The former quotation, the reader will remem- The instances here alleged, serve, in some ber, proves that these books were composed by measure, to show the nature of Porphyry's obthe disciples of Jesus strictly so called; the pre-jections, and prove that Porphyry had read the sent quotation shows, that, though objections were taken by the adversaries of the religion to the integrity of these books, none were made to their genuineness.

Gospels with that sort of attention which a writer would employ who regarded them as the depositaries of the religion which he attacked. Beside these specifications, there exists, in the writings of ancient Christians, general evidence, that the places of Scripture upon which Porphyry had remarked were very numerous.

3. In a third passage, the Jew, whom Celsus introduces, shuts up an argument in this manner:-"These things then we have alleged to you out of your own writings, not needing any other In some of the above-cited examples, Porphyry, weapons."* It is manifest that this boast pro-speaking of Saint Matthew, calls him your eronceeds upon the supposition that the books, over gelist; he also uses the term evangelists in the which the writer affects to triumph, possessed an plural number. What was said of Celsus, is true authority by which Christians confessed them-likewise of Porphyry, that it does not appear that selves to be bound. he considered any history of Christ, except these, as having authority with Christians.

4. That the books to which Celsus refers were no other than our present Gospels, is made out by III. A third great writer against the Christian his allusions to various passages still found in religion was the emperor Julian, whose work was these Gospels. Celsus takes notice of the genea-composed about a century after that of Porphyry. logies, which fixes two of these Gospels; of the precepts, Resist not him that injures you, and, If a man strike thee on the one cheek, offer to him the other also;t of the woes denounced by Christ; of his predictions; of his saying, that it is impossible to serve two masters; of the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the reed in his hand; of the blood that flowed from the body of Jesus upon the cross, which circumstance is recorded by John alone; and (what is instar omnium for the purpose for which we produce it) of the difference in the accounts given of the resurrection by the evangelists, some mentioning two angels at the sepulchre, others only one.||

It is extremely material to remark, that Celsus not only perpetually referred to the accounts of Christ contained in the four Gospels, but that he referred to no other accounts; that he founded none of his objections to Christianity upon any thing delivered in spurious Gospels.

In various long extracts, transcribed from this work by Cyril and Jerome, it appears, that Julian noticed by name Matthew and Luke, in the difference between their genealogies of Christ; that he objected to Matthew's application of the prophecy, "Out of Egypt have I called my son,” (ii. 15,) and to that of "A virgin shall conceive;" (i. 23;) that he recited sayings of Christ, and various passages of his history, in the very words of the evangelists; in particular, that Jesus healed lame and blind people, and exorcised demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany; that he alleged, that none of Christ's disciples ascribed to him the creation of the world, except John; that neither Paul, nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Mark, have dared to call Jesus, God; that John wrote later than the other evangelists, and at a time when a great number of men in the cities of Greece and Italy were converted; that he alludes to the conversion of Cornelius and of Sergius II What Celsus was in the second century, Paulus, to Peter's vision, to the circular letter Porphyry became in the third. His work, which sent by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem, was a large and formal treatise against the Chris- which are all recorded in the Acts of the Apos tian religion, is not extant. We must be content tles: by which quoting of the four Gospels and therefore to gather his objections from Christian the Acts of the Apostles, and by quoting no other, writers, who have noticed in order to answer them; Julian shows that these were the historical books, and enough remains of this species of information, and the only historical books received by Christo prove completely, that Porphyry's animadver- tians as of authority, and as the authentic mesions were directed against the contents of our moirs of Jesus Christ, of his apostles, and of the present Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles; doctrines taught by them. But Julian's testimony Porphyry considering that to overthrow them was does something more than represent the judgment to overthrow the religion. Thus he objects to the of the Christian church in his time. It discovers repetition of a generation in Saint Matthew's ge- also his own. He himself expressly states the neaology; to Matthew's call; to the quotation of a early date of these records; he calls them by the text from Isaiah, which is found in a psalm as-names which they now bear. He all along supcribed to Asaph; to the calling of the lake of Ti- poses, he no where attempts to question, their ge berias a sea; to the expression in Saint Matthew, nuineness. "the abomination of desolation;" to the variation in Matthew and Mark upon the text, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness," Matthew citing it from Isaias, Mark from the Prophets; to John's application of the term "Word;" to Christ's change of intention about going up to the feast of tabernacles, (John vii. 8;) to the judgment denounced by Saint Peter upon Ananias and Sapphira, which he calls an imprecation of death.**

