Jesus was condemned, we are to understand six o'clock in the morning; the intermediate time from six to nine, when he was crucified, being employed in preparing for the crucifixion. But if this difficulty should be still esteemed insuperable, it does not follow that it will always remain so: and if it should, the main point, the crucifixion of Jesus, will not be affected thereby.

I cannot, in this place, omit remarking some circumstances attending the crucifixion, which are so natural, that we might have wondered if they had not occurred. Of all the disciples of Jesus, John was beloved by him with a peculiar degree of affection; and, as kindness produces kindness, there can be little doubt that the regard was reciprocal. Now, whom should we expect to be the attendants of Jesus in his last suffering? Whom but John, the friend of his heart? Whom but his mother, whose soul was now pierced through by the sword of sorrow, which Simeon had foretold? Whom but those who had been attached to him through life; who, having been healed by him of their infirmities, were impelled by gratitude to minister to him of their substance, to be attentive to all his wants? These were the persons whom we should have expected to have attended his execution; and these were there. To whom would an expiring son, of the best affections, recommend a poor, and, probably, a widowed mother, but to his warmest friend? And this did Jesus. Unmindful of the extremity of his own torture, and anxious to alleviate the burden of her sorrows, and to protect her old age from future want and misery, he said to his beloved disciple, "Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home." I own to you, that such instances as these, of the conformity of events to our probable expectation, are to me genuine marks of the simplicity and truth of the gospels; and far outweigh a thousand little objections, arising from our ignorance of manners, times, and circumstances, or from our incapacity to comprehend the means used by the Supreme Being in the moral government of his creatures.

St Matthew mentions several miracles which attended our Saviour's crucifixion, the darkness which overspread the land; the rending of the veil of the temple; an earthquake which rent the rocks; and the resurrection of many saints, and their going into the holy city. Such," you say," is the account which this dashing writer of the book of Matthew gives, but in which he is not supported by the writers of the other books." This is not accurately expressed; Matthew is supported by Mark and Luke, with respect to two of the miracles-the darkness, and the rending of the veil,—and their omission of the others does not prove that they were either ignorant

of them, or disbelieved them. I think it idle to pretend to say positively what influenced them to mention only two miracles; they probably thought them sufficient to convince any person, as they convinced the centurion, that Jesus". was a righteous man," "the Son of God." And these two miracles were better calculated to produce general conviction amongst the persons for whose benefit Mark and Luke wrote their gospels, than either the earthquake or the resurrection of the saints. The earthquake was probably confined to a particular spot, and might, by an objector, have been called a natural phenomenon; and those to whom the saints appeared might, at the time of writing the gospels of Mark and Luke, have been dead: but the darkness must have been generally known and remembered; and the veil of the temple might still be preserved at the time these authors wrote. As to John not mentioning any of these miracles, it is well known that his gospel was written as a kind of supplement to the other gospels; he has therefore omitted many things which the other three evangelists had related, and he has added several things which they had not mentioned in particular, he has added a circumstance of great importance; he tells us that he saw one of the soldiers pierce the side of Jesus with a spear, and that blood and water flowed through the wound; and, lest any one should doubt of the fact from its not being mentioned by the other evangelists, he asserts it with peculiar earnestness," And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe." John saw blood and water flowing from the wound: the blood is easily accounted for; but whence came the water? The anatomists tell us that it came from the pericardium :—so consistent is evangelical testimony with the most curious researches into natural science! You amuse yourself with the account of what the Scripture calls many saints, and you call an army of saints, and are angry with Matthew for not having told you a great many things about them. It is very possible that Matthew might have known the fact of their resurrection, without knowing every thing about them; but if he had gratified your curiosity in every particular, I am of opinion that you would not have believed a word of what he had told you. I have no curiosity on the subject; it is enough for me to know that "Christ was the first fruits of them that slept," and "that all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth," as those holy men did who heard the voice of the Son of God at his resurrection, and passed from death to life. If I durst indulge myself in being wise above what is written, I might be able to answer many of your inquiries relative to these saints; but I dare not touch

