[ 140 1. fion: But it is the Readers Business to judge whether that Argument be conclufive. They tell you what thofe Works were: Feeding thousands of People with two Loaves of Bread, and a few small Fishes; healing the Sick in an Inftant; curing the Leprous; the Blind; the Deaf; and the Lame; And what is more than all, bringing the Dead back again to Life; not only after they had been dead fome Hours, but fome Days; One when he was actually carrying upon the Biar to the Grave; and another after he had been fome Days in the Grave. They tell you that he entered into Jerufalem riding upon an Afs; that he was betrayed by one Judas in the Reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius; that he was ordered to be Crucified by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate at the earnest Sollicitation of the Jews; and that he was buried in the Tomb belonging to one Jofeph of Arimathea; that he rose from thence on the third Day, and was seen and felt by his Disciples, and converfed frequently with them for 40 Days after wards.

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Now it requires no great Skill in any Witness to be a Judge of all these kind of things, and and to tell whether a Man be blind, or has his Eyefight; whether he be leprous or clean; alive or dead: And with a very small Degree of Attention, any Perfon with the meaneft Abilities hath Skill fufficient to judge, whether these wonderfull Cures were done according to the ordinary Rules of Phyfick, or were effected in a Moment, by a Touch of the Hand, or even by the Speaking of a Word. So that with Regard to fuch Tranfactions as these, no Objection can lie against the Skill of these Witnesses.

(4) Hence we come in the Fourth Place to confider the Defign of thefe Authors. Which certainly could not be bad; as the whole Purport of the Religion which they inculcate is evidently calculated to recommend Piety towards God, and good Will towards Man. Nor is it credible that these Books could have been written with an evil Defign of impofing on the World, when we confider that the Authors could be no Gainers by such an Imposture. When K 3

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the Chriftian Religion began to be coun tenanced by Princes and Potentates, and had once gotten fome Footing in the World, Intereft, or Vanity, or a mifguided Zeal, might have excited fome weak Men to the Practice of pious Frauds in privately com→ pofing fome Books to propagate their own Opinions. But this is hot the Cafe of the Authors now before us, who publickly avowed their own Works, and at a Time when they could have no View either of worldly Profit or Praise. Nor is it reafonable to think that had they known the Chriftian Religion to have been falfe, their Zeal would ever have allowed them to proceed fo far in the Cheat, as to be real Sufferers themselves, only that others might be the Gainers. Nor would they have endured Perfecution rather than retract, or fuffer Death rather than deny, the Truth of what they afferted. And when we confider that the general Purport of these Books is to recommend the Practice of Vir tue and Goodness and the Love of Truth, we may be sure that real Falfehood would pever take Pains to bring about thefe Purpofesi

pofes; fince whatever Guife it may aifume, and put outwardly upon itself, fomething very different from all these would lye hid underneath; and that, let the Pretences be never so fpecious, fomething of Worldly Intereft would be couched at the Bottom. Whereas these Authors, who wrote the Hiftory of a Perfon after he was dead, whom they acknowledge and declare to have been ignominioufly crucified, muft be acquitted from having any fuch Design.

(5) So that we may proceed in the Fifth Place, to confider the Confiftency of the Parts, and the Circumstances of the Relation. Which will bear but very little Controverfy; fince whoever will give himself the Trouble of reading these four Authors will fee one general Scheme carried on through each of them; wherein they give us a short account of the Life of Jefus, from his Birth to the Time of his Afcenfion into Heaven. In which they are not only fo confiftent with themselves, but alfo with each other, as to produce a wonderfull and furprizing Harmony, whenever they are compared together: though they

were written at different Times, and in very different Parts of the World. And whoever compares them will find a fufficient Difference in the circumftantial Parts of the Narration, though not in the material, to prevent the Sufpicion of the leaft Poffibility of Combination; as the few Places and fmall Circumftances, which at firft view seem to disagree, are of fuch Nature that they either admit an easy Reconciliation, or must be ascribed to a Miftake in the Tranfcribers of the Copies.

To which it may further be added, that thefe Books have been handed down, as thofe of the Old Teftament were from Father to Son; with this Difference, that the Christians were not of one Nation, as the Jews were, and therefore the less likely to enter into any combination or Collufion, either in the Compofition or Communication of them; And that they were never entirely miffing, but that we can trace them back directly to the Fountain Head.

And indeed there is one Circumftance attending these Hiftories to the Veracity of which the Jews themselves, as well as

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