The future confirmation or contradiction of the account, its dying away or increasing in notoriety, must distinguish solid truth from fugitive lies.

Q. Does this distinction lie on the side of Christianity?

A. Yes, altogether; our accounts were composed after the first reports must have subsided, and they were followed by a train of writings upon the subject. The historical testimonies were also many and various. Q. On what grounds is naked history laid out of the case.

A. Because if the prodigies of the Jewish history had been found only in fragments of Manetho and Berosus, we should not have regarded them; but in appreciating the evidence of Christianity the books are combined with the institution.

Q. State the other circumstances with which the books are to be combined?

A. With the present prevalency of the religion; with the time and place of its origin; its rise and progress; the reception of our books by its votaries from the beginning; other subsequent books, with accounts of effects of, and references to, the transaction; the variety of the books themselves, their disagreeing so as to repel the suspicion of a confederacy, and agreeing so as to show that they were founded in a common original.

Q. Is this proof satisfactory?

A. If not, it is a cumulation of evidence, and by no means a solitary record.

Q. Refer to some instances of particularity, in names, dates, places and circumstances, which, in a certain degree, is a mark of historical truth.

A. Paul's voyage and shipwreck (Acts xxvii), which would almost carry conviction to every one of the writer's presence; and the account of the cure and examination of the blind man in St. John, which bears every mark of the historian's personal knowledge.

Q. As experience proves that particularity is not confined to truth, to what will it reduce the question?

A. To this; viz. whether we can depend or not upon the probity of the relator; and an express attempt to deceive is charged upon the Evangelists by few.

Q. Are many examples of particularity found in the Gospels.

A. In all; and it is difficult to conceive that the numerous particularities of the Scriptures should be raised out of nothing, without any fact to go upon.

Q. Is this particularity natural in references or

allusions?

A. No, it is only to be looked for in direct history. Q. Why are supernatural stories, requiring only an otiose assent, laid out of the case?

A. Those stories are credited, if the careless assent given to them deserve that name, because no interest is involved in them; or though not much credited, are passed from one to another without inquiry or resistance.

Q. What belongs to this case?

A. The love of the marvellous; most vulgar errors and popular superstitions, upon the truth or falsehood of which nothing depends.

Q. Why cannot the alleged miracles of Christ and the Apostles be classed among these?

A. Because, if true, they decided the most important question upon which the human mind can fix its anxiety; and claimed to regulate the opinions of men upon the most deeply interesting subjects, wherein they are also usually refractory.

Q. Would not both Jew and Gentile feel, that if these things were true, they must give up the religion of their fathers ?

A. Certainly; and this they would not do without conviction of the truth of the narrative to which they trusted. The belief also involved a change of life, and many besides the Apostles were induced by this narrative to sacrifice their ease and fortunes, perhaps their lives, and encounter danger and sufferings.

Q. Would the mere promise of a future state do all this?

A. No; without any evidence to give assurance to it, it would do nothing.

Q. Do not men easily believe what they anxiously desire ?

A. So far from it, that anxiety of desire, and the vastness of an event cause men rather to doubt and to examine.

Q. Why are accounts which come merely in af

firmance of opinions already formed, laid out of the

case.

A. From this circumstance, which is of great importance; Popish miracles happen in Popish countries; they make no converts; they fall in with principles already fixed, and with the sentiments of the party which the miracle supports; men might suffer on the side of the miracle, and yet not for it, but in pursuance of prior persuasion.

Q. In the moral as in the natural world, it is change that requires a cause-how does this apply to the Christian history?

A. The Christian miracles were wrought amidst enemies, and under a hostile government. They were Protestant miracles in a Popish country; those who suffered in the cause, suffered for the miracles, for there was no anterior persuasion to induce them. The miracles of Jesus gave birth to his sect.

Q. Does any part of this description belong to the ordinary evidence of Heathen or Popish miracles? A. No; even most of the Christian miracles of the 2nd and 3rd century want this confirmation.

Q. Does not this constitute a line of partition between the origin and progress of Christianity?

A. Yes; frauds might mix themselves with its progress, which could not take place in the commence

ment.

Q. Has any founder of a new Christian sect pretended to miracles and succeeded?

A. Certainly not, although some talk as if it were an every day matter. The founders of the Waldenses, and Albigenses, Wickliff, Huss, Jerome, Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, did not advance this plea. The French prophets who pretended to it ruined their

cause.

Q. Has any miracle been offered as the test of any other religions before their establishment?

A. None can be named, concerning the religion of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, or China.

Q. Does the case of what are called pious frauds bear upon the apostolical history?

A. No; if the Apostles did not believe the miracles they did not believe the religion; and in that case there was no piety or colour of piety in attesting miracles in its behalf.

Q. Is it probable that the Apostles would promote the belief of revelation, for the sake of political utility?

A. The character of all others the least assignable to them is that of men capable of entertaining political views.

Q. In appreciating the credit of miracles, these distinctions relate to the evidence; are there not other important distinctions relating to the miracles themselves.

A. Yes; for it is not necessary to admit as a miracle such as can be resolved into a false perception; as the demon of Socrates, the visions of St. Anthony, of Lord Herbert, of Colonel Gardiner-all these may be accounted for by a momentary insanity.