maintained for a moment. Every controverfy and every question must presuppose thefe; for, however fuch controverfies, when they did arife, might, and naturally would, be difcuffed upon their own grounds of argumentation, without citing the miraculous evidence which had been afferted to attend the founder of the religion (which would have been to enter upon another, and a more general queftion), yet we are to bear in mind, that without previously fuppofing the existence or the pretence of such evidence, there could have been no place for the difcuffion of the argument at all. Thus, for example, whether the prophecies, which the Jews, interpreted to belong to the Meffiah, were, or were not, applicable to the hiftory of Jefus of Nazareth, was a natural fubject of debate in those times: and the debate would proceed, without recurring at every turn to his miracles, because it fet out with fuppofing thefe; inafmuch as without miraculous marks and tokens (real or pretended), or without fome fuch great change effected by his means in the public condi

tion of the country, as might have fatisfied the then received interpretation of thefe prophecies, I do not fee how the queftion could ever have been entertained. Apollos, we read, "mightily convinced the Jews, fhewing by the scriptures that Jefus was Chrift*;" but unless Jefus had exhibited fome distinction of his perfon, fome proof of fuperna tural power, the argument from the old fcriptures could have had no place. It had nothing to attach upon. A young man calling himself the Son of God, gathering a crowd about him, and delivering to them lectures of morality, could not have excited fo much as a doubt amongst the Jews whether he was the object in whom a long feries of ancient prophecies terminated, from the completion of which they had formed fuch magnificent expectations, and expectations of a nature so opposite to what appeared: I mean no such doubt could exift when they had the whole case before them, when they faw him put to death for his officioufnefs, and when by

*Acts xviii. 28.

his

his death the evidence concerning him was closed. Again, the effect of the Meffiah's coming, fuppofing Jefus to have been him, upon Jews, upon Gentiles, upon their relation to each other, upon their acceptance with God, upon their duties and their expectations; his nature, authority, office, and agency; were likely to become subjects of much confideration with the early votaries of the religion,and to occupy their attention and writings. I should not, however, expect that in these difquifitions, whether preserved in the form of letters, fpeeches, or fet treatifes, frequent or very direct mention of his miracles would occur. Still miraculous evidence lay at the bottom of the argument. In the primary question, miraculous pretenfions, and miraculous pretenfions alone, were what they had to rely upon.

That the original ftory was miraculous, is very fairly alfo inferred from the miraculous powers which were laid claim to by the Chriftians of fucceeding ages. If the accounts of these miracles be true, it was a

con

1

continuation of the fame powers; if they be false, it was an imitation, I will not say, of what had been wrought, but of what had been reported to have been wrought, by those who preceded them. That imitation fhould follow reality; fiction be grafted upon truth; that if miracles were performed at firft, miracles fhould be pretended afterwards, agrees fo well with the ordinary course of human affairs, that we can have no great difficulty in believing it. The contrary supposition is very improbable, namely, that miracles fhould be pretended to by the followers of the apoftles and firft emiffaries of the religion, when none were pretended to, either in their own perfons or that of their mafter, by these apostles and emiffaries themselves.

VOL. I.

CHAP.

CHAP. VII.

There is fatisfactory evidence, that many, préfeffing to have been original witnesses of the Chriftian miracles, paffed their lives in labours, dangers, and fufferings, voluntarily. undergone in atteftation of the accounts which they delivered, and folely in confequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts ; and that they alfo fubmitted, from the fame motives, to new rules of conduct.

IT

T once then being proved, that the first propagators of the Chriftian inftitution did exert great activity, and subject themselves to great dangers and fufferings, in confequence, and for the fake of an extraordinary, and I think we may fay, of a miraculous ftory of fome kind or other; the next great question is, Whether the account, which our fcriptures contain, be that ftory; that which these men delivered, and for which they acted and fuffered as they did?