informed them that Jesus was risen: they none of them saw any of the Roman guard: they all were satisfied that the body was not in the sepulchre and Jesus himself appeared to some of them, and they reported it to the apostles and disciples. But, whether some of them did not go twice to the sepulchre; whether they were all there at the same time; or all went in company, or all by the same road; or all saw the angel or angels, at the same time, or in the same manner, does not appear; nor are these things asserted by any of the historians. Each narrative may be strictly, and circumstantially correct, considered apart and yet variations, as to circumstances will occur, as in other histories, or in examining of the most faithful witnesses on any trial. And if, after so many ages, we should be incapable of forming these distinct statements into one harmonious narrative, the cause must be sought in our want of full information, and not in the want of correctness in the history.*

If the writers of these books,' says Mr. P. ' had gone ' into any court of justice to prove an alibi ..., and had given their evidence in the same contradictory manner, as 'it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly de'served it.' The contrary conclusion, however, is far more rational. Their brevity occasions the difficulty: a few questions proposed to each of them would have removed it: they did prove the alibi, beyond all doubt; they proved that they saw Jesus, as risen, on the day when the body was gone; that they were sure it was he himself; and that, on subsequent occasions, he had shewed them his hands and his feet, with the print of the nails in them, and the hole, which the spear had made in his side: no other account, in the least plausible, was ever given of what had become of the body and ancient enemies, whose credit,

* Mary Magdalene, was a woman of large acquaintance, and it was not an ill conjecture that she was upon a stroll.'---' To your insinuation, that Mary Magdelene was a common woman, I wish it to be considered whether there be any scriptural authority for that imputation. The conjecture, which you adopt concerning her, is nothing less than an illiberal, indecent, and unfounded calumny, not 'excusable in the mouth of a libertine, and intolerable in yours."' Bishop Watson.

authority, and lives were at stake, never attempted to answer this proof of an alibi; or to charge the witnesses with contradicting each other."

Matthew says, "the angel, sat on the stone," (xxviii, 2.) according to the others,' says Mr. P. there was no angel sitting upon it.'---This evangelist adds, " for fear of him, "the keepers became as dead men," (4:) but before the women arrived, the keepers were fled, and the angel had taken another station. (Mark xvi, 5, 6.) For there is, in none of the evangelists, the least intimation, that the keepers were present at the conversation of the women with the angel,' as Mr. P. confidently asserts.

Mr. P. introduces the angel, as saying of Jesus, according to Matthew's account," Behold, he is gone into Galilee;" though the same evangelist just afterwards mentions his meeting with the women. But our translation has it "He goeth into Galilee:" and the original would perhaps be more exactly rendered, "He is going into Galilee;" as we say of any one 'He is going to London.' And no writer would directly contradict himself, in the manner which the misquotation charges on Matthew.

The evangelist, in his very compendious narrative, says, the eleven disciples went into Galilee :' (xxviii, 16.) but he does not say, that they went on the same day, on which he rose, How then does he contradict the record of John? (John xx, 19--29.) It appears from the latter, that the apostles remained at Jerusalem at least eight days, after our Lord's resurrection. Yet Mr. P. boldly says, It ap

pears from the evangelists, that the whole space of time, from the crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is 'but a few days, not more than three or four; and all the 'circumstances are reported to have happened nearly ' about the same spot.' In this he either wilfully asserted what he knew to be false; or he was more ignorant, and carelessly ignorant, of the writings which he would expose to contempt, than any other author ever was of his subject. Much more time than three or four days passed most evidently, between the resurrection and the ascension. Luke, one of the evangelists, says in the Acts, " forty days," and several of the transactions occurred in Galilee, at least

sixty or seventy miles distant from Jerusalem. (Matt. xxviii, 16; John xxi; Acts i, 3.)

Proceeding on this false statement, and supposing that our Lord appointed the meeting in Galilee, on the very evening of his resurrection (though distant about seventy miles,' he says, ' Luke tells us a story, which totally invalidates the account of his going to the mountain in 'Galilee.' The story of our Lord's meeting with the two disciples when going to Emmaus, and the subsequent events, certainly invalidates Mr. P.'s most absurd account of his going into Galilee; but well agrees with that of the evangelists.

He next objects to the 'skulking privacy of our Lord's appearance in the recess of a mountain, or in a shut-up house in Jerusalem.' But a situation similar to that, from which he addressed a very large multitude, in the sermon on the mount, could not be a skulking privacy, or the recess of a mountain: and the original expression is precisely the same, so to opos, and translated the same, "into a mountain." Matt. v, 1; xxviii, 16.