Lardner, Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. ii. p. 276. Ibid. ↑ Ib. p. 277. Ib. p. 280, 281. Ib. p. 283. The particulars, of which the above are only a few, are well collected by Mr. Bryant, p. 140.

* Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. iii. p. 166, &c.

The argument in favour of the books of the New Testament, drawn from the notice taken of their contents by the early writers against the religion, is very considerable. It proves that the accounts, which Christians had then, were the accounts which we have now; that our present Scriptures were theirs. It proves, moreover, that neither Celsus in the second, Porphyry in the third, nor Julian in the fourth century, suspected the authenticity of these books, or even insinuated that Christians were mistaken in the authors to whom they ascribed them. Not one of them expressed an opinion upon this subject different from that which was holden by Christians. And when * Jewish and Heathen Test. vol. iv. p. 77, &c.

faction of every fair and competent judgment. If there be any book which may seem to form an exception to the observation, it is a Hebrew Gospel, which was circulated under the various titles of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazarenes, of the Ebionites, sometimes called of the Twelve, by some ascribed to Saint Matthew. This Gospel is once, and only once, cited by Clemens Alexandrinus, who lived, the reader will remember, in the latter part of the second century, and which same Clement quotes one or other of our four Gospels in almost every page of his work. It is twice mentioned by Origen, A. D. 230; and both times with marks of diminution and discredit. And this is the ground upon which the exception stands. But what is still more material to observe is, that this Gospel, in the main, agreed with our present Gospel of Saint Matthew.*

1. That there is no evidence that any spurious or apocryphal books whatever existed in the first century of the Christian era, in which century all our historical books are proved to have been extant. "There are no quotations of any such books in the apostolical fathers, by whom I mean Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, whose writings reach from about the year of our Lord 70, to the year 108 (and some of whom have quoted each and every one of our historical Scriptures); I say this," adds Dr. Lardner, “because I think it has been proved.”* 2. These apocryphal writings were not read in the churches of Christians;

3. Were not admitted into their volume; 4. Do not appear in their catalogues; 5. Were not noticed by their adversaries; 6. Were not alleged by different parties as of authority in their controversies; 7. Were not the subjects, amongst them, of commentaries, versions, collations, expositions.

Finally; beside the silence of three centuries, or evidence, within that time, of their rejection, they were, with a consent nearly universal, reprobated by Christian writers of succeeding ages.

Now if, with this account of the apocryphal Gospels, we compare what we have read concerning the canonical Scriptures in the preceding sections; or even recollect that general but wellfounded assertion of Dr. Lardner, "That in the remaining works of Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, who all lived in the first two Although it be made out by these observations, centuries, there are more and larger quotations of that the books in question never obtained any de the small volume of the New Testament, than of gree of credit and notoriety which can place them all the works of Cicero, by writers of all charac-in competition with our Scriptures; yet it appears, ters, for several ages;" and if to this we add, from the writings of the fourth century, that many that, notwithstanding the loss of many works of such existed in that century, and in the century the primitive times of Christianity, we have, with-preceding it. It may be difficult at this distance in the above-mentioned period, the remains of Christian writers, who lived in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, the part of Africa that used the Latin tongue, in Crete, Greece, Italy, and Gaul, in all which remains, references are found to our evangelists; I apprehend, that we shall perceive a clear and broad line of division, between those writings, and all others pretending to similar authority.

