the exclusive word alone; but that all the instances which they have recorded of his appearance, are instances of appearance to his disciples; that their reasonings upon it, and allusions to it, are confined to this supposition; and that, by one of them, Peter is made to say, "Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chofen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead*." The commoneft understanding must have perceived, that the history of the refurrection would have come with more advantage, if they had related that Jesus appeared, after he was risen, to his foes as well as his friends, to the scribes and pharifees, the Jewish council, and the Roman governor: or even if they had afferted the public appearance of Christ in general unqualified terms, without noticing, as they have done, the prefence of his disciples upon each occafion, and noticing it in such a manner as to lead their readers to suppose that none but difciples were present. They could have reprefented it one way as well as the other. And if their point had been, to have the religion believed, whether true or false; if they had fabricated the story ab initio, or if they had been difposed, either to have delivered theirtestimony as witnesses, or to have worked up their materials and information as historians, in such a manner as to render their narrative as specious and unobjectionable as they could; in a word, if they had thought of any thing but of the truth of the cafe, as they understood and believed it; they would, in their account of Christ's several appearances after his refurrection, at least have omitted this restriction. At this distance of time, the account as we have it is perhaps more credible than it would have been the other way; because this manifestation of the historian's candour, is of more advantage to their teftimony, than the difference in the circumstances of the account would have been to the nature of the evidence. But this is an effect which the evangelists would not foreG4 fee;

see; and I think that it was by no means the cafe at the time when the books were compofed.

Mr. Gibbon has argued for the genuineness of the Koran, from the confeffions which it contains, to the apparent disadvantage of the Mahometan cause *. The same defence vindicates the genuineness of our gospels, and without prejudice to the cause at all.

There are fome other instances in which the evangelifts honestly relate what, they must have perceived, would make against them.

Of this kind is John the Baptift's message, preserved by St. Matthew and St. Luke, (xi. 2. vii. 18.) "Now when John had heard, in the prifon, the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and faid unto him, Art thou he that should come, or look we

* Vol. ix. c. 50, note 96.

for

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for another?" To confess, still more to state, that John the Baptist had his doubts concerning the character of Jesus, could not but afford a handle to cavil and objection. But truth, like honesty, neglects appearances. The fame observation, perhaps, holds concerning the apoftacy of Judas*.

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* I had once placed amongst these examples of fair conceffion, the remarkable words of St. Matthew, in his account of Christ's appearance upon the Galilean mountain : "and when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted*." I have fince, however, been convinced, by what is observed concerning this passage in Dr. Townsend's discourse + upon the refurrection, that the transaction, as related by St. Matthew, was really this: "Christ appeared first at a distance; the greater part of the company, the moment they faw him, worshipped, but some, as yet, i. e. upon this first distant view of his person, doubted; whereupon Chrift came up to them, and spake to them," &c.: that the doubt, therefore, was a doubt only at first, for a moment, and upon his being seen at a distance, and was afterwards dispelled by his nearer approach, and by his entering into conversation with them.

+ St. Matthew's words are, Και πρόσελθων ὁ Ιησες ελαλησεν αυτοίς. This intimates, that, when he first appeared, it was at a distance, at least from many of the spectators. (Ib. p. 197.)

John

John vi. 66. " From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." Was it the part of a writer, who dealt in fuppreffion and disguise, to put down this anecdote ?

Or this, which Matthew has preserved, (xiii. 58.)? "He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief."

Again, in the fame evangelist (v. 17, 18.) "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil; for, verily, I say unto you till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." At the time the gospels were written, the apparent tendency of Chrift's mission was to diminish the authority of the Mofaic code, and it was fo confidered by the Jews themselves. It is very improbable, therefore, that, without the constraint of truth, Matthew should have ascribed a saying to Chrift, which, primo intuitu, militated with the judgment

of