracles which he wrought, but from the prophecies which were fulfilled in his person, and from the predic¬ tions which he himself delivered. Hence, instead of there being no criterion by wffiich we may judge of the truth of the Christian reve¬ lation, there are clearly three. It is an easy matter to use an in¬ decorous flippancy of language in speaking of the Christian religion 180 Walson’s Apology and with a supercilious negligence to class Christ and his apostles amongst the impostors who have figured in the world ; but it is not, I think, an easy matter for any man of good sense and sound erudi¬ tion, to make an impartial examination into any one of the three grounds of Christianity which I have here mentioned, and to reject it. What is it, you ask, the Bible teaches ? The prophet Micah shall answer you: it teaches us “ to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God—justice, mercy, and piety, instead of what you contend for—rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it, you de¬ mand, the Testament teaches us ? You answ'er your question—to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman. Absurd and impious assertion! No, Sir, no; this profane doctrine, this miserable stuff, this blasphemous perversion of Scripture, is your doctrine, not that of the New Testament. I will tell you the lesson which it teaches to infidels as well as to believers; it is a lesson which philosophy never taught, which wit cannot ridicule, nor sophistry disprove; the lesson is this: “ The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall hve : all that are in their graves shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resur¬ rection of damnation.” The moral precepts of the Gospel are so well fitted to promote the happiness of mankind in this w^orld, and to prepare human nature for the future enjoyment of that blessedness, of which, in our present state, we can form no conception, that I had no expecta¬ tion they W'Ould have met with your disapprobation. You say, how¬ ever, “ As to the scraps of morality that are irregularly and thinly scattered in those books, they make no part of the pretended thing, ^ revealed religion.” “ 'VVTiatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Is this a scrap of morality ? Is it not rather the concentred essence of all ethics, the vigorous root from which every branch of moral duty tow'ards each other may be de¬ rived ? Duties, you know, are distinguished by moralists into duties of perfect and imperfect obligation: does the Bible teach you nothing, when it instructs you, that this distinction is done away ? when it bids you “ put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another and for¬ giving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.” These, and precepts such as these, you will in vain look for in the codes of Frederic or Justinian; you cannot find them in our statute-books; they were not taught, nor are they taught, in the schools of heathen philosophy; or, if some one or two of them should chance to be glanced at by a Plato, a Seneca, or a Cicero, they are not bound upon the consciences of mankind by any sanction. It is in the Gospel, and in the Gospel alone, that we learn their importance; acts of benevolence and brotherly love may be to an unbeliever voluntary acts, to a Christian they are indispensable duties. Is a new commandment no part of revealed religion? “A new com¬ mandment I give unto you, that ye love one another;” the law of Christian benevolence is enjoined tis by Christ himself in the most for the Bible. 181 solemn manner, as the distinguishing badge of our being his dis¬ ciples. Two precepts you particularize as inconsistent with the dignity and the nature of man—that of not resenting injuries, and that of loving enemies. Wlio but yourself ever interpreted literally the proverbial phrase, “ If a man smite thee on thj^ right cheek, turn to rum the other also? Did Jesus himself turn the other cheek when the officer of the high priest smote him ? It is evident, that a patient acquiescence under slight personal injuries is here enjoined; and that a proneness to revenge, which instigates men to savage acts of brutality, for every trifling offence, is forbidden. As to loving enemies, it is explained in another place to mean, the doing them all the good m our power; “if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;” and what think you is more likely to pre¬ serve peace, and to promote kind aflfections amongst men, than the returning good for evil ? Christianity does not order us to love in proportion to the injury—“it does not offer a premium for a crime;” it orders us to let our benevolence extend alike to all, that we may emulate the benignity of God himself who maketh “ his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.” In the law' of Moses, retaliation for deliberate injuries had been ordained—“ an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Aristotle, in his treatise of morals, says, that some thought retaliation of personal wrongs an equitable proceeding. Rhadamanthus is said to have pven it his sanction ; the decemviral laws allowed it; the common law ot England did not forbid it; and it is said to be still the law of some countries, even in Christendom: but the mild spirit of Chris- tmnity absolutely prohibits, not only the retaliation of injuries, but the indulgence of every resentful propensity. been, ^ you affirm, “ the scheme of the Christian church )j u• Ignorance of the Creator, as it is of government to hold him in ignorance of his rights.” I appeal to the plain sense of any honest man to judge whether this representation be true in mther particular. When he attends the service of the church, does he discover any design in the minister to keep him in ignorance of his Creator. Are not the public prayers in which he joins, the lessons which are read to him, the sermons which are preached to mm, all calculated to impress upon his mind a strong conviction of o ^*^bness, power, and wisdom of the one adorable God, blessed for ever ? By these means, which the Christian church hath provided for our instruction, I will venture to say, that the most unlearned congregation of Christians in Great Britain have more just and sublime conceptions of the Creator, a more perfect Imowledge of their duty towards him, and a stronger inducement to the prapice of virtue, holiness, and temperance, than all the philoso¬ phers ot all the heathen countries in the world ever had, or now ave. It, indeed, your schpme should take place, and men should 0 onger tph^e their Bible, then would they soon become as Ignorant of the Creator as all the world was when God called Abra- ham trom his kindred; and as all the world, which has had no com- Q 12 |g 2 Watson^s Apology munication with either Jews or Christians, now is. Then wo^d they soon bow down to stocks and stones, kp their hand (as they dK the time of Job, and as the poor African does now) to ‘ the moon walking in brightness, and deny the God that is above ^ ™ld they Worship Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, and emulate, m ™transcendent da^gitbusness of their lives, the impure morals of ^^Wlmt design has government to keep men in ignorance rights? None whatever. All wise statesmen ^ Se men know of their rights, the come. Subjects, not from necessity friends of every government. The people of Great Britain are wen acQuSnfed 3 their natural and social rights; they understand them better than the people of any other country do, they knovv STtherhave a right to be free, not only from the .capricious tvSnnv of any one man’s will, but from the more afflicting des potism^of republican factions; and it is this fea^ attaches them to the constitution of ^ • mv fear is that the people should know too much of their rights, nw lear is Ihat they should not know them in full extent. The government does not desire that men snouia re main in hmorance of their rights; but it both desires and requires, that theylhould not disturb the public peace that they should make themselves acquainted, not merely witn me riSits but with the duties also of men in civil society. I am tar frfm ridiculing (as some have done) the ago understood, that the poor as well as human af well as the poor, have, by nature, some tacit or ex- government can justly take from them, without their tacit or ex press consent; and some also, which they themselves to surrender to any government. O^e of the pnncigil righte of m ^ in a state either of nature or of society, a right of fruits of his industry, ingenuity, -SrrSo muS the 3 ment hold anv man in ignorance of this right? feo much me J^a^v that the chief care of government is to declare, ascertain, SCaud defend to righ?; nay i. gives risht, ™here -mre Sves none; it protects the goods of an intestate; and it a lows a Sin, at his’dealh, to dispose of that ^eere^v as nature would cause to revert into the common stocl^ , ^ I am attached to the liberties of mankind, I ‘".^’"Xat’dlilolratic il- self an utter enemy to that spurious philosophy, that XSetions sanity which would equalize all property, and level all XSlSiv civilTocietv. PersoLl distinctions, arising from superior probity, Lrffl4 e3^^^ courage, and ^om "J^Xhlc tSel If Sems, are the very blood and nerves of the bod^ animate the whole, and invigorate every P^^*^^!T,‘'’^S;5Xres- bones would become reeds, and its marrow water, iXpr Sav be entlv sink into a fetid, senseless mass of corruption. Power may be ulei for private end^, and in opposition to the public g?od; ^ may be improperly conferred, and insolently sustained: riches may for the Bible. 183 b« wickedly acquired, and viciously applied: but as this is neither necessarily nor generally the case, I cannot agree with those, who in asserting the natural equality of man, spurn the instituted dis¬ tinctions attending pwer, rank, and riches. But I mean not to en¬ ter into any discussion on this subject, farther than to say, that your crimination of government appears to me to be wholly unfounded • and to express my hope, that no one individual will be so far misled by disquisitions on the rights of man, as to think that he has anv right to do wrong, or to forget that other men have riarhts as well as he. You are animated with proper sentiments of piety, when you speak of the structure of the universe. No one, indeed, who in¬ siders it with attention, c^ fail of having his mind filled with the supreniest veneration for its author. Who can contemplate, without astonishment, the motion of a comet, running far beyond the orb of Saturn, endeavoring to escape into the pathless regions of unbounded space, yet feeling, at its utmost distance, the attractive influence of the sun; hearing, as it were, the voice of God arresting its progress, and compelling it, after a lapse of ages, to reiterate its ancient couree ? mo can comprehend the distance of the stars from the earth, and from each other ? It is so great, that it mocks our concep¬ tion; our very imagination is terrified, confounded, and lost, when we are told, toat a ray of light, which moves at the rate of above ten millions of miles in a minute, will not, though emitted at this in- stant from the brightest star, reach the earth in less than six years. We think this earth a great globe; and we see the sad wickedness which individuals are often guilty of, ip scraping together a little of Its mrt; we view, with still greater astonishment and horror, the J^ghty ruin which has, in all ages, been brought upon human kind, by the low ambition of contending powers, to acquire a temporary possession of a little portion of its surface. But how does the whole of this globe sink, as it were, to nothing, when we consider, that a million of earths will scarcely equal the bulk of the sun; that all the stars are suns; and that millions of suns constitute, probably, tmt a minute portion of that material world, which God hath dis- tnbumd through the immensity of space! Systems, however, of in¬ sensible matter, though arranged in exquisite order, prove only the Wisdom and the power of the great Architect of nature. As per¬ cipient beings, w'e look for something more; for his goodness; and vv e cannot open our eyes without seeing it. Every portion of the earth, sea, and air, is full of sensitive beings, capable, in their respective orders, of enjoying the good thing.s which God has prepared for their comfort. All the orders of beings are enabled to propagate their kind; and thus provision is made for a successive continuation of happiness. Individuals yield to the jaw of dissolution ipeparable from the material structure of their bodies: but no gap is thereby left in existence; their place is occu- pied by other individuals, capable of participating in the goodness 01 the Almighty. Contemplations such as these fill the mind with numiiity, benevolence, and piety. But why should we stop here ? 194 WalsorCs Apology why not contemplate the goodness of God in the redemption, as well as in the creation of the world ? By the death of his only be¬ gotten Son Jesus Christ, he hath redeemed the whole human race from the eternal death, which the transgressipn of Adam had en¬ tailed on all his posterity. You believe nothmg about the trans¬ gression of«Adam. The history of Eve and the serpent excites vour contempt; yon will not admit that it is either a real history, or an allegorical representation of death entering into the w^rld through disobedience to the command of God. Be it so. You tind, however, that death doth reign over all mankind, by whatever mean it was introduced ; this is not a matter of belief, but oi lament¬ able knowledge. The New Testament tells us, that, through the merciful dispensation of God, Christ hath overcome death, and re¬ stored man to that immortality which Adam had lost. This also you refuse to belieye. Why? Because you cannot account for the propriety of this redemption. Miserable reason! stupid objection! What is there that you can account for? Not for the germination of a blade of grass, not for the fall of a leaf of the forest; and will you refuse to eat of the fruits of the earth, because God has not given you wisdom equal to his own ? Will you refuse to lay hoM on iim mortality, because he has not given you, because he, probably, coihd not give to such, u being us mun, 8. full munifestution of the end for which he designs him, nor of the means requisite for the attainment of that end ? What father of a family can make level to the appre¬ hension of his infant children, all the views of happiness which his paternal goodness is preparing for them ? How can he explain to them the utility of reproof, correction, instruction, example, oi all the various means by which he forms their minds to piety, temper¬ ance, and probity? W^e are children in the hand of God; we are in the very infancy of our existence, just separated from the womb of oternal duration; it may not be possible for the Father of the uni¬ verse to explain to us (infants in apprehension) the goodness and the wisdom of his dealings with the sons of men. What qualities of mind will be necessary for our well-doing through all eternity, we know' not; what discipline in this infancy of existence may be ne¬ cessary for generating these qualities, we know not; whether God could or could not consistently with the general good, have forgiven the transgression of Adam, without any atonement, we know not, whether the malignity of sin be not so great, so opposite to the gene¬ ral good, that it cannot be forgiven whilst it exists, that is, -whilst the mind retains a propensity to it, Ave know not; so that if there should be much greater difficulty in comprehending the mode of God’s moral government of mankind than there really is, there would be no reason for doubting of its rectitude. If the whole hu¬ man race be considered as but one small member of a large com¬ munity of free and intelligent beings of different orders, and if this whole community be subject to discipline and laws productive of the greatest possible good to the whole system, then may we still more reasonably suspect onr capacity to comprehend the-wisdom for the Bible. Ig 5 goodness of all God’s proceedings in the moral government of the universe. You are lavish in your praise of deism; it is so much better than atheism, that I mean not to say any thing to its discredit: it is not however, without its difficulties. What think you of an uncaused cause of every thing ? of a Being who has no relation to time, not being older to-day than he was yesterday, nor younger to-dav than he will be to-morrow? who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole anywhere ? What think you ot an ^iscient Being, who cannot know the future actions of a man ? Ur, if his omniscience enables him to know them, what think you of the contingency of human actions? And if human actions are not contingent, what think you of the morality of actions, of the distmction between vice and virtue, crime and innocence, sin and duty ? What think you of the infinite goodness of a Being, who ex- ^ted through eternity, without any emanation of his goodness mani¬ fested in the creation of sensitive beings ? Or, if you contend that there h^ been an eternal creation, what think you of an effect co¬ eval with Its cause, of matter not posterior to its Maker ? What think you of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in the work of an infinite Being, powerful, wise, and good ? What think you of the gift of freedom of will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of general misery ? I could propose to your consideration a great many other questions of a similar tendency, the contemplation 7 • driven not a few from deism to atheism, just as the difficulties in revealed religion have driven yourself and some others, from Christianity to deism. For my own part, I can see no reason why either revealed or natural religion should be abandoned, on account of the difficulties which attend either of them. I look up to the incomprehensible ^ . heaven and earth wdth unspeakable admiration and self annihilation, and am a deist. I contemplate, with the utmost grati¬ tude and humility of mind, his unsearchable wisdom and goodness in the redemption of the world from eternal death, through the in- ten ention of his Son Jesus Christ, and am a Christian. As a deist, f have little expectation; as a Christian, I have no doubt of a future myself, and may be in an error, as to the ground of ffie first part of this opinion. You, and other men, may conclude differently. From the inert nature of matter, from the faculties of the human mind, from the apparent imperfection of God’s moral government of the world, from many modes of analogical reasoning and from other sources, some of the philosophers of antiquity did collect, and modem philosophers may, perhaps, collect a strong probability of a future existence; and not only of a future existence but (which IS quite a distinct question) of a future state of retribu¬ tion, proportioned to our moral conduct in this world. Far be it from me to loosen any of the obligations to virtue; but I must confess, that I cannot, from the same sources of argumentation, de- rive any positive assurance on the subject. Think then with what thankfulness of heart I receive the word of God, which tells me, H 3 186 Watson’s Apology that though “ in Adam (by the condition of our nature) all dieyet “ in Christ (by the covenant of grace) shall all be made alive.” I lay hold on “ eternal life as the gift of God through Jesus ChristI consider it not as any appendage to the nature I derive from Adam, but as the free gift of the Almighty, through his Son, whom he hath constituted Lord of all, the Saviour, the Advocate, and the Judge of human kind. . “ Deism,” you affirm, “ teaches us, without the possibility of being mistaken, all that is necessary or proper to be known.” There are three things, which all reasonable men admit are necessary and proper to be known; the being of God; the providence of God ; a future state of retribution. Whether these three truths are so taught us by deism, that there is no possibility of being mistaken concern¬ ing any of them, let the history of philosophy, and of idolatry, and superstition, in all ages and countries, determine. A volume might be filled with an account of the mistakes into which the greatest reasoners have fallen, and of the uncertainty in which they lived, with respect to every one of these points. I will advert, briefly, only to the last of them. Notwithstanding the illustrious labors of Gassendi, Cudworth, Clarke, Baxter, and of above two hundred other modern writers on the subject, the natural mortality or immor¬ tality of the human soul is as little understood by us, as it was by the philosophers of Greece or Rome. The opposite opinions of Plato and of Epicurus, on this subject, have their several supporters amongst the learned of the present age, in Great Britain, Germany, Franee, Italy, in every enlightened part of the world; and they, who have been most seriously occupied in the study of the question concerning a future state, as deducible from the nature of the hu¬ man soul, are least disposed to give, from reason, a positive decision of it either way. The importance of revelation is by nothing ren¬ dered more apparent, than by the discordant sentiments of learned and good men (for I speak not of the ignorant and immoral) on this point. They show the insufficiency of human reason, in a course of above two thousand years, to unfold the mysteries of human na¬ ture, and to furnish, from the contemplation of it, any assurance of the quality of our future condition. If you should ever become persuaded of this insufficiency (and you can scarce fail of becoming so, if you examine the matter deeply), you will, if you act rationally, be disposed to investigate, with seriousness and impartiality, the truth of Christianity. You will say of the Gospel, as the Northum¬ brian heathens said to Paulinus, by whom they were converted to the Christian religion; “ The more we reflect on the nature of our soul, the less we know of it. Whilst it animates our body, we may know some of its properties; but when once separated, W'e know not wLither it goes, or from whence it came. Since, then, the Gos¬ pel pretends to give us clearer notions of these matters, we ought to hear it, and laying aside all passion and prejudice, follow that wliich shall appear most conformable to right reason.” What a blessing is it to beings, with such bruited capacities as ours confessedly are, to have God himself for our instructor in every 187 for the Bible. thing which it nauch concerns us to know! We are principally con¬ cerned in knowing; not the origin of arts, or the recondite depths of science ; not the histories of mighty empires desolating the globe by their contentions; not the subtilties of logic, the mysteries of metaphysics, the sublimities of poetry, or the niceties of criticism. These, and subjects such as these, properly occupy the learned lei¬ sure of a few; but the bulk of human kind have ever been, and must ever remain, ignorant of them all; they must, of necessity, remain in the same state with that which a German emperor volun- tarily put himself into, when he made a resolution, bordering on barbarism, that he would never read a printed book. We are all, of every rank and condition, equally concerned in knowing—what will beconie of us after death; and, if we are to live again, we are interested in knowing whether it be possible for us to do any thing whilst we live here, which may render that future life a happy one. Now, “ that thing called Christianity,” as you scoffingly speak; that last best gift of Almighty God, as I esteem it, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, has given us the most clear and satisfactory informa¬ tion on both these points. It tells us, what deism never could have told us, that we shall certainly be raised from the dead; that, what¬ ever be the nature of the soul, we shall certainly live for ever; and that, whilst we live here, it is possible for us to do much to¬ wards the rendering that everlasting life a happy one. These are tremendous truths to bad men; they cannot be received and re¬ flected on with indifierence by the best; and they suggest to all such a cogent motive to virtuous action, as deism could not furnish even to Brutus himself. Some men have been warped to infidelity by vieiousness of life; and some may have hypocritically professed Christianity from pros¬ pects of temporal advantage: but, being a stranger to your charac¬ ter, I neither impute the former to you, nor can admit the latter as operating on myself The generality of unbelievers are such, from want of information on the subject of religion; having been engaged from their youth in struggling for worldly distinction, or perplexed with the incessant intricacies of business, or bewildered in the pur¬ suits of pleasure, they have neither ability, inclination, nor leisure, to enter into critical disquisitions concerning the truth of Chris¬ tianity. Men of this description are soon startled by objections which they are not competent to answer; and the loose morality of the age (so opposite to Christian perfection), co-operating with their want of Scriptural knowledge, they presently get rid of their nursery faith, and are seldom sedulous in the acquisition of another, founded, not on authority, but sober investigation. Presuming, how¬ ever, that many deists are as sincere in their belief as I am in mine, and knowing that some are more able, and all as much interested as myself, to make a rational inquiry into the truth of revealed ^igion, I feel no propensity to judge unclianlably of any of them. They do not think as I do, on a subject surpassing all others in im¬ portance ; but they are not, on that account, to be spoken of by me with asperity of language, to be thought of by me os persons alien 188 Watson^s Apology for the Bible. ated from the mercies of God. The Gospel has been offered to their acceptance; and, from whatever cause they reject it, I cannot but esteem their situation to be dangerous. Undfer the influence of that persuasion I have been induced to write this book. I do not expect to derive from it either fame or profit; these are not improper in¬ centives to honorable activity ; but there is a time of life when they cease to direct the judgment of thinking men. What I have written will not, I fear, make any impression on you; but I indulge a hope, that it may not be without its effect on some of your readers. Infi¬ delity is a rank weed ; it threatens to overspread the land ; its root is principally fixed amongst the great ."nd opulent, but you are en¬ deavoring to extend the malignity of its poison through all the classes of the community. There is a class of men, for whom I have the greatest respect, and whom I am anxious to preserve from the contamination of your irreligion; the merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen of the kingdom. I consider the influence of the ex¬ ample of this class as essential to the welfare of the community. I know that they are in general given to reading, and desirous of in¬ formation on all subjects. If this little book should chance to fall into their hands after they have read yours, and they should think that any of your objections to the authority of the Bible have not been fully answered, I entreat them to attribute the omission to the brevity which I have studied; to my desire of avoiding learned disquisitions; to my inadvertency; to my inability; to any thing rather than to an impossibility of completely obviating every diffi¬ culty you have brought forward. I address the same requesf to such of the youth of both sexes as may unhappily have imbibed, from your writings, the poison of infidelity; beseeching them to be¬ lieve, that all their religious doubts may be removed, though it may not have been in my power to answer, to their satisfaction, all your objections. I pray God that the rising generation of this land may be preserved from that “ evil heart of unbelief,” which has brought ruin on a neighboring nation; that neither a neglected edu¬ cation, nor domestic irreligion, nor evil communication, nor the fashion of a licentious world, may ever induce them to forget, that religion alone ought to be their rule of life. In the conclusion of my Apology for Christianity, I informed Mr. Gibbon of my extreme aversion to public controversy. I am now twenty years older than I was then, and I perceive that this my aversion has increased with my age. I have, through life, aban¬ doned my little literary productions to their fate; such of them as have been attacked, have never received any defence from me; nor will this receive any, if it should meet with your public notice, or with that of any other man. Sincerely wishing that you may become a partaker of that faith in revealed religion, which is the foundation of my happiness in this world, and of all my hopes in another, I bid you iarewell. R. LANDAFF, CAnGAUTH PARK, Jan. 20, 1796, 4 A VIEW OF THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. BY SOAME JENYNS, ESQ. “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”— Acts xxvi. 28. #■ . -V.. N ^ C. •t W ¥. '■ . y-". 4-V; H - i* *' r. - ‘i^3* ■-■ V 31^ "a'a . ti • ‘-i^- f. ' ft-: <1 V '• :'r>,‘ >•■ - * »A. 'IK- - :V -■' "^ - ■^..-A ■ ^ ' I' ■ • > ^ ' w ^ ^ •Se -Ite jt:* , V’ .’’ . i' #: »;. ■ -,: . : ’A- -e.. A'' \ r r «;i-'.^V^k..-v A VIEW OF THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE CHRISTIAIM RELIGION. Most of the writers, who have undertaken to prove the divine origin of the Christian religion, have had recourse to arguments drawn from these three heads: The prophecies still extant in the Old Testament, the miracles recorded in the New, or the internal evidence arising from that excellence, and those clear marks of su¬ pernatural interposition, which are so conspicuous in the religion itself The two former have been sufficiently explained and en¬ forced by the ablest pens ; but the last, which seems to carry with it the greatest degree of conviction, has never, I think, been con¬ sidered with that attention which it deserves. I mean not here to depreciate the proofs arising from either prophecies, or miracles; they both have or ought to have their proper weight; prophecies are permanent miracles, whose authority is sufficiently confirmed by their completion, and are therefore solid proofs of the supernatural origin of a religion, whose truth they were intended to testify; such are those to be found in various parts of the Scriptures relative to the coming of the Messiah, the destruc¬ tion of Jerusalem, and the unexampled state in which the Jews have ever since continued, all so circumstantiallydescriptive of the events, that they seem rather histories of past, than predictions of future transactions; and whoever will seriously consider the immense distance of time between some of them and the events Avhich they foretell, the uninterrupted chain by which they are connected for many thousand years, how exactly they correspond with those events, and how totally unapplicabie they are to all others in the history of mankind; I say, whoever considers these circumstances, he will scarcely be persuaded to believe, that they can be the pro¬ ductions of preceding artifice, or posterior application, or can enter¬ tain the least doubt of their being derived from supernatural in- spi ration. The miracles recorded in the New Testament to haye been per¬ formed by Christ and his apostles, were certainly convincing proofi of their divine commission to those who saw them; and as they were seen by such numbers, and are as well attested as other his- 192 Jenyns's Internal Evidence torical facts, and, above all, as they Avere wrought on so great and so wonderful an occasion, they must still be admitted as evidence of no inconsiderable force; but, I think, they must now depend for much of their credibility on the truth of that religion, whose credi¬ bility they were first intended to support. To prove, therefore, the truth of the Christian religion, we should begin by showing the in¬ ternal marks of divinity, which are stamped upon it; because on this the credibility of the prophecies and miracles in a great mea¬ sure depends: for if we have once reason to be convinced, that this religion is derived from a supernatural origin; prophecies and miracles wdll become so far from being incredible, that it wall be highly probable, that a supernatural revelation should be foretold and enforced by supernatural means. What pure Christianity is, divested of all its ornaments, append¬ ages, and corruption, I pretend not to say; but what it is not, I will venture to affirm, which is, that it is not the offspring of fraud or fiction. Such, on a superficial view, I know it must appear to eveiy man of good sense, whose sense has been altogether employed on other subjects; but if any one will give himself the trouble to ex¬ amine it with accuracy and candor, he will plainly see, that how’ever fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, yet it never could have been grafted on the same stock, nor planted by the same hand. To ascertain the true system and genuine doctrines of this reli¬ gion, after the undecided controversies of above seventeen centu¬ ries, and to remove all the rubbish which artifice and ignorance have been heaping upon it during all that time, would indeed be an arduous task, which I shall by no means undertake; but to show, that It cannot possibly be derived from human wisdom, or human imposture, is a work, I think, attended with no great difficulty, and requiring no extraordinary abilities, and therefore I shall attempt that, and that alone, by stating, and then explaining, the following plain and undeniable propositions. First, that there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament. Secondly, that from this book may be extracted a system of reli¬ gion entirely new, both with regard to the object and the doctrines, not only infinitely superior to, but unlike every thing, which had ever before entered into the mind of man. Thirdly, that from this book may likewise be collected a system of Ethics, in which every moral precept founded on reason is car¬ ried to a higher degree of purity and perfection, than in any other of the wisest philosophers of preceding ages; every moral precept founded on false principles is totally omitted, and many new pre¬ cepts added, peculiarly corresponding with the new object of this religion. Lastly, that such a system of religion and morality could not pos¬ sibly have been the work of any man, or set of men; much less of those obscure, ignorant, and illiterate persons, who actually did dis¬ cover, and publish it to the woidd; and that, therefore, it must un¬ doubtedly have been effected by the interposition of Divine power, that is, that it must derive its ongin from God. of Christianity. 193 PROPOSITION I. Very little need be said to establish my first proposition, which is singly this:—That there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament: that is, there is a collection of writings, distinguished by that denomination, containing four historical accounts of the birth, life, actions, discourses, and death of an extraordinary person named Jesus Christ, who was born in the reign of Augustus Caesar, preached a new religion throughout the country of Judea, and was put to a cruel and ignominous death in the reign of Tiberius. Also one other historical account of the travels, transactions, and orations of some mean and illiterate men, known by the title of his apostles, whom he commissioned to propagate his religion after his death; which he foretold them he must suffer in confirmation of its truth. To these are added several epistolary writings, addressed by these persons to their fellow-laborers in this work, or to the several churches or societies of Christians, which they had established in the several cities through which they had passed. It would not be difficult to prove, that these books were written soon after those extraordinary events, which are the subjects of them; as we find them quoted, and referred to by an uninterrupted succession of writers from those to the present times: nor would it be less easy to show, that the ti’uth of all those events, miracles only excepted, can no more be reasonably questioned, than the truth of any other facts recorded in any history whatever; as there can be no more reason to doubt, that there existed such a person as Jesus Christ, speaking, acting, and suffering in such a manner as is there described, than that there were such men as Tiberius, Herod, or Pontius Pilate, his contemporaries ; or to suspect, that Peter, Paul, and James were not the authors of those epistles, to which their narnes are affixed, than that Cicero and Pliny did not write those which are ascribed to them. It might also be made appear, that these books, having been wrote by various persons at different times, and in distant places, could not possibly have been the work of a single impostor, nor of a fraudulent combination, being all stamped with the same marks of a uniform originality in their very frame and composition. But all these circumstances I shall pass over unobserved, as they do not fall in with the course of my argument, nor are necessary for the support of it. Whether these books were wrote by the authors whose names are prefixed to them, whether they have been enlarged, diminished, or any way corrupted by the artifice or igno¬ rance of translators, or transcribers j whether m the historical parts the w'riters were instructed by a perpetual, a partial, or by any in¬ spiration at all; whether in the religious and moral parts, they re¬ ceived their doctrines from a Divine influence, or from the instruc¬ tions and conversation of their master; whether in their facts or sentiments there is always the most exact agreement, or whether in both they sometimes differ from each other; whether they are in 194 Jenyns's Internal Evidence any case mistaken, or always infallible, or ever pretended to be so, I shall not here dispute; let the deist avail himself of all these doubts and difficulties, and decide them in conformity to his own opinions: I shall not contend, because they affect not my argument. All that I assert is a plain fact, which cannot be denied, that such writings do now exist PROPOSITION 11. My second proposition is not quite so simple, but, I think, not less undeniable than the former, and is this:—^That from this book may be extracted a system of religion entirely new, both with regard to the object, and the doctrines; not only infinitely superior to, but totally unlike, every thing which had ever before entered into the mind of man. I say extracted, because all the doctrines of this reli¬ gion having been delivered at various times, and on various occa¬ sions, and here only historically recorded, no uniform or regular system of theology is here to be found; and better, perhaps, it had been, if less labor had been employed by the learned, to bend and twist these divine materials into the polished forms of human sys¬ tems, to which they never will submit, and for which they were never intended by their great Author. Why he chose not to leave any such behind him we know not, but it might possibly be, because he knew, that the imperfection of man was incapable of receiving such a system, and that we are more properly, and more safely con¬ ducted by the distant and scattered rays, than by the too powerful sunshine of divine illumination. “ If I have told you earthly things,” says he, “and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things ?” (John iii. 12) that is, if my instructions, concern¬ ing your behavior in the present as relative to a future life, are so difficult to be understood, that you can scarcely believe me, how shall you believe, if I endeavored to explain to you the nature of celestial beings, the designs of Providence, and the mysteries of his dispensations; subjects which you have neither ideas to compre¬ hend, nor language to express ? First, then, the object of this religion is entirely new, and is this, to prepare us by a state of probation for the kingdom of heaven. This is everywhere professed by Christ and his apostles to be the chief end of the Christian’s life; the crown for which he is to con¬ tend, the goal to which he is to run, the harvest which is to pay him for all his labors. Yet, previous to their preaching, no such prize was ever hung out to mankind, nor any means prescribed for the attainment of it. It is indeed true, that some of the philosophers, of antiquity en¬ tertained notions of a future state, but mixed with much doubt and uncertainty. Their legislators also endeavored to infuse into the minds of the people a belief of rewards and punishments after death; but by this they only intended to give a sanction to their laws, and to enforce the practice of virtue for the benefit of man¬ kind in the present life. This alone seems to have been their end, of Christianity. 195 and a meritorious end it was; but Christianity not only operates more effectually to this end, but has a nobler design in view, which IS by a proper education here to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter. In all former religions the good of the present lile was the first object; in the Christian it is but the second; in those, men were incited to promote that good by the hopes of a future reward ; in this, the practice of virtue is enjoined in order to qualify them for that reward. There is great difference, I appre¬ hend, in these two plans, that is in adhering to virtue from its present utility in expectation of future happiness, and living in such a man¬ ner as to qualify us for the acceptance and enjoyment of that hap¬ piness ; and the conduct and dispositions of those, who act on these different principles, must be no less different. On the first, the con¬ stant practice of justice, temperance, and sobriety, will be sufficient; but on the latter, we must add to these an habitual piety, faith, re¬ signation, and contempt of the world. The first may make us very good citizens, but will never produce a tolerable Christian. Hence It is that Christianity insists more strongly, than any preceding insti¬ tution, religious or moral, on purity of heart, and a benevolent dis¬ position ; because these are absolutely necessary to its great end; but in those, whose recommendations of virtue regard the present life only, and whose promised rewards in another were low and sensual, no preparatory qualifications were requisite to enable men to practise the one, or to enjoy the other. And, therefore, we see this object is peculiar to this religion; and with it was entirely new But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet, when dis¬ covered, they are so consonant to it, that we cannot but readily as¬ sent to them. For the truth of this principle, that the present life is a state of probation and education to prepare us for another, is con¬ firmed by every thing which we see around us; it is the only key wliich can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of hu man affairs, the only clue which can guide us through that pathless wilderness, and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be compre¬ hended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness; because it is everywhere overspread with innumera¬ ble miseries; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments. It could not have been constituted for a scene of wis¬ dom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system all that we here meet with may be easily accounted for ,* for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, necessarily results from a state of probation and education; as probation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences. In the next place the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object; and contain ideas of God, and of man, of the pres- 196 JenyrCs Internal Evidence ent, and of a future life, and of the relations which all these bear to each other, totally unheard of, arid quite dissimilar from any which had ever been thought on, previous to its publication. No other ever drew so just a portrait of ^^ worthlessness of this world, and all its pursuits, nor exhibited sufeh distinct, lively, and exquisite pic¬ tures of the joys of another; of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, “ when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mor¬ tal shall put on immortality.” (1 Cor. xv. 53.) No other has ever represented the Supreme Being in the character of three persons united in one God.* No other has attempted to reconcile those seeming contradictory but both true propositions, the contingency of future events, and the foreknowledge of God, or the free will of the creature with the over-ruling grace of the Creator. No other has so fully declared the necessity of wickedness and punishment yet so effectually insti-ucted individuals to resist the one, and to es- cape'flie other: no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it: no other has ventured to declare the unpardonable nature of sin without the in¬ fluence of a mediatorial interposition, and a Ancarious atonement from the sufferings of a superior Being.t Whether these wonderful doc¬ trines are worthy of our belief must depend on the opinion, which we entertain of the authority of those, who published them to the world ; but certain it is, that they are all so far removed from every tract of the human imagination, that it seems equally impossible, that they should ever have been derived from the knowledge, or the artifice of man. Some indeed there are, who, by perverting the established signi¬ fication of words (which they call explaining), have ventured to ex¬ punge all these doctrines out of the Scriptures, for no other reason than that they are not able to comprehend them; and argue thus: The Scriptures are the word of God; in his word no propositions contradictory to reason can have a place; these propositions are contradictory to reason, and therefore they are not there: but if these bold assertors would claim any regard, they should reveree their argument and say, these doctrines make a part, and a material part of file Scriptures, they are contradictory to reason; no proposi- * That there subsists some such union in the Divine nature, the whole tenor of the New Testament seems to express, and it was so understood in the earliest ages; but whether this union does or does not imply equality, or whether it subsists in general, or only in particular circum¬ stances, we are not informed, and therefore on these questions it is not only unnecessary, but improper for us to decide. t That Christ suffered and died, as an atonement for the sins of man¬ kind, is a doctrine so constantly and so strongly enforced through every part of the New Testament, that whoever will seriously peruse those waitings, and deny that it is there, may, with as much reason and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides and Livy, assert, that in them no mention is made of any facts relative to the histories of Greece and Rome. of Christianity. I 97 tions contradictory to reason can be a part of the word of God, and therefore neither the Scriptures, nor the pretended revelation con* in them, can be derived from him; this would be an arau- candid deists, and demand a respectful atten ion, but wdien men pretend to disprove facts by reasoning, they have no right to expect an answer. ^ I cannot omit observing, that the personal character of thP this religion is no less new, and extraordinary, than the iehj,ion itself, who spake as never man spake” (John vii. 46) rjie 1 W h jived : in proof of this, I do not mean to al- lej,e, that he was born of a virgin, that he fasted forty days, that he periorraed a v^ariety of miracles, and after being burled tLee days, 1 f''''r i^feause these accounts will have but reliVimf win of unbelievers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit to the relation of these facts; but I will rn cannot be disputed ; for instance, he is the only founder of a religion in the history of mankind, which is totally ^ government, and therefore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever: all others, Mahomet, Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their religious nstitutions with their civil, and by them obtained dominion over their lespective people; but Christ neither aimed at, nor would ac¬ cept of any such power: he rejected every object, w'hich all other len pursue, and made choice of all those which others fly from and are afraid of: he refused power, riches, honors, and pleasure! and courted poverty. Ignominy, tortures, and death. Many have been the enthusiasts and impostors, who have endeavored to impose on the world pretended revelations, and some of them from pride obstinacy, or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their lives rather than retract; but I defy history to show one, who ever made Ins own sufferings and death a necessaiy part of his original plan and essential to his mission; this Christ actually did; he foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate the divine lessons, the perfect precepts, me beautiful discourses, and the consistent conduct of this wonder- 1 111 person, ym cannot possibly imagine, that he could have been either an idiot or a madman; and yet, if he was not what he pre¬ tended to be, he can be considered in no other light; and even un¬ der this character he would deserve some attention, because of so sublime and rational an insanity there is no other instance in the fustory of mankind. If any one can doubt of the superior excellence of this religion above all which preceded it, let him but peruse with attention those unparalleled writings in which it is transmitted to the present times, and compare them with the most celebrated productions of the pa- ga.n world ; and if he is not sensible of their superior beauty, sim¬ plicity, and originality, I will venture to pronounce, that he is as de- ucient m taste as in faith, and that he is as bad a critic as a Cliris- tian; for in what school of ancient philosophy can he find a lesson Of mormiy so perfect as Christ’s sermon on the mount ? From which K 2 ]3 ■|gg Jenyns^s Internal Evidence of them can he collect an address to the Deity so concise, and yet comprehensive, so expressive of all that vve vi^ant, and all that we could d^eprecate, as that short prayer, which he formed for, and re- tr> fh^cinles^ From the w'orks of w’hat sage of anti- srLthVproters^p^ rSe distress'ed.and enforced '’y those words of Christ? “Come, ye blessed of my f attier, maarii the kino-dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world . f Swlfln huSgred.and yl gaye “eat; I was th.^ an VP me dnnk; I was a stranger, and ye took me in, 1 was naKea Ld ve clothed me; I w^as sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, ^nd fe came unto me. Then shall the righteous >• y* ina Ford when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee, or tmrsty aiS eave’thee drink? when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in nr naked and clothed thee? or when saw w^e thee sick and in ^;i?td cui uL thee?. Then shall I answer -cl say umo them. Verily, I say unto you, imsmuch 7— least of theL my brethren, ye have done it unto ^ „ 34') Where is there so just, and so elegant a reproof of aag . and aS ii woridly pursuits, closed with so forcible an exhorta¬ tion to coi^^dence in tL goodness »* “Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow ^ rean nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedetli them. Are^’ye riot much better than they ? consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spm; and yet I ay TZ yot^ that even komon in all his glory was not ajayed like one of these: wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the tield, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast Bv much more clothe you? O ye of little faith! (Matt. vi. 2b. 2H.) .by which of their most celebrated poets are the joys righteous in a future state so -bhmely describ^, as by this^^s^^^^ declaration, that they are superior to aUt^escrip ion ? Ej^e hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered —o the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Cor. ii 9? Where, amidst the dark clouds of pagan philosophy, can he show us such a clear prospect of a future state, the -mortality of the soul the resurrection of the dead, and the general judgment, as in St Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians? Or from whence can he produce such cogent exhortations to the practice of e\er>; virtue, sucraEtTncitem^ents to .piety and devotion, .and such ^ to attain them, as those which are to be met with throughoiit every page of these inimitable writings ? To quote all the Relative to these subjects, would be almost to transcribe the who e , it is sufficient to observe, that they are everywhere stamped w th such apparent marks of supernatural assistance, as render them in disputaWv superior to, and totally unlike all human composition whateve/; and this superiority and dissimilarity is still more strong y marked by one remarkable circumstance peculiar to themselves, which is, that whilst the moral parts, being of the most S—eral use, are intelligible to the meanest capacities, the learned and inqu . of Cliristianihj. jqq live, throughout all ages, perpetually find in them inexhau« 5 tihlf> attributes, and dispensations^of appearance of Christianitv there ex- u tr j P^ner nations were immersed in the grossest idolatni ^A hich had little or no connexion with morality, exfeprto cSrTpTft xvnr«lf- “^^^pous examples of their own imaginary deities: they all roiirtp!f?f pmltiphcity of gods and demops, whose favor they miii ?hpX ''nd ridiculous ceremonies, and whose InTe mkst alTs'of abominable cruelties. at aP f P^Josophy, in religious knowledge they had made none presumption, that the noblest efforts of the mind of Sed oTtW ^ "’O ivme nature : they occasionally flung out many ele- fhpv fn ^he native beauty and excellence of virtuel but a SlP Jo'*'”’ “r*«he “""toands" of God. nor connected it wift “ts obfeef Thl.P?* ?“ **’ "<■ ‘““'"r" as its reward, or nntt tUoo‘" sometimes talked of virtue cariying men to heaven and placing them arnongst the gods; but by this virtue they iS “f "i* Aem Vir en vvas open only to legislators and conquerors, the civilizers or de- most TOlish^d^^P^' was, then, the summit of religion in the few nh^nations in the world, and even this was confined to a mmoHprtfhhem, prodigies of genius and literature, xvho were little thei? own understood by the generality of mankind in mon cion ft ’ whilst all the rest were involved in one com- Tf • ^g^^orance and superstition. At this time Christianity broke forth from the east like a rising Jenyns's Internal Evidence 200 isiipiis ^ TYiQTrVhink of the authority of these books, the rela- donht-, because there are the books, and m them is this religion. PROPOSITION III. My third proposition is this ; that from this book, the New all those, tvhieh enforce the praet.ce of^^^^^^^^ God benevolence to men, ju&ice, charity, temperance, SSiSy'wHh ^1 thos. of Christianity. 201 cause they have really no intrinsic merit in them, and are totally incompatible with the genius and spirit of this institution. Valor, for instance, or active courage, is for the most part consti¬ tutional, and therefore can have no more claim to moral merit, than wit, beauty, health, strength, or any other endowment of the mind or body; and so far is it ifom producing any salutary effects by in¬ troducing peace, order, or happiness into society, that it is the usual perpetrator of all the violences, which from retaliated injuries dis¬ tract the world with bloodshed and devastation. It is the engine by which the strong are enabled to plunder the weak, the proud to trample upon the humble, and the guilty to oppress the innocent; it IS the chief instrument which ambition employs in her unjust pur¬ suits of wealth and power, and is therefore so much extolled by her votaries: it was indeed congenial with the religion of pagans, whose gods v\ere, fiir the most part, made out of deceased heroes, exalted to heaven as a reward for the mischiefs which they had perpetrated upori earth, and therefore with them this was the first of virtues, and had even engrossed that denomination to itself; but whatever merit it may have assumed among pagans, with Christians it can pretend to none, and few or none are the occasions in which they are permitted to exert it; they are so far from being allowed to in¬ flict evil, that they are forbid even to resist it; they are so far from being encouraged to revenge injuries, that one of their first duties IS to forgive them; so far from being incited to destroy their ene¬ mies, that they are commanded to love them, and to serve them to the utmost of their power. If Christian nations therefore were na¬ tions of Christians, all war wuuld be impossible and unknown ^longst them, and valor could be neither of use or estimation, and therefore could never have a place in the catalogue of Christian \irtues, being irreconcilable with all its precepts. I object not to the praise and honors bestowed on the valiant: they are the least ti^ute which can be paid them by those wdio enjoy safety and affluence by the intervention of their dangers and sufferings ; I as¬ sert only, that active courage can never be a Christian virtue, be¬ cause a Christian can have nothing to do wdth it. Passive courage ^ indeed frequently and properly inculcated by this meek and suf¬ fering religion, under the titles of patience and resignation : a real and substantial virtue this, and a direct contrast to the former; for passive courage arises from the noblest dispositions of the human nund, from a contempt of misfortunes, pain, and death, and a confi¬ dence in the protection of the Almighty; active from the meanest; from passion, vanity, and selfdependence; passive courage is de- nved from a zeal for truth, and a perseverance in duty; active is the offspring of pride a,nd revenge, and the parent of cruelty and injustice: in short, passive courage is the resolution of a philosopher, active the ferocity of a savage. Nor is this more incompatible wdth the precepts, than with the object of this religion, w hich is the attain¬ ment of the kingdom of heaven; for valor is not that sortof violence, by which that kingdom is to be taken; nor are the turbulent spirits 202 Jenyns’s Internal Evidence of heroes and conquerors admissible into those regions of peace, subordination, and tranquillity. u cort in nn Patriotism also, that celebrated virtue, so much cient, and so much professed in modern times, that ’^irtue ^^hlch .o long preserved the liberties of Greece, and exalt d Rome to empire of the world : this celebrated virtue, T say, must also be ex¬ cluded; because it not only falls short of, but the extensive benevolence of this religion. A country, he is a citizen of the world; and his neighbors and coun¬ trymen are the inhabitants of the remotest regions, whenever then distresses demand his friendly assistance: Christianity commands us to love all mankind, patriotism to oppress all other countnes to advance the imaginary prosperity of our own: Christianity enjoins “s to imitate ™e Inivlsal benevolence of our Creator, who poum forth his blessings on every nation upon earth; patriotism to copy the mean partiality of an English parish officer, who thinks injustice and cruelty meritorious, whenever they promote the interests of hr own inconsiderable village. This has ever been a ® ^ _ with mankind, because it conceals self-interest under the mask of public spirit, not only from others, but even from themselves, and mves a license to inflict wrongs and injuries, not only with impu¬ nity, but with applause; but it is so diametrically opposite to the great characteristic of this institution, that it never could have been admitted into the list of Christian virtues. Friendship, likewise, although more congenial to the. principles of Christianity, arising from more tender and amiable dispositions, could never gain admittance amongst her benevolent precepts, for the same reason; because it is too narro\y and confined, and appro¬ priates that benevolence to a single object, which is here com¬ manded to be extended over all: where friendships arise fromsirm- larity of sentiments, and disinterested affections, they are advanta¬ geous, agreeable, and innocent, but have little pretensions to merit; for it is justly observed, “ If ye love them, which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. (Luke vi. 32.) But if they are formed from alliances in parties, faction^ and interests, or from a participation of vmes, the usual parents of what are called friendships among, mankind, they are ffien both mischievous and criminal, and consequently forbidden, but in their utmost purity deserve no recommendation from this religion. To the judicious omission of these false virtues we may add that remarkable silence, which the Christian Legislator everywhere pre¬ serves on subjects esteemed by all others of the highest imporianc^e, civil government, national policy, and the ’ of the^se he has not taken the least notice, probably foi this plain rLson, because it would have been imiiospble to have formed any explicit regulations concerning them, which must not have in¬ consistent with the purity of his religion, or with the practical ob¬ servance of such imperfect creatures as men ruling over, and con¬ tending with each other. For instance, had he absolutely forbad all resistance to the reigning powers, he had constituted a plan of des- 203 of Christianity. polism, and made men slaves; had he allowed it, he must have authorized disobedience, and made them rebels; had he, in direct terms, prohibited all war, he must have left his followers for ever an easy prey to every inlldel invader; had he permitted it, he must ha^'e licensed ail that rapine and murder with which it is unavoida¬ bly attended. Let us now examine what are those new precepts in this religion peculiarly corresponding with the new object of it, that is, prepar¬ ing us for the kingdom of heaven. Of these the chief are poorness of spirit, forgiveness of injuries, and charity to all men; to these w^e may add repentance, faith, self-abasement, and a detachment from the world, all moral duties peculiar to this religion, and absolutely necessary to the attainment of its end. “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of hea¬ ven.” (Matt. V. 3.) By which poorness of spirit is to be understood a disposition of mind, meek, humble, submissive to power, void of ambition, patient of injuries, and free from all resentment. This was so new, and so opposite to the ideas of all Pagan moralists, that they thought this temper of mind a criminal and contemptible mean¬ ness, which must induce men to sacrifice the glory of their country, and their own honor, to a shameful pusillanimity; and such it ap¬ pears to almost all who are called Christians even at this day, who not only reject it in practice, but disavow it in principle, notwith¬ standing this explicit declaration of their Master. We see them re¬ venging the smallest affronts by premeditated murder, as individ¬ uals, on principles of honor; and, in their national capacities, de¬ stroying each other with fire and sword, for the low considerations of commercial interests, the balance of rival powers, or the ambition of princes. We see them with their last breath animating each other to a savage revenge, and, in the agonies of death, plunging with feeble arms their daggers into the hearts of their opponents and, what is still w'orse,'we hear all these barbarisms celebrated by historians, flattered by poets, applauded in theatres, approved in senates, and even sanctified in pulpits. But universal practice can¬ not alter the nature of things, nor universal error change the nature of truth. Pride was not made for men, but humility, meekness, and resignation, that is, poorness of spirit, was made for man, and. properly belongs to his dependent and precarious situation; and is the only disposition of mind, which can enable him to enjoy ease and quiet here, and happiness hereafter. Yet was this important precept entirely unknown until it was promulgated by him, who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and tbrbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven: Verily I say unto you, whoso¬ ever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” (Mark x. 14.) Another precept, equally new and no less excellent, is forgive¬ ness of i7ijuries: “Ye have heard,” says Christ to his disciples, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to tb.era that hate you, and pray for them which despitefuily use you. 204 Jenyns’s Internal Evidence and persecute you.” (Matt. v. 43.) This was a lesson so new, and so utterly unknown, till taught by his doctrines, and enforced by his example, that the wisest moralists of the wisest nations and ages re¬ presented the desire of revenge as a mark of a noble mind, and the accomplishment of it as one of the chief felicities attendant on a fortunate man. But how much more magnanimous, how much more beneficial to mankind, is forgiveness! it is more magnanimous, be¬ cause every generous and exalted disposition of the human mind is requisite to the practice of it; for these alone can enable us to bear the wrongs and insults of wickedness and folly with patience, and to look down on the perpetrators of them with pity, rather than in¬ dignation ; these alone can teach us, that such are but a part of those sufferings allotted to us in this state of probation, and to know, that to overcome evil with good is the most glorious of all victories: it is the most beneficial, because this amiable conduct alone can put an end to an eternal succession of injuries and retaliations; for every retaliation becomes a new injury, and requires another act of revenge for satisfaction. But would we observe this salutary pre¬ cept, to love our enemies, and to do good to those who despitefully use us, this obstinate benevolence would at last conquer the most inveterate hearts, and we should have no enemies to forgive. How much more exalted a character therefore is a Christian martyr, suf¬ fering with resignation, and praying for the guilty, than that of a Pagan hero, breathing revenge, and destroying the innocent ? yet noble and useful as this virtue is, before the appearance of this re¬ ligion it was not only unpractised, but decried in principle, as mean and ignominous, though so obvious a remedy for most of the miseries of this life, and so necessary a qualification for the happiness of another. A third precept, first noticed and first enjoined by this institution, is charity to'all men. What this is, we may best learn from this ad¬ mirable description, painted m the followung words; “ Charity suf- fereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketli no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in truth; feareth all things ; belieyeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all things.” (1 Cor. xiii. 4.) Here we have an accurate delineation of this bright constellation of all virtues, which consists not, as many imagine, in the building of moiaasteries, endowment of hospitals, or the distribution of alms, but in such an amiable disposition of mind as exercises itself every hour in acts of kindness, patience, complacency, and benevolence to all around us, and which alone is able to promote happiness in the present life, or render us capable of receiving it in another; and yet this is totally new, and so it is declared to be by the author of it; “ A ne w commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another; by this shall all men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John xiii. 34.) This benevolent disposition is made the great charac¬ teristic of a Christian, the test of his obedience, and the mark by of Christianity, 205 which he is to be distinguished. This love for each other is that charity just now described, and contains all those qualities, which are there attributed to it; humility, patience, meekness, and benefi¬ cence : without which w'e must live in perpetual discord, and con¬ sequently cannot pay obedience to this commandment by loving one another; a commandment so sublime, so rational, and so beneficial, so wisely calculated to correct the depravity, diminish the wicked¬ ness, and abate the miseries of human nature, that, did we univer¬ sally comply with it, we should soon be relieved from all the inquie¬ tudes arising from our own unruly passions, anger, envy, revenge, malice, and ambition, as well as jfrom all those injuries, to which we are perpetually exposed from the indulgence of the same pas¬ sions in others. It would also preserve our minds in such a state of tranquillity, and so prepare them for the kingdom of heaven, that we should slide out of a life of peace, love, and benevolence, into that celestial society, by an almost imperceptible transition. Yet wus this commandment entirely new, when given by him, w'ho so entitles it, and has made it the capital duty of his religion, because the most indispensably necessary to the attainment of its great ob¬ ject, the kingdom of heaven; into which, if proud, turbulent, and vindictive spirits were permitted to enter, they must unavoidably destro}'- the happiness of that state, by the operations of the same passions and vices by which they disturb the present; and therefore all such must be eternally excluded, not only as a punishment, but also from incapacity. Repentance, by this, we plainly see, is another new moral duty strenuously insisted on by this religion, and by no other, because absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of its end; for this alone can purge us from those transgressions, from which we can¬ not be totally exempted in this state of trial and temptation, and purify us from that depravity in our nature, which renders us in¬ capable of attaining this end. Hence also we may learn, that no repentance can remove this incapacity, but such as entirely changes the nature and disposition of the offender; which in the language of Scripture is called “ being born again.” Mere contrition for past crimes, nor even the pardon of them, cannot effect this, unless it operates to this entire conversion or new birth, as it is p>’operly and emphatically named; for sorrow can no more purify a mind cor¬ rupted by a long continuance in vicious habits, than it can restore health to a body distempered by a long course of vice and intem¬ perance. Hence also every one, who is in the least acquainted with himself, may judge of the reasonableness of the hope that is in him, and of his situation in a future state, by that of his present. If he feels in himself a temper proud, turbulent, vindictive, and malevo¬ lent, and a violent attachment to the pleasures or business of the world, he may be assured, that he must be excluded from the king¬ dom of heaven; not only because his conduct can merit no such re- w ard, but because, if admitted, he would find there no objects satis¬ factory to his passions, inclinations, and pursuits, and therefore could S 206 Jeriyns's Internal Evidence only disturb the happiness of others without enjoying any share of it himself Faith is another moral duty enjoined by this institution, of a spe¬ cies so new, that the philosophers of antiquity had no word expres¬ sive of this idea, nor any such idea to be expressed; for the word ■TZLUTig or yi^es, which we translate faith, was never used by any Fagan writer, in a sense the least similar to thab to which it is ap¬ plied in the New Testament: where in general it signifies an hum¬ ble, teachable, and candid disposition, a trust in God, and confidence in his promises; when applied particularly ro Christianity, it means no more than a belief of this single proposition, that Christ was the Son of God; that is, in the language of those writings, the Messiah, who was foretold by the prophets, and expected by the Jews; who was sent by God into the world to preach righteousness, judgment, and everlasting life, and to die as an atonement for the sins of man¬ kind. This was all that Christ required to be believed by those who were willing to become his disciples; he, wdio does not believe this, is not a Christian, and he who does, believes the whole that is es¬ sential to his profession, and all that is properly comprehended un¬ der the name of faith. This unfortunate word has indeed been so tortured and so misapplied to mean every absurdity, which artifice could impose upon ignorance, that it has lost all pretensions to the title of virtue; but if brought back to the simplicity of its original signification, it well deserves that name, because it usually arises from the most amiable dispositions, and is always a direct contrast to pride, obstinacy, and self-conceit. If taken in the extensive sense of an assent to the evidence of things not seen, it comprehends the existence of a God, and a future state, and is therefore not only itself a moral virtue, but the source from whence all others must proceed; for on the belief of these all religion and morality must entirely depend. It cannot be altogether void of moral merit (as some will represent it), because it is in a degree voluntary; for daily- experience shows us, that men not only pretend to, but actually do believe, and disbelieve almost any propositions, which best suit their interests or inclinations, and unfeignedly change their sincere opinions with their situations and circumstances. For we have power over the mind’s eye, as well as over the body’s, to shut it against the strongest rays of truth and religion, whenever they be¬ come painful to us, and to open it again to the faint glimmerings of scepticism and infidelity when we “ love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil.” (John iii. 19.) And this, I think, suffi¬ ciently refutes all objections to the moral nature of faith, drawn from the supposition of its being quite involunta^, and necessarily dependent on the degree of evidence, which is ofitered to our under¬ standings. . Self-abasement is another moral duty inculcated by this religion only; which requires us to impute even our owm virtues to the grace and favor of our Creator, and to acknowledge, that we can do nothing good by our own powers, unless assisted by his over¬ ruling influence. This doctrine seems at first sight to infringe on of Christianity. 