I have little doubt but that the first Zacharias was the person spoken of by our Saviour; and that the name of the father has been since added, or changed, by some one, who took it from the title of the prophecy, which happened to be better known to him than the history in the Chronicles.

There is likewise a Zacharias, the son of Baruch, related by Josephus to have been slain in the temple a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem. It has been insinuated, that the words put into our Saviour's mouth contain a reference to this transaction, and were composed by some writer, who either confounded the time of the transaction with our Saviour's age, or inadvertently overlooked the anachronism.

Now suppose it to have been so; suppose these words to have been suggested by the transaction related in Josephus, and to have been falsely ascribed to Christ; and observe what extraordinary coincidences (accidentally, as it must in that case have been) attend the forger's mistake.

First. That we have a Zacharias in the book of Chronicles, whose death, and the manner of it, corresponds with the allusion.

Secondly. That although the name of this person's father be erroneously put down in the Gospel, yet we have a way of accounting for the error, by showing another Zacharias in the Jewish Scriptures, much better known than the former, whose patronymic was actually that which appears in the text.

Every one who thinks upon the subject, will find these to be circumstances which could not have met together in a mistake, which did not proceed from the circumstances themselves.

I have noticed, I think, all the difficulties of this kind. They are few; some of them admit of a clear, others of a probable solution. The reader will compare them with the number, the variety, the closeness, and the satisfactoriness, of the instances which are to be set against them; and he will remember the scantiness, in many cases, of our intelligence, and that difficulties always attend imperfect information.

CHAPTER VII.

Undesigned Coincidences.

BETWEEN the letters which bear the name of St. Paul in

our collection, and his history in the Acts of the Apostles, there exist many notes of correspondency. The simple perusal of the writings is sufficient to prove, that neither the history was taken from the letters, nor the letters from the history. And the undesignedness of the agreements (which undesignedness is gathered from their latency, their minuteness, their obliquity, the suitableness of the circumstances in which they consist, to the places in which those circumstances occur, and the circuitous references by which they are traced out) demonstrates that they have not been produced by meditation, or by any fraudulent contrivance. But coincidences, from which these causes are excluded, and which are too close and numerous to be accounted for by accidental concurrences of fiction, must necessarily have truth for their foundation.

This argument appeared to my mind of so much value (especially for its assuming nothing beside the existence of the books), that I have pursued it through St. Paul's thirteen epistles, in a work published by me four years ago under the title of Hora Pauline. I am sensible how feebly any argument, which depends upon an induction of particulars, is represented without examples. On which account I wished to have abridged my own volume, in the manner in which I have treated Dr. Lardner's in the preceding chapter. But, upon making the attempt, I did not find it in my power to render the articles intelligible by fewer words than I have there used. I must be content, therefore, to refer the reader to the work itself. And I would particularly invite his attention to the observations which are made in it upon the three first epistles. I persuade myself that he will find the proofs, both of agreement and undesignedness, supplied by these epistles, sufficient to support the conclusion which is there maintained, in favour both of the genuineness of the writings, and the truth of the narrative.

It remains only, in this place, to point out how the argument bears upon the general question of the christian history.

First, St. Paul in these letters affirms, in unequivocal terms, his own performance of miracles, and, what ought particularly to be remembered, 'That miracles were the signs of an apostle." If this testimony come from St. Paul's own hand, it is invaluable. And that it does so, the argument before us fixes in my

mind a firm assurance.

Secondly, it shows that the series of action, represented in the epistles of St. Paul, was real; which alone lays a foundation for the proposition which forms the subject of the first part of our present work, viz., that the original witnesses of the christian history devoted themselves to lives of toil, suffering, and danger, in consequence of their belief of the truth of that history, and for the sake of communicating the knowledge of it to others.

