by great diftance of place and diffimilitude: of fituation. It is alfo extremely material to remark, that there is no room for infinuating that our books were fabricated with a ftudious accommodation to the usages which obtained at the time they were written ; that the authors of the books found the ufages established, and framed the ftory to account for their original. The scripture accounts, especially of the Lord's Supper, are too fhort and curfory, not to fay too obfcure, and, in this view, deficient, to allow a place for any fuch fufpicion*.

Amongst the proofs of the truth of our propofition, viz. that the ftory, which we have now, is, in fubftance, the story which the Christians had then, or, in other words, that the accounts in our gofpels are, as to

*The reader who is converfant in these researches, by comparing the fhort fcripture accounts of the Chriftian rites above mentioned with the minute and circumftantial directions contained in the pretended apoftolical conftitutions, will fee the force of this obfervation; the difference between truth and forgery.

their principal parts at leaft, the accounts which the apoftles and original teachers of the religion delivered, one arifes from obferving, that it appears by the gofpels themfelves, that the story was public at the time; that the Chriftian community was already in poffeffion of the fubftance and principal parts of the narrative. The gofpels were not the original cause of the Christian hiftory being believed, but were themfelves among the confequences of that belief. This is exprefsly affirmed. by St. Luke in his brief, but, as I think, very important and inftructive preface. "Forafmuch (fays the evangelift) as many have taken in hand to fet forth in order a declaration of thofe things which are most furely believed among ft us, even as they delivered them unto us, which, from the beginning, were eye-witnefes and minifters of the word; it feemed good to me alfo, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very firft, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been inftructed.”

This fhort introduction teftifies, that the substance of the hiftory, which the evangelist was about to write, was already believed by Chriftians; that it was believed upon the declarations of eye-witneffes and ministers. of the word; that it formed the account of their religion, in which Chriftians were inftructed; that the office which the hiftorian proposed to himself, was to trace each particular to its origin, and to fix the certainty of many things which the reader had before heard of. In St. John's Gospel, the same point appears from hence, that there are some principal facts, to which the hiftorian refers," but which he does not relate. A remarkable instance of this kind is the afcenfion, which is not mentioned by St. John in its place, at the conclufion of his hiftory, but which is plainly referred to in the following words of the fixth chapter* : "What and if ye fhall fee the Son of man afcend up where he was before.' And ftill more pofitively in the

words which Chrift, according to our evan

* Alfo John iii. 13, and xvi. 28.

gelift,

gelift, fpoke to Mary after his refurrection, "Touch me not, for I am not yet afcended to my Father; but go unto my brethren, and fay unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God." This can only be accounted for by the fuppofition, that St. John wrote under a fense of the notoriety of Chrift's ascension, amongst those by whom his book was likely to be read. The fame account must also be given of St. Matthew's omiffion of the fame important fact. The thing was very well known, and it did not occur to the hiftorian, that it was neceffary to add any particulars concerning it. It agrees alfo with this folution, and with no other, that neither Matthew nor John disposes of the person of our Lord in any manner whatever. Other intimations in St. John's Gofpel of the then general notoriety of the ftory are the following His manner of introducing his narrative, (ch. i. v. 15.)" John bare witness of him, and cried, faying," evidently prefuppofes

* John xx. 17.

that

His

that his readers knew who John was, rapid parenthetical reference to John's im prisonment, "for John was not yet caft into prifon*," could only come from a writer whose mind was in the habit of considering John's imprisonment as perfectly notorious. The description of Andrew by the addition "Simon Peter's brothert," takes it for granted that Simon Peter was well known, His name had not been mentioned before. The evangelift's noticing the prevailing mifconftruction of a difcourfe, which Chrift held with the beloved difciple, proves that the characters and the discourse were already public. And the obfervation which these inftances afford, is of equal validity for the purpose of the prefent argument, whoever were the authors of the hiftories.

THESE four circumftances, firft, the recognition of the account in its principal parts by a series of fucceeding writers; fecondly, the total abfence of any account of the origin of + Ibid. i. 40. + Ibid. xxi. 24.

* John iii. 24.

the