other? Does it not import some suspicion, raise some jealousy, that this case would not bear the public light?

I would ask more particularly, Why did not Jesus after his resurrection appear openly to the chief priests and rulers of the Jews? Since his commission related to them in an especial manner, why were not his credentials laid before them? The resurrection is acknowledged to be the chief proof of his mission; why then was it concealed from those who were more than all others concerned in the event of his mission? Suppose an ambassador from some foreign prince should come into England, make his public entry through the city, pay and receive visits, and at last refuse to show any letters of credence, or to wait on the king, what would you think of him? Whatever you would think in that case, you must think in this; for there is no difference between them.

But we must take the evidence as it is. It was thought proper, in this case, to have select chosen witnesses; and we must now consider who they were, and what reason we have to take their word.

The first witness was an angel, or angels. They appeared like men to some women who went early to the sepulchre. If they appeared like men, on what ground are we to take them for angels? The women saw men, and therefore they can witness only to the seeing of men. But I suppose it is the women's judgment, and not their evidence, that we are to follow in this case. Here then we have a story of one apparition to support the credit of another apparition: and the first apparition hath not so much as the evidence of the women to support it, but is grounded on

their superstition, ignorance, and fear. Every country can afford an hundred instances of this kind; and there is this common to them all, that as learning and common sense prevail in any country, they die away, and are no more heard of.

The next witnesses are the women themselves. The wisest men can hardly guard themselves against the fears of superstition; poor silly women therefore in this case must needs be unexceptionable witnesses, and fit to be admitted into the number of the chosen witnesses to attest this fact. One part of the account given of them is very rational, that they were surprised and frightened beyond measure; and I leave it to your Lordship and the court to judge, how well qualified they were to give a just relation of what passed.

After this, Jesus appears to two of his disciples as they were on a journey; he joins them, and introduces a discourse about himself, and spent much time, till it began to grow dark, in expounding the prophecies relating to the death and resurrection of the Messias. All this while the disciples knew him not. But then going into a house to lodge together, at supper he broke bread, and gave it to them; immediately they knew him, immediately he vanished. Here then are two witnesses more. But what will you call them? eye-witnesses? Why their eyes were open, and they had their senses, when he reasoned with them, and they knew him not. So far therefore they are witnesses that it was not he. Tell us therefore upon what account you reject the evidence of their sense bebefore the breaking of the bread, and insist on it afterwards? And why did Jesus vanish as soon as known; which has more of the air of an appa

rition than of the appearance of a real man restored to life?

Cleopas, who was one of these two disciples, finds out the apostles, to make the report of what had passed, to them. No sooner was the story told, but Jesus appears among them. They were all frightened and confounded, and thought they saw a spectre. He rebukes them for infidelity, and their slowness in believing the prophecies of his resurrection: and though he refused before to let the women touch him, (a circumstance which I ought not to have omitted,) yet now he invites the apostles to handle him, to examine his hands and feet, and search the wounds of the cross. But what body was it they examined? The same that came in when the doors were shut; the same that vanished from the two disciples; the same that the women might not touch: in a word, a body quite different from a human body, which we know cannot pass through walls, or appear or disappear at pleasure. What then could their hands or eyes inform them of in this case? Besides, is it credible that God should raise a body imperfectly, with the very wounds in it of which it died? Or, if the wounds were such as destroyed the body before, how could a natural body subsist with them afterwards?

There are more appearances of Jesus recorded; but so much of the same kind, so liable to the same difficulties and objections, that I will not trouble your Lordship and the court with a distinct enumeration of them. If the gentleman on the other side finds any advantage in any of them more than in these mentioned, I shall have an opportunity to consider them in my reply.

It may seem surprising to you, perhaps, that a

matter of this moment was trusted upon such evidence as this: but it will be still more surprising to consider, that the several nations who received the gospel, and submitted to the faith of this article, had not even this evidence: for what people or nation had the evidence of the angels, the women, or even of all the apostles? So far from it, that every country had its single apostle, and received the faith on the credit of his single evidence. We have followed our ancestors without inquiry; and if you examine the thing to the bottom, our belief was originally built on the word of one man.

I shall trouble you, sir, but with one observation more, which is this: that although in common life we act in a thousand instances on the faith and credit of human testimony, yet the reason for so doing is not the same in the case before us. In common affairs, where nothing is asserted but what is probable and possible, and according to the usual course of nature, a reasonable degree of evidence ought to determine every man for the very probability or possibility of the thing is a support to the evidence; and in such cases we have no doubt but a man's senses qualify him to be a witness. But when the thing testified is contrary to the order of nature, and, at first sight at least, impossible, what evidence can be sufficient to overturn the constant evidence of nature, which she gives us in the uniform and regular method of her operations? If a man tells me he has been in France, I ought to give a reason for not believing him; but if he tells me he comes from the grave, what reason can he give why I should believe him? In the case before us, since the body raised from the grave differed from common natural bodies, as we have before seen, how can I be assured

that the apostles' senses qualified them to judge at all of his body-whether it was the same, or not the same which was buried? They handled the body, which yet could pass through doors and walls; they saw it, and sometimes knew it, at other times knew it not. In a word, it seems to be a case exempt from human evidence. Men have limited senses, and a limited reason: when they act within their limits, we may give credit to them; but when they talk of things removed beyond the reach of their senses and reason, we must quit our own, if we believe theirs.

Mr. B. My Lord, in answering the objections under this head, I shall find myself obliged to change the order in which the gentleman thought proper to place them. He began with complaining, that Christ did not appear publicly to the Jews after his resurrection, and especially to the chief priests and rulers; and seemed to argue, as if such evidence would have put the matter in question out of all doubt: but he concluded with an observation, to prove that no evidence in this case can be sufficient; that a resurrection is a thing in nature impossible, at least impossible to be proved to the satisfaction of a rational inquirer. If this be the case, why does he require more evidence, since none can be sufficient? Or to what purpose is it to vindicate the particular evidence of the resurrection of Christ, so long as this general prejudice, that a resurrection is incapable of being proved, remains unremoved? I am under a necessity therefore to consider this observation in the first place, that it may not lie as a dead weight on all I have to offer in support of the evidence of Christ's resurrection.

The gentleman allows it to be reasonable, in