the ark of the Lord, I dare not support the authority of Scripture by the boldness of conjecture. Whatever difficulty there may be in accounting for the silence of the other evangelists, and of St Paul also, on this subject, yet there is a greater difficulty in supposing that Matthew did not give a true narration of what had happened at the crucifixion. If there had been no supernatural darkness, no earthquake, no rending of the veil of the temple, no graves opened, no resurrection of holy men, no appearance of them unto many; if none of these things had been true, or rather, if any one of them had been false, what motive could Matthew, writing to the Jews, have had for trumping up such wonderful stories? He wrote, as every man does, with an intention to be believed; and yet every Jew he met would have stared him in the face, and told him that he was a liar and an impostor. What author, who twenty years hence should address to the French nation an history of Louis XVI. would venture to affirm, that when he was beheaded there was darkness for three hours over all France? that there was an earthquake? that rocks were split, graves opened, and dead men brought to life, who appeared to many persons in Paris? It is quite impossible to suppose, that any one would dare to publish such obvious lies: and I think it equally impossible to suppose that Matthew would have dared to publish his account of what happened at the death of Jesus, had not that account been generally known to be true.

LETTER VIII.

THE "tale of the resurrection," you say, follows that of the crucifixion. You have accustomed me so much to this kind of language, that when I find you speaking of a tale, I have no doubt of meeting with a truth. From the apparent disagreement in the accounts which the evangelists have given of some circumstances respecting the resurrection, you remark-"If the writers of these books had gone into any court of justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by supernatural means,) and had given their evidence in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly deserved it,"" hard words or hanging," it seems, if you had been their judge. Now, I maintain, that it is the brevity with which the account of the resurrection is given by all the evangelists, which has occasioned the seeming confusion; and that this confusion would have been cleared up at once,

if the witnesses of the resurrection had been examined before any judicature. As we cannot have this vivá voce examination of all the witnesses, let us call up and question the evangelists as witnesses to a supernatural alibi. | Did you find the sepulchre of Jesus empty? One of us actually saw it empty, and the rest heard from eye-witnesses, that it was empty. Did you, or any of the followers of Jesus, take away the body from the sepulchre ? All answer, No. Did the soldiers or the Jews take away the body? No. How are you certain of that? Because we saw the body when it was dead, and we saw it afterwards when it was alive. How do you know that what you saw was the body of Jesus? We had been long and intimately acquainted with Jesus, and knew his person perfectly. Were you not affrighted, and mistook a spirit for a body? No: the body had flesh and bones; we are sure that it was the very body which hung upon the cross, for we saw the wound in the side, and the print of the nails in the hands and feet. And all this you are ready to swear? We are; and we are ready to die also, sooner than we will deny any part of it. This is the testimony which all the evangelists would give in whatever court of justice they were examined; and this, I apprehend, would sufficiently establish the alibi of the dead body from the sepulchre, by supernatural

means.

But as the resurrection of Jesus is a point which you attack with all your force, I will examine minutely the principal of your objections: I do not think them deserving of this notice, but they shall have it. The book of Matthew, you say, "states that when Christ was put in the sepulchre, the Jews applied to Pilate for a watch or a guard to be placed over the sepulchre, to prevent the body being stolen by the disciples." I admit this account, but it is not the whole of the account: you have omitted the reason for the request which the chief priests made to Pilate," Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again." It is material to remark this; for at the very time that Jesus predicted his resurrection, he predicted also his crucifixion, and all that he should suffer from the malice of those very men who now applied to Pilate for a guard. "He shewed to his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." Matt. xvi. 21. These men knew full well that the first part of this prediction had been accurately fulfilled through their malignity and, instead of repenting of what they had done, they were so infatuated as to suppose, that by a guard of soldiers they could prevent the completion of the second. The other books, you observe, "say nothing about this

application, nor about the sealing of the stone, nor the guard, nor the watch, and according to these accounts there were none." This, Sir, I deny. The other books do not say that there were none of these things: how often must I repeat, that omissions are not contradictions, nor silence concerning a fact a denial of it?