207 our free-will, and to deprive us of all merit; but, on a closer ex¬ amination, the truth of it may be demonstrated both by reason and experience, and that in fact it does not impair the one, or depreciate the other; and that it is productive of so much humility, resignation, and dependence on God, that it justly claims a place amongst the most illustrious moral virhaes. Yet was this duty utterly repugnant to the proud and self-sufficient principles of the ancient philosophers as well as modern deists, and therefore before the publication of the Gospel totally unknown and uncomprehended. Detachment from the world is another moral virtue constituted by this religion alone; so new, that even at this day few of its pro¬ fessors can be persuaded, that it is required, or that it is any virtue at all. By this detachment from the world is not tci be understood a seclusion from society, abstraction from all business, or retirement to a gloomy cloister. Industry and labor, cheerfulness and hospi¬ tality are frequently recommended; nor is the acquisition of wealth and honors prohibited, if they can be obtained by honest means, and a moderate degree of attention and care; but such an unremitted anxiety and perpetual application, as engrosses our whole time and thoughts, are forbid, because they are incompatible with the spirit of this religion, and must utterly disqualify us for the attainment of its great end. We toil on in the vain pursuits and frivolous occupa¬ tions of the world, die in our harness, and then expect, if no gigan¬ tic crime stands in the way, to step immediately into the kingdom of heaven; but this is impossible! for without a previous detachment from the business of this world, we cannot be prepared for the hap¬ piness of another. Yet this could make no part of the morality of ragans, because their virtues were altogether connected with this business, and consisted chiefly in conducting it with honor to them¬ selves, and benefit to the public. But Ghristianity has a nobler ob¬ ject in view, which, if not attended to, must be lost for ever. This object IS that celestial mansion of which we should never lose sight, and to which we should be ever advancing during our journey through life; but this by no means precludes us from performing the business, or enjoying the amusements of travellers, provided they detain us not too long, or lead us too far out of our way. It cannot be denied, that the great author of the Christian institu¬ tion first and singly ventured to oppose all the chief principles of Pagan virtue, and to introduce a rehgion directly opposite to those erroneous, though long-established, opinions, both in its duties and in its object. The most celebrated virtues of the ancients were high spirit, intrepid courage, and implacable resentment. Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, was the portrait of the most illustrious hero, drawn by one of the first poets of antiquity. To all these admired qualities, those of a true Christian are an exact con¬ trast ; for this religion constantly enjoins poorness of spirit, meek¬ ness, patience, and forgiveness of injuries. “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matt. v. 39.) The favorite char¬ acters among the Pagans were, the turbulent, ambitious, and in- 208 Jenyns’s Internal Evidence irepid, who through toils and dangers acquired wealth, and spent it in luxury, magnificence, and corruption; but both these are equally adverse to the Christian system, which forbids all extraordinary efforts to obtain wealth, care to secure, or thought concerning the enjoyment of it. “ Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth,” &c. “ Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed ? for after all these things do the Gentiles seek.” (Matt. vi. 31.) The chief object of the Pa¬ gans was immortal fame: for this, their poets sang, their heroes fought, and their patriots died; and this was hung out by their philosophers and legislators as the great incitement to all noble and virtuous deeds. But what says the Christian legislator to his disciples on this subject? “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and shall say all manner of evil against you for my sake ; rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” (Matt. v. 11.) So widely different is the genius of the Pagan and Christian moral¬ ity, that I will venture to affirm, that the most celebrated virtues of the former are more opposite to the spirit, and more inconsistent with the end of the latter, than even their most infamous vices; and that a Brutus, wrenching vengeance out of his hands to w hom alone it belongs, by murdering the oppressor of his country, or a Cato, murdering himself from an impatience of control, leaves the world more unqualified for, and more inadmissible into the kingdom of heaven, than even a Messalina, or a Pleliogabalus, with all their profligacy about them. Nothing, I believe, has so much contributed to corrupt the true spirit of the Christian institution, as that partiality, which we con¬ tract from our earliest education for the manners of Pagan antiquity: from whence W'e learn to adopt every moral idea, which is repug¬ nant to it; to applaud false virtues, which that disavows; to be guided by law's of honor, which that abhors; to imitate characters, which that detests; and to behold heroes, patriots, conquerors, and suicides with admiration, whose conduct that utterly condemns. From a coalition of these opposite principles was generated that monstrous system of cruelty and benevolence, of barbarism and civility, of rapine and justice, of fighting and devotion, of revenge and generosity, which harassed the world for several centuries with crusades, holy wars, knight-errantry, and single combats, and even still retains influence enough, under the name of honor, to defeat the most beneficent' ends of this holy institution. I mean not by this to pass any censure on the principles of valor, patriotism, or honor: they may be useful, and perhaps necessary, in the commerce and business of the present turbulent and imperfect state; and those who are actuated by them may be virtuous, honest, and even reli- gioTis men: all that I assert is, that they cannot be Christians. A profligate may be a Christian, though a bad one, because he may be overpowered by passions and temptations, and his actions may con¬ tradict his principles; but a man, whose ruling principle is honor, however virtuous lie may be, cannot be a Christian, because he of Christianity. S09 erects a standard of duty, and deliberately adheres to it, diametri¬ cally opposite to the whole tenor of that religion. The contrast between the Christian, and all other institutions re¬ ligious or moral previous to its appearance, is sufficiently evident, and surely the superiority of the fbnner is as little to be disputed ; unless any one shall undertake to prove, that humility, patience, forgiveness, and benevolence are less amiable, and less beneficial qualities than pride, turbulence, revenge, and malignity: that the contempt of riches is less noble than their acquisition by fraud and villany, or tlie distribution of them to the poor less commendable than avarice or profusion; or that a real immortality in the kingdom of heaven is an object less exalted, less rational, and less worthy of pursuit, than an imaginary immortality in the applause of men: that worthless tribute, which the folly of one part of mankind pays to the wickedness of the other; a tribute, which a wise man ought always to despise, because a good man can scarce ever obtain. CONCLUSIOxV. If I mistake not, I have now fully established the truth of my three propositions;— First, That there is now extant a book entitled the New Testa¬ ment. Secondly, That from this book may be extracted a system of reli¬ gion entirely new; both in its object, and its doctrines, not only su¬ perior to, but totally unlike every thing, which had ever before entered into the mind of man. Thirdly, That from this book may likewise be collected a system of ethics, in which every moral precept founded on reason is carried to a higher degree of purity and perfection, than in any other of the wisest philosophers of preceding ages; every moral precept founded on false principles totally omitted, and many new precepts added, peculiarly corresponding with the new object of this religion. Every one of these propositions, I am persuaded, is incontroverti- bly true ; and if true, this short but certain conclusion must inevita¬ bly follow; that sucia a system of religion and morality could not possibly have been the work of anj^ man, or set of men, much less of those obscure, ignorant, and illiterate persons, who actually did discover, and publish it to the world; and that therefore it must have been effected by the supernatural interposition of divine power and wisdom; that is, that it must derive its origin from God. This argument seems to me little short of demonstration, and is indeed founded on the very same reasoning, by which the material world is proved to be the work of his invisible hand. We view with admiration the heavens and the earth, and all therein con¬ tained ; we contemplate with amazement the minute bodies of ani¬ mals too small for perception, and the immense planetary orbs too vast for imagination. We are certain that these cannot be the works of man; and therefore we conclude with reason, that they must be S2 2i0 Jenyns's Internal Evidence the productions of an omnipotent Creator. In the same manner we see here a sclieme of religion and morality unlike and superior to all ideas of the human mind, equally impossible to have been dis¬ covered by the knowledge, as invented by the artifice of man; and therefore by the very same mode of reasoning, and with the same justice, we conclude, that it must derive its origin from the same omnipotent and omniscient Being. Nor was the propagation of this religion less extraordinary than the religion itself, or less above the reach of all human power, than the discovery of it was above that of all human understanding. It is well known, that in the course of a very few years it was spread over all the principal parts of Asia and of Europe, and this by the ministry only of an inconsiderable number of the most inconsidera¬ ble persons; that at this time Paganism was in the highest repute, believed universally by the vulgar, and patronized by the great; that the wisest men of the wisest nations assisted at its sacrifices, and consulted its oracles on the most important occasions. Whether these were the tricks of the priests or of the devil, is of no conse¬ quence, as they were both equally unlikely to be converted, or overcome; the fact is certain, that, on the preaching of a few fisher¬ men, their altars were deserted, and their deities were dumb. This miracle they undoubtedly performed, whatever we may think of the rest: and this is surely sufficient to prove the authority of their commission; and to convince us, that neither their undertaking nor the execution of it could possibly be their own. How much this divine institution has been corrupted, or how soon these corruptions began, how far it has been discolored by the false notions of illiterate ages, or blended with fictions by pious frauds, or how early these notions and fictions were introduced, no learning or sagacity is now able precisely to ascertain; but surely no man, who seriously considers the excellence and novelty of its doctrines, the manner in which it was at first propagated through the world, the persons who achieved that wonderful work, and the originality of those writings in which it is still recorded, can possi¬ bly believe, that it could ever have been the production of impos¬ ture, or chance; or that from an imposture the most Avicked and blasphemous (for if an imposture, such it is) all the religion and virtue now existing on earth can derive their source. But, notwithstanding what has been here urged, if any man can believe, that at a time when the literature of Greece and Rome, then in their meridian lustre, were insufficient for the task, the son of a ca rpenter, together with twelve of the meanest and most illite¬ rate mechanics his associates, unassisted by any supernatural power, should be able to discover or invent a system of theology the most sublime, and of ethics the most perfect, which had escaped the pen¬ etration and learning of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero ; and that from this system, by their own-sagacity, they had excluded every false virtue, though universally admired, and admitted every true virtue, though despised and ridiculed by all the rest of the world;—if any one can believe that these men could become impostors, for no other 211 of Christianity. purpose than the propagation of truth, villains for no end but to teach honesty, and martyrs without the least prospect of honor or advantage; or that, if all this should have been possible, these few inconsiderable persons should have been able, in the course of a few yearn, to have spread this their religion over most parts of the then known world, in opposition to the interests, pleasures, ambi¬ tion, prejudices, and even reason of mankind ; to have triumphed over the pow’er of princes, the intrigues of states, the force of cus¬ tom, the blindness of zeal, the influence of priests, the arguments of orators, and the philosophy of the world, without any supernatural assistance;—if any one can believe all these miraculous events, contradictory to the constant experience of the powers and disposi¬ tions of human nature, he must be possessed of much more faith than is necessary to make him a Christian, and remain an unbeliever from mere credulity. But should these credulous infidels after all be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable; from believing it what harm could ensue ? Would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungovernable ? the rich more insolent, or the poor more disorderly? Would it make worse parents or children, hus¬ bands or waves, masters or servants, friends or neighbors ? Or would it not make men more virtuous, and consequently more happy in every situation ? It could not be criminal; it could not be detrimen¬ tal. It could not be criminal, because it cannot be a crime to assent to such evidence, as has been able to convince the best and wisest of mankind ; by which, if false. Providence must have permitted men to deceive each other, for the most beneficial ends, and which therefore it would be surely more meritorious to believe, from a dis¬ position of faith and charity, which believeth all things, than to re¬ ject with scorn from obstinacy and self-conceit. It cannot be detri¬ mental, because, if Christianity is a fable, it is a fable, the belief of which is the only principle which can retain men in a steady and uniform course of virtue, piety, and devotion, or can support them in the hour of distress, of sickness, and of death. Whatever might be the operations of true deism on the minds of Pagan philosophers, that can now avail us nothing; for that light, which once lightened the Gentiles, is now absorbed in the brighter illumination of the Gospel; we can now form no rational system of deism, but what must be borrowed from that source, and, as far as it reaches towards perfection, must be exactly the same; and therefore, if we will not accept of Christianity, we will have no religion at all. Accordingly we see, that those w’ho fly from this, scarce ever stop at deism; but hasten on, with great alaciity to a total rejection of all religious and moral principles whatever. If I have here demonstrated the divine origin of the Christian re- ■* ligion by an argument which cannot be confuted ; no others, how¬ ever plausible or numerous, founded on probabilities, doubts, and conjectures, can ever disprove it, because, if it is once shown to be true, it cannot be false. But as many arguments of this kind have bewildered some candid and ingenuous minds, I shall here bestow 212 Jenyns’s Internal Evidence « a few lines on those which have the most weight, in order to wipe oiit, or at least to diminish their perplexing influence. But here I must previously observe, that the most unsurmounta- ble, as well as the most usual obstacle to our belief, arises from our passions, appetites, and interests ; for faith being an act of the will as much as of the understanding, we oftener disbelieve for want of inclination, than want of evidence. The first step towards thinking this revelation true, is our hope that it is so; for whenever we much wish any proposition to be true, we are not far from believing it. It is certainly for the interest of all good men, that its authority should be well founded; and still more beneficial to the bad, if ever they intend to be better; because it is the only system, either of reason or religion, which can give tliem any assurance of pardon. The punishment of vice is a debt due to justice, which cannot be rendt- ted without compensation : repentance can be no compensation; it may change a wicked man’s disposition, and prevent his offending for the future, but can lay no claim to pardon for what is past. If any one, by profligacy and extravagance, contracts a debt, repent¬ ance may make him wiser, and hinder him from running into fur¬ ther distresses, but can never pay off his old bonds; for which he must be ever accountable, unless they are discharged by himself, or some other in his stead ; this very discharge Christianity alone holds forth on our repentance, and, if true, will certainly perform: the truth of it therefore must ardently be wished for by all, except the wicked, who are determined neither to repent nor reform. It is well worth every man’s while, who either is, or intends to be virtuous, to be¬ lieve Christianity, if he can ; because he will find it the surest pre¬ servative against all vicious habits and their attendant evils, tlie best resource under distresses and disappointments, ill health and ill fortune, and the firmest basis on which contemplation can rest; and without some, the human mind is never perfectly at ease. But if any one is attached to a favorite pleasure, or eagerly engaged in worldly pursuits incompatible with the precepts of this religion, and he believes it, he must either relinquish those pursuits with uneasi¬ ness, or persist in them with remorse and dissatisfaction, and there¬ fore must commence unbeliever in his own defence. With such I shall not dispute, nor pretend to persuade men by arguments to make themselves miserable : but to those, who, not afraid that this religion may be true, are really affected by such objections, I will offer the following answers, which, though short, will, I doubt not, be sufficient to show them their weakness and futility. In the first place, then, some have been so bold as to strike at the root of all revelation from God, by asserting, that it is incredible, because unnecessary, and unnecessary, because the reason which he has bestowed on manidnd is sufficiently able to discover all the religious and moral duties which he requires of them, if they would but attend to her precepts, and be guided by her friendly admoni¬ tions. Mankind have undoubtedly, at various times from the re¬ motest ages, received so much knowledge by divine communica¬ tions, and have ever been so much inclined to impute it all to their of Christianity. 213 own sufficiency, that it is now difficult to determine what human reason unassisted can effect. But to form a true judgment on this subject, let us turn our eyes to those remote regions of the globe, to which this supernatural assistance has never yet extended, and we shall there see men, endued with sense and reason not inferior to our own, so far from being capable of forming systems of religion and morality, that they are at this day totally unable to make a nail or a hatchet; from whence we may surely be convinced, that rea¬ son alone is so far from being sufficient to offer to mankind a perfect religion, that it has never yet been able to lead them to any degree of culture or civilization whatever. These have uniformly flowed ffom that great fountain of divine communication opened in the East, in the earliest ages, and thence been gradually diffused in ^lubrious streams, throughout the various regions of the earth. Their nse and progress, by surveying the history of the world, may easily be traced backwards to their source 5 and wherever these have not as yet been able to penetrate, we there find the human specms not only void of all true religious and moral sentiments, but not th^e least emerged from their original ignorance and barbarity; which seems a demonstration, that although human reason is capa¬ ble of progression in science, yet the first foundations must be laid by supernatural instructions; for surely no other probable cause can be assigned why one part of mankind should have made such an amazing progress in religious, moral, metaphysical, and philosophical inquiries; such w’onderful improvements in policy, legislation, com- meroe, and manufactures, while the other part, formed with the capacities, and divided only by seas and mountains, should remain, during the same number of ages, in a state little superior to brutes, without government, without laws or letters, and even without clothes and habitations; murdering each other to satiate their revenge, and devouring each other to appease their hunger. I say no cause can be assigned for this amazing difference, except that the first have received information from those divine communications recorded in the Scriptures, and the latter have never yet been favored with such assistance. This remarkable con¬ trast seems an unanswerable, though, perhaps, a new proof of the necessity of revelation, and a solid refutation of all arguments against It, drawn from the sufficiency of human reason. And as reason in her natural state is thus incapable of making any progress in know’- ledge; so when furnished with materials by supernatural aid, if left to the guidance of her owui wild imaginations, she falls into more numerous, and more gross errors, than her own native igno¬ rance could ever have suggested. There is then no absurdity so extravagant, which she is not ready to adopt; she has persuaded som^ that there is no God ; others, that there can be no future state: she has taught some, that there is no difference between vice and virtue, and that to cut a man’s throat and to relieve his necessities are actions equally meritorious: she has convinced many, that thdy free-will, in opposition to their own experience; some, that a there can be no such thing as soul, or spirit, contrary to their 214 Jenyns's Intevnal Evidence own nerceptions: and others, no such thing as matter, or body, in contradiction to their senses. Bv analyzing f that there is nothing in any thing; by perpetual sitPng stie can reduce all existence to the invisible dust of scepticisni; and, by recurring to first principles, prove, to the satisfaction of her follow- IS™.®.he?e 2 no pSne.&es at all. How a ‘J be depended on in the important concerns of “‘'«X?™iSe This leave to the judgment of every considerate .^o 3;ation IS certain, that human reason in its highest amongst the philosophers of Greece and Rome, form! religion comparable to Christianity; nor have all^jhose sources of moral virtue, such as truth, beauty, and „„y,„titnte things, which modern philosophers have endeavored to substitute in its stead, ever been effectual to produce themselves often been the productions of be Others there are, who a low, that a both necessary, and credible; but allege, that f the books of the Old and New Testament, cannot be that revela- llSi-btal in them are to ^^e found errors tion; because in tnem are lo “r.vu r-P rnii never fabulous stories, false facts, and false philosop y. be derived from the fountain of oil wisdom 'ind jru^ he derived Irom me louniaiii ui un wiciiwui --— - reply that I readily acknowledge, that the Scriptures are not dev¬ iations from God, Lt the history of them: the revelation itself is derived from God; but the histoiy of it is the and therefore the truth of it is not in the least affected by their fa.- bbility but depends on the internal evidence of its own supernatu¬ ral eSellence.^ If in these books such a religion, described, actually exists, no seeming, or even f found in them can disprove the chvine origin of tjos reli^ . invalidate mv argument. Let us, for instance, grant, that the Mo saic history ddP tire ere ^ ryiimd tbe eartli to be a lar principles of those early ages, who imagined the earth to be a vast plainf and the celestial bodies no more than luminaries UP in the concave firmament to enlighten it; will it fi^om thence foUow, that Moses could not be a proper instrument in ‘^be ban s Providence, to impart to the Jews a divine law, because he was no Aspired with a foreknowledge of the Coperiiican and Newtonian systems ? or that Christ must be an impostor, because Mo^s was not an astronomer ? Let us also suppose, that the temptation in the wilderness, the devils takin^e S ^ of swine, with several other narrations in the New ^ im ouentlv ridiculed by unbelievers, were all but stories accommodated ?o thi"^" superstitions of the b-loT™ on which they were written, or pious frauds, intended to impress on mindra higher reverence of the power and sanctity of Christ- will this in the least impeach the excellence of his religion, or the authority of its founder ? or is Christianity for a the fables of which it may have been the '"^hrisfiL want of this obvious distinction has much injured the Utirisnan Tauserbecafse on th« ground it ha.s ever been most succesefully of Christianity, 215 attacked, and on this ground it is not easily to be defended: for if of this revelation are supposed to be the revelation Itself the least defect discovered in them must be fatal to the whole. What has led many to overlook this distinction is that com¬ mon phrase, that the Scriptures are the word of God; and in one sense they certainly are; that is, they are the sacred repository of all the revelations, dispensations, promises, and precepts which God has vouchsafed to communicate to mankind; but by this expression understand, that every part of this voluminous col- historical, poetical, prophetical, theological, and moral • SS) which we call the Bible, was dictated by the immediate uence of divine inspiration: the authors of these books pretended no such infallibility; and if they claim it not for themselves, who has authority to claim it for them ? Christ required no such belief trom those who were willing to be his disciples. He says, “He that Hopru!* on me hath everlpting life,” (John vi.47); but where es he say. He that believeth not every wwd contained in the Old 1 estamenf which was then extant, or every word of the New Tes- ament, which was to be wrote for the instruction of future gene¬ rations, hath not everlasting life? There are innumerable occur¬ rences related in the Scriptures, some of greater, some of less, and some of no importance at all; the truth of which we can have no of is surely not essential to ^oubt but that St. Paul w^as ship- wrecked, and ^at he left his cloak and parchments at Troas; but tiffU c i part of Christianity, nor is the """J.P^oof of Its authority. It proves only that this nf infoii Ki^^*^ in common life be under the perpetual influence nnt J.o®P^^^Pon ,• for, had he been so, he would not have werl ^ ^ his cloak. These writers directed by supernatural influence in all things Tt appointed to perform. ^ ^ on particular occasions, they were enabled in ou languages, and to work miracles; but In ^ circumstances, they seem to have been left to the direc- understandings like other men. In the sciences tirn'o K Saagraphy, astronomy, and philosophy, they appear to less no better instructed than others, and therefore were not nnft n f errors and prejudices of the times met -^7 honest Srdefl f knowledge or information, and they re- hm ^ the utmost fidelity: thefi- r T P^atended to no infallibility, for they sometimes differed in AlTl-Ui 1 they sometimes disagreed in their sentiments, tion m that they did not act, or write in a combina- latio^wS Tf ’ ^ nr 'i!" ?® impeaches the truth of the reve- dence which depends noton any external evi- prove what is • ’ will venture to affimi, that if any one could them ^aapossible to be proved, because it is not true, that there are errors m geography, chronology, and philosophy, in every 216 Jenyns's Internal Jiividence page of the Bible; that the prophecies deli\ ered are all but fortunate guesses, or artful applications, and miracles there recorded no better than legendary tales: if any ® that these books were never written by their but were posterior impositions on illiterate and credulous ages. these wonderful disciveries would prove no more than this that God, for reasons to us unknown, has thought proper to revelation by him communicated to mankind ^ he mixed with their ignorance, and corrupted by ^^ir frauds from ite ejhest infancy, in the same manner in which he has visibly P^^^tted be mixed and corrupted from that period to the artuallv in these books a religion superior to all human imagination ac ually exists, it is of no consequence to the proof ^ ^ what means it was there introduced, or'mth what human er and imperfections it is blended. A diamond, though found m a bed of mud, is still a diamond, nor can the dirt, which surrounds it, depreciate its value or destroy its lustre, in To some speculative and refined observers it has ^PP^^^ed i credible, that a wise and benevolent Creator should have consP- tuted a world upon one plan, and a religion for it on anoAer, that ■ is, that he should have revealed a religion to “^’^hind, which not only contradicts the principal passions and incdinations w has implanted in their natures, but is incompatible with the whole economy of that world which he has created, and in to the thought proper to place them. This, say they, with r g i _ ChriStianhs Varently the case: the love of power. h^or. and fame, are the great incitements to generous actions; yet by this institution are all these depreciated and dis coui-aged Government is essential to the nature of man, and t^an- not be managed without certain degrees of violen , cannot and imposition; yet are all these strictly forbid. N ,ipqola subsist without ivars, nor war be carried on wit^o^^/^.^l^vSest tion, and murder; yet are these prohibited ., a . a- threats. The nonresistance of evil must sul^ect individu tinual oppressions, and leave nations a defencele p ^ , . enemies; yet is this recommended. Perpetual .P^^f in' suits and injuries must every day provoke new .fXaSl juries; yetis this enjoined. A neglect of we eat and dunk and wear, must put an end to all commerce, oufactures, and mdu^^^^^^ yet is this required. In short, were these P^^'^^P- -i chanee/ obeyed, the disposition of all human affairs must be and the business of the world, constituted f now is could not go on. To all this I answer, that such indeed is the Chnstian re tion, though some of its advocates may perhaps ^ it as it, and such it is constantly declared to be by him who ^ve v^ell as by those, who published it under his Z these L says,“If ye were of tre chisS his own; but because ye are not of th®J^'orld, but I h you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. ^ohn xx. • To the Jews he declares, “Ye are of this world; I am not of ttii. of Christianity, 217 world.” (John \dii. 23.) St. Paul writes to the Romans, “Be not con- formed to this world,” (Rom. xii. 2); and to the Corinthians, “ We speak not the wisdom of this world.” (Cor. ii. 6.) St. James savs ‘ Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God ? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (Jam. ly. 4.) This irreconcilable disagreement between Christianity and the world is announced in numberless other places m the New Testament, a.nd indeed by the whole tenor of those writings. These are plain declarations, which, in spite of all the evasions of those good managers, who choose to take a little of this world in their way to heaven, stand fixed and immovable against ail their arguments drawn from public benefit and pretended neces- sity, and must ever forbid any reconciliation between the pursuits ot this world and the Christian institution: but they, who reject it on this account, enter not into the sublime spirit of this religion whicli IS riot a code of precise laws designed for the well ordering society adapted to the ends of worldly convenience, and amenable to the tribunal of human prudence; but a divine lesson of purity and periection, so far superior to the low considerations of conquest government, and commerce, that it takes no more notice of them’ than of the battles of game-cocks, the policy of bees, or the indus- try of ants: they recollect not what is the first and principal object of this institution; that is not, as has been often repeated, to make us happy, or even virtuous in the present life, for the sake of aug¬ menting our happiness here, but to conduct us through a state of dangere and sufferings, of sin and temptation, in such a manner as to qualify us for the enjoyment of happiness hereafter. All other irutitutions of religion and morals were made for the world, but the characteristic of this is to be against it; and therefore the merits of Christian doctrines are not to be weighed in the scales of public utility, like those of moral precepts, because worldly utility is not their end. If Christ and his apostles had pretended, that the reli¬ gion which they preached would advance the power, wealth, and prosperity of nations, or of men, they wwld have deserved but little credit; but they constptly profess the contrary, and every- w ere decmre, that their reli^on is adverse to the world, and all its pursuits. Christ says, speaking of his disciples, “They are not of the W’orld, even as I am not of the world.” (John xvii. 16.) It can therefore be no imputation on this religion, or on any of its precepts, hat they tend not to an end which their author professedly disclaims • nor can it surely be deemed a defect, that it is adverse to the vain pursuits of this world; for so are reason, wisdom, and experience, they all teach us the same lesson, they all demonstrate to us every hay, that these are begun on false hopes, carried on with disquie- S’ disappointment. This professed incompatibility with the little, wretched, and iniquitous business of the world, is nn nth H ® religion, that, was there I would be The great plan and benevolent design of this oispenytion is plainly this; to enlighten the minds, purify the reh- 218 Jenyns^s Internal Evidence cion, and amend the morals of mankind in general, and to select the most meritorious of them to be successively transplanted into the kingdom of heaven: which gracious offer is imparpally tendered to all, who by perseverance in meekness, patience, pietyp charity, an a detachment from the world, are willing to qualify themselves for this holy and happy society. Was this universally accepted, and did everv man observe strictly every precept of the Gospel, the face ol human affairs and the economy of the world would indeed be great y changed; but surely they would be changed for the better; and we should enjoy much more happiness, even here, than at present: for we must not forget, that evils are by it forbid as well as resist¬ ance; injuries as well as revenge; all unwillingness to diffuse the eniovments of life, as well as solicitude to acquire them; all obsta¬ cle to ambition, as well as ambition itself; and therefore all con¬ tentions for power and interest would be at an end; and the world would go on much more happily than it now does. But this uni versal acceptance of such an offer was never expected so depraved and imperfect a creature as man, and thermore could never have been any part of the design: for it was foreknown and foretold by him who made it, that few, very few would accept it on these terms. He says, “ Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that hnd it. (Matt.vii.l4.) Accordingly we see, that very few are prevailed on by the hopes of future happiness, to relinquish the pursuit of present pleasures or interests, and therefore these pursuits are little inter¬ rupted by the secession of so inconsiderable a number. As the natural world subsists by the struggles of the same elements, so does the moral by the contentions of the same passions, as from tae beginning. The generality of mankind are actuated by the same motives; fight, scuffle, and. scramble for power, riches, and plea¬ sures with the same eagerness: all occupations and professions are exercised with the same alacrity, and there are soldiers, lawyers, statesmen, patriots, and politicians, just as if Christianity had never existed. Thus, we see this wonderful dispensation has answered all the purposes for which it was intended: it has enlightened the minds, purified the religion, and amended the morals of mankind ; and, without subverting the constitution, policy, or business of the world, opened a gate, though a strait one, through which all, who are wise enough to choose it, and good enough to be fit for it, may find an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. ^ ^ . Others have said, that if this revelation had really been from God, his infinite pow'er and goodness could never have suffered it to have been so soon perverted from its original purity, to have continued in a state of corruption through the course of so many ages, and at last to have proved so ineffectual to the reformation of mankind. To these I answer, that all this, on examination, will he found in¬ evitable, from the nature of all revelations communicated to so im¬ perfect a creature as man, and from circumstances peculiar to the rise and progress of the Christian in particular: for when ffl>s was first preached to the gentile nations, though they were not able to of Christianity. 219 withstand the force of its evidence, and therefore received it; yet they could not be prevailed on to relinquish their old superstitions, and former opinions, but chose rather to incorporate them with it. by yi hich means it was necessarily mixed wdth their ignorance, and their learning; by both which it was-equally injured. The people defaced its worship by blending it with their idolatrous ceremonies, and the philosophers corrupted its doctrines by weaving them up wdth the notions of the Gnostics, Mystics, and Manichaeans, the pre¬ vailing systems of those times. By degrees its irresistible excellence gained over princes, potentates, and conquerors to its interests, and it w as supported by their patronage: but that patronage soon en¬ gaged it in their policies and contests, and destroyed that ex¬ cellence by which it had been acquired. At length the meek and humble professors of the Gospel enslaved these princes, and con¬ quered these conquerors, their patrons, and erected for themselves such a stupendous fabric of wealth and pow'er, as the world had never seen: they then propagated their religion by the same methods Iw wfoich it had been persecuted; nations were converted by fire and sword, and the vanquished were baptized with daggers at their throats. All these events we see proceed from a chain of causes and consequences, wfoich could not have been broken with¬ out changing the established course of things by a constant series of miracles, or a total alteration of human nature: whilst that con¬ tinues as it is, the purest religion must be corrupted by a conjunc¬ tion with power and riches, and it will also then appear to be much more corrupted than it really is: because many are inclined to think, that every deviation from its primitive state is a corruption: Christianity was at first preached by the poor and mean, in holes and caverns, under the iron rod of persecution; and therefore many absurdly conclude, that any degree of wealth or power in its minis¬ ters, or of magnificence in its worship, are corruptions inconsistent with the genuine simplicity of its original state: they are offended, that modem bishops should possess titles, palaces, revenues, and coaches, w’hen it is notorious, that their predecessors the apostles were despicable wanderers, wtithout houses, or money, and walked on foot. The apostles indeed lived in a state of poverty and per secution attendant on their particular situation, and the W'ork which they had undertaken: this was their misfortune, but no part of their religion, and therefore it can be no more incumbent on their succes- sore to imitate their poverty and meanness, than to be whipped, im¬ prisoned, and put to death, in compliance with their example. These are all but the suggestions of envy and malevolence, but no objec¬ tions to these fortunate alterations in Christianity and its professors; W'hich, if not abused to the purposes of tyranny and superstition, are in fact no more than the necessary and proper effects of its more prosperous situation. When a poor man grows rich, or a servant becomes a master, they should take care that their exaltation prompts them not to be unjust or insolent; but surely it is not requisite or right, that their behavior and mode of living should be exactly tlie same, when their situation is altered. How for this institution has 220 Jenyns's Internal Evidence been effectual to the reformation of mankind, it is not easy now to ascertain, because the enormities which prevailed before the ap¬ pearance of it are by time so far removed from our sight, lhat they are scarcely visible; but those of the most gigantic size still remain in the records of history, as monuments of the rest Wars in those ages were carried on with a ferocity and cruelty unknowm to the present: whole cities and nations were extirpated by fire and sword; and thousands of the vanquished were crucified and im¬ paled for having endeavored only to defend themselves and their country. The lives of new-born infants were then entirely at the disposal of their parents, who were at liberty to bring them up, or to expose them to perish by cold and hunger, or to be devoured 1^ birds and beasts; and this was frequently practised without puni^- ment, and even without censure. Gladiators were employed by hundreds to cut one another to pieces in public theatres for the diversion of the most polite assemblies; and though these combatants at first consisted of criminals only, by degrees men of the highest rank, and even ladies of the most illustrious families, enrolled them¬ selves in this honorable list. On many occasions human sacrifices were ordained; and at the funerals of rich and eminent persons, great numbers of the slaves were murdered as victims pleasing to their departed spirits. The most infamous obscenities were made part of their religious worship, and the most unnatural lusts pub¬ licly avowed, and celebrated by their most admired poets. At the approach of Christianity all these horrid abominations vanished ; and amongst those who first embraced it, scarce a single vice was to be found. To such an amazing degree of piety, charity, tem¬ perance, patience, and resignation were the primitive converts ex¬ alted, that they seem literally to have been regenerated, and puri¬ fied from all the imperfections of hxunan nature; and to have pur¬ sued such a constant and uniform course of devotion, innocence, and virtue, as, in the present times, it is almost as difficult for us to conceive as to imitate. If it is asked, why should not the belief of the same religion now produce the same effects? The answer is short, because it is not believed. The most sovereign medicine can perform no cure, if the patient will not be persuaded to take it. Yet, notwithstanding all impediments, it has certainly done a great deal towards diminishing the vices, and correcting the dispositions of mankind; and was it universally adopted in belief and practice, would totally eradicate both sin and punishment. But this was never expected, or designed, or possible, because, if their existence did not arise from some necessity to us unloiown, they never would have been permitted to exist at all, and, therefore, they can no more be extirpated, than they could have been prevented. For this would certainly be incompatible with the frame and constitution of this world, and in all probability with that of another. And this, I think, well accounts for that reserve and obscurity with which this religion was at first promulgated, and that want of irresistible evi¬ dence of its truth, by which it might possibly have been enforced. Christ says to his disciples, “To you it is given to know the mystery of Christianity. 221 of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not per¬ ceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” (Mark iv. 11, 12.) That is, to you by peculiar favor it is given to know and understand the doctrines of my religion, and by that means to qualify yourselves for the kingdom of heaven; but to the multitude without, that is to all mankind in general, this indul¬ gence cannot be extended: because that all men should be ex¬ empted from sin and punishment is utterly repugnant to the univer¬ sal system, and that constitution of things, which Infinite Wisdom has thought proper to adopt. Objections have likewise been raised to the divine authority of this religion from tl^e incredibility of some of its doctrines, particu- la^ of those concerning the Trinity, and atonement for sin by the sufferings and death of Christ; the one contradicting all the prin¬ ciples of human reason, and the other all our ideas of divine justice. To these objections I shall only say, that no arguments, founded on principles which we cannot comprehend, can possibly disprove a proposition already proved on principles which we do understand ; and, therefore, that on this subject they ought not to be attended to. That three Beings should be one Being, is a propo¬ sition which certainly contradicts reason, that is, our reason, but it does not from thence follow, that it cannot be true; for there are many propositions which contradict our reason, and yet are demon¬ strably true. One is the very first principle of all religion, the being of a God; for that any thing should exist without a cause, or that any thing should be the cause of its own existence, are propositions equally contradictory to our reason; yet one of them must be true, or nothing could ever have existed. In like manner the overruling grace of the Creator, and the free-will of his creatures, his certain foreknowledge of future events, and the uncertain contingency of those events, are, to our apprehensions, absolute contradictions to each other; and yet the truth of every one of these is demonstrable from Scripture, reason, and experience. All these difficulties arise from our imagining, that the mode of existence of all beings must be similar to our own; that is, that they must all exist in time and space; and hence proceeds our embarrassment on this subject. We know, that no two beings, with whose mode of existence we are acquainted, can exist in the same point of time in the same point of space, and that therefore they cannot be one ; but how far beings, whose mode of existence bears no relation to time or space, may be united, we cannot comprehend; and therefore the possibility of such a union we cannot positively deny. In like manner our rea¬ son informs us, that the punishment of the innocent, instead of the guilty, is diametrically opposite to justice, rectitude, and all pre¬ tensions to utility; but we should also remember, that the short line of our reason cannot reach to the bottom of this ' /•-•.. ,. iV^_ • '-"Jk ,-iw. .■.,•• ^ ~ ' * ■•■ •'■'•' ■ ;,•■ • ■ '“’ •■' ■I-'-'.' 'M^' -’:' ' it. ( '(I . si,-J *•£.■?<;««■ •-■i V ■ . ,-: ..Lirt- • v;*. iU*.'3 . ..u ■( , > >-■ ■■‘j, ‘ >. , : f. ^,1 . .: / ri V J '*\‘t r . y» . ■ * :V. ;V -■ . r-‘v-'- ■' ;2»s- ’ V .' ' i ■ '- ■ ■»•! **•..- 1' . y. A SHORT AND EASY METHOD WITH THE DEISTS IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. THE REV. CHARLES LESLIE, M. A. u 15 A SHORT AND EASY method with the deists. answer to yours of the third instant, I much condole with nan circumstances, of being placecj among such com- continually hear the sared ScriptSS Chris? andXev*r?'' particularly of Mnser?nd of sPt nnVn. J^cvealed religion, turned into ridicule by men who Snnn/f t^^t there is no greater fpnn M ojiamm ed; that all thefe pre- Tpf revelaDon are cheats, and been among PaeS Jews, iVfohammedans, and Christians; that they are all aldie impo¬ sitions of cunning and designing men, upon tL credulity at first of simple and unthinking people, till, their numbers increasmg their delusions grew popular, came at last to be established bv laws’- S Jen the force of education and custom gives aS to thTiiiX ments of after ages, till such deceits come really to be believed ^gcs foregoingf without examin m?n of sense7S”tbp''^ them. Which these our modern tha?theroXesteemed) say, that they only do, XecedS the slavish authority onlS to hP Jpp-^ H L truth, which, they say, ought ^PularkY and ^ ^ com^iance w?th E nP^LS^ T ’ they preserve themselves from outrage, and inf; ofmar^rdoS' '“■<> “<'‘>‘‘=‘<='3 «> =uffer- re^IoiT’if some short topic of ' , I such can be found, whereby, without runnino' to aul hnH her, and toe intricate mazes of learning, which breed lone disriiites' and which these men of reason deny b? wholesale ttS ?hercS Ki *“PP“*'’ titaJauthors havl beln SpS uSn th’pm y corrupted, so that no stress can be laid rid^ whi?h ^ wherein they are so cor- alleirp ’it - ^c^^on, ought to he upon them to prove who and^the more^E^^hi* ^ precarious, but a guilty plea: w-hoi aShorit^ti ^ ^ to quote books on their side, for ever'vou sa^i^^rior ^“better, or not so good grounds. How- j y y, t makes your disputes endless, and they go away wfith 20-2 Leslie’s Method skirj Sisr£SSsS= impostures either^oblieed to renounce their r^f’STo Sr^"ure Sne”a|rp?oof.Vavoidc^^^^^^^^ <0 be found out. ^“^Tou"y£jan^^^ proof, because every reason, must be sufficient; ri especially to weak juilgments. , j j could per- 55;iHE««s,ix-:sr.a 3!;::f3%iS5EE€:;': vouch the truth of what he ^e^eie . brought the children SES-%£=;Sir=s told of him. it must ne«e®anly follow, that he 'HSSST-irSa.-—;J£: proof of these patters of fact ^ And the method I they all meet, the truth of matters of A a j secondly, to show me?oV?he hShSet™ nor can possibly meet in any imposture whatsoever. KirmStm of fact be such, as that men's outward senses, • their eyes and ears, may be judges of it. I tK “t" oriyVnbh^—f ^ ’’I '^'P' "P >■' 'rKt°rh^m—or observances be with the Deists. 233 instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done. The two first rules make it impossible for any such matter of fact to be imposed upon men, at the time when such matter of fact was said to be done, because every man’s eyes and senses would contra¬ dict it. For example; suppose any man should pretend, that yester¬ day he divided the Thames, in presence of all the people of Lon¬ don, and carried the whole city, men, women, and children, over to Southwark on dry land, the water standing like walls on both sides: I say, it is morally impossible that he could persuade tjie people of London, that this was true, when every man, woman, and child, could contradict him, and say, this was a notorious falsehood, for that they had not seen the Thames so divided, nor had gone over on dry land. Therefore I take it for granted, (and I suppose, with the allowance of all the deists in the world) that no such imposition could be put upon men, at the time when such public matter of fact was said to be done. Therefore it only remains, that such matter of fact might be in¬ vented some time after, when the men of that generation, wherein tlie thing w as said to be done, are all past and gone ; and the cre¬ dulity of after ages might be imposed upon, to believe that things were done in former ages, which were not. And for this the two last rules secure us as much as the two first rules, in the former case ; for whenever such a matter of fact came to be invented, if not only monuments were said to remain of it, but likewise that public actions and observances were constantly used ever since the matter of fact was said to be done; the deceit must be detected, by no such monuments appearing, and by the experi¬ ence of every man, woman, and child, who must know that no such actions or observances w'ei’e ever used by them. For example suppose I should now invent a story of such a thing, done a thou¬ sand years ago, I might perhaps get some to believe it; but if I say that not only such a thing was done, but that from that day to this, every man, at the age of twelve years, had a joint of his little finger cut off; and that eveiy man in the nation did want a joint of such a finger; and that this institution was said to be part of the matter of fact done so many years ago, and vouched as a proof and con¬ firmation of it, and as having descended without interruption, and been constantly practised, in memory of such matter of fact all along, from the time that such matter of fact was done: I say, it is impossible I should be believed in such a case, because eveiy one could contradict me, as to the mark of cutting off a joint of the fin¬ ger; and that being part of my original matter of fact, must demon¬ strate the whole to be false. II. Let us now come to the second point, to show, that the mat¬ ters of fact of Moses, and of Christ, have all these rules or marks before mentioned; and that neither the matters of fact of Moham¬ med, or what is reported of the heathen deities, have the like; and that no imposture can have them all. As to Moses, I suppose it will be allowed me, that he could not U 3 234 Leslie’s Method have persuaded six hundred thousand men, that he had brought them out of Egy pt, through the Red sea; fed them forty yearn with¬ out bread, by miraculous manna, and the other matters of fact re¬ corded in his boolis, if they had not been true. Because every man’s senses that were then alive, must have contradicted it. Anti therefore he must have imposed upon all their senses, if he could have made them believe it, when it was false, and no such things done. So that here are the first and second of the above mentioned ^^Forth^same reason it was equally impossible for him to have made them receive^his five books as truth, and not to have rejected them, as a manifest imposture; which told of all these things as done before their eyes, if they had not been so done. See how positively he speaks to them, Deiit. xi. 2—8, “And loiow you this day, for 1 speak not wuth your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched-out arm, and his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt and unto all his land, and what he did unto the army ot E^^ypt. unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the w^ter of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you; and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day: and what he did unto you in the wilderness until ye came into this place; and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram the sons of Ehab, the son ol Reuben, how the earth opened her -mouth, and swallowed them np and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel. But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord, which he did, &c. From hence we must suppose it impossible that these books ol Moses, (if an imposture) could have been invented and put upon the people, who were then alive when all these things were said to be done. ^ i, . • + The utmost, therefore, that even a suppose can stretch to, is, tnat these books were wrote in some age after Moses,- and put out in his And to this I say, that if it w^as so, it was impossible that those books should have been received, as the books of Moses, in that age wherein they may have been supposed to have been first invented. Whv^ Because they speak of themselves as delivered by Moses, and kept in the ark from his time. “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law m a liook until thev were finished; that Moses commanded tlto Levites, who bare the^ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this bwk of the law and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. Dent xxxi 24—26. And there was a copy of this book to be lett likewise with the king. “And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the = and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keen all the words of this law, and these statutes to do them,” Deut. xvii. 18 19. Here, you see that this book of the law, speaks of itself, not only as a history or relation of what things were then done: but as the standing and municipal law and statutes of the nation of the Jews biiidmg the king as well as the people, ^ Now, in whatever age after Moses you wall suppose this book to have been forged, it was impossible it could be received as truth* because it was not then to be found, either in the ark, or wdth the king, or anywhere else: for when first invented, every body must know, that they had never heard of it before. And therefore they could less believe it to be the book of their statutes and the standing law of the land, which they had all along received, and by which they had been governed. Could any man, now at this day, invent a book of statutes or acts ot parliament for England, and make it pass upon the nation as the only book of statutes that ever they had known ? As impossible was ^ books of Moses (if they were invented in any age after Moses) to have been received for what they declared themselves to be, VIZ. the statutes and municipal law of the nation of the Jews: f j to have persuaded the Jews, that they had owned and acknow- ledged these books, all along from the days of Moses, to that day in which they were first invented, that is, that they had owned them before they had ever so much as heard of them. Nay, more, the whole nafion must, in an instant, forget their former laws and gov¬ ernment, if they could receive these books as being their former laws. And they could not otherwise receive them, because they vouched themselves so to be. Let me ask the deist but this one short question. Was there ever a book of sham laws, which were not the laws of the nation, palmed upon any people, since the w^orld began ? If not, with what face can they say this, of the book of laws of the Jevvs ? Why vyill they say that of them, which they con¬ fess impossible in any nation, or among any people ? But they must be yet more unreasonable. For the books of Moses have a farther demonstration of their truth, than even other law books have; for they not only contain the laws, but give an histori¬ cal account of their institution, and the practice of them Irom that time: as of the passover. Numbers viii. 17, 18, in memory of the death of the first-born in Egypt: and that the same day, all the first-born of Israel both of man and beast, were by a perpetual law dedicated to God : and the Levites taken for all the first-born of the children of Israel. That Aaron’s rod which budded, was kept in the ark, in memory of the rebellion and wonderful destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and for the confirmation of the priest- e u tribe of Levi. As likewise the pot of manna, in memory V ^ having been fed with it forty years in the wilderness. That the brazen serpent was kept (which remained to the days of Heze- kiah, 2 Kings xviii. 4,) in memory of that wonderful deliverance, by only looking upon it, from the biting of the fiery serpents, Numb- 236 Leslie's Method xxi. 9. The feast of pentecost, in memory of the dreadful appear¬ ance of God upon mount Horeb, «Sz;c. . And, besides these remembrances of pa,rticular actions and oc¬ currences, there were other solemn institutions in memory of their deliverance out of Egypt in the general, which included all the particulars, as of the sabbath, Deut. v. 15. Their daily sacrifices, and yearly expiation, their new moons, and several leasts and lasts. So that there were yearly, monthly, weekly, daily remembrances, and recognitions of these things. And not only so, but the books of the same Moses tell us, that a particular tribe [of Levi] was appointed and consecrated by God^ his priests; by whose hands and none other, the sacrifices ol the people were to be offered, and these solemn institutions to be cele¬ brated. That it was death for any other to approach the aimr. That their high priest wore a glorious mitre, and magnificent robes of God’s own contrivance, with the miraculous Urim and Thun^im in his breast-plate, whence the divine responses were given. 1 hat at his word, the king, and all the people were to go out, and to come in Num. xxvii. 21. That these Levites were likewise the chief iudsres, even in all civil causes, and that it was death to resist their 4ntence, Deut. xvii. 8—13; 1 Chron. xxiii. 4. Now whenever it can be supposed that these books of Moses were forged, in some ages after Moses, it is impossible they could have been received as true, unless the forgers could have made the whole nation believe, thm they had received th€>se books from their fathers, had been instructed in them when they were children, and had taught them to their children; moreover, that they had all been circumcised, and did circumcise their children, in pursuance to what was commanded in these books: that they had observed the yearly passover, the weekly sabbath, the new moons, and all these several feasts, lasts, and ceremonies, commanded in these books: that they had never eaten any swine’s flesh, or other meats prohibited in these boofe; that they had a magnificent tabernacle, with a visible priesthood to ad- mimster in it, which was confined to the tribe of Levi; over whom was placed a glorious high priest, clothed with great and mighty prerogative, whose death only could deliver those that were fled to the cities of refuge. And that these priests were their ordinary iudges, even in civil matters, Num. xxxv. 25, 28. I fay, was it pos¬ sible to have persuaded a whole nation of men, that they had known and practised all these things, if they had not done it? or, secondly, to have received a book for truth, which said they had practised them, and appealed to that practice; so that here are the third and fourth of the marks above mentioned. But now let us descend to the utmost degree of supposition, viz. that these things were practised, before these books of Moses were forged ; and that these books did only impose upon the nation, m making them believe, that they had kept these observances in memory of such and such things, as were inserted in these books. Well then let us proceed upon this supposition, (however grourm- less,) and now, will not the same impossibihties occur, as in the with the Deists. 