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the accounts of the facts were first published upon the spot where they were affirmed to have been originally performed, and amongst persons who were engaged by private interest, and furnished with full authority, inclination, and opportunity, to have manifested the falsity of them, and to have detected the imposture, had they been able. 8. If, on the contrary, the existence of these facts be expressly allowed, by the persons who thought themselves most concerned to prevent the genuine consequences which might be deduced from them; and there were, originally, no other disputes about them, than to what sufficient cause they were to be imputed. 9. If, again, the witnesses from whom we have these facts were many in number, all of them unanimous in the substance of their evidence, and all, as may be collected from their whole conduct, men of such unquestionable good sense as secured them against all delusion in themselves; if they were men who evinced the sincerity of their own conviction, by acting under the uniform influence of the extraordinary works to which they bore witness, in direct contradiction to all their former prejudices and most favoured notions; in direct contradiction, also, to every flattering prospect of worldly honour, profit or advantage (as was remarkably exemplified in the case of St. Paul); and when they could not but be previously assured that "bonds and afflictions awaited them;" (h) that ignominy, persecution, misery, and even death itself, most probably would attend the constant and invariable perseverance in their testimony. 10. If these wit(h) Acts, xx. 23.

nesses, in order that their evidence might have the greater weight with a doubting world (each nation being already in possession of an established religion), were themselves enabled to perform such extraordinary works as testified the clear and indisputable interposition of a divine power in favour of their veracity; and, after having experienced the severest afflictions, vexations, and torments, at length laid down their lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts asserted by them. 11. If great multitudes of the contemporaries of these witnesses, men of almost all nations, tempers, professions, and scales of intellect, were persuaded by them that these facts were really performed in the manner related, and gave the strongest testimony which it was in their power to give of the firmness and active tendency of their belief, by immediately breaking through all their previous attachments and connections of interest or friendship, and acting in express contradiction to them. 12. If concurring testimony, carried to a sufficient extent, and especially of this kind, be in its nature really irresistible; and if successive testimony, under the circumstances of the case before us, rather increase than diminish in credibility. 13. If ceremonies and institutions were grounded upon the miraculous facts, and have been uninterruptedly observed in all the successive periods of time, from the date of the facts in commemoration of which they were established. 14. If we have all the proof which the severest rules of criticism can require, that no alterations have been made in the original writings and records left us by these witnesses in any material article of their evidence

since their first publication, either through accident or design; but that they have been transmitted to us in all their genuine purity, as they were left by their authors. In such a situation of things, where so great a variety of circumstances, where, indeed, all imaginable circumstances, mutually concur to confirm, strengthen, and support each other's evidence; without a single argument on the other side, but what arises merely from the extraordinary nature of the facts, and the admission of which inevitably leads to consequences at least as extraordinary as those our opponents are inclined to reject; may not they be justly accused of an unreasonable incredulity who refuse their assent to them? And will not such incredulity be as dangerous as it is ridiculous? If facts, attested in so clear, decisive, and unexceptionable a manner, and delivered down to posterity with so many conspiring signs and monuments of truth, are, nevertheless, not to be believed: it is, I think, impossible for the united wisdom of mankind to point out any evidence of historical events which will justify a wise and cautious man in accrediting them. Where there is the strongest assurance of the occurrence of any particular series of miraculous facts, which we are capable of acquiring, according to the present frame of our nature, and the state of things in the world; to reject these miracles after all, and the religion in attestation of which they were wrought, and to pretend to exculpate ourselves for not believing them, upon the bare suspicion of a possibility that they may be false, is, instead of being

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an indication of freedom from shackles, and erectness and greatness of mind, a monstrous contradiction to the principles of common sense, and the universal practice of mankind. That you and I, my friend, may be preserved from such a preposterous and dangerous absurdity, is the fervent wish of, Yours, sincerely.

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LETTER VIII.

On the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

SEVERAL of the facts recorded in the Christian Scriptures have this to distinguish them from others, that they are intimately connected with doctrines; so intimately, indeed, that the doctrine grows out of the fact, and that, consequently, the denial of the fact causes the annihilation of the doctrine, and prevents the springing forth of those happy effects which the doctrine is calculated to produce. Thus the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact; our resurrection is a doctrine founded upon that fact. that fact. The denial of one requires the renunciation of the other." If," says Paul, "there "be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not "risen: and if Christ be not risen, then is our "preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (i) And again, "If we believe that Jesus Christ died, "and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in "Jesus, will God bring with him."(k) Thus also, the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven is a fact; his return from thence to judge the world is a dependent doctrine. Thus spake the angels to the disciples at the ascension of our Lord: "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which "is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in

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