You go on "The book of Matthew continues its account, that at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. Mark says it was sun-rising, and John says it was dark. Luke says, it was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women, that came to the sepulchre; and John says that Mary Magdalene came alone. So well do they agree about their first evidence they all appear, however, to have known most about Mary Magdalene: she was a woman of a large acquaintance, and it was not an ill conjecture that she might be upon the stroll." This is a long paragraph; I will answer it distinctly :-First, there is no disagreement of evidence with respect to the time when the women went to the sepulchre; all the evangelists agree as to the day on which they went; and as to the time of the day, it was early in the morning: What court of justice in the world would set aside this evidence, as insufficient to substantiate the fact of the women's having gone to the sepulchre, because the witnesses differed as to the degree of twilight which lighted them on their way? Secondly, there is no disagreement of evidence with respect to the persons who went to the sepulchre. John states that Mary Magdalene went to the sepulchre; but he does not state, as you make him state, that Mary Magdalene went alone; she might, for any thing you have proved, or can prove, to the contrary, have been accompanied by all the women mentioned by Luke: :-- is it an unusual thing to distinguish by name a principal person going on a visit, or an embassy, without mentioning his subordinate attendants ? Thirdly, in opposition to your insinuation that Mary Magdalene was a common woman, I wish it to be considered, whether there is any scriptural authority for that imputation? and whether there be or not, I must contend, that a repentant and reformed woman ought not to be esteemed an improper witness of a fact. The conjecture which you adopt concerning her, is nothing less than an illiberal, indecent, unfounded calumny, not excusable in the mouth of a libertine, and intolerable in yours.

The book of Matthew, you observe, goes on to say "And behold there was an earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it, but the

other books say nothing about any earthquake;"—what then? does their silence prove that there was none?-"nor about the angel rolling back the stone and sitting upon it;" what then? does their silence prove that the stone was not rolled back by an angel, and that he did not sit upon it?" and according to their accounts, there was no angel sitting there." This conclusion I must deny; their accounts do not say there was no angel sitting there, at the time that Matthew says he sat upon the stone. They do not deny the fact, they simply omit the mention of it; and they all take notice that the women, when they arrived at the sepulchre, found the stone rolled away: hence it is evident that the stone was rolled away before the women arrived at the sepulchre; and the other evangelists, giving an account of what happened to the women when they reached the sepulchre, have merely omitted giving an account of a transaction previous to their arrival. Where is the contradiction? What space of time intervened between the rolling away the stone, and the arrival of the women at the sepulchre, is no where mentioned; but it certainly was long enough for the angel to have changed his position; from sitting on the outside he might have entered into the sepulchre; and another angel might have made his appearance; or, from the first, there might have been two, one on the outside rolling away the stone, and the other within. Luke, you tell us, 66 says there were two, and they were both standing; and John says there were two, and both sitting." It is impossible, I grant, even for an angel to be sitting and standing at the same instant of time; but Luke and John do not speak of the same instant, nor of the same appearance-Luke speaks of the appearance to all the women; and John of the appearance to Mary Magdalene alone, who tarried weeping at the sepulchre, after Peter and John had left it. But I forbear making any more minute remarks on still minuter objections, all of which are grounded on this mistake that the angels were seen at one particular time, in one particular place, and by the same individuals.

As to your inference, from Matthew's using the expression unto this day," that the book must have been manufactured after a lapse of some generations at least," it cannot be admitted against the positive testimony of all antiquity. That the story about stealing away the body was a bungling story, I readily admit; but the chief priests are answerable for it; it is not worthy either your notice or mine, except as it is a strong instance to you, to me, and to every body, how far prejudice may mislead the understanding.