II. But beside certain histories which assumed the names of apostles, and which were forgeries properly so called, there were some other Christian writings, in the whole or in part of an historical nature, which, though not forgeries, are denominated apocryphal, as being of uncertain or of no authority.

Of this second class of writings, I have found only two which are noticed by any author of the first three centuries, without express terms of condemnation; and these are, the one, a book entitled the Freaching of Peter, quoted repeatedly by Clemens Alexandrinus, A. D. 196; the other, a book entitled the Revelation of Peter, upon which the above-mentioned Clemens Alexandrinus is said, by Eusebius, to have written notes; and which is twice cited in a work still extant, ascribed to the same author.

I conceive, therefore, that the proposition we have before advanced, even after it had been subjected to every exception, of every kind, that can be alleged, separates, by a wide interval, our historical Scriptures from all other writings which profess to give an account of the same subject. We may be permitted however to add,

of time to account for their origin. Perhaps the most probable explication is, that they were in general composed with a design of making a profit by the sale. Whatever treated of the subject, would find purchasers. It was an advantage taken of the pious curiosity of unlearned Christians. With a view to the same purpose, they were many of them adapted to the particular opinions of particular sects, which would naturally promote their circulation amongst the favourers of those opinions. After all, they were probably much more obscure than we imagine. Except the Gos pel according to the Hebrews, there is none of which we hear more than the Gospel of the Egyptians; yet there is good reason to believe that Clement, a presbyter of Alexandria in Egypt, A. D. 184, and a man of almost universal reading, had never seen it. A Gospel according to Peter, was another of the most ancient books of this kind; yet Serapion, bishop of Antioch, A. D. 200, had not read it, when he heard of such a book being in the hands of the Christians of Rhossus in Cilicia; and speaks of obtaining a sight of this Gospel from some sectaries who used it. Even of the Gospel of the Hebrews, which confessedly stands at the head of the catalogue, Jerome, at the end of the fourth century, was glad to procure a copy by the favour of the Nazarenes of Berea. Nothing of this sort ever happened, or could have happened concerning our Gospels.

One thing is observable of all the apocryphal Christian writings, viz. that they proceed upon the same fundamental history of Christ and his apostles, as that which is disclosed in our Scriptures. The mission of Christ, his power of work

the apostles, his passion, death, and resurrection,

In applying to this Gospel, what Jerome in the lat-ing miracles, his communication of that power to ter end of the fourth century has mentioned of a Hebrew Gospel, I think it probable that we sometimes confound it with a Hebrew copy of Saint Matthew's Gospel, whether an original or version, which was then extant. ↑ Lardner, Cred. vol. xii. p. 53.

* Lardner, Cred. vol. xii. p. 158.

Jones, vol. i. p. 243. Lardner, Cred. vol. ii. p. 557.

are assumed or asserted by every one of them. | selves escape with impunity, or pursue their purThe names under which some of them came forth, pose in ease and safety. This probability, thus are the names of men of eminence in our histories. sustained by foreign testimony, is advanced, I What these books give, are not contradictions, think, to historical certainty, by the evidence of but unauthorized additions. The principal facts our own books; by the accounts of a writer who are supposed, the principal agents the same; which was the companion of the persons whose suffershows, that these points were too much fixed to ings he relates; by the letters of the persons thembe altered or disputed. selves; by predictions of persecutions ascribed to the Founder of the religion, which predictions would not have been inserted in this history, much less have been studiously dwelt upon, if they had not accorded with the event, and which, even if falsely ascribed to him, could only have been so ascribed, because the event suggested them; lastly, by incessant exhortations to fortitude and patience, and by an earnestness, repetition, and urgency, upon the subject, which were unlikely to have appeared, if there had not been, at the time, some extraordinary call for the exercise of these virtues.

