the numerous and concurring testimonies | becoming a Christian in consequence of it. of nearer and contemporary writers. But Yet the moment that this transition is be this as it may, let us suppose that Taci-made-a transition by which, in point of tus had thrown one particular more into his fact, his testimony becomes stronger—in testimony, and that his sentence had run point of impression it becomes less; and, thus; "They had their denomination from by a delusion, common to the infidel and Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was the believer, the argument is held to be put to death as a criminal by the procura- weakened by the very circumstance which tor Pontius Pilate, and who rose from the imparts greater force to it. The elegant and dead on the third day after his execution, accomplished scholar becomes a believer. and ascended into heaven." Does it not The truth, the novelty, the importance of strike every body, that however true the this new subject, withdraw him from every last piece of information may be, and how- other pursuit. He shares in the common ever well established by its proper historians, enthusiasm of the cause, and gives all his this is not the place where we can expect talents and eloquence to the support of it. to find it? If Tacitus did not believe the Instead of the Roman historian, Tacitus resurrection of our Saviour, (which is pro- comes down to posterity in the shape of a bably the case, as he never, in all likelihood, Christian father, and the high authority of paid any attention to the evidence of a faith his name is lost in a crowd of similar testiwhich he was led to regard, from the outset, monies. as a pernicious superstition, and a mere modification of Judaism,) it is not to be supposed that such an assertion could ever have been made by him. If Tacitus did believe the resurrection of our Saviour, he gives us an example of what appears not to have been uncommon in these ages-he gives us an example of a man adhering to that system which interest and education recommended, in opposition to the evidence of a miracle which he admitted to be true. Still, even on this supposition, it is the most unlikely thing in the world, that he would have admitted the fact of our Saviour's resurrection into his history. It is most improbable, that a testimony of this kind would have been given, even though the resurrection of Jesus Christ be admitted; and, therefore, the want of this testimony carries in it no argument that the resurrection is a falsehood. If, however, in opposition to all probability, this testimony had been given, it would have been appealed to as a most striking confirmation of the main fact of the evangelical history. It would have figured away in all our elementary treatises, and been referred to as a master argument in every exposition of the evidences of Christianity. Infidels would have been challenged to believe in it on the strength of their own favourite evidence, the evidence of a classical historian; and must have been at a loss how to dispose of this fact, when they saw an unbiassed heathen giving his round and unqualified testimony in its fa vour. Let us now carry the supposition a step farther. Let us conceive that Tacitus not only believed the fact, and gave his testimony to it, but that he believed it so far as to become a Christian. Is his testimony to be refused, because he gives this evidence of its sincerity? Tacitus asserting the fact, and remaining a heathen, is not so strong an argument for the truth of our Saviour's resurrection, as Tacitus asserting the fact and A direct testimony to the miracles of the New Testament from the mouth of a heathen, is not to be expected. We cannot satisfy this demand of the infidel; but we can give him a host of much stronger testimonies than he is in quest of the testimonies of those men who were heathens, and who embraced a hazardous and a disgraceful profession, under a deep conviction of those facts to which they gave their testimony. "O, but you now land us in the testimony of Christians!" This is very true; but it is the very fact of their being Christians in which the strength of the argument lies: and in each of the numerous fathers of the Christian church, we see a stronger testimony than the required testimony of the heathen Tacitus. We see men who, if they had not been Christians, would have risen to as high an eminence as Tacitus in the literature of the times; and whose direct testimonies to the gospel history would, in that case, have been most impressive, even to the mind of an infidel. And are these testimonies to be less impressive, because they were preceded by conviction, and sealed by martyrdom? Yet though, from the nature of the case, no direct testimony to the Christian miracles from a heathen can be looked for, there are heathen testimonies which form an important accession to the Christian argument. Such are the testimonies to the state of Judea; the testimonics to those numerous particulars in government and cus toms, which are so often alluded to in the New Testament, and give it the air of an authentic history; and above all, the testimonies to the sufferings of the primitive Christians, from which we learn, through a channel clear of every suspicion, that Christianity, a religion of facts, was the object of persecution at a time, when eye-witnesses taught and eye-witnesses must have bled for it. The silence