their bodies were laid open to their very in→ ward veins and arteries, nevertheless endured it. In like manner, thofe who were condemned to the beafts, and kept a long time in prison, underwent many cruel torments, being forced to lie upon fharp spikes laid under their bodies, and tormented with divers other forts of punishments; that fo, if it were poffible, the tyrant, by the length of their fufferings, might have brought them to deny Chrift *.'

*Rel. Mor. Pol. c. ii.

CHAP.

く

CHAP. V.

There is fatisfactory evidence, that many, profeffing 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 also fubmitted, from the fame motives, to new rules of conduct.

UPON the hiftory, of which the last chap

ter contains an abstract, there are a few obfervations which it may be proper to make, by way of applying its teftimony to the particular propofitions for which we contend.

I. Although our fcripture history leaves the general account of the apoftles in an early part of the narrative, and proceeds with the feparate account of one particular

apostle,

4

apoftle, yet the information which it delivers fo far extends to the reft, as it fhews the nature of the fervice. When we fee one apoftle fuffering perfecution in the discharge of his commiffion, we fhall not believe, without evidence, that the fame office could, at the fame time, be attended with ease and safety to others. And this fair and reasonable inference is confirmed by the direct atteftation of the letters, to which we have fo often referred. The writer of these letters not only alludes, in numerous paffages, to his own fufferings, but fpeaks of the reft of the apoftles as enduring like fufferings with himself. "I think that God hath fet forth us the apofiles laft, as it were, appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men-even unto this prefent hour, we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we blefs; being perfecuted, we fuffer it; being defamed, we entreat we are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things

unto

unto this day *." Add to which, that in the short account that is given of the other apostles, in the former part of the history, and within the fhort period which that account comprises, we find, firft, two of them feized, imprisoned, brought before the Sanhedrim, and threatened with further punishment ; then, the whole number imprisoned and beaten : foon afterwards, one of their adherents ftoned to death, and so hot a perfecution raised against the fect, as to drive most of them out of the place; a fhort time only fucceeding, before one of the twelve was beheaded, and another fentenced to the fame fate; and all this paffing in the finglé city of Jerufalem, and within ten years after the founder's death, and the commencement of the inftitution.

II. Secondly; We take no credit at prefent for the miraculous part of the narrative, nor do we infift upon the correctness of fingle paffages of it. If the whole ftory be not a novel, a romance; the whole action a dream; if Peter, and James and Paul, and

*I Cor. iv. et feq. + Acts iv. 3. 21. Acts v. 18. 40. H

VOL. I.

the

the rest of the apostles, mentioned in the ac count, be not all imaginary persons; if their letters be not all forgeries, and, what is more, forgeries of names and characters which never exifted; then is there evidence in our hands fufficient to support the only fact we contend for (and which, I repeat again, is, in itself, highly probable), that the original followers of Jesus Christ exerted great endeavours to propagate his religion, and underwent great labours, dangers, and fufferings, in confequence of their undertaking.

III. The general reality of the apoftolic history is ftrongly confirmed by the confideration, that it, in truth, does no more than affign adequate causes for effects which certainly were produced, and defcribe confequences naturally refulting from fituations which certainly exifted. The effects were certainly there, of which this history sets forth the cause, and origin, and progrefs. It is acknowledged on all hands, because it is recorded by other teftimony than that of the Chriftians themselves, that the religion began