they thus acted, since the nature of the undertaking and the character of the opposition to be expected to it, render this highly probable. This is increased by our knowledge of the fate of the Founder and the treatment of converts after, attested by Heathen writers, and confirmed by our own books.

Q. Is it made out also with sufficient evidence that the Christians adopted a new course of life? A. Yes; in consequence of their new profession. Q. Does it appear that this was in attestation of a miraculous story?

A. Most manifestly; because their fundamental article, viz. that Jesus was the Messiah, had not, nor could have, any thing but miraculous evidence to stand upon.

Q. Show in the next place, that it was the same story as we possess

?

A. The principal arguments are, that the story is transmitted to us by Apostles or their companions, of whose histories, if one only be genuine, it is sufficient; that the genuineness of all is made out by early citations from them, by the distinguished regard paid to them by early Christians, by commentaries upon them, by reading them in public assemblies, by an universal agreement with respect to these while others were doubted, by contending sects appealing to them; by early adversaries not doubting them; by formal catalogues of them, and by the defect of those topics of evidence when applied to other histories on the same subject.

F

Q. Is not the strict genuineness of the book more than is necessary for our proposition?

A. Certainly, for if we knew not who were the writers of the four Gospels, yet if their accounts were received as authentic, at or near the age of the Apostles, and as they are corroborated by each other, by contemporary history, and by letters written by the Apostles themselves; and connected also with the reflection, that if the Apostles delivered any other story it has totally disappeared, and that so great a change as this, with the substitution of another story, could not have taken place-the evidence would be sufficient, that these books, whoever were their authors, exhibit the story which the Apostles told, and for which they acted and suffered.

Q. This being made out, must not the religion be true?

A. Undoubtedly, for these men in such circumstances could not be deceivers, for the purpose of teaching virtue; nor incur danger for an imposture, with no profit, but certain suffering,

PROPOSITION 2.

CHAPTER I.

Q. Repeat the substance of the second propo sition?

A. That there is not satisfactory evidence, that persons pretending to be original witnesses of any other miracles, have acted in the same manner, in at

testation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts. Q. How do you show the extent of belief in miraculous accounts?

your

A. If Wickliffe or Luther, or Whitfield or Wesley, had undergone the dangers and sufferings many of them are known to have undergone for a miraculous story, and that their public ministry and conduct had their origin in these accounts, I should have believed them.

Q. Name the other cases instanced?

A. If Howard had undertaken his labours and journies in consequence of a sensible and clear miracle, I should have believed him also; or if Socrates had professed to work miracles, and his friends Phædo, Crito, Plato, and others, had published them through Greece at the hazard of their lives, and if the account of this had come to our knowledge through the writings of the companions of Socrates, received as such from their age to the present, I should likewise have believed them.

Q. What would tend to strengthen this belief?

A. The subject of the mission; if it were of importance to the conduct and happiness of life, if it testified any thing necessary to be known from such authority, if it required that sort of proof, if the occasion was adequate to the interposition, and the end worthy of the means.

Q. Would not the last case be much strengthened if the effects remained?

A. Yes; more especially if a change had been wrought in such numbers, as to lay the foundation of the institution, which had since overspread the greatest part of the civilized world.

Q. What examples should be produced by any one calling this assent credulity?

A. Those in which the same evidence has turned out to be fallacious.

Q. In stating the comparison between our evidence and that of our adversaries, how will you divide the distinctions ?

A. Into two kinds-those which relate to the proof, and those which relate to the miracles.

Q. What do you lay out of the case under the former head?

A. Accounts of supernatural events, found only in histories some ages posterior to the transaction; but ours is contemporary history.

Q. What does this difference remove out of the way?

A. The miraculous history of Pythagoras, who lived 500 years B. C. written 300 years after Christ; the prodigies of Livy; the whole of the Greek, Roman, and Gothic mythology; and a great part of the legendary history of Popish Saints.

Q. To what other miracles does it apply with considerable force?

A. To those of Apollonius Tyaneus, published 100 years after his death; and to some of the miracles of the 3rd century, especially to the account

of Gregory, called Thaumaturgus, in the writings of Gregory of Nyssen, 130 years after.

Q. How is the value of this circumstance shown in the history of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits?

15

A. The author, in a life, published 15 years after Loyola's death, industriously states the reasons why he was not invested with miraculous power; years after that, the life was re-published, with the addition of other circumstances, but with a total silence about miracles. But about 60 years after Loyola's death, miracles began to be attributed to him, which could not then be distinctly disproved.

Q. What other accounts do you lay out of the case?

A. Those published in one country of what passed in a distant country; but in the case of Christianity, the scene of the transaction was the place where the story was first published.

Q. To what objection are the miracles of Apollonius Tyaneus, related to have been done in India, those of Xavier, the Indian missionary, and others of the Romish breviary liable?

A. That the accounts of them were published at a vast distance from the supposed scene of the wonders.

Q. Why are transient rumours laid out of the

case ?

A. Because upon the first publication of any account, no one not personally acquainted with the transaction can know whether it be true or false.