of Jewish and heathen wri ters, when the true interpretation is given | impress on every person, who is at the trouto it, is all on the side of the Christian argu- ble of making the comparison, the truth of ment. Even though the miracles of the the evangelical story. Gospel had been believed to be true, it is If we are to look for direct testimonies to most unlikely that the enemies of the Chris- the miracles of the New Testament, we tian religion would have given their testi- must look to that quarter, where alone it mony to them; and the absence of this tes- would be reasonable to expect them,-to timony is no impeachment therefore upon the writings of the Christian fathers, men the reality of these miracles. But if the who were not Jews or heathens at the momiracles of the Gospel had been believed to ment of recording their testimony; but who be false, it is most likely that this falsehood had been Jews or heathens, and who, in would have been asserted by the Jews and their transition to the ultimate state of heathens of that period; and the circum- Christians, give a stronger evidence of instance of no such assertion having been tegrity, than if they had believed these migiven, is a strong argument for the reality racles, and persisted in a cowardly adheof these miracles. Their silence in not as-rence to the safest profession. serting the miracles, is perfectly consistent with their truth; but their silence in not denying them, is not at all consistent with their falsehood. The entire silence of Josephus upon the subject of Christianity, though he wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, and gives us the history of that period in which Christ and his apostles lived, is certainly a very striking circumstance. The sudden progress of Christianity at that time, and the fame of its miracles, (if not | the miracles themselves,) form an important part of the Jewish history. How came Josephus to abstain from every particular respecting it? Will you reverse every principle of criticism, and make the silence of Josephus carry it over the positive testimony of the many historical documents which have come down to us? If you refuse every Christian testimony upon the subject, you will not refuse the testimony of Tacitus, who asserts, that this religion spread over Judea, and reached the city of Rome, and was looked upon as an evil of such importance, that it became the object of an authorised persecution by the Roman government; and all this several years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and before Josephus composed his history. Whatever opinion may be formed as to the truth of Christianity, certain it is, that its progress constituted an object of sufficient magnitude, to compel the attention of any historian who undertook the affairs of that period. How then shall we account for the scrupulous and determined exclusion of it from the history of Josephus? Had its miracles been false, this Jewish historian would gladly have exposed them. But its miracles were true, and silence was the only refuge of an antagonist, and his wisest policy. We do not undertake to satisfy every demand of the infidel. We think we do enough, if we prove that the thing demanded is most unlikely, even though the miracles should be true; and therefore that the want of it carries no argument against the truth of the miracles. But we do still more than this, if we prove that the testimonies which we actually possess are much stronger than the testimonies he is in quest of. And who can doubt this, when he reflects, that the true way of putting the case between the testimony of the Christian father, which we do have, and the testimony of Tacitus, which we do not have, is that the latter would be an assertion not followed up by that conduct, which would have been the best evidence of its sincerity; whereas the former is an assertion substantiated by the whole life, and by the decisive fact of the old profession having been renounced, and the new profession entered into,-a change where disgrace, and danger, and martyrdom were the consequences? But though we gather no direct testimony from Josephus, yet his history furnishes us with many satisfying additions to the Christian argument. In the details of policy and manners, he coincides in the main with the writers of the New Testament; and these coincidences are so numerous, and have so undesigned an appearance, as to Let us, therefore, enter into an examination of these testimonies. This subject has been in part anticipated, when we treated of the authenticity of the books of the New Testament. We have quotations and references to those books from five apostolic fathers, the companions of the original writers. We have their testimonies sustained and extended by their immediate successors; and as we pursued the crowded series of testimonies downwards, they become so numerous, and so explicit, as to leave no doubt on the mind of the inquirers, that the different books of the New Testament are the publications of the authors whose names they bear; and were received by the Christian world, as books of authority, from the first period of their appearance. Now, every sentence in a Christian father, expressive of respect for a book in the New Testament, is also expressive of his faith in its contents. It is equivalent to his testimony for the miracles recorded in it. In the language of the law, it is an act