If there be any book of this description, which appears to have imposed upon some considerable number of learned Christians, it is the Sibylline oracles; but, when we reflect upon the circumstances which facilitated that imposture, we shall cease to wonder either at the attempt or its success. It was at that time universally understood, that such a prophetic writing existed. Its contents were kept secret. This situation afforded to some one a hint, as well as an opportunity, to give out a writing under this name, favourable to the already established persuasion of Christians, and which writing, by the aid and recommendation of these circumstances, would in some degree, it is probable, be received. Of the ancient forgery we know but little: what is now produced, could not, in my opinion, have imposed upon any one. It is nothing else than the Gospel history, woven into verse; perhaps was at first rather a fiction than a forgery; an exercise of ingenuity, more than an attempt to deceive.

CHAPTER X.

Recapitulation.

THE reader will now be pleased to recollect, that the two points which form the subject of our present discussion, are first, that the Founder of Christianity, his associates, and immediate followers, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings; secondly, that they did so, in attestation of the miraculous history recorded in our Scriptures, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of that history.

The argument, by which these two propositions have been maintained by us, stands thus:

It is made out also, I think, with sufficient evidence, that both the teachers and converts of the religion, in consequence of their new profession, took up a new course of life and behaviour.

The next great question is, what they did this FOR. That it was for a miraculous story of some kind or other, is to my apprehension extremely manifest; because, as to the fundamental article, the designation of the person, viz. that this particular person, Jesus of Nazareth, ought to be received as the Messiah, or as a messenger from God, they neither had, nor could have, any thing but miracles to stand upon. That the exertions and sufferings of the apostles were for the story which we have now, is proved by the consideration that this story is transmitted to us by two of their own number, and by two others personally connected with them; that the particularity of the narrative proves, that the writers claimed to possess circumstantial information, that from their situation they had full opportunity of acquiring such information, that they certainly, at least, knew what their colleagues, their companions, their masters, taught; that each of these books contains enough to prove the truth of the religion; that, if any one of them therefore be genuine, it is sufficient; that the genuineness, however, of all of them is made out, as well by the general arguNo historical fact, I apprehend, is more certain, ments which evince the genuineness of the most than that the original propagators of Christianity undisputed remains of antiquity, as also by pecuvoluntarily subjected themselves to lives of fatigue, liar and specific proofs, viz. by citations from them danger, and suffering, in the prosecution of their in writings belonging to a period immediately conundertaking. The nature of the undertaking; tiguous to that in which they were published; by the character of the persons employed in it; the the distinguished regard paid by early Christians opposition of their tenets to the fixed opinions and to the authority of these books, (which regard was expectations of the country in which they first ad- manifested by their collecting of them into a vovanced them; their undissembled condemnation lume, appropriating to that volume titles of pecuof the religion of all other countries; their total liar respect, translating them into various lanwant of power, authority, or force; render it in guages, digesting them into harmonies, writing the highest degree probable that this must have commentaries upon them, and, still more conspicubeen the case. The probability is increased, by ously, by the reading of them in their public aswhat we know of the fate of the Founder of the semblies in all parts of the world;) by a universal institution, who was put to death for his attempt; agreement with respect to these books, whilst and by what we also know of the cruel treatment doubts were entertained concerning some others; of the converts to the institution, within thirty by contending sects appealing to them; by the years after its commencement; both which points early adversaries of the religion not disputing are attested by heathen writers, and, being once their genuineness, but, on the contrary, treating admitted, leave it very incredible that the primi- them as the depositaries of the history upon which tive emissaries of the religion, who exercised their the religion was founded; by many formal cataministry, first, amongst the people who had de-logues of these, as of certain and authoritative stroyed their Master, and, afterward, amongst writings, published in different and distant parts those who persecuted their converts, should them- of the Christian world; lastly, by the absence or

defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to any other histories of the same subject.

their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undertaken and undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct."

Our second proposition, and which now remains to be treated of, is, "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 delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts."