237 ^rraer case ? For first, this must suppose that the Jews kept all inese observances in memory of nothing, or without knowing any thing of their original, or the reason why they kept them. Whereas these very observances did express the ground and reason of their being kept, as the passover in memory of God’s passing over the children of the Israelites, in that night wherein he slew all the first¬ born of Egypt, and so of the rest. But secondly, let us suppose, contrary both to reason and matter of fact, that the Jews did not know any reason at all why they kept these observances; yet was it possible to put it upon them, that they had kept these observances in memory of what they had never- heard of before that day, whensoever you will suppose that these books of Moses were first forged ? For example, suppose I should now forge some romantic story of strange things done a thousand years ago, and in confirmation of this, should endeavor to persuade the Christian world, that they had all along, from that day to this, kept the first day of the week in memory of such a hero, an Apol¬ lonius, a Barcosbas, or a Mohammed; and had all been baptized in his name; and swore by his name, and upon that very book, (which I had then forged, and which they never saw before,) in their pub¬ lic judicatures ; that this book was their gospel and law, which they had ever since that time, these thousand years past, universally re¬ ceived and owned, and none other. I would ask any deist, whether he thinks it possible, that such a cheat could pass, or such a legend be received as the gospel of Christians; and that they could be made believe, that they never had any other gospel ? The same reason is as to the books of Moses, and must be, as to every matter of fact, which has all the four marks before mentioned ; and these marl^ secure any such matter of fact as much from being invented and imposed in any after ages, as at the time when such matters of fact were said to be done. Let me give one very familiar example more in this case. There is the Stonehenge in Salisbuiy Plain, every body knows it; and yet none knows the reason why those great stones were set there, or by whom, or in memory of what. Now suppose I should write a book to-morrow, and tell there that these stones were set up by Hercules, Polyphemus, or Garagan- tua, in memory of such and such of their actions. And for a farther confirmation of this, should say, in this book, that it was wrote at the time when such actions were done, and by the very actors them¬ selves, or eye-witnesses. And that this book had been received as truth, and quoted by authors of the greatest reputation in all ages since. Moreover, that this book was well known in England, jmd enjoined by act of parliament to be taught our children, and that w-e did teach it to our children, and had been taught it ourselves when we were children. I ask any deist, whether he thinks this could pass upon England ? And whether, if I, or any other should insist upon it, we should not, instead of being believed, be sent to Bedlam ? Now let us compare this with the Stonehenge, as I may call it, or 288 Leslie^s Method twelve great stones set up at Gilgal, which is told m the fourth chapter of Joshua. It is there said, verse 6, that the reason why they were set up, was, that when their children, in after ages, should ask the meaning of it, it should be told them. And the thing in memory of which they were set up, was such as could not possibly be imposed upon that nation, at that time, when it was said to be done: it was as wonderful and miraculous as their passage through the Red sea. And withal, free from a very poor objection, which the deists have advanced against that miracle of the Red sea: thinking to solve it by a spring tide, with the concurrence of a strong wind, happening at the same time, which left the sand so dry, as that the Israelites being all foot, might pass through the oozy places and holes, which it must be supposed the sea left behind it: but that the Egyptians being all horse and chariots, stuck in those holes and were entangled, so as that they could not march so fast as the Is¬ raelites : and that this was all the meaning of its being said, that God took off their [the Egyptians] chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily. So that they would make nothing exti’aordinary, at least, not miraculous in all this action. This is advanced in Le Clerc’s Dissertations upon Genesis, lately printed in Holland, and that part with others of the like tendency, endeavoring to resolve other miracles, as that of Sodom and Gomor¬ rah, &c. into the mere natural causes, are put into English by the well known T. Brown, for the edification of the deists in England. But these gentlemen have forgotten, that the Israelites had great herds of many thousand cattle with them; which would be apter to stray, and fall into those holes, and oozy places in the sand, than horses with riders, who might direct them. But such precarious and silly supposes are not worth the answer¬ ing. If there had been no more in this passage through the Red sea, than that of a spring tide, &c. it had been impossible for Moses to have made the Israelites believe the relatiop given of it in Exo¬ dus, with so many particulars, which themselves saw to be true. And all those scriptures which magnify this action, and appeal to it as a full demonstration of the miraculous power of God, must be reputed as romance or legend. I say this for the sake of some Christians, who think it no preju¬ dice to the truth of the Holy Bible, but rather an advantage, as ren¬ dering it more easy to be believed, if they can solve whatever seems miraculous in it, by the power of second ca,uses; and so to make all, as they speak, natural and easy. Wherein if they could prevail, the natural and easy result would be, not to believe one word in all those sacred oracles. For, if things be not as they are told in any relation, that relation must be false. And if false in part, we cannot trust to it, either in whole or in part. Here are to be excepted, mistranslations, and errors, either in copy, or in press. But where there is no room for supposing of these, as where all copies do agree ; there we must either receive all, or reject all. I mean in any book that pretends to be written 239 with the Deists, from the mouth of God- For in other common histories, we may beheve part and reject part, as we see cause. But to return. The passage of the Israelites over Jordan, in memory of which tlicse stones at Gilgal were set up, is free from al] those little earplugs before mentioned, that are made as to the pas¬ sage through the Red sea. For notice was given to the Israelites the day before, of this great miracle to be done, Josh. iii. 5. It was done at noon day, before the whole nation. And when the waters of Jordan were divided, it was not at any low ebb, but at the time when that river overflowed all its banks, verse 15. And it was done, not by winds, or in length of time, which winds must take to do it; but all on the sudden, as soon as the feet of the priests that bare tiie ark were dipped in the brim of the water, then the waters whicir came down from above, stood and rose up upon a heap, very far from the city Adam, that is besides Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people passed over, right against Jericho. The priests stood in the midst of Jordan, till all the armies of Israel had passed over. And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, were come up, out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lift up upon the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all his banks as they did before. And the people came up out of Jordan, on the tenth day of the first month, and en¬ camped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying. When your chil¬ dren shall ask their fathers, in time to come, saying. What mean these stones ? Then shall ye let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over; as the Lord your God did to the Red sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over. That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for et^r; chapter iv. from verse 18. If the passage of the Red sea had been only taking advantage of a spring tide, or the like, how would this teach all the people of the earth that the hand of the Lord was mighty ? How would a thing no more remarkable, have been taken notice of through all the world ? How would it have taught Israel to fear the Lord, when they must know, that notwithstanding all of these big words, there was so littiC in it ? How could they have believed, or received a book, as truth, which they knew, told the matter so far otherwise from what It was ? But, as I said, this pass;me over Jordan, which is here compared to that of the Red sea, is free from those cavils that are made as to that of the Red sea, and is a farther attestation to it, being said to be done in the same manner as was that of the Red sea. INow, to form our argument, let us suppose, that there never w'as any such thing as that passage over Jordan. That these stones at 240 Leslie^s Method Gilgal were set up upon some other occasion, in some a^er age. And then that some designing man invented this book of Joshua, and said, that it was written by Joshua, at that time. And gave this stonage at Gilgal for a testimony of the truth of it. Would not every body say to him. We know the stonage at Gilgal; but we never heard before of this reason for it? Nor of this book oi Joshua. Where has it been all this while ? And where and how came you, after so many ages, to find it ? Besides, this book tells us, that this passage over Jordan was ordained to be taught our children, irom age to age; and therefore, that they were always to be instrimted in the meaning of that stonage at Gilgal as a memorial of it. But we were never taught it when we were children; nor did ever teacti our children any such thing. And it is not likely that it could he,ve been forgotten, while so remarkable a stonage did continue, whicli was set up for that, and no other end! _ And if, for the reason before given, no such imposition eoind be put upon us, as to the stonage at Salisbury Plain; how much less could it be as to the stonage at Gilgal! And if where we know not the reason of a bare naked monu¬ ment, such a sham reason cannot be imposed: how much more is it impossible to impose upon us, in actions and observances, which we celebrate in memory of particular passages! How impossible to make us forget those passages which we daily commemoiate; and persuade us, that we had always kept such institutions in menmry of what we never heard of before; that is, that we knew it, belore we knew it. . . . i. * And if we find it thus impossible for an imposition to be put upon us, even in some things, which have not all the four marks belore mentioned; how much more impossible is it, that any deceit should be in that thing, where all the four marks do meet! r- r f This has been shown in the first place, as to the matters ol tact of Moses. • 1 , Therefore I come now, secondly, to show, that, as in the matters of fact of Moses, so likewise, all these four marks do meet in the matters of fact, which are recorded in the gospel of our blessed Saviour. And my work herein will be the shorter, because all tha is said before, of Moses and his books, is every way as applicable to Christ and his gospel. His works and miracles are there said to be done publicly, in the face of the worW, as he argued to his accusers, “ I spake openly to the world, and in secret have I said nothing, John xviii. 20. It is told. Acts ii. 41, that three thousand at one time; chap. iv. 4, that above five thousand at another time, yi^re converted, upon conviction of what themselves had seen, what bad been done publicly before their eyes, wherein it was impossiWe to have imposed upon them. Therefore here were the two first ol t e rules before mentioned. Then for the two second: baptism and the Lord s supper were instituted as perpetual memorials of these things; and they were not instituted in after ages, but at the very time when these things were said to be done; and have been observed without mterrupuon, with the Deists, 241 in all ages through the whole Christian world, down all the way from that time to this. And Christ himself did ordain apostles, and other ministers of his gospel, to preach, and administer these sacra¬ ments ; and to govern his church; and that “ always, even unto the end of the world,” Matt, xxviii. 20. Accordingly they have con¬ tinued by regular succession to this day; and, no doubt, ever shall, while the earth shall last. So that the Christian clergy are as noto¬ rious a matter of fact, as the tribe of Levi among the Jews. And the gospel is as much a law to the Christians, as the book of Moses to the Jews. And it being part of the matter of fact related in the gospel, that such an order of men were appointed by Christ, and to continue to the end of the world; consequently, if the gospel was a fiction, and invented (as it must be) in some ages after Christ; then, at that time, w'hen it was first invented, there could be no such or¬ der of clergy, as derived themselves from the institution of Christ; W'hich must give the lie to the gospel, and demonstrate the whole to be false. And the matters of fact of Christ being pressed to be true, no otherwise than as there was, at that time (whenever the deists wall suppose the gospel to be forged) not only public sacra¬ ments of Christ’s institution, but an order of clergy, likewise of his appointment to administer them: and it being impossible there could be any such things before they w'ere invented, it is as impossible that they should be received when invented. And therefore, by what was said above, it was as impossible to have imposed upon mankind in this matter, by inventing of it in after ages, as at the time when those things were said to be done. The matters of fact of Mohammed, or what is fabled of the dei¬ ties, do all want some of the aforesaid four rules, whereby the cer¬ tainty of matters of fact is demonstrated. First, Mohammed pre¬ tended to no miracles, as he tells us in his Alcoran, c. 6, &c. and those which are commonly told of him pass among the Mohammedans themselves but as legendary fables; and, as such, are rejected by the wise and learned among them; as the legends of their saints are in the church of Rome. See Dr. Prideaux’s Life of Moham¬ med, page 34. But, in the next place, those which are told of him, do all want the two first rules before mentioned. For his pretended converse with the moon; his Mersa, or night journey from Mecca to Jenisa- lern, and thence to heaven, &c. w'ere not performed before any body. We have only his own word for them. And they are as groundless as the delusions of Fox, or Muggleton, among ourselves. The same is to be said (in the second place) of the fables of the heathen gods, of Mercury’s stealing sheep, Jupiter’s turning himself into a bull, and the like; besides the folly and unworthiness of such senseless pretended miracles. And moreover, the wise among the heathen did reckon no otherwise of these but as fables, which had a mythology, or mystical meaning in them, of which several of them have given us the rationale, or explication. And it is plain enough that Ovid meant no other by all his Metamorphoses. It is true, the heathen deities had their priests: they had likewise 242 Leslie^s Method feasts, earnes, and other public instihitions in memory of them. But all these want the fourth mark, viz. That such priesthood and insti¬ tutions should commence from the time that such things as they commemorate were said to he done; otherwise they cannot secure after ages from the imposture, by detecting it, at the time when hrst invented, as hath been argued before. But the Bacchanalia, and other heathen feasts, were instituted many ages after what was reported of these gods was said to be done, and therefore can be no proof of them. And the priests of Bacchus, Apollo, &c., were not ordained by these supposed gods: but were appointed by others, in after ages, only in honor to them. And therefore these orders ot priests are no evidence to the truth of the matters of fact, which are reported of their gods. n III. 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 histones of Exodus and the gospel could never have been received, n they had not been true; because the institution of the priesthood of Eev^ and of Christ; of the sabbath, the passover, of circumcision, ol baptism, and the Lord’s supper, &c., are there related, as descend¬ ing all the way down from those times without interruption. And it is full as impossible to persuade men, that they had been circum¬ cised, baptized, had circumcised or baptized their children, cele¬ brated 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 sea upon dry land, seen the dead raised, &c. And withou believing of these, it was impossible that either the law, or the gos¬ pel, 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 tor the truth of them; and makes it impossible for any to have invented such stories in after ages, without a palpable detection oi the chea , when first invented; as impossible as to have imposed upon the senses of mankind at the time when such public matters oi lac were said to be done. , IV. I do not say, that every thing which wants these lour marks is false : but, that nothing can be false which has them all. I have no manner of doubt, that there was such a man as Julius Caesar; that he fought at Pharsalia, was killed in the senate-house, and many other matters of fact of ancient times, though we keep no public observances in memory of them. j /-.u But this shows that the matters of fact of Moses and Christ, have come down to us better guarded than any other matters ol lact how true soever. , ^ And yet our deists, who would laugh any man out of the world, as an irmtional brute, that should oflTer to deny Csesar or Alpander, Homer or Virgil, their public works and actions, do, at the same with the Deists. 243 time, value themselves as the only men of wit and sense, of free, generous, and unbiassed judgments, for ridiculing the liistories of Moses and Christ, that are infinitely better attested, and guarded with infallible marks, which the others want. V. Besides that, the importance of the subject would oblige all men to inquire more narrowly into the one than the other: for what consequence is it to me, or to the world, whether there was such a man as Cssar; whether he beat, or was beaten at JPharsalia; whether Homer or Virgil wrote such books; and whether what is related in the Iliads or .^Eniads be true or false ? It was not two pence up or down to any man in the world. And therefore it is worth no man’s while to inquire into it, either to oppose or justify the truth of these relations. But our very souls and bodies, both this life and eternity, are con¬ cerned in the truth of what is related in the Holy Scriptures; and men would be more inquisitive to search into the truth of these, than of any other matters of fact; examine and sift them narrowly; and find out the deceit, if any such could be found: for It ^ncerned them nearly, and was of the last importance to them. How unreasonable then is it to reject these matters of fact so silted, so examined, and so attested as no other matters of fact in the world ever were; and yet to think it the most highly unreasonable, even to madness, to deny other matters of fact, w'hich have not the thousandth part of their evidence, and are of no consequence at all to us, whether true or false! several other topics, from whence the truth of the Christian religion is evinced to all who judge by reason, and give themselves leave to consider. As the improbability that ten or poor illiterate fishermen should form a design of converting the whole world to believe their delusions; and the impossibility of their effecting it, without force of arms, learning, oratory, or any one Visible thing that could recommend them! And to impose a doctrine quite opposite to the lusts and pleasures of men, and all worldly advantages, or enjoyments! And this in an age of so great learning and sagacity, as that wherein the gospel was first preached! That mese apostles should not only undergo all the scorn and contempt, but the severest persecutions, and most cruel deaths that could bo mmcted, in attestation to what themselves knew to be a mere de¬ ceit and forgery of their own contriving! Some have su^red for errors which they thought to be truth; but never any for what themselves knew to be lies. And the apostles must know what they taught to be Ues, if it was so, because they spoke of those thmgs which they said they had both seen and heard, had looked upon, and handled with their hands, &c.. Acts iv. 20; 1 John i. 1. Neither can it be said that they, perhaps, might have proposed some temporal advantages to themselves, but missed of them, and instead of them: for, if it had been so, it is more probable, that when they saw their disappointment, they would nave discovered their conspiracy; especially when they might not 244 Leslie's Method only have saved their lives, but got great rewards for doing it; than that no one of them should ever have been brought to do mis. But this is not all; for they tell us that their Master bid them expect nothing but sufferings m this world. This is the tenure of all that gospel which they taught. And they told the same to all whom they converted. So that here was no disappointment. For, all that were converted by them, were converted upon the certain expectation of sufferings, and bidden prepare for it. Christ commanded his disciples to take up their cross daily and follow him; and told them, that in the world they should have tnbulation; that whoever did not forsake father, mother, wife, children, lands, and their very lives, could not be his disciples; that he, who sought to save his life in this world, should lose it in the next. Now, that this despised doctrine of the cross should prevail so universally against the allurements of flesh and blood, and all the blandishments of this w^orld; against the rage and persecution of all the kings and powers of the earth, must show its original to be divine, and its protector almighty. Wliat is it else, could conquer without anus, persuade without rhetoric, overcome enemies, disarm tyrants, and subdue empires without opposition! VII: We may add to all this, the testimomes of the most bitter enemies and persecutors of Christianity, both Jews and Gentiles, to the truth of the matter of fact of Christ, such as Josephus and Tacitus; of which the first flourished about forty years after the death of Christ, and the other about seventy years after: so that they were capable of examining into the truth, and wanted imt premdice and malice sufficient to have inclined them to deny the matter of fact itself of Christ: but their confessing to it, as likewise Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian the apostate; the Moham¬ medans since, and all other enemies of Christianity that have arisen in the world, is an undeniable attestation to the truth of the matter of fact. j • VIII. But there is another argument more strong and convincing than even this matter of fact; more than the certainty of what 1 see with my eyes: and which the apostle Peter called a more sure word, that is, proof, that what he saw and heard upon the holy mount, when our blessed Savior was tranfigured before him and two other of the apostles: for, having repeated that passage as a proof of that whereof they were eye-witnesses, and heard the voic^ from heaven giving attestation to our Lord Chnst, Z Pet. i. lb, l b 1 • He says, ver. 19, We have also a more sure word of prophecy for the proof of this Jesus being the Messiah, that is, the prophecies which had gone before of him, from the beginning of the world; and all exactly fulfilled in him. , , . > Men may dispute an imposition or delusion upon our outward senses; but how can that be false that has been so long, even from the beginning of the world, and so often by all the presets, in several ages foretold; how can this be an imposition, or a forgery f This is particularly insisted on in the » Mejod with the Jews and even the deists must confess, that that book we call the Old with the Deists. 245 restament, was in the hands of the Jews long before our Saviour came into the world. And if they will be at the pains to compare the prophecies that are there of the Messiah, with the fulfilling of them, as to time, place, and all other circumstances, in the person birth, fife, death, resurrection, and ascension of our blessed Saviour, will find this proof what our apostles here calls it, a light shining in a dark place, imtil the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts; which God grant. Here is no possibility of deceit or ira- Old prophecies, (and all these so agreeing) could not have been contrived to countenance a new cheat: and nothing could be a cheat tha.t could fulfill all these. JevvV’^^^’ I refer the deists to the “ Method with the I desire them likevrise to look there, sect. xi. and consider the prophecies given so long ago, of which they see the fulfilling at this day with their own eyes, of the state of the Jews, for many a^es present; Avithout a king, or priest, or temple, or samfice, scattered to the four winds, sifted as with a sieve, among all nations: yet so preserved, and always to be, a distinct people from all others T Whereas those mighty monarchies which op- pressed the Jews, and which commanded the world in their turns ; and had the greatest human prospect of perpetuity, were to be ex- toguished as they have been, even that their names should be blotted out from under heaven. • wise, that as remarkable of our blessed Saviour, concern- preservation and progress of the Christian church, when in ner swaddling clothes, consisting only of a few poor fishermen. Not cJ that of Mohammed, but under all the persecution R should not prevail against her. ^ offer these, as not to be slightedHiy the deists, to they can show nothing equal in all profane history; and in Which It IS impossible any cheat can lie; yet I put them not upon me same foot as the prophecies before mentioned of the marks and coming ot the Messiah, which have been since the world began. And that general expectation of the whole earth, at the lime of ms coming insisted upon in the “Method with the Jews,” sect. v. is greatly to be noticed. « foregoing prophecies of our Saviour, are so strong Lthority ^ miracles would not be sufficient to break their w’ere possible that a true miracle could be wrought !iimSr^^^*^°^ contradict cflinnt obstinacy. Though they trulv the matters of fact done by our blessed Saviour, to be were so di®’ h ,por can they deny that they were so done, because they have all the four marks 4fore men y 8 16 246 Leslie’s Method j \T f rannnt uield' Whv? Because they think that the tioned. Yet they cannot • y jf it were, the conse- gospel is in contradiction to the law. ^hich^ u^u w^ quence would be unavoidable, Jews.” But the solve this, is the business of comments that they contradiction, which they „ literal fulfilling of those put upon the law; especially glories of the promises of the restoration of mpniion in the books of Moses, church, of which the:^ is so P^eque j^anv Christians do expect the Psalms, and all the prophets. Xu. jews do. We do the same; and take tlmse texts as li y j this end they believe and pray for the , according to the prophecies have been so miraculously Pr®s®rved, ^cording p so long before of it. And when that time "1^^°^®. ^ the most honorable and ancient of Thristian church, as she will their church return to be the Th®n all was at first; and Rome tti^st surren temple may be liter- nations will flow thither. Atid p ^u ^Uglg earth; which Jeru- ally built there, in the metropohs of the who^e the ForTnation^^^^ SitiotTo drl^VeT^^^^ and from whom, as concerning the restoration of pretend no. fta. .Us is te any partic«l« reign of the Messiah. They are sure ^ trials with their for they expect to go through gte , yUefore his final conquest, Messiah (as the Christian church ^^J^^^oglhat this is no obstruction and that they come to r®^^! with lum. So this is^^^ ffltedtnT'XKey and « expect the same ‘tSinlXst the deiste lest they u'hZ S^rwSe'cZce^n* .he Mes- '“as I said before, I would not P‘ead even mmcta agtat thej^^ And if this is sufficient to persuade a Jew, it is muc a deist, who labors not under tUg^^ (in a sound sense Besides I would not seem to clash ™ thaUm a reasonable caution, used by Chns ‘ ^ addition, when no fon" SSoTte S'e'"—ns already given in dte hob "tffiey do it upon to ~nside^on J K^aW" “yti^Ln n..y le imposed uyonh with the Deists. 247 false and seeming miracles, and pretended revelations, (as there are many examples, especially in the church of Rome,) and so may be shaken in the faith, if they keep not to the holy Scriptures as their rule. We are told, 2 Thess. xi. 9, of him whose coming is after the wording of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders. And Rev. 14, xvi. 14, and six. 20, of the devil, and false prophets, working miracles. But the word, in all these places, in only semeia, signs, that is, as it is rendered. Matt. xxv. 24, which though some¬ times it may be used to signify real miracles, yet not always, nor in these places. For though every miracle be a sign and a wonder, yet every sign, or wonder, is not a miracle. IX. Here it may be proper to consider a common topic of the deists, who, when they are not able to stand out against the evi¬ dence of fact, that such and such miracles have been done; then turn about and deny such things to be miracles, at least, that we pn never be sure whether any wonderful thing that is shown to us be a true or a false miracle. And the great argument they go upon is this, that a miracle being that which exceeds the power of nature, we cannot know what ex¬ ceeds it, unless we know the utmost extent of the power of nature; and no man pretends to know' that; therefore, that no man can cer- tamly know whether any event be miraculous. And, consequently, he may be cheated in his j udgment between true and false miracles. 1 o which I answer, that men may be so cheated, and there are many examples of it. But that though we may not always loiow when we are cheated, yet we can certainly tell, in many cases, when we are not cheated. 4 or though we do not know the utmost extent of the power of nature, perhaps, in any one thing; yet it does not follow, that we Know not the nature of any thing, in some measure; and that cer¬ tainly too. For example ; though I do not know the utmost extent ot the power of fire, yet I certainly know, that it is the nature of nre to burn; and that when proper fuel is administered to it, it is contrary to the nature of fire not to consume it. Therefore, if I see three men taken off the street, in their common wearing apparel, and without any preparation cast into the midst of a burning fiery urnace; and that the flame was so fierce, that it burnt up those men that threw them in; and yet that those who were thrown in, should walk up and down in the bottom of the furnace, and I should fourth person with them of glorious appearance like the Son 01 Lrod; and that these men should come up again out of the fur¬ nace without any harm, or so much as the smell of fire upon them¬ selves, or their clothes, I could not be deceived in thinking that ^®fop put to the nature of fire, as to these men; and that It had its effect upon the men whom it burnt at the same time. Agam, though I cannot tell how wonderful and sudden an in¬ crease of com might be produced by the concurrence of many causes, as a warm climate, the fertility of the soil, &c. ,• yet this I can certainly know, that there is not that natural force in the breath 248 Leslie's Method of two or three words spoken to multiply one small loaf of bread so fast, in the breaking of it, as truly and really, not only in appearance and show to the eye, but to nil the bellies of several thousand hungry persons; and that the fragments should be much more than the bread was at first. So neither in a word spoken, to raise the dead, cure diseases, &c. Therefore, though we know not the utmost extent of the power of nature; yet we can certainly know what is contrary to the nature of several such things as we do know'. And therefore, though we may be cheated and imposed upon in many seeming miracles and wonders, yet there are some things wherein we may be certain. , . , But farther, the deists acknowledge a God, of an almighty power, who made all things; yet they w'ould put it out of his power to make any revelation of his will to mankind. For if we cannot be certain of any miracle, how should we know when God sent any thing extraordinary to us ? Nay, how should we know the ordinary power ot nature, il we know not what exceeded it ? If we know not what is natural, how do we know there is such a thing as nature? That all is not supm- natural, all miracles, and so disputable, till we come to dovrarignt scepticism, and doubt the certainty of our outward senses, whether we see, hear, or feel; or all be not a miraculous illusion! Which, because I know the deists are not inclined to do, therelore I will return to pursue my argument upon the conviction of our outward senses, desiring only this, that they would allow the senses of other men to be as certain as their own. Which they cannot refuse, since without this, they can have no certainty of their own. X. Therefore, from what has been said, the cause is summed up shortly in this, that though we cannot see what was done belore our time, yet by the marks which I have laid down concerning the certainty of matters of fact done before our time, we may be as much assured of the truth of them, as if we saw mem witfi our eyes; because whatever matter of fact has all the four rnar s before mentioned, could never have been invented and received, but upon the conviction of the outward senses of ml those who did receive it, as before is demonstrated. And therefore ttm topic which 1 have chosen does stand upon the conviction even ot men s outward senses. And since you haye confined me to one topic, 1 have not insisted upon the other, which I have only named. XI. And it now lies upon the deists, if they would appear as men of reason, to show some matter of fact of former ages, which they allow to be true, that has greater evidence of its truth, than tho matters of fact of Moses and of Christ: otherwise they cannot, with any show of reason, reject the one, and yet admit oi the other. But I have given them greater latitude than this; for 1 have shown such marks of the truth of the matters of fact of Moses and of Christ, as no other matters of fact of those times, however true, have, but these only: and I put it upon them to show any forgery that has all these marks. with the Deists. 249 This is a short issue. Keep them close to this. Tliis determines the cause all at once. Let them produce their Apollonius Tyan®us, whose life was put the execrable Charles Blount,* and compared with all the wit and malice he was master of, to the life and miracles of our blessed Saviour. Let them take aid from all the legends of the church of Rome, those pious cheats, the sorest disgraces in Chris¬ tianity ; and which have bid the fairest of any one contrivance to overturn the certainty of the miracles of Christ, and his apostles, and the whole truth of the gospel, by putting them all upon the same foot; at least, they are so understood by the generality of their devotees, though disowned and laughed at by the learned, and men of sense among them. Let them pick and choose the most probable of all the fables of me heathen deities, and see if they can find in any of these, the lour marks before mentioned. Otherwise let them submit to the irrefragable certainty of the Christian religion. XII. But if, notwithstanding all that is said, the deists will still contend, that all this is but priestcraft, the invention of priests, for thmr own profit, &c., then they will give us an idea of priests, far dinerent from what they intend: for then, we must look upon these priests, not only as the cunningest and wisest of mankind, but we shall be tempted to adore them as deities, who have such power, as to impose, at their pleasure, upon the senses of mankind, to make thein telieve, that they had practised such public institutions, en¬ acted them by laws, taught them to their children, &c., when they fmd never done any of these things, or even so much as heard of them before: and then, upon the credit of their believing that they had done such things as they never did, to make them farther believ^ upon the same foundation, whatever they pleased to impose upon them, as to former ages: I say, such a power as this, must exceed all that is human; and consequently, make us rank these priests far above the condition of mortals. 2. Nay^ were to make them outdo all that has ever been related of the infernal powers; for though their legerdemain had extended to deceive some unwary beholders; and their power of working some seeming miracles has been great, yet it never reached, * The hand of that scorner, which durst write such outrageous blas¬ phemy against his Maker, the divine vengeance has made his own exe¬ cutioner. This I would not have mentioned, (because the like judgment has befallen others,) but that the Theistical Club have set this up as a principle; and printed a vindication of this same Blount for murdering himself, by way of justification of self-murder. Which some of them have since as well as formerly, horribly practised upon themselves, ineretore this is no common judgment to which they are delivered, but visible mark set upon them, to show how far God has forsaken them • and as a caution to alt Christians, to beware of them, and not to come bofh of of these wicked men, lest they perish in their destruction, 250 heslie’s Method or ever was supposed to reach so far, as to deceive the senses of all mankind in matters of such public and notorious nature as those of which we now speak, to make them believe, that they had enacted laws for such public observances, continually practised them, taught them to their children, and had been instructed in them themselves from their childhood, if they had never enacted, practised, taught, or been taught such things. ^, n j j i 3. And as this exceeds all the power of hell and devils, so is it more than ever God Almighty has done since the foundation oi the world. None of the miracles that he has showm, or belief which he has required to any thing that he has reyealed, has ever contra¬ dicted the outward senses of any one man in the world, much less of all mankind together. For miracles being appeals to our outward senses, if they should overthrow the certainty of our outward senses, must destroy, with it, all their own certainty as to us; since we have no other w'ay to judge of a miracle exhibited to our senses, than upon the supposition of the certainty of our senses, upon which we give credit to a miracle that is shown to our senses. , 4. This, by the way, is a yet unanswered argument agamst the miracle of transubstantiation, and shows the weaknessof the defence which the church of Rome offers for it, (from whom the Socinians have licked it up, and of late, have gloried much in it among us,) that the doctrines of the trinity or incarnation contain as great seein- ing absurdities as that of transubstantiation. For I would ask, which of our senses it is which the doctrines of the trinity or incarnation do contradict? Is it our seeing, hearing, feeling, taste, or smefl ? whereas transubstantiation does contradict all of these. 1 h^e oi e the comparison is exceeding short, and out of purpose. But to If the Christian religion be a cheat, and nothing else but the in¬ vention of priests, and carried on by their craft, it makes their power and wisdom greater than that of men, angels, or devils; and more than God himself ever yet showed or expressed, to deceive and impose upon the senses of mankind, in such public and notorious matters of fact. , , . XIII. And this miracle, which the deists must run into to avoid these recorded of Moses and Christ, is much greater, and more as¬ tonishing, than all the Scriptures tell of them. So thlt these men who laugh at all miracles, are now obliged to account for the greatest of all, how the senses of mankmd could be imposed upon in such public matters of fact. And how then can they make the priests the most contemptible of all mankind, since they make them the sole authors of this the greatest of miracles ? XIV. And since the deists (these men of sense and reason) ha\ e so vile and mean an idea of the priests of all religions, why do they not recover the world out of the possession and . blockheads ? Why do they suffer kings and states to be led by to establish their deceits by laws, and inflict penalties upon the op posers of them ? Let the- deists try their hands; they have been with the Deists. 251 trying, and are now busy about it. And free liberty they have. Yet they have not prevailed, nor ever yet did prevail in any civilized or generous nation. And though they have some inroads among the Hottentots, and some other the most brutal part of mankind, yet are they still exploded, and priests have and do prevail against them, among not only the greatest, but best part of the world, and the most glorious for arts, learning, and war. XV. For as the devil does ape God, in his institutions of religion, his feasts and sacrifices, &c., so likewise in his priests, without whom, no rehgion, whether true or false, can stand. False religion is but a corruption of the true. The true was before it, though it be followed close upon the heels. The revelation made to Moses is older than any history extant in the heathen world. The heathens, in imitation of him, pretended likewise to their revelations; but I have given those marks which distinguish them from the true: none of them have those four marks before mentioned. Now the deists think all revelations to be equally pretended and a cheat; and the priests of all religions to be the same contrivers and jugglers; and therefore they proclaim war equally against all, and are equally engaged to bear the brunt of all. And if the contest be only between the deists and the priests, which of them are the men of the greatest parts and sense, let the effects determine it; and let the deists yield the victory to their conquerors, who by their own confession carry all the world before them. XVI. If the deists say, that this is because all the world are block¬ heads, as well as those priests who govern them; that all are block¬ heads except the deists, who vote themselves only to be men of sense: this (besides the modesty of it) will spoil their great and be¬ loved topic, in behalf of what they call natural religion, against the revealed, viz. appealing to the common reason of mankind. This they set up against revelation; think this to be sufficient for all the uses of men, here or hereafter, (if there be any after state,) and therefore tliat there is no use of revelation; this common reason they advance as infalhble, at least, as the surest guide, yet now cry out upon it, when it turns against them; when this common reason tyns after revelation, (as it always has done,) then common reason is a beast, and we must look for reason, not from the common senti¬ ments of mankind, but only among the beaux, the deists. XVII. Therefore if the deists would avoid the mortification (which w-ould be very uneasy to them) to yield and submit to be sub¬ dued and hewed down before the priests, whom of all mankind they hate and despise; if they would avoid this, let them confess as the truth is. That religion is no invention of priests, but of divine original : that priests were instituted by the same author of religion; and ^at their order is a perpetual and living monument of the matters of fact of their religion, instituted from the time that such matters of fact were said to be done, as the Levites from Moses; the apos¬ tles, and succeeding clergy, from Christ, to this day. That no he-a- 252 Leslie's Method with the Deists. then priests can say the same: they were not appointed by the pds wtomZy served but by others in after ayes: they cannot smd the test of the four rules before mentioned, which the Christian priests can do, and they only. Now the Christian f in- Situted by Christ himself, and continued by being as impregnable and flagrant a testimony to ^^h of the matters of fact of Christ, as the sacraments, or any Piblic m stitutions: besides that, if the priesthood were ^ sacraments, and other public institutions, ^hich are admimstered by their hands, must fall with them: therefore the devil has been most busy, and bent his greatest force, in all ages, against the priesthood, knowing, that if that goes down, all A ; . ^ ^ XVIII. And now, last of all, if one word of advice would not b lost upon men who think so unmeasurably of themselves, as the deists vou may represent to them, what a condition they are in, who iend that life and sense, which God has given them, ri i- culing^the greatest of his blessings, his revelations Christ to redeem those from eternal misery, who shall Relieve m him and obey his laws. And that God, in his wonderful nie y and wisdom, has so guarded his revelations, as that it is past the power of men or devils to counterfeit; and that there is no denying Sf them, unless we will be so absurd, as to deny not only the reason, but the certainty of the outward seizes, not only of one, or three, but of mankind in general. That this case is so ^eiy plain, that nothing but want of thought can hinder any to discover it. ThL they must yield it to be so plain, unless they can s^ow s^e forgery, which hL all the four marks before set down. But if thgr cahnot do this, they must quit their cause, and y;f\d a h^PY vie tory over themselves; or else sit down under all that wife which they have loaded the priests, of being, not only the most pernicious, ^ut (what will gall them more) the most inconside¬ rate, and inconsiderable of mankmd. wnrtbi- Therefore, let them not think it an undervaluing of their worthi ness, that their whole cause is comprised within so narrow a com¬ pass : and no more time bestowed upon it than it is worth. ^ But let them, rather, refl^ect, how far they have aU time from Christianity; whose rudiments they are yet to learn. How fer from the way of salvation ! How far is run before they have set one step in the road to heaven. Ana therefore how much diligence they ought to use ^ time they have lost, lest they lose themselves for ever, ^d be gm vinced, by a dreadful experience, when it is too late, that the Cos pel is a truth, and of the last consequence. THE END. THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. BY ALEXANDER, WATSON, JENYNS, LESLIE, AND PALEY. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. TL PUBLISHED BY JAMES KAY, JUN. AND BROTHER, PHILADELPHIA 122 Chestnut Street—near 4th. PITTSBURGH: C. H. KAY & CO. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1831, by James Kay Jun. & Co. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 4 STEREOTYPED BY J. HOWE. A VIEW OP THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY . / IN THREE PARTS. BY WILLIAM PALEY, 1). D. archdeacon of CARLISHE- 9 CONTENTS OF PALEY’S EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. Preparatory cles. Considerations.—Of the antecedent credibility of mira- .... Page 15 PART I. OF THE DIKECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WHEREIN IT IS DISTIN3D1SHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES. PROPOSITION I. That there is satisfactory evidence, that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings voluntarily undergone in attesta¬ tion of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in conse¬ quence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also sub¬ mitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct. CHAP. I. —Evidence of the sufferings of the first propagators of Christianity, from the nature of the case . CHAP. II.—Evidence of the sufferings of the first propagators of Christianity, from Profane testimony . CHAP. III.—Indirect evidence of the sufferings of the first propaga¬ tors of Christianity from the Scriptures and other ancient Christian writings .. CHAP. IV.—Direct evidence of the same . CHAP. V.—Observations on the preceding evidence.. • CHAP. VI.—That the story, for which the first propagators of Chris¬ tianity suffered, was miraculous ... CHAP. VII.—That it was, in the main, the story which we have now proved, by indirect considerations.... CHAP. VIII._The same proved, from the authority of our historical Scriptures...... CHAP. IX.— Of the authenticity of the historical Scriptures. 20 ib. 27 31 34 43 47 49 58 67 CONTENTS. Sect. L—Quotations of the historical Scriptures by ancient Christian writers . Sect. II. Of the pecuJiar respect with which they were quoted 87 Sect. Ill._The Scriptures were in very early times collected into a distinct volume . gg Sect. IV.—And distinguished by appropriate names and titles of respect. ^2 Sect. V.—Were publicly read and expounded in the religious assemblies of the early Christians. 93 Sect. VI.—Commentaries, &;c. were anciently written upon the Scriptures. g^ Sect. VII.— They were received by ancient Christians of differ¬ ent sects and persuasions. g 0 Sect. VIII.—The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thir¬ teen Epistles of Saint Paul, the first Epistle of John, and the First of Peter, were received without doubt by those who doubted concerning the other books of our present canon.103 Sect. IX. Our present Gospels were considered by the adversa¬ ries of Christianity, as containing the accounts upon which the religion was founded.. Sect. X.—Formal catalogues of authentic Scriptures were pub¬ lished, in all which our present Gospels were included. 109 Sect. XI.—The above propositions cannot be predicated of any of those books which are commonly called apocryphal books of the New Testament. . . 22 ^ CHAP. X.—Recapitulation.* 224 PROPOSITION II. , That there is not satisfactory evidence, that persons pretending to be original witnesses of any other similar miracles, have acted in the same manner, in attestation of the accounts which they de¬ livered, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts... CHAP. I.. CHAP. II.. 117 ib. 129 PART ir. the auxiliary evidences of CHRISTIANITY. CHAP. I.—Prophecy. CHAP. lL_The morality of the Gospel. CHAP. III.—The candor of the writers of the New Testament CONTENTS CHAP. TV—Identity of Christ’s character.. 167 CHAP. V.—Orig-inaZity of Christ’s character.. 175 CHAP. \L—Conformity of the facts occasionally mentioned or re¬ ferred to in Scripture, with the state of things in those' times, as represented by foreign and independent accounts. 176 CHAP. VII.—Undesigned Coincidences . 195 CHAP. VIII.—Of the History of the Resurrection . 197 CHAP. IX.—Of the Propagation of Christianity. 199 Sect. I.—In what degree, within what time, and to what extent Christianity was actually propagated..200 ‘ Sect II.—Reflections upon the preceding Account.211 Sect. HI.—Of the success of Mahometanism.216 PART III. A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS. CHAP. I.—The Discrepancies between the several Gospels.225 CHAP. 11.—Erroneous Opinions imputed to the Apostles. 227 CHAP. III.—The connexion of Christianity with the Jewish History 230 CHAP. IV.— Rejection of Christianity. 232 CHAP. V.—That the Christian miracles are not recited, or appealed to by early Christian writers themselves so fully or frequently as might have been expected.. 241 CHAP. VI.—Want of universality in the knowledge and reception of Christianity, and of greater clearness in the evidence.246 CHAP. VII.—The supposed Effects of Christianity.251 CHAP. VIII. Conclusion .■. 255 B A VIEW OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY PREPARATORY CONSIDERATIONS. I DEEM it unnecessary to prove, that mankind stood in need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious person who thinks that, even under the Christian revelation, we have too much light, or any degree of assurance, which is superfluous. I desire, more¬ over, that in judging of Christianity, it may be remembered, that the question lies between this religion and none: for if the Chris¬ tian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other. Suppose, then, the world we live in to have had a Creator; sup¬ pose it to appear, from the predominant aim and tendency of the provisions and contrivances observable in the universe, that the Deity, when he formed it, consulted for the happiness of his sensi¬ tive creation; suppose the disposition which dictated this counsel to continue; suppose a part of the creation to have received faculties from their Maker, by which they are capable of rendering a moral obedience to his will, and of voluntarily pursuing any end for which he has designed them; suppose the Creator to intend for these, his rational and accountable agents, a second state of existence, in which their situation will be regulated by their behavior in the first state, by which supposition (and by no other) the objection to the divine government in not putting a difference between the good and me bad, and the inconsistency of this confusion with the care and benevolence discoverable in the works of the Deity, is done away; suppose it to be of the utmost importance to the subjects of this dis¬ pensation to know what is intended for them; that is, suppose the knowledge of it to be highly conducive to the happiness of the species, a purpose which so many provisions of nature are calcu¬ lated to promote; suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imperfection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the loss of some prior revelation, to want this know¬ ledge, and not to be likely without the aid of a new revelation to attain it:—^under these circumstances, is it improbable that a reve¬ lation should be made ? is it incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose ? Suppose him to design for mankind a future state; IS It unlikely that he should acquaint him with it ? 15 •6 Paley's View of the Of the antecedent Credibility of Miracles. Now in what way can a revelation be made but by miracles? In none which we are able to conceive. Consequently in whatever degree it is probable, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be communicated to mankind at all; in the same degree is it probable, or not very improbable, that miracles should be wrought. Therefore when miracles are related to have been wrought in the promulgating of a revelation manifestly w’anted, and, if true, of in¬ estimable value, the improbability which arises from the miraculous nature of the things related, is no greater than the original improba¬ bility that such a revelation should be imparted by God. I wish it however to be correctly understood, in what manner, and to what extent, this argument is alleged. We do not assume the attributes of the Deity, or the existence of a future state, in or¬ der to prove the reL’ity of miracles. The reality always must be proved by evidence. W^e assert only that in miracles adduced in support of revelation, there is not any such antecedent improbability as no testimony can surmount. And for the purpose of maintaining this assertion, we contend that the incredibility of miracles related to have been wrought in attestation of a message from God, con- ve}ning intelligence of a future state of rewards and punishments, and teaching mankind how to prepare themselves for that state, is not in itself greater than the event, call it either probable or im¬ probable, of the two following propositions being true; namely, first, that a future state of existence should be destined by God lor his human creation; and, secondly, that being so destined, ho should acquaint them with it. It is not necessary for our purpose, that these propositions be capable of proof, or even that by arguments drawn from the light of nature, they can be made out to be proba¬ ble ; it is enough that we are able to say concerning them, that they are not so violently improbable, so contradictory to what we alrGady beliove of tliG divino power and character, that either the propositions themselves, or facts strictly connected with the proposi¬ tions (and therefore no farther improbable than they are improbable), ought to be rejected at first sight, and to be rejected by whatever strength or complication of evidence they be attested. This is the prejudication we would resist. For to this length does a modern objection to miracles go, viz. that no human testimony can in any case render them credible. I think the reflection above tated, that if there be a revelation, there must be miracles, and hat under the circumstances in which the human species are placed, a revelation is not improbable, or not improbable in any great de¬ gree, to be a fair answer to the vifoole objection. But since it is an objection which stands in the very threshold oi our argument, and, if admitted, is a bar to every proof, and to all future reasoning upon the subject, it may be necessary, bmore we proceed farther, to examine the principle upon which it professes to De founded; which principle is concisely this, That it is contrary to Evidences of Christianity. 17 experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to expe¬ rience that testimony should be false. Now there appears a small ambiguity in tbe term ‘ experience,’ and in the phrases ‘ contrary to experience,’ ur ‘ contradicting expe¬ rience,’ which it may be necessary to remove in the first place. Strictly speaking, the narrative of a fact is then only contrary to ex¬ perience, when the fact is related to have existed at a time and place, at which time and place we being present did not perceive it to exist; as if it should be asserted that, in a particular room, and at a particular hour of a certain day, a man was raised from the dead, in which room, and at the time specified, we being present, and looking on, perceived no such event to have taken place. Here the assertion is contrary to experience, properly so called; and this is a contrariety which no evidence can surmount. It matters nothing whether the fact be of a miraculous nature or not. But although this be the experience and the contrariety, which archbishop TilJot- son alleged in the quotation with which Mr. Hume opens his essay, it is certainly not that experience, nor that contrariety, which Mr. Hume himself intended to object. And short of this, I know no in- telhgible signification which can be affixed to the term ‘ contrary to experience,’ but one, viz. that of not having ourselves experienced any thing similar to the thing related, or such things not being gene¬ rally experienced by others. I say ' not generally:’ for to state con¬ cerning the fact in question, that no such thing was ever experienced, or that universal experience is against it, is to assume the subject of the controversy. Now the improbability which arises from the want (for this prop¬ erly is a want, not a contradiction) of experience, is only equal to the probability there is that, if the thing were true, we should ex¬ perience things similar to it, or that such things wmdd be generally experienced. Suppose it then to be true that miracles were wrought on the first promulgation of Christianity, when nothing but miracles could decide its authority, is it certain that such miracles could be repeated so often, and in so many places, as to become objects of general experience ? Is it a probability approaching to certainty ? is it a probability of any great strengtn or force? is it such as no evidence can encounter? And yet this probability is the exact con¬ verse, and therefore the exact measure, of the improbability which arises from the want of experience, and which Mr. Hume represents as invincible by human testimony. It is not like alleging a new law of nature, or a new experiment in natural philosophy; because when these are related, it is ex¬ pected that under the same circumstances, the same effect will fol¬ low universally; and in proportion as this expectation is justly en¬ tertained, the want of a corresponding experience negatives the histoiy. But to expect concerning a miracle, that it should succeed upon a repetition, is to expect that which would make it cease to be a miracle, which is contrary to its nature as such, and would totally destroy the use and purpose for which it was wrought. The force of experience, as an objection to miracles, is founded B2 18 Paley^s Vieio of the ill the presumption, either that the course of nature is invariable, or that if it be ever varied, variations will be frequent and general Has the necessity of this alternative been demonstrated ? Permit us to call the course of nature the agency of an intelligent Being; and IS there any good reason for judging this state of the case to be probable ? Ought we not rather to expect that such a Being, on oc¬ casions of peculiar importance, may interrupt the order which he had appointed, yet that such occasions should return seldom; that these interruptions consequently should be confined to the expe¬ rience of a few; that the want of it, therefore, in many, should be matter neither of surprise nor objection. But as a continuation of die argument from experience, it is said that when we advance accounts of miracles, we assign effects without causes, or we attribute effects to causes inadequate to the purpose, or to causes of the operation of which we have no expe¬ rience. Of what causes, we may ask, and of what effects does the objection speak ? If it be answered, that when we ascribe the cure of the palsy to a touch, of blindness to the anointing of the eyes with clay, or the raising of the dead to a word, we lay ourselves open to this imputation; we reply that we ascribe no such effects to such causes. We perceive no virtue or energy in these things more than in other things of the same kind. They are merely signs to connect the miracle with its end. The effect we ascribe simply to the volition of the Deity; of whose existence and power, not to say of whose presence and agency, we have previous and in¬ dependent proof. We have therefore all we seek for in the works of rational agents,—a sufficient power and an adequate motive. In a word, once believe that there is a God, and miracles are not in credible. Mr. Hume states the case of miracles to be a contest of opposite improbabilities; that is to say, a question whether it be more im¬ probable that the miracle should be true, or the testimony false: and this I think a fair account of the controversy. But herein I re¬ mark a want of argumentative justice, that, in describing the im¬ probability of miracles, he suppresses all those circumstances cf extenuation which result from our knowledge of the existence, power, and disposition of the Deity; his concern in the creation, the end answered by the miracle, the importance of that end, and its subserviency to the plan pursued in the work of nature. As Mr. Hume has represented the question, miracles are alike incredible to him who is previously assured of the constant agency of a Divine Being, and to him who believes that no such Being exists in the universe. They are equally incredible, whether related to have been wrought upon occasions the most deserving, and for purposes the most beneficial, or for no assignable end whatever, or for an end confessedly trifling or pernicious. This surely cannot be a cor¬ rect statement. In adjusting also the other side of the balance, the strength and weight of testimony, this author has provided an an¬ swer to evgry possible accumulation of historical proof, by telling us, that we are not obliged to explain how the story of the evidence arose. Evidence of Christianity. 19 Now I think that we are obliged; not, perhaps, to show by positive accounts how it did, but by a probable hypothesis how it might, so happen. The existence of the testimony is a phenomenon; the truth of^the fact solves the phenomenon. If we reject this solution, w e ought to have some other to rest in; and none, even by our ad¬ versaries, can be admitted, which is not inconsistent with the prin- ciples that regulate human affairs and human conduct at present, or \\hich makes men then to have been a different kind of beings from what they are now. But the short consideration which, independently of every other, convinces me that there is no solid foundation in Mr. Hume’s con¬ clusion, IS the following. When a theorem is proposed to a mathe¬ matician, the first thing he does with it is to try it upon a simple case, and if it produce a false result, he is sure that there must be some mistake in the demonstration. Now to proceed in this way with what may be called Mr. Hume’s theorem. If twelve men, whose probity and good sense I had long known, should seriously and circumstantially relate to me an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes, and in which it was impossible that they should deceived; if the governor of the country, hearing a rumor of this account, should call these men into his presence, and offer them a short proposal, either to confess the imposture, or submit to be tied up to a gibliet; if they should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there existed any falsehood or imposture in the case; if this t^.eat vyere communicated to them separately, yet with no different effect; if it was at last executed ; if I myself saw them, one after another, consenting to be racked, burnt, or strangled, rather than give up the truth of their account; still, if Mr. Hume’s rule be mj? ^nde, I am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say, that there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not believe them, or who would defend such incredulity. Instances of spurious miracles, supported by strong apparent tes¬ timony, undoubtedly demand examination ; Mr. Hume has endea¬ vored to fortify his argument by some examples of this kind. I hope m a proper place to show', that none of them reach the strength or circumstances of tlie Christian evidence. In these, how'ever, con¬ sists the weight of his objection; in the principle itself, I am per¬ suaded, there is none. PART I. OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY AND WHEREIN IT IS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES. The two propositions which I shall endeavor to establish are these: I*. That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in 20 Paley^s View of the labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence oi their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, trora the same motives, to new rules of conduct. II. That there is not satisfactory evidence, that persons proiessing to be original witnesses of other miracles, in their nature as certain as these are, have ever acted in the same manner, in attestation ot the accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their belief of these accounts. . ^ , , -n The first of these propositions, as it forms the argument, will stana at the head of the following nine chapters. PROPOSITION I. ‘ There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to he original wit¬ nesses to the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts '•^tiicf th% delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of ' and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of con- duct.' CHAP. I. Evidence of the Sufferings of the First Propagators of Christianity, from the nature of the case. To support this proposition, two points are necessary to be made out: first, that the Founder of the institution, his associates and im¬ mediate followers, acted the part which the proposition imputes to them: secondly, that they did so in attestation of the miraculous history recorded in our Scriptures, and solely in consequence ot their belief of the truth of this history. , Before we produce any particular testimony to the activity ana sufferings which compose the subject of our first asserUon, it wi 1 be proper to consider the degree of probability which the assertion derives from the nature of the case, that is, by inferences from those parts of the case which, in point of fact, are on all hands acknow- First, then, the Christian religion exists, and therefore by some means or other was established. Now it either owes the princi^e of its establishment, i. e. its first publication, to the activity ot the Person who was the founder of the institution, and of those who were ioined with him in the undertaking, or we are driven upon the strange supposition, that, although they might lie by, others would take it up; although they were quiet and silent, other per¬ sons busied themselves in the success and of story. This is perfectly incredible. To me it appears little less than certain, that, if the first announcing of the religion by file Founder had not 1 een followed up by the zeal and industiy (fi his immediate discipl ts, the attempt must have expired in i ^ ir I'hen as to the kind and degree of exertion which was employed Evidences of Christianity. 21 and the mode of life to which these persons submitted, we reasona¬ bly suppose it to be like that which we observe in all others who voluntarily become missionaries of a new faith. Frequent, earnest and laborious preaching, constantly conversing with religious per¬ sons upon religion, a sequestration from the common pleasures, en¬ gagements, and varieties of life, and an addiction to one serious ob¬ ject, compose the habits of such men. I do not say that this mode of life is without enjoyment, but I say that the enjoyment springs from sincerity. With a consciousness at the bottom of hollowness and falsehood, the fatigue and restraint would become insupporta¬ ble. I am apt to believe that very few hypocrites engage in these undertakings ; or, however, persist in them long. Ordinarily speak¬ ing, nothing can overcome the indolence of mankind, the love which is natural to most tempers of cheerful society and cheerful scenes, or the desire which is common to all, of personal ease and freedom, but conviction. Secondly, it is also highly probable, from the nature of the case, that the'propagation of the new religion was attended with difficulty and danger. As addressed to the Jews, it was a system adverse not only to their habitual opinions, but to those opinions upon which their hopes, their partialities, their pride, their consolation, was founded. This people, with or without reason, had worked them¬ selves into a persuasion, that some signal and greatly advantageous change w^as to be effected in the condition of their country, by the agency of a long-promised messenger from heaven.^ The rulers of the Jew;s, their leading sect, their priesthood, had been the au¬ thors of this persuasion to the common people ; so that it was not merely the conjecture of theoretical divines, or the secret expecta¬ tion of a few recluse devotees, but it was become the popular hope and passion, and like all popular opinions, undoubting, and impatient of contradiction. They clung to this hope under every misfortune of their country, and with more tenacity as their dangers or calami¬ ties increased. To find, therefore, that expectations so gratifying w^e to be worse than disappointed; that they were to end in the diffusion of a mild unambitious religion, which, instead of victories and triumphs, instead of exalting their nation and institution above the rest of the world, was to advance those whom they despised to an equality with themselves, in those very points of comparison in which they most valued their own distinction, could be no very pleasing discovery to a Jewish mind; nor could the messengers of such intelligence expect to be well received or easily credited. The doctrine was equally harsh and novel. The extending of the king¬ dom of God to those who did not conform to the law of Moses, was a notion that had never before entered into the thoughts of a Jew. ‘ Percrebuerat oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judiea profecti rerum potirentur.’—Sueton. Vespasian, cap. 4—8. ‘ Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum liteiis contineri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret orieiis, profectique Judeea rerum potiren¬ tur.’