by which he homologates the record, and superinduces his own testimony to that of the original wri- | one other narrative of the life and miracles ters. It would be vain to attempt speaking of our Saviour had been composed, and, to of all these testimonies. It cost the assiduous Lardner many years to collect them. They are exhibited in his Credibility of the New Testament; and in the multitude of them, we see a power and a variety of evidence for the Christian miracles, which is quite unequalled in the whole compass of ancient history. give all the value to this additional testimony of which it is susceptible, let us suppose it to be the work of an apostle. By this last circumstance, we secure to its uttermost extent the advantage of an original testimony, the testimony of another eyewitness, and constant companion of our Saviour. Now, we ask, what would have been the fate of this performance? It would have been incorporated into the New Testament along with the other gospels. It may have been the Gospel according to Philip. It may have been the Gospel according to Bartholomew. At all events, the whole amount of the advantage would have been the substitution of five Gospels instead of four, and this addition, the want of which is so much complained of, would scarcely have been felt by the Christian, or acknowledged by the infidel, to strengthen the evidence of which we are already in possession. But to vary the supposition, let us suppose that the narrative wanted, instead of being the work of an apostle, had been the work of some other contemporary, who writes upon his own original knowledge of the subject, but was not so closely associated with Christ, or his immediate disciples, as to have his history admitted into the canonical scriptures. Had this history been But, in addition to these testimonies in the gross, for the truth of the evangelical history, have we no distinct testimonies to the individual facts which compose it? We have no doubt of the fact, that Barnabas was acquainted with the Gospel by Matthew, and that he subscribed to all the information contained in that history. This is a most valuable testimony from a contemporary writer; and a testimony which embraces all the miracles narrated by the evangelist. But, in addition to this, we should like if Barnabas, upon his own personal conviction, could assert the reality of any of these miracles. It would be multiplying the original testimonies; for he was a companion and a fellow-labourer of the apostles. We should have been delighted, if, in the course of our researches into the literature of past times, we had met with an authentic record, written by one of the five hundred, that are said to have seen our Saviour after his resurrection, and adding his own narrative of this event to the nar-preserved, it would have been transmitted ratives that have already come down to us. to us in a separate state; it would have Now, is any thing of this kind to be met stood out from among that collection of with in ecclesiastical antiquity? How much writings, which passes under the general of this kind of evidence are we in ac- name of the New Testament, and the additual possession of? and if we have not tional evidence thus afforded, would have enough to satisfy our keen appetite for evi- come down in the form most satisfactory to dence on a question of such magnitude, those with whom we are maintaining our how is the want of it to be accounted for? present argument. Yet though, in point of Let it be observed, then, that of the twen- form, the testimony might be more satisty-seven books which make up the New factory; in point of fact it would be less so. Testament, five are narrative or historical, It is the testimony of a less competent witviz. the four Gospels, and the Acts of the ness,-a witness who, in the judgment of Apostles, which relate to the life and mira- his contemporaries, wanted those accomcles of our Saviour, and the progress of plishments which entitled him to a place his religion through the world, for a good in the New Testament. There must be many years after his ascension into heaven. some delusion operating upon the underAll the rest, with the exception of the Re-standing, if we think that a circumstance, velation of St. John, are doctrinal or ad- which renders an historian less accredited monitory; and their main object is to ex-in the eyes of his own age, should render plain the principles of the new religion, or to impress its duties upon the numerous proselytes who had even at that early period been gained over to the profession of Christianity. Besides what we have in the New Testament, no other professed narrative of the miracles of Christianity has come down to us, bearing the marks of an authentic composition by any apostle, or any contemporary of the apostles. Now, to those, who regret this circumstance, we beg leave to submit the following observations. Suppose that him more accredited in the eyes of posterity. Had Mark been kept out of the New Testament, he would have come down to us in that form, which would have made his testimony more impressive to a superficial inquirer; yet there would be no good reason for keeping him out, but precisely that reason which should render his testimony less impressive. We do not complain of this anxiety for more evidence, and as much of it as possible; but it is right to be told, that the evidence we have is of far more