ceeded from these men, must either be true, as far as the fidelity of human recollection is ufually to be depended upon, that is, must be true in substance, and in their principal parts (which is fufficient for the purpofe of proving a fupernatural agency), or they must be wilful and meditated falfehoods. Yet the writers who fabricated and uttered these falfehoods, if they be fuch, are of the number of those who, unless the whole contexture of the Christian story be a dream, facrificed their ease and safety in the caufe, and for a purpose the most inconfiftent that is poffible with dishoneft intentions. They were villains for no end but to teach honefty, and martyrs without the leaft prospect of honour or advantage.

The gofpels which bear the name of Mark and Luke, although not the narratives of eye-witnesses, are, if genuine, removed from that only by one degree. They are the narratives of contemporary writers, of writers themselves mixing with the business, one of the two probably living in the place VOL. I. L which

which was the principal scene of action, both living in habits of fociety and correfpondence with those who had been prefent at the transactions which they relate. The latter of them accordingly tells us (and with apparent sincerity, because he tells it without pretending to perfonal knowledge, and without claiming for his work greater authority than belonged to it), that the things, which were believed amongst Christians, came from thofe who from the beginning were eye-witneffes and minifters of the word; that he had traced up accounts to their source; and that he was prepared to instruct his reader in the certainty of the things which he related. Very few hiftories lie fo close to their facts; very few hiftorians are so nearly connected with the fubject of their narrative,

Why should not the candid and modeft preface of this hiftorian be believed as well as that which Dion Caffius prefixes to his Life of Commodus ? "Thefe things and the following I write not from the report of others, but from my own knowledge and obfervation.” I fee no reason to doubt but that both paffages describe truly enough the fituation of the authors.

or

or poffefs fuch means of authentic information, as these.

The fituation of the writers applies to the truth of the facts which they record. But at prefent we ufe their teftimony to a point fomewhat fhort of this, namely, that the facts recorded in the gospels, whether true or falfe, are the facts, and the fort of facts, which the original preachers of the religion alledged. Strictly speaking, I am concerned only to fhew, that what the gofpels contain is the fame as what the apoftles preached. Now how ftands the proof of this point? A set of men went about the world publishing a story compofed of miraculous accounts (for miraculous from the very nature and exigency of the cafe they must have been), and, upon the ftrength of thefe accounts, called upon mankind to quit the religions in which they had been educated, and to take up, from thenceforth, a new fyftem of opinions, and new rules of action. What is more, in atteftation of thefe accounts, that is, in fupport of an inftitution of which thefe

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these accounts were the foundation, the fame men voluntarily expofed themselves to haraffing and perpetual labours, dangers, and fufferings. We want to know what these accounts were. We have the particulars, ¿. e. *many particulars, from two of their own number. We have them from an attendant of one of the number, and who there is reafon to believe was an inhabitant of Jerufalem at the time. We have them from a fourth writer, who accompanied the most laborious miffionary of the institution in his travels; who, in the course of these travels, was frequently brought into the fociety of the reft; and who, let it be observed, begins his narrative by telling us, that he is about to relate the things which had been delivered by those who were minifters of the word and eye-witneffes of the fact. I do not know what information can be more fatisfactory than this. We may, perhaps, perceive the force and value of it more fenfibly, if we reflect how requiring we should have been if we had wanted it. Suppofing it to be fufficiently proved, that the religion, now profeffed

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fet

profeffed amongst us, owed its original to the preaching and ministry of a number of men, who, about eighteen centuries ago, forth in the world a new system of religious opinions, founded upon certain extraordinary things which they related of a wonderful person who had appeared in Judea : fuppofe it to be alfo fufficiently proved, that, in the course and profecution of their miniftry, these men had fubjected themselves to extreme hardships, fatigue, and peril; but fuppose the accounts which they published had not been committed to writing till fome ages after their times, or at least that no hiftories,

but what had been compofed fome ages afterwards, had reached our hands; we should have faid, and with reafon, that we were willing to believe these men under the circumstances in which they delivered their teftimony, but that we did not, at this day, know with fufficient evidence what their ⚫ teftimony was. Had we received the particulars of it from any of their own number, from any of those who lived and converfed with them, from any of their hearers, or even L3

from