—Tacit. Hist. lib. V. cap. 9—13. ^ 22 Paley's View of the The character of the new institution was, in other repects also, ungrateful to Jewish habits and principles. Their own religion was in a high degree technical. Even the enlightened Jew placed a great deal of stress upon the ceremonies of his law, saw in them a great deal of virtue and efficacy; the gross and vulgar had scarcely any thing else; and the hypocritical and ostentatious magnified them above measure, as being the instruments of their own reputation and influence. The Christian scheme, without formally repealing the Levitical code, lowered its estimation extremely. In the place of strictness and zeal in performing the observances which that code prescribed, or which tradition had added to it, the new sect preached up faith, well-regulated affections, inward purity, and moral recti¬ tude of disposition, as the true ground, on the part of the worship¬ per, of merit and acceptance with God. This, however rational it may appear, or recommending to us at present, did not by any means facilitate the plan then. On the contrary, to disparage those quali¬ ties which the highest characters in the country valued themselves most upon, was a sure way of making powerful enemies. As if the frustration of the national hope w-as not enough, the long-esteemed merit of ritual zeal and punctuality was to be decried, and that by Jews preaching to Jews. The ruling party at Jerusalem had just before crucified the Founder of the religion. That is a fact which will not be disputed. They, therefore, who stood forth to preach the religion, must neces¬ sarily reproach these rulers with an execution, which they could not but represent as an unjust and cruel murder. This would not render their office more easy, or their situation more safe. With regard to the interference of the Roman government which was then established in Judea, I should not expect, that, despising as it did the religion of the country, it would, if left to itself, ani¬ madvert, either with much vigilance or much severity, upon the schisms and controversies which arose within it. Yet there was that in Christianity which might easily afford a handle of accusa; tion with a jealous government. The Christians avowed an unqual¬ ified obedience to a new master. They avowed also that he was thQ person who had been foretold to the Jews under the suspected title of King. The spiritual nature of this kingdom, the consistency of this obedience with civil subjections, were distinctions too refmed to be entertained by a Roman president, who view'ed the business at a great distance, or through the medium of very hostile repre¬ sentations. Our histories accordingly inform us, that this was the turn which the enemies of Jesus gave to his character and preten¬ sions in their remonstrances with Pontius Pilate. And Justin Mar¬ tyr, about a hundred years afterward, complains that the same inis- take prevailed in his time: ‘Ye having heard that we are W’aibng for a kingdom, suppose, without distinguishing, that we ® human kingdom, w'hen in truth we speak of that which is with God. * Ap. Ima. p. 16. Ed. Thirl. Evidences of Christianity. 23 And it was undoubtedly a natural source of calumny and miscon¬ struction. • preachers of Christianity had therefore to contend with pre¬ judice backed by power. They had to come forward to a disap¬ pointed people, to a priesthood possessing a considerable share of municipal authority, and actuated by strong motives of opposition and resentment; and they had to do this under a foreign govern ment, to whose favor they made no pretensions, and which was constantly surrounded by their enemies. The well-known, because the experienced fate of reformers, whenever the reformation sub¬ verts some reigning opinion, and does not proceed upon a change that has already taken place in the sentiments of a country, will niuch less lead us to suppose, that the first propagators ol ChrisUamty at Jerusalem, and in Judea, under the difficulties and the enemies they had to contend with, and entirely destitute as they were of force, authority, or protection, could execute their mission with personal ease and safety. Let us next inquire, what might reasonably be expected by the ^eachers of Christianity, when they turned themselves to the hea¬ then public. Now the first tiling that strikes us is, that the religion they carried with them was exclusive* It denied without reserve the truth of every article of heathen mythology, the existence of ei^ry object of their worship. It accepted no compromise; it admit¬ ted no comprehension. It must prevail, if it prevailed at all, by the overthrow of every statue, altar, and temple, in the world. It will not easily be credited, that a design, so bold as this was, could in nge be attempted to be carried into execution with impunity. For it ought to be considered, that this was not setting forth, or magnifying the character and worsliip of some new competitor for a place in the Pantheon, whose pretensions might be discussed or asserted without questioning the reality of any others; it was pro¬ nouncing all other'gods to be false, and all other worship vain. Frorn the facility with which the polytheism of ancient nations actaitted nevy objects of worship into the number of their acknow¬ ledged divinities, or the patience with which they might entertain proposals of this kind, we can argue nothing as to their toleration of a system, or of the publishers and active propagators of a system which swept away the very foundation of the existing establishment. The one was nothing more than what it would be, in popish coun- tnes, to add a saint to the calendar; the other was to abolish and tread under foot the calendar itself Secondly, it ought also to be considered, that this was not the case of philosophers propounding in their books, or in their schools, ^ubts concerning the truth of the popular creed, or even avowing their disbelief of it. These philosophers did not go about from place to place to collect proselytes from amongst the common people; to form in the heart of the country societies professing their tenets; to provide for the order, instruction, and permanency of these socie¬ ties; nor did they enjoin their followers to withdraw themselves 24 Foley's View of the from the public worship of the temples,* or refuse a TOmphance with rites instituted by the laws. These things are w;hat the Chri^ tians did, and what the philosophers did not; and in these consisted the activity and danger of the enterprise. , . , Thirdly, it ought also to be considered, that this danger proceeded not merely from solemn acts and public resolutions of the state, but from sudden bursts of violence at particular places, from the license of the populace, the rashness of some magistrates, and negligence ot others: from the influence and instigation of interested adversaries, and in general, from the variety and warmth of opinion which an errand so novel and extraordinary could not fail of exciting. 1 conceive that the teachers of Christianity might both fear and sufier much from these causes, without any general persecution being de¬ nounced against them by imperial authority. Some length of time, should suppose, might pass, before the vast machine of the Roman mpire would be put in motion, or its attention be obtained to reli- eious controversy: but, during that time, a great deal of ill usage might be endured, by a set of friendless, unprotected travellers, tellin^- men, wherever they came, that the religion of then; ances¬ tors the religion in which they had been brought up, the religion of the’state, and of the magistrate, the rites which they frequented, the pomp which they admired, was throughout a system ot folly and ^^Nor°do I think that the teachers of Christianity would find pro¬ tection in that general disbelief of the popular theology, which is supposed to have prevailed amongst the intelligent part ot the heathen public. It is by no means true that unbelievers are usually tolerant. They are not disposed (and why should they ?) to eManger the present state of things, by suffering a religion of which they be¬ lieve nothing, to be disturbed by another of which they believe as little. They are ready themselves to conform to any thing; and are, oftentimes, amongst the foremost to procure conformity from others, by any method which they think likely to be efficacmus. When was ever a change of religion patronized by infidels . fdow little, notwithstanding the reigning scepticism, and the raagnihed liberality of that age, the true principles of toleration w’ere under¬ stood by the wisest men amongst them, may be gathered from two eminent and uncontested examples. The younger Pliny, polished as he was by all the literature of that soft and elegant period, could gravely pronounce this monstrous judg-ment;—‘Those who persisted in declaring themselves Christians, I ordered to be led away to pun¬ ishment (i. e. to execution), for I did not whatever it ims that they confessed^ that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be * The best of the ancient pWlosophers, Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus, allowed, or rather enjoined, men to worship the gods in the ekablished form. See passages to this purpose collected from their works, by Dr. Clarke, Nat. and Rev. Rel. p. 180. ed^ 5.—Except ^ocrates, they all thought it wiser to comply with the laws than to contend. Evidences of Christianity. 2r> punished. His master, Trajan, a mild and accomplislied prince went, nevertheless, no further in his sentiments of moderation and equity, than what appears in the following rescript: ‘ The Christians are not to be sought for: but if any are brought before you, and convicted, they are to be punished.’ And this direction he gives after it had been reported to him by his own president, that, by the’ niost strict examination nothing could be discovered in the principles of these persons, but ‘ a bad and excessive .superstition,’ accW- panied, it seems, with an oath or mutual federation, ‘ to allow them¬ selves in no crime, or immoral conduct wdiatever.’ The truth is th ancient heathens considered religion entirely as an affair of state, a tuition of the magistrate, as any other part of the ^hce. The religion of that age was not merely allied to the state: hv incorporated into it Many of its offices were administered hlrnl h ^ Pcnhffs, augurs, and flamens, were Ik fgenerals. Without discussing, there- fore, the truth of theology, they resented every affront put upon the emnem^^ worship, as a direct opposition to the authority of gov Add to wdiich, that the religious systems of those times, however f cyidence, had been long established. The ancient thi flT- *^®nntry has always many votaries, and sometimes not luL ’because Its origin is hidden in remoteness and obscurity. Men have a natural veneration for antiquity, especially in matters to ffio says of the Jewish, was more applicable to he heathen establishment; ‘Hi ritus, quoquo mode inducti, an- p itate defenduntur. It was also a splendid and sumptuous wor- hip. It had Its priesthood, its endowments, its temples. Statuary painting, architecture, and music, contributed their effect to its ornL ment and magnifeence. It abounded in festival shows and solem- ^ common people are greatly addicted, and which v^ere of a nature to engage them much more than any thing of that ^cle by the fascination of spectacle and pomp, as well as interest many in its preservation by the advantage which they drew from it. was moreover interwoven,’ as Mr. Gibbon rightly represents it, t-r/p business or pleasure, of public or pri- ate nte, with all the offices and amusements of society.’ On thi* and dfd^people were taught to believe, Se depeS^’ ^ Prosperity of their country in a gi-eat mea- hAt? account of the matter which is given in various modes of worship which prevailed true considered by the people as equally enuallvnl as equa% false, and by the magistrate as of min ? weuld ask from which of these three classes U ^^^^^^^11 missionaries to look for protection or im- ?3pnn ^ 5®^ P^^'Pl®’ ‘ ^hose acknowledged conhdence in the public rcdigion’ they subverted from its founda- 18 C 20 Paley's View of the tion? From the philosopher, who, ‘considering all reli^ons m equally false,’ would of course rank theirs among the number, with i the addition of regarding them as busy and f^ Or from the magistrate, who, satisfied with the utility of the sub¬ sisting religion, would not be likely to countenance a spin o prose- lytism and innovationa system which declared war against every other, and which, if it prevailed, must end in a total rupture ol public opinion; an upstart religion, in a word, which was not con tent with its own authority, but must disgrace all the settled reli¬ gions in the world ? It was not to be imagined that he would endure with patience, that the religion of the emperor and of the state should be calumniated and borne down by a company of supersti¬ tious and despicable Jews. • i Lastly, the nature of the case affords a strong proof, that the original teachers of Christianity, in consequence of their new Profession, en¬ tered upon a new and singular course of life. We may be allowed to presume, that the institution which they preached to others, they conformed to in their own persons; because this is no more than what every teacher of a new religion both does, and must do, or¬ der to obtain either proselytes or hearers. The change which this would produce was very considerable. It is a change which we not easily estimate, because, ourselves and all about us heing habitu¬ ated to the institution from our infancy, it is what we ^o^^oer expe¬ rience nor observe. After men became Christians, much of their time was spent in prayer and devotion, in religious meetings, m celebrating the eucharist, in conferences, in exhortations, P*'oyon- ing, in an affectionate intercourse with other societies. Ferhap||| their mode of life, in its form and habit, was not very unuke the* Unitas Fratrum, or the modern Methodists. Think then what it wm f| to become such at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Antiocji, or even at Jeiu- salera. How new! how alien from all their former habits, and ideas, and from those of every body about them. What a Fexohi- ^ tion there must have been of opinions and prejudices to bring the< matter to this! We know what the precepts of the religion are: how Pyy®> benevolent, how disinterested a conduct they enjoin; and toat this purity and benevolence are extended to the very thoughts and affections. We are not, perhaps, at liberty to take for granted that the lives of the preachers of Christianity were as perfect as thei lessons: but we are entitled to contend, that the observable part ot their behavior must have agreed in a great measure with fhe duties which they taught. There was, therefore ^hich is all that we as¬ sert), a course of life pursued by them, different from that which they before led. And this is of great importance. Men are hroug^ht to any thing almost sooner than to change their habit of life, espe¬ cially when the change is either inconvenient, or made against the force of natural inclination, or with the loss of accustomed indul¬ gences. ‘It is the most difficult of all things to convert men from vicious habits to virtuous ones, as every one may judge from wfiai Evidences of Christianity. 27 he feels m as well as froni what he sees in others.’* If iq almost like making men over again. Left then to myself, and without any more information fh-in o knovvledge of the existence of the religion, of tlrffeS Which It IS founded, and that no act of power, for^ce and aSoWnf was concerned in its first success, I should conclude’ from the vei^ the case, that the Author of the relidon durmg his life, and his immediate disciples after his death exerted hemselves in spreading and publishing the institution throiSw he country in which it began, and into which if wTfirst Stf- Aat, in the prosecution of this purpose, they underwent the labors and tioubles which we observe the propagators of new sects to attempt must necessarily have also been in a high degree dangerous; that, from the subject of the mission com pared with the lixed opinions and prejudices of those to Sm Te mssionaries were to address themselves, they could hardly fail of encountering strong and frequent opposition ; that, by the Lnd of goyernment, as well as from the sudden fury and unbridled hSn^ of the people, they would oftentimes experience injurious and cruel reatment; that, at any rate, they must have always had so much to fear for their personal safety, as to have passed^theh-lives f a state of constant peril and anxiety; and, lastly, that their mode of correspondeJ with the institutions toSselFdantr’^'*-required CHAP. IL £»««« 0/ ..e Sujryn,^ »/ D?SdeS h come down to us. And this inquiry is properly preceded by the other, forasmuch as the reception of these'accounts credibility of what they contain hJfh ^od distant view of Christianity, which some of the h "'“i “?'■ *'?<* “<• which a feTpaSogea m their remaining works incidentally discover to us, offers itself to h s the this evdde ice gls dmJf the source from which h is well this head, a quotation from Tacitus culsr fitf ®^holar, must be inserted, as deserving parti- was hear in miAd that thif pafsafe ^ seventy years after Christ’s death, and thm it re- event o^’^'^^^^tions which took place about thirty years after that ^vent. Speaking of the fire which happened at RoL in the time * Hartley’s Essays on. Man, p. 190. 28 Paley’s View of the M large.se. to the people nor hisoffLhigstothe gods, did away the infamous imputation under woirrn nf 'Tihprius Under his procurator Pontius Pilate. P nicioussupe-^^^^^^^ °‘' 5“tef by teuS rn^Aery'; for somf were disguS"in'' Ihe ST^dtSfaS worried’! deadr by do^ i aonte were em- betaF^?eciTf^l^!w^^^to“ '""f p?-\nd tS/th?y were criminals, and deserving the severest? ”^Our concern with this passage at present is only so far as it afford^' =iiEe 'tiS-'tL F^Sroftto li^tudor^^f pr™^ly, thaUn h?same countrl in which he wa. put to death, the religion after ?:h!Pheek bi;ke out again and spread;^ CS Sr.to >'(“lea« mumndo) were found at ^me From which fact the two following inferences may be fairly drawn. Heath. Test. vol. i. p. 359. 29 Evidences of Christianity. been ulle ; secoxidly, that when the Author of the undertakino- was put lo death as a malefactor for his attempt, the endeavors of his tollowers to establish his religion in the same country, amonest the same people, and m the same age, could not but be attended with danger. Suetonius, a writer contemporary with Tacitus, describing the tonsactions of the same reign, uses these words: ‘ Affecti suppliciis ^hristiani, genus hominum superstitionis novas et maleficm.’* ‘ The ^hristians, a set of men of a new and mischievous (or magical") su¬ perstition, w^ere punished.’ ^ Since it is not mentioned here that the burning of the city was he pretence of the punishment of the Christians, or that they were the Chri.stians of Rome who alone suffered, it is probable that Sue¬ tonius refers to some more general persecution than the short and occasional one which Tacitus describes. Juvenal, a w'riter of the same age with the two former, and in- tending. It should seem, to commemorate the cruelties exercised under Nero s government, has the following lines :t ‘ Pone Tigelliniim, teda lucebis in ilia Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant, Et latum media sulcum deducitj arena.’ Describe Tigellinus (a creature of Nero), and you shall suffer the same punishment with those who stand burning in their own flame their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make a long stream of blood and melted sulphur on the ground.’ ^ If this passage were considered by itself, the subject of allusion mighi be doubttul; but, when connected with the testimony of feuetonius, as to the actual punishment of the Christians by Nero, and with the account given by Tacitus of the species of punish- ment which they were made to undergo, I think it sufficiently probable, that these were the executions to which the poet refers. as has been already observed, took place within mrty-one years after Christ’s death, that is, according to the course of nature, in the lifetime, probably, of some of the apostles, and certainly in the lifetime of those who were converted by the apos¬ tles, or who were converted in their time. If then the Founder of the religion wms put to death in the execution of his design ; if the first race of converts to the religion, many of them, suffered the greatest extremities for their profession ; it is hardly credible, that those who came between the two, who were companions of the Au¬ thor of the insthution during his life, and the teachers and propaga¬ tor of the institution after his death, could go about tlieir under¬ taking with ease and safety. The testmony of the younger Pliny belongs to a later period ; lor although he was contemporary with Tacitus and Suetonius, yet his account does not, like theirs, go back to the transactions of Suet. Nero. cap. 16. j Sat. i. vcr. 155. j Foriias ‘dedncis.’ C2 30 Paley's Vieio of the ■SS:sr ss 5s-=rS ogros, superstitioms WM “ h J tie contagion of =SS3SiHi^i£SS SrrSiH!rI?S/SSc»^^ SIsH-SS^SSS “SSEiBHS-SlilS |#Si“E‘;H5SSBi W’lth. f63.r 9,110. u911§0r . ^ y v.^r*- rM* onllmriyinp’ tllP DPrSBCU- fro^Ch^Sr ™rc: Srther connfm^- ^by a re- ESSSSISSil ^Sa“&yea. ^f,'!^lXr“No.tog. howevfr, cot.kl show the notoriety of to ' % Lard. Heath. Test, vol ii. HO. t In matutina nuper s^ctatos - . Mucins, imposuit qui siia tocis, Evidences of Christianity. 31 fact with more certainty than this does. Martial’s testimony, as well indeed as Pliny’s, goes also to another point, viz. that the deaths of these men were martyrdoms in the strictest sense, that is to say, were so voluntary, that it was in their power, at the time of pro¬ nouncing the sentence, to have averted the execution, by consenting to join in heathen sacrifices. The constancy, and by consequence the sufferings, of the Chris¬ tians of this period, is also referred to by Epictetus, who imputes their intrepidity to madness, or to a kind of .fashion or habit; and about fifty years afterward, by Marcus Aurelius, who ascribes it to obstinacy. ‘ Is it possible, (Epictetus asks,) that a man may arrive at mis temper, and become indifferent to those things, from madness or from habit, as the Galileans ? ’* * ‘ Let this preparation of the mind (to die) arise from its own judgment, and not from obstinacy like the ChrisUans.'f CHAP. III. tnMrect Evidence I may be allowed, therefore, in the inquiry which is now before us, to suggest some conclusions of this sort, as preparatory o more direct^testimony^eiate, jgg,js Christ, the founder of the religion, was, in consequence of his undertaking, put to death, as a malefac¬ tor, at Jerusalem. This point at least will be granted, because it is no more than what Tacitus has recorded. They then proceed to tell us, that the religion was, notwithstanding, set forth at this same city of Jerusalem, propagated thence throughout Jud^, and after¬ ward preached in other parts of the Roman empire. These points also are fully confirmed by Tacitus, who informs us, that tlie le i- gion, after a short check, broke out again in the country where it took its rise; that it not only spread throughout Judea, but had reached Rome, and that it had there great multitudes of converts: and all this within thirty years after its com^mencement. JNow these facts afford a strong inference in behalf of the proposition which we maintain. What could the disciples of Christ expect for them selves when they saw their Master put to death? Could they hope to escape the dangers in which he had perished ? If they have pCT- secuted me, they will also persecute you, was the warning of com¬ mon sense. With this example before their eyes, they could not be without a full sense of the peril of their future enterprise. ^ - 2. Secondly, all the histories agree in representing Christ as foie- telling the persecution of his followers:— i . n i-n ^ , ‘ Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall lull you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. • ‘ When affliction or persecution ariseth for the word s sake, imme¬ diately they are offonded.’t ‘They shall lay hands on you, and persecute you, delivering ym up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before k*^.^ and rulers for my name’s sake:—and ye shall be betrayed bom by parents and brethren, and kinsfolks and friends; and some ot you shall they cause to be put to death.’t -it i ‘The time cometh, that he that killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have 1 told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that i told you of them.’§ * Matt. xxiv. 9. t Mark ly. 17. t Luke xxi. 12—16. See also chap. xi. 49* ( John xvi. 4. See also chap. xv. 20. xvi. 33. See also chap. x. 3Q. Evidences of Christianity. 33 I am not entitled to argue Irom these passages, that Christ actu¬ ally did foretell these events, and that they did accordingly come to pass; because that would be at once to assume the truth of the reli¬ gion : but I am entitled to contend, that one side or other of the fol¬ lowing disjunction is true; either that the evangelists have deliv¬ ered what Christ really spoke, and that the event corresponded with the prediction; or that they put the prediction into Christ's mouth, because, at the time of writing the history, the event had turned out so to be:-for, the only two remaining suppositions appear in the highest degree incredible; which are, either that Christ tilled the minds of his followers with fears and apprehensions, without any reason or authority for what he said, and contrary to the truth of the case; or that, although Christ had never foretold any such thing, and the event w'ould have contradicted him if he had, yet historians, who lived in the age when the event was knowr. falsely, as w'ell as officiously, ascribed these words to him. 3. Thirdly, these books abound with exhortations to patience, and with topics of comfort under distress. ‘ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’* ‘We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are per¬ plexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of-Jesus might be made manifest in our body;—knowing that he wLich raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.—For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renew’ed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for' a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eter¬ nal weight of glory.’t ‘Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’t ‘ Call to remembrance the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly \vhilst ye became companions of them that were so used ; for ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of rew'ard; for ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.’5 * Rom. viii. 35—37. t James v. 10, 11. t2Cor. iv. 8—10. 14.16,17. § Heb. X. 32—36. 34 Paley's View of the ‘ So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches ol God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions.and tribulations that ye endure. Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom for which ye also suffer.’* ‘ We rejoice in hope of the glory of God ; and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope.’t , • , • ‘ Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.-- Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, co>nmit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful C'r0titoi* What could all these texts mean, if there was nothing in the cir ■ umstances of the times which required patience, which called the exercise of constancy and resolution? Or will it be pre tended, that these exhortations (which, let it be observed, come not from one author, but from many) were put in, merely to induce a belief in after-ages, that the Christians were exposed to dangers which they were not exposed to, or underwent sufferings which they did not undergo? If these books belong to the age to winch they lay claim, and in which age, whether genuine or spurious, they certainly did appear, this supposition cannot be maintained for a moment t because I think it impossible to believe, that passages which must be deemed not only unintelligible, but false, by the per¬ sons into whose hands the hooks upon their publication weie t(? come, should nevertheless be inserted, for the purpose of producing an effect upon remote generations. In forgeries which do not ap pear till many ages after that to which they pretend to belong, it is possible that some contrivance of that sort may take place; but in no others can it be attempted. CHAP. IV. Direct Evidence of the Sufferings of the First Propagators of Chris¬ tianity^ from the Scriptures a7id other ancient Christian writings. The account of the treatment of the religion, and of the exer¬ tions of its first preachers, as stated in our Scriptures (not in a pro- ■^ssed history of persecutions, or in the connected manner in which am about to recite it, but dispersedly and occasionally in the course of a mixed general history, w^hich circumstance alone negatives the supposition of any fraudulent design), is the following: ‘ hat the Founder of Christianity, from the commencement of his ministry to the time of his violent death, employed himself wholly in publish * 2 Thess. i. 4, 5. t Roni. V. 3,4. X 1 Pet. iv. 12, 13. 19, Evidences of Christianity. 35 inf^ the institution in Judea and Galilee; that in order to assist him m this purpose, he made choice out of the number of his followers, m twelve persons who might accompany him as he travelled from place to place; that except a short absence upon a journey in which he sent them, tw’o by two, to announce his mission, and one, of a lew days, when they went before him to Jerusalem, these persons were statedly and constantly attending upon him; that they were with him ^ Jerusalem when he was apprehended and put to death ; and that they were commissioned by him, when his own ministry was concluded, to publish his gospel, and collect disciples to it from all cour^ries of the world.’ The account then proceeds to state, ‘ that a few days after his departure, these persons, with some of his relations, and some who had regularly frequented their society, as¬ sembled at Jerusalem; that considering the office of preaching the religion as now devolved upon them, and one of their number having deserted the cause, and, repenting of his perfidy, having de- stroyed himself, they proceeded to elect another into his place, and that they were careful to make their election out of the number of those who had accompanied their Master from the first to the last, m order as they alleged that he might be a witness, together with themselves, of the principal facts which they w^ere about to pro¬ duce and relate concerning him;’^' that they began their work at Jerusalem by publicly asserting that this Jesus, whom the rulers ™f^^^^^^ con¬ firmed bvth? consideration. that it, in truth, does no more than as- sifi-n adeauate causes for effects which certainly were produced, and Srite consequences naturally resulting from situaPons which certainly existel The effects were certainly these, of which ■j- Acts iv. 3. 21. * 1 Cor. iv. 9, &c. J Acts V. 18. 40. Evidences of Christianity. 45 history sets forth the cause, and origin, and progress. It is acknow¬ ledged on all hands, becau.se it is recorded by other testimony than that of the Christians themselves, that the religion began to jirevail at that time, and in that country. It is very difficult to conceive how It could begin, or prevail at all, without the exertions of the Founder and his followers in propagating the new persuasion. The history now’ in our hands describes these exertions, the persons em¬ ployed, the means and endeavors made use of, and the labors under¬ taken in the prosecution of this purpose. Again, the treatment which the history represents the first propagators of the religion to have experienced, was no other than what naturally resulted from the situation in which they were confessedly placed. It is admitted that the religion was adverse, in a great degree, to the reigning opinions, and to the hopes and wishes of the nation to which it was first introduced ^ and that it overthrew, so far as it was received, the established theology and worship of every other country. We cannot feel much reluctance in believing, that, when the mes¬ sengers of such a system went about not only publishing their opinions, but collecting proselytes, and forming regular societies of proselytes, they should meet wdth opposition in their attem,pts, or that this opposition should sometimes proceed to fatal extremities. Our history details examples of this opposition, and of the sufferino-s and dangers w’hich the emissaries of the religion underwent, per- fectly agreeable to what might reasonably be expected from the nature of their undertaking, compared with the character of the age and country in which it was carried on. IV. The records before us supply evidence of what formed another member of our general proposition, and what, as hath already been observed, is highly i)robabJe, and almost a necessary consequence of their new’ profession; viz. that, together with ac¬ tivity and courage in propagating the religion, the primitive follow’’- ers of Jesus assumed, upon their conversion, a new and peculiar course of private life. Immediately after their Master was with- draw’n from them, we hear of their ‘ continuing with one accord in prayer and supplication of their ‘ continuing daily with one accord m the temple;’t of ‘many being gathered togetlier prqying.’t We know w’hat strict injunctions were laid upon the converts by their teachers. Wherever they came, the first word of their preaching was, ‘Repent!’ We know that these injunctions obliged them to re¬ frain from many species of licentiousness, which were not, at that lime, reputed criminal. We know the rules of purify, and the maxims of benevolence, which Christians read in their books ; con¬ cerning which rules, it is enough to observe, that, if they were, I will not s^ completely obeyed, but in any degree regarded, they would produce a system of conduct, and, what is more difficult tc preserve, a disposition of mind, and a regulation of affections, dif thing to which they had hitherto been accustomed and different from what they woultl see in others. The change ano. * .4cts i. 14. t Acts ii. 40. I Acts xii. 1^, Paley’s View of the 46 distinction of manners, which resulted from their new character, is nerpetually referred to in the letters of their teachers. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sms, therein ye walked, according to the course of this word ac^ cording to the prince of the power of the air, the ^ workefh in the^children of disobedmnce: among ^^om also we had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our hesh, tut liim the desires of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature I'h? chMren'f wrath, even as t'oenSle the" we walked in lasciviousness lusts, excess quetings, and abominable idolatries; wherein that verun not with them to the same excess of not. feaint ^^uul, m hiffnst Ster o the Corinthians, after enumerating as his manner IvL f cSgue of vicioas characters, adds ‘Such .cere »nte of • hnt VP -ire washed, but ye are sanctified, t In like manner, Ind’alluding to the same change of practices and asks the Roman Christians, ‘what fruit they had lu those thi g , whereof they are noio 'ashamed !’$ The phrases which the same wrifPT emnlovs to describe the moral condition of Christians, com¬ pared with their condition before they became Ch^istons such as ‘newness of life,’ being ‘ freed from sin, being dead to sin, desSon of the body of sin, for the future, they should not ^erve sin •’ ‘ children of light, and of the day,’ as opposed to ch il¬ dren of darkness and of the night;’ ‘ ^Jle^^erieTof at least, a new system of obligation, and, probably, a new series oi ""^ThTl’eSmSIy ThicTR the behavior of the new sect in his S and which testimony comes not more than vears after that of Saint Paul, is very applicable to the subject un- conshiemtion. The chamcter Uch this writer gives of the Christians of that age, and which was drawn fi-om a pretty accurate fnquSricaSfl insidered their moral princ^ es as thy omt in which the magistrate was interested, is as foUows -—He tells the emneror ‘ that some of those who had relinquished the society, o who to save themselves, pretended that they had relinquished i , alfirmed that they were wont to meet together, on a stated day, - gSil rl't'd .he rfrrrrSb?rroi“ rarmoX'Set^S SullUnau m the ag^e of the apostles; because it is not probable that the imm t 1 Pet. iv. 3, 4. § Rom. vi. 31. * Eph. ii. 1—3. See also Tit. iii. 3. f 1 Cor. vi. 11. Evidences of Christianity, ' 47 diale hearers and disciples of Christ were more relaxed than their successors in Pliny’s time, or the missionaries of the religion than those whom they taught. CHAP. VI. That the Story, for which the first Propagators of Christianity suf fered, was miraculous. When we consider, first, the prevalency of the religion at this hour; secondly, the only credible account which can be given of Its origin, viz. the activity of the Founder and his associates; thirdly, the opposition which that activity must naturally have excited; fourthly, the fate of the Fomider of the religion, attested by heathen wnmrs a^vell as our own; fifthly, the testimony of the same writers to the sufferings of Christians, either contemporary with, or imme¬ diately succeeding, the original settlers of the institution; sixthly, predictions of the sufferings of his followers ascribed to the Founder of the religion, which ascription alone proves, either that such pre¬ dictions were delivered and fulfilled, or that the writers of Christ’s life were induced by the event to attribute such predictions to him; seventhly, letters now in our jwssession, written by some of the principal agents in the transaction, referring expressly to extreme labors, dangers, and sufferings, sustained by themselves and their companions; lastly, a history purporting to be written by a fellow- traveller ofone of the new teachers, and, by its unsophisticated cor- resjiondency with letters of that person still extant, proving itself to be written by some one well acquainted with the subject of the narrative, vvhich history contains accounts of travels, persecutions, and martyrdoms, answering to what the former reasons led us to expect: when we lay together these considerations, which, taken separately, are, I think, correctly, such as I have stated them in the preceding chapters, there cannot much doubt remain upon our minds, but that a number of persons at that time appeared in the world, publicly advancing an extraordinary story, and, for the sake ot jiropagating the belief of that story, voluntarily incurring great personal dangers, traversing seas and kingdoms, exerting great in¬ dustry and sustaining great extremities of ill usage and persecution. It is also proved, that the same persons, in consequence of their persuasion, or pretended persuasion, of the truth of what they as- fifng^ 1 upon a course of life in many respects new and From the clear and acknowledged parts of the case, I think it to be likewise in the highest degree probable, that the story, for which these persons voluntarily exposed themselves to the fatigues and lordships which they endured, was a miracidous story; 1 mean, that the5r pretended to miraculous evidence of some kind or other. hey had nothing else to stand upon. The designation of the per¬ son, that IS to say, that Jesus of Nazareth, rather than any other 48 Paley^s View of the person, was the Messiah, and as such the subject of their ministry could only be founded upon supernatural tokens attributed to him. Here were no victories, no conquests, no revolutions, no surprising elevation of fortune, no achievements of valor, of strength, or of policy, to appeal to; no discoveries in any art or science, no great efforts of genius or learning to produce. A Galilean peasant was announced to the w’orld as a divine law¬ giver. A young man of mean condition, of a private and simple life, and who had wrought no deliverance for the Jewish nation, was declared to be their Messiah. This, without ascribing to him at the same time some proofs of his mission, (and what other but supernatural proofs could there be ?) was too absurd a claim to be either imagined, or attempted, or credited. In whatever degree, or in whatever part, the religion was argumentative, when it came to the question, ‘ Is the carpenter’s son of Nazareth the person whom we are to receive and obey ?’ there was nothing but the miracles attributed to him, by which his pretensions could be maintained for a moment. Every controversy and every question must presup¬ pose these; for, however such controversies, when they did arise, might, and naturally would, be discussed upon their own grounds of argumentation, without citing the miraculous evidence which had been asserted to attend the Founder of the religion (which would have been to enter upon another, and a more general ques¬ tion), yet we are to bear in mind, that without previously supposing the existence, or the pretence of such evidence, there could have been no place for the discussion of the argument at all. Thus, for example, whether the prophecies, which the Jews interpreted to belong to the Messiah, were, or were not, applicable to the history of Jesus of Nazareth, was a natural subject of debate in those times; and the debate w^ould proceed, without recurring at every turn to his miracles, because it set out with supposing these ; inas¬ much as without miraculous marks and tokens (real or pretended), or without some such great change effected by his means in the public condition of the country, as might have satisfied the then re¬ ceived interpretation of these prophecies, I do not see how the question could ever have been entertained. Apollos, we read, ‘ mightily convinced the Jews, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ;’* but unless Jesus had exhibited some distinction of his person, some proof of supernatural power, the argument from the old Scriptures could have had no place. It had nothing to at¬ tach upon. A young man calling himself the Son of God, gathering a crowd about him, and delivering to them lectures of morality, could not have excited so much as a doubt among the Jews, whether he was the object in whom a long series of ancient proph¬ ecies terminated, from the completion of which they had formed such magnificent expectations, and expectations of a nature so op¬ posite to what appeared ; I mean, no such doubt could exist when they had the whole case before them, when they saw him put to •' Acts xviii Jh Evidences of Christianity. 49 - death for his officiousness, and when by his death the evidepce concerning him was closed. Again, the effect of the Messiah’s coming, supposing Jesus to have been he, upon Jews, upon Gen¬ tiles, upon their relation to each other, upon their acceptance with God, upon their duties and their expectations; his nature, authority, office, and agency; were likely to become subjects of much con¬ sideration with the early votaries of the religion, and to occupy their attention and writings. I should not however expect, that in these disquisitions, whether preserved in the form of letters, speeches, or set treatises, frequent or very direct mention of his miracles would occur. Still, miraculous evidence lay at the bottom of the argument. In the primary question, miraculous pretensions, and miraculous pretensions alone, were what they had to rely upon. That the original story was mii'aculous, is very fairly also inferred from the miraculous powers which were laid claim to by the Chris¬ tians of succeeding ages. If the accounts of these miracles be true, it was a continuation of the same powers; if they be false, it was in imitation, I will not say, of what had been wrought, but of what had been reported to have been wrought, by those who preceded them. That imitation should follow reality, fiction should be grafted upon truth; that, if miracles were performed at first, miracles should be pretended afterward; agrees so well with the ordinary course of human affairs, that we can have no great difficulty in believing it. The contrary supposition is very improbable, namely, that mira¬ cles should be pretended to by the followers of the apostles and first emissaries of religion, when none were pretended to, either in their own persons or that of their Master, by these apostles and emissa¬ ries themselves. CHAP. VII. That it was in the main the Story which we have now proved, by indi¬ rect Considerations. It being then once proved, that the first propagators of the Chris¬ tian institution did exert activity, and subject themselves to grea dangers and sufferings, in consequence, and for the sake of an extra ordinary', and, I think we mav say, of a miraculous story of some kind or other; the next great question is. Whether the account which our Scriptures contain, be that story; that which these men delivered, and for which they acted and suffered as they did ? This question is, in effect, no other than whether the story which Chris¬ tians have now, be the story w'hich Christians had then ? And of this the following proofs may be deduced from general considera¬ tions prior to any inquiry into the particular reasons and testimonies by which the authority of our histories is supported. In the first place, there exists no trace or vestige of any other story It is not, like the death of Cyrus the Great, a competition between optxtsite accounts, or betw’een the credit of different histo- E 50 Palsy's View of the rians. There is not a document, or scrap of account, either contem¬ porary with the commencement of Christianity, or extant wilnin many ages after that commencement, which assigns a history sub¬ stantially differing from ours. The remote, brief, and incidental notices of the affair, which are found in heathen writers, so far as they do go, go along with us. They bear testimony to these facts that the institution originated from Jesus; that the Founder was put to death, as a malefactor, at Jerusalem, by the authority of the Ro¬ man governor, Pontius Pilate ; that the religion nevertheless spread in that city, and throughout Judea; and that it was propagated thence to distant countries; that the converts were numerous; that they suffered great hardships and injuries for their profession; and that all this took place in the age of the world which our books have assigned. They go on fan tier, to describe the manners of Christians, in terms perfectly conformable to the accounts extant in our books; that they were wont to assemble on a certain day; that they sang hymns to Christ as to a god; that they bound themselves by an oath not to commit any crime, but to abstain from theft and adultery, to adhere strictly to their promises, and not to deny money deposited in their hands f that they worshipped him who was crucified in Palestine; that this their first lawgiver had taught them that they were all brethren; that they had a great contempt for the things of this world, and looked upon them as common; that they flew to one another’s relief; that they cherished strong hopes of immortality; that they despised death, and surrendered them¬ selves to sufferings.’t This is the account of writers who viewed the subject at a great distance; who were uninformed and unin¬ terested about it. It bears the characters of such an account upon the face of it, because it describes effects, namely, the appearance in the world of a new religion, and the conversion of great multi¬ tudes to it, without descending, in the smallest degree, to the detail of the transaction upon which it was founded, the interior of the institution, the evidence or arguments offered by those who drew over others to it. Yet still here is no contradiction of our story; no * See Pliny’s Letter.—Bonnet, in his lively way of expressing himself, gays^_‘ Comparing Pliny’s Letter with the account in the Acts, it seems to me that I had not taken up another author, but that I was stilt read- in" the historian of that extraordinary society.’ This is strong: but there is undoubtedly an affinity, and all the affinity that could be ex- jg incredible what expedition they use when any of their friends are known to be in trouble. In a word, they spare nothing upon such an occasion :—for these miserable men have no doubt they shall be immortal and live for ever: therefore they contemn death, and many surrender themselves to sufferings. Moreover, their first lawgiver has taught them that they are all brethren, when once they have turned and renounced the "ods of the Greeks, and worship this Master of theirs who was cru¬ cified, and engage to live according to his laws. They have also a sove- reign'contempt for all the things of this world, and look upon them as common,’—Lucian, de Morte Peregrini, t. i. p. 505. ed. Grajv, Evidences of Christianity^^ -r oilier or different story set up against it: but so far a confirmation of it, as that, in the general points on which the heathen account touches, it agrees with that which we find in our owm books. The same may be observed of the very few Jewish writers, of that and the adjoining period, which have come down to us. What¬ ever they omit, or whatever difficulties we may find in explaining the omission, they advance no other history of the transaction than that which we acknowledge. Josephus, who wrote his Antiquities, or History of the Jews, about sixty years after the commencement of Christianity, in a passage generally admitted as genuine, makes mention of John, under the name of John the Baptist; that he wcg a preacher of virtue; that he baptized his proselytes; that he was well received by the people; that he was unprisoned and put to death by Herod; and that Herod lived in a criminal cohabitation with Herodias his brother’s wife.^ In another passage, allowed by many, although not without considerable question being moved about it, we hear of‘James, the brother of him who was called Jesus, and of his being put to death.’! In a third passage, extant in every copy that remains of Josephus’s History, but the authenticity of \yhich has nevertheless been long disputed, we have an explicit testimony to the substance of our history in these words :—‘ At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man, for he per¬ formed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the insti¬ gation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him, did not cease to adhere to him: for, on the third day, he appeared to them alive again; the divine prophets having foretold these and many wonder¬ ful things concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, subsist to this time.’! Whatever becomes of the contro- "versy concerning the genuineness of this passage; whether Jose¬ phus go the whole length of our history, which, if the passage be sincere, he does; or whether he proceed only a very little way with us, which, if the passage be rejected, w^e confess to be the case; still what we asserted is true, that he gives no other different his toty of the subject from ours, no other or different account of the origin of the institution. And I think also that it may with great reason be contended, either that the passage is genuine, or that the silence of Josephus was designed. For, although we should lay aside the authority of our own books entirely, yet when Tacitus, who wrote not twenty, perhaps not ten, years after Josephus, in his account of a period m which Josephus was nearly thirty years of age, tells us, that a vast multitude of Christians were condemned at Rome; that they derived their denomination from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death, as a criminal, by the procu- * Antiq. 1. xviii. cap. v. sect. 1,2. ! Antiq. 1. xviii. cap. iii, sect, J. t Antiq. 1. xx. cap. ix. sect. 1 52 Paley's View of the rator, Pontius Pilate; that the superstition had spread not only over Judea, the source of the evil, but had reached Rome alsowhen Suetonius, an historian contemporary with Tacitus, relates timt, in the time of Claudius, the Jews were making disturbances at Rome, Christus being their leader; and that, during the reign of Nero, the Christians were punished; under both which emperors Josephus lived when Pliny, who wrote his celebrated epistle not more than thirty years after the publication of Josephus’s history, found the Christians in such numbers in the proyince of Bithynia, as to diaw from him a complaint, that the contagion had seized cities, towns, and yillages, and had so seized them as to produce a general deser¬ tion of the public rites ; and when, as has alrea,dy been obser\ e , there is no reason for imagining that the Christians were more numerous in Bithynia than in many other parts of the Roman em¬ pire : it cannot, I should suppose, after this, be believed, that the re- lio^ion, and the transaction upon which it was founded, were too ob¬ scure to engage the attention of Josephus, or to obtain a place in his history. Perhaps he did not know hovy to represent the business, and disposed of his difficulties by passing it over in silence. Eusebius wrote the life of Constantine, yet omits entirely the most remarka¬ ble circumstance in that life, the death of his son Crispus; undou edly for the reason here given. The reserve of Josephu? upon the subiect of Christianity appears also in his passing over the banish¬ ment of the Jews by Claudius, which Suetonius, we j^a^e seen, has recorded with an express reference to Christ. Phis is at least as remarkable as his silence about the infants of Bethlehem. Be, however, the fact, or the cause of the omission in Josephus,t what it may, no other or different history on the subject has been given by him, or is pretended to have been giyen. But farther; the whole series of Christian writers, from the first age of the institution down to the present, in their ffiscussions, apologies, arguments, and controversies, proceed upon the genera story which Lr Scriptures contain, and upon no faci the principal agents, are alike m all. This ^^^Sument will p pear to be of great force, when it is known that we are able to trace back the series of writers to a contact with the historical books of * Michaelis has computed, and, as it should seem, fairly enough, that nrobablv not more than twenty children perished by this cruel precamtion. SklmeL^s Srod^^^^ to the New Testament, translated by Marsh. vol. 1. c. ii. sect. 11. + There is no notice taken of Christianity in the Misna, a collection of Jelvish tradhions compiled about the year 180; although it contains a tract ‘De cultii peregrino,’ of strange or idolatrous worship, jet it can not be di^puted^but that Christianity wms perfectly well known in the world at this time. There is extremely little notice of the subject in the TerusaSm Talmud, compiled about the year 300 and not much more in the Babylonish Talmud, of the year 500; although both these v\ oiks are of a reliatnesses concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrine. II In the remaining works of Ignatius, the contemporary of Poly- car?, brgeXn tlJse of Polyca?p (yet like ine of subjects in nowise leading to any recital of ‘^he Ctastmn torv) the occasional allusions are proportion ably more numerous. The descent of Christ from David, his mother Mary, his miraculous conception, the star at his birth, his baptism by John, the reason ^s- sio-ned for it, his appeal to the prophets, the ointment poured on his heRd his sufferings^under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, his resurrection, the Lord’s day called and kept in commemoi atio of it, and the eucharist, in both its parts—are unequivocally referred to. Upon the resurrection, this writer is even circumstantial. He mentions the apostles’ eating and drinking with Christ after he had risen their feeling and their handling him; from which last circunn Sance iSatiRs raises this just reflection They believed, being convinced both by his flesh and spirit; for this cause, they despised rlpnth and were found, to bo EibovG it. IT _ « i ^ n Quadratus of the same age with Ignatius, has left us the follow¬ ing noblR testimony‘ The works of our Saviour were always con- sniuous fOT they we^^ real; both those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead; who were seen not only when they were healed or raised, but for a long time afterwar , not only whilst he dwelled on this earth, but also after hisde^ * Ep. Bar. c. v. t EP- Clem. Rom. c. xlii. Pol. Ep. ad Phil. c. v. viii. ii. iii. Ir. ad Flor. ap. Euseb. 1. v. c. 20. I X Ep. Clem. Rom. c. xvi. TT Ad Smyr. c. iii. Evidences of Christianity. 55 ture, and for a good while after it, insomuch that some of them have reached to our times.’* Justin Martyr came little more than thirty years after Quadratus. From Justin’s works, which are still extant, might be collected a tolerably complete account of Christ’s life, in all points agreeing with that which is delivered in our Scriptures; taken indeed, in a great measure, from those Scriptures, but still proving that this ac¬ count, and no other, was the account known and extant in that age. The miracles in particular, which form the part of Christ’s history most material to be traced, star, filly and distinctly recognized in the following passage :—‘He ht i* 1 those who had been blind, and (leaf, and lame, from their birth using, by his word, one to leap, another to hear, and a third to and by raising the dead, and making them to live, he induced. ’ his works, the men of that age to know him.’t It is unnecessary to carry these citations lower, because the his- toiy, after this time, occurs in ancient Christian writings as famil¬ iarly as it is wont to do in modern sermons;—occurs always the same in substance, and alwaj'^s that which our evangelists repre¬ sent This is not only true of those writings of Christians, which are genuine, and of acknowledged authority; but it is, in a great mea¬ sure, true of all their ancient writings which remain; although some of these may have been erroneously ascribed to authors to whom they did not belong, or may contain false accounts, or may appear to be undeserving of credit, or never indeed to have ob¬ tained any. Whatever fables they have mixed with the narrative, they preserve the material parts, the leading facts, as we have thern; and so far as they do this, although they be evidence of nothing else, they are evidence that these points were fixed, were received and acknciwledged by all Christians in the age in which the books were written. At least, it may be asserted, that in the places where we were most likely to meet with such things, if such things had existed, no relics appear of any story substantially differ¬ ent from the present, as the cause or as the pretence of the insti¬ tution. Now that the original story, the story delivered by the first preachers of the institution, should have died away so entirely as to have left no record or memorial of its existence, although so many records and memorials of the time and transaction remain ; and that another story should have stepped into its place, and gained exclusive possession of the belief of all who professed them¬ selves disciples of the institution, is beyond any example of the corruption of even oral tradition, and still less consistent with the experience of written history: and this improbability, which is very great, is renciered still greater by the reflection, that no such change as the oblivion of one story, and the substitution of another, took * Ap. Euseb. H. E. lib. iv. c. 3. 1 Just. Dial. cum. Tryph. p. S38. ed. Thirl. 56 Paley's View of the place in any future period of the (Christian era. Christianity hath travelled through dark and turbulent ages; nevertheless, it came out of the cloud and the storm, such in substance, as it entered in. Many additions w^ere made to the primitive history, and these enti¬ tled to different degrees of credit; many doctrinal errors also vi’ero from lime to time grafted into the public creed; but still the origi nal story remained, and remained the same. In all its principal parts, it has been fixed from the beginning. Thirdly • The religious rites and usages that prevailed amongsi the early disciples of Christianity were such as belonged to, and sprung out of, the narrative in our hands; which accordancy shows that it was the narrative upon which these j^rsons acted, and which they had received from their teachers. Our account makes the Founder of the religion direct that his disciples should bo baptized. We know that the first Christians were baptized Our account makes him direct, that they should hold religious assemblies: we find that they did hold religious assemblies. Our accounts make the apostles asseinble upon a stated dj of the week: we find, and that from information perfectly independent of our accounts, that the Christians of the first century did observe stated days of assembling. Our histories record the institution ot the rite which we call the Lord’s supper, and a command to repeal it in perpetual succession: we find amongst the early Christians, the celebration of this rite universal. And, indeed, we find, concurring in all the above-mentioned observances, Christian societies of many different nations and languages, removed from one another by a great distance of place, and dissimilitude of situation. It is also ex tremely material to remark, that there is no room for insinuating that our books were fabricated with a studious accommodation to the usages which obtained at the time they were written; that the authors of the books found the usages estobhshed, and framed the story to account for their original. The Scnpture accounts espe- daily of the Lord’s supper are too short and cursory, not to say too obscure, and, in this view, deficient, to a^Jow a place for any such ^^Amorgst the proofs of the truth of tfJs proposition, viz. that the story which we have now is, in substance, the story which the Christians had then, or, in other worJs, that the Gospels are, as to their principal parts at least, the accounts which the apostles and original teachers of the ^^hgion dehvered one arises from observing that it appears by the Gopiels ‘ the story was public at the time; that the Christian community was already in possession of the substance and principal P^^^^s ^f the narrative. The Gospels were not the original cause of the Christian history bein g believed, but were themselves among the * The reader, who is conversant in these researches, by comparing the short Scripture accounts of the Christian the minute and circumstantial directions contained in the Prided apostolical constitutions, will see the force of this observation; the dif¬ ference between truth and forgery. Evidences of Christianity. 57 OTiisequences of lhat belief. This is expressly affirmed by St. Luke, in his brief, but, as 1 think, very important and instructive, preface : ‘ Forasmuch (says the evangelist) as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us, even as they delivered them unto us, which fom the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent The- ophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those thing's wherein thou hast been instructed :short introduction testifies that the substance of the history which the evangelist was about to write, was already believed by Christians; that it was believed upon the declaration of eye-witnesses and ministers of the word ; that It formed the account of their religion in which Christians weie hiStructed; lhat the office w'hich the historian proposed to himself, was to trace each particular to its origin, and to fix the certainty of many things which the reader had before heard of. In bt. John’s Gospel, the same point appears hence, that there are some principal facts to which the historian refers, but which he does not relate. A remarkable instance of this kind is the asceri- sion, which IS not mentioned by Saint John in its place, at the con¬ clusion of his history, but which is plainly referred to in the follow¬ ing words of the sixth chapter:* ‘What and if ye shall see the Son 01 man ascend up where he was before?’ And still more po*sitively in the \yords which Christ, according to our evangelist, spoke to Mair after his resurrection, ‘ Touch me not, for I am not yet as¬ cended to my Father: but go unto my brethren, and .say unto them, 1 ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God. t This can only be accounted for by the supposition that baint John wrote under a sense of the notoriety of Christ’s ascen¬ sion, amongst those by whom his book was likely to be read. The same account must also be given of Saint Mathews’s omission of the same important fact. The thing was very well known, and it did nol occur to the historian that it w'as necessary to add any particu- lars concerning it. It agrees also with this solution and with no other, that neither Matthew nor John disposes of the person of ou Gird in any manner whatever. Other intimations in Saint John’s Gospel of the then general notoriety of the story are the following' r His manner of introducing his narrative, (ch. 1. ver. 15.) ‘John bare witness of him, and cried, saying’—evidently presupposes that his readers knew who John was. His rapid parenthetical reference to John s imprisonment, ‘ for John was not yet cast into prison,’! could pnH come from a writer whose mind was in the habit of consider- -John’s imprisonment as perfectly notorious. The description of Andrew by the addition ‘ Simon Peter’s brother,’$ takes it for panted, that Simon Peter was well known. His name had not been mentioned before. The evangelist’s noticing!! the prevailing * Also John ii. 13, and xvi. 28. X John iii. 24. § John ii. 40. 20 t John XX. 17. II John xxi. 24. 58 Paley^s View of the Srpmv” ta" ^ tL^Vom?’ ci?cumstances;—first, the iLtratroT-4=J^ fourthly, our account bearing, in its construction, Pf account of facts which were known '^’"dbeheved at the^hm^ “iSSS^^s’s^jrr same in its texture, and m its principal f^cts- no doubt, for the reason above stated, butJhayhe Shan stow the Founder of the religion was always Pf ‘ ^ P^nv one who TVnr ran a doubt of this remain upon the mind ol any one nn“"eS hie, we eho.ld ha.e a —- to offer; for we should have to allege, that m the rtogn of Jibenu^ Caesar, a certain number Persons set about a which they published Xw^lisTf^ they had followed and tion of a dead man, whom during ^i- ■nothin^’ in accompanied, was a aS’eorance of reasom be tTuS: S^of .he human species similar to it. CHAP. VIII. That it was in the main the Story authority of our historical bcnptures. 'Tuh'v the storv which we have now is, in the mam, tb® which the apostles published, is, I think, wSn w considerations which bave been propos . histories come to the particulars, and the detail of the narrative, me nisi bZks of the New Testament be deserving of credit as bistor es.^ H!.rS"Hr£aFi;«::. accounts, which, true or laise, me p u .1 . jg ^ pgi their authority, in either of these views, can be trusted , P Evidences of Christianity. 59 the books, and JVow, in treating of this part of our argument, the first and mndt material observation upon the subject is, that such was the situation 1 onheZ.r%r'’“” are ascrS, thatlTaw r-^n • j ^ genmne, it is sufficient for our nuroose The of Jerufalem at the second was an inhabhant resort and ^ to whose house the apostles were wont to that nir T £ upon one of the most eminent of paffion an^felW ^ com- panion and tellow-traveller of the most active of all the teachers of the reh^on, and, in the course of his travels, frequently in the K 3°as 'trfthS? 5”"“®®' 7^® “>*»'■ of the four*, den™ of the trnth^f , ?■ , “P®'®"' N” Wronger evi- histnri-iTi th^ ^ histoty can arise from the situation of the livS « t t- offered. The authors of all the histories S The authors of two of the his- eve wit pi'^ent at many of the scenes which they describe • eye-witnesses of the facts, ear-witnesses of the discourses • writing rom personal knowledge and recollection; and, St stren^ffienf writing upon a subject in which their minds® were deeply engaged, and in which, as they must have been veiw frP Sw^bfw accounts to otherj the passages of the hfstory tlip Po 1 ^ /P* continually alive in their memory. Whoever reaS will^fin In ought to be read for this particular purpose), J^Lrs bitdemdpJ'p-^^^^^^^ affirmation of miracSlo^s S^at?on. nf ^ ^ circumstantial accounts of miracles, with spe- and vSi^ and persons; and these accounts muny Matthew and therefore, wdiich bear the names of lattnew and John, tliese narratives, if they really proceeded fr im the fidehtj rhuman recS^ ancT anTffi ^Ton, that is, mult be true ffi sub- POSP nf • pnncipal parts (which is sufficient for the pur- meditatid ^ supernatural agency), or they must be wilful and thei^St^ h writers who fabricated and uttere unfpl^i n^niber of those, S Hfilf ^ the whole contexture of the Christian story be a dream ^ac safety in the cause and for a purpose the most Villainfr”^ n possible with dishonest intentions. They were easTpro?ne?t"n?^ honesty, and martyrs witho^urSe prospect of honor or advantage. not tL although that onlxf eye-witnesses, are, if genuine, removed froin Wi e™ ^of 7'"®^ ?'® *® of contemporary two ^ohnuT T • th5!mselves mixing with the business; one of the action - the place which was the principal scene of those who Tiahabits of society and correspondence with The lalter transactions which they relate, iue latter of tliem accordingly tells us, rand with apparent sincerity, 60 Foley's View of the because he tells authm ^ without claimiug for his work gr phri‘?tinTi« came from Lt the things Ihich were beheved Sfe of those who from the beginning ^ their source; and that the word; that he had traced accounts up o t^eir s^ou he was prepared to ^^^^''‘^^l^JJtories lie so close^o their tacts; which he related. Very few h . i tUg subiect of their very few historians are tv^gntic information as these, narrative, or possess such mean. , iruili of the facts which The ehuation of the writers “ *e (rutt^ot they record. But at presentwe use their [he Gospels, whether short of this, namely, that the fac which the original ttue or false, are the facts, and *e sort ol concerned StlnSnle wS, publishing a s^^^^ rry called upon mankind to qu n new system of opinions, educated, and to take up,^he„o ?