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you tell me that this salt water contains abundance of fish. Now I have even tried an experiment which refutes you. I have put fish of various kinds into vessels of salt water; and it kills them, yet you tell me of fish living and abounding in your briny lake!

'And again, you tell me that some of these fish fly in the air. Perhaps you mean this statement for a kind of Parable, or poetical Figure, designed to convey some moral lesson. But literally, it is a manifest physical impossibility. According to all experience and all analogy, birds are formed for flying in air, and fish for swimming in water. You tell me however of a bird which you call Apteryx, in a country called New Zealand, which has no wings at all! I may perhaps believe that, when I believe in your flying fish!

'You also tell me that you have found in caverns and in rocks, the remains of the animals that formerly inhabited the earth; which, it seems, were all of them quite different from those that inhabit it now. Fossil remains, as you call them, of Man, or of any of the animals, or the plants, now existing, are never found. Now if all those ancient species of plants and animals became extinct, and new ones, such as we now see around us, were created, this is quite at variance with Analogy. For we see no such new species coming into existence now.

'But then you tell me that no plants or animals ever were created at all; but that the lowest of these gradually rose, in many generations, into higher and higher. Worms and snails ripened in the course of many ages, into fish, then reptiles, then quadrupeds, apes, and lastly men. Now this is against all analogy. Our people, and our forefathers, have always kept cattle and poultry, and cultivated corn; and they never find that corn becomes palm-trees, or that sheep produce cows or dogs, or that the apes in our forests ripen into men. Neither the creation of new species, nor the change of one species into another, is analogous to any thing we have observed. And And you yourselves have told us that you have found in the ancient temples of a country called Egypt, pictures supposed to be above three thousand years old, of men and various animals, such as are now found on the earth.

'All that you have been telling us therefore is at variance. with the Analogy to which you yourselves have referred us.'

PART I.

OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WHEREIN IT IS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES.

HE two propositions which I shall endeavor to establish are

THE

these:

I. That there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the christian miracles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

II. That there is not satisfactory evidence that persons professing to be original witnesses of other miracles, in their nature as certain as these are, have ever acted in the same manner, in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their belief of those accounts.

The first of these propositions, as it forms the argument, will stand at the head of the following nine chapters.

CHAPTER I.

There is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the christian miracles, passed their lives in labors, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of conduct.

To support this proposition, two points are necessary to be

made out first, that the founder of the institution, his associates and immediate followers, acted the part which the

proposition imputes to them: secondly, that they did so in attestation of the miraculous history recorded in our scriptures, and solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of this history.

Before we produce any particular testimony to the activity and sufferings which compose the subject of our first assertion, it will be proper to consider the degree of probability which the assertion derives from the nature of the case; that is, by inferences from those parts of the case which, in point of fact, are on all hands acknowledged.

First then, the christian religion exists, and therefore by some means or other was established. Now it either owes the principle of its establishment, i. e. its first publication, to the activity of the person who was the founder of the institution and of those who were joined with him in the undertaking, or we are driven upon the strange supposition, that, although they might lie by, others would take it up; although they were quiet and silent, other persons busied themselves in the success and propagation of their story. This is perfectly incredible. To me it appears little less than certain, that, if the first announcing of the religion by the founder had not been followed up by the zeal and industry of his immediate disciples, the attempt must have expired in its birth. Then as to the kind and degree of exertion which was employed, and the mode of life to which these persons submitted, we reasonably suppose it to be like that which we observe in all others who voluntarily become missionaries of a new faith. Frequent, earnest, and laborious preaching, constantly conversing with religious persons upon religion, a sequestration from the common pleasures, engagements, and varieties of life, and an addiction to one serious object, compose the habits of such men. I do not say that this mode of life is without enjoyment, but I say that the enjoyment springs from sincerity. With a consciousness at the bottom of hollowness and falsehood, the fatigue and restraint would become insupportable. I am apt to believe that very few hypocrites engage in these undertakings; or, however, persist in them long. Ordinarily speaking, nothing can overcome the indolence of mankind, the love which is natural to most tempers of cheerful society and cheerful scenes, or the desire, which is common to all, of personal ease aud freedom, but conviction.

Secondly, it is also highly probable, from the nature of the case, that the propagation of the new religion was attended with difficulty and danger. As addressed to the Jews, it was a system adverse not only to their habitual opinions, but to those opinions upon which their hopes, their partialities, their pride, their consolation was founded. This people, with or without reason, had worked themselves into a persuasion, that some signal and greatly advantageous change was to be effected in the condition of their country, by the agency of a longpromised messenger from heaven.' The rulers of the Jews, their leading sect, their priesthood, had been the authors of this persuasion to the common people. So that it was not merely the conjecture of theoretical divines, or the secret expectation of a few recluse devotees, but it was become the popular hope and passion, and, like all popular opinions, undoubting, and impatient of contradiction. They clung to this hope under every misfortune of their country, and with more tenacity as their dangers or calamities increased. To find therefore that expectations so gratifying were to be worse than disappointed; that they were to end in the diffusion of a mild unambitious religion, which, instead of victories and triumphs, instead of exalting their nation and institution above the rest of the world, was to advance those whom they despised to an equality with themselves, in those very points of comparison in which they most valued their own distinction, could be no very pleasing discovery to a Jewish mind; nor could the messengers of such intelligence expect to be well received or easily credited. The doctrine was equally harsh and novel. The extending of the kingdom of God to those who did not conform to the law of Moses, was a notion that had never before entered into the thoughts of a Jew.

The character of the new institution was, in other respects also, ungrateful to Jewish habits and principles. Their own religion was in a high degree technical. Even the enlightened Jew placed a great deal of stress upon the ceremonies of his

1 'Percrebuerat oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judæâ profecti rerum potirentur.'-Sueton. Vespasian. cap. 4-8.

'Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret oriens, profectique Judæá rerum potirentur.'—Tacit. Hist. lib. v. cap. 9-13.

law, saw in them a great deal of virtue and efficacy; the gross and vulgar had scarcely any thing else; and the hypocritical and ostentatious magnified them above measure, as being the instruments of their own reputation and influence. The christian scheme, without formally repealing the Levitical code, lowered its estimation extremely. In the place of strictness and zeal in performing the observances which that code prescribed, or which tradition had added to it, the new sect preached up faith, well-regulated affections, inward purity and moral rectitude of disposition, as the true ground, on the part of the worshipper, of merit and acceptance with God. This, however rational it may appear, or recommending to us at present, did not by any means facilitate the plan then. On the contrary, to disparage those qualities which the highest characters in the country valued themselves most upon, was a sure way of making powerful enemies. As if the frustration of the national hope was not enough, the long-esteemed merit of ritual zeal and punctuality was to be decried, and that by Jews preaching to Jews.

The ruling party at Jerusalem had just before crucified the founder of the religion. That is a fact which will not be disputed. They therefore who stood forth to preach the religion, must necessarily reproach these rulers with an executiou, which they could not but represent as an unjust and cruel murder. This would not render their office more easy, or their situation more safe.

With regard to the interference of the Roman government which was then established in Judea, I should not expect, that, despising as it did the religion of the country, it would, if left to itself, animadvert, either with much vigilance, or much severity, upon the schisms and controversies which arose within it. Yet there was that in Christianity which might easily afford a handle of accusation with a jealous government.' The Christians avowed an unqualified obedience to a new master. They avowed also that he was the person who had been foretold to the Jews under the suspected title of King. The spiritual nature of this kingdom, the consistency of this obedience with civil subjection, were distinctions too refined to be entertained by a Roman president, who viewed the business at a great

1 See Acts xvii. 7.

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