value than the evidence demanded, and that, in the concurrence of four canoni- | of our present narratives. The demand of cal narratives, we see a far more effectual the christian world was withdrawn from the argument for the miracles of the New Tes-less esteemed, to the more esteemed histotament, than in any number of those sepa-ries of our Saviour. The former ceased to rate and extraneous narratives, the want of be read, and copies of them would be no which is so much felt, and so much com- longer transcribed or multiplied. We canplained of. not find the testimony we are in quest of, not because it was never given, but because the early Christians, who were the most competent judges of that testimony, did not think it worthy of being transmitted to us. That the New Testament is not one, but a collection of many testimonies, is what has been often said, and often acquiesced in. Yet even after the argument is formally acceded to, its impression is unfelt; and on this subject there is a great and an But, though the number of narratives be obstinate delusion, which not only confirms necessarily limited by the nature of the subthe infidel in his disregard to Christianity,ject, there is no such limitation upon works but even veils the strength of the evidence of a moral, didactic, or explanatory kind. from its warmest admirers. There is a difference between a mere narrative and a work of speculation or morality. The latter subjects embrace a wider range, admit a greater variety of illustration, and are quite endless in their application to the new cases that occur in the everchanging history of human affairs. The subject of a narrative again admits of being exhausted. It is limited by the number of actual events. True, you may expatiate upon the character or importance of these events, but, in so doing, you drop the office of a pure historian, for that of the politician, or the moralist, or the divine. The evangelists give us a very chaste and perfect example of the pure narrative. They never appear in their own persons, or arrest the progress of the history for a single moment, by interposing their own wisdom, or their own piety. A gospel is a bare relation of what has been said or done; and it is evident that, after a few good compositions of this kind, any future attempts would be superfluous and uncalled for. But, in point of fact, these attempts were made. It is to be supposed, that, after the singular events of our Saviour's history, the curiosity of the public would be awakened and there would be a demand for written accounts of such wonderful transactions. These written accounts were accordingly brought forward. Even in the interval of time between the ascension of our Saviour, and the publication of the earliest Gospel, such written histories seem to have been frequent. "Many," says St. Luke, (and in this he is supported by the testimony of subsequent writers,) "have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of these things." Now what has been the fate of all these performances? Such as might have been anticipated. They fell into disuse and oblivion. There is no evil design ascribed to the authors of them. They may have been written with perfect integrity, and been useful for a short time, and within a limited circle; but, as was natural, they all gave way to the superior authority, and more complete information, Many such pieces have come down to us, both from the apostles themselves, and from the earlier fathers of the church. Now, though the object of these compositions is not to deliver any narrative of the Christian miracles, they may perhaps give us some occasional intimation of them. They may proceed upon their reality. We may gather either from incidental passages, or from the general scope of the performance, that the miracles of Christ and his apostles were recognised, and the divinity of our religion acknowledged, as founded upon these miracles. The first piece of the kind with which we meet besides the writings of the New Testament, is an epistle ascribed to Barnabas, and, at all events, the production of a man who lived in the days of the apostles. It consists of an exhortation to constancy in the Christian profession, a dissuasive from Judaism, and other moral instructions. We shall only give a quotation of a single clause from this work. "And he (i. e. our Saviour) making great signs and prodigies to the people of the Jews, they neither believed nor loved him." The next piece in the succession of Christian writers, is the undoubted epistle of Clement, the bishop of Rome, to the church of Corinth, and who, by the concurrent voice of all antiquity, is the same Clement who is mentioned in the epistle to the Philippians, as the fellow-labourer of Paul. It is written in the name of the church of Rome, and the object of it is to compose certain dissensions which had arisen in the church of Corinth. It was out of his way to enter into any thing like a formal narrative of the miraculous facts which are to be found in the evangelical history. The subject of his epistle did not lead him to this; and besides the number and authority of the narratives already published, rendered an attempt of this kind altogether superfluous. Still, however, though a miracle may not be formally announced, it may be brought in incidentally, or it may be proceeded upon, or assumed as the basis of an argument. We give one or two examples of