The Galileans, among whom our Lord had principally lived and laboured, were the most unexceptionable witnesses, that it was even he whom they saw as risen and standing before them. It cannot be reasonably doubted but on this occasion he "was seen of above 500 brethren "at once," (1 Cor. xv, 6:) and of the numbers assembled, some doubted: this would have been omitted by a writer, who wished to establish a forgery. A select number of witnesses was far more suitable, in such a case, than a much greater publicity. Had our Lord appeared openly among all the Jews at Jerusalem and elsewhere, for a number of days: either all must have been convinced and believed, and so the whole would have had the face' of a political and national contrivance. Or, if they had persisted, as most of them would, in unbelief; the proof would have laboured under additional disadvantages: and at the last posterity would have possessed no other external evidence of the fact, than the testimony of the historians which recorded it; and the proof which God gave that they were divinely inspired.

Mr. P. says, Only Paul says five hundred saw Christ

at once, and that the five hundred do not say it for 'themselves.' If they had, and their several testimonies had been preserved; our difficulties would have at least been five hundred times greater, in determining whether they were genuine, and accorded with each other. But Paul, by appealing to about three hundred living witnesses, gave his enemies the opportunity of disproving his testimony, if they could. Mr. P. however endeavours to set it quite aside, for he says, "His evidence is like that of a man, who comes into a court of justice to swear, that 'what he hath sworn before is false. A man may often see reason, and he always too has a right changing his opinion: but this liberty does not extend to matters of fact.' Now it is true, a man has neither right, liberty, or power, to change matters of fact: but surely he may change his opinion concerning them. When the apostle embraced, professed, preached the gospel, which he had before opposed as false, and suffered even to bonds and death; he avowed most emphatically that he had changed his opinion as to the matter of fact; being assured that Jesus was indeed risen from the dead. It is, I must think, certain, that Mr. P. has ere this changed his opinion, on this subject; and I pray God, that many of his deluded disciples may change their's; before the light of the eternal world convince them.

The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead, 'is the story of an apparition,' says Mr. P. By a miraculous power, indeed, he entered the room, where the disciples were assembled, without the door having been opened to him by the disciples; but there is no proof that it was not opened. (John xx, 19, 26; Acts v, 19; xii, 10.). And he disappeared, or ceased to be seen, by the disciples. (Luke xxiv, 31; John viii, 59.) On other occasions, however, he shewed them his hands and his feet, and appealed to their senses, that he was a living man, and not a disembodied spirit. (Luke xxiv, 36-41; John xx, 20, 27.)

The divine authority of the commission given to the apostles, did not at all require that the Jews should see Jesus ascend into heaven: but it rested on the miracles, which they wrought upon and after the day of Pentecost,

and on other concurrent divine attestations. Yet the combined testimony of eleven unexceptionable witnesses to words spoken in a cellar, or actions done upon a mountain, is sufficient to prove any fact, not impossible in itself, in the judgment of all reasonable men; and "the only wise God" did not see good to ask counsel, either of ancient or modern Sadducees, what kind and degree of evidence it was proper for him to afford.

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Thomas--as they say, would not believe without having an ocular and manual demonstration: so neither will I: and the reason is as good for me, and for every person, as for Thomas. Certainly; because it was good for nothing in Thomas; and he was ashamed of it. Let the same incredulity be adopted, as to temporal concerns: and a man must cease from taking food, or medicine, or engaging in any business: for he cannot have ocular and manual demonstration,' that he shall not be poisoned by his cook or his apothecary, or -cheated in all his concerns. In their eternal interests, if a man will not believe till there be no possibility of denial or dispute; the conviction cannot come, till his doom is irreversible.

In respect of our Lord's ascension, Mr. P. alludes to the fact of men having ascended into the air by means of a balloon. But would any reasonable man, doubt or deny the fact, attested as it has been, because he had not ocular demonstration of it?

of

Mr. P. himself cannot find any avowed opposer Christianity, who denied the gospels to be authentick histories, before A.D. 400. And surely all, that come after that period, may be supposed very incompetent judges. Yet even modern Jews do not deny this: but say, All was by enchantment,' that is, all the miracles of Christ and his apostles. The narrative of his resurrection is indeed wholly discredited; otherwise they could not continue his open opposers.

Mr. P. is welcome to all the support, that forged gospels can give him: for forgery always admits the existence of the thing forged, and commonly its excellence. And the hereticks, who at the commencement of Christianity, rejected as false all the New Testament,' at least

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