You come to that part of the evidence in those books that respects, you say, "the pretended appearances of Christ after his

I know

pretended resurrection : the writer of the book of Matthew relates, that the angel that was sitting on the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre said to the two Marys, (chap. xxviii 7,) Behold, Christ is gone before you into Galilee; there shall you see him.'” The gospel, Sir, was preached to poor and illiterate men and it is the duty of priests to preach it to them in all its purity; to guard them against the errors of mistaken, or the designs of wicked men. You, then, who can read your Bible, turn to this passage, and you will find that the angel did not say, "Behold, Christ is gone before you into Galilee,"—but," Behold, he goeth before you into Galilee." not what Bible you made use of in this quotation; none that I have seen render the original word by-he is gone: it might be properly rendered, he will go; and it is literally rendered, he is going. This phrase does not imply any immediate setting out for Galilee: When a man has fixed upon a long journey to London or Bath, it is common enough to say, he is going to London or Bath, though the time of his going may be at some distance. Even your dashing Matthew could not be guilty of such a blunder as to make the angel say he is gone; for he tells us immediately afterwards, that as the women were departing from the sepulchre, to tell his disciples what the angels had said to them, Jesus himself met them. Now, how Jesus could be gone into Galilee, and yet met the women at Jerusalem, I leave you to explain, for the blunder is not chargeable upon Matthew. I excuse your introducing the expression" then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee," for the quotation is rightly made; but had you turned to the Greek Testament, you would not have found in this place any word answering to then; the passage is better translated-and the eleven. Christ had said to his disciples, (Matt. xxvi. 32,) “ After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee; "-and the angel put the women in mind of the very expression and prediction (He is risen, as he said; and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee.) Matthew, intent upon the appearance in Galilee, of which there were, probably, at the time he wrote, many living witnesses in Judea, omits the mention of many appearances taken notice of by John, and, by this omission, seems to connect the day of the resurrection of Jesus with that of the departure of the disciples for Galilee. You seem to think this a great difficulty, and incapable of solution; for you say- "It is not possible, unless we admit these disciples the right of wilful lying, that the writers of these books could be any of the eleven persons called disciples; for if, according to Matthew, the eleven went into Galilee to meet Jesus in a mountain, by his own appointment, on the same day that he is said to have risen, Luke and John must have been two of that eleven;

yet the writer of Luke says expressly, and John implies as much, that the meeting was that same day in a house at Jerusalem and on the other hand, if, according to Luke and John, the eleven were assembled in a house at Jerusalem, Matthew must have been one of that eleven; yet Matthew says, the meeting was in a mountain in Galilee; and consequently the evidence given in those books destroys each other." When I was a young man in the university, I was pretty much accustomed to drawing of consequences; but my Alma Mater did not suffer me to draw consequences after your manner; she taught me-that a false position must end in an absurd conclusion. I have shewn your position -that the eleven went into Galilee on the day of the resurrection-to be false; and hence your consequence-that the evidence given in those two books destroys each other--is not to be admitted. You ought, moreover, to have considered, that the feast of 'unleavened bread, which immediately followed the day on which the passover was eaten, lasted seven days; and that strict observers of the law did not think themselves at liberty to leave Jerusalem till that feast was ended; and this is a collateral proof that the disciples did not go to Galilee on the day of the resurrection.

You certainly have read the New Testament, but not, I think, with great attention, or you would have known who the apostles were. In this place you reckon Luke as one of the eleven, and in other places you speak of him as an eye-witness of the things he relates. You ought to have known that Luke was no apostle; and he tells you himself, in the preface to his Gospel, that he wrote from the testimony of others. If this mistake proceeds from your ignorance, you are not a fit person to write comments on the Bible; if from design, (which I am unwilling to suspect,) you are still less fit; in either case it may suggest to your readers the propriety of suspecting the truth and accuracy of your assertions, however daring and intemperate. "Of the numerous priests or parsons of the present day, bishops and all, the sum-total of whose learning," according to you, “is a b ab, and hic, hæc, hoc, there is not one amongst them," you say, "who can write poetry like Homer, or science like Euclid." If I should admit this, (though there are many of them, I doubt not, who understand these authors better than you do,) yet I cannot admit that there is one amongst them, bishops and all, so ignorant as to rank Luke the evangelist among the apostles of Christ. I will not press this point; any man may fall into a mistake, and the consciousness of this fallibility should create in all men a little modesty, a little diffidence, a little caution, before they presume to call the most illustrious characters of antiquity liars, fools, and knaves.

