veries to produce. A Galilean peasant, who had wrought no deliverance for the Jews, was declared to be their Messiah, and this claim, without supernatural proofs, could not be attempted or supported.

Q. Would every controversy on the subject presuppose these?

A. Yes; for without them there would have been no place for discussion at all. The debate, whether prophecies were applicable to Jesus, would proceed without constantly recurring to his miracles, because it set out with supposing these; for, unless there were some distinction of person, and supernatural proof, the argument from the old Scriptures would not have ensued.

Q. Would the circumstance of a young man delivering lectures in morality have excited a suspicion among the Jews, whether he was the object of their magnificent prophecies.

A. Certainly not; when they had the whole case before them, and saw the evidence closed by the death which rewarded his officiousness.

Q. Would not the effect of the Messiah's coming upon Jews and Gentiles, and upon their relation to each other, occupy the attention of the early votaries of the religion?

A. Yes; but direct mention of miracles would not be probable, whether the disquisitions were in the form of letters, speeches, or set treatises, although miraculous evidence were still at the bottom of the

argument. In the primary question they had to rely upon miraculous pretensions alone.

Q. Does the claim to miraculous powers made by succeeding Christians, support the miraculous nature of the original story?

A. Yes; for if the accounts of them be true, it was a continuation of the same powers; if false, it was an imitation of what had been reported to have been previously done, and this is consistent with the usual course of human affairs."

Q. Is a contrary supposition improbable ?

A. Yes; that miracles should be pretended to by the followers of the first teachers, when none were pretended to by the teachers themselves, or attributed to their master.

CHAPTER VII.

Q. WHAT great question arises from having proved that the first Christians thus laboured and suffered for an extraordinary or miraculous story of some kind?

A. Whether the account of our Scriptures be the story for which these men thus suffered and acted. In effect, no other, than whether the story which Christians have now, be that which they had then.

Q. Is there any trace of any other story?

A. No; there is not a document either contemporary with the commencement of Christianity, or extant within many ages after, which assigns any history substantially different.

Q. How do the notices of heathen writers bear upon it?

A. As far as they go, they go along with us. They mention the origin of Christianity with Jesus ; his crucifixion; the propagation of the religion to distant countries; the manners of the Christians; their divine worship of Christ; their sufferings and contempt of death.

Q. Are these accounts consistent with the character of the writers?

A. Yes; they viewed the subject at a great distance, and were uninterested about it. Yet there is no contradiction, but a confirmation of it in general points.

Q. Can the same observation be made with regard to the Jewish writers of that, and the adjoining period?

A. Yes; if any omissions cannot be easily explained, still they advance no other history than ours. Q. What facts are corroborated by Josephus ?

A. The preaching and baptism of John, and his execution by Herod.

Q. What is inferred from the disputed passage in Josephus, with regard to Christ ?

A. If genuine, he goes the whole length of our

history; if not, he goes only a little way with us, but it may be inferred, that the passage is either genuine, or the author's silence is designed.

Q. State the reasons for the latter conclusion?

A. If we lay aside our own books, when Tacitus (not twenty, perhaps not ten years after Josephus), Suetonius, and Pliny, all mention the extensive propagation of the religion, we cannot suppose that the transaction was too obscure to engage Josephus's

attention.

Q. Can you mention, any similar occurrence in Josephus and any other historian?

A. Josephus passes over the banishment of the Jews by Claudius; and Eusebius, in the life of Constantine, omits entirely the death of his son Crispus.

Q. Do the Christian writers from its first age to the present, proceed upon the general story of our Scriptures ?

A. Yes; the main facts are alike in all. This will be of great force when it is known that we can trace back a series of writers to the age of the Apostles, and deduce it in unbroken continuation to the present.

Q. What do the letters of the Apostles incidentally disclose ?

A. Christ's descent and family, the principal events of his life, the appointment of the Eucharist, his agony, death, and burial, his resurrection and ascension; the miracles of the first disciples, the

propagation of the religion, the miraculous conversion of Paul, and finally, that miracles were the signs of an Apostle.

Q. What other testimonies of an early date can you adduce ?

A. The epistle bearing the name of Barnabas, an epistle of Clement, a hearer of St. Paul; an epistle of Polycarp, the remaining works of Ignatius, those of his contemporary Quadratus, and of Justin Martyr, thirty years after; which severally mention the acts of Christ and the Apostles, their miracles and doctrines, the crucifixion of Christ, and the sufferings of his disciples.

Q. Could these citations be carried lower?

A. Yes; but it is not necessary, because the history after this time occurs in Christian writings, as familiarly as in modern sermons.

Q. Is this true of other ancient Christian writings, besides those of acknowledged authority?

A. It is, although some may appear to be undeserving of credit, or never to have obtained any. Among their fables they preserve the material parts, and are therefore evidence that these were acknowledged points. It may also be asserted, that in places where such would most probably be found, no reliques appear of any story substantially different.

Q. It is not probable, then, that the original story should have died away, and another gained the exclusive belief of the disciples of Christianity?

A. No; such an event is beyond any example of