appearance, in some degree inseparable from their selection for the purpose of exhibiting them in a cumulative form, vanishes when they are seen in their native places: and they resume at once their air of genuine simplicity. The order in which they are called forth by the train of events-the perfectly natural manner in which they are introduced-the want of obviousness in some, of comment or qualification in others, and of parade in all, are wholly inconsistent with any hypothesis which would resolve them into artifices of well dissembled fraud.1

1 The instances here brought forward evince the candour of the historian, relative to the credit of the cause with which he was engaged. The same quality is manifest in the report he gives of the sufferings endured in attestation of that cause. The following quotation from a popular work will be pardoned for its concise and forcible expression. "These things are related with the utmost particularity of names, persons, places, and circumstances; and what is deserving of notice, without the smallest discoverable propensity in the historian, to magnify the fortitude or exaggerate the sufferings of his party. When they fled for their lives, he tells uswhen the churches had rest, he remarks it-when the people took their part, he does not leave it without notice-when the Apostles were carried a second time before the Sanhedrim, he is careful to observe, that they were brought without violence—when milder counsels were suggested, he gives us the author of the advice, and the speech which contained itwhen, in consequence of this advice, the Rulers contented themselves with threatening the Apostles, and commanding them to be beaten with stripes, without urging at that time the persecution further, the historian candidly and distinctly records their forbearance."-Paley's Evidences, Part I. ch. iv.

Whatever hesitation, then, may have attended our original ascription of candour to the narration of a dispute between Paul and Barnabas; or how much validity soever may attach to the instances separately considered, which have been since adduced in support of it; the conclusion from the whole appears inevitable. The case admits no longer of a problematical construction. There is indubitable evidence of truth, candour, and integrity of the absence of all art-the presence of all ingenuousness in these invaluable records of early Christianity. The doubt that can survive such accumulated probabilities, must require for its removal some species of proof in the very nature of things impossible. It must have its residence in a breast impervious to the light of testimony, or darkened by a prejudice so deep and indestructible, as it were charity to impute to dulness of perception.

We have seen how the authority of Christian doctrine rests itself on the truth of certain historical documents, containing the record of transactions, in which the principles of the Gospel may be said to have been embodied, through the medium of which they were made known, and by the evidence of which they are established and confirmed. We have seen how the marks of candour discernible in these

documents bear on the faith with which they are to be received. We now advance a step farther; and turn from the record, to the matter it conveys from the character of the historian, to that of his subject-from the testimony which his own conduct as an annalist affords, to the persons whose actions he describes to that which the conduct of those persons presents to the cause they maintained, the cause to which writer and actor were alike subservient, and which gives all its interest to any inquiry relative to the conduct of the one or the other.

Here were certain individuals associated in the establishment of a new Religion. With no ostensible motives except such as originated in their personal belief of that Religion, they were consenting to undergo, in and for its maintenance, a complication of distresses, appalling to human nature. Their life had been exposed to continual inconvenience, and the almost continual recurrence of formidable dangers. They appeared not only to entertain no hope of relief from these vicissitudes, but, what was still more singular, they seemed content, and even eager, to endure them, and professed to convert into sources of tranquillity almost every circumstance of ordinary disquietude. All this may be explained on the principles of their system; provided that system be admitted

1

as true. But the infidel affirms that it is not only inconsistent with anterior probabilities, but contrary to the established dictates of reason. Yet, if these individuals were honest, the system must be true-for the facts which they asserted involve the system, and of those facts they pretended to have been eye-witnesses. If they were dishonest, their most extraordinary assertions remain to be accounted for. To say that they were the victims of delusion, would be like extinguishing a light with combustible materials. The circumstances under which they all declared the facts to have occurred; the nature, the number, the frequency of those facts, preclude the possibility of their being deceived. On the other hand, their consistency, their united testimony to the same unvaried statement, and, above all, their unwavering asseveration of it in the face of every thing that could dissipate conjecture and dishearten fraud, look like the effects of unconquerable conviction.

He

Whether we regard, therefore, the subject or the nature of their testimony, the inevitable conclusion appears the same. But this conclusion the infidel is resolved on resisting. is bound, therefore, to provide some other solution, that will account for the phenomena without necessitating the truth of Christianity. Such a solution must proceed on a supposition

that the Apostles were engaged in the prosecution of some fraudulent design, for on the side of infidelity there is but one alternative— either they were deceivers, or they were themselves deceived.' The latter should seem too

1 The subject as well as limits of this Essay prevent the

full demonstration of the alternative here stated. The following quotations may suffice to show how little the witnesses to the Christian miracles were predisposed to believe those facts, on which the evidences of Christianity so much depend; and how far, therefore, from the danger of being deceived about them. To object that these appearances of unpreparedness and reluctant belief were feigned, were obviously absurd, since this would be to reverse the charge against which they are adduced: nor is the insinuation, that they may have been inserted by the historians without foundation, and for the purpose of strengthening the testimony of the Apostles, any more consistent with the assumption that they were deceived, since the Gospels were at least published during the life-time of the Apostles; if not written, as there is every reason to believe, under the personal direction of some of their number.

"Now, when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils: and she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept: And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went, and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them. After that he appeared unto the eleven, as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen." Mark. xvi. 9-14. "It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women, that were with them, which told these things unto the Apostles. And their words seemed unto them as idle tales: and they believed them not. Then arose