imagine that it was by an adherence to the cause of their crucified mafter that fuch views could ever be accomplished? Riches, reputation, and power, were engaged on the opposite fide, while the only prospect prefented to the followers of Jefus, and which was too foon realifed, was poverty, affliction, ftripes, imprisonment, and death. If their master had fallen a facrifice to the envy and malice of his own nation, and the fufpicious jealousy of the Romans, was it probable that a perfecution, in which bigotry and policy were united, would ftop at him? If fuch things had been done in the green tree, what was to be expected in the dry? Or fuppofe that they could, at first, have encouraged fo chimerical a notion, as that, with every circumstance, humanly speaking, against them, they might ftill be fuccefsful; how could they perfevere in it after they had begun to experience its fallacioufnefs; after fome of them

had

had been imprisoned and beaten, and one of their number, Saint Stephen, had been put to death before their eyes? Saint Paul, at leaft, could not be under the influence of any preconceived opinions.

LONG after the difciples had ceased to hope that the rewards to be bestowed on them by their mafter were of a temporal kind, he was still immerfed in the study, and diftinguished among the most zealous adherents, of the ceremonial law: he even thought it a crime to continue an inactive fpectator of the progrefs of doctrines, which tended to fubvert the religion of his country, and, in the fpirit of a Pharifee, armed himfelf with the civil power, for the purpofe of extirpating them. Yet this man, ardent indeed in his temper, but untinctured with fanaticifm; and, as both his writings and his conduct testify, fedate and fober in his judgement; was induced to feparate him

felf from the party to which he had always been attached by principle, affection, and intereft, to renounce a religion which he knew to have been divinely established, and had been used to confider as of eternal obligation; to glory in the crofs of Chrift, and to count all that he had forfeited as drofs, compared with that crown of glory to be received by the faithful at the refurrection of the dead. No lefs a caufe than that affigned in fcripture, can be conceived to have produced fuch a change; but if that cause be admitted, it is in itself decifive of the fubject we are confidering,

LET it however be fuppofed, (for this is a cafe in which the most extravagant fuppofitions have been made,) that the apostles had fome unknown inexplicable motive for wishing to deceive their contemporaries and posterity. Was there the least probability of success to encourage them to make

the

the attempt? Or if enthusiasm rendered them blind to every obstacle, their blindnefs might have proved fatal to themselves, but would it have effected their purpose? While the corpfe of their mafter remained in the poffeffion of the adverfe party, all pretences of a refurrection might be inftantly confuted by the mere production of it. It was absolutely neceffary that they fhould get it into their hands, and within the time which, as was well known to the priefts and Pharifees, he had prefixed for his rifing again. But the fepulcre was fealed, and watched by a guard whom it was not eafy to overpower by force; befides that force, could it have prevailed, would have defeated its own end, and whofe vigilance it was impoffible to elude. The idle tale of the body having been ftolen, while a number of foldiers, trained in the Roman discipline, were all afleep, was calculated only for the vulgar, and is the strongest confirmation

P 3

confirmation of the fact it was intended to difcredit.

EVEN if we go one step farther, and admit, not only that such an attempt was made without any reasonable inducement, but that it fucceeded by fome unaccountable means; still a material difficulty remains. Perfons who invent or abet a falfehood for fordid ends, recant with as little fcruple when called on by interest to do so. We know with what avidity fuch a recantation would have been received, how liberally it would have been rewarded, how industriously it would have been propagated by the rulers of the Jewish nation: yet, after twenty years had elapfed, a period more than fufficient to extinguish every hope of temporal advantages, though of five hundred brethren, who had seen our Saviour at once after his refurrection, the greater part was ftill alive; not one, in fo

great