coming, supposing Jesus to have been Him, upon Jews, upon Gentiles, upon their relation to each other, upon their acceptance with God, upon their duties and their expectations; His nature, authority, office, and agency; were likely to become subjects of much consideration with the early votaries of the religion, and to occupy their attention and writings. I should not however expect, that in these disquisitions, whether preserved in the form of letters, speeches, or set treatises, frequent or very direct mention of His miracles would occur. Still, miraculous evidence lay at the bottom of the argument. In the primary question, miraculous pretensions, and miraculous pretensions alone, were what they had to rely upon.

That the original story was miraculous, is very fairly also inferred from the miraculous powers which were laid claim to by the Chris

to all minds: see John xi. 45, 46); but it was impossible to apply this solution to our Lord's Resurrection, taking place as it did apart from any human agency. 3. That the greater carried the less with it: the Resurrection once admitted, the inferior miracles of Jesus presented no difficulty. 4. To Christian believers the Resurrection of Christ was a fact of infinite dogmatical importance, as the pledge to them of their own resurrection; for our Lord's Resurrection was no mere resuscitation like that of Lazarus, but "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him" (Rom. vi. 9).-EDITOR.

3

tians of succeeding ages. If the accounts of these miracles be true, it was a continuation of the same powers; if they be false, it was an imitation, I will not say, of what had been

3 Paley properly leaves it doubtful what credit is to be given to the accounts of miraculous powers in the postApostolic ages. That these powers were not at once withdrawn, but gradually, seems probable: the early Fathers constantly speak of them as still existing vestiges," as Origen expresses it (ïxvn), of the Apostolic miracles. Suspicion, however, justly attaches both to the ecclesiastical miracles themselves and to the evidence for them: at any rate they stand far below the level of the Scripture miracles in both respects. They consist chiefly in casting out demons and healing the sick-miracles always of an ambiguous type-and cannot be placed in the same category with the; urning of the water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand, or the Resurrection of Christ. They occur, too, in affirmance of opinions already strongly entertained: e. g. the ancient Church thought highly of the merits and dignity of martyrdom, and it was at the tombs and relics of the martyrs that the miracles were most frequently wrought, as in after ages at the tomb of the Abbé Paris. The witnesses belonged to the dominant party, and ran no risk in delivering their testimony. Nor do we see the necessity for these miracles: visible footsteps of the Deity belong rather to the origin than to the progress of Christianity (see Appendix I.). The best attested miracle of ancient times-that which is said to have occurred on the attempt of Julian to rebuild the templemay be allowed to stand on its own evidence, such as it is; but this evidence cannot be compared with that for the miracles of Scripture. Compare Middleton's Free Inquiry, &c., with Church's and Dodwell's Replies.-EDITOR.

wrought, but of what had been reported to have been wrought, by those who preceded them. That imitation should follow reality, fiction should be grafted upon truth; that, if miracles were performed at first, miracles should be pretended afterwards; agrees so well with the ordinary course of human affairs, that we can have no great difficulty in believing it. The contrary supposition is very improbable, namely, that miracles should be pretended to by the followers of the Apostles and first emissaries of the religion, when none were pretended to, either in their own persons or that of their Master, by these Apostles and emissaries themselves.

CHAPTER VII.

THERE IS SATISFACTORY EVIDENCE THAT MANY, PROFESSING TO BE ORIGINAL WITNESSES OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES, PASSED THEIR LIVES IN LABOURS, 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.

Ir being then once proved, that the first propagators of the Christian institution did exert activity, and subject themselves to great dangers and sufferings, in consequence, and for the sake, of an extraordinary, and, I think, we may say, of a miraculous story of some kind or other; the next great question is, Whether the account, which our Scriptures contain, be that story; that which these men delivered, and for which they acted and suffered as they did. This question is, in effect, no other than whether the story which Christians have now, be the story which Christians had then. And of this the following

proofs may be deduced from general considerations, and from considerations prior to any inquiry into the particular reasons and testimonies, by which the authority of our histories is supported. In the first place there exists no trace or vestige of any other story. It is not, like the death of Cyrus the Great, a competition between the credit of different historians. There is not a document, or scrap of account, either contemporary with the commencement of Christianity or extant within many ages after that commencement, which assigns a history substantially different from ours. The remote, brief, and incidental notices of the affair, which are found in heathen writers, so far as they do go, go along with us. They bear testimony to these facts:that the institution originated from Jesus; that the Founder was put to death as a malefactor, at Jerusalem, by the authority of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate; that the religion nevertheless spread in that city, and throughout Judea; and that it was propagated thence to distant countries; that the converts were numerous; that they suffered great hardships and injuries for their profession; and that all this took place in the age of the world which our books have assigned. They go on farther, to describe the manners of Christians in terms per

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