acquaintance, I do not apprehend that we should discredit the whole account of such an extraor dinary man, by reason of some slight inconsistencies and contradictions which the avowed enemies of his name might chance to discover in the several narrations. Though we should grant you then, that the Evangelists had fallen into some trivial contradictions, in what they have related concerning the life of Christ; yet you ought not to draw any other inference from our concession than that they had not plotted together, as cheats would have done, in order to give an unexceptionable consistency to their fraud. We are not however disposed to make you any such concession; we will rather shew you the futility of your general argument, by touching upon a few of the places which you think are most liable to your censure. You observe, that neither Luke, nor Mark, nor John have mentioned the cruelty of Herod in murdering the infants of Bethlehem; and that no account is to be found of this matter in Josephus, who wrote the life of Herod; and therefore the fact recorded by Matthew is not true. The concurrent testimony of many indepen dent writers concerning a matter of fact unques. tionably adds to its probability; but if nothing is to be received as true, upon the testimony of a single author, we must give up some of the best writers, and disbelieve some of the most interesting facts, of ancient history. According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, there was only an interval of three months, you say, between the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus; from which time, taking away the forty days of the temptation, there will only remain about six weeks for the whole period of his public ministry; which lasted however, according to St. John, at the least above three years.-Your objection, fairly stated stands thus: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in writing the history of Jesus Christ, mention the several events of his life, as following one another in continued succession, without taking notice of the times in which they happened: but is it a just conclusion from their silence, to infer that there really were no intervals of time between the transactions which they seem to have connected? Many instances might be produced from the most admired biographers of antiquity, in which events are related, as im mediately consequent to each other, which did not happen but at very distant periods: we have an obvious example of this manner of writing in St. Matthew; who connects the preaching of John the Baptist with the return of Joseph from Egypt, though we are certain that the latter event preceded the former by a great many years. John has said nothing of the institution of the Lord's Supper; the other Evangelists have said nothing of the washing of the disciples' feet :What then? are you not ashamed to produce these facts, as instances of contradiction? If omissions are contradictions, look into the history of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, or into the general history of M. de Voltaire, and you will meet with a great abundance of contradictions. John, in mentioning the discourse which Jesus had with his mother and his beloved disciple, at the time of his crucifixion, says, that she with Mary Magdalene stood near the cross: Matthew, on the other hand, says, that Mary Magdalene and the other women were there, be holding afar off. This you think a manifest contradiction and scoffingly inquire, whether the women and the beloved disciple, which were near the cross, could be the same with those who stood far from the cross?-It is difficult not to transgress the bounds of moderation and good manners, in answering such sophistry. What! have you to learn, that though the Evangelists speak of the crucifixion as of one event, it was not accomplished in one instant, but lasted several hours? And why the women, who were at a distance from the cross, might not, during its continuance, draw near the cross; or, from being near the cross, might not move from the cross, is more than you can explain to either us or yourselves. And we take from you your only refuge, by denying expressly, that the different Evangelists, in their mention of the women, speak of the same point of time. The Evangelists, you affirm, are fallen into gross contradictions, in their accounts of the appearances by which Jesus manifested himself to his disciples, after his resurrection from the dead; for Matthew speaks of two, Mark of three, Luke of two, and John of four. That contradictory propositions cannot be true, is readily granted; and if you will produce the place in which Matthew says, that Jesus Christ appeared twice and no oftener, it will be further granted, that he is contradicted by John in a very material part of his narration: but till you do that, you must excuse me, if I cannot grant, that the Evangelists have contradicted each other in this point; for to common understandings it is pretty evident, that if Christ appeared four times, according to John's account, he must have appeared twice, according to that of Matthew and Luke, and thrice according to that of Mark. The different Evangelists are not only accused of contradicting each other, but Luke is said to have contradicted himself; for in his Gospel he tells us, that Jesus ascended into heaven from Bethany; and in the Acts of the Apostles, of which he is the reputed author, he informs us that he ascended from Mount Olivet.-Your objection proceeds either from your ignorance of geography, or your ill-will to Christianity; and upon either supposition deserves our contempt: be pleased, how |