„-»J,Cn of ie ac- and new rules of action. W . which these accounts counts, that is, in support of a voluntarily exposed were the foundation, is, tha r tobors dangers, and suffer-' themselves to harassing perpetual ings. We want to knoAV wha two of their own number. Ctve'lUmfZ^rrn— rc“tbp=K-« of the rest; and wh^ ^ opiate the things which had been de telling us that he is about to eye-witnesse livered by those who were ^ion can be more satisfac of the facts. I do not know what ^^formatmn^can oe^ ^ ^ tory than this. We we should have bee: it more sensibly, if we red ? sufficiently proved, that th if we had wanted it. Supposi g , . gjiginafto the preachin religion now professed among us, eighteen centurif and ministry of a ^p’ astern of rdigious opinion £de1 ^ ccrtS^ -^?!irdin T.ytg which thiy related of . Why should not the candid and n,o J« pmface of iK'ffof Coi Su'sl' • tSS TmS a^nd'the -'TJc^Vo'S rdo:hrb"L°th"paSare,' lescribo truly enough the situation the authors. Evidences of Christianity. 61 wonderful person who had appeared in Judea; suppose it to be also sufficiently proved, that, in the course and prosecution of their ministry, these men had subjected themselves to extreme hardships, fatigue, and peril; but suppose the accounts which they published had not been committed to writing till some ages after their times, or at least that no histones, but what had been composed some ages afterward, had reached our hands; we should have said, and with reason, that we were willing to believe these men under the cir¬ cumstances in which they delivered their testimony, but that we did not, at this oay, know with sufficient evidence what their testi¬ mony was. Had we received the particulars of it from any of their own number, from any of those who lived and conversed with them, contemporaries, we should have had something to rely upon. Now, if our books be genuine, we have all these. We have the very species of informa¬ tion which, as It appears to me, our imagination w’ould have carved out lor us, II It had been wanting. But I have said, that, if any one of the four Gospels be genuine, we have not only direct historical testimony to the point we con¬ tend for, but testimony which, so far as that point is concerned, can not reasonably be rejected. If the first Gospel was really written by Matthew, we have the narrative of one of the number, from the miracles, and the kind of miracles, which the apostles attributed to Jesus. Although, for argument’s 1 1’ y argument’s sake, we should allow that this Gos- pel had been erroneously ascribed to Matthew; yet, if the Gospel ot baint John be genuine, the observation holds with no less Jreng h. Again, although the Gospels both of Matthew and John F®. spurious, yet, if the Gospel of Saint Luke were truly the composition of tKat person, or of any person, be his It might, who was actually in the situation in which the nFi Gospel professes himself to have been, or if the Gos¬ pel which bears the name of Mark really proceeded from him; we smi even upon the low'est supposition, possess the accounts of one writer at least, who was not only contemporary with the apostles, but associated with them in their ministry; which authority seems si^cient, when the question is simply what it was which these apostles advanced. I think it material to have this well noticed. The New Testa- ment contains a great number of distinct writings, the genuineness ot any one of which is almost sufficient to prove the truth of the religion: it contains, however, four distinct histories, the genuine¬ ness of any one of which is perfectly sufficient. If, therefore, we must be considered as encountering the risk of error in assigning e authors of our books, we are entitled to the advantage of so probabilities. And although it should appear that ® *^ue evangelists had seen and used each other’s works, this . , ’ . subtracts indeed from their characters as testi- s>^rictly independent, diminishes, I conceive, little, either separate authority (by wffiich I mean the authority of any one Y 02 Palsy's View of the that is genuine), or their mutual confirmation. For, let the ^o^t fe'XSwhan Slurfand to U Sofa momeS bJ th^so his- f e”; not in act, written by Matthew and Luke; yet, tf i to true that Mark, a contemporary of the society with the apostles, a fellow-traveller and fellow-laborer wim «nmp of them- if I say, it be true that this person made the coni pilation, it follows, that the writings from wMch he El the time of the apostles, and not only so, but that Jhey were h bi R-ich esteem and credit, that a companion of the aposties lormea a history out of them. Let the Gospel of Mark be of that of Matthew; if a person in the situation m which Mark Sefibed to have been, Tctually made the epitome, U affords the strongest possible attestation to the “X wder of A frail! narallelisms in sentences, in words, and in the oraer oi worls havfeen traced out between the Gospel of Matthew and that of Luke; which concurrence cannot easily be wise than ^’supposing, either th Luke had cmisulted MaUh^^^^^^^ history or what appears to me in nowise incredible, that rai^utes of some of Christ’s discourses, as well as brief memoirs of some passages of his life, had been committed to writing at the time, arid tlmt such written accounts had by both authors been occasionally Vfrimittpd into their histories. Either supposition is perfectly con- Atent f ttohe acknowledged formation of Saint Luke’s narrahve, who professes not to write as ^y^'^hness, but to have mve^^^^^ B-ated* the original of every account which he delivers, in other words to haEe collected them from such documents and testimonies as he who had the best opportunities of making inquiries, judged to be authentic Therefore, allowing that this writer also, in some in¬ stances, W Ihe Gospll which we call Matthew’s and once more allowing, for the sake of stating the argument, that tha Gospel was not the production of the author to whom we ascribe it, yet Etill we have, in Saint Luke’s Gospel, a gjven by a writer immediately connected with the transaction, with the witnesses oi r with thl persons engaged ik it, and composed from materials vvhich that person, thus situated, deemed to be safe sources ® ’ lie-ence • in other words, whatever supposition be made concermng ir“' T related concern, to any thing as said or done by ’ ^ shows, that these Gospels, log lim in our present Gospel^ which sh^s,^,^^ from which the o°rh°L‘now’gS? The o.her%ra circumstance in *Lardoer,Cred.vol.i.p.2S8. „,.tioularlv onr foot Gospels, con .hl.;(lfA'd.trsa&'^^ .lmes..-tones.sNew and Pull "“'wlX‘t,r™rLord to Pluill find you, in the same I ^ the sense of many of oui SStrsallugrPaOdcLoasob.^ Lord.^^^dXfpcii^s by Ezekiel; ‘I will j^adj 'Words resembling these ^te ie< 1 - xx.xiii.‘-!0. It is remarkable them according to their ^mys; ^ Ezekiel. Mr. Jones upon SSmsfallStS” ((ElertSe^iiatfustiu wrote ontf the hotd Evidences of Christianity. 79 Christ’s baptism, namely, a fiery or luminous appearance upon the water, which, according to Epiphanius, is noticed in the Gospel of the Hebrews ; arid which might be true: but which, whether true or false, is mentioiied by Justin, with a plain mark of diminution when coinpared with what he quotes as resting upon Scripture au¬ thority. The reader will advert to this distinction: ‘And then, when Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, as Jesus descended into the water, a fire also was kindled in Jordan; and when he came up out of the water, the apostles of this our Christ have written that the Holy Ghost lighted upon him as a dove. All the references in Justin are made without mentioning the author; which proves that these books were perfectly notorious, and that there w'ere no other accounts of Christ then extant, or, at least, no others so i-eceived and credited, as to make it necessary to distinguish these from the rest. But although Justin mentions not the author’s name, he calls the books, ‘ Memoirs composed by the Apostles‘ Memoirs composed by the Apostles and their Companions;’ which descriptions, the latter especially, exactly suit with the titles w^hich the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles now bear. VHI. Hegesippus* * came about thirty years after Justin. Plis tes¬ timony is remarkable only for this particular; that he relates of him¬ self, that travelling from Palestine to Rome, he visited, on his jour¬ ney, many bishops; and that ‘ in every succession, and in every city, the same doctrine is taught, which the Law, and the Prophets, and the Lord teacheth.-’ This is an important attestation, from good authority, and of high antiquity. It is generally understood that by the word ‘ Lord,’Hegesippus intended some writing or writings, con¬ taining the teaching of Christ, in which sense alone the term combines W’ith the other terms ‘ Law and Prophets,’ which denote wnlings; and, together with them, admit of the verb ‘ teacheth ’ in the present tense. Then, that these writings were some or all of the books of the New Testament, is rendered probable from hence, that in the fragments of his works, which are preserved in Eusebius, and in a writer of the ninth century, enough, thoug:h it be little, is left to show', that Hegesippus expressed divers things in the style of the Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles; that he referred to the his¬ tory in the second chapter of Matthew, and recited a text of that Gospel as spoken by our Lord. IX. At this time, viz. about the year 170, the churches of Lyons and Vienne, in France, sent a relation of the sufferings of their martyrs to the churches of Asia and Phrygia.t The epistle is pre¬ served entire by Eusebius. And what carries in some measure the testimony of these churches to a higher age, is, that they had now hath said,’ intending to quote the words of God, or rather the sense of those words, in Ezekiel; and that some transcriber, imagining these to he the words of Christ, inserted in his copy the addition ‘ Jesus Christ. Vol. i. p. .539. * Larduer, Cred. vol. i. p. 314. t Ibid. p. 333. go Paley's View of the for their bishop, Pothinus, who was ninety years old, and wh^e early life consequently must have immediately joined on with Je times of the apostles. In this epistle are exact references to the Gospel of Luke and John, and to the Acts of the Apostles; the form of reference the same as in all the P^eeeding articles. That fiom Saint John is in these words; ‘Then was fulfilled that which wus spoken by the Lord, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth God service.’* ^ i t X. The evidence now opens upon us full and clear. Irensust succeeded Pothinus as bishop of Lyons. In his youth he had been a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. In the time in which he lived, he was distant not much more than a century from the publication of the Gospels; in his instruction, only by one step separated from the persons of the apostles. He asserts of hira- elf and his contemporaries, that they were able to reck«m up, in all the principal churches, the succession of bishops from the first.; I remark these particulars concerning Irenaeus with more formality than usual; because the testimony which this writer affords to the historical books of the New Testament, to their authority, and to the titles which they bear, is express, positive, and exclusive. Une principal passage, in which this testimony is contained, opens with a precise assertion of the point which we have laid down as the fouridation of our argument, viz, that the story which the Gospels exhibit, is the story which the apostles told. ‘ We have not recen ed, saith Irenaeus, ‘ the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any others than those by whom the gospel has been brought to us. Which Gospel they first preached, and afterward, by the will of God, committed to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of our faith. For after that our Lord rose from the dead, and they (the apostles) were endowed from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they re¬ ceived a perfect knowledge of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the blessing of heavenlv peaces having all of them, and every one, alike, the Gospel of God. Matthew then, among the Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own lan- euaee, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel at Ronie, and founding a church there: and after their exit, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things that had been preached by Peter; and Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterward John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast he likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus in Asia’ If any modern divine should write a book upon the genuineness of the Gospels, he could not assert it more expressly, or state their original more distinctly, than Iremeus hath done withm little more than a hundred years after they were published. The correspondency, in the days of Irenaeus, of the oral amt * John xvi. 2. J Adv. HiEres. 1. iii. c. 3. I Larilner, vol. i. p. 344. Evidences of Christianity. 81 n'ritten tradition, and the deduction of the oral tradition through various channels from the age of the apostles, which was then lately- passed, and, by consequence, the probability that the books truly delivered what the apostles taught, is inferred also with strict regu¬ larity from another passage of his works. ‘The tradition of the apostles,’ this father saith, ‘ hath spread itself over the whole uni¬ verse; and all they, who search after the sources of truth, will find this tradition to be held sacred in every church. We might enu¬ merate all those who have been appointed bishops to these churches by the apostles, and all their successors up to our days. It is by this uninterrupted succession that we have received the tradition which actually exists in the church, as also the doctrines of truth, as it was preached by the apostles.’* The reader will observe upon this, that the same Irenasus, who is now stating the strength and uniformity of the tradition, we have before seen recognizing, in the fullest manner, the authority of the written records; from which we are entitled to conclude, that they were then conformable to each other. I have said, that the testimony of Irenaeus in favor of our Gospels is exclusive of all others. 1 allude to a remarkable passage in his works, in which, for some reasons sufficiently fanciful, he endeavors to show, that there could be neither more nor fewer Gospels than four. With his argument we have no concern. The position itself proves that four, and only four. Gospels were at that time publicly read and acknowledged. That these were our Gospels, and in the state in which we now have them, is shown, from many other places of this writer beside that which we have already alleged. He mentions how Matthew begins his Gospel, how Mark begins and ends his, and their supposed reasons for so doing. He enumerates at length the several passages of Christ’s history in Luke, which are not found in any of the other evangelists. He states the particular design with which Saint John composed his Gospel, and accounts for the doctrinal declarations which precede the narrative. To the book of the Acts of'the Apostles, its author, and credit, the testimony of Irenjeus is not less explicit. Referring to the ac¬ count of Saint Paul’s conversion and vocation, in the ninth chapter of that book, ‘Nor can they,’ says he, meaning the parties with whom he argues, ‘ show that he is not to be credited, who has re¬ lated to us the truth with the greatest exactness.’ In another place, he has actually collected the several texts, in which the writer of the history is represented as accompanying Saint Paul; which leads him to deliver a summary of almost the whole of the last twelve chapters of the book. In an author thus abounding with references and allusions to the Scriptures, there is not one to any apocryphal Christian writing whatever. This is a broad line of distinction betw'een our sacred books, and the pretensions of all others. The force of the testimony of the period which W'e have consid¬ ered, is greatly strengthened by the observation, that it is the testi- * Iren, in Hxv. I. iii. c. 3. 02 Foley'’s View of the tius at Antioch, Polycarp at Smyrna, Justin Alartyr in Sy , "'f rSmi.&e„agoras and Theophilaa, Hved abon, ,Ha rvTdonfXA^rMVthewa^^^ rukrcwbicl considering the nature of »mPOs. W were addressed to heathen readers, is as much as cuuld be expec _^ U observing also, that the works of two learned CViristian wiitem w the same a'^'e Miltiades and Panteenus,t are now lost, of whi Mdtkdes Euseb us records, that his writings ‘ were monuments of zSor the divine oracles;’ and which Pantenus, as Jerome te«ti- fips was a man of prudence and learning, both in the divine Scrip tures and secular hterature, and had left the Holy Scriptures then extant; passing by these without mme nt the distance of only sixteen years, and therefore may be sa.id tSSj;nS‘rJXfn.ofn an uninterrrjp.od — In certain of Clement’s works now lost, parts are recited by Eusebius, there is given a d^^tmct account ceived and rehed upon; and that the dates, occasions, 'tndjJ'icum- remain the four Gospels are repeatedly quoted by the names 5nhL and the Acts of the Apostles is expressly ascribed to Luke. In one place, after mentioning a particular rnrcumstance, he adds these remarkable words : ‘We have not 'his passage ^ four Gospch delivered to ys, but in that 'i’^otS^d all Vnifh nets a marked distinction between the four Gospels anu an other histories, or pretended histories, of Christ. In q g. his works the perfect confidence with which he received the Go^ pels °s s gn fie§ by these words: ‘That this is true, appeata from Ke thit it was written in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, and again, ‘ I need not use many words, but only to allege t gelic voice of the Lord.’ His quotations are tiumeroiis^ The my in knowledged the same authority of Scripture. In his time, which the reader will remember was about one hundred and fifty years after the Scriptures were published, many dissensions subsisted amongst Christians, wdth which they were reproached by Celsus, yet Origen, who has recorded this accusation without contradicting it, nevertheless testifies, that the four Gospels were received with¬ out dispute, by the w'hole church of God under heaven.tt VIII. Paul of Samosata, about thirty years after Origen, so distin¬ guished himself in the controversy concerning the nature of Christ, as to be the subject of two councils or synods, assembled at Antioch upon his opinions. Yet he is not charged Iw his adversaries vyith rejecting any book of the New Testament. On the contrary, Epiph- anius, who wrote a history of heretics a hundred years afterward, says, that Paul endeavored to support his doctrine by texts of Scrip¬ ture. And Vincentius Lirinensis, a. d. 434, speaking of Paul and other heretics of the same age, has these words: ‘ Here, perhaps,- some one may ask, whether heretics also urge the testimony of Scripture. They urge it indeed, explicitly and vehemently for you may see them flying through every book of the sacred law.’H IX. A controversy at the same time existed with the Noetians or Sabellians, who seem to have gone into the opposite extreme from hat of Paul of Samosata and his followers. Yet, according to the xpress testimony of Epiphanius, Sabellius received all the Scrip¬ tures. And with both sects Catholic writers constantly allege the * Lardner, vol. ix. ed. 1788, p. 455. X Ib. 348. II Ib. 433. ** Ib. vol. iii. p 46. Ib. vol. xi. p. 158. t Ib. 482. § Ib. 4 : 3 . IT Ib. 466. tt Ib. vol. iv. p. 642. Evidences of Christianity. 101 ^riptures, and reply to the arguments which their opponents drew from particular texts. We have here, therefore, a proof, that parties, wdio were the most opposite and irreconcilable to one another, acknowledged the au¬ thority of Scripture with equal deference. ^ general testimony to the same point, may be pro¬ duced what was said by one of the bishops of the council of Car- holden a little before this time,—* I am of opinion that the blasphemous and wicked heretics, who pervert the sacred and adorable words of the Scriptures, should be execrated.’* Un¬ doubtedly what they perverted they received. VI. The Millennium, Novatianism, the baptism of heretics, the keeping of Easter, engaged also the attention and divided the opin- lons of Christians, at and before that time (and, by the way, it may be observed, that such disputes, though on some accounts to be plained, showed how much men were in earnest upon the subject): yet every oim appealed for the grounds of his opinion to Scripture authority. Dionysius of Alexandria, who flourished a. d. 247, de¬ scribing a conference or public disputation with the Millennarians ^ confesses of them, though their adversary, * that they em- wace whatever could be made out by good arguments from the Holy Scriptures, t Novatus, a. b. 251, distinguished by some rigid sentiments concerning the reception of those who had lapsed, and me munder of a numerous sect, in his few remaining works quotes me Cospel with the same respect as other Christians did; and con¬ cerning his followers, the testimony of Socrates, who wrote about me year 440, is positive, viz. ‘That in the disputes between the uamolics and them, each side endeavored to support itself by the aulhonty of the Divine Scriptures. Th® Donatists, who sprung up in the year 328, used the same Scriptures as we do. * Produce (saith Augustine) some proof whose authority is common to us both.’§ H. It IS perfectly notorious tliat, in the Arian controversy, which arose soon after the year 300, both sides appealed to the ^me Scriptures, and with equal professions of deference and regard. , .f Arians, m their council of Antioch, a. d. 341, pronounce, that, } contrary to the sound doctrine of the Scriptures, say, lat the ^n is a creature, as one of the creatures, let him be an anathema.’ll They and the Athanasians mutually accuse each other Of using unscriptural phrases; which was a mutual acknowledg¬ ment of the conclusive authority of Scripture. XIV. The Priscillianists, a. d. 378,V the Pelagians, a. d. 405,** re¬ ceived the same Scriptures as we do. XV. The testimony of Chrysostom, w’ho lived near the year 400, IS so positive in affirmation of the proposition which we maintain, * Lardner, vol. xi. p. 839. 1 Ib. vol. v. p. 105. i Ib. p. 277. ** Jb. vol. xi. p. 52. t Ib. vol. iv. p. 666. § Ib. vol. vii. p. 243. IT Ib. vol. ix. p. 325. I 2 102 Paley^s View of the that it may form a proper conclusion of the argument. ‘ The gene¬ ral reception of the Gospels is a proof that their history is true and consistent; for, since the writings of the Gospels, many heresies have arisen, holding opinions contrary to what is contained in them, who yet received the Gospels either entire or m part. I ^m not moved by what may seem a deduction from Chrysostom s testimony, the words, ‘ entire or in part;’ for, if all the parts, questioned in our Gospels, were given up, it would not affect the miraculous origin of the religion in the smallest degree: e.g. Cerinthus is said by Epiphanius to have received the Gospel ot Matthew, but not entire. What the omissions were, does not a^ pear. The common opinion, that he rejected the first two chaptere, seems to have been a mistake.t It is aped, howpr, by all who have aiven any account of Cerinthus, that he taught that the ply Ghost (whether he meant by that name a person or a power) de¬ scended upon Jesus at his baptism; that- Jesus from this time per¬ formed many miracles, and that he appeared after his dea . must have retained therefore the essential parts of the history. Of all the ancient heretics, the most extraordinary was Marcion.J One of his tenets was the rejection of the Old Testament, as pro¬ ceeding from an inferior and imperfect deity: and in pursuance ot this hypothesis he erased from the New, and that, as it should seem, without entering into any critical reasons, every passage which re¬ cognized the Jewish Scriptures. He spared not a text which con¬ tradicted his opinion. It is reasonable to believe that Marcion treated books as he treated texts; yet this rash and vvild controver¬ sialist published a recension, or chastised edition, ol Saint l^uhe s Gospel, containing the leading facts, and allwhich is ssary ^ authenticate the religion. This example affords proof, that there were always some points, and those the mam points, whicm neither wildness nor rashness, neither the fury of op^sition nor the intem¬ perance of controversy, would venture to call in quespn. there is no reason to believe that Marcion, though full of resenmpt against the Gatholic Christians, ever charged them with forges their books. ‘ The Gospel of Saint Matthew, the Epistle to the brews, with those of Saint Peter and Saint James, as well as the Old Testament in general (he said), were writings not for Chrishans but for Jews.’§ This declaration shows the ground upon lyhich Marcion proceeded in his mutilation of the Scnptures, viz. his dis¬ like of the passages or the books. Marcion flourished about the year 130. . , • . j r • Dr. Lardner, in his general Review, sums up this heim or evi¬ dence in the following words. ‘Noetus, Paul of Samosata, babelhus. * Lardner, vol. x. p. 316. t R*. vol. ix. ed. 1788, p. 32». t Ib. sect. ii. c. x. Also Michael, vol.i. c. i. sect, xviii. • S I have transcribed this sentence from Michaelis (p. 38), who has no , however, referred to the authority upon which he attributes these words to Marcion. I Evidences of Christianity. 103 Marcellus, Photinus, the Novatians, Donatists, ManicheansPriscil- Jianists, beside Artemon, the Audians, the Arians, and divers others ® of ^he New Testament which the Catholics received ; and agreed in a like respect for them as written by apostles, or their disciples and companions.’+ " SECT. VIII. The four G^pels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of Saint ram, the First Epistle of John, and the First of Peter, were received without doubt by those who doubted concerning the other boohs which are included in our present canon. I STATE this poposition, because, if made out, it shows that the authenticity of their books was a subject amongst the early Chris¬ tians of consideration and inquiry; and that, where there was cause ot doubt, they did doubt; a circumstance which strengthens verv much their testimony to such books as were received by them with hill acquiescence. L Jerome, in his accqunt of Caius, who was probably a presbyter ot Kome, and who flourished near the year 200, records of him, that reckoning up only thirteen epistles of Paul, he says the fourteenth, which IS inscnbed to the Hebrews, is not his : and then Jerome adds. With the Komans to this day it is not looked upon as Paul’s.’ This agrees in the mam with the account'given by Eusebius of the same ancient author and his work; except that Eusebius delivers his cwn remark in more guarded terms: ‘And indeed to this very time by srnne oi the Romans, this epistle is not thought to be the apostle’s.’f , ff• Crigen, about twenty years after Caius, quoting the Epistle to e Hebrews, observes that some might dispute the authority of that epistle; and therefore proceeds to quote to the same point, as un- doubted books of Scripture, the Gospel of Saint Matthew, the Acts 9 he Apostles, and Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians.§ And in anothm place, tliis apthor speaks of the Epistle to the Hebrews us. ‘ The account come down to us is various; some sapng that Uemenr, who was bishop of Rome, wrote this epistle; others, that It was Luke, the same who wrote the Gospel and the Acts.’ Speak¬ ing also, in the saine paragraph, of Peter, ‘ Peter (says he) has left one epistle, acknowledged; let it be granted likewise that he wrote a second, for it is doubted of’ And of John, ‘ He has also left one epistle, of a very few lines; grant also a second and a third, for all do not allow them to be genuine.’ Now let it be noted, that Origen, WHO thus discriminates, and thus confesses his own doubts, and the lat* as theyear^^r^^^ exception, however, of Faustus, who lived so Lardner’s future inquiries supplied him vviin many other instances, t Lardner, vol. iii. p. 240. § Ib. p. 246. 104 Paletfs View of the doubts which subsisted in his time, expressly witnesses conceming the four Gospels, ‘ that they alone are received without dispute by the whole church of God under heaven. III. Dionysius of Alexandria, in the year 247, doi^ts conceming the book of Revelation, whether it was written by Saint John, states the o-rounds of his doubt, represents the diversity of opinion concemml it in his own time, and before his time.t Yet the same Dionysius nses and collates the four Gospels tn a manner whteh shows that he entertained not the smallest suspicion of t/teir au¬ thority, and in a manner also which shov^ that they, and t ey a o , were received as authentic histories of Christ.! _ , IV. But this section may be said to have been framed on purpose to introduce to the reader two remarkable passages extant in Guse- bius’s Ecclesiastical History. The first passage opens with tliese words‘ Let us observe the writings of the apostle John which are unconlradicted ; and first of all must be mentioned, as acknow edged of all, the Gospel according to him, well known to all the churches under heaven.’ The author then proceeds to writing the Gosnels, and the reason for placing Saint John s the last, manifestly speaking of all the four as parallel in their authority, and in the certainty of their original.^ The second passage is taken from a chapter, the title of which is, ‘Of thaScriptures universally acknowledged, and of those that are not such. Eusebius begins his enumeration in the following m^naev:-‘In the first place to be ranked the sacred four Gospels; then the book of the Acts of he Apostles; after that are to be reckoned the ppistles of Paul. In the next place, that called the First Epistle of John, and the Epistle of Peter, are to be esteemed authentic. After this is to be placed, if it be thought fit, the Revelation of John, about which we shall observe the different opinions at proper seasons. Of the oonhoyerted, but vet well known or approved by the most, are, Aat cahed the Epist iif James, and that of Jude, and the Second of Peter, and the Second and Third of John, whether they are w'ritten by the evangelist, or another of the same name.’ll He then proceeds to reckon up five others, not in our canon, which he calls in one place spurious, m another controverted, meaning, as appears to me, nearly the same thing by these two words.V , t- r^ ^ i + 1 , a /.fe¬ lt is manifest from this passage, that the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Vpostles (the parts of Scripture with which our concern cipally lies), wgre acknowledged without dispute, even by those who raised objections, or entertained doubts, about some other parts * Lavdner, vol. ii. p. 234. ... J Jb- yoy v. p. 670. t Ib p. 661. § Ib. vol. vni. p. 90. || Ib. p. 39. IFThL Eusebius could not intend, by the word ’ what we at present mean by it, is evident from a clause 111 ^bis very chap ter where speaking of the Gospels of Peter, and Thomas, and Matthias Ind some others, he says, ‘ They are not s'? Je recko^^ the spurious, but are to be rejected as altogether absurd and impious, Vol. viii. p. 98. 105 Evidences of Christianity. of the same collection. But the passage proves something more than this. The author was extremely conversant in the writings of Christians, which had been published from the commencement of the institution to his own time: and it was from these writings that he drew his knowledge of the character and reception of the books in question. That Eusebius recurred to this medium of information, and that he had examined with attention this species of proof, is shown, first, by a passage in the very chapter we are quoting, in which, speaking of the books which he calls spurious, ‘ None (says he) of the ecclesiastical writers, in the succession of the apostles have vouchsafed to make-any mention of them in their writings; and, secondly, by another passage of the same work, wherein, speak¬ ing of the First Epistle of Peter, ‘ This (says he) the presbyters of pcient times have quoted in their writings as undoubtedly genu¬ ine and then, speaking of some other writings bearing the name of Peter, ‘ We know (he says) that they have not been delivered down to us in the number of Catholic writings, forasmuch as no ecclesiastical writer of the ancients, or of our times, has made use of testimonies out of them.’ ‘ But in the progress of this history,’ the author proceeds, w'e shall make it our business to show, to¬ gether with the successions from the apostles, what ecclesiastical writers, in every age, have used such writings as these which are contradicted, and what they have said with regard to the Scriptures received in the New Testament, and acknowledged hy all, and with regard to those which are not such.’t After this it is reasonable to believe, that when Eusebius states the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, as uncontradicted, imcontested, and acknowdedged by all; and when he places them in opposition, not only to those which were spurious, in our sense of that term, but to those which were controverted, and even to those which w'ere well known and approved by many, yet doubted of by some; he represents not only the sense of his own age, but the result of the evidence which the writings of prior ages, from the apostle’s time to his own, had furnished to his inquiries. The opinion of Eusebius and his contemporaries appears to have been founded upon the testimony of writers whom they then called ancient: and we may observe, that such of the works of these writers as have come dowm to our times, entirely confirm the judg¬ ment, and support the distinction, which Eusebius proposes. The books which he calls ‘books universally acknowledged,’ are in fact used and quoted in the remaining works of Christian writers, during in^e two hundred and fifty years between the apostles’ time and that of Eusebius, much more frequently than, and in a different manneir from, those, the authority of which, he tells us, was disputed. * Lardner, vol. viii. p. 99. 23 t Ib. p. 111. 106 Paley^s View of the SECT. IX. founded. Near the middle of the second century, Celsus a rtv‘iTo;7»oiiSL"i,Trrn Siat Chrysostom, two centuries afterword, observed, that tire L.os sXX'XwerTradXX all^ iSaSSSixr calls it, a mere oratorical flourish. ^ Celsus' It is sufficient, however, to P^’oy^’™ Uten bv th. there were books well known, and allowed to r-v, Ru thi Xles of Jesus, which books -stained o Bf A; STfXeXX sssS„rX" ♦ Ori" cont. Cels. 1. i. sect. xli. t In Mn«. Horn. 1. 7. t Lardner, Jewish and Heathen Test vol. u. p. 274. Evidences of Christianity. 107 the'GoroT*'’Th»TJ‘®®’ Christians of altering S r ^ accusation refers to some variations in the read¬ ings of particular passages; for Celsus goes on to object, that when they Pressed hard, and one reading has been confuted, they dis¬ own that, and fly to another. We cannot perceive from Origei/ that caflmi^ thp^^fparticular instances, and without such specifi¬ cation the charge is of no value. But the true conclusion to be torir^wS'there were in the hands of the Christians, his tones, which were even then of some standing; for, various read mgs and corruptions do not take place in recen! production^ Kprit quotation, the reader will remember, proves that these t}?p composed by the disciples of Jesus, strictly so called • the present quotation shows, that, though objections were taken bv lerfmSm In'? ^ books non? were made to their genuineness. 3. In a third passage, the Jew, whom Celsus introduces shuts nn an argument m this manner These things then we Sve alllgS It rmardfe°s^ fh?‘hv"h“”'f “I any other weaponl’t U IS manliest that this boast proceeds upon the supposition that the teoks, over which tlm writer affects to triumph, pLsessed an au- ^r?ha^t flm ho confessed themselves to be bmind. 4. l hat the books to which Celsus refers were no other than our present Gospels, ^ made out by his allusions to various passages sf 11 found in these Gospels. Celsus takes notice of the^SS which fixes two of these Gospels; of the precepts, Resfst notS dioHon! °ther also,t of the woes denounced by Christ; of his pre- dictions, of his saying, that it is impossible to serve two masters ;$ nf t f be the crown of thorns, and the reed in his S • of he blood that flowed from the body of Jesus upon thT croi |i omi foTIh?^^® recorded by John alone; and (what is insfar ^nmm for the purpose for w^hich we produce it) of the difference n the accounts given of the resurrection by the evangelists some mentioning two angels at the sepulchre, others only on^H it is extremely material to remark, that Celsus not only perpetu S'^ bn?tha?h ® accounts of Christ contained in the^four Gos that he referred to no other, accounts; that he founded spurious Gosp^r^'"''^ Christianity upon any thing delivered in century, Porphyry became in ■he ChrktG?^^ '^’bich was a large and formal treatise against o religion, is not extant. We must be content therefore o gather his objections from Christian writers, who have noticed in + and Heathen Test. vol. ii. p. 275. t Ib n 27fi U%i‘ . §Ib.p.277. II Ib. p. 280,^281 U Ib p ected only a few, are w?!! col- 108 Paleifs VieiD of the orfer to answer them; formation, to prove ““f „„ Snt Gospels, and of “ -erthrow the Acts of the Apostles, p y y objects to the repeti- them was to overthrow the re ^ • genealoo-y; to Matthew’s tion of a general,on m Samt Matthew s gMrder of Felix, and the accession of Ismael who was invested with ;he high-priesthood by Agrippa; and precisely in this interval it happened that Saint Paul was apprehended, and brought before .he Jewish council. XXIII. [p. 323.] Matt. xxvi. 59. ‘Now the chief priests and slders, and all the council, sought false witness against him.’ Joseph. Aatiq. lib. xviii. c. 15. sect. 3, 4. ‘ Then might be seen ihe high-priests themselves, with ashes on their heads, and their breasts naked.’ The agreement here consists in speaking of the high-priests or chief priests (for the name in the original is the same) in the plural number, when, in strictness, there was only one high-priest: which may be considered as a proof, that the evangelists were habituated to the manner of speaking then in use, because they retain it when it is neither accurate nor just. For the sake of brevity, I have put iowm, from Josephus, only a single example of the application of this title in the plural number; but it is his usual style. Ib. [p. 871.] Luke iii. 1. ‘ Now’ in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Hei-od being tetrarch of Galilee, Annas and Caiaphas being the high- priests, the word of God came unto John.’ There is a passage in Josephus very nearly paimllel to this, and which may at least serve to vindicate the evangelists from objection, with respect to his giv¬ ing the title of high-priest specificallv to two persons at the same lime : ‘ Quadratus sent two others of the most powerful men of the Jews, as also the high-priesls Jonathan and Ananias.'* That Annas was a person in an eminent station, and possessed an authority co- ordijiate with, or next to, that of the high-priest properly so called, may be inferred from Saint John’s Gospel, which, in the history of Clirisi’s crucifixion, relates that ‘ the soldiers led him away to Annas first.’t And this might be noticed as an example of undesigned coincidence in the two evangelists. Again, [p. 870.] Acts iv. 6. Annas is called the high-priest, though Caiaphas w as in the office of the high-priesthood. In like manner, in Josephus,]; Joseph the son of Goi’ion, and the high-priest Ananus, were chosen to be supreme governors of all things in the city.’ Yet Ananus, though here called the high-priest Ananus, was not then in the office of the high priesthood. The truth is, there is an indeterminateness in the use of this title in the Gospel: some¬ times it is applied exclusively to the person who held the office at the time ; sometimes to one or two more, who probably shared with him some of the powers or functions of the office; and, sometimes, to such of the priests as w ere eminent by their station or character ;§ and there is the very same indeterminateness in Josephus. XXIV. [p. 347.] John xix. 19, 20. ‘And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. That such was the custom of the Romans on these occasions, appears from passages of Suetonius and Dio Cas- ]■ xviii. 13. 5 Mark xiv, 53. Q2 * De Bell. lib. ix. c. 12. sect. 6. J Lib. ii. c. 20. sect. 3. 28 186 Paleifs View of the sius: ‘Patrem familias—canibus objecit, cum hoc titulo, Impielocu- m? parmularius.’ Suet. Domit. cap. x. And in Dio Cassius we ha\e the following: ‘.Having led him through the midst of the court or assembly, with a writing signifying the cause of his death, and afterward crucifying him.’ Book liv. Ib. ‘ And it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.’ That it was also usual about this time, in Jerusalem, to set up advertise¬ ments in different languages, is gathered from the account which Josephus gives of an expostulatory message from Titus to the Jews, when the city was almost in his- hands; in which he says. Did ye not erect pillars with inscriptions on them, in the Greek and in our language, ‘ Let no one pass beyond these bounds.’ XxV. [p. 352.] Matt, xxvii. 26. ‘When he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.’ The following passages occur in Josephus: ‘ Being beaten, they were crucified opposite to the citadel.’* ‘Whom, \iSL\xngjirst scourged with whips, he crucified.’t ‘ He was burnt alive, having been first beaten'X To which may be added one from Livy, lib. xi. c. 5. ‘ Productique omnes, virgisque ccesi, ac securi percussi.’ A modern example may illustrate the use we make of this in¬ stance. The preceding, of a capital execution by the corporal pun ishment of the sufferer, is a practice unknown in England, bu retained, in some instances at least, as appears by the late executior of a regicide, in Sweden. This circumstance, therefore, in the account of an English execution, purporting to come from an Eng lish writer, would not only bring a suspicion upon the truth of tin account, but would, in a considerable degree, impeach its preten sions of having been written by the author whose name it bore Whereas the same circumstance, in the account of a Swedish exe cution, would verify the account, and support the authenticity of th< book in which it w'as found; or, at least, w'ould prove that the au thor, whoever he was, possessed the information and the knowledgt which he ought to possess. XXVI. [p. 353.] John xix. 16. ‘ And they took Jesus, and led hin away; and he, bearing his cross, went forth,’ Plutarch, De iis qui sero puniuntur. p. 554: a Paris, 1624. ‘ Ever kind of wickedness produces its own particular torment, just a every malefactor, when he is brought forth to execution carries hi own cross.’ XXVII. John xix. 32. ‘ Then came the soldiers, and brake the leg of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.’ Constantine abolished the punishment of the cross; in commenc ing which edict, a heathen writer notices this very circumstance o breaking the legs: ‘E6 pius, ut etiam vetus yeterrimumque suppl cium, patibulum, et cruribus suffringendis, primus reraoverit.’ Au Viet. Ces. cap. xli. * P. 1247, edit. 24. Huds t P. 1327, edit. 43. t P. 1080, edit. 45. Evidences of Christianity. 187 XXVIII. [p. 457.] Acts iii. 1. ‘Now Peter and John went up to¬ gether into the temple, at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.’ Joseph. Antiq. lib. xv. c. 7. sect. 8. ‘ Twice every day, in the morn¬ ing and at the ninth hour, the priests perform their duty at the altar.’ XXIX. [p. 462.] Acts XV. 21. ‘ For Moses, of old time, hath, in every city, them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day.' Joseph, contra Ap. 1. ii. ‘ He (Moses) gave us the law; the most excellent of all institutions; nor did he appoint that it should be heard once only, or twice, or often, but that laying aside all other works, we should meet together every week to hear it read, and gain a perfect understanding of it.’ XXX. [p. 465.] Acts xxi. 23. ‘We have four men, which have a vow on them; them take, and purify thyself with them, that they may shave their heads' Joseph, de Bell. 1. xi. c. 15. ‘ It is customary for those who have been afflicted with some distemper, or have labored under any other difficulties, to make a vow thirty days before they offer sacrifices, to abstain from wine, and shave the hair of their heads' Ib. V. 24. ‘ Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges ivith them, that they may shave their heads.' Joseph. Antiq. 1. xix. c. 6. ‘He (Herod Agrippa) coming to Jerusa¬ lem, offered up sacrifices of thanksgiving, and omitted nothing that was prescribed by the law. For wdiich reason he also ordered a good number of Nazarites to be shaved.' We here find that it w’as an act of piety amongst the Jews, to defray for those w’ho were under the Nazarite vow the expenses which attended its completion; and that the phrase was, ‘ that they might be shaved.’ The custom and the expression are both remarkable, and both in close conformity with the Scripture account. XXXI. [p. 474.] 2 Cor. xi. 24. ‘Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes, save one.' Joseph. Antiq. iv. c. 8. sect. 21. ‘ He that acts contrary hereto, let him receive forty stripes, wanting one, from the public officer.’ The coincidence here is singular, because the law allowed forty stripes:—‘Forty stripes he may give him, arid not exceed.’ Deut. XXV. 3. It proves that the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was guided, not by books, but by facts; because his statement agrees with the actual custom, even when that custom deviated from the written law, and from what he must have learnt by consulting the Jewish code, as set forth in the Old Testament. XXXII. [p. 490.] Luke iii. 12. ‘ Then came also publicans to be baptized.’ From this quotation, as well as from the histo^ of Levi or Matthew (Luke v. 29.) and of Zaccheus, (Luke xix. 2.) it appears, that the publicans or tax-gatherers were, frequently, at least, if not always, Jew's: which, as the country was then under a Roman gov¬ ernment, and the taxes were paid to the Romans, was a circum¬ stance not to be expected. That it was the truth however of the case, appears, from a short passage of Josephus. De Bell. lib. li. c. 14. sect. 45. ‘But, Florus not restraining these 188 Paley's View of the practices by his authority, the chief men of the Jews, among whom was John the publican, not knowing well what course to take, wait upon Florus, and give him eight talents of silver to stop the building.’ XXXIII. [p. 496.] Acts xxii. 25. ‘ And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned ? ’ ‘ Facinus est vinciri civera Romanum; scelus verberari.’ Cic. in Verr. ‘ Csedebatur virgis, in medio foro Messanas, civis Romanus, Judi- ■ ces: cum interea nullus gemitus, nulla vox alia, istius miseri inter dolorem crepitumque plagarum audiebatur, nisi haac, Civis Romanus sum' XXXIV. [p. 513.] Acts xxii. 27. ‘Then the chief captain came, and said unto him (Paul), Tell me, art thou a Roman ? He said, Yea.’ The circumstance here to be noticed is, that a Jew was a Roman citizen. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xiv. c. 10. sect. 13. ‘ Lucius Lentulus, the consul declared, I have dismissed from the service the Jewish Roman citi zens, who observe the rites of the Jewish religion at Ephesus.’ Ib. V. 28. ‘ And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom' Dio Cassius, lib. lx. ‘ This privilege, which had been bought for¬ merly at a great price, became so cheap, that it was commonly said, a man might be made a Roman citizen for a few pieces of broken glass.’ XXXV. [p. 521.] Acts xxviii. 16. ‘And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard; but Paul w'as suffered to dwell by himself, with a soldier that hept him.' With which join ver. 20. ‘ For the hope of Israel, I am bound with this chain.' ‘ Quemadmodiim eadem catena et custodiam et militem copulat; sic ista, quEe tarn dissimilia sunt, pariter incedunt.’ Seneca, Ep. v. ‘ Proconsul sestimare solet, utrum in carcerem recipienda sit per¬ sona, an militi tradenda.' Ulpian, 1. i. sect. De Custod. et Exhib. Reor. In the confinement of Agrippa by the order of Tiberius, Antonia managed, that the centurion who presided over the guards, and the soldier to whom Agrippa was to he bound, might be men of mild char¬ acter. (Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. c. 7. sect. 5.) After the accession of Caligula, Agrippa also, like Paul, was suffered to dwell, yet as a prisoner, in his own house. XXXVI. [p. 531.] Acts xxvii. 1. ‘ And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul, and certain other prisoners, unto one named Julius.’ Since not only Paul but certain other prisoners were sent by the same ship into Italy, the text must be considered as carrying with it an intimation, that the sending of persf)ns from Judea to be tried at Rome, was an ordinary practice. That in truth it was so, is made out by a variety of examples which the writings of Josephus furnish; and, amongst others, by the fol Evidences of Christianity. 189 owing, which comes near both to the time and the subject of the nstance in the Acts. ‘ Felix, for some slight offence, hound and sent 0 Rome several priests of his acquaintance, and very good and lonest men, to answer for themselves to Caesar.’ Joseph, in Vit. ect. 3. XXXVII. [p. 539.] Acts xi. 27. ‘ And in these days came prophets i-om Jerusalem unto Antioch; and there stood up one of them lamed Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be a [reat dearth throughout all the world (or all the country); which ■ame to pass in the days of Claudius Ccesar.’ Joseph. Antiq. 1. xx. c. 4. sect. 2. ‘ In their time (i. e. about the ifth or sixth year of Claudius) a great dearth happened in Judea.’ XXXVIII. [p. 555.] Acts xviii. 1, 2. ‘Because that Claudius had lommanded all Jews to depart from Rome.’ Suet. Claud, c. xxv. ‘ Judasos, impulsore Chresto assidue tumul- uantes, Roma expuht.’ XXXIX. [p. 664.] Acts v. 37. ‘After this man, rose up Judas of Jalilee, in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after lim.’ Joseph, de Bell. 1. vii. ‘ He (viz. the person who in another place s called, by Josephus, Judas the Galilean or Judas of Galilee) per¬ suaded not a few not to enrol themselves, when Cyrenius the Cen¬ sor was sent into Judea.’ XL. [p. 942.] Acts xxi. 38. ‘ Art not thou that Egyptian which, jefore these days, madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wil- lerness four thousand men that were murderers ?’ Joseph, de Bell. 1. ii. c. 13. sect. 5. ‘But the Egyptian false prophet brought a yet heavier disaster upon the Jews; for this im- xsstor, coming into the country, and gaining the reputation of a jrophet, gathered together thirty thousand men, w'ho were deceived ty him. Having brought them round out of the wilderness, up to he mount of Olives, he intended from thence to make his attack ipon Jerusalem; but Felix, coming suddenly upon him with the Roman soldiers, prevented the attack.’—A great number, (or as it should rather be rendered) the greatest part of those that were with lim, were either slain or taken prisoners. In these two passages, the designation of this impostor, an ‘ Egyp- ian,’ without the proper name; ‘ the wilderness;’ his escape, hough his followers were destroyed ; the time of the transaction, n the presidentship of Felix, which could not be any long time be- bre the words in Luke are supposed to have been spoken; are cir- mmstances of close correspondency. There is one, and only one, wint of disagreement, and that is, in the number of his followers, vhich in the Acts are called four thousand, and by Josephus thirty housand: but, beside that the names of numbers, more than any )ther words, are liable to the errors of transcribers, we are, in the iresent instance, under the less concern to reconcile the evangelist vith Josephus, as Josephus is not, in this point, consistent withhim- elf. For whereas, in the passages here quoted, he calls the number hirty thousand, and tells us that the greatest part, or a great num- 190 Paley^s View of the ber (according as his words are rendered), of those that were with him, were destroyed; in his Antiquities, lie represents four hundred to have been killed upon this occasion, and two hundred taken prisoners :* w’hich certainly was not the ‘ greatest part,’ nor ‘ a great part,’ nor ‘ a great number,’ out of thirty thousand. It is probable also, that Lysias and Josephus spoke of the expedition in its different stages: Lysias, of those who followed the Egyptian out of Jerusa¬ lem : Josephus, of all who were collected about him afterward, from different quarters. XLI. (Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vql. iii. p. 21.) Acts xvii. 22. ‘ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars-hill, and said. Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too supersti¬ tious ; for as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom there¬ fore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.’ Diogenes Laertius, who wrote about the year 210, in the history of Epimenides, who is supposed to have flourished nearly six hun¬ dred years before Christ, relates of him the following story: that, being invited to Athens for the purpose, he delivered the city from a pestilence in this manner;—‘Taking several sheep, some black, others white, he had them up to the Areopagus, and then let them go where they would, and gave orders to those who followed them, wherever any of them should lie down, to sacrifice it to the god to whom it belonged; and so the plague ceased.—-Hence,’ says the historian, it has come to pass, that to this present time, may he found in the boroughs of the Athenians anonymous altars ; a memorial of the expiation then made.’t These altars, it may be presumed, w^ere called anonymous, because there was not the name of any particu¬ lar deity inscribed upon them. Pausanius, who wrote before the end of the second century, in his description of Athens, having mentioned an altar of Jupiter Olympius, adds, ‘ And nigh unto it is an altar of unknown gods.'^ And in another place he speaks ‘ of altars of gods called unknown.''^ Philostratus, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, re¬ cords it as an observation of Apollonius Tyanseus, ‘ That it was wise to speak well of all the gods, especially at Athens, where altars of unknown demons were erected.’W The author of the dialogue Philopatris, by many supposed to have been Lucian, who wrote about the year 170, by others some anony¬ mous Heathen writer of the fourth century, makes Critids swear by the unknown god of Athens ; and, near the end of the dialogue, has these words, ‘ But let us find out the unknown god of Athens, and stretching our hands to heaven, offer to him our praises and thanks- givings.’H _ . This is a very curious and a very important coincidence. It ap- * Lib. 20. c. 7. sect. 6. t In Epiinenide, 1. i. segm. 110. t Pans. 1. V. p 412. § Paus. 1. i. p. 4. II Philos. Apoll. Tyan. 1. vi. c. 3. II Lucian, in Philop. tom. ii.Grsev. p. 767. 780. Evidences of Christianity. m nears beyond controversy, that altars with this inscription were ex- istinff at Athens, at the time when Saint Paul is alleged to have been there. It seems also (which is very worthy of ^servation), that this inscription was peculiar to the Athenians. There is no evidence that there were altars inscribed ‘ to the unknown god m any other country. Supposing the history of Saint Paul to l^v® a fable, how is it possible that such a writer as the author ol the Acts of the Apostles was, should hit upon a circumstance so e^raordmary, and introduce it by an allusion so suitable to Saint Paul s office and character ? The examples here collected will be sufficient, I hope, to satisfy us, that the writers of the Christian history knew something of what they were writing about. The argument is also strengthened by the following considerations:— r I. That these agreements appear, not only in articles ot public history, but sometimes, in minute, recondite, and very peculiar cir¬ cumstances, in which, of all others, a forger is most hkely to have been found tripping. , • , ^ i i c ..u. II. That the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place forty years after the commencement of the Christian institution, produced such a change in the state of the couiitry, and the condition of the Jews, that a writer who was unacquainted ynth the circumstances of the nation before that event, would find it difficult to avoid mis¬ takes, in endeavoring to give detailed accounts of transactions con¬ nected with those circumstances, forasmuch as he could no longer have a living exemplar to copy from. „ , m ^ * III. That there appears, in the writers of the New Testament, a knowledge of the affairs of those times, which we do not find in authors of later ages. In particular, ‘ many of of the second and third centuries, and of the following aps, had false notions concerning the state of Judea, between the nativity of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem.’* Therefore they could not have composed our histories. Amidst^ many conformities, we are not to wonder that we me^ with some difficulties. The principal of these I will ^n ^ gether with the solutions which they have received. Bat in dmng this, I must be contented with a brevity better suited to the hmits of my volume than to the nature of a controversial argument, for the historical proofs of my assertions, and for the Greek criticisms upon which some of them are founded, I refer the reader to the second volume of the first part of Dr. Lardner s large work. ^ I. The taxing during which Jesus was bom, was first raai^, as we read, according to our translation, m Saint Luke, ‘ whust Gyre- nius was governor of Syria.’t Now it turns out that Cyrenius was not governor of Syria until twelve, or, at the soonest, ten years after the birth of Christ; and that a taxing, census, or assessment, was * Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 960. t Chap. ii. ver. 2. 192 Paley's View of the made in Jud6a in the beginning of his government. The charge therefore, brought against the evangelist is, that, intending to refer to this taxing, he has misplaced the date of it by an error of ten or twelve years. The answer to the accusation is found in his using the word ‘ first—‘ And this taxing was first made for according to the mis¬ take imputed to the evangelist, this word could have no significa¬ tion whatever; it could have had no place in his narrative: because, let it relate to what it will, taxing, census, enrolment, or assessment, it imports that the writer had more than one of those in contempla¬ tion. It acquits him therefore of the charge: it is inconsistent with the supposition of his knowing only of the taxing in the beginning of Cyrenius’s government. And if the evangelist knew (which this word! proves that he did) of some other taxing beside that, it is too much, for the sake of convicting him of a mistake, to lay it down as certain that he intended to refer to that. The sentence in Saint Luke may be construed thus: ‘ This was the first assessment (or enrolment) of Cyrenius, governor of Syria the words ‘ governor of Syria ’ being used after the name of Cyrenius as his addition or title. And this title belonging to him at the time of writing the account, was naturally enough subjoined to his name, though acquired after the transaction which the account describes. A modern writer, who was not very exact in the choice of his ex¬ pressions, in relating the affairs of the East Indies, might easily say, that such a thing was done by Governor Hastings; though, in truth, the thing had been done by him before his advancement to the sta¬ tion from which he received the name of governor. And this, as we contend, is precisely the inaccuracy which has produced the difficulty in Saint Luke. At any rate, it appears from the form of the expression, that he had two taxings or enrolments in contemplation. And if Cyrenius had been sent upon this business into Judea, before he became gov¬ ernor of Syria (against which supposition there is no proof, but rather external evidence of an enrolment going on about this time under some person or other),t then the census, on all hands acknowledged to have been made by him in the beginning of his government. * If the word which we render ‘first,’ be rendered ‘ before,’ which it has been strongly contended that the Greek idiom allows of, the whole diffi¬ culty vanishes: for then the passage would be,—‘ Now this taxing was made before Cyrenius was governor of Syria;’ which corresponds with the chronology. But I rather choose to argue, that however the word ‘first’ be rendered, to give it a meaning at all, it militates with the objection. In this I think there can be no mistake. t Josephus (Antiq. xvii. c. 2. sect. 6,) has this remarkable passage : ‘When therefore the whole Jewish nation took an oath to be faithful to Caesar, and the interests of the king.’ This transaction corresponds in the course of the history with the time of Christ’s birth. What is called a census, and which we render taxing, was delivering upon oath an account of their property. This might be accompanied with an oath of fidelity, or might be mistaken by Josephus for it. Evidences of Christianity. 193 would form a second, so as to occasion the other to be called the first. II. Another chronological objection arises upon a date assigned in the beginning of the third chapter of Saint Luke.* * * § ‘ Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,’—Jesus began to he about thirty years of age : for, supposing Jesus to have been born, as Saint Matthew, and Saint Luke also himself, relate, in the time of Herod, he must, according to the dates given in Josephus and by the Roman historians, have been at least thirt 3 '-one years of age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. If he was born, as Saint Matthew’s nar¬ rative intimates, one or two years before Herod’s death, he would have been thirty-two or thirty-three years old at that time. This is the difficulty: the solution turns upon an alteration in the construction of the Greek. Saint Luke’s words in the original are allowed, by the general opinion of learned men, to signify, not ‘that Jesus began to be about thirty years of age,’ but ‘that he was about thirty years of age when he began his ministry.’ This construction being admitted, the adverb ‘ about’ gives us all the latitude we want, and more, especially when applied, as it is in the present instance, to a decimal number: for such numbers, even without this qualify¬ ing addition, are often used in a laxer sense than is here contended for.t III. Acts V. 36. ‘ For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to naught.’ Josephus has preserved the account of an impostor of the name of Theudas, who created some disturbances, and was slain; but according to the date assigned to this man’s appearance (in which, however, it is very possible that Josephus may have been mislakent), it must have been, at the least, seven years after Gamaliel’s speech, of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection.^ that there might be two impostors of this name: and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the same thing appears to have happened in other instances of the same kind. It is proved from Josephus, that there were not fewer than four persons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten * Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 768. t Livy, speaking of tlie peace which the conduct of Romulus had pro¬ cured to the state, during the w/ioZe reign of liis successor (Numa), hp these words :|(—‘ Ab illo enim profectis viribus datis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem habeietyet afterwaixl, in the same chapter, ‘Romulus (he says) septem et triginta regnavit annos. Numa tres et quadraginta.’ t Michaelis’s Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh’s Transla¬ tion), vol. i. p. Gl. § Lardner, part i. vol. ii. p. 922. Ii Liv. Hist. c. 1. sect. 16. R 194 Palsy’s View of the years, who were all leaders of insurrections: and it is likewise re- coi’ded by the historian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great (which agrees -very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time, ‘ before these days ’), there were innumerable disturbances in Judea.'*' Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that one of the three Judases above mentioned was Gamaliel’s Theudas^t and that with a less variation of the name than we actually find in the Gospels, where one of the twelve apostles is called, by Luke, Judas; and by Mark, Thaddeus.t Ori- gen, however he came at his information, appears to have believed that there was an impostor of the name of Theudas before the na¬ tivity of Christ.^ IV. Matt, xxiii. 34. ‘ Wherefore, behold, I send unto you propihets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and cru cify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias^ son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altarJ There is a Zacharias, whose death is related in the second book of Chronicles,11 in a manner which perfectly supports our Saviour’s allusion. But this Zacharias was the son of Jehoiada. There is also Zacharias the prophet; who was the son of Bara- chiah, and is so described in the superscription of his prophecy, but of whose death we have no account. I have little doubt, but that the first Zacharias was the person spoken of by our Saviour; and that the name of the father has been since added, or changed, by some one, who took it from the title of the prophecy, which happened to be better known to him than the history in the Chronicles. There is likewise a Zacharias, the son of Baruch, related by Jose¬ phus to have been slain in the temple a few years before the de¬ struction of Jerusalem. It has been insinuated, that the words put into our Saviour’s mouth contain a reference to this transaction, and were composed by some writer, who either confounded the time of the transaction with our Saviour’s age, or inadvertelitly overlooked the anachronism. Now suppose it to have been so; suppose these words to have been suggested by the transaction related in Josephus, and to have been falsely ascribed to Christ; and observe what extraordinary Antiq. 1. xvii. c. 12. sect. 4. t Annals, p. 797. X Luke vi. 16. Mark iii. 18. § Orig. cont. Cels. p. 44. 1( And the Spirit of God came upon Zecharia, the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot pros¬ per? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones, at the com¬ mandment of the king, in the court of the house of the Lord. 2 Chron. xxiv. 20 , 21 ., Evidences of Christianity. 195 coincidences (accidentally, as it must in that case have been) attend the forger’s mistake. First, that we have a Zacharias in the book of Chronicles, whose death, and the manner of it, corresponds with the allusion. Secondly, that although the name of this person’s father be erro¬ neously put down in the Gospel, yet we have a way of accounting for the error, by showing another Zacharias in the Jewish Scriptures, much better known than the former, whose patronymic was actually that which appears in the text. Every one who thinks iipon the subject, will find these to be cir¬ cumstances which could not have met together in a mistake, which did not proceed from the circumstances themselves. I have noticed, I think, all the difficulties of this kind. They are few : some of them admit of a clear, others of a probable solution. The reader will compare them with the number, the variety, the closeness, and the satisfactoriness, of the instances which are to be set against them: and he will remember the scantiness, in many cases, of our intelligence, and that difficulties always attend imper¬ fect information CHAP. VII. Undesigned Coincidences. Between the letters which bear the name of Saint Paul in our collection, and his history in the Acts of the Apostles, there exist many notes of correspondency. The simple perusal of the writings is sufficient to prove, that neither the history was taken from the letters, nor the letters from the history. And the undesignedness of the agreements (which undesignedness is gathered from their latency, their minuteness, their obliquity, the suitableness of the circumstances in which they consist, to the places in which those circumstances occur, and the circuitous references by which they are traced out) demonstrates that they have not been produced by meditation, or by any fraudulent contrivance. But coincidences from which these causes are excluded, and which are too close and numerous to be accounted for by accidental concurrences of fiction, must necessarily have truth for their foundation. This argument appeared to my mind of so much value (espe¬ cially for its assuming nothing beside the existence of the books), that I have pursued it through St. Paul’s thirteen epistles, in a work published by me four years ago, under the title of Horse Paulin®. I am sensible how feebly any argument which depends upon an in¬ duction of particulars, is repi-esented without examples. On which account, I wished to have abridged my own volume, in the manner in which 1 have treated Dr. Lardner’s in the preceding chapter. But, upon making the attempt, I did not find it in my power to render the articles intelligible by fewer words than I have there used. I must be content, therefore, to refer the reader to the work 196 Paley's View of the itself. And I would particularly invite his attention to the observa tions which are made in it upon the first three epistles. I persuade myself that he will find the proofs, both of agreement and unde¬ signedness, supplied by these epistles, sufficient to support the con¬ clusion which is there maintained, in favor both of the genuineness of the writings and the truth of the narrative. It remains only, in this place, to point out how the argument hears upon the general question of the Christian history. First, Saint Paul in these letters affirms in unequivocal terms, his own performance of miracles, and, what ought particularly to be remembered, ■* miracles were the signs of an apostle.'