this. In one part of his epistle, he illus- | of every Christian, that a written expositrates the doctrine of our resurrection from tion of the argument was no longer necesthe dead, by the change and progression of sary,—but as a motive to constancy in the natural appearances, and he ushers in this Christian profession, and as the great pillar illustration with the following sentence: of hope in our own immortality. We ac"Let us consider, my beloved, how the cordingly meet with the most free and conLord shows us our future resurrection per- fident allusions to this fact in the early petually, of which he made the Lord Jesus fathers. We meet with five intimations Christ the first fruits, by raising him from of this fact in the undoubted epistle of the dead." This incidental way of bring- Polycarp to the Philippians: a father ing in the fact of our Lord's resurrection, who had been educated by the apostles, appears to us the strongest possible form and conversed with many who had seen in which the testimony of Clement could Christ. have come down to us. It is brought for- It is quite unnecessary to exhibit passaward in the most confident and unembar-ges from the epistles of Ignatius to the rassed manner. He does not stop to con- same effect, or to pursue the examination firm this fact by any strong asseveration, nor downwards through the series of written does he carry, in his manner of announcing testimonies. It is enough to announce it it, the most remote suspicion of its being as a general fact, that, in the very first age resisted by the incredulity of those to whom of the Christian church, the teachers of he is addressing himself. It wears the air this religion proceeded as confidently upon of an acknowledged truth, a thing under- the reality of Christ's miracles and resurstood and acquiesced in by all parties in this rection in their addresses to the people, as correspondence. The direct narrative of the teachers of the present day: Or, in other the evangelists give us their original testi- words, that they were as little afraid of bemony to the miracles of the Gospel. The ing resisted by the incredulity of the peoartless and indirect allusions of the apos-ple, at a time when the evidence of the tolic fathers, give us not merely their faith in this testimony, but the faith of the whole societies to which they write. They let us see, not merely that such a testimony was given, but that such a testimony was generally believed, and that too at a time when the facts in question lay within the memory of living witnesses. In another part, speaking of the apostles, Clement says, that "receiving the commandments, and being filled with full certainty by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and confirmed by the word of God, with the assurance of the Holy Spirit, they went out announcing the advent of the kingdom of God." facts was accessible to all, and habit and prejudice were against them, as we are of being resisted by the incredulity of an unlettered multitude, who listen to us with all the veneration of a hereditary faith. There are five apostolic fathers, and a series of Christian writers who follow after them in rapid succession. To give an idea to those who are not conversant in the study of ecclesiastical antiquities, how well sustained the chain of testimony is from the first age of Christianity, we shall give a passage from a letter of Irenæus, preserved by Eusebius. We have no less than nine compositions from different authors, which fill up the interval between him and Polycarp; and yet this is the way in which he speaks, in his old age, of the venerable Po It was no object in those days for a Christian writer to come over the miracles of the New Testament, with the view of lend-lycarp, in a letter to Florinus. "I saw you, ing his formal and explicit testimony to them. This testimony had already been completed to the satisfaction of the whole Christian world. If much additional testimony has not been given, it is because it was not called for. But we ought to see, that every Christian writer, in the fact of his being a Christian, in his expressed reverence for the books of the New Testament, and in his numerous allusions to the leading points of the Gospel history, has given as satisfying evidence to the truth of the Christian miracles, as if he had left behind him a copious and distinct narrative. Of all the miracles of the Gospel, it was to be supposed, that the resurrection of our Saviour would be oftenest appealed to; not as an evidence of his being a teacher, for that was a point so settled in the mind when I was very young, in the Lower Asia with Polycarp. For I better remember the affairs of that time than those which have lately happened; the things which we learn in our childhood growing up in the soul, and uniting themselves to it. Insomuch, that I can tell the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and taught, and his going out, and coming in, and the manner of his life, and the form of his person, and his discourses to the people; and how he related his conversation with John, and others who had seen the Lord; and how he related their sayings, and what he had heard from them concerning the Lord, both concerning his miracles and his doctrines, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life: all which Polycarp related agreeably to the Scriptures. These things I then, through the mercy of |
