from any
of their contemporaries, we should
have had something to rely upon. Now, if
our books be genuine, we have all these. We
have the very fpecies of information which,
as it appears to me, our imagination would
have carved out for us, if it had been wanting.

But I have faid, that, if any cne of the four gofpels be genuine, we have not only direct hiftorical teftimony to the point we contend for, but teftimony which, fo far as that point is concerned, cannot reasonably be rejected. If the first gospel was really written by Matthew, we have the narrative of one of the number from which to judge what were the miracles, and the kind of miracles, which the apoftles attributed to Jefus. Although, for argument's fake, and only for argument's fake, we should allow that this gospel had been erroneously afcribed to Matthew, yet if the gospel of St. John be genuine, the obfervation holds with no lefs ftrength. Again, although the gofpels both of Matthew and John could be fuppofed to be fpurious, yet, if the gospel of St.

Luke

1

Luke was truly the compofition of that perfon, or of any perfon, be his name what it might, who was actually in the fituation in which the author of that gofpel profeffes himself to have been; or if the gospel which bears the name of Mark really proceeded from him; we still, even upon the loweft fuppofition, poffefs the accounts of one writer at least, who was not only contemporary with the apoftles, but associated with them in their ministry; which authority feems fufficient, when the question is fimply what it was which these apoftles advanced.

I think it material to have this well noticed. The New Teftament contains a great number of distinct writings, the genuineness

of any one of which is almoft fufficient to prove the truth of the religion: it contains, however, four diftinct hiftories, the genuinenefs of any one of which is perfeâly fufficient. If, therefore, we must be confidered as encountering the risk of error in affigning the authors of our books, we are entitled to the advantage of fo many fepa

rate probabilities. And although it should appear that some of the evangelifts had seen and used each other's works, this discovery, whilft it fubtracts indeed from their character as teftimonies ftrictly independent, diminishes, I conceive, little, either their feparate authority, by which I mean the authority of any one that is genuine, or their mutual confirmation. For let the most difadvantageous fuppofition poffible be made concerning them; let it be allowed, what I should have no great difficulty in admitting, that Mark compiled his history almost entirely from those of Matthew and Luke; and let it also, for a moment, be supposed that these hiftories were not, in fact, written by Matthew and Luke; yet, if it be true that Mark, a contemporary of the apoftles, living in habits of society with the apoftles, a fellow-traveller and fellow-labourer with fome of them; if, I say, it be true that this perfon made the compilation, it follows, that the writings from which he made it exifted "in the times of the apoftles, and not only fo, but that they were then in such esteem and

credit that a companion of the apoftles formed a history out of them. Let the gospel of Mark be called an epitome of that of Matthew; if a person, in the fituation in which Mark is described to have been, actually made the epitome, it affords the strongest poffible atteftation to the character of the original.

Again, parallelisms in fentences, in words, and in the order of words, have been traced out between the gospel of Matthew and that of Luke; which concurrence cannot easily be explained otherwise than by suppofing, either that Luke had confulted Matthew's history, or, what appears to me in no wife incredible, that minutes of fome of Chrift's difcourfes, as well as brief memoirs of fome paffages of his life, had been committed to writing at the time, and that fuch written accounts had by both authors been occafionally admitted into their histories. Either fuppofition is perfectly consistent with the acknowledged formation of St. Luke's narrative, who profeffes not to write as an eye-witness, but to have investigated

gated the original of every account which he delivers; in other words, to have collected them from fuch documents and testimonies, as he, who had the beft opportunities of making enquiries, judged to be authentic. Therefore, allowing that this writer alfo, in fome inftances, borrowed from the gospel which we call Matthew's, and once more allowing, for the fake of ftating the argument, that that gofpel was not the production of the author to whom we afcribe it, yet ftill we have, in St. Luke's. gospel, a history given by a writer immediately connected with the tranfaction, with the witnesses of it, with the perfons engaged in it, and compofed from materials which that perfon, thus fituated, deemed to be fafe fources of intelligence: in other words, whatever fuppofition be made concerning any or all the other gofpels, if St. Luke's gospel be genuine, we have in it a credible evidence of the point which we maintain.

The gospel according to St. John appears to be, and is on all hands allowed to be, an