You want to know why Jesus did not shew himself to all the people after his resurrection. This is one of Spinoza's objections; and it may sound well enough in the mouth of a Jew, wishing to excuse the infidelity of his countrymen; but it is not judiciously adopted by Deists of other nations. God gives us the means of health, but he does not force us to the use of them; he gives us the powers of the mind, but he does not compel us to the cultivation of them; he gave the Jews opportunities of seeing the miracles of Jesus, but he did not oblige them to believe them. They who persevered in their incredulity after the resurrection of Lazarus, would have persevered also after the resurrection of Jesus. Lazarus had been buried four days, Jesus but three; the body of Lazarus had begun to undergo corruption, the body of Jesus saw no corruption. Why should you expect that they would have believed in Jesus on his own resurrection, when they had not believed in him on the resurrection of Lazarus? When the Pharisees were told of the resurrection of Lazarus, they, together with the chief priests, gathered a council, and said, "What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him. Then from that day forth they took counsel together to put him to death." The great men at Jerusalem, you see, admitted that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead; yet the belief of that miracle did not generate conviction that Jesus was the Christ; it only exasperated their malice, and accelerated their purpose of destroying him. Had Jesus shewn himself after his resurrection, the chief priests would probably have gathered another council, have opened it with, What do we? and ended it with a determination to put him to death. As to us, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, which we have in the New Testament, is far more convincing, than if it had been related that he shewed himself to every man in Jerusalem; for then we should have had a suspicion, that the whole story had been fabricated by the Jews.

You think Paul an improper witness of the resurrection: I think him one of the fittest that could have been chosen; and for this reason, his testimony is the testimony of a former enemy. He had, in his own miraculous conversion, sufficient ground for changing his opinion as to a matter of fact; for believing that to have been a fact, which he had formerly, through extreme prejudice, considered as a fable. For the truth of the resurrection of Jesus, he appeals to above two hundred and fifty living witnesses and before whom does he make this appeal? Before his enemies, who were able and willing to blast his character, if he had advanced an untruth. You know, undoubtedly, that Paul had resided at Corinth near two years; that,

during a part of that time, he had testified to the Jews, that Jesus was the Christ; that finding the bulk of that nation obstinate in their unbelief, he had turned to the Gentiles, and had converted many to the faith in Christ; that he left Corinth, and went to preach the gospel in other parts; that, about three years after he had quitted Corinth, he wrote a letter to the converts which he had made in that place, and who, after his departure, had been split into different factions, and had adopted different teachers in opposition to Paul. From this account we may be certain, that Paul's letter, and every circumstance in it, would be minutely examined. The city of Corinth was full of Jews. These men were, in general, Paul's bitter enemies ; yet, in the face of them all, he asserts, "that Jesus Christ was buried; that he arose again the third day; that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; that he was afterwards seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part were then alive." An appeal to above two hundred and fifty living witnesses is a pretty strong proof of a fact; but it becomes irresistible, when that appeal is submitted to the judgment of enemies. St Paul, you must allow, was a man of ability; but he would have been an idiot, had he put it in the power of his enemies to prove, from his own letter, that he was a Îying rascal. They neither proved, nor attempted to prove any such thing; and, therefore, we may safely conclude, that this testimony of Paul to the resurrection of Jesus was true and it is a testimony, in my opinion, of the greatest weight.

66

You come, you say, to the last scene, the ascension; upon which, in your opinion, "the reality of the future mission of the disciples was to rest for proof." I do not agree with you in this. The reality of the future mission of the apostles might have been proved, though Jesus Christ had not visibly ascended into heaven. Miracles are the proper proofs of a divine mission; and when Jesus gave the apostles a commission to preach the gospel, he commanded them to stay at Jerusalem, till they were endued with power from on high." Matthew has omitted the mention of the ascension; and John, you say, has not said a syllable about it. I think otherwise. John has not given an express account of the ascension, but has certainly said something about it; for he informs us, that Jesus said to Mary, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." This is surely saying something about the ascension and if the fact of the ascension be not related by John or Matthew, it may reasonably be supposed, that the omission was made on account of the