* If this testimony come from St. Paul’s own hand, it is invaluable. And that it does so, the argument before us fixes in my mind a firm as¬ surance. Secondly, it show^s that the series of action represented in the epistles of Saint Paul, was real; which alone lays a foundation for the proposition which forms the subject of the first part of our pres¬ ent work, viz. that the original witnesses of the Christian history devoted themselves to lives of toil, suffering, and danger, in conse¬ quence of their belief of the truth of that history, and for the sake of communicating the knowledge of it to others. Thirdly, it proves that Luke, or whoever was the author of the Acts of the Apostles (for the argument does not depend upon the name of the author, though I know no reason for questioning it), was well acquainted with Saint Paul’s history; and that he proba¬ bly was, what he professes himself to be, a companion of Saint Paul’s travels; which, if true, establishes, in a considerable degree, the credit even of his Gospel, because it shows, that the writer, fi-om his time, situation, and connexion, possessed opportunities of informing himself truly concerning the transactions w'hich he relates. I have little difficulty in applying to the Gospel of Saint Luke what is proved concerning the Acts of the Apostles, considering them as two parts of the same history; for, though there are instances of second parts being forgeries, I know none where the second part is genuine, and the first not so. I will only observe, as a sequel of the argument, though not no¬ ticed in my work, the remarkable similitude between the style of Saint John’s Gospel, and of Saint John’s Epistle. The style of Saint John’s is not at all the style of Saint Paul’s Epistles, though both are very singular 5 nor is it the style of Saint James s nor of Saint Peter’s Epistle : but it bears a resemblance to the style of the Gos¬ pel inscribed with Saint John’s name, so far as that resemblance can be expected to appear, which is not in simple narrative, so much as in reflections, and in the representation of discourses. Writings, so circumstanced, prove themselves, and one another, to be genuine. This correspondency is the more valuable, as the epistle itself asserts, in Saint Johrl’s manner indeed, but in terms .sufficiently explicit, the writer’s personal knowledge of Christ’s * Rom. XV. 18, 19. 2 Cor. xii. 12, 197 Evidences of Christianity. history: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life; that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you.’* Who would not desire,—who perceives not the value of an account, delivered by a writer so well informed as this? i CHAP. VIII. Of the History of the Resurrection. The history of the resurrection of Christ is a part of the evidence of Christianity: but I do not know, whether the proper strength of this passage of the Christian history, or wherein its peculiar value, as a head of evidence, consists, be generally understood. It is not that, as a miracle, the resurrection ought to be accounted a more decisive proof of supernatural agency than other miracles are; it is not that, as it stands in the Gospels, it is better attested than some others; it is not, for either of these reasons, that more weight be¬ longs to it than to other miracles, but for the following, viz. That it is completely certain that the apostles of Christ, and the first teachers of Christianity, asserted the fact. And this w'ould have been certain, if the four Gospels had been lost, or never written. Every piece of Scripture recognizes the resurrection. Every epistle of every apostle, every author contemporary with the apostles, of the age immediately succeeding the apostles, every writing from that age to the present, genuine or spurious, on the side of Chris¬ tianity or against it, concur in representing the resurrection of Christ as an article of his history, received without doubt or disa¬ greement by all who call themselves Christians, as alleged from the beginning by the propagators of the institution, and alleged as the centre of their testimony. Nothing, I apprehend, which a man does not himself see or hear, can be more certain to him than this point. I do not mean, that nothing can be more certain than that Christ rose from the dead; but that nothing can be more certain, than that his apostles, and the first teachers of Christianity, gave out that he did so. In the other parts of the gospel narrative, a question may be made, whether the things related of Christ be the very things which the apostles and first teachers of the religion delivered concerning him ? And this question depends a good deal upon the evidence we possess of the genuineness, or rather, perhaps, of the antiquity, credit, and reception, of the books. On the subject of the resurrec¬ tion, no such discussion is necessary, because no such doubt can be entertained. The only points which can enter into our considera¬ tion are, whether the apostles knowingly published a falsehood, or whether they were themselves deceived; whether either of these suppositions be possible. The first, I think, is pretty generally ♦ Chap. i. ver. 1—3. R2 198 Paley^s View of the given up. The nature of the undertaking, and of the men; the ex¬ treme unlikelihood that such men should engage in such a measure as a scheme ; their personal toils, and dangers, and sufferings, in the cause; their appropriation of their whole time to the object; the w'arm, and seemingly unaffected, zeal and earnestness ■wdth which they profess their sincerity; exempt their memory from the suspi¬ cion of imposture. The solution more deserving of notice, is that which w’ould resolve the conduct of the apostles into enthusiasm; which would class the evidence of Christ’s resurrection with the num(?rous stories that are extant of the apparitions of dead men. There are circumstances in the narrative, as it is preserved in our histories, which destroy this comparison entirely. It was not one person, but many, who saw him ; they saw him not only separately but together, not only by night but by day; not at a distance but near; not once but several times; they not only saw him, but touched him, conversed with him, ate with him, examined his per¬ son to satisfy their doubts. These particulars are decisive : but they stand, I do admit, upon the credit of our records. I would an¬ swer, therefore, the insinuation of enthusiasm, by a circumstance which arises out of the nature of the thing; and the reality of which must be confessed by all who allow, w'hat I believe is not denied, that the resurrection of Christ, whether true or false, was asserted by his disciples from the beginning; and that circumstance is, the non-production of the dead body. It is related in the history, what indeed the story of the resurrection necessarily implies, that the corpse was missing out of the sepulchre: it is related also in the history, that the Jews reported that the followers of Christ had stolen it away.* And this account, though loaded with great im¬ probabilities, such as the situation of the disciples, their fears for their own safety at the time, the unlikelihood of their expecting to succeed, the difficulty of actual success,t and the inevitable conse¬ quence of detection and failure, was, nevertheless, the most credi¬ ble account that could be given of the matter. But it proceeds entirely upon the supposition of fraud, as all the old objections did. What account can be given of the body, upon the supposition of en- * ‘ And this saying (Saint Matthew writes) is commonly reported amongst the Jews until this day.’ (chap, xxviii. 15.) The evangelist may he thought good authority as to this point, even by those who do not ad¬ mit his evidence in every other point: and this point is sufficient to prove that the body was missing. It has been rightly, I think, observed by Dr. Townshend, (Dis. upon the Res. p. 126.) that the story of the guards carried collusion upon the face of it‘His disciples came by night and stole him away, while we slept.’ Men in their circumstances would not have made such an ac¬ knowledgment of their negligence, without previous assurances of pro¬ tection and impunity. t ‘ Especially at the full moon, the city full of people, many probably passing the whole night, as Jesus and his disciples had done, in the open air, the sepulchre so near the city as to be now inclosed within the walls.’ Priestley on the Resurr. p. 24. 199 Evidences of Christianity. thusiasra? It is impossible our Lord’s followers could believe that he was risen from the dead, if his corpse was lying before them. No enthusiasm ever reached to such a pitch of extravagancy as that: a spirit may be an illusion ; a body is a real thing, an object of sense, in which there can be no mistake. All accounts of spec¬ tres leave the body in the grave. And, although the body of Christ might be removed by fraud, and for the purposes of fraud, yet, without any such intention, and by sincere but deluded men (which is the representation of the apostolic character we are now examining), no such attempt could be made. The presence and the absence of the dead body are alike inconsistent with the hypo¬ thesis of enthusiasm; for, if present, it must have cured their en¬ thusiasm at once; if absent, fraud, not enthusiasm, must have car¬ ried it away. But farther, if we admit, upon the concurrent testimony of all the histories, so much of the account as states that the religion of Jesus was set up at Jerusalem, and set up with asserting, in the very place in which he had been buried, and a few days after he had been buried, his resurrection out of the grave, it is evident that, if his body could have been found, the Jews would have produced it, as the shortest and completest answer possible to the whole story The attempt of the apostles could not have survived this refutation a moment. If we also admit, upon the authority of Saint Matthew, that the Jews were advertised of the expectation of Christ’s fol¬ lowers, and that they had taken due precaution in consequence of this notice, and that the body was in marked and public custody, the observation receives more force still. For, notwithstanding their precaution, and although thus prepared and forewarned; when the story of the resurrection of Christ came forth, as it immediately did ; when it was publicly asserted by his disciples, and made the ground and basis of their preaching in his name, and collecting fol¬ lowers to his religion, the Jews had not the body to produce : but were obliged to meet the testimony of the apostles by an answer, not containing indeed any impossibility in itself, but absolutely in¬ consistent with the supposition of their integrity ; that is, in other words, inconsistent with the supposition which would resolve their conduct into enthusiasm. CHAP. IX. The Propagation of Christianity. In this argument, the first consideration is the fact; in what de gree, within what time, and to what extent, Christianity was actu¬ ally propagated. 200 Paley's View of the SECT. I. In what degree, within what time, and to what extent, Christianity was actually propagated. The accounts of the matter, which can be collected from our books, are as follows: A few days after Christ’s disappearance out of the world, we find an assembly of disciples at Jerusalem, to the number of ‘ about one hundred and twenty which hundred and twenty were, probably, a little association of believers, met together, not merely as believers in Christ, but as personally connected with the apostles, and with one another. Whatever was the number of believers then in Jerusalem, we have no reason to be surprised that so small a company should assemble: for there is no proof, that the followers of Christ were yet formed into a society; that the society W’as reduced into any order; that it was at this time even under¬ stood that a new religion (in the sense which that term conveys to us) w'as to be set up in the world, or how the professors of that reli¬ gion were to be distinguished from the rest of mankind. The death of Christ had left, we may suppose, the generality of his disciples in great doubt, both as to what they were to do, and concerning what was to follow. This meeting was holden, as we have already said, a few days after Christ’s ascension: for, ten days after that event was the day of Pentecost, when, as our history relates,t upon a signal display of Divine agency attending the persons of the apostles, there were added to the society ‘ about three thousand souls.’t But here, it is not, I think, to be taken, that these three thousand were all convert¬ ed by this single miracle; but rather that many, who before were believers in Christ, became now professors of Christianity; that is to say, when they found that a religion was to be established, a soci¬ ety formed and set up in the name of Christ, governed by his laws, avowing their belief in his mission, united amongst themselves, and separated from the rest of the world by visible distinctions; in suance of their former conviction, and by virtue of what they had heard and seen and known of Christ’s history, they publicly became members of it. , /• u • We read in the fouth chapter^ of the Acts, that, soon after this, ‘ the number of the men,’ i. e. the society openly professing then belief in Christ, ‘ was about five thousand.* So that here is an in¬ crease of two thousand within a very short time. And it is prob^Ie that there were many, both now and afterward, who, although they believed in Christ, did not think it necessary to join themselves to this society; or who waited to see what was likely to become of it. Gamaliel, whose advice to the Jewish council is recorded Acts v. * Acts i. 15. t Acts ii. 1. J Acts ii. 41. § Ver. 4. Evidences of Christianity^ 201 34, appears to have been of this description; perhaps Nicodemus, and perhaps also Joseph of Arimathea. This class of men, their character and their rank, are likewise pointed out by Saint John, in the twelfth chapter of his Gospel: ‘Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also, many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the syna¬ gogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.’ Persons, such as these, might admit the miracles of Christ, without being immediately convinced that they were under obligation to make a public profession of Christianity, at the risk of all that was dear to them in life, and even of life itself.'* * * § ' Christianity, however, proceeded to increase in Jerusalem by a progress equally rapid with its first success; for, in the nextt chap¬ ter of our history, we read that ‘ believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.’ And this enlarge¬ ment of the new society appears in the first verse of the succeeding chapter, w’herein we are told, that, ‘ when the number of the disci¬ ples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected :’t and, after¬ ward in the same chapter, it is declared expressly, that ‘ the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and that a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.’ I'his I call the first period in the propagation of Christianity. It commences with the ascension of Christ, and extends, as may be collected from the incidental notes of time,§ to something more than one year after that event. During which term, the preaching of Christianity, so far as our documents inform us, was confined to the single city of Jerusalem. And how did it succeed there ? The first assembly which we meet with of Christ’s disciples, and that a few days after his removal from the world, consisted of ‘ one hundred and twenty.’ Alx)ut a week after this, ‘ three thousand were added * ‘ Beside those who professed, and those who rejected and opposed, Christianity, there were, in all probability, multitudes between both, nei¬ ther perfect Christians, nor yet unbelievers. They had a favorable opinion of the gospel, but worldly considerations made them unwilling to own it. There were many circumstances which inclined them to think that Chris tianity was a Divine revelation, but there were many inconveniences which attended the open profession of it: and they could not find in them¬ selves courage enough to bear them, to disoblige their friends and family, to ruin their fortunes, to lose their reputation, their liberty, and their life, for the sake of the new religion. Therefore they were willing to hope, that if they endeavored to observe the great principles of morality, which Christ had represented as the principal part, the sum and substance, of religion ; if they thought honorably of the gospel, if they ofiered no injury to the Christians, if they did deem all the services that they could safely perform, they were willing to hope, that God would accept this, and that He would excuse and forgive the rest.’ Jortin’s Dis. on the Chris. Rel. p. 91. ed. 4. t Acts v. 14. X Acts vi. 1. § Vide Pearson’s Antiq. 1. xviii. c 7. Benson’s History of Christ, book i. p. 148. 29 202 Paley^s View of the in one dayand the number of Christians piiblicly baptized, and publicly associating together, was very soon increased to ‘five thou¬ sand.’ ‘ Multitudes both of men and women continued to be added; ‘disciples multiplied greatly,’ and ‘many of the Jewish priesthood, as well as others, became obedient to the faith and this within a space of less than two years from the commencement of the insU- By reason of a persecution raised against the church at Jerusalem, the converts were driven from that city, and dispersed throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.’^ Wherever they came, they brought their religion with them; for, our historian informs us,t that ‘ they that were scattered abroad, went everywhere preaching the word.’ The effect of this preaching comes afterward to be noticed, where the historian is led, in the course of his narrative, to observe, that then, {i e. about three years posterior to this,;) ‘ the churches had rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and ^maria, and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of'the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.’ This was the work of the second period, which comprises about four years. Hitherto the preaching of the Gospel had been confined to Jews, to Jewish proselytes, and to Samaritans. And I cannot forbear frp™ setting down in this place, an observation of Mr. Bryant, which appears to me to be perfectly well founded:—‘The Jews still re¬ main : but how seldom is it that w’e can make a single proselyte. There is reason to think, that there were more converted by the apostles in one day, than have since been won over in the last thou¬ sand years.’^ * tu , It was not yet known to the apostles, that they were at libeny to propose the religion to mankind at large. That ‘ mystery, as Saint Paul calls it,l| and as it then was, was revealed to Peter by an espe¬ cial miracle. It appears to have beenlT about seven years after Christ’s ascension, that the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles of Cesarea. A year after this, a great multitude of Gentiles were con¬ verted at Antioch in Syria. The expressions employed by the histo¬ rian are these:—‘A great number believed, and turned to the Lord; ‘ much people was added unto the Lord;’ ‘ the apostles Barnabaf and Paul taught* much people.’** Upon Herod’s death, ^^ich hap pened in the next year,tt it is observed, that ‘ the word of God gren and multiplied.’tt Three years from this time, upon the preachim of Paul at Iconium, the metropolis of Lycaonia, ‘ a great multitudi both of Jews and Greeks believed and afterward, in the coursi of this very progress, he is represented as ‘ making many disciples at Derbe, a principal city in the same district. Three yearsHH afte this, which brings us to sixteen after the ascension, the apostle ♦ Acts viii. 1. Ver. 4. t Benson, book i. p. 207 8 Bryant on the Truth of the Christian Religion, p. 112. I Eph. iii. 3—6. 11 Benson, book ii. p. 236. ** Acts xi. 21. 24. 26. tt Benson, book ii. p. ^9. ;; Acts xii. 24. §§ Acts xiv. 1. |ll Benson, book in. p. 50. Evidences of Christianity. 208 wrote a public letter from Jerusalem to the Gentile converts in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, with which letter Paul travelled through these countries, and foimd the churches ‘ established in the faith, pd increasing in number daily.’* From Asia, the apostle proceeded into Greece, where soon after his arrival in Macedonia, we find him at Thessalonica; in wdiich city, ‘some of the Jew's believed, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude.’t We meet also here with an accidental hint of the general progress of the Christian mission, in the exclamation of the tumultuous Jews of Thessalonica, ‘that they, who had turned the world upside down, were come thither also.’l At Berea, the next city at which Paul arrives, the historian, who was 'present, informs us that ‘ many of the Jews believed.The next year and a half of Saint Paul’s ministry was spent at Corinth. Of his success in that city, we receive the following intimations; ‘ that many of the Corinthians believed and were baptized;’ and ‘ that it was revealed to the apostle by Christ, that he had much peo¬ ple in that city.’H Within less than a year after his departure from Corinth, and twenty-fivelT years after the ascension. Saint Paul fixed his station at Ephesus, for the space of two yearn* § ** and something more. The effect of his ministry in that city and neighborhood drew from the historian a reflection, how ‘ mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’tt And at the conclusion of this period, w'e find'De¬ metrius at the head of a party, who were alarmed by the progress of the religion, complaining, that ‘not only at Ephesus, but also through¬ out all Asia (f. e. the province of Lydia, and the country adjoining to Ephesus), this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much peo- ple.’tt Beside these accounts, there occurs, incidentally, mention of converts at Rome, Alexandria, Athens, Cyprus, Cyrene, Macedo¬ nia, Philippi. This is the third period in the propagation of Christianity, setting off in the seventh year after the ascension, and ending at the twenty-eighth. Now, lay these three periods together, and observe how the progress of the religion by these accounts is represented. The institution, which properly began only after its author’s re¬ moval from the world, before the end of thirty years had spread itself through Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, almost all the numerous districts of the Lesser Asia, through Greece, and the islands of the riEgean Sea, the sea-coast of Africa, and had extended itself to Rome, and into Italy. At Antioch in Syria, at Joppa, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Berea, Iconium, Derbe, Antioch in Pisidia, at Lydda, Saron, the number of converts is intimated by the expres¬ sions, ‘ a great number,’ ‘ great multitude,’ ‘ much people.’ Con¬ verts are mentioned, without any designation of their number,'S$ at * Acts xvi. 5. + Acts xvii. 4. J Acts xvii. 6. § Acts xvii. 12. 11 Acts xviii. 8—10. U Benson, book iii. p. 160. ** Acts xix. 10. tt Acts xix. 20. Jj Acts xix. 26. §§ Considering the extreme conciseness of many parts of the history, the silence about the numbers of converts is no proof of their paucity; for at Philippi, no mention whatever is made of the number, yet Saint 204 Paley’s View of the Tyre, Cesarea, Troas, Athens, Philippi, Lystra, Damascus. During all this time, Jerusalem continued not only the centre of the mission, but a principal seat of the religion ; for when Saint Paul turned thither at the conclusion of the period of which we are now considering the accounts, the other apostles pointed out to him, as a reason for his compliance with their advice, ;how many thousands (myriads, ten thousands) there were in that city who believed.’^ Upon this abstract, and the writing from which it is drawn, the following observations seem material to be made: I. That the account comes from a person, who was himself con¬ cerned in a portion of what he relates, and was contemporary vyith the whole of it; who visited Jerusalem, and frequented the society of those who had acted, arid were acting, the chief parts in the transaction. I lay down this point positively; forbad the ancient attestations to this valuable record been less satisfactory than they are, the unaffectedness and simplicity with which the author notes his presence upon certain occasions, and the entire absence of art and design from these notices, would have been sufficient to per¬ suade my mind, that whoever he was, he actually lived in the times, and occupied the situation, in which he represents himself to be. When I say, ‘ whoever he was,’ I do not mean to cast a doubt upon the name to which antiquity hath ascribed the Acts of the Apostles (for there is no cause that I am acquainted with, for que^ tioning it), but to observe that, in such a case as this, the time and situation of the author are of more importance than his name ; and that these appear from the work itself, and in the most unsuspicious form. , /■ 1, V II. That this account is a very incomplete account of the preacor ing and propagation of Christianity; I mean, that, if what we read in the history be true, much more than what the history contains must be true also. For, although the narrative from which our in¬ formation is derived, has been entitled the Acts of the Apostles, it is in fact a history of the twelve apostles only during a short time of their continuing together at Jerusalem; and even of this period the account is very concise. The work afterward consis^ of a few im¬ portant passages of Peter’s ministry, of the speech and death of Ste¬ phen, of the preaching of Philip the deacon; and the sequel of the volume, that is, two-thirds of the whole, is taken up with the con¬ version, the travels, the discourses, and history of the o&w apostle, Paul; in which history, also, large portions of time are often passed over with very scanty notice. Paul addressed an epistle to that church. The churches of Galatia, and the affairs of those churches, were considerable enough to be the subject of another letter, and of much of Saint Paul’s solicitude : yet no account is preserved in the history of his success, or even of his preaching jn that country, except the slight notice which these words they had gone throughout Phrygia, and the region of Galatia—they essayed to go into Bithynia.’ Acts xvi, 6. * Acts xxi. 20. Evidences of Christianity. 205 III. That the account, so far as it goes, is for this very reason nore credible. Had it been the author’s design to have displayed he early progress of Christianity, he would undoubtedly have col- ected, or, at least, have set forth, accounts of the preaching of the est of the apostles, who cannot, without extreme improbability, be iupposed to have remained silent and inactive, or not to have nmt vith a share of that success which attended their colleagues. To vhich may be added, as an observation of the same kind, IV. That the intimations of the number of converts, and of the iuccess of the preaching of the apostles, come out for the most part Ticidentallii ,■ are drawn from the historian by the occasion \ such IS the murmuring of the Grecian converts ; the rest from persecu- ion ; Herod’s death; the sending of Barnabas to Antioch, and Bar- labas calling Paul to his assistance ; Paul coming to a place, and finding there disciples; the clamor of the Jews; the complaint oi irtificers interested in the support of the popular religion; the rea^ son assigned to induce Paul to give satisfaction to the Christians of Jerusalem. Had it not been for these occasions, it is probable that no notice whatever would have been taken of the number of con¬ verts in several of the passages in which that notice now appears. All this tends to remove the suspicion of a design to exaggerate or J6C61VG* Parallel testimonies with the history, are the letters of Saint Paul, and of the other apostles, which have come down to us. Those of Saint Paul are addressed to the churches of Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, the church of Galatia, and, if the inscription be right, of Ephesus; his ministry at all wdiich places, is recorded in the history: to the church of Colosse, or rather to the churches of Colosse and Laodicea jointly, which he had not then visited. They recognize by reference the churches of Judea, the churches of Asia, and ‘all the churches of the Gentiles.’* In the Epistle to the Romans,! the author is led to deliver a remarkable declaration concerning the extent of his preaching, its efficacy, and the cause to which he ascribes it,—‘ to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyri cum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ.’ In the Epistl to the Colossians,! we find an oblique but very strong signification of the then general state of the Christian mission, at least as it ap¬ peared to Saint Paul:—‘If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven which Gospel, he had reminded them near the be- ginning§ of his letter, ‘ was present with them, as it was in all the world’ The expressions are hyperbolical; but they are hyperboles which could only be used by a writer who entertained a strong sense of the subject. The first epistle of Peter accosts the Christians ♦ 1 Tliess. ii. 14. t Rora. xv. 18, 19 j Col. i 23. § Col. i. 6. S 206 Paley^s View of the tlispersed throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. It comes next to be considered, how far these accounts are con¬ firmed, or followed up by other evidence. Tacitus, in delivering a relation, which has already been laid be¬ fore the reader, of the fire which happened at Rome in the tenth year of Nero (which coincides-with the thirtieth year after Christ’s ascension), asserts, that the emperor, in order to suppress the rumors of having been himself the author of the mischief, procured the Christians to be accused. Of which Christians, thus brought into his narrative, the following is so much of the historian’s account as belongs to our present purpose: ‘ They had their denomination from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a crimi¬ nal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, though checked for awhile, broke out again, gnd spread not only over Judea, but reached the city also. At first, they only were ap¬ prehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterward a vast multitude w'ere .discovered by them.’ This testimony to the early propagation of Christianity is extremely material. It is from an historian of great reputation, living near the time; from a stranger and an enemy to the religion; and it joins immediately with the period through which the Scripture accounts extend. It estaVilishes these points: that the religion began at Jerusalem; that it spread throughout Judea; that it had reached Rome, and not only so,.but that it had there obtained a great number of converts. This was about six years after the time that Saint Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, and something more than two years after he arrived there himself. The converts to the religion were then so numerous at Rome, that, of those who were betrayed by the information of the persons first persecuted, a great multitude (multitude ingens) w'ere discovered and seized. It seems probable, that the temporary check which Tacitus repre¬ sents Christianity to have received (repressa in prmsens) referred to the persecution at Jerusalem, which-followed the death of Stephen (Acts viii.); and which, by dispersing the converts, caused the in¬ stitution, in some measure, to disappear. Its second eruption at the same place, and within a short time, has much in it of the character of truth. It was the firmness and perseverance of men who knew what they relied upon. Next in order of time, and perhaps superior in importance, is the testimony of Pliny the Younger. Pliny was the Roman governor of Ponliis and Bithynia, two considerable districts in the northern part of Asia Minor. The situation in which he found his province, led him to apply to the emperor (Trajan) for his direction as to the conduct he was to hold tow'ards the Christians. The letter in which this application is contained, was written not quite eighty years after Christ’s ascension. The president in this letter, states the measures he had already pursued, and then adds, as his reason for resorting to the emperor’s counsel and aitthority, the following 207 Evidences of Christianity. words:—‘Suspending all judicial proceedings, I have recourse to you for advice; for it has appeared to me a matter highly deserving consideration, especially on account of the great number of persons who are in danger of suffering: for, many of all ages, and of every rank, of both sexes likewise,'are accused, and will be accused. Nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but the lesser towns also, and the open country. Nevertheless it seemed to me, that it ma 5 r be restrained and corrected. It is certain that the tem¬ ples, which were almost forsaken, begin to be more frequented; and the sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived. Victims, likewise, are everywhere (passim) bought up; whereas, for some time, there were few to purchase them. Whence it is easy to imagine, that numbers of men might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those that shall repent.’* It is obvious to observe, that the passage of Pliny’s letter, here quoted, proves, not only that the Christians in Pontus and Bithynia were now numerous, but that they had subsisted there for some considerable time. ‘ It is certain,’ he says, ‘ that the temples, which were almost forsaken (plainly ascribing this desertion of the popular worship to the prevalency of Christianity), begin to be more fre¬ quented, and the sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived.’ There are also two clauses in the former part of the let¬ ter, which indicate the same thing ; one, in which he declares that he had ‘ never been present at any trials of Christians, and there¬ fore knew not what was the usual subject of inquiry and punish¬ ment, or how far either was wont to be urged.’ The second clause is the following: ‘ Others were named by an informer, who, at first, confessed- themselves Christians, and afterward denied it; the rest said, they had been Christians, some three years ago, some longer, and some about twenty years.’ It is also^ apparent, that Pliny speaks of the Christians as a description of men well known to the person to wdiom he writes. His first sentence concerning them is, ‘I have never been present at the trials of Christians.’ This men¬ tion of the name of Christians, without any preparatory explanation, shows that it was a term familiar both to the writer of the letter, and the person to whom it was addressed. Had it not been so, Pliny w'ould naturally have begun his letter by informing the em¬ peror, that he had met with a certain set of men in the province, failed Christians.^ Here then is a very singular evidence of the progress of the Christian religion in a short space. It was not fourscore years after the crucifixion of Jesus, when Pliny wrote this letter; nor seventy years since the apostles of Jesus began to mention his name to the Gentile world. Bithynia and Pontus were at a great distance from Judea, the centre from which the religion spread ; yet in these provinces, Christianity had long subsisted, and Chris¬ tians were now in such numbers as to lead the Roman governor to report to the emperor, that they were found not only in cities, but * C. Plin. Trajano Imp. lib. x. ep. xcvii. 208 Paley's View of the in villages and in open countries; of all ages, ol* every rank and condition; that they abounded so much, as to have produced a visible desertion of the temples; that beasts brought to market for victims, had few purchasers; that the sacred solemnities were much neglected:—circumstances noted by Pliny, for the express purpose of showing to the emperor the effect and prevalency of the new institution. No evidence remains, by which it can be proved that the Chris¬ tians were more numerous in Pontus and Bithynia than in other parts of the Roman empire; nor has any reason been offered to show why they should be so. Christianity did not begin in these countries, nor near them. I do not know, therefore, that we ought to confine the description in Pliny’s letter to the state of Christianity in those provinces, even if no other account of the same subject had come down to us; but, certainly, this letter may fairly be applied n aid and confirmation of the representations given of the general tate of Christianity in the world, by Christian writers of that and the next succeeding age. Justin Martyr, who wrote about thirty years after Pliny, and one hundred and six after the Ascension, has these remarkable words; ‘There is not a nation, either of Greek or Barbarian, or of any other name, even of those who wander in tribes, and live in tents, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered to the Father and Creator of the Universe by the name of the crucified Jesus.’* Tertullian, who comes about fifty years after Justin, ap¬ peals to the governors of the Roman empire in these terras: ‘ We were but of yesterday, and wo have filled your cities, islands, towns, and boroughs, the camp, the senate, and the forum. They (the heathen adversaries of Christianity) lament, that every sex, age, and condition, and persons of eveiy rank also, are converts to that name.’t I do allow, that these expressions are loose, and may be called declamatory. But even declamation hath its bounds: this public boasting upon a subject which imist be known to every read¬ er was not only useless but unnatural, eyeless the truth of the case, in a considerable degree, correspond with the description; at least, unless it had been both true and notorious, that great multitudes of Christians, of all ranks and orders, were to be found in most parts of the Roman empire. The same Tertullian, in another passage, by way of setting forth the extensive diffusion of Christianity, enu¬ merates as belonging to Christ, beside many other countries, the ‘ Moors and Gsetulians of Africa, the borders of Spain, several na- ons of France, and parts of Britain, inaccessible to the Romans, the amaritans, Daci, Germans, and Scythians,’! and, which is more material than the extent of the institution, the number of Christians in the several countries in which' it prevailed, is thus expressed by him: ‘Although so great a multitude that in almost every city we form the greater part, we pass our time modestly and in silence.’'^ * Dial, cum Tryph. J Ad. Jud. c. 7, t Teitiill. Apoll. c. 37. § Ad. Scap. c. 111. Evidences of Christianity. 209 Clemens Alexandrinus, who preceded Tertnllian by a few years introduces a comparison between the success of Cliristianity and that of the most celebrated philosophical institutions : ‘ The philo¬ sophers were confined to Greece, and to their particular retainers ; but the doctrine of the Master of Christianity did not remain in Judea, as philosophy did in Greece, but it spread throughout the whole world, in every nation, and village, and city, both of Greeks and Barbarians, converting both whole houses and separate indi¬ viduals, having already brought over to the truth not a few of the philosophers themselves. If the Greek philosophy be prohibited, it immediately vanishes; whereas, from the first preaching of our doctrine, kings and tyrants, governors and presidents, with their whole train, and with the populace on their side, have endeavored with their whole might to exterminate it, yet doth it-flourish more and more.’'*' Origen, who follows Tertullian at the distance of only thirty years, delivers nearly the same account: ‘ In every part of the world (says he), throughout all Greece, and in all other nations, there are innumerable and immense multitudes, who, having left the laws of their country, and those whom they esteemed gods, have given themselves up to the law of Moses, and the religion of Christ: and this not without the bitterest resentment from the idol¬ aters, by whom they were frequently put to torture, and sometimes to death: and it is wonderful to observe, how, in so short a time, the religion has increased, amidst punishment and death, and every kind of torture.’t In another passage, Origen draws the following candid comparison between the state of Christianity in his time, and the condition of its more primitive ages: ‘ By the good providence of God, the Christian religion has so flourished and increased con¬ tinually, that it is now preached freely without molestation, although there were a thousand obstacles to the spreading of the doctrine of Jesus in the world. But as it was the will of God that the Gentiles should have the benefit of it, all the Counsels of men against the Christians were defeated; and by how much the more emperors and governors of provinces, and the people everywhere, strove to depress them; so much the more have they increased, and pre¬ vailed exceedingly.’t It is well known, that within less than eighty years after this, the Roman empire became Christian under Constantine : and it is prob¬ able that Constantine declared himself on the side of the Christians, because they w’ere the powerful party; for Arnobius, who wrote immediately before Constantine’s accession, speaks of the w’hole world as filled wfith Christ’s doctrine, of its diffusion throughout all countries, of an innumerable body of Christians in distant provinces, of the strange revolution of opinion of men of the greatest genius, orators, grammarians, rhetoricians, lawyers, plwsicians, having come over to the institution, and that also in the lace of threats, execu- * Clem. Al. Strum, lib. vi. ad fin. t Orig. in Cels, lib t Orig. cont. Cels. lib. vii. S 2 210 Paley's View of the tions, and tortures.'*' And not more than twenty years after Con¬ stantine’s entire possession of the empire, Julius Firmicus Maternus calls upon the emperors Constantins and Constans to extirpate the relics of the ancient religion; the reduced and fallen condition of which is described by our author in the following words: ‘ IJcet adhuc in quibusdam regionibus idololatriae morientia palpitent mem¬ bra ; tamen in eo reo est, ut a Christianis omnibus terris pestiferum hoc malum funditiis amputeturand in another place, ‘ Modicum tantum superest, ut legibus vestris—extincta idololatrae pereat fu- iiesta contagio.’t It will not be thought that we quote this writer m order to recommend his temper or his judgment, but to sliow the comparative state of Christianity and of Heathenism at this period. Fifty years afterward, Jerome represents the decline of Paganism in language which conveys the same idea of its approaching extinc¬ tion : ‘ Solitudinem patitur et in urbe gentilitas. Dii quondam na- lionam, cum bubonibus et noctuis, in solis culminibus remanserunt’t Jerome here indulges a triumph, natural and allowable in a zealous friend of the cause, but which could only be suggested to his mind by the consent and universality with which he saw the religion received. ‘ But now (says he) the passion and resurrection of Christ are celebrated in the discourses and writings of all nations. I need not mention, Jew's, Greeks, and Latins. The Indians, Persians, Goths, and Egyptians philosophize, and firmly believe the immor¬ tality of the soul, and future recompenses, which, before, the greatest philosophers had denied^ or doubted of, or perplexed with their dis¬ putes. The fierceness of Thracians and Scythians is now softened by the gentle sound of the Gospel; and everywhere Christ is all in all.’$ Were therefore the motives of Constantine’s conversion ever so problematical, the easy establishment of Christianity, and the ruin of Pleathenism, under him and his immediate successors, is of itself a proof of the progress which Christianity had made in the preceding period. It may be added also, ‘ that Maxentius, the rival of Constantine, had shown himself friendly to the Christians. Therefore of those who w'ere contending for worldly power and empire, one actually favored and flattered them, and another may be suspected to have joined himself to them, partly from considera¬ tion of interest: so considerable were they become, under external disadvantages of all sorts.’H This at least is certain, that throughout the whole transaction hitherto, the great seemed to follow, not to lead, the public opinion. It may help to convey to us some notion of the extent and progress of Christianity, or rather of the character and quality of many early Christians, of their learning and their labors, to notice the number of Christian writers who flourished in these ages. Saint Jerome’s * Arnob. in Gentes, 1. i. p. 27. 9. 24. 42. 44. edit. Lug. Bat. 1650. t De Error. Profan. Relig. c. xxi. p. 172, quoted by Lardner, vol. viii. p. 262. 1 Jer. ad Loct. ep. 5. 7. § Jer. ep. 8. ad Heliod. 1| Lardner, vol. vii. p. 380. Evidences of Christianity. 211 catalogue contains sixty-six writers within the first three centuries, and the first six years of the fourth; and fifty-four between that time and his own, viz. a. d. 392. Jerome introduces his catalogue with the following just remonstrance:—‘ Let those who say the church has had no philosophers, nor eloquent and learned men observe who and w'hat they were who founded, established, and adorned it: let them cease to accuse our faith of rusticity, and con¬ fess their mistake.’'*' Of these writers, several, as Justin, Irenteus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Bardesanes, Hippolitus, Eusebius, were voluminous writers. Christian writers abounded particularly about the year 178. Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, founded a library in that city, a. d. 212. Pamphilus, the friend of Origen, founded a library at Cesarea, a. d. 294. Public defences were also set forth, by various advocates of the religion, in the course of its first three centuries. Within one hundred years after Christ’s ascension, Quadratus and Aristides, whose works, except some few fragments of the first, are lost; and, about twenty years afterward, Justin Martyr, whose works remain, presented apologies for the Christian religion to the Roman emperors; Quadratus and Aristides to Adrian, Justin to Antoninus Pius, and a second to Mar¬ cus Antoninus. Melito, bishop of Sardis, and Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and Miltiades, men of great reputation, did the same to Marcus Antoninus, twenty years afterward :t and ten years after this, Apollonius, who suffered martyrdom under the emperor Corn- modus, composed an apology for his faith, which he read in the senate, and which was afterward published.! Fourteen years after the apology of Apollonius, Tertullian addressed the work which now remains under that name to the governors of provinces in the Roman empire; and, about the same time, Minucius Felix composed a defence of the Christian religion, which is still extant; and shortly after the conclusion of this century, copious defences of Christianity W'ere published by Arnobius and Lactantius. SECT. II. Refections upon the preceding Account. In viewing the progress of Christianity, our first attention is due to the number of converts at Jerusalem, immediately after its Founder’s death; because this success was a success at the time, and upon the spot, when and w'here the chief part of the history had been transacted. We are, in the next place, called upon to attend to the early establishment of numerous Christian societies in Judea and Galilee; which countries had been the scene of Christ’s miracles and minis- * Jer. Prol. in Lib. de Scr. Eccl. t Euseb. Hist. lib. iv. c. 26. See also Lardner, vol. ii. p. 666. j Lardner, vol. ii. p. 687. 212 Paleyh View of the try, and where the memory of what had passed, and the knowledge of what was alleged, must have yet been fresh and certain. We are, thirdly, invited to recollect the success of the apostles and of their companions, at the several places to which they came, both within and without Judea; because it was the credit given to original witnesses, appealing for the truth of their accounts to what themselves had seen and heard. The effect also of their preaching strongly confirms the truth of what our history positively and cir¬ cumstantially relates, that they were able to exhibit to their hearers supernatural attestations of their mission. We are, lastly, to consider the subsequent grow’th and spread of the religion, of which we receive successive intimations, and satis¬ factory, though general and occasional, accounts, until its full and final establishment. In all these several stages, the history is without a parallel: for It must be observed, that we have not now been tracing the pro¬ gress, and describing the prevalency, of an opinion, founded upon philosophical or critical arguments, upon mere deduction of reason, or the construction of ancient writings (of which kind are the seve¬ ral theories which have, at different times, gained possession of the public mind in various departments of science and literature ; and of one or other of which kind are the tenets also which divide the various sects of Christianity); but that we speak of a system, the very basis and postulatum of which was a supernatural character ascribed to a particular person; of a doctrine, the truth w'hereoi depends entirely upon the truth of a matter of fact then recent. ‘ To establish a new religion, even amongst a few people, or in one single nation, is a thing in itself exceedingly difficult. To reform some corruptions which may have spread in a religion, or to make new regulations in it, is not perhaps so hard, w^hen the main and principal part of that religion is preserved entire and unshaken; and yet this very often cannot be accomplished without an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, and may be attempted a thousand times without success. But to introduce a new faith, a new way of thinking and acting, and to persuade many nations to quit the religion in which their ancestors have lived and died, which had been delivered down to them from time immemorial, to make them forsake and despise the deities which they had been accustomed to reverence and worship; this is a work of still greater difficulty.* The resistance of education, worldly policy, and superstition, is almost invincible.’ If men, in these days, be Christians in consequence of their edu¬ cation, in submission to authority, or in compliance with fashion, let >i.s recollect that the very contrary of this, at the beginning, was the case. The first race of Christians, as well as millions who suc¬ ceeded them, became such in formal opposition to all these motives, to the whole power and strength of this influence. Every argu * Jortin’s Dis. on the Christ. Rel. p. 107. ed. iv. 213 Evidences of Christianity. inent, therefore, and every instance, which sets forth the prejudice of education, and the almost irresistible effects of that prejudice (and no persons are more fond of expatiating upon this subject than deistical writere), in fact confirms the evidence of Christianity. But, in order to judge of the argument which is drawn from the early propagation of Christianity, I know no fairer way of proceed¬ ing than to compare what we have seen on the subject, with the success of Christian missions in modern ages. In the East India mis¬ sion, supported by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, we hear sometimes of thirty, sometimes of forty, being baptized in the course of a year, and these principally children. Of converts properly so called, that is, of adults voluntarily embracing Chris¬ tianity, the number is extremely small. ‘ Notwithstanding the labor 01 missionaries for upwards of two hundred years, and the estab¬ lishments of different Christian nations who support them, there are not tw^elve thousand Indian Christians, and those almost entirely outcasts.’* I lament, as much as any man, the little progress which Chris¬ tianity has made in these countries, and the inconsiderable effect that has followed the labors of its missionaries: but I see in it a strong prooi of the Divine origin of the religion. What had the apostles to assist them in propagating Christianity which the missionaries nave not? If piety and zeal had been sufficient, I doubt not but that our missionaries possess these qualities in a high degree: for, nothing except piety and zeal could engage them in the undertaking. If sanctity of life and manners was the allurement, the conduct of these men is unblamable. If the advantage of education and learn¬ ing be looked to, there is not one of the modern missionaries, who is not, in this respect, superior to all the apostles: and that not only absolutely, but, what is of more importance, relatively, m comparison, that is, with those amongst whom they exercise their office. If the intrinsic excellency of the religion, the perfection of its morality, the purity of its precepts, the eloquence or tenderness or sublimity of various parts of its writings, were the recommendations by which it made its way, these remain the same. If the character and cir¬ cumstances, under which the preachers were introduced to the countries in which they taught, be accouiited of importance, this advantage is all on the side of the modem missionaries. They come from a country and a people to which the Indian worid look up with sentiments of deference. The apostles came forth amongst the Gentiles under no other name than that of Jews, which was pre¬ cisely the character they despised and derided. If it be disgraceful m India to become a Christian, it could not be much less so to be enrolled amongst those, ‘ quos per flagitia invisos, vulgus Christianos appellabat.’ If the religion which they had to encounter be con¬ sidered, the difference, I apprehend, will not be great. The theology * Sketches relating to the history, learning, and manners, of the Hin¬ doos, p. 48; quoted by Dr. Robertson; Hist. Dis. concerning ancient India, p. 236. 214 Paley’s View of the of both was nearly the same: ‘ what is supposed to be performed by the power of Jupiter, of Neptune, of ^olus, of Mars, of Venus, according to the mythology of the West, is ascribed, in the East, to the agency of Agrio the god of fire, Varoon the god of oceans, Vayoo the god of wind, Cama the god of love.’* * * § The sacred rites of the Western Polytheism were gay, festive, and licentious; the rites of the public religion in the East partake of the same charac¬ ter, with a more avowed indecency. ‘ In every function performed in the pagodas, as well as in every public procession, it is the office of these women (f. e. of women prepared by the Brahmins for the purpose), to dance before the idol, and to sing hymns in his praise; and it is difficult to say whether they trespass most against decency by the gestures they exhibit, or by the verses which they recite. The walls of the pagodas were covered with paintings in a style no less mdelicate.’t On both sides of the comparison, the popular religion had a strong establishment. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was strictly incor¬ porated with the state. The magistrate was the priest. The highest officers of government bore the most distinguished part in the cele¬ bration of the public rites. In India, a powerful and numerous cast possess exclusively the administration of the established woi*ship; and are, of consequence, devoted to the service, and attached to its interest. In both, the prevailing mythology was destitute of any proper evidence: or rather, in both, the origin of the tradition is run up into ages long anterior to the existence of credible history, or of written language. The Indian chronology computes eras by millions of years, and the life of man by thousands ;t and in these, or prior to these, is placed the history of their divinities. In both, the es¬ tablished superstition held the same place in the public opinion; that is to say, in both it was credited by the bulk of the people,$ * Baghvat Geeta, p. 94, quoted by Dr. Robertson, Ind. Dis. p. 306. t Others of the deities of the East are of an austere and gloomy char¬ acter, to be propitiated by victims, sometimes by human sacrifices, and by voluntary torments of the most excruciating kind.—Voyage de Gentil, vol. i. p. 244—260. Preface to Code of Gentoo Laws, p. 57, quoted by Dr. Robertson, p. 320. X ‘ The Suffec Jogue, or age of purity, is said to have lasted three mil¬ lion two hundred thousand years; and they hold that the life of man was extended in that age to one hundred thousand years; but there is a difference amongst the Indian writers, of six millions of years in the com¬ putation of this era.’ Ib. § ‘ How absurd soever the articles of faith may be, which superstition has adopted, or how unhallowed the rites which it prescribes, the former are received, in every age and country, with unhesitating assent, by the great body of the people, and the latter observed with scrupulous exact¬ ness. In our reasonings concerning opinions and practices which differ widely from our own, we are extremely apt to err. Having been in¬ structed ourselves in the principles of a religion, worthy in every respect of that Divine wisdom by which they were dictated, we frequently ex¬ press wonder at the credulity of nations, in embracing systems of belief which appear to us so directly repugnant to right reason; and sometimes suspect that tenets so wild and extravagant do not really gain credit Evidences of Christianity. 215 but by the learned and philosophical part of the community, either derided, or regarded by them as only fit to be upholden for the sake of its political uses.* * Or if it should be allowed, that the ancient heathens believed in their religion less generally than the present Indians do, I am far from thinking that this circumstance would afford any facility to the work of the apostles, above that of the modern missionaries. To me it appears, and I think it material to be remarked, that a disbelief of the established religion of their country has no tendency to dispose men for the reception of another; but that, on the contrary, it gene¬ rates a settled Contempc of all religious pretensions whatever. General infidelity is the hardest soil which the propagators of a new religion can have to work upon. Could a Methodist or Moravian promise himself a better chance of success with a French esprit fort, who had been accustomed to laugh at the popery of his country, than with a believing Mahometan or Hindoo ? Or are our modern unbe¬ lievers in Christianity, for that reason, in danger of becoming Ma¬ hometans or Hindoos? It does not appear that the Jews, who had a body of historical evidence to offer for their religion, and who at that time undoubtedly entertained and held forth the expectation of a future state, derived any great advantage, as to the extension of their system, from the discredit into which the popular religion had fallen with many of their heathen neighbors. We have particularly directed our observations to the state and progress of Christianity amongst the inhabitants of India: but the history of the Christian mission in other countries, where the effi¬ cacy of the mission is left solely to the conviction wrought by the preaching of strangers, presents the same idea, as the Indian mission does, of the feebleness and inadequacy of human means. About twenty-five years ago, was published in England a translation from the Dutch, of a History of Greenland, and a relation of the mission for above thirty years carried on in that country by the Unitas Fra- trum, or Moravians. Every part of that relation confirms the opinion W'e have stated. Nothing could surpass, or hardly equal, the zeal and patience of the missionaries. Yet their historian, in the conclusion of his narrative, could find place for no reflections more encouraging than the fbllow'ing:—‘ A person that had knovm the ‘ heathen, that had seen the little benefit from the great pains hitherto with them. But experience may satisfy us, that neither our wonder nor suspicions are well founded. No article of the public religion was called in question by those people of ancient Europe with whose history we are best acquainted ; and no practice, which it enjoined, appeared im¬ proper to them. On the other hand, every opinion that tended to dimin¬ ish the reverence of men for the gods of their country, or to alienate them from their worship, excited, among the Greeks and Bonians, that indignant zeal which is natural to every people attached to their religion by a firm persuasion of its truth.’ Ind. Dis. p, 321. *That the learned Brahmins of the East are rational Theists, and se¬ cretly reject the established theory, and contemn the rites that were founded upon them, or rather consider them as contrivances to be sup- Dorted for their political uses, see Dr. Robertson’s Ind. Dis. p. 324—334 216 Foley’s View of the taken with them, and considered that one after another had aban doned all hopes of the conversion of those infidels (and some thought they would never be converted, till they saw miracles wrought as in the apostles’ days, and this the Greenlanders expected and demanded of their instructors); one that considered this, I say, would not so much wonder at the past unfruitfulness of these young beginners, as at their stedfast perseverance in the midst of nothing but distress, diffi¬ culties, and impediments, internally, and externally; and that they never desponded of the conversion of those poor creatures amidst all seeming impossibilities.”* From the widely disproportionate effects which attend the preach ing of modern missionaries of Christianity, compared wdth what fol¬ lowed the ministry of Christ and his apostles under circumstances eiiner alike, or not so unlike, as to account for the difference, a con- lusion is fairly drawn, in support of what our histories deliver con- erning them, viz. that they possessed means of conviction, which e have not; that they had proofs to appeal to, which we want. SECT. III. Of the Success of Mahometanism. The only event in the history of the human species, which admits of comparison with the propagation of Christianity, is the success of Mahometanism. The Mahometan institution was rapid in its pro¬ gress, was recent in its history, and was founded upon a supernatu¬ ral or prophetic character assuined by its author. In these articles, the resemblance with Christianity is confessed. But there are points of difference, which separate, we apprehend, the two cases entirely. I. Mahomet did not found his pretensions upon miracles, properly so called; that is, upon proofs of supernatural agency, capable of being known and attested by others. Christians are warranted in this assertion by the evidence of the Koran, in which Mahomet not only does hot affect the power of working miracles, but expressly disclaims it. The following passages of that book furnish direct proofs of the truth of what we allege:—‘The infidels say. Unless a sign be sent down unto him from his lord, we will not believe; thou art a preacher only.’t Again; ‘ Nothing hindered us from sending thee with miracles, except that the former nations have charged them with imposture.’t And lastly; ‘ They say, unless a sign be sent down unto him from his lord, we will not believe; Answer; Signs are in the power of God alone, and I am no more than a pub¬ lic preacher. Is it not sufficient for them, that we have sent down unto them the book of the Koran to be read unto them?’$ Besides these acknowledghients, I have observed thirteen distinct places, in * History of Greenland, vol. ii. p. 376. t Sale’s Koran, c. xiii. p. 201. ed. quarto. I Ch. xvii. p. 232. § Ch. xxix. p. 328. ed. quarto. Evidences of Christianity- SIT* which Mahomet puts the objection (unless a sign, &c.) into the mouth of the unbeliever, in not one of which does he allege a miracle in reply. His answer is, ‘ that God giveth the power of working mira¬ cles, w hen and to whom he pleaseth‘ that if he should work miracles, they would not believe ;’t ‘ that they had before rejected Moses, and the Prophets, who wrought miracles ;’t ‘ that the Koran itself was a miracle.’^ The only place in the Koran in which it can be pretended that a sensible miracle is referred to (for I dc not allow the secret visita¬ tions of Gabriel, the night journey of Mahomet to heaven, or the presence in battle of invisible hosts of angels, to deserve the name of sensible miracles), is the beginning of the fifty-fourth chapter. The words are these:—‘The hour of judgment approacheth, and fAe moon haOi been split in sunder; but if the unbelievers see a sign, they turn aside, saying. This is a powerful charm.’ The Mahometan expositors disagree in their interpretation of this passage; some explaining it to be a mention of the splitting of the moon, as one of the future signs of the approach of the day of judgment; others referring it to a miraculous appearance which had then taken place.H It seems to me not improbable, that Mahomet might have taken advantage of some extraordinary halo, or other unusual appearance of the moon, which had happened about tins time ; and 'which sup¬ plied a foundation both for this passage, and for the story which in after times had been raised out of it. r • c After this more than silence, after these authentic confessions of the Koran, we are not to be moved with miraculous stories related of Mahomet by Abulfeda, who wrote his_ life, about six hundred years after his death; or which are found in the legend of Al-Jan- nabi, who came two hundred years later.lT On the contrary, from comparing what Mahomet himself w'rote and said, with what was afterward reported of him by his follow’ers, the plain and fair con¬ clusion is, that when the religion w’as established by conquest, then, and not till then, came out the stories of his miracles. Now this difference alone constitutes, in my opinion, a bar to all reasoning from one case to the other. The success of a religion founded upon a miraculous history, shows the credit which was given to the history; and this credit, under the circumstances in which it w’as given, i. e. by persons capable of knowing the truth, and interested to inquire after it, is evidence of the reality of the history, and, by consequence, of the truth of the religion. Where a miraculous history is not alleged, no part of this argument can be applied. We admit, that multitudes acknowledge the pretensions * Sale's Koran, ch. v. X. xiii. twice. t 0. vi. t Ch. iii. xxi. xxviii. § Ch. xvi. || Vide Sale, in loc. IT It does not, I think, appear that these historians had any written accounts to appeal to, more ancient than the Sonnah, which was a col- .ection of traditions made by order of the caliphs two hundred years after Mahomet’s death. Mahomet died A. D. 632; Al-Bochari, one of the six doctors who compiled the Sonnah, was born A. D. 809; died in 869. Pri. deaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 192. ed. 7th. 218 Paleyh Vieio of the of Mahomet; but, these pretensions being destitute of miraculous evidence, W'e know that the grounds upon which they were ac¬ knowledged, could not be secure grounds of persuasion to his fol¬ lowers, nor their example any authority to us. Admit the whole of Mahomet’s authentic history, so far as it was oi a nature capable of being known or witnessed by others, to be true (which is certainly to admit all that the reception of the religion can be brought to prove), and Mahomet might still be an impostor, or enthusiast, or a union of both. Admit to be true almost any part of Christ’s history, of that, I mean, which was public, and within the cognizance of his followers, and he must have come from God. Where matter of fact is not in question, where miracles are not alleged, I do not see that the progress of a religion is a better argument of its truth, than the prevalency of any system of opinions in natural religion, morality or physics, is a proof of the truth of those opinions. And we know that this sort of argument is inadmissible in any branch of philoso¬ phy whatever. . But it will be said. If one religion could make its way vvithou miracles, why might not another ? To which I reply, first, that this is not the question; the proper question is not, whether a religioui institution could be set up without miracles, but whether a rehgior or a change of religion, founding itself in miracles, could succeec without any reality to rest upon ? I apprehend these two cases tc be very different; and I apprehend Mahomet’s not taking thi: course, to be one proof, amongst others, that the thing is difficult, li not impossible, to be accomplished: certainly it was not from ai unconsciousness of the value and importance of miraculous evi dence : for it is very observable, that in the same volume, and sorne times in the same chapters, in which Mahomet so repeatedly dis claims the power of working miracles himself he is incessantb referring to the miracles of ;;)receding prophets. One would imagine to hear some men talk, or to read some books, that the setting up oi a religion by dint of miraculous pretences was a thing of every day’ experience; whereas, I believe, that, except the Jewish and Chris tian religion, there is no tolerably well-authenticated account of an] such thing having been accomplished. j II. The establishment of Mahomet’s religion was effected b] causes which in no degree appertained to the origin of Christianitj, During the first twelve years of his mission, Mahomet had recoursi only to persuasion. This is allowed. And there is sufficient reasoi from the effect to believe, thaf if he had confined himself to thi mode of propagating his religion, we of the present day should neve have heard either of him or it. ‘ Three years were silently employe, in the conversion of fourteen proselytes. For ten years, the rehgioi advanced with a slow and painful progress, within the walls o Mecca. The number of proselytes in the seventh year of his mn sion may be estimated by the absence of eiglity-tlivee men and teen women, who retired to Ethiopia.’