The value of this circumftance is fhewn to have been accurately exemplified in the hiftory of Ignatius. Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits *. His life, written by a companion of his, and by one of the order, was published about fifteen years after his death. In which life, the author, fo far from afcribing any miracles to Ignatius, induftriously states the reafons why he was not invefted with any fuch power. The life was republished fifteen years afterwards, with the addition of many circumftances, which were the fruit, the author fays, of further enquiry, and of diligent examination; but ftill with a total filence about miracles. When Ignatius had been dead near fixty years, the Jefuits, conceiving a wish to have the founder of their order placed in the Roman calendar, began, as it should seem, for the first time, to attribute to him a catalogue of miracles, which could not then be distinctly difproved; and which there was, in those who governed the church a ftrong difpofition to admit upon the flendereft proofs.

*

Douglass's Criterion of Miracles, p. 74.

"

II. We may lay out of the cafe, accounts published in one country, of what paffed in a diftant country, without any proof that fuch accounts were known or received at home. In the cafe of Chriftianity, Judea, which was the fcene of the tranfaction, was the centre of the miffion. The story was published in the place in which it was acted. The church of Ghrift was first planted at Jerufalem itself. With that church others correfponded. From thence the primitive teachers of the inftitution went forth; thither they affembled. The church of Jerufalem, and the feveral churches of Judea, fubfifted from the beginning, and for many ages *; received alfo- the fame books, and the fame accounts, as other churches did..

This distinction difpofes, amongft others, of the above-mentioned miracles of Apollonius Tyaneus, most of which are related to have been performed in India, no evidence remaining that either the miracles afcribed

* The fucceffion of many eminent bishops of Jerufalem, in the three first centuries, is distinctly preserved, as Alexander, A. D. 212, who fucceeded Narciffus, then 116 years old.

to him, or the hiftory of those miracles, were ever heard of in India. Those of Francis Xavier, the Indian miffionary, with many others of the Romish breviary, are liable to the fame objection, viz. that the accounts of them were published at a vast distance from the fuppofed fcene of the wonders*.

III. We lay out of the cafe tranfient fumours. Upon the firft publication of an extraordinary account, or even of an article of ordinary intelligence, no one, who is not perfonally acquainted with the transaction, can know whether it be true or false, because any man may publish any story. It is in the future confirmation, or contradiction, of the account; in its permanency, or its difappearance; its dying away into filence, or its increasing in notoriety; its being followed up by fubfequent accounts, and being repeated in different and independent accounts, that folid truth is distinguished from fugitive lies. This diftinction *Doug. Crit. p. 84.

VOL. I.

Z

is

of action and

is altogether on the fide of Chriftiánity. The story did not drop. On the contrary, it was fucceeded by a train events dependent upon it. The accounts, which we have in our hands; were compofed after the first reports must have fubfided. They were followed by a train of writings upon the fubject. The hiftorical testimonies of the tranfaction were many and various, and connected with letters, difcourfes, controverfies, apologies, fucceffively produced by the fame transaction.

IV. We may lay out of the case what I call naked history. It has been said, that if the prodigies of the Jewish history had been found only in fragments of Manetho, or Berofus, we should have paid no regard to them and I am willing to admit this. If we knew nothing of the fact, but from the fragment; if we poffeffed no proof that thefe accounts had been credited and acted upon, from times, probably, as ancient as the accounts themselves; if we had no visible effects connected with the history, no subfequent

6

fequent or collateral teftimony to confirm it; under these circumstances, I think that it would be undeferving of credit. But this certainly is not our cafe. In appreciating the evidence of Chriftianity, the books are to be combined with the institution; with the prevalency of the religion at this day; with the time and place of its origin, which are acknowledged points; with the circumftances of its rife and progress, as collected from external history; with the fact of our present books being received by the votaries of the inftitution from the beginning; with that of other books coming after thefe, filled with accounts of effects and consequences refulting from the transaction, or referring to the transaction, or built upon it; laftly, with the confideration of the number and variety of the books themselves, the different writers from which they proceed, the different views with which they were written, fo difagreeing as to repel the fufpicion of confederacy, fo agreeing as to fhew that they were founded in a common original, i. . in a story fubftantially the fame. WheZ 2

ther