These are strong arguments to prove, that the books actually proceeded from the authors whose names they bear, (and have always borne, for there is not a particle of evidence to show that they ever went under any other;) but the strict genuineness of the books is perhaps more than is necessary to the support of our proposition. For even supposing that, by reason of the silence of antiquity, or the loss of records, we know not who were the writers of the four Gospels, yet the fact, that they were received as authentic accounts of the transaction upon which the religion rested, and were received as such by Christians, at or near the age of the apostles, by those whom the apostles had taught, and by societies which apos- I ENTER upon this part of my argument, by tles had founded; this fact, I say, connected with declaring how far my belief in miraculous accounts the consideration, that they are corroborative of goes. If the reformers in the time of Wickliffe, each other's testimony, and that they are farther or of Luther; or those of England, in the time of corroborated by another contemporary history, Henry the Eighth, or of queen Mary; or the taking up the story where they had left it, and, in founders of our religious sects since, such as were a narrative built upon that story, accounting for Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Wesley in our own times; the rise and production of changes in the world, had undergone the life of toil and exertion, of the effects of which subsist at this day; connected, danger and sufferings, which we know that many moreover, with the confirmation which they re- of them did undergo, for a miraculous story; that ceive from letters written by the apostles them-is to say, if they had founded their public ministry selves, which both assume the same general story, upon the allegation of miracles wrought within and, as often as occasions lead them to do so, al- their own knowledge, and upon narratives which lude to particular parts of it; and connected also could not be resolved into delusion or mistake; with the reflection, that if the apostles delivered and if it had appeared, that their conduct really any different story, it is lost, (the present and no had its origin in these accounts, I should have other being referred to by a series of Christian believed them. Or, to borrow an instance which writers, down from their age to our own; being will be familiar to every one of my readers, if the likewise recognised in a variety of institutions, late Mr. Howard had undertaken his labours and which prevailed early and universally amongst the journeys in attestation, and in consequence of a disciples of the religion;) and that so great a clear and sensible miracle, I should have believed change, as the oblivion of one story and the sub-him also. Or, to represent the same thing under stitution of another, under such circumstances, could not have taken place; this evidence would be deemed, I apprehend, sufficient to prove concerning these books, that, whoever were the authors of them, they exhibit the story which the apostles told, and for which, consequently, they acted, and they suffered.

a third supposition; if Socrates had professed to perform public miracles at Athens; if the friends of Socrates, Phædo, Cebes, Crito, and Simmias, together with Plato, and many of his followers, relying upon the attestations which these miracles afforded to his pretensions, had, at the hazard of their lives, and the certain expense of their ease If it be so, the religion must be true. These and tranquillity, gone about Greece, after his men could not be deceivers.-By only not bearing death, to publish and propagate his doctrines: testimony, they might have avoided all these suf- and if these things had come to our knowledge, ferings, and have lived quietly. Would men in in the same way as that in which the life of such circumstances pretend to have seen what Socrates is now transmitted to us, through the they never saw; assert facts which they had no hands of his companions and disciples, that is, by knowledge of; go about lying to teach virtue; writings received without doubt as theirs, from and, though not only convinced of Christ's being the age in which they were published to the prean impostor, but having seen the success of his sent, I should have believed this likewise. imposture in his crucifixion, yet persist in carry-my belief would, in each case, be much strengthing it on; and so persist, as to bring upon them- ened, if the subject of the mission were of importselves, for nothing, and with a full knowledge of ance to the conduct and happiness of human life: the consequence, enmity and hatred, danger and if it testified any thing which it behoved mankind death? to know from such authority; if the nature of what it delivered, required the sort of proof which it alleged; if the occasion was adequate to the

And

OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF interposition, the end worthy of the means. In

CHRISTIANITY.

PROPOSITION II.

CHAPTER I.

Our first proposition was, "That there is satisfactory evidence that many, pretending to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed

the last case, my faith would be much confirmed, if the effects of the transaction remained; more especially, if a change had been wrought, at the time, in the opinion and conduct of such numbers, as to lay the foundation of an institution, and of a system of doctrines, which had since overspread the greatest part of the civilized world. I should have believed, I say, the testimony in these cases; yet none of them do more than come up to the apostolic history.