Thirdly; the religious rites and usages that prevailed among the early disciples of Christianity were such as belonged to, and sprang out of, the narrative now in our hands; which accordance shows, that it was the narrative upon which these persons acted, and which they had received from their teachers. Our account makes the Founder of the religion direct that His disciples should be baptized; we know that the first Christians were baptized. Our account makes Him direct that they should hold religious assemblies; we find that they did hold religious assemblies. Our accounts make the

Apostles assemble upon a stated day of the week; we find, and that from information perfectly independent of our accounts, that the Christians of the first century did observe stated days of assembling. Our histories record the institution. of the rite which we call the Lord's Supper, and a command to repeat it in perpetual succession; we find, among the early Christians, the celebration of this rite universal. And, indeed, we find, concurring in all the above-mentioned observances, Christian societies of many different nations and languages, removed from one another by a great distance of place, and dissimilitude of situation. It is also extremely material to remark, that there is no room for insinuating,

that our books were fabricated with a studious accommodation to the usages which obtained at the time they were written; that the authors of the books found the usages established, and framed the story to account for their original. The Scripture accounts, especially of the Lord's Supper, are too short and cursory, not to say too obscure, and, in this view, deficient, to allow a place for any such suspicion.*

Among the proofs of the truth of our proposition, namely, that the story, which we have now, is, in substance, the story which the Christians had then, or, in other words, that the accounts in our Gospels are, as to their principal parts at least, the accounts which the Apostles and original teachers of the religion delivered, one arises from observing, that it appears by the Gospels themselves, that the story was public at the time; that the Christian community was already in possession of the substance and principal parts of the narrative. The Gospels were not the original cause of the Christian history being believed, but were themselves among the

The reader who is conversant in these researches, by comparing the short Scripture accounts of the Christian rites above mentioned with the minute and circumstantial directions contained in the pretended Apostolical Constitutions, will see the force of this observation; the difference between truth and forgery.

consequences of that belief. This is expressly affirmed by St. Luke, in his brief, but, as I think, very important and instructive preface: "Forasmuch" (says the Evangelist) "as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which, from the beginning, were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed." This short introduction testifies, that the substance of the history, which the Evangelist was about to write, was already believed by Christians; that it was believed upon the declarations of eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; that it formed the account of their religion in which Christians were instructed; that the office which the historian proposed to himself was, to trace each particular to its origin, and to fix the certainty of many things which the reader had before heard of. In Saint John's Gospel, the same point appears hence, that there are some principal facts, to which the historian refers, but which he does not relate. A remark

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able instance of the kind is the ascension, which is not mentioned by Saint John in its place, at the conclusion of his history; but which is plainly referred to in the following words of the sixth chapter: "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" And still more positively in the words which Christ, according to our Evangelist, spoke to Mary after His resurrection: "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; unto My God, and your God." This can be only accounted for by the supposition that Saint John wrote under a sense of the notoriety of Christ's ascension, among those by whom his book was likely to be read. The same account must also be given of Saint Matthew's omission of the same important fact. The thing was very well known, and it did not occur to the historian that it was necessary to add any particulars concerning it. It agrees also with this solution, and with no other, that neither Matthew nor John disposes of the person of our Lord in any manner whatever. Other intimations in Saint John's Gospel of the then general notoriety of the story are the following: his manner of introducing his narrative (ch. i. ver. 15). "John Also John iii. 13; and xvi. 28.

John xx. 17.

bare witness of Him, and cried, saying,”—evidently presupposes that his readers knew who John was. His rapid parenthetical reference to John's imprisonment, "for John was not yet cast into prison," could only come from a writer whose mind was in the habit of considering John's imprisonment as perfectly notorious. The description of Andrew by the addition "Simon Peter's brother," takes it for granted, that Simon Peter was well known. His name had not been mentioned before. The Evangelist's noticing" the prevailing misconstruction of a discourse, which Christ held with the beloved disciple, proves that the characters and the discourse were already public. And the observation which these instances afford, is of equal validity for the purpose of the present argument, whoever were the authors of the histories.

These four circumstances: first, the recognition of the account, in its principal parts, by a series of succeeding writers; secondly, the total absence of any account of the origin of the religion substantially different from ours; thirdly, the early and extensive prevalence of rites and institutions, which result from our account; fourthly, our account bearing, in its construction, proof that it is an account of facts which were known and believed at the time ;-are sufficient, "John iii. 24. John xxi. 24.

• John i. 40.