and so soon. What impression does he mean? If he means the sentiments which he has ascribed to them, I am persuaded they did not lose them, for they never had them. The Roman soldiers very probably knew nothing more than that they were appointed to watch the sepulchre that the body might not be removed; and that they were acquainted with the character and pretensions of the person lying in the grave, there is not the least reason to suspect; much less had they any expectation of being disturbed by invisible powers; and when they were disturbed, what probability is there in making them reason immediately like Jews, and think of God and his Messiah as if they had been his disciples? But suppose them (if you please) to have some tincture of religion; suppose too they believed with the centurion at the crucifixion that Christ was indeed a righteous man; and yet further, that he was particularly favoured of the gods; what is all this to the purpose? If he was a favourite of the gods, it was the gods of his own country, with whom they imagined they had nothing to do. They had gods of their own, to whom they were bound, and whom they served, if they served any gods at all. As to the Jewish religion, if they thought any thing of it, they thought with the rest of the heathens that it was the worst of superstitions. It remains then only that the soldiers were scared and terrified by a surprising sight. And where is the wonder that when the fright was over, they should be what they were before, mere common soldiers, and ready to take money, which was to be earned at so cheap a rate, as reporting a story made for them by the chief priests? It was all one to them who moved the body; they were unaffected with the

consequences that alarmed the chief priests; and I dare say ready money outweighed all hopes the Considerer has given them, of getting commissions under the Jewish Messiah.

In the next place, he undertakes the cause of the chief priests, and to prove that the part assigned to them in the gospel history is a weak one and a wicked one; and thence he concludes they neither did nor could act that part, and that the account of it is forged. The first part of his task is indeed an easy one; for the chief priests acted very foolishly and very wickedly; but I am in some pain for his consequence. Will he maintain that no men act wickedly or weakly? or though many do, yet the chief priests never did or could? I doubt he will be at a full stop here. But let us hear

him. "The priests," he says, "as well as the people, were credulous of miracles, being nursed up in the belief of them, which when attested by their own party, persons whose veracity they could depend on, (not the flying reports of a giddy mob,) must have prevented them from doing what it is here pretended they did."

But why should the chief priests be more affected by miracles, attested by their own party, that is, the guards, than by those which they saw themselves? Many such there were; some of them I have already mentioned. But how were they affected by them? Did they not seek the life of Jesus for raising Lazarus, and the life of Lazarus that he might not live a witness of the power of Jesus? Did they not admit the miracles, and yet ascribe them to the power of Beelzebub? might they not with the same reason ascribe all the guards reported to be done at the sepulchre to the same power?

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And

If it be sufficient to set aside the authority of the gospel, because it represents the chief priests acting unreasonably, the same argument will be too hard for the credit of all the histories in being; for they all show us men acting with great folly and great wickedness. The Old Testament must doubtless follow the New; for what is more unreasonable than the behaviour of the ancient Jews after their wonderful deliverance from Egypt? May not the Considerer say, had God so visibly interposed for their deliverance, it is impossible they should rebel so soon as the history says they did; and therefore the history must be false? But I leave this, to consider a complaint of a much higher nature.

The angel, it seems, who was the minister of God, and acted as by him directed, did "very impoliticly in frightening away the watch, before Jesus came out of the sepulchre, so that they could not be witnesses of his resurrection." How he knows that the watch was terrified before Jesus came out of the sepulchre, I cannot tell; he learns it not from the gospel. The angel moved this stone for the sake of those who came to the sepulchre, that they might see and report what they saw; our Lord certainly wanted not their help. But why were the angels impolitic? Were they to govern themselves by the politics of the chief priests, and follow their measures? Had God, or the angels by his direction, appointed the watch to be witnesses of the resurrection, and they had been scared away before the time, the objection would have lain; but how was God bound to give this evidence to the guards? Was it because the chief priests had set the watch? But what right had they to prescribe to God who should be eye

witnesses of his Son's resurrection? The setting of the watch and what followed was sufficient to convince the Jews that Jesus, according to his own prophecy, was three days in the heart of the earth, and then released. This evidence rose providentially out of their own contrivance to watch the body; but their contrivance laid no obligation on God, nor could it hasten or retard the resurrection, or have any effect on the manner of it. We find in the gospel, that very particular care was taken by our Lord to appoint chosen witnesses of the resurrection. To them he showed himself alive after the resurrection; to them were given powers from on high to confirm this evidence; but where does the Considerer read that it was referred to the high priests, or that they had any right to appoint witnesses in this case? If they had no right to appoint them, no injury was done in not admitting them. And yet after all, though the Considerer thinks the guards did not see enough, they saw so much as to make their report of great weight, had there not been an incorrigible obstinacy in the Jewish rulers; enough to awaken their attention, and to call to their remembrance the sign of Jonas, which was to be given them; enough to raise serious reflections on all the miracles of Jesus, of which they had themselves been eye-witnesses..

SECTION III.

We come now to consider the inconsistencies which the Considerer charges on the evangelists in the account they give of the circumstances of the resurrection. One would imagine this gentleman had never read any piece of history reported by different writers, or any trial whose facts are

proved by many witnesses; otherwise he would not have objected to the relations of the evangelists, merely because some mention circumstances omitted by others, though all agree in the principal facts to be proved; and all the circumstances, though all not mentioned by each writer, are perfectly consistent. For this is the case of all historians, who treat of the same facts; and I am persuaded that, had the gospel accounts with all their varieties related to any matter of civil history, and been published under the name of any Grecian ́ or Roman historians, these different relations, instead of being thought matter of objection, would have been considered as confirming and establishing each the other. Such differences among reporters of the same fact, will always be found from the very nature of things; for all facts being attended with many circumstances, and all of them not of equal importance, historians, according to their different judgments, choose to report some more, some fewer of those circumstances. This, I say, must be the common case, where historians write without regard to each other; but it must necessarily be so where a later historian publishes an account on purpose to supply the defects or omissions of those before him; for then his very design is to add such things or circumstances as the others had either totally neglected or imperfectly related.

The four gospels were not published at the same time, nor can the precise date of the publication of each of them be ascertained. Saint Matthew, by the general consent of antiquity, is taken to be first, and to have been published not many years after our Saviour's crucifixion. Saint Mark and Saint Luke came next in order. After all, and