*'^ Yet this progress, such a * Gibbon’s Hist. vol. ix. p. 244, &c.; ed. Dub. Evidences of Christianity. 219 it was, appears to have been aided by some very important advan¬ tages which Mahomet found in his situation, in his mode of conduct¬ ing his design, and in his doctrine. 1. Mahomet was the grandson of the most powerful and honor able family in Mecca: and although the early death of his father had not left him a patrimony suitable to his birth, he had, long before the commencement of his mission, repaired this deficiency by an opulent marriage. A person considerable by his wealth, of nigh descent, and nearly allied to the chiefs of his country, taldng upon himself the character of a religious teacher, would not fail of at¬ tracting attention and followers. 2. Mahomet conducted his design, in the outset especially, with great art and prudence. He conducted it as a politician would con¬ duct a plot. His first application was to his own family. This gained him his wife’s uncle, a considerable person in Mecca, together with his cousin Ali, afterward the celebrated Caliph, then a youth of great expectation, and even already distinguished by his attachment, impetuosity, and courage.* He next expressed himself to Abu Beer, a man amongst the first of the Koreish in w^ealth and influence. The interest and example of Abu Beer, drew in five other principtil per¬ sons in Mecca; whose solicitations prevailed upon five more of the same rank. This was the w'ork of three years; during which time, every thing was transacted in secret. Upon the strength of these allies, and under the powerful protection of his family, who, how¬ ever some of them might disapprove his enterprise, or deride his • pretensions, would not suffer the orphan of their house, the relic of their favorite brother, to be insulted; Mahomet now commenced his public preaching. And the advance which he made during the nine or ten remaining years of his peaceable ministry, was by no means greater than what, with these advantages, and with the addi¬ tional and singular circumstance of there being no esfablished reli¬ gion at Mecca at that time to contend with, might reasonably have been expected. How soon his primitive adherents were let into the secret of his views of empire, or in what stage of his under¬ taking these views first opened themselves to his own mind, it is not now so easy to determine. The event however was, that these his first proselytes all ultimately attained to riches and honors, to the command of armies, and the government of kingdoms.t 3. The Arabs deduced their descent from Abraham through the line of Ishmael. The inhabitants of Mecca, in common probably with the other Arabian tribes, acknowledged, as, I think, may clearly be collected from the Koran, one supreme Deity, but had .associated with him many objects of idolatrous worship. The great * Of which Mr. Gibbon has preserved the following specimen :—‘When Mahomet called out in an assembly of his family, Who among you will be my companion and ray vizir? Ali, then only in the fourteenth year of his age, suddenly replied, O prophet! I am the man;—whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly. O prophet! I w ill be thy vizir over them.’ Vol. ix. p. 245, t Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 244. 220 Foley's Vieio of the doctrine with which Mahomet set out, was the strict and exclusive unity of God. Abraham, he told them, their illustrious ancestor *, Ishmael, the father of their nation; Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews; and Jesus, the author of Christianity; had all asserted the, same thing ; that their followers had universally corrupted the truth, and that he was now- commissioned to restore it to the world. Was it to be wondered at, that a doctrine so specious, and authorized by names, some or other of which were holden in the highest venera¬ tion by eveiy description of his hearers, should, in the hands of a popular missionary, prevail to the extent to which Mahomet suc¬ ceeded by his pacific ministry ? 4. Of the institution which Mahomet joined with this fundamen¬ tal doctrine, and of the Koran in which that institution is delivered, we discover, I think, two purposes that pervade the whole, viz. to make converts, and to make his converts soldiers. The following particulars, amongst others, may be considered as pretty evident indications of these designs : 1. When Mahomet began to preach, his address to the Jews, to the Christians, and to the Pagan Arabs, was, that the religion which he taught, was no other than what had been originally their owui.—‘ We believe in God, and that which hath been sent down unto us, and that which hath been sent down unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and that which was delivered unto Moses and Jesus, and that which was delivered unto the prophets from their Lord: we make no distinction between any of them.’^ ‘He hath ordained you the religion which he com¬ manded Noah, and which we have revealed unto thee, O Moham¬ med, and which w'e commanded Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, say¬ ing, Observe this religion, and be not divided therein.’! ‘ He hath chosen you, and hath not imposed on you any difficulty in the religion which he hath given you, the religion of your father Abra¬ ham.’! 2. The author of the Koran never ceases from describing the fu¬ ture anguish of unbelievers, their despair, regret, penitence, and torment. It is the point which he labors above all others. And these descriptions are conceived in terms which will appear in no small degree impressive, even to the modern reader of an English translation. Doubtless they would operate with much greater force upon the minds of those to whom they were immediately directed. The terror which they seem well calculated to inspire, W’ould be to many tempers a powerful application. 3. On the other hand ; his voluptuous paradise ; his robes of silk, his palaces of marble, his rivers and shades, his groves and couches, his wines, liis dainties; and above all, his seventy-two virgins as¬ signed to each of the faithful, of resplendent beauty and eternal youth; intoxicated the imaginations, and seized the passions of his Eastern followers. 4. But Mahomet’s highest heaven was reserved for those who * Sale’s Koran, c. ii. p. 17 t Ib. c. xlii. p. 393. J Ib. c. xxii. p. 281. 221 Evidences of Christianity. fought his battles, or expended their fortunes in his cause.—‘ Those believers who still sit at home, not having any hurt, and those who employ their fortunes and their persons for the religion of God, shall not be held equal. God hath preferred those who employ their fortunes and their persons in that cause, to a degree above those who sit at home. God had indeed promised every one Paradise; but God had preferred those who fight for the faith before those who sit still, by adding unto them a great reward; by degree of honor conferred upon them from him, and by granting them for¬ giveness and mercy.’* Again; ‘ Do ye reckon the giving drink to the pilgrims, and the visiting of the holy temple, to be actions as meritorious as those performed by him who believeth in God and the last day, auA fighteth for the religion of God 1 They shall not be held equal with God.—They who have believed and fled their country, and employed their substance and their persons in the de¬ fence of God’s true religion, shall be in the highest degree of honor with God; and these are they who shall be happy. The Lord sendeth them good tidings of mercy from him, and good will, and of gardens wherein they shall enjoy lasting pleasures. They shall continue therein for ever; for with God is a great reward.’t And once more; ‘Verily God hath purchased of the true believers their souls and their substance, promising them the enjoyment of Para¬ dise, on condition that they fight for the cause of God; whether they slay or be slain, the promise for the same is assuredly due by the Law and the Gospel and the Koran.’! § 5. His doctrine of predestination was applicable, and was applied by him, to the same purpose of fortifying and of exalting the courage of his adherents.—‘If any thing of the matter had happened unto us, we had not been slain here. Answer; If ye had been in your houses, verily they w'ould have gone forth to fight, whose slaughter was decreed to the places where they died.’H 6. In warm regions, the appetite of the sexes is ardent, the pas¬ sion for inebriating liquors moderate. In compliance with this distinction, although Mahomet laid a restraint upon the drinking of wine, in the use of women he allowed an almost unbounded indul¬ gence. Four wives, wdth the liberty of changing them at pleasure,ir together with the persons of all his captives,* § ** was an irresistible bribe to an Arabian warrior. ‘ God is minded, (says he, speaking of this very subject) to make his religion light unto you; for man was created weak.’ How different this from the unaccommodating purity of the Gospel! How would Mahomet have succeeded with * Sale’s Koran, c. iv. p. 7.3. f Ib. c. ix. p. 151. J Ib. c. ix. p. 164. § ‘ Tlie sword (saitli Mahomet) is the key of heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months’ fasting or prayer. Whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven at the day of judgment; his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubims.’ Gibbon, vol. ix. 256. U Sale’s Koran, c. iii. p. 54. IF Ib. c. iv. p. 6.3. ** Gibb^'f vol- ix. x 225b 222 Paley's View of the the Christian lesson in his mouth,—‘Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart V It must be added, that Mahomet did not enter upon the prohibition of wine, till the fourth year of the Hegira, or seven¬ teenth of his mission,* * * § when his military successes had completely established his authority. The same observation holds of the fast of the Ramadan,! and of the most laborious part of his institution, the pilgrimage to Mecca.t What has hitherto been collected from the records of the Mussul¬ man history, relates to the twelve or thirteen years of Mahomet’s peaceable preaching; which part alone of his life and enterprise admits of the smallest comparison with the origin of Christianity. A new scene is now unfolded. The city of Medina, distant about ten days’ journey from Mecca, was at that time distracted by the hereciitary contentions of two hostile tribes. These feuds were ex¬ asperated by the mutual persecutions of the Jews and Christians, and of the different Christian sects by which the city was inhabited.^ The religion of Mahomet presented, in some measure, a point of union or compromise to these divided opinions. It embraced the principles which were common to them all. Each party saw in it an honorable acknowledgment of the fundamental truth of their own system. To the Pagan Arab, somewhat imbued with the senti¬ ments and knowledge of his Jewish or Christian fellow-citizen, it offered no offensive, or very improbable theology. This recommenda¬ tion procured to Mohometanism a more favorable reception at Me¬ dina, than its author had been able, by twelve years’ painful en¬ deavors, to obtain for it at Mecca. Yet, after all, the progress of the religion was inconsiderable. His missionary could only collect a congregation of forty persons.!! It was not a religious, but a politi¬ cal association, which ultimately introduced Mahomet into Medina. Harassed as it should seem, and disgusted by the long continuance of factions and disputes, the inhabitants of that city saw in the ad¬ mission of the prophet’s authority, a rest from the miseries which they had suffered, and a suppression of the violence and fury which they had learned to condemn. After an embassy, therefore, com¬ posed of believers and unbelievers,!! and of persons of both tribes, with whom a treaty was concluded of strict alliance and support^ Mahomet made his public entry, and was received as the sovereign of Medina. From this time, or soon after this time, the impostor changed his language and his conduct. Having now a town at his command, where to arm his party, and to head them with security, he enters upon new. counsels. He now pretends that a divine commission is given him to attack the. infidels, to destroy idolatiy, and to set up the * Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 126. t bJ- P- H-- I This latter, however, already prevailed amongst the Arabs, and had grown out of their excessive veneration for the Caaba. Mahomet’s law, in this respect, was rather a compliance than an innovation.—Sale’s Prelim. Disc. p. 122. § Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 100. || Ib. p. 85. *T- Ibid Evidences of Christianity. 223 true faith by the s\vord.=^ An early victory over a very supenor force achieved by conduct and bravery, established the renown ot his arms, and of his personal character.! Every year after this was marked by battles or assassinations. The nature and activity oi Ma¬ homet’s future exertions may be estimated from the computation, that, in the nine following years of his life, he commanded his army in person in eight general engagements,! and undertook, by himseli or his lieutenants, fifty military enterprises. , n/r From this time we have nothing left to account for, but that M;^ hornet should collect an army, that his army should conquer, and that his religion should proceed together with his conquests. 1 he ordinary experience of human affairs, leaves us little to wonder at, in any of these effects: and they were likewise each assisted by peculiar facilities. From all sides, the roving Arabs crowded round the standard of religion and plunder, of freedom and victory, ot arms and rapine. Besides the highly painted joys of a carnal para¬ dise, Mahomet rewarded his followers in this world with a liberal division of the spoils, and with the persons of their female captives.^ The condition of Arabia, occupied by small independent tribes, ex¬ posed it to the impression, and yielded to the progress, ol a 11 ^ and resolute army. After the reduction of his native peninsula, the weakness also of the Roman provinces on the north and the west, as well as the distracted state of the Persian empire on the east, facilitated the successful invasion of neighboring countrms. ihat Mahomet’s conquests should carry his religion along with them, will excite little surprise, when we know the conditions which he pro¬ posed to the vanquished. Death or conversion was tlm only choice offered to idolaters. ‘ Strike off their heads! strike off all the ends of their fingers ! ll kill the idolaters wheresoever ye shall find them! To the Jews and Christians was left the somewhat milder alterna¬ tive of subjection and tribute, if they persisted in their own reli- gion, or of an equal participation in the rights and liberties, the honors and privileges, of the faithful, if they embraced the religion of their conquerors. ‘Ye Christian dogs, you know your option, the Koran, the tribute, or the sword.’* ** The corrupted state of Chris¬ tianity in the seventh century, and the contentions of its sects, un happily so fell in with men’s care of their safety, or their fortu^s, as to induce many to forsake its profession. Add to all whi^, that Mahomet’s victories not only operated by the natural ^ect ot conquest, but that they were constantly represented, both to his friends and enemies, as divine declarations in his favor. Success was evidence. Prosperity carried with it, not only influence, but proof ‘ Ye have already (says he, after the tettle of Bedr) had a miracle shown you, in two armies which attacked each other; o^^ army fought for God’s true religion, but the other were infidels, tt * Mod Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 88. I Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 255. II Sale’s Koran, c. viii. p. 140. ** Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 337. t Viet, of Bedr, ib. p. 106. § Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 255. IT Ib. c. ix. p. 149. tt Sale’s Koran, c. iii. p. 36. 224 Paley's View of the Again; ‘ Ye slew not those who were slain at Bedr, but God slew them.—If ye desire a decision of the matter between us, now hath a decision come unto you.’"'' Many more passages might be collected out of the Koran to the same effect. But they are unnecessary. The success of Mahome¬ tanism during this, and indeed, every future period of its history, bears so little resemblance to the early propagation of Christianity, that no inference whatever can justly be drawn from it to the pre¬ judice of the Christian argument. For, what are we comparing? A Galilean peasant accompanied by a few fishermen, with a conqueror at the head of his army. We compare Jesus, without force, without power, without support, without one external circumstance of at¬ traction or influence, prevailing against the prejudices, the learning, the hierarchy, of his country; against the ancient religious opinions, he pompous religious rites, the philosophy, the wisdom, the au¬ thority of the Roman empire, in thp most polished and enlightened period of its existence; with Mahomet making his way amongst Arabs; collecting followers in the midst of conquests and triumphs, in the darkest ages and countries of the world, and when success in arms not only operated by that command of men’s wills and persons which attends prosperous undertakings, but was considered as a sure testimony of divine approbation. That multitudes, persuaded by this argument, should join the train of a victorious chief; that Still greater multitudes should, without any argument, bow down before irresistible power; is a conduct in which w e cannot see much to surprise us; in which we can see nothing that resembles the causes by which the establishment of Christianity was effected. The success, therefore, of Mahometanism, stands not in the way of this important conclusion; that the propagation of Christianity in the manner and under the circumstances in which it was propa¬ gated, is a unique in the history of the species. A Jewish peasant overthrew the religion of the world. I have, nevertheless, placed the prevalency of the religion amongst the auxiliary arguments of its truth; because, wfoether it had prevailed or not, or whether its prevalency can or cannot be a'c- counted for, the direct argument remains still. It is still true that a great number of men upon the spot, personally connected with the history and with the author of the religion, were induced by wfoat they heard, and saw, and knew, not only to change their former opinions, but to give up their time, and sacrifice their ease, to tra- verse seas and kingdoms without rest and without w^eariness, to commit themselves to extreme dangers, to undertake incessant toils, to undergo grievous sufferings, and all this, solely in consequence, and in support, of their belief of facts, which, if true, establish the truth of the religion, which, if false, they must have known to be so * Sale’s Koran, c. viii. p. 141. Evidences of Christianity. PART III. 225 A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF SOME POPULAR OBJEC¬ TIONS. CHAP. I. The Discrepancies between the several Gospels. I KNOW not a more rash or unphilosophical conduct of the under¬ standing, than to reject the substance of a story, by reason of some diversity in the circumstances with which it is related. The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstan¬ tial variety. This is what the daily experience of courts of justice teaches. When accounts of a transaction come from the mouths of different witnesses, it is seldom that it is not possible to pick out apparent or real inconsistencies between them. These inconsisten¬ cies are studiously displayed by an adverse pleader, but oftentimes with little impression upon the minds of the judges. On the con¬ trary, a close and minute agreement induces the suspicion of con¬ federacy and fraud. When written histories touch upon the same scenes of action, the comparison almost always aflbrds ground for a like reflection. Numerous, and sometimes important, variations present themselves ; not seldom also, absolute and final contradic¬ tions ; yet neither one nor the other, are deemed sufficient to shake the credibility of the main fact. The embassy of the Jews to depre¬ cate the execution of Claudian’s order to place his statue in their temple, Philo places in harvest, Josephus in seed-time; both con¬ temporary writers. No reader is led by this inconsistency to doubt, whether such an embassy was sent, or whether such an order was given. Our own history supplies examples of the same kind. In the account of the Marquis of Argyll’s death, in the reign of Charles the Second, we have a very remarkable contradiction. Lord Clar¬ endon relates that he was condemned to be hanged, which was performed the same day; on the contrary, Burnet, Woodrow, Heath, Echard, concur in staling that he was beheaded; and that he was condemned upon the Saturday, and executed upon the Monday.* Was any reader of English history ever sceptic enough to raise from hence a question, whetner the Marquis of Argyll was executed or not? Yet this ought'to be left in uncertainty, according to the principles upon which the Christian history has sometimes been at¬ tacked. Dr. Middleton contended, that the different hours of the day assigned to the crucifixion of Christ, by John and by the other evangelists, did not admit of the reconcilement which learned men had proposed; and then concludes the discussion with this hard ^ See Biog. Britann. 226 Foley’s View of the remark : ‘We must be forced, with several of the critics, to leave the difficulty just as we found it, chargeable with all the conse¬ quences of manifest inconsistency.’* But what are these conse¬ quences ? By no means the discrediting of the history as to the principal fact, by a repugnancy (even supposing that repugnancy not to be resolvable into different modes of computation) in the time of the day in which it is said to have taken place. A great deal of the discrepancy observable in the Gospels, arises from omission ; from a fact or a passage of Christ’s life being no¬ ticed by one writer, which is unnoticed by another. Now, omis¬ sion is at all times a veiy uncertain ground of objection. We per¬ ceive it, not only in the comparison of different writers, but even in the same writer when compared with himself. There are a great many particulars, and some of them of importance, mentioned by Josephus in his Antiquities, which, as w'e should have supposed, ught to have been put down by him in their place in the Jewish Wars.t Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, have, all three, written of the reign of Tiberius. Each has mentioned many things omitted by the rest,t yet no objection is from thence taken to the respective credit of their histories. We have in our own times, if there were not something indecorous in the comparison, the life of an eminent person, written by three of his friends, in which there is very great variety in the incidents selected by them ; some apparent, and per¬ haps some real contradictions; yet without any impeachment of the substantial truth of their accounts, of the authenticity of the books, of the competent information or general fidelity of the writers. But these discrepancies will be still more numerous, when men do not write histories, but memoirs; which is perhaps the true name and proper description of our Gospels: that is, when they do not undertake, or ever meant, to deliver, in order of time, a regular and complete account of all the things of importance, which the person, who is the subject of their history, did or said; but only, out of many similar ones, to give such passages or such actions and discourses, as offered themselves more immediately to their atten¬ tion, came in the way of their inquiries, occurred to their recollec¬ tions, or were suggested by their particular design at the time of writing. This particular design may appear sometimes, but not always, nor often. Thus I think that the particular design which Saint Matthew had in view whilst he was writing the history of the resurrection, was to attest the faithful performance of Christ’s prom- se to his disciples to go before them into Galilee; because he alone, except Mark, who seems to have taken it from him, has recorded this promise, and he alone has confined his narrative to that single appearance to the disciples which fulfilled it. It was the precon¬ certed, the great and most public manifestation of our Lord’s person. It was the thing which dwelt upon Saint Matthew’s mind, and he * Middleton’s Reflections answered by Benson. Hist. Christ, vol. iii p. 50. I Lardner, Cred. part i. vol. ii. p. 735, &c. J Ib. p. 743. Evidences of Christianity. 227 adapted his narrative to it. But, that there is nothing in Saint Mat¬ thew’s language, w'hich negatives other appearances, or which im¬ ports that this appearance to his disciples in Galilee in pursuance of his promise, was his first or only appearance, is made pretty evi¬ dent by Saint Mark’s Gospel, which uses the same terms concern- ing the appearance in Galilee as Saint Matthew uses, yet itself records two other appearances prior to this; ‘Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him as he said unto you.’ (xvi. 7). We might be apt to Infer from these words, that this was the first time they were to see him : at least, we might infer it, with as much reason as we draw the inference from the same words in Matthew; yet the historian himself did not perceive that he was leading his readers to any such conclusion; for in the twelfth and two following verses of this chapter, he informs us of two appearances, which, by comparing the order of events, are shown to have been prior to the appearance in Galilee. ‘ He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they w'alked, and went into the country: and they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them: afterward he appeared un-o the eleven, as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen.’ . Probably the same observation, concerning the particular design which guided the historian, may be of use in comparing many other passages of the Gospels. CHAP. II. Erroneous Opinions imputed to the Apostles. A SPECIES of candor which is shown towards every other book, is sometimes refused to the Scriptures; and that is, the placing of a distinction between judgment and testimony. We do not usually question the credit of a writer, by reason of an opinion he may have delivered upon subjects unconnected with his evidence : and even upon subjects connected with his account, or mixed with it in the same discourse or writing, we naturally separate facts from opin¬ ions, testimony from observation, narrative from argument. To apply this equitable consideration to the Christian records, much controversy and much objection has been raised concerning the quotations of the Old Testament found in the New; some of which quotations, it is said, are applied in a sense, and to events, apparently different from that which they bear, and from those to which they belong, in the original. It is probable to my apprehen¬ sion, that many of these quotations were intended by the writers of the New Testament as nothing more than accommodations. They quoted passages of their Scripture, which suited, and fell in with,, the occasion before them, without always undertaking to assert, that the occasion was in the view of the author of the words. Such accommodations of passages from old authors, from books especially 228 Paleifs View of the which are in everyone’s hands, are common wifh writers of all countries; but in none, perhaps, were more to be expected than in the writings of the Jews, whose literature was almost entirely con¬ fined to their Scriptures. Those prophecies which are alleged with more solemnity, and which are accompanied with a precise decla¬ ration, that they originally respected the event then related, are, I think, truly alleged. But were it otherwise; is the judgment of the writers of the New Testament, in interpreting passages of the Old, or sometimes, perhaps, in receiving established interpretations, so connected either with their veracity, or with their means of in¬ formation concerning what was passing in their own times, as that a critical mistake, even were it clearly made out, should overthrow their historical credit ?—Does it diminish it ? Has it any thing to do with it ? Another error imputed to the first Christians, was the expected approach of the day of judgment. I would introduce this objection by a remark upon what appears to me a somewhat similar example Our Saviour, speaking to Peter of John, said, ‘If I will that he tarry till I come, what is tljat to thee ? These words, we find, had been so misconstrued, as that a report from thence ‘ went abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.’ Suppose that this had come down to us amongst the prevailing opinions of the early Christians, and that the particular circumstance, from which the mistake sprang, had been lost (which, humanly speaking, was most likely to have been the case), some, at this day, would have been ready to regard and quote the error, as an impeachment of the whole Christian system. Yet with how little justice such a conclusion would have been drawn, or rather such a presumption taken up, the information which we happen to possess, enables us now to per¬ ceive. To those who think that the Scriptures lead us to believe, that the early Christians, and even the apostles, expected the ap¬ proach of the day of judgment in their own times, the same reflec¬ tion will occur, as that which we have made with respect to the more partial, perhaps, and temporary, but still no less ancient error, concerning the duration of St. John’s life. It was an error, it may be likewise said, which would effectually hinder those who enter¬ tained it from acting the part of impostors. The difficulty which attends the subject of the present chapter, is contained in this question; If we once admit the fallibility of the apostolic judgment, where are we to stop, or in what can we rely upon it? To which question, as arguing with unbelievers, and as arguing for the substantial truth of the Christian history, and for that alone, it is competent to the advocate of Christianity to reply. Give me the apostles’ testimony, and I do not stand in need of their judgment; give me the facts, and I have complete security for every conclusion I want. But, although I think that it is competent to the Christian apolo¬ gist to return this answer; I do not think that is the only answer * John xxi. 23. Evidences of Christianity. 229 which the objection is capable of receiving. The two following cautions, founded, I apprehend, in the most reasonable distinctions, will exclude all uncertainty upon this head which can be attended wdth danger. First, to separate what was the object of the apostolic mission, and declared by them to be so, from what was extraneous to it, or only incidentally connected with it. Of points clearly extraneous to the religion, nothing need be said. Of points incidentally connected with it, something may be added. Demoniacal possession is one of these points: concerning the reality of which, as this place will not admit the examination, or even the production of the argument bn either side of the question, it would be arrogance in me to deliver any judgment. And it is unnecessary. For what I am concerned to observe is, that even they who think it was a general, but erro¬ neous opinion, of those times; and that the writers of the New Tes¬ tament, in common with other Jewish writers of that age, fell into the manner of speaking and of thinking upon the subject, which then universally prevailed, need not be alarmed by the concession, as though they had any thing to fear from it, for the truth of Chris¬ tianity. The doctrine was not what Christ brought into the world. It appears in the Christian records, incidentally and accidentally, as being the subsisting opinion of the age and country in which his ministry was exercised. It was no part of the object of his revela¬ tion, to regulate other men’s opinions concerning the action of spir¬ itual substances upon animal bodies. At any rate, it is unconnected with testimony. If a dumb person was by a word restored to the use of his speech, it signifies little to what cause the dumbness was ascribed ; and the like of every other cure wrought upon those wdio are said to have been possessed. The malady was real, the cure was real, whether the popular explication of the cause was well founded, or not. The matter of fact, the change, so far as it was an object of sense, or of testimony, was in either case the same. Secondly, that, in reading the apostolic waitings, Ave distinguish between their doctrines and their arguments. Their doctrines came to them by revelation properly so called; yet in propounding these doctrines in their writings or discourses, they were wont to illus¬ trate, support, and enforce them, by such analogies, arguments, and considerations, as their own thoughts suggested. Thus the call of the Gentiles, that is, the admission of the Gentiles to the Christian profession without a previous subjection to the law of Moses, was imparted to the apostles by revelation, and was attested by the mir¬ acles which attended the Christian ministry among them. The apostles’ own assurance of the matter rested upon this foundation. Nevertheless, Saint Paul, when treating of the subject, offers a great variety of topics in its proof and vindication. The doctrine itself must be received : but it is not necessary, in order to defend Chris¬ tianity, to defend the propriety of ex^ery comparison, or the validity of every argument, which the apostle has brought into the discus¬ sion. The same obserA ation applies to some other instances; and is, in my opinion, very well founded; ‘When divine waiters argue 230 Paley'^s View of the upon any point, we are always bound to believe the conclusions that their reasonings end in, as parts of divine revelation: but we are not bound to be able to make out, or even to assent to, all the premises made use of by them, in their whole extent, unless it ap¬ pear plainly, that they affirm the premises as expressly as they do the conclusions proved by them.’* CHAP. HI. The Connexion of Christianity with the Jewish History. Undoubtedly our Saviour assumes the divine origin of the Mo saic institution: and, independently of his authority, I conceive it to be very difficult to assign any other cause for the commencement or existence of that institution; especially for the singular circum¬ stance of the Jews’ adhering to the unity, when every other people slid into polytheism; for their being men in religion, children in eveiy thing else; behind other nations in the arts of peace and war, superior to the most improved in their sentiments and doctrines relating to the Deity.t Undoubtedly, also, our Saviour recognizes the prophetic character of many of their ancient writers. So far, therefore, we are bound as Christians to go. But to make Chris¬ tianity answerable with its life, for the circumstantial truth of each separate passage of the Old Testament, the genuineness of every book, the information, fidelity, and judgment, of every writer in it, is to bring, I will not say great, but unnecessary difficulties, into the whole system. These books were universally read and received by the Jews of our Saviour’s time. He and his apostles, in common with all other Jews, referred to them, alluded to them, used them. Yet, except where he expressly ascribes a divine authority to par¬ ticular predictions, I do not know that w'e can strictly draw any conclusion from the books being so used and applied, beside the proof, which it unquestionably is, of their notoriety, and reception at that time. In this view, our Scriptures afford a valuable testimony * Burnet’s Expos, art. 6. t ‘In the doctrine, for example, of the unity, the eternity, the omnipo¬ tence, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the wisdom, and the goodness, of God ; in their opinions concerning Providence, and the creation, pre¬ servation, and government of the world.’ Campbell on Mir. p. 207. To which we may add, in the acts of their religion not being accompanied either with cruelties or impurities; in the religion itself being free from a species of superstition which prevailed universally in the popular reli¬ gions of the ancient world, and which is to be found perhaps in. all reli¬ gions that have their origin in human artifice and credulity, viz. fanciful connexions between certain appearances and actions, and the destiny of nations or individuals. Upon these conceits rested the whole train of auguries and auspices, which formed so much even of the serious part of the religions of Greece and Rome, and of the charms and incantations which were practised in those countries by the common people. From every thing of this sort the religion of the Jews, alone, was free. Vide Priestley’s Lectures on the Truth of the Jewish and Christian Revela¬ tion, 1794. Evidences of Christianity. 281 to those of the Jews. But the nature of this testimony ought to he understood. It is surely very different from, what it is sometimes represented to be, a specific ratification of each particular fact and opinion; and not only of each particular fact, but of the motives assigned for every action, together with the judgment of praise or dispraise bestowed upon them. Saint James, in his Epistle,* says, ‘ Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.’ Notwithstanding this text, the reality of Job’s history, and even the existence of such a person, has been always deemed a fair subject of inquiry and discussion amongst Christian divines Saint James’s authority is considered as good evidence of the exist¬ ence of the book of Job at that time, and of its reception by the Jews; and of nothing more. Saint Paul, in his second Epistle to Timothy,t has this similitude ; ‘Now, as Jannes and Jambres with¬ stood Moses, so do these also resist the truth.’ These names are not found in the Old Testament, And it is uncertain, whether Saint Paul took them from some apocryphal writing then extant, or from tradition. But no one ever imagined, that Saint Paul is here asserting the authority of the writing, if it was a written account which he quoted, or making himself answerable for the authenticity of the tradition; much less, that he so involves himself with either of these questions, as that the credit of his own history and mission should depend upon the fact, whether Jannes and Jambres with¬ stood Moses, or not. For what reason a more rigorous interpreta¬ tion should be put upon other references, it is difficult to know. I do not mean, that other passages of the Jewish history stand upon no better evidence than the history of Job, or of Jannes and Jambres (I think much otherwise); but I mean, that a reference in the New Testament, to a passage in the Old, does not so fix its authority, as to exclude all inquiry into its credibility, or into the separate reasons upon which that credibility is founded : and that it is an unwar¬ rantable, as well as an unsafe rule to lay down concerning the Jewish history, what was never laid down concerning any other, that either every particular of it must be true, or the whole false. I have thought it necessa^ to state this point explicitly, because a fashion, revived by Voltaire, and pursued by the disciples of his school, seems to have much prevailed of late, of attacking Chris¬ tianity through the sides of Judaism. Some objections of this class are founded in misconstruction, some in exaggeration; but all pro¬ ceed upon a supposition, which has not been made out by argu¬ ment, viz. that the attestation, which the Author and first teachers of Christianity gave to the divine mission of Moses and the prophets, extends to every point and portion of the Jewish history; and so extends as to make Christianity responsible in its own credibility, for the circumstantial truth (I had almost said for the critical exact¬ ness) of every narrative contained in the Old Testament. * Chap. V. 11. t Chap. iii. 8. 232 Paley*s View of the CHAP. IV. Rejection of Christianity We acknowledge that the Christian religion, although it converted great numbers, did not produce a universal, or even a general, con¬ viction in the minds of men, of the age and countries in which it appeared. And this want of a more complete and extensive success, is called the rejection of the Christian history and miracles; and has been thought by some to form a strong objection to the reality of the facts which the history contains. The matter of the objection divides itself into two parts; as it re¬ lates to the Jews, and as it relates to Heathen nations: because the minds of these two descriptions of men may have been, with respect to Christianity, under the influence of very different causes. The case of the Jews, inasmuch as our Saviour’s ministry was originally addressed to them, offers itself first to our consideration. ‘Now, upon the subject of the truth of the Christian religion; with us, there is but one question, viz. whether the miracles were actually wrought ? From acknowledging the miracles, we pass in¬ stantaneously to the acknowledgment of the whole. No doubt lies between the premises and the conclusion. If we believe the works, or any one of them, we believe in Jesus. And this order of reasoning is become so universal and familiar, that we do not readily appre¬ hend how it could ever have been otherwise. Yet it appears to me perfectly certain, that the state of thought, in the mind of a Jew of our Saviour’s age, was totally different from this. After allowing the reality of the miracle, he had a great deal to do to pereuade himself that Jesus was the Messiah. This is clearly intimated by various passages of the Gospel history. It appears that, in the ap¬ prehension of the writers of the New Testament, the miracles did not irresistibly carry, even those who saw them, to the conclusion intended to be drawn from them; or so compel assent, as to leave no room for suspense, for the exercise of candor, or the effects of [ )rejudice. And to this point, at least, the evangelists may be al- owed to be good witnesses; because it is a point in which exag¬ geration or disguise would have been the other way. Their ac¬ counts, if they could be suspected of falsehood, would rather have magnified, than diminished, the effects of the miracles. John vii. 21—31. ‘ Jesus answered, and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel.—If a man on the sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit wdiole on the sabbath-day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill ? But, lo, he speaketh boldly and they say nothing to him: do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ ? Howbeit we know this man, whence he is, but when Christ Cometh, no man knowelh whence he is. Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying. Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is Evidences of Christianity. 233 true, whom ye know not. But I know him, for I am from him, and he hath sent me. Then they sought to take him : but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come. Aiid many of the people believed on him, and said, 'When Christ ccmeih, will he do more miracles than those which this man hath done ?’ This passage is very observable. It exhibits the reasoning of dit ferent sorts of persons upon the occasion of a miracle, which per* sons of all sorts are represented to have acknowledged as real. One sort of men thought, that there w'as something very exti-aordinary in all this ; but that still Jesus could not be the Christ, because there was a circumstance in his appearance which militated with an opin¬ ion concerning Christ, in which they had been brought up, and of the truth of which, it is probable, they had never entertained a particle of doubt, viz. that ‘ When Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.’ Another sort were inclined to believe him to be the Messiah. But even these did not argue as we should ; did not consider the miracle as of itself decisive of the question ; as what, if once allowed, excluded all farther debate upon the subject; but founded their opinion upon a kind of comparative reasoning, ‘ When Christ comefh, will he do more miracles than those which this man hath done V Another passage in the same evangelist, and observable for the same purpose, is that in which he relates the resurrection of Laza¬ rus : ‘ Jesus,’ he tells us (xi. 43, 44), ‘ when he had thus spoken, cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth : and he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him, and let him go.’ One might have suspected, that at least all those who stood by the sepulchre, when Lazarus was raised, would have believed in Jesus. Yet the evangelist does not so represent it:— ‘Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him; but some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.’ We cannot suppose that the evangelist meant by this account, to leave his readers to imagine, that any of the spectators doubted about the truth of the miracle^ Far from it. Unquestionably he states the miracle to have been fully allowed : yet the persons who allowed it, were, according to his representation, capable of retain¬ ing hostile sentiments tow’ards Jesu.s. ‘ Believing in Jesus’ was not only to believe that he wrought miracles, but that he was the Mes¬ siah. With us there is no difference between these two things: with them, there was the greatest; and the difference is apparent in this transaction. If Saint John has represented the conduct of the Jews upon this occasion truly (and why he should not I cannot tell, for it rather makes against him than for him), it shows clearly the principles upon which their judgment proceeded. Whether he has related the matter truly or not, the relation itself discovers the writer’s ov^ti opinion of those principles: and that alone possesses considerable authority. In the next chapter, w'e have a reflection of the evangelist, entirely suited to this state of the case: ‘ but 31 U 2 234 Paleifs View of the though he had done so many miracles before them, yet believed they not on him.’* The evangelist does not mean to impute the defect of their belief to any doubt about the miracles; but to their not perceiving, what all now? sufficiently perceive, and what they would have perceived, had not their understandings been governed by strong prejudices, the infallible attestation which the works of Jesus bore to the truth of his pretensions. The ninth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel contains a very circum¬ stantial account of the cure of a blind man: a miracle submitted to all the scrutiny and examination which a sceptic could propose. If a modem unbeliever had drawn up the interrogatories, they could hardly have been more critical or searching. The account contains also a very curious conference between the Jewish rulers and the patient, in which the point for our present notice is their resistance of the force of the miracle, and of the conclusion to which it led, after they had failed in discrediting its evidence. ‘We know that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he is.’ That was the answer which set their minds at rest. And by the help of much prejudice, and great unwillingness to yield, it might do so. In the mind of the poor man restored to sight, which was under no such bias, and felt no such reluctance, the miracle had its natural operation. ‘Herein,’ says he, ‘is a marvellous thing that ye know not from whence he is, yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know, that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard, that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.’ We do not find, that the Jewish rulers had any other re¬ ply to make to this defence, than that which authority is sometimes apt to make to argument, ‘ Dost thou teach us V If it shall be inquired, how a turn of thought, so different from what prevails at present, should obtain currency with the ancient Jews; the answer is found in two opinions which are proved to have subsisted in that age and country. The one was, their expec¬ tation of a Messiah of a kind totally contrary to what the appear¬ ance of Jesus bespoke him to be; the other, their persuasion of the agency of demons in the production of supernatural effects. These opinions are not supposed by us for the purpose of argument, but are evidently recognized in Jewish writings, as well as in ours. And it ought moreover to be considered, that in these opinions the Jews of that age had been from their infancy brought up; that they were opinions, the grounds of which they had probably few of them in¬ quired into, and of the truth of which they entertained no doubt. And I think that these two opinions conjointly afford an explanation of their conduct. The first put them upon seeking out some excuse to themselves for not receiving Jesus in the character in which he claimed to be received; and the second supplied them with just such an excuse as they wanted. Let Jesus work what miracles he * Chap. xii. 37. Evidences of Christianity. 235 would, still the answer was in readiness, ‘ that he wrought them by the assistance of Beelzebub.’ And to this answer no reply could be made, but that which our Saviour did make, by showing that the tendency of his mission was so adverse to the views with which this being was, by the objectors themselves, supposed to act, that it could not reasonably be supposed that he would assist in carrying it on. The power displayed in the miracles did not alone refute the Jewish solution, because the interposition of invisible agents being once admitted, it is impossible to ascertain the limits by which their efficiency is circumscribed. We of this day may be disposed, possi¬ bly, to think such opinions too absurd to have been ever seriously entertained. I am not bound to contend for the credibility of the opinions. They were at least as reasonable as the belief in witch¬ craft. They were opinions in which the Jewrs of that age had from their infancy been instructed; and those who cannot see enough in the force of this reason, to account for their conduct towards our Saviour, do not sufficiently consider how such opinions may some¬ times become very general in a country, and with what pertinacity, when once become so, they are, for that reason alone, adhered to. In the suspense which these notions, and the prejudices resulting from them, might occasion, the candid and docile and humble- minded would probably decide in Christ’s favor; the proud and ob¬ stinate, together with the giddy and the thoughtless, almost univer¬ sal against him. 'This state of opinion discovers to us also the reason of what some choose to wonder at, why the Jews should reject miracles wdien they saw them, yet rely so much upon the tradition of them in their own history. It does not appear that it had ever entered into the minds of those who lived in the time of Moses and the prophets, to ascribe iAefr miracles to the supernatural agency of evil beings. The solution was not then invented. The authority of Moses and the prophets being established, and become the foundation of the national polity and religion, it was not probable that the later Jews, brought up in a reverence for that religion, and the. subjects of that polity, should apply to their history a reasoning which tended to overthrow the foundation of both. II. The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my j udgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz. contempt prior to examination. The state of religion amongst the Greeks and Romans, had a natural tendency to induce this disposition. Dionysius Halicamassensis re¬ marks, that there w'ere six hundred different kinds of religions or sacred rites exercised at Rome.* The superior classes of the com rnunity treated them all as fables. Can we wonder then, that Chris¬ tianity was included in the number, without inquiry into its sepa¬ rate merits, or the particular grounds of its pretensions ? It might be either true or false for any thing they knew about it. The religion * Jortin’s Remarks on Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 371. 236 Foley's View of the ' had nothing in its character which immediately engaged their no- • tice. It mixed with no politics. It produced no fine writers. It , contained no curious speculations. When it did reach their know¬ ledge, I doubt not but that it appeared to them a very strange sys- . tern,—so unphilosophical,—dealing so little in argument and discus- 111 sion, in such arguments however and discussions as they were ac¬ customed to entertain. What is said of Jesus Christ, of his nature, | office, and ministry, would be in the highest degree alien from the conceptions of their theology. The Redeemer and the destined , Judge of the human race, a poor young man, executed at Jerusalem , with two thieves upon a cross! Still more would the language in which the Christian doctrine was delivered, be dissonant and bar¬ barous to their ears. What knew they of grace, of redemption, of justification, of the blood of Christ shed for the sins of men, of re¬ concilement, of mediation ? Christianity was made up of points they had never thought of; of terms which they had never heard. It was presented also to the imagination of the learned Heathen under additional disadvantage, by reason of its real, and still more of its nominal, connexion with Judaism. It shared in the obloquy and ridicule with which that people and their religion vvere treated by the Greeks and Romans. They regarded Jehovah himself only as the idol of the Jewish nation, and what was related of him, as of a piece with what was told of the tutelar deities of other coun¬ tries : nay, the Jews were in a particular manner ridiculed for being a credulous race; so that whatever reports of a miraculous nature came out of that country, were looked upon by the Heathen world as false and frivolous. When they heard of Christianity, they heard of it as a quarrel amongst this people, about some articles of their own superstition. Despising, therefore, as they did, the whole sys¬ tem, it was not probable that they would enter, with any degree of seriousness or attention, into the detail of its disputes, or the merits of either side. How little they knew, and with what carelessness they judged, of these matters, appears, I think, pretty plainly from an example of no less weight than that of Tacitus, who, in a grave ' and professed discourse upon the history of the Jews, states, that they w’orshipped the effigy of an ass.* The passage is a proof, how prone the learned men of those times were, and upon how little evidence, to heap together stories which might increase the con¬ tempt and odium in which that people was holden. The same fool ish charge is also confidently repeated by Plutarch.t It is observable, that all these considerations are of a nature to operate with the greatest force upon the highest ranks; upon men of education, and that order of the public from which writers are principally taken : I may add also, upon the philosophical as well as the libertine character; upon the Antonines or Julian, not less than! upon Nero or Domitian; and more particularly, upon that large and polished class of men, who acquiesced in the general persuasion, ‘ that all they had to do was to practise the duties of morality, and to: * Tacit. Hist. lib. v. c. 2. f Sympos. lib iv qusest. 5. 237 Evidences of Christianity. worship the Deity more patrio; a habit of thinking, liberal as it may appear, which shuts the door against every argument for a new religion. The considerations above mentioned, would acquire also strength from the prejudice which men of rank and learning uni¬ versally entertain against any thing that originates with the vulgar and illiterate; which prejudice is known to be as obstinate as any prejudice whatever. Yet Christianity was still making its way: and, amidst so many impediments to its progress, so much difficulty in procuring audi¬ ence and attention, its actual success is more to be wondered at, than that it should not have universally conquered scorn and indib ference, fixed the levity of a voluptuous age, or, through a cloud of adverse prejudications, opened for itself a passage to the hearts and understandings of the scholars of the age. ^ • And the cause, which is here assigned for the rejection of Chris¬ tianity by men of rank and learning among the Heathens, namely, a strong antecedent contempt, accounts also for their silence con¬ cerning it. If they had rejected it upon examination, they would have written about it; they would have given their reasons. '\ Whereas, what men repudiate upon the strength of some prefixed persuasion, or from a settled contempt of the subject, of the persons who propose it, or of the manner in which it is proposed, they do not naturally write books about, or notice much in what they write upon other subjects. The letters of the Younger Pliny furnish an example of the silence, and let us, in some measure, into the cause of it. From his cele¬ brated correspondence with Trajan, we irnow that the Christian religion prevailed in a very considerable degree in the province over which he presided ^ that it had excited his attention 5 that he had inquired into the matter, just so much as a Roman magistrate might be expected to inquire, viz. whether the religion contained any opinions dangerous to government,' but that of its doctrines, its evidences, or its books, he had not taken the trouble to inform self with any degree of care or correctness. But although Pliny had viewed Christianity in a nearer position than most of his learned countrymen saw it int yet he had regarded the whole with such negli<>'ence and disdain (farther than as it seemed to concern his administration), that, in more than two hundred and forty letters of his which have come down to us, the subject is never once again iHGTitionGd. If, out of this number, the tw’O letters between him und Trajan had been lost; with what confidence would the obscurity of the Christian religion have been argued from Pliny’s silence about it, and with how little truth! . The name and character which Tacitus has given to Christianity, ‘ exitiabiiis siiperstitio,’ (a pernicious superstition), and by which two W'ords he disposes of the whole question of the merits or dements of the religion, afford a strong proof how little he knew, or con- CGmcd himsolf to know, about the muttGr. I apprehend that I shall not be contradicted, when I take upon me to assert, that no unbe¬ liever of the present age would apply this epithet to the Christianity 238 Paley's View of the of the New Testament, or not allow that it was entirely unmerited Read the instructions given by a great teacher of the religion, to those very Roman converts of whom Tacitus speaks; and given also a very few years before the time of which he is speaking; and which ' are not, let it be observed, a collection of fine sayings brought to¬ gether from different parts of a large work, but stand in one entire I passage of a public letter, without the intermixture of a single thought which is frivolous or exceptionable:—‘ Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another: not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. Bless them which per¬ secute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do re¬ joice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one towards another. Mind, not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. i If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord: therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. ‘Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he bear- eth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger i| to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute, to whom tribute is due; custom, to whom cus tom; fear, to whom fear; honor, to w^hom honor. ‘ Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that lov eth another, hath fulfilled the law. For this. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. ‘ And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to aw’ake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we be¬ lieved. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light 239 Evidences of Christianity. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.’"* Read this, and then think of ‘ exitiabilis superstitio!!’—Or, if we be not allowed, in contending with heathen authorities, to produce our books against theirs, we may at least be permitted to confront theirs with one another. Of this ‘pernicious superstition,’ what could Pliny find to blame, when he was led, by his office, to insti¬ tute something like an examination into the conduct and principles of the sect? He discovered nothing, but that they were wont to meet together on a slated day before it was light, and sing among themselves a hymn to Christ as a God, and to bind themselves by an oath, not to the commission of any wickedness, but, not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; never to falsify their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them, when called upon to return it. Upon the words of Tacitus we may build the following observa¬ tions :— I, , • j First; That we are well warranted in calling the view under which the learned men of that age beheld Christianity, an obscure and distant view. Had Tacitus known more of Christianity, of its precepts, duties, constitution, or design, however he had discredited the story, he would have respected the principle. He would have described the religion differently, though he had rejected it. It has been satisfiictorily shown, that the ‘superstition’ of the Christians consisted in worshipping a person unknoyvm to the Roman calendar; and that the ‘perniciousness’ with which they were reproached, was nothing else but their opposition to the established polytheism; and this view of the matter was just such a one as might be ex¬ pected to occur to a mind, which held the sect in too much contempt to concern itself about the grounds and reasons of their conduct. Secondly; We may from hence remark, how little reliance can be placed upon the most acute judgments, in subjects w’hich they are pleased to despise; and which, of course, they frorn the first consider as unworthy to be inquired into. Had not Christianity sur¬ vived to tell its owm story, it must have gone down to posterity as a '‘ pernicious superstitionand that upon the credit of Tacitus s ac¬ count- much, I doubt not, strengthened by the name of the writer, and the reputation of his sagacity. Thirdly; That this contempt prior to examination, is an intellect¬ ual vice, from which the greatest faculties of mind are not free. I know not, indeed, w’hether men of the greatest faculties of mind, are not the most subject to it. Such men feel themselves seated upon an eminence. Looking down from their height upon the follies uf mankind, they behold contending tenets wasting their idle strength upon one another, with the common disdain of the absurdity of them all. This habit of thought, however comfortable to the mind which entertains it, or however natural to great parts, is extremely danger¬ ous ; and more apt than almost any other disposition, to produce hasty and contemptuous, and, by consequence, erroneous judgments. Doth of persons and opinions. * Romans xii. 9, xiii. 13. 240 Paley^s View of the Fourthly; We need not be surprised at many writers of that affe not mentioning Christianity at all: when they who did mention it, appear to have entirely misconceived its nature and character; and, m consequence of this misconception, to have regarded it with neo^- ligence and contempt. ° To the knowledge of the greatest part of the learned Heathens, me tacts of the Christian history could only come by report. The books, probably, they never looked into. The settled habit of their minds was, and long had been, an indiscriminate rejection of all reports of the kind. With these sweeping conclusions, truth hath no chance. It depends upon distinction. If they would not inquire, how should they be convinced ? It might be founded in truth, though they, who made no search, might not discover it. ‘Men of rank and fortune, of wit and abilities, are often found, even in Christian countries, to be surprisingly ignorant of religion to it. Such were many of the Hea¬ thens. Their thoughts were all fixed upon other things; upon repu¬ tation and glory, upon wealth and power, upon luxury and pleasure upon business or learning. They thought, and they had reason to think, that the religion of their country was fable and forgery, a heap of inconsistent lies; which inclined them to suppose that other reli¬ gions were no better. Hence it came to pass, that when the apostles preached the Gospel, and wrought miracles in confirmation of a doctrine every way worthy of God, many Gentiles knew little or nothing of it, and would not take the least pains to inform them¬ selves about it. This appears plainly from ancient history.’* I think it by no means unreasonable to suppose, that the heathen public, especially that part which is made up of men of rank and education, were divided into tw'o classes; those who despised Chris¬ tianity beforehand, and those who received it. In correspondency with wfoich division of character, the writers of that age would also be of two classes; those who were silent about Christianity, and those who were Christians. ‘ A good man, who attended sufficiently to the Christian affairs, would become a Christian ; after which his testimony ceased to be Pagan, and became Christian.’t I must also add, that I think it sufficiently proved, that the notion of magic was resorted to by the Heathen adversaries of Christianity, m like manner as that of diabolical agency had before been by the Jews. Justin Martyr alleges this as his reason for arguina- from pri^hecy, rather than from miracles. Origen imputes this ev asion to Celsus; Jerome to Porphyry; and Lactantius to the Heathens in general. The several passages, which contain these testimonies, will be produced in the next chapter. It being difficult, however to ascertain in what degree this notion prevailed, especially amongst the superior ranks of the Heathen communities, another, and I think an adequate, cause has been assigned for their infidelity. It is prob¬ able, that in many cases the two causes would operate together. * Jortin’s Disc, on the Christ. Rel. p. GO. ed. 4th. t Hartley’s Obs. p. 119. 241 Evidences of Christianity. CHAP. V. That the Christian Miracles are not recited, or appealed to, hy early Christian Writers themselves, so fully or frequently as might have been expected. I SHALL consider this objection, first, as it applies to the letters of the apostles, preserved in the New Testament; and secondly, as it applies to the remaining writings of other early Christians. The epistles of the apostles are either hortatory or argumentative. So far as they were occupied in delivering lessons of duty, rules of public order, admonitions against certain prevailing corruptions, against vice, or any particular species of, it, or in fortifying and en¬ couraging the constancy of the disciples under the trials to which they were exposed, there appears to be no place or occasion for more of these references than we actually find. So far as the epistles are argumentative, the nature of the argu¬ ment which they handle accounts for the infrequency of these allu¬ sions. These qjjistles were not written to prove the truth of Chris¬ tianity. The subject under consideration was not that which the miracles decided, the reality of our Lord’s mission ; but it was that wLich the miracles did not decide, the nature of his person or power, the design of his advent, its effects, and of those effects- the value, kind, and extent. Still I maintain, that miraculous evidence lies at the bottom of the argument. For nothing could be so pre¬ posterous as for the disciples of Jesus to dispute amongst themselves, or with others, concerning nis office or character, unless they be¬ lieved that he had shown, by supernatural proofs, that there was something extraordinary in both. Miraculous evidence, therefore, forming not the texture of these arguments, but the ground and substratum, if it be occasionally discerned, if it be incidentally ap¬ pealed to, it is exactly so much as ought to take place, supposing the history to- be true. As a farther answer to the objection, that the apostolic epistles do not contain so frequent, or such direct and circumstantial recitals of miracles as might be expected, I would add^ that pie apostolic epistles resemble in this respe^. the apostolic speeches; which speeches are given by a writer who distinctly records numerous miracles wrought by these apostles themselves, and by the Founder of the institution in their presence: that it is unwarrantable to contend, that the omission, or infrequency, of such recitals in the speeches of the apostles, negatives the existence of the miracles, when the speeches are given in immediate conjunction with the history of those miracles: and that a conclusion which cannot be inferred from the speeches, without contradicting the w’hole tenor of the book which contains them, cannot be inferred from letters, which, in this respect, are similar only to the speeches. To prove the similitude which we allege, it may be remarked, that although in Saint Luke’s Gospel the apostle Peter is repre¬ sented to have been present at many decisive miracles wrought by Christ; and although the second part of the same history ascribes 242 Paley's View of the other decisive miracles to Peter himself, particularly the cure of the lame man at the gate of the temple, (Acts iii. 1.) the death of Ana¬ nias and Sapphira, (Acts v. 1.) the cure of Aeneas, (Acts ix. 34.) the resurrection of Dorcas; (Acts ix. 40.) yet out of six speeches of Pe¬ ter, preserved in the Acts, I know but two in which reference is made to the miracles wrought by Christ, and only one in which he refers to miraculous powers possessed by himself In his speech upon the day of Pentecost, Peter addressed his audience with great solemnity, thus: ‘Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by mi¬ racles, and w'onders, and signs, which God did by him m the midst of you, as ye yourselves also Imow,’* &c. In his speech upon the conversion of Cornelius, he delivers his testimony to the miracles performed by Christ, in these words: ‘We are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews, and in Je- rusalem.’t But in this latter speech, no allusion appears to the miracles wrought by himself, notwithstanding that the miracles above enumerated all preceded the time in which it was delivered. In his speech upon the election of Matthias,t no distinct reference is made to any of the miracles of Christ’s history, except his resurrec¬ tion. The same also may be observed of his speech upon the cure of the lame man at the gate of the temple :§ the same in his speech before the Sanhedrim ;ll the same in his second apology in the pres¬ ence of that assembly. Stephen’s long speech contains no reference whatever to miracles, though it be expressly related of him, in the book which preserves the speech, and almost immediately before the speech, ‘ that he did great wonders and miracles among the people. ’IF Again, although miracles be expressly attributed to Saint Paul iri the Acts of the Apostles, first generally, as at Iconium, (Acts xiv. 3.) during the whole tour through the Upper Asia, (xiv. 27. XV. 12.) at Ephesus: (xix. 11, 12.) secondly, in specific instances, as the blindness of Elymas at Paphos,’*'’^ the cure of the cripple at Lystra,tt of the Pythoness at Philippi,^ the miraculous liberation from prison in the same city,§$ the restoration of Eutychus,|||| the predictions of his shipwreck,irir the viper at Melita,**’^ the cure of Publius’s father,ttt at all which miracles, except the first two, the historian himself was present: notwithf;tending, I say, this positive ascription of miracles to Saint Paul, yet in the speeches delivered by him, and given as delivered by him, in the same Wk in which the miracles are related, and the miraculous powers asserted, the appeals to his own miracles, or indeed to any miracles at all, are rare and incidental. In his speech at Antioch in Pisidia.ttt there is no allusion but to the resurrection. In his discourse at Miletus,§§$ none to any miracle; none in his speech before Fe¬ lix ;ll|||| none in his speech before Festus ,-111111 except to Christ’s resurrection, and his own conversion. * Acts ii. 22. |( iv. 8. D xvi. 16. *** xxviii. 