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CHAP. VIII.

Of the History of the Refurrection.

THE history of the refurrection of Christ is a part of the evidence of Christianity; but I do not know, whether the proper strength of this passage of the Christian history, or wherein its peculiar value, as a head of evidence, confifts, be generally understood. It is not that, as a miracle, the refurrection ought to be accounted a more decisive proof of supernatural agency than other miracles are; it is not that, as it stands in the Gospels, it is better attested than some others; it is not, for either of these reasons, that more weight belongs to it than to other miracles, but for the following, viz. That it is completely certain that the apostles of Christ, and the first teachers of Christianity, afferted the fact. And this would have been certain, if the four gospels had been loft, or never written. Every piece of scripture recognizes

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cognizes the refurrection. Every epistle of every apostle, every author contemporary with the apostles, of the age immediately succeeding the apostles, every writing from that age to the present, genuine or spurious, on the fide of Christianity or against it, concur in representing the resurrection of Christ as an article of his history, received without doubt or disagreement by all who called themselves Christians, as alledged from the beginning by the propagators of the institution, and alledged as the centre of their teftimony. Nothing, I apprehend, which a man does not himself fee or hear, can be more certain to him than this point. I do not mean that nothing can be more certain than that Christ rose from the dead; but that nothing can be more certain, than that his apostles, and the first teachers of Chriftianity, gave out that he did fo. In the other parts of the gospel narrative, a question may be made, whether the things related of Christ be the very things which the apostles and first teachers of the religion delivered concerning him ? And this question depends a good

a good deal upon the evidence we poffefs. of the genuineness, or rather, perhaps of the antiquity, credit, and reception of the books. Upon the subject of the refurrection, no fuch discussion is neceffary, because no fuch doubt can be entertained. The only points, which can enter into our consideration, are, whether the apostles knowingly published a falsehood, or whether they were themselves deceived; whether either of these suppositions be poffible. The first, I think, is pretty generally given up. The nature of the undertaking, and of the men; the extreme unlikelihood that such men should engage in such a measure as a scheme; their personal toils and dangers and sufferings in the cause; their appropriation of their whole time to the object; the warm and feemingly unaffected zeal and earnestness with which they profess their fincerity, exempt their memory from the fufpicion of imposture. The folution more deserving of notice, is that which would refolve the conduct of the apostles into enthusiasm; which would class the evidence of Christ's refurrection with the the numerous stories that are extant of the apparitions of dead men. There are cir cumstances in the narrative, as it is preferved in our hiftories, which destroy this comparison entirely. It was not one person, but many, who saw him; they saw him not only feparately, but together, not only by night but by day, not at a distance but near, not once but several times; they not only saw him, but touched him, conversed with him, ate with him, examined his person to fatisfy their doubts. These particulars are decifive: but they stand, I do admit, upon the credit of our records. I would anfwer, therefore, the infinuation of enthusiasm, by a circumstance which arises out of the nature of the thing; and the reality of which must be confessed by all who allow, what I believe is not denied, that the refurrection of Christ, whether true or false, was afferted by his disciples from the beginning: and that circumstance is, the nonproduction of the dead body. It is related in the hiftory, what indeed the story of the refurrection neceffarily implies, that the

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corpse was missing out of the fepulchre: it is related alfo in the history, that the Jews reported that the followers of Chrift had stolen it away *. And this account, though loaded with great improbabilities, such as the fituation of the disciples, their fears for their own' fafety at the time, the unlikelihood of their expecting to fucceed, the difficulty of actual success †, and the inevitable