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'them recalling that belief or disavowing their knowledge; without any one of them revealing the deceit, if deceit there was, but confirming rather their mission by the working of miracles and the communication of supernatural gifts; setting at defiance the Synod of Jerusalem, who never made any judicial inquiry into the subject, as to where the body of Jesus was, or whether his disciples had actually stolen it.

To have publicly ascertained such a theft and such an imposition, (and, in this case, the arbitrary use of torture was a ready instrument in the hand of a sanguinary governor,) would at once have removed the imputation which the high priests conceived might attach to them, Acts v. 28: "You will bring the blood of this man upon us," and would have completely crushed the new religion. To have confessed the theft would have been sufficient, but the investigation might have gone further; it might have produced the avowal of the fact, and the discovery where the body was concealed. A man whose face was known throughout Palestine, and whose dead body exhibited marks of crucifixion, whose side had been pierced with a spear, and whose legs remained unbroken, was not an object that could be easily mistaken; in fact, no other

dead body could have been produced for it. If the high priests had any confidence in their own case, they would, as a matter of course, have instituted investigation; but this they never did, although they admit the body to have been in the grave, and confined themselves to the assertion, that the disciples stole it. Herod Agrippa, who certainly was no mean enemy of Christianity, and was a warm friend of the Jews, never ordered any inquiry to be made, although to please them, (Acts xii.) he ordered James to be executed and Peter to be imprisoned; and the torture was then a common mode of examination, and would have been used with very little ceremony; but we find no attempts at investigation. Indeed the proofs of Christianity were at its origin so strong, that it fairly gained the cause by its intrinsic strength, and persecution had not the power to arrest its progress.

I am going, however, too far for a preface, when the object of the work itself is to examine doubts and reconcile contradictions. The whole, however, of these objections, supposing the contradictions irreconcilable, and that they still operated upon our several minds, is, that the evangelists were not inspired by God, that they were fallible men, like other historians, and that,

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consequently, our doctrine of inspiration must be received with some modification. And here, I think, Lessing was justified, when he asserted, that admitting this to be a fact, the cause of religion would not suffer by it. When he was attacked upon this subject, he, in order to show that he held this doctrine in common with many strenuous advocates of the Christian religion, recapitulated the observations I have previously made, and part of which I will here subjoin :— The question of the inspiration of the books of the New Testament is not so important as their authenticity. Christianity does not depend upon it. Supposing Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul not to have been inspired by God, still their writings were old, genuine, and credible, and Christianity would equally be true. The miracles, by which it is supported, do not rest upon the evidence, which relates them, being inspired; when we examine them, we rely on their credibility, as brought forward by human witnesses. If the miracles are true, the precepts of Christ, as delivered to us, would be infallible, only with this distinction, that those who have related them may, perhaps, have erred in some minute details; and even supposing any clerical mistakes to have crept into

the writings of the apostles, the fundamental doctrines of Christianity are still superior to any system of philosophy that exists. A man may, therefore, deny generally the divine inspiration of the New Testament, and yet perfectly believe the Testament to be true; nor would you venture to say of such a man he was not a Christian. It was the case, perhaps, with many old heretics, who made a strong distinction between the authenticity and the infallibility of the New Testament." I must here beg to add, that the question in this case is confined to the four gospels, and even in these, limited to the delivery of historical facts. In proof of their infallibility, we have no direct authority in the New Testament, but merely a prevailing opinion, of which it may be said, it does not gain ground. The passage in John xiv. 26, in John xiv. 26, "The Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you," applies, in the first instance, to the apostles, consequently to Matthew and to John, and not to Mark and Luke, but chiefly with respect to the words of Christ, which, of course, are the main foundations of our faith; but it does not, judging from the words of the

passage, extend to historical facts, or to matters of hearsay. More than this, I do not pretend to say. But supposing the four evangelists not to have been inspired, so far as relates to the recollection of facts, I do not see what we should lose by it. We use the history of the life, the miracles, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, against every species of unbelievers, without presuming the divine inspiration of the history. I have known Jews admit, (who, of course, did not admit the divine inspiration,) that Jesus must have been sent from God. The reverse would only be an interminable argument, if we reasoned upon the Christian religion without appealing to the evangelists, as human testimony. I cannot see, I repeat, what we should lose, if we consider the evangelists not as inspired, but as honest, credible men. They say nothing themselves of their inspiration, and Luke expressly states in his beginning, that he has acquired his knowledge from the information of others, and had taken great pains to ascertain whether it was accurate.

I am not certain, whether we should not gain by admitting, that the evangelists were fallible, like other men, and that John, who wrote his gospel last of all, had constantly in

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