6. ii xxiv. 10. t X. 39. V vi. 8. §§ xvi. 26. ttt xxviii. 8. util XXV. 8. I i. 15. ** xiii. 11. i XX. 10. lU xiii. 16. § iii. 12. tt xiv. 8. HIT xxvii. 1 §§§xx. 17. 243 Evidences of Christianity. Agreeably hereunto, m thirteen letters ascribed to Saint Paul, we have incessant references to Christ’s resurrection, frequent refer¬ ences to his own conversion, three indubitable references to the miracles which he wrought;* four other references to the same, less direct, yet highly probable ;t but more copious or circum¬ stantial recitals W’e have not. The consent, therefore, between Saint Paul’s speeches and letters, is in this respect sufficiently exact: and the reason in both is the same; namely, that the mii-aculous history was all along presupposed, and that the question, which oc¬ cupied the speaker’s and the writer’s thoughts, was this: whether, allowing the history of Jesus to be true, he was, upon the strength of it, to be received as the promised Messkh ; and, if he was, Vv’hat were the consequences, what was the object and benefit of his mission? The general observation w'hich has been made upon the apostolic writings, namely, that the subject of which they treated, did not lead them to any direct recital of the Christian history, belongs also to the waitings of the apostolic fathers. The epistle of Barnabas is, in its subject and general composition, much like the epistle to the Hebrews; an allegorical application of divers passages of the Jew¬ ish history, of their law and ritual, to those parts of the Chris^an dispensation in wffiich the author perceived a resemblance, i he epistle of Clement was written for the sole purpose of quieting ce^ tain dissensions that had arisen amongst the members of the church of Corinth, and of reviving in their minds that temper and spirit of which their predecessors in the Gospel had left them an example. The wwk of Hermas is a vision; quotes neither the Old Testament nor the New; and merely falls now and then into the language, and the mode of speech, which the author had read in our Gospels. The epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius had for their principal object the order and discipline of th^e churches which they addressed. Yet, under all these circumstances of disadvantage, the great points of the Christian history are fully recognized. This hath been shown in its proper place.J There is, however, another class of writers, to whom the answer above given, viz. the unsuitableness of any such appeals or refer¬ ences as the objection demands, to the subjects of which the writ¬ ings treated, does not apply ; and that is, the class of ancient apolo¬ gists, whose declared design it was to defend Christianity, and to give the reasons of their adherence to it. It is necessary, therefore, to inquire how the matter of the objection stands in these. The most ancient apologist, of whose works we have the smallest knowledge, is Quadratus. Quadratus lived about seventy years after the ascension, and presented his apology to the emperor Adrian. From a passage of this work, preserved in Eusebius, it appears that the author did directly and formally appeal to the miracles of Christ, and in terms as express and confident as we *■ Gal. iii. 5. Rom. xv. 18, 19. 2 Cor. xii. 12. t 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5. Epli. iii. 7. Gal. ii. 8, 1 Thess. i. 5. I See page 71, &c. 244 Paley's View of the could desire. The passage (which has been once already stated) is as follows:—‘ The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, for they were real; both they that were healed, and they that were raised from the dead, were seen, not only when they were healed, or raised, but for a long time afterward: not only whilst he dwelled on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good ^hile after it; insomuch as that some of them have reached to our times.’* Nothing can be more rational or satisfactory than this. Justin Martyr, the next of the Christian apologists whose work is not lost, and who followed Quadratus at the distance of about thirty years, has touched upon passages of Christ’s history in so many places, that a tolerably complete account of Christ’s life might be collected out of his works. In the following quotation, he' asserts the performance of miracles by Christ in words as strong and posi¬ tive as the language possesses; ‘ Christ healed those who from their irth were blind, and deaf, and lame; causing by his word, one to eap, another to hear, and a third to see: and having raised the dead, and caused them to live, he, by his works, excited attention, and induced the men of that age to know him. Who, however, seeing these things done, said that it w'as a magical appearance, and dared to call him a magician, and a deceiver of the people.’t In his first apology,! Justin expressly assigns the reason for his having recourse to the argument from prophecy, rather than alleging the miracles of the Christian history: which reason w'as, that the persons with whom he contended would ascribe these miracles to magic; ‘ Lest any of our opponents should say, What hinders, but that he who is called Christ by us, being a man sprung from men, performed the miracles which we attribute to him, by magical art ?’ The suggestion of this reason meets, as I apprehend, the very point of the present objection; more especially when we find Justin fol¬ lowed in it by other writers of that age. Irenasus, who came about forty years after him, notices the same evasion in the adversaries of Christianity, and replies to it by the same argument: ‘ But if they shall say, that the Lord performed these things by an illusory ap¬ pearance ((pavTaaiuSu);-), leading thesp objectors to the propliecies, we will show from them, that all things were thus predicted con¬ cerning him, and strictly came to pass.’$ Lactantius, who lived a century lower, delivers the same sentiment, upon the same occasion; ‘He performed miracles;—we might have supposed him to have been a magician, as ye say, and as the Jews then supposed, if all the prophets had not with one spirit foretold that Christ should perform hese very things.’il But to return to the Christian apologists in their order. Tertul- lian:—' That person wdiom the Jews had vainly imagined, from the meanness of his appearance, to be a mere man, they afterward, in conseqxience of the power he exerted, considered as a magician, when he, wdth one word, ejected devils out of the bodies of men, gave sight to the blind, cleansed the leprous, strengthened the nerves * Euseb. Hist. 1. iv. c. 3. t Just. Dial. p. 2.58. eel. Thirlby. I Apoiog. prim. p. 48. ed. Thirlby. § Iren, 1. ii. c. 57. H Lactant. v. 3. Evidences of Christianity. 245 of those that had the palsy, and, lastly, with one command, restored the dead to life; when he, I say, made the very elements obey him, assuaged the storms, walked upon the seas, demonsti ating himself to be the Word of God.’* * * § r\ ■ Next in the catalogue of professed apologists we may place (Jri- gen, who, it is well known, published a formal defence of Chris¬ tianity, in answer to Celsus, a Heathen, who had written a discourse against it. I know no expressions, by which a plainer or more posi¬ tive appeal to the Christian miracles can be made, than the expres¬ sions used by Origen^ ‘Undoubtedly we do think him to be the Christ, and the Son of God, because he healed the lame and the blind ; and we are the more confirmed in this persuasion, by wtmt is written in the prophecies: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, and the lame man shall leap as a hart.” But that he also raised the dead ; and that it is not a fiction of those who wrote the Gospels, is evident from hence, that, if it had been a fiction, there would have been many recorded to be raised up, and such as had been a long time in theii graves. But, it not being a fiction, few have been recorded: for instance, the daughter of the ruler of a synagogue, of whom I do not know why he said, She is not dead but sleepeth, expressing something peculiar to her, not common to all dead persons: and the only son of a widow, on whom he had compassion, and raised him fo \he, after he had bid the bearers of the corpse to stop; and the third, Lazarus, who had been buried four days.’ This is positively to assert the miracles of Christ, and it is also to comment upon them, and that with a considerable degree of accuracy and candor. In another passage of the same author, we meet with the old solu¬ tion of magic applied to the miracles of Christ by the adversaries of the religion. ‘ Celsus,’ sailh Origen, ‘ well knowing what great works may be alleged to have been done by Jesus, pretends to grant that the things related of him are true ; such as healing diseases, raising the dead, feeding multitudes with a few loaves, of which large frag¬ ments were left.’t And then Celsus gives, it seems, an answer to these proofs of our Lord’s mission, w'hich, as Origen uimerstood it, resolved the phenomena into magic; for Origen begins his reply by observing, ‘ You see that Celsus in a manner allows that there is such a thing as magic.’t ^ ^ t .i. . tj v It appears also from the testimony of St. Jerome, that Por^yiy, the most learned and able of the Heathen writers against Chris¬ tianity, resorted to the same solution: ‘ Unless,’ says he, speaking to Vigilantius, ‘ according to the manner of the Gentiles and the pro¬ fane, of Porphyry and Eunomius, you pretend that these are the tricks of demons.’^ This magic, these demons, this illusory appearance, this compan- 1675. * Tertull. Apolog. p. 20; ed. Priorii, Par. t Orig. Cont. Cels. 1. ii. sect. 48. t Lardner’s Jewish and Heath. Test. vol. ii. p. 294. ed. 4to. § Jerome, cont. Vigil. ^ ^ 246 Paley^s View of the son with the tricks of jugglers, by which many of that age accounted so easily for the Christian miracles, and which answers the adA'*- cates of Christianity often thought it necessary to refute by argu¬ ments drawn from other topics, and particularly from prophecy (to which, it seems, these solutions did not apply), we now perceive to be gross subterfuges. That such reasons were ever seriously urged, and seriously received, is only a proof, what a gloss and varnish fashion can give to any opinion. It appears, therefore, that the miracles of Christ, understood as we understand them, in their literal and historical sense, were posi¬ tively and precisely asserted and appealed to by the apologists for Christianity; which answers the allegation of the objection. I am ready, however, to admit, that the ancient Christian advo¬ cates did not insist upon the miracles in argument, so frequently as 1 should have done. It was their lot to contend with notions of magical agency, against which the mere production of the facts was not sufficient for the convincing of their adversaries: I do not know whether they themselves thought it quite decisive of the contro¬ versy. But since it is proved, I conceive with certainty, that the sparingness with which they appealed to miracles, was owing nei¬ ther to their ignorance, nor their doubt of the facts, it is, at any rate, an objection, not to the truth of the history, but to the judgment of its defenders. CHAP. VI. Want of universality in the knowledge and reception of Christianity and of greater clearness in the evidence. Of a revelation which really came from God, the proof, it has been said, would in all ages be so public and manifest, that no part of the human species would remain ignorant of it, no understanding could fail of being convinced by it. The advocates of Christianity do not pretend that the evidence of their religion possesses these qualities. They do not deny that we can conceive it to be within the compass of divine power, to have communicated to the world a higher degree of assurance, and to have given to his communication a stronger and more extensive influence. For any thing we are able to discern, God could have so formed men, as to have perceived the truths of religion intuitively; or to have carried on a communication with the other world, whilst they lived in this; or to have seen the individuals of the species, instead of dying, pass to heaven by a sensible translation. He could have presented a separate miracle to each man’s senses. He could have established a standing miracle. He could have caused mira¬ cles to be wrought in every different age and country. These, and many more methods, which we may imagine, if we once give loose to our imaginations, are, so far as w'e can judge, all practicable. The question, therefore, is, not whether Christianity possesses the highest possible degree of evidence, but whether the not having more evidence be a sufficient reason for rejecting that which we have. Evidences of Christianity. *247 Now there appears to be no fairer method of judging, concerning any dispensation which is alleged to come from God, when a ques¬ tion is made whether such a dispensation could come from God or not, than by comparing it with other things which are acknowledged to proceed from the same counsel, and to be produced by the same agency. If the dispensation in question labor under no defects but what apparently belong to other dispensations, these seeming de¬ fects do not justify us in setting aside the proofs which are offered of its authenticity, if they be otherwise entitled to credit. Throughout that order then of nature, of which God is the author, what we find is a system of henejicence: we are seldom or ever able to make out a system of optimism. I mean, that there are few cases in which, if we permit ourselves to range in possibilities, we cannot suppose something more perfect, and more unobjectionable, than what we see. The rain which descends from heaven, is confessedly amongst the contrivances of the Creator, for the sustentation of the animals and vegetables which subsist upon the surface of the earth. Vet how partially and irregularly is it supplied! How rnuch of it falls upon the sea, where it can be of no use ! how often is it w'anted where it would be of the greatest! What tracts of continent are rendered deserts by the scarcity of it! Or, not to speak of extreme cases, how much, sometimes, do inhabited countries suffer by its deficiency or delay!—We could imagine, if to imagine were our business, the matter to be otherwise regulated. We could imagine showers to fall, just where and when they yrould do good; always seasonable, eveiywhere sufficient; so distributed as not to leave a field upon the face of the globe scorched by drought, or even a plant withering for the lack of moisture. Yet, does the difference between the real case and the imagined case, or the seeming infe¬ riority of the one to the other, authorize us to say, that the present disposition of the atmosphere is not amongst the productions or the designs of the Deity ? Does it check the inference which we draw from the confessed beneficence of the provision? or does it make us cease to admire the contrivance ?—^The observation, which we have exemplified in the single instance of the rain of heaven, may be repeated concerning most of the phenomena of nature; and the true conclusion to which it leads is this: that to inquire what the Deity might have done, could have done, or, as we even sometimes presume to speak, ought to have done, or, in hypothetical cases, would have done, and to build any propositions upon such inquiries against evidence of facts, is wholly unwarrantable. It is a mode of reasoning which will not do in natural history, which will not do in natural religion, which cannot therefore be applied with safety to revelation. It may have some foundation, in certain speculative d priori ideas of the divine attributes ; but it has none in experience, or in analogy. The general character of the works of nature is, on the one hand, goodness both in design and effect; and, on the other hand, a liability to difficulty, and to objections, if such objections be allowed, by reason of seeming incompleteness or uncertainty in attaining their end. Christianity participates of 248 Paley’s View of the this character. The true similitude between nature and revelation ccmsists in this; that they each bear strong marks of their original; that they each also bear appearances of irregularity and defect. A system of strict optimism may nevertheless be the real system in both cases. But what I contend is, that the proof is hidden from us; that we ought not to expect to perceive that in revelation, which we hardly perceive in any thing; that beneficence, of which we can judge, ought to satisfy us; that optimism, of which we cannot judge, ought not to be sought after. We can judge of beneficence, because it depends upon effects which we experience, and upon the relation betw'een the means which we see acting and the ends which w'e see produced. We cannot judge of optimism, because it necessarily implies a comparison of that which is tried, with that which is not tried ; of consequences which we see, with others which we im¬ agine, and concerning many of which, it is more than probable we know nothing; concerning some, that we have no notion. If Christianity be compared with the state and progress of natural religion, the argument of the objector will gain nothing by the com¬ parison. I remember hearing an unbeliever say, that, if God had given a revelation, he would have written it in the skies. Are the truths of natural religion written in the skies, or in a language w hich every one reads ? or is this the case with the most useful arts, or the most necessary sciences of human life ? An Otaheitean or an Esquimaux knows nothing of Christianity; does he know more of the principles of deism or morality? which, notwithstand¬ ing his ignorance, are neither untrue, nor unimportant, nor uncer¬ tain. The existence of the Deity is left to be collected from obser¬ vations, which every man does not make, which every man, per¬ haps, is not capable of making. Can it be argued, that God does not exist, because, if he did, he would let us see him, or discover himself to mankind by proofs (such as, we may think, the nature of the subject merited), which no inadvertency could miss, no preiu- dice withstand ? If Christianity be regarded as a providential instrument for the melioration of mankind, its progress and diffusion resemble that of other causes by which human life is improved. The diversity is not greater, nor the advance more slow, in religion, than we find it to be in learning, liberty, government, laws. The Deity hath not touched the order of nature in vain. The Jewish religion pro¬ duced great and permanent effects; the Christian religion hath done the same. It hath disposed the w'orld to amendment. It hath put things in a train. It is by no means improbable, that it may be¬ come universal; and that the world may continue in that stage so long as that the duration of its reign may bear a vast proportion to the time of its partial influence. When we argue concerning Christianity, that it must necessarily be true, because it is beneficial, we go, perhaps, too far on one side: and we certainly go too far on the other, when w'e conclude that it must be false, because it is not so efficacious as we could have sup¬ posed. The question of its truth is to be tried upon its proper evi- 249 Evidences of Christianity. dence, without deferring much to this sort of argument, on either side. ‘ The evidence,’ as Bishop Butler hath rightly observed, ‘ de¬ pends upon the judgment we form of human conduct, under given circumstances, of which it may be presumed that we know some¬ thing ; the objection stands upon the supposed conduct of the Deity, under relations with which we are not acquainted.’ What would be the real effect of that overpowering evidence which our adversaries require in a revelation, it is difficult to fore¬ tell ; at least, we must speak of it as of a dispensation of which we have no experience. Some consequences however would, it is probable, attend this economy, which do not seem to befit a revela¬ tion that proceeded from God. One is, that irresistible proof would restrain the voluntary powers too much; would not answer the purpose of trial and probation; would call for no exercise of can¬ dor, seriousness, humility, inquiry; no submission of passion, inter¬ ests, and prejudices, to moral evidence and to probable truth ; no habits of reflection; none of that previous desire to learn and to obey the will of God, which forms perhaps the test of the virtuous prin¬ ciple, and which induces men to attend, with care and reverence, to every credible intimation of that will, and to resign present ad¬ vantages and present pleasures to every reasonable expectation of propitiating his favor. ‘jMen’s moral probation may be, whether they will take due care to inform themselves by impartial consider¬ ation ; and, afterward, whether they will act as the case requires, upon the evidence which they have. And this we find by expe¬ rience, IS often our probation in our temporal capacity.’* II. These modes of communication would leave no place for the admission of internal evidence; which ought, perhaps, to hear a con¬ siderable part in the proof of every revelation, because it is a spe¬ cies of evidence, which applies itself to the knowledge, love, and practice of virtue, and which operates in proportion to the degree of those qualities which it finds in the person whom it addresses. Men of good dispositions, amongst Christians, are greatly affected by the impression which the Scriptures themselves make upon their minds. Their conviction is much strengthened by these impres¬ sions. And this perhaps was intended to be one effect to be pro¬ duced by the religion. It is likewise true, to whatever cause we ascribe it (for I am not in this work at liberty to introduce the Christian doctrine of grace or assistance, or the Christian promise that, ‘ if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God,’t)—it is true, I say, that they who sincerely act, or sincerely endeavor to act, according to wfoat they believe, that is, according to the just result of the probabilities, or, if you please, the possibilities of natural and revealed religion, which they themselves perceive, and according to a rational estimate of conse¬ quences, and, above all, according to the just effect of those princi¬ ples of gratitude and devotion, which even the view of nature generates in a well-ordered mind, seldom fail of proceeding farther. This also may have been exactly what was designed. * Butler’s Analogy, part ii. c. vi. 32 \ John vii. 17 250 Paley^s View of the Whereas, may it not be said that irresistible evidence would con found all characters and all dispositions? would subvert, rather than promote, the true purpose of the divine counsels; which is, not to produce obedience by a force little short of mechanical constrain. . (which obedience would be regularity, not virtue, add would hardly perhaps differ from that which inanimate bodies pay to the laws impressed upon their nature), but to treat moral agents agreeably to what they are; which is done, when light and motives are of such kinds, and are imparted in such measures, that the influence of them depends upon the recipients themselves ? ‘ It is not meet to govern rational free agents in via by sight and sense. It would be no trial or thanks to the most sensual wretch to forbear sinning, if heaven and hell w'ere open to his sight. That spiritual vision and fruition is our state in patrid’ (Baxter’s Reasons, p. 357.)—^There may be trutli in this thought, though roughly expressed. Few' things are more improbable than that we (the human species) should be the highest order of beings in the universe: that animated nature should ascend from the lowest reptile to us, and all at once stop there. If there be classes above us of rational intelligences, clearer manifestations may belong to them. This may be one of the distinctions. And it may be one, to which we ourselves hereafter shall attain. III. But may it not also be asked, whether the perfect -display of state of existence would be compatible with the activity of civil life, and with the success of human affairs ? I can easily con¬ ceive that this impression may be overdone; that it may so seize and fill the thoughts, as to leave no place for the cares and offices of men’s several stations, no anxiety for worldly prosperity, or even for a worldly provision, and, hj consequence, no sufficient stimulus to secular industry. Of the first Christians we read, ‘ that all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need ; and, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with glad¬ ness and singleness of heart.”*' This was extremely natural, and just what might be expected from miraculous evidence coming with full force upon the senses of mankind; but I much doubt whether, if this state of mind had been universal, or long-continued, the busi- riess of the w-orld could have gone on. The necessary arts of social life would have been little cultivated. The plow and the loom would have stood still. Agriculture, manufactures, trade and navi¬ gation, would not, I think, have flourished, if they could have been exercised at all. Men would have addicted themselves to contem¬ plative and ascetic lives, instead of lives of business and useful industry. We observe that Saint Paul found it necessary, frequently to recall his converts to the ordinary labors and domestic duties of their condition; and to give them, in his own example, a lesson of contented application to their worldly employments. By the manner in which the religion is now proposed, a great por * Acts ii. 44—46. Evidences of Christianity. 251 tion of the human species is enabled, and of these multitudes of every generation are induced, to seek and to effectuate their salva¬ tion, through the medium of Christianity, without interruption of the prosperity or of the regular course of human affairs. CHAP. VII. The supposed Effects of Christianity. That a religion, which, under every form in which it is taught, holds forth the final reward of virtue and punishment of vice, and proposes those distinctions of virtue and vice, which the wisest and most cultivated part of mankind confess to be just, should not be believed, is very possible ; but that, so far as it is believed, it should not produce any good, but rather a bad effect upon public happi¬ ness, is a proposition which it requires very strong evidence to ren¬ der credible. Yet many have been found to contend for this para¬ dox, and very confident appeals have been made to history, and to observation, for the truth of it. In the conclusions, however, which these writers draw from what they call experience, two sources, I think, of mistake, may be per¬ ceived. One is, that they look for the influence of religion in the wrong place. The other, that they charge Christianity with many consequences, for which it is not responsible. I. The influence of religion is not to be sought for in the councils of princes, in the debates or resolutions of popular assemblies, in the conduct of governments towards their subjects, or of states and sovereigns towards one another; of conquerors at the head of their armies, or of parties intriguing for power at home (topics w'hich alone almost occupy the attention, and fill the pages of history); but must be perceived, if perceived at all, in the silent course of private and domestic Ijfe. Nay more; even there its influence may not be very obvious to observation. If it check, in some (fegrec, personal dissoluteness, if it beget a general probity in the transaction of busi¬ ness, if it produce soft and humane manners in the mass of the com¬ munity, and occasional exertions of laborious and expensive benev¬ olence in a few individuals, it is all the effect which can offer itself to external notice. The kingdom of heaven is within us. That which is the substance of the religion, its hopes and consolations, its intermixture with the thoughts by day and by night, the devotion of the heart, the control of appetite, the steady direction of the will to the commands of God, is necessarily invisible. Yet upon these depend the \drtue and happiness of millions. This cause renders the representations of history, w'ith respect to religion, defective and fallacious, in a greater degree than they are upon any other subject. Religion operates most upon those of whom history knows tlie least; upon fathers and mothers in their families, upon men-servants and maid-servants, upon the orderly tradesman, the quiet villager, the manufacturer at his loom, the husbandman in his fields. Amongst 252 Paley's View of the such, its influence collectively may be of inestimable value, yet its effects, in the mean time, little upon those who figure upon the stage of the world. They may know nothing of it; they may be¬ lieve nothing of it; they may be actuated by motives more impetu¬ ous than those which religion is able to excite. It cannot, there¬ fore, be thought strange, that this influence should elude the grasp and touch of public history; for, what is public history, but a regis¬ ter of the successes and disappointments, the vices, the follies, and the quarrels, of those who engage in contentions for power ? I will add, that much of this influence may be felt in times of public distress, and little of it in times of public wealth and secu¬ rity. This also increases the uncertainty of any opinions that we draw from historica.1 representations. The influence of Christianity is commensurate with no effects which history states. We do not pretend that it has any such necessary and irresistible power over the affairs of nations, as to surmount the force of other causes. The Christian religion also acts upon public usages and institu¬ tions, by an operation which is only secondary and indirect. Chris¬ tianity IS not a code of civil law. It can only reach public institu¬ tions through private character. Now its influence upon private character may be considerable, yet many public usages and institu¬ tions repugnant to its principles may remain. To get rid of these, the reigning part of the community must act, and act together. But it may be long before the persons who compose this body be suffi¬ ciently touched with the Christian character, to join in the suppres¬ sion of practices, to which they and the public have been reconciled by causes which will reconcile the human mind to any thing, by habit and interest. Nevertheless, the effects of Christianity, even in this view, have been important. It has mitigated the conduct of war, and the treatment of captives. It has softened the adminis¬ tration of despotic, or of nominally despotic governments. It has abolished polygamy. It has restrained the licentiousness of divorces. It has put an epd to the exposure of children, and the immolation of slaves. It has suppressed the combats of gladiators,* and the impurities of religious rites. It has banished, if not unnatural vices, at least the toleration of them. It has greatly meliorated the con¬ dition of the laborious part, that is to say, of the mass of every com¬ munity, by procuring for them a day of weekly rest. In all coun¬ tries in which it is professed, it has produced numerous establishments for the relief of sickness and poverty; and, in some, a regular and general provision by law. It has triumphed over the slavery estab¬ lished in the Roman empire: it is contending, and, I trust, will one day prevail, against the worse slavery of the West Indies. A Christian writer,t so early as in the second century, has testi- * Lipsius affirms (Sat.b. i. c. 12.), that the gladiatorial shows sometimes cost Europe twenty or thirty thousand lives in a month; and that not only the men, but even the women of all ranks were passionately fond of these shows. See Bishop Porteus’s Sermon XIII. t Bardesanes, ap. Euseb. Prsep. Evang. vi. 10. Evidences of Christianity. 253 fied the resistance which Christianity made to wicked and licen¬ tious practices, though established by law and by public usage:— ‘ Neither in Parlhia, do the Christians, though Parthians, use polyg¬ amy ; nor in Persia, thousrh Persians, do they marry their own daughters; nor among the iBactri, or Galli, do they violate the sanc¬ tity of marriage; nor, wherever they are, do they suffer themselves to be overcome by ill-constituted laws and manners.’ Socrates did not destroy the idolatry of Athens, or produce the slightest revolution in the manners of his country. But the argument to which I recur, is, that the benefit of reli gion, being felt chiefly in the obscurity of private stations, necessa¬ rily escapes the observation of history. From the first general noti¬ fication of Christianity to the present day, there have been in every age many millions, whose names were never heard of, made better by it, not only in their conduct, but in their disposition; and happier, not so much in their external circumstances, as in that which is inter prcBCordia, in that which alone deserves the name of happiness, the tranquillity and consolation of their thoughts. It has been, since its commencement, the author of happiness and virtue to mil¬ lions and millions of the human race. Who is there that would not wish his son to be a Christian ? Christianity also, in every country in which it is professed, hath obtained a sensible, although not a complete influence, upon the public judgment of morals. And this is very important. For with¬ out the occasional correction which public opinion receives, by re¬ ferring to some fixed standard of morality, no man can foretell into what extravagances it might w^ander. Assassination might become as honorable as duelling: unnatural crimes be accounted as venial as fornication is wont to be accounted. In this way it is possible, that many may be kept in order by Christianity, who are not them¬ selves Christians. They may be guided by the rectitude which It communicates to public opinion. Their consciences may suggest their duty truly, and they may ascribe these suggestions to a moral sense, or to the native capacity of the human intellect, when in fact they are nothing more than the public opinion, reflected from their own minds ; and opinion, in a considerable degree, modified by the lessons of Christianity. ‘ Certain it is, and this is a great deal to say, that the generality, even of the meanest and most vulgar and ignorant people, have truer and worthier notions of God, more just and right apprehensions concerning his attributes and perfections, a deeper sense of the difference of good and evil, a greater regard to moral obligations, and to the plain and most necessary duties of life, and a more firm and universal expectation of a future state of rewards and punishments, than, in any Heathen country, any con¬ siderable number of men were found to have liad.’* After all, the value of Christianity is not to be appreciated by its temporal effects. The object of revelation is to influence human conduct in this life; but what is gained to happiness by that in- * Clarke, Ev. Nat. Rel. p. 203. ed. v. W 254 Paley's View of the fluence, can only be estimated by taking in the whole of human existence. Then, as hath already been observed, there may be also great consequences of Christianity, which do not belong to it as a revelation. The effects upon human salvation, of the mission, of the death, of the present, of the future agency of Christ, may be universal, though the religion be not universallv known. Secondly, I assert that Christianity is charged with many conse¬ quences for which it is not responsible. I believe that religious motives have had no more to do in the formation of nine-tenths of the intolerant and persecuting laws, which in different countries have been established upon the subject of religion, than they have had to do in England with the making of the game-laws. These measures, although they have the Christian religion for their sub¬ ject, are resolvable into a principle which Christianity certainly did not plant (and which Christianity could not universally con¬ demn, because it is not universally wrong), which principle is no other than this, that they who are in possession of power do what they can to keep it. Christianity is answerable for no part of the mischief which has been brought upor the world by persecution, except that which has arisen from conscientious persecutors. Now these perhaps have never been either numerous or powerful. Nor IS it to Christianity that even their mistake can fairly be imputed. They have been misled by an error not properly Christian or reli- ^ous, but by an error in their moral philosophy. They pursued the particular, without adverting to the general consequence. Be- heving certain articles of faith, or a certain mode of worship,-to be highly conducive, or perhaps essential, to salvation, they thought themselves bound to bring all they could, by every means, into they thought, without considering what would be the effect of such a conclusion, when adopted amongst mankind as a general rule of conduct. Had there been in the New Testament, what there are in the Koran, precepts authorizing coercion in the propagation of the religion, and the use of violence towards unbe¬ lievers, the case would have been different. This distinction could not have been taken, nor this defence made. I apologize for no species nor degree of persecution, but I think that’even the fact has been exaggerated. The slave-trade destroys more in a year, than the inquisition does in a hundred, or perhaps hath done since its foundation. If it be objected, as I apprehend it will be, that Christianity is chargeable with every mischief, of which it has been the occasion, though not the motive; I answer, that, if the malevolent passions be there, the world will never v^ant occasions. The noxious ele- ment will always find a conductor. Any point will produce an explosion. Did the applauded intercommunity of the Pagan the- preserve the peace of the Roman world ? did it prevent op¬ pressions, proscriptions, massacres, devastations? Was it bigotry that carried Alexander into the east, or brought Caesar into Gaul ? Are the nations of the world, into which Christianity hath not ^und its way, or from which it hath been banished, free from con* 255 Evidences of Christianity. tentions? Are their contentions less ruinous and sanguinary ? Is it owing to Christianity, or to the want of it, -that the finest regions oi the East, the countries inter quatuor maria, the peninsula ol Creece, together with a great part of the Mediterranean coast, are at this day a desert? or that the banks of the Nile, whose constantly re- newed fertility is not to be impaired by neglect, or destroyed by the ravao^es of war, serve only for the scene of a ferocious anarchy, or the supply of unceasing hostilities? Europe itself has known no re¬ ligious wars for some centuries, yet has hardly ever been without war. Are the calamities, which at this day afflict it, to be imjmted to Christianity ? Hath Poland fallen by a Christian crusade . Hath the overthrow in France of civil order and security, been effected by the votaries of our religion, or by the foes ? Amongst the awful lessons which the crimes and miseries of that country afford to man¬ kind, this is one ; that, in order to be a persecutor, it is not necessary to be a bigot; that in rage and cruelty, in mischief and destruction, fanaticism itself can be outdone by infidelity. Finally, If war, as it is now carried on between nations, produces less misery and ruin than formerly, we are indebted perhaps to Christianity for the change, more than to any other cause. Viewed tlierefore even in its relation to this subject, it appears to have been of advantage to the world. It hath humanized the conduct of wars; it hath ceased to excite them. . „ -i j The differences of opinion, that have m all ages prevmled amongst Christians, fall very much within the alternative which has been stated. If we possessed the disposition which Chnstianity labors, above all other qualities, to inculcate, these differences would do little harm. If that disposition be wanting, other causes, even w^ere these absent, would continually rise up to call forth the malevolent passions into action. Differences of opinions, when ac¬ companied with mutual charity, which Christianity forbids them to violate, are for the most part innocent, and for some purposes use¬ ful. They promote inquiry, discussion, and knowledge. Ihey help to keep up an attention to religious subjects, and a concern about them, which might be apt to die away in the calm and silence of universal agreement I do not know that it is in any de¬ gree true, that the influence of religion is the greatest, where there are the fewest dissenters. CHAP. vm. The Conclusion. In religion, as in every other subject of human reasoning, much denends upon the order in which we dispose our inquiries. A rnan who takes up a system of divinity with a previous opinion that either every part must be true or the whole false, approaches the discus¬ sion with great disadvantage. No other system, which is founded upon moral evidence, would bear to be treated in the same manner. 256 Foley's View of the Nevertheless, in a certain degree, we are all introduced to our reli gious studies, under this prejudication. And it cannot be avoided. The weakness of the human judgment in the early part of youth, yet its extreme susceptibility of impression, renders it necessary to furnish it with some opinions, and with some principles or other. Or indeed, without much express care, or much endeavor for this pur¬ pose, the tendency of the mind of man to assimilate itself to the habits of thinking and speaking which prevail around him, pro¬ duces the same eflect. That indifferency and suspense, that waiting and equilibrium of the judgment, which some require in religious matters, and which some would wish to be aimed at in the conduct of education, are impossible to be preserved. They are not given to the condition of human life. It is a consequence of this institution that the doctrines of religion come to us before the proofs; and come to us with that mixture of explications and inferences from which no public creed is, or can be, free. And the effect which too frequently follows, from Chris¬ tianity being presented to the understanding in this form, is, that when any articles, which appear as parts of it, contradict the appre¬ hension of the persons to whom it is proposed, men of rash and con¬ fident tempem hastily and indiscriminately reject the whole. But is this to do justice, either to themselves or to the religion ? The rational way of treating a subject of such acknowledged importance is to attend, in the first place, to the general and substantial truth of its principles, and to that alone. When we once feel a foundation; when we once perceive a ground of credibility in its history, we shall proceed with safety to inquire into the interpretation of its records, aind into the doctrines which have been deduced from them. Nor will it either endanger our faith, or diminish or alter our mo¬ tives for obedience, if we should discover that these conclusions are formed with very different degrees of probability, and possess very different degrees of importance. This conduct of the understanding, dictated by every rule of right reasorung, will uphold personal Christianity, even in those countries in which it is established under forms the most liable to difficulty and objection. It will also have the farther effect of guarding us against the prejudices which are wont to arise in our minds to the disadvantage of religion, from observing the numerous controversies which are carried on amongst its professors, and likewise of inducing a spirit of lenity and moderation in our judgment, as well as in our treatment of those who stand, in such controvereies, upon sides oppo¬ site to ours. What is clear in Christianity, we shall find to be sufi ficient, and to be infinitely valuable; what is dubious, unnecessary to be decided, or of very subordinate importance; and what is most obscure, will teach us to bear with the opinions which others may have formed upon the same subject. We shall say to those who the most widely dissent from us, what Augustin said to the worst here¬ tics of his age: Tlli in vos saviant, qui nesciunt, cum quo labore Verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores;—qui neseiunt, cum quanta difficultate sanetur oculus interioris hominisqui ne- Evidences of Christianity. 257 sciunt, quibus suspiriis et gemitibus fiat ut ex quantulacunque parte possit intelligi Deus.’* n j r tu A iudgmeiit, moreover, which is once pretty well satisned oi the ffeneral truth of the religion, will not only thus discriminate in its doctrines, but will possess sufficient strength to overcome the reluc¬ tance of the imagination to admit articles of faith which are attended with difficulty of apprehension, if such articles of faith appear to be truly parts oi the revelation. It was to be expected beiorehand, that what related to the economy, and to tlie persons, of the invisi¬ ble world, which revelation professes to do, and which, ii true it actually does, should contain some points remote from our analcv gies, and from the comprehension of a mind which hath acquired all its ideas from sense and from experience. It hath been my care, in the preceding work, to preserve the sep¬ aration between evidences and doctrines as inviolable as I cimld; to remove from the primary question all considerations which haye been unnecessarily joined with it; and to ofer a defence to Chris¬ tianity, which every Christian might read, without seeing the tenets in which he had been brought up attacked or decried : and it always afforded a satisfaction to my mind to observe that this was practma- ble; that ffew or none of our many controversies with one another afiect or relate to the proofs of our religion; that the rent never descends to the foundation. . , ^ ^ , The truth of Christianity depends upon its leading facts, and npim them alone. Now of these we have evidence which ought to satisfy us, at least until it appear that mankind have ever been deceived by the same. We have some uncontested and incontestable points, to which the history of the human species has nothing similar to offer. A Jewish peasant changed the religion of the vyorld, and that, without force, without powder, without support; without one natural source, or circumstance of attraction, influence, or success. Such a thing hath not happened in any other instance. The com¬ panions of this Person, after he himself had been put to death tor his attempt, asserted his supernatural character, founded upon his supernatural operations: and, in testimony of the ^uth of their assertions, i. e. in consequence of their own belief of that truth, and in order to communicate their knowledge of it to others, voluntarily entered upon lives of toil and hardship, and, with a full expermnce of their danger, committed themselves to the last extremities of per¬ secution. This hath not a parallel. More particularly, a very few days after this Person had been publicly executed, and in the very city in which he was buried, these his companions declared with one voice that his body was restored to life; that they had seen him, handled him, ate with him, conversed with him; and, in pureuance of their persuasion of the truth of what they told, preached his reli¬ gion, with this strange fact as the foundation of it, in the face of those who had killed him, who were armed with the power of the country, and necessarily and naturally disposed to treat his follow * Aug. contra Ep. Fund. cap. ii. n. 2, 3. W2 258 Paley^s View of the ers as they had treated himself; and having done this upon the soot Te i"«>lwence ofTabrLT.! despite of difficulties and opposition, and where the nature of their derision, insult, and out- cprfnffi without example. These three facts, I think, are Ken wWnl ^^d never vSpd Nn story, as to these points, hath never vaiied. No other hath been set up against it. Every letter, every followers ohhe religion; tho ^ k written by them, from the age of its commencement to the present time, in every part of the world in which it hath been professed, and with every sect into which it hath been divided (and we have letters and discourses written by contemporaries, by wit¬ nesses of the transaction, by persons themselves bearing a share in it, and other writings following that age in regular succession), con¬ cur in representing these facts in this manner. A religion which now possesses the greatest part of the civilized world, unquestion- ably sprang up at Jerusalem at this time. Some account must be givenof Its origin; some cause assigned for its rise. All the ac¬ counts of this origin, all the explications of this cause, whether taken from the writings of the early followers of the religion (in which, and in which perhaps alone, it could be expected that they should be distinctly unfolded), or from occasional notices in other writings of that or the adjoining age, either expressly allege the facts above stated as the means by which the religion was set up, or advert to its commencement in a manner which agrees with the supposition of these facts being true, and which testifies their opera¬ tion and effects. ^ These propositions alone lay a foundation for our faith; for they prove the existence of a transaction, which cannot even in its most g^eiiera^ parts be accounted for, upon any reasonable supposition, except that of the truth of the mission. But the particulars, the de¬ tail of the miracles or miraculous pretences (for such there necessa- rily must have been), upon which this unexampled transaction rested, ^d/or which these men acted and suffered as they did act and suffer. It IS undoubtedly of great importance to us to know. VVe have this detail from the fountain-head, from the persons them¬ selves ; in accounts written by eye-witnesses of the scene, by con- emporaries and companions of those who were so; not in one book, but four, each containing enough for the verification of the pligion, all agreeing in the fundamental parts of the history. We have the authenticity of these books established, by more and stronger proofs than belong to almost any other ancient book what¬ ever, and by proofs which widely distinguish them from any others claiming a similar authority to theirs. If there were any good rea¬ son for doubt concerning the names to which these books were as¬ cribed (which there is not, for they were never ascribed to any other, and we have evidence not long after their publication of their bearing the names which they now bear), their antiquity, of which there is no question, their reputation and authority amongst th.3 259 Evidences of Christianity. early disciples of the religion, of which there is as little, ibrrn a v^id proof that they must, in the main at least, have agreed with what the first teachers of the religion delivered. . When we open these ancient volumes, we discover in them marks of truth, whether we consider each in itself, or collate them with one another. The writers certainly knew somettoig of whi^ they were waiting about, for they manifest an acquaintance with local circumstances, with the history and usages of the times, which could only belong to an inhabitant of that country, living in that age. In every narrative we perceive simplicity and un¬ designedness; the air and the language of reality. When we compare the different narratives together, we find them so varying as to repel all suspicion of confederacy; so agreeing under this va¬ riety, as to show that the accounts had one real transaction for their common foundation; often attributing different actions and dis¬ courses to the person whose history, or rather memoirs of whose history, they profess to relate, yet actions and discourses so similar, as very much to bespeak the same character; which is a coinci¬ dence, that, in such writers as they were, could only be the conse¬ quence of their writing from fact, and not from imagination. These four narratives are confined to the history of the Founder of the religion, and end with his ministry. Since, however, it is certain that the affair went on, we cannot help being anxious to know how it proceeded. This intelligence hath come down to us in a work purporting to be written by a person, himself connected with the business during the first stages of its progress, taking up the story where the former histories had left it, carrying on the narrative, oftentimes with great particularity, and throughout with the appearance of good sense,* information, and candor; staling all along the origin, and the only probable origin, of effects which un¬ questionably were produced, together with the natural conse¬ quences of situations which unquestionably did exist; and confirmed, in the substance at least of the account, by the strongest possible accession of testimony which a history can receive, original letters, written by the person who is the principal subject of the history, written upon the business to which the history relates, and during the period, or soon after the period, which the history comprises. No man can say that this all together is not a body of strong histori¬ cal evidence. When we reflect that some of those from whom the books pro¬ ceeded, are related to have themselves wrought miracles, to have been the subject of miracles, or of supernatural assistance in propa¬ gating the religion, we may perhaps be led to think, that more credit, or a different kind of credit, is due to these accounts, than what can be claimed by merely human testimony. But this is an * See Peter’s speech upon curing the cripple (Acts iii. 18), the council of the apostles (xv.), Paul’s discourse at Athens (xvii. 22), before Agrippa (xxvi.) I notice these passages, both as fraught with good sense, and as free from tbs smallest tincture of enthusiasm. 260 Paleifs Vieiv of the argument which cannot be addressed to sceptics or unbelievers. A man must be a Christian before he can receive it. The inspiration of the historical Scriptures, the nature, degree, and extent of that inspiration, are questions undoubtedly of serious discussion; but they are questions amongst Christians themselves, and not between them and others. The doctrine itself is by no means necessary to the belief of Christianity, which must, in the first instance at least, depend upon the ordinary maxims of historical credibility.* In viewing the detail of miracles recorded in these books, we find every supposition negatived, by which they can be resolved into fraud or delusion. They were not secret, not momentary, not tentative, nor ambiguous; nor performed under the sanction of authority, with the spectators on their side, or in affirmance of tenets and practices already established. We find also the evidence alleged for them, and which evidence was by great numbers re¬ ceived, different from that upon which other miraculous accounts rest. It wp contemporary, it was published upon the spot, it con¬ tinued; it involved interests and qqestions of the greatest magni¬ tude ; it contradicted the most fixed persuasions and prejudices of the persons to whom it was addressed ; it required from those who accepted it, not a simple, indolent assent, but a change, from thence¬ forward, of principles and conduct, a submission to consequences the most serious and the most deterring, to loss and danger, to in¬ sult, outrage, and persecution. How such a story should be false, or, if false, how under such circumstances it should make its way, I think impossible to be explained; yet such the Christian story was, such were the circumstances under which it came forth, and in opposition to such difficulties did it prevail. An event so connected with the religion, and with the fortunes, of the Jewish people, as one of their race, one born amongst them, establishing his authority and his law throughout a great portion of the civilized world, it was perhaps to be expected, should be no¬ ticed in the prophetic writings of that nation; especially when this Person, together with his own mission, caused also to be acknow¬ ledged the divine original of their institution, and by those who be¬ fore had altogether rejected it. Accordingly, we peroeive in these writings various intimations concurring in the person and history of Jesus, in a manner, and in a degree, in which passages taken from these books could not be made to concur in any person arbi¬ trarily assumed, or in any person except him who has been the author of great changes in the affairs and opinions of mankind. Of some of these predictions the weight depends a good deal upon the concurrence. Others possess great separate strength: one in par¬ ticular does this in an eminent degree. It is an entire description, manifestly directed to one character and to one scene of things: it IS extant in a writing, or collection of writings, declaredly prophetic; and it applies to Christ’s character, and to the circumstances of his life and death, with considerable precision, and in a way which no * See Powell’s Discourses, disc. xv. -p. 245, Evidences of Christianity. 261 diversity of interpretation hath, in my opinion, been able to con¬ found. That the advent of Christ, and the consequences ot it, should not have been more distinctly revealed in the Jewish sacred books, is, I think, in some measure accounted for by the considera¬ tion, that for the Jews to have foreseen the fall of their institution, and that it was to emerge at length into a more perfect and corapr^ hensive dispensation, would have cooled too much, and relax^ their zeal for it, and their adherence to it, upon which zeal and ad¬ herence the preservation in the world of any remains, for many ages, of religious truth might in a great mea,sure depend. Of w'hat a revelation discloses to mankind, one, and only one, question can properly be asked. Was it of importance to mankind to know, or to be better assured of? In this question, when we turn our thoughts to the great Christian doctrine of the resurrec¬ tion of the dead, and of a future judgment, no doubt can possibly be entertained. He who gives me riches or honors, does nothing; he who even gives me health, does little in comparison with that which lays before me just grounds for expecting a restoration to life, and a day of account and retribution: which thing Christianity hath done for millions. ^ ^ • * Other articles of the Christian faith, although of infinite import¬ ance when placed beside any other topic of human inquiry, are only the adjuncts and circumstances of this. They are, however, such as appear worthy of the original to which we ascribe them. The morality of the religion, whether taken from the precepte or the example of its Founder, or from the lessons of its primitive teachers, derived, as it should seem, from what had been inculcated by their Master, is, in all .its parts, wise and pure ; neither auapted to vulgar prejudices, nor flattering popular notions, nor excusing established practices, but calculated, in the matter of its instruc¬ tion, truly to promote human happiness, and in tlm form in which it was conveyed, to produce impression and effect; a morality, which, let it have proceeded from any-person whatever, would have been satisfactory evidence of his good sense and integrity, o the soundness of his understanding, and the probity of his designs; a morality, in every view of it, much more perfect than could have been expected from the natural circumstances and character ot the person who delivered it; a morality, in a word, which is, and hath been, most beneficial to mankind. . Tloon the greatest, therefore, of all possible occasions, and tor a purple of inestima*jle value, it pleased the Deity to vouchsafe a mirLulous attestation. Having done this for the institution, when this alone could fix its authority, or give to it a beginning, he com¬ mitted its future progress to the natural means of human communi¬ cation, and to the influence of those causes by which human con- Su« and human affairs are governed. The seed bemg sown, was lefl to vegetate; the leaven, being inserted, was ^ both according to the laws of nature: laws, neverthele^, disused and controlled by that providence which conducts the affairs of the universe, though by an influence inscrutable, and generally undis- 262 Paley's View of the tinguishable by us. And in tins Cbristianity is analogous to most other provisions for happiness. The provision is made; and, being made, is left to act according to laws, which, forming a part of a more general system, regulate this particular subject, in common with many others. Let the constant recurrence to our observation of contrivance, tmsign, and wisdom, in the works of nature, once fix upon our minds the behet of a God, and after that aU is easy. In the counsels of a i^ing possessed of the power and disposition which the Creator of the umverse must possess, it is not improbable that there should be a luture state; it is not improbable that we should be acquainted with It. A future state rectifies every thing; because, if moral agents be made, in the last event, happy or miserable, according to their conduct in the stations and under the circumstances in which they are placed, it seems not very material by the operation of what Causes, according to what rules, or even, if you please to call it so, y what chance or caprice, these stations are assigned, or these cir¬ cumstances determined. This hypothesis, therefore, solves all that objectiori to.the divine care and goodness, which the promiscuous distribution of good and evil (I do not mean in the doubtful advan¬ tages of riches and grandeur, but in the unquestionably important distinctions of health and sickness, strength and infirmity, bodily ease and pain, mental alacrity and depression) is apt, on so many occasions, to create. This one truth changes the nature of things; gives order to confusion; makes the moral world of a piece with the natural. Nevertheless, a higher degree of assurance than that to which it IS possible to advance this, or any argument drawn from the light of nature, was necessary, especially to overcome, the shock which the imagination and the senses receive from the efiects and the appearances of death, and the obstruction which thence arises to the expectation of either a continued or a future existence. This difficulty, although of a nature, no doubt, to act very forcibly, will be found, I think, upon reflection, to reside more in our habits of apprehension, than in the subject; and that the giving way to it, when we have any reasonable grounds for the contrary, is rather an indulging of the imagination, than any thing else. Abstractedly considered, that is, considered without relation to the difference ■which habit, and merely habit, produces in our faculties and modes of apprehension, I do not see any thing more in the resurrection of a dead man, than in the conception of a child; except it be this, that lie one comes into the world with a system of prior consciousness bout him, which the other does not; and no person wall say, that he knows enough of either subject to perceive, that this circum stance makes such a difference in the two cases, that the one should be easy, and the other impossible; the one natural, the other not so. To the first man, the succession of the species would be as incom¬ prehensible, as the resurrection of the dead is to us. Thought is different from motion, perception from impact: the individuality of a mind is hardly consistent with the diyisibility of Evidences of Christianity. 263 an extended substance ; or its volition, that is, its power of origin¬ ating motion, with the inertness which cleaves to every portion of matter which our observation or our experiments can reach. These distinctions lead us to an immaterial principle : at least, they do this ; they so negative the mechanical properties of matter, in the consti¬ tution, of a sentient, still more of a rational being, that no argument drawn from these properties, can be of any great weight in opposi¬ tion to other reasons, when the question respects the changes of which Svtch a nature is capable, or the manner in which these changes are effected. Whatever thought be, or whatever it depend upon, the regular experience of sleep makes one thing concerning it certain, that it can be completely suspended, and completely restored. If any one find it too great a strain upon his thoughts, to admit the notion of a substance strictly immaterial, that is, from which extension and solidity are excluded, he can find no difficulty in allowing, that a particle as small as a particle of light, minuter than all conceivable dimensions, may just as easily be the depository, the organ, and the vehicle, of consciousness, as the congeries of animal substance which forms a human body, or the human brain; that, being so, it may transfer a proper identity to whatever shall here¬ after be united to it; may be safe amidst the destruction of its in¬ teguments ; may connect the natural with the spiritual, the corrupt¬ ible with the glorified, body. If it be said, that the mode and means of all this are imperceptible by our senses, it is only what is true of the most important agencies and operations. The great powers of nature are all invisible. Gravitation, electricity, magnetism, though constantly present, and constantly exerting their influence ; though within us, near -us, and about us; though diffused throughout all space, overspreading the surface, or penetrating the contexture, of all bodies with which we are acquainted, depend upon substances and actions which are totally concealed from our senses. The Sd- preme Intelligence is so himself. But whether these or any other attempts to satisfy the imagina¬ tion, bear any resemblance to the truth, or whether the imagination, which, as I have said before, is a mere slave of habit, can be satis tied or not; when a future state, and the revelation of a future state, is not only perfectly consistent with the attributes of the Being who governs the universe; but when it is more, when it alone re¬ moves the appearances of contrariety which attend the operations of his will towards creatures capable of comparative merit and demerit, of reward and punishment; when a strong body of histor¬ ical evidence, confirmed by many internal tokens of truth and au- “thenticity, gives us just reason to believe that such a revelation hath actually been made; we ought to set our minds at rest with the assurance, that in the resources of Creative Wisdom, expedients cannot be wanted to carry into effect what the Deity hath purposed: that either a new and mighty influence will descend upon the human world to resuscitate extinguished consciousness; or that amidst the other wonderful contrivances with which the universe abounds, and ^ ,»•- - .'-‘ ..,. %’'Su %. 264 A Paley's yiew, <^c. bj{ some of ^^icli we"spe animal life, in many instances, a^iijning impfoved ofexisteAce, acquiring new organs, new per<^tions, ; and sources of|.6njoyment, provision is also made, thefi^gh by ; •' r^S^S^^ecret to ws (as all tb^great processes of nature for- ndiidraig. the objects of G^^-mOral government, throii^ the IfeceMary Ranges of their frame, to those final distinctions ^^hap- . >^jPpess andmiserji, which he hath declared to be reserved f^r.obe- ■ Adaenee and transgression, for virtue and vice, for the use knd the neglecf, ^he^jiglUi and the wrong employment, of the faculties and t '■ opportunities withHwhich he hath been pleased, severally, to intrust, and to try us. 4 A •««?:.* THE END JO 1 ^' } i ' (- 1 . 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