Thirdly, it proves that Luke, or whoever was the author of the Acts of the Apostles (for the argument does not depend upon the name of the author, though I know no reason for questioning it), was well acquainted with St. Paul's history; and that he probably was, what he professes himself to be, a companion of St. Paul's travels: which, if true, establishes in a considerable degree, the credit even of his gospel, because it shows, that the writer, from his time, situation, and connexions, possessed opportunities of informing himself truly concerning the transactions which he relates. I have little difficulty in applying to the Gospel of St. Luke what is proved concerning the Acts of the Apostles, considering them as two parts of the same history; for, though there are instances of second parts being forgeries, I know none where the second part is genuine, and the first not so.

I will only observe, as a sequel of the argument, though not noticed in my work, the remarkable similitude between the style of St. John's gospel, and of St. John's first epistle. The style of St. John's is not at all the style of St. Paul's epistles, though both are very singular; nor is it the style of St. James's or of St. Peter's epistle: but it bears a resemblance to the style of the gospel inscribed with St. John's name, so far as

1 Rom. xv. 18, 19. 2 Cor. xii. 12.

that resemblance can be expected to appear which is not in simple narrative, so much as in reflections, and in the representation of discourses. Writings so circumstanced, prove themselves, and one another, to be genuine. This correspondency is the more valuable, as the epistle itself asserts, in St. John's manner indeed, but in terms sufficiently explicit, the writer's personal knowledge of Christ's history: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life; that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you." Who would not desire, who perceives not the value of an account, delivered by a writer so well informed as this?

ANNOTATION.

'I have pursued this argument [from undesigned coincidences] in a Work under the title of Hora Paulina.'

That work is an examination of the Apostle Paul's Epistles along with the Acts of the Apostles, in order to show, by internal evidence alone, that they must both be genuine works. He discovers a vast number of points of coincidence between them, so minute, and evidently undesigned, that it is totally impossible they could ever have found their way either into a forgery, or a compilation made up in after-ages from floating traditions. And this is done so ably and so satisfactorily, that I have often recommended the study of this work to legal students; not merely on account of its intrinsic value, with a view to its own immediate object, but also as an admirable exercise in the art of sifting evidence.

That minuteness in the points of coincidence which I have alluded to, and which Paley so earnestly dwells on, is just the circumstance which, in a question of evidence, makes their importance the greater. The unthinking are apt to overlook this, and to conclude that what is itself a very small and trifling circumstance, is small and unimportant as a proof. But the most important evidence is often furnished by things the

1 Ch. i. ver. 1, 3.

most insignificant in themselves. The impression of the sole of a Man's Shoe, or a scrap of paper used as Wadding for a gun, have led to the detection of crimes. And in reality it is altogether in minute points that the difference is to be perceived between truth and fabrication. A false story may easily be made plausible in its general outline ;—in the great features of the transactions related. But in some very minute particulars, which would escape notice except on a very close examination, there will almost always be found some inconsistencies, such as, of course, could not exist in a true narrative.

The difference in this respect, between truth and fabrication, answers to that between the productions of Nature and the works of Art. Both may appear equally perfect at a slight glance, or even on close inspection by the naked eye. But apply a microscope to each, and you will see the difference. A piece of delicate cambric, under the Solar Microscope, looks like a coarse sail-cloth; and an artificial flower, which might deceive the naked eye even of a florist, will appear rugged and uneven; while the petals of a real flower, or the wing of a fly, when thus examined, exhibit such delicate and perfect and beautiful regularity, that 'even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' And so it is when we apply the Microscope of close and minute investigation to genuine compositions and true history.

THE

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the History of the Resurrection.

'HE history of the resurrection of Christ is a part of the evidence of Christianity; but I do not know, whether the proper strength of this passage of the christian. history, or wherein its peculiar value, as a head of evidence, consists, be generally understood. It is not that, as a miracle, the resurrection ought to be accounted a more decisive proof of supernatural agency than other miracles are; it is not that, as it stands in the Gospels, it is better attested than some others; it is not for either of these reasons, that more weight belongs to