would

But it is very probable, that emergencies might draw from fome of them, occafional letters upon the fubject of their miffion, to converts, or to focieties of converts, with which they were connected; or that they might addrefs written discourses and exhortations to the disciples of the institution at large, which would be received and read with a respect proportioned to the character of the writer. Accounts in the mean time get abroad, of the extraordinary things that had been paffing, written with different degrees of information and correctnefs. The extenfion of the Chriftian fociety, which could no longer be instructed by a perfonal intercourse with the apoftles, and the poffible circulation of imperfect or erroneous narratives, would foon teach fome amongst them the expediency of sending forth authentic memoirs of the life and doctrine of their mafter. When accounts appeared, au

ftry, which is above all human power." Ecclef. Hist. 1. iii. c. 24. The fame confideration accounts also for the paucity of Chriftian writings in the first century of thorized

its æra.

thorized by the name, and credit, and fituation of the writers, recommended or recognized by the apoftles and first preachers of the religion, or found to coincide with what the apostles and firft preachers of the religion had taught, other accounts would fall into disuse and neglect; whilst these, maintaining their reputation (as, if genuine and well founded, they would do) under the test of time, enquiry, and contradiction, might be expected to make their way into the hands of Chriftians of all countries of the world.

This feems the natural progress of the bu finefs; and with this the records in our poffeffion, and the evidence concerning them, correfpond. We have remaining, in the first place, many letters of the kind above described, which have been preserved with at care and fidelity anfwering to the respect with which we may suppose that such letters would be received. But as these letters were not written to prove the truth of the Chriftian religion, in the fenfe in which we regard that queftion; nor to convey informa

VOL. I.

M

tion

tion of facts, of which thofe to whom the letters were written had been previously informed we are not to look in them for any thing more than incidental allufions to the Christian history. We are able, however, to gather from thefe documents various particular attestations which have been already enumerated; and this is a fpecies of written evidence, as far as it goes, in the higheft.degree fatisfactory, and in point of time perhaps the firft. But for our more circumftantial information we have, in the next place, five direct hiflories, bearing the names of perfons acquainted, by their fituation, with the truth of what they relate, and three of them purporting, in the very body of the narrative, to be written by fuch perfons: of which books we know that fome were in the hands of thofe who were contemporaries of the apofles, and that, in the age immediately pofterior to that, they were in the hands,

we may fay, of every one, and received by

Chriftians with fo much refpect and deference, as to be conftantly quoted and referred to by them without any doubt of the

truth

truth of their accounts. They were treated as fuch hiftories, proceeding from such authorities, might expect to be treated. In the preface to one of our hiftories we have intimations left us of the existence of fome ancient accounts which are now loft. There is nothing in this circumftance that can furprise us. It was to be expected from the magnitude and novelty of the occafion, that fuch accounts would fwarm. When better accounts came forth, thefe died away. Our present hiftories fuperfeded others. They foon acquired a character and established a reputation which does not appear to have belonged to any other: that, at least, can be proved concerning them, which cannot be proved concerning any other.

But to return to the point which led to these reflections. By confidering our records in either of the two views in which we have represented them, we shall perceive that we poffefs a collection of proofs, and not a naked or folitary teftimony; and that the written evidence is of fuch a kind, and comes

"

to us in fuch a ftate, as the natural order and progress of things, in the infancy of the inftitution, might be expected to produce.

Thirdly; The genuineness of the hiftori cal books of the New Teftament is undoubtedly a point of importance, because the ftrength of their evidence is augmented by our knowledge of the fituation of their authors, their relation to the subject, and the part which they fuftained in the transaction; and the teftimonies which we are able to produce, compofe a firm ground of perfuafion that the gofpels were written by the perfons whofe names they bear. Nevertheless, I must be allowed to ftate, that to the argument which I am endeavouring to maintain, this point is not effential; I mean, fo effential as that the fate of the argument depends upon it. The queftion before us is, whether the gospels exhibit the story which the apoftles and firft emiffaries of the religion published, and for which they acted and fuffered in the manner in which, for fome miraculous story or other, they did act and fuffer.