evidences, on being suspected of "bearing false wit"ness;" subjected themselves to be scourged, tortured, nay strangled, rather than deny the truth of their attestation; could any reasonable or reasoning man refuse to believe their testimony? According to Mr. Hume's argumentation, we are not to believe them, were we to witness such a story and such sufferings; but I am so persuaded that no person in his senses would disbelieve them, that I will venture to say even Mr. Hume, under such circumstances, could not have withheld his assent to the truth of their story.

"But," say his disciples, "whatever might be "done or conceded in such a case, those who live a "thousand years after the event, can have no reason "to believe it: if we admit that concurrent testimony

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may augment; still successive testimony diminishes, "and that so rapidly, as to command no assent, after a "few centuries at most." This is specious; but, as I remarked at the commencement of this letter, far from correct. I do not deny that there may be cases in which credibility diminishes with time; but no testimony is really, in the nature of things, rendered less credible by any other cause, than the loss or want of some of those conditions which first made it rationally credible. A testimony continues equally credible, so long as it is transmitted with all those circumstances and conditions which first procured it a certain degree of credit amongst men, proportionate to the intrinsic value of those conditions. Let it be supposed that the persons who transmit the testimony are able, honest,

and diligent, in all the requisite inquiries as to what they transmit, and how should the credibility due to their testimony be weakened, but by the omission of circumstances? which omission is contrary to the hypothesis. No calculation of the decrease of the credibility of testimony, in which a man bears witness respecting realities, and not the fictions of his own brain, can ever proceed upon any other principle than that of the characters and qualifications of the witnesses: and therefore, so far as the credibility of any matter of fact depends upon pure testimony, they who live at the remotest distances of time may have the same evidence of the truth of it as those persons who lived nearest to the time in which the thing was said to be'done; that identical time being, of course, excluded.

In what possible manner, for example, can the evidence on which we believe the facts related in the Gospels be less than that on which those facts were accredited by Christians in the second or third centuries? They possessed the standard writings of the Evangelists; so do we: what those books then contained, they now contain; and the invention of printing seems likely, under the care of Providence, to preserve them genuine to the end of time. This admirable invention has so far secured all considerable monuments of antiquity, that no ordinary calamities of wars, dissolutions of governments, &c. can destroy any material evidence now in existence, or render it less probable to those who shall live in a thousand years' time than it is to us. With regard to the facts of the Christian religion, indeed, it is notorious that our evidence in

favour of them has increased instead of diminished since the era of printing, the reformation of religion, and the restoration of letters: and, as even the recent inquiries of learned men (g) have produced fresh evidence, there is every reason to hope it will continue to increase.

Indeed, it is only with regard to the facts related in the Bible that men ever talk of the daily diminution of credibility. Who complains of a decay of evidence in relation to the actions of Alexander, Hannibal, Pompey, or Cæsar? How many fewer of the events recorded by Plutarch, or Polybius, or Livy, are believed now (on account of a diminution of evidence) than were believed by Mr. Addison, or Lord Clarendon, or Geoffrey Chaucer? It might be contended with some semblance of probability, that we know more of those ancients than the persons now mentioned: but that it is widely different from accrediting less. We never hear persons wishing that they had lived ages earlier, that they might have had better proofs that Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, that Darius was beaten in several battles by Alexander, that Titus destroyed Jerusalem, that Hannibal was entirely routed by Scipio, or Pompey by Julius Cæsar: though we sometimes find men of ardent and enterprising minds exclaiming, "O that I had lived and been present when such and "such splendid events occurred: how lively an in❝terest should I have taken in such scenes, how much 66 concern in their termination!" And, indeed, it is the frequent hearing of like exclamations that causes (g) See the close of Letter V.

men to confound weight of testimony with warmth or depth of feeling; and to lose sight of the essential difference between real evidence, or the true basis for belief of history, and the sensible impression or influence which such history may make upon the mind. the mind. We believe as firmly that Lucretius stabbed himself in the delirium of a fever, as that Lucretia stabbed herself in consequence of the wrongs she had received from Tarquin's son; yet we feel a much more lively interest in the latter event than in the former. The fate of Carthage, or the result of the contest between Antony and Octavius respecting the empire of the world, would doubtless be much more deeply felt, and much more warmly conversed about, within two centuries of the circumstances, than they ever are now: yet those who then conversed about them had just as much reason to doubt their occurrence as we have; that is, just none at all. Similar reasoning will apply to all the circumstances recorded in authentic history. So that, having established the genuineness and authenticity of the books of Scripture, on evidence far superior to that on which other historic books are received, it is the most idle and ridiculous thing imaginable to affect to disbelieve any of the facts therein recorded, on account of the remoteness of the times in which they occurred.

Let me now attempt to collect the scattered arguments in this letter, with a few additional suggestions, to one point, and conclude. If then, we have found, upon careful examination, that the miraculous' facts proposed for our belief, and on the credit of which the divine authority of a particular system of doctrines and

precepts depends, are such,-1. As do not imply a self-contradiction in them. 2. If they appear to have been performed publicly, in the view of several people, and with a professed intention to establish the divine authority of the person or persons who wrought them. 3. If they were many in number, frequently repeated and continued for a series of years together. 4. If they were of an interesting nature in themselves, likely to have made strong impressions upon the minds of all who saw and heard of them; and for that reason, probably, much attended to, talked of, and examined, at the time of their performance. 5. If the effects produced by them were not transient, but lasting, such as, however instantaneous the change might be, must have existed for many years, and were capable all the while of being disproved if they were not real. 6. If the relations were committed to writing at or very near the time when the facts are said to have occurred, and by persons of unimpeachable integrity, who tell us, that "that which they have seen and heard, the same de"clare they unto us;" by persons who, having sufficient opportunity of knowing the whole truth of what they testify, could not possibly be deceived themselves; and who, having no conceivable motive or temptation to falsify their evidence, cannot, with the least shadow of probability, be suspected of an intention to deceive other people. 7. If there be no proof, or even wellfounded suspicion of proof, that the testimony of those who bear witness to these extraordinary facts was ever contradicted even by such as professed themselves open enemies to their persons, character, and views, though