CHAP. VII. There is fatisfactory evidence, that many, profelfing to have been original witnesses of the Chriftian miracles, paffed their lives in labours, dangers, and fufferings, voluntarily undergone in atteftation of the accounts which they delivered, and folely in confequence of their belief of the truth of thofe accounts; and that they alfo fubmitted, from the fame motives, to new rules of conduct. IT once then being proved, that the first propagators of the Chriftian inftitution did exert great activity, and fubject themselves to great dangers and fufferings, in confequence, and for the fake of an extraordinary, and I think we may fay, of a miraculous ftory of fome kind or other; the next great question is, Whether the account, which our fcriptures contain, be that story; that which these men delivered, and for which they acted and fuffered as they did? This question is, in effect, no other than, whether the ftory which Chriftians have now, be the story which Christians had then? and of this the following proofs may be deduced from general confiderations, and from confiderations prior to any enquiry into the particular reafons and teftimonies by which the authority of our hiftories is fupported. In the first place, there exifts no trace or veftige of any other ftory. It is not, like the death of Cyrus the Great, a competition between oppofite accounts, or between the eredit of different hiftorians. There is not a document, or fcrap of account, either contemporary with the commencement of Chriftianity, or extant within many ages after that commencement, which affigns a history subftantially different from ours. The remote, brief, and incidental notices of the affair, which are found in heathen writers, fo far as they do go, go along with us. They bear teftimony to these facts; that the inftitution originated from Jefus; that the founder I 2 founder was put to death, as a malefactor, at Jerufalem, 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 from thence to diftant countries; that the converts were numerous; that they fuffered great hardships and injuries for their profeffion; and that all this took place in the age of the world which our books have affigned. They go on further, to defcribe the manners of Christians in terms perfectly conformable to the accounts extant in our books; that they were wont to affemble on a certain day; that they fung hymns to Chrift as to a god; that they bound themselves by an oath not to commit any crime, but to abftain from theft and adultery, to adhere strictly to their promises, and not to deny money depofited in their hands; that they worfhipped him who was crucified in Palestine; that this, their firft law-giver, had taught them * Vide Pliny's Letter. Bonnet, in his lively way of exprefling himself, fays-" Comparing Pliny's Letter them that they were all brethren; that they had a great contempt for the things of this world, and looked upon them as common; that they flew to one another's relief; that they cherished strong hopes of immortality; that they despised death, and furrendered themselves to fufferings *." This is the account of writers who viewed the subject at a great diftance; who were uninformed and uninterested about it. It bears the charac with the account in the Acts, it feems to me that I had not taken up another author, but that I was ftill reading the hiftorian of that extraordinary fociety." This is ftrong; but there is undoubtedly an affinity, and all the affinity that could be expected. * "It is incredible what expedition they use when any of their friends are known to be in trouble. In a word, they spare nothing upon fuch an occafion-for thefe miferable men have no doubt they fhall be immortal, and live for ever; therefore they contemn death, and many furrender themselves to fufferings. Moreover, their firft law-giver has taught them that they are all brethren, when once they have turned and renounced the gods of the Greeks, and worship the mafter of theirs who was crucified, and engage to live according to his laws. They have also a sovereign contempt for all the things of this world, and look upon them as common." Lucian de Morte Peregrini, t. I, p. 565. ed. Græv. I 3 ters ters of fuch an account upon the face of it, because it describes effects, namely, the ap pearance in the world of a new religion, and the converfion of great multitudes to it, without defcending, in the smallest degree, to the detail of the tranfaction upon which it was founded, the interior of the inftitution, the evidence or arguments offered by those who drew over others to it. Yet ftill here is no contradiction of our story; no other or different story set up against it; but fo far a confirmation of it, as that, in the general points upon which the heathen account touches, it agrees with that which we find in our own books. The fame may be observed of the very few Jewish writers, of that and the adjoining period, which have come down to us, Whatever they omit, or whatever difficulties we may find in explaining the omiffion, they advance no other hiftory of the tranfaction than that which we acknowledge, Jofephus, who wrote his antiquities, or hiftory of the Jews, about fixty years after the com |