CHAPTER IV.

On the Testimony of the Original Witnesses to the Truth of the Gospel Narrative.

III. THERE was nothing in the situation | parted from, and no object of veneration of the New Testament writers, which leads abandoned. It did not involve in it the deus to perceive that they had any possible in-nial or relinquishment of our own gods, but ducement for publishing a falsehood. only the addition of so many more gods to

We have not to allege the mere testimo- our catalogue. ny of the Christian writers, for the danger In this respect, however, the Jews stood to which the profession of Christianity ex-distinguished from every other people withposed all its adherents at that period. We in the limits of the Roman empire. Their have the testimony of Tacitus to this effect. religious belief carried in it something more We have innumerable allusions, or express than attachment to their own system. It intimations, of the same circumstance in the carried in it the contempt and detestation Roman historians. The treatment and per- of every other. Yet, in spite of this circumsecution of the Christians make a principle stance, their religion was protected by the figure in the affairs of the empire; and there mild and equitable toleration of the Roman is no point better established in ancient his-government. The truth is, that there was tory, than that the bare circumstance of nothing in the habits or character of the being a Christian, brought many to the Jews, which was calculated to give much punishment of death, and exposed all to disturbance to the establishinents of other the danger of a suffering the most appalling countries. Though they admitted converts and repulsive to the feelings of our nature. from other nations, yet their spirit of proseIt is not difficult to perceive, why the lytism was far from being of that active Roman government, in its treatment of or adventurous kind, which could alarm the Christians, departed from its usual princi-Roman government for the safety of any ples of toleration. We know it to have existing institutions. Their high and exbeen their uniform practice, to allow every clusive veneration for their own system indulgence to the religious belief of those gave an unsocial disdain to the Jewish different countries in which they estab-character, which was not at all inviting to lished themselves. The truth is, that such foreigners; but still, as it led to nothing an indulgence demanded of them no ex-mischievous in point of effect, it seems to ertion of moderation or principle. It was have been overlooked by the Roman governquite consonant with the Spirit of Pagan-ment as a piece of impotent vanity. ism. A different country worshipped differ- But the case was widely different with ent gods, but it was a general principle of the Christian system. It did not confine Paganism, that each country had its gods, itself to the denial or rejection of every to which the inhabitants of that country other system. It was for imposing its own owed their peculiar homage and veneration. exclusive authority over the consciences In this way there was no interference be- of all, and for detaching as many as it tween the different religions which prevail- could from their allegiance to the religion ed in the world. It fell in with the policy of their own country. It carried on its of the Roman government to allow the full-forehead all the offensive characters of a est toleration to other religions, and it de-monopoly, and not merely excited resentmanded no sacrifice of principle. It was ment by the supposed arrogance of its preeven a dictate of principle with them to tensions, but from the rapidity and extent respect the gods of other countries; and the of its innovations, spread an alarm over the violation of a religion different from their whole Roman empire for the security of al own, seems to have been felt, not merely its establishments. Accordingly, at the com as a departure from policy or justice, but to mencement of its progress, so long as it was be viewed with the same sentiment of hor-confined to Judea and the immediate neighror which is annexed to blasphemy or sacri- bourhood, it seems to have been in perfect lege. So long as we were under Paganism, safety from the persecution of the Roman the truth of one religion did not involve in government. It was at first looked upon as a it the falsehood or rejection of another. In mere modification of Judaism, and that the respecting the religion of another country, first Christians differed from the rest of their we did not abandon our own; nor did it countrymen only in certain questions of follow, that the inhabitants of that other their own superstition. For a few years after country annexed any contempt or discredit the crucifixion of our Saviour, it seems to to the religion in which we had been edu- have excited no alarm on the part of the Rocated. In this mutual reverence for the man emperors, who did not depart from religion of each other, no principle was de- their usual maxims of toleration, till they

began to understand the magnitude of its | luntary martyrdom in the cause of their pretensions, and the unlooked for success religion? which attended them.

Having premised these observations, we In the course of a very few years after its offer the following alternative to the mind first promulgation, it drew upon it the hos-of every candid inquirer. The first Christility of the Roman government; and the tians either delivered a sincere testimony, fact is undoubted, that some of its first or they imposed a story upon the world teachers, who announced themselves to be which they knew to be a fabrication. the companions of our Saviour, and the eye-witnesses of the remarkable events in his history, suffered martyrdom for their adherence to the religion which they taught.

The disposition of the Jews to the religion of Jesus was no less hostile; and it manifested itself at a still earlier stage of the business. The causes of this hostility are obvious to all who are in the slightest degree conversant with the history of those times. It is true, that the Jews did not at all times possess the power of life and death; nor was it competent for them to bring the Christians to execution by the exercise of legal authority. Still, however, their powers of mischief were considerable. Their wishes had always a certain controul over the measures of the Roman governor ; and we know, that it was this controul which was the means of extorting from Pilate the unrighteous sentence by which the very first teacher of our religion was brought to a cruel and ignominious death. We also know, that under Herod Agrippa the power of life and death was vested in a Jewish sovereign, and that this power was actually exerted against the most distinguished Christians of that time. Add to this, that the Jews had, at all times, the power of inflicting the lesser punishments. They could whip, they could imprison. Besides all this, the Christians had to brave the frenzy of an enraged multitude; and some of them actually suffered martyrdom in the violence of the popular commotions.

The persecutions to which the first Christians voluntarily exposed themselves, compel us to adopt the first part of the alternative. It is not to be conceived, that a man would resign fortune, and character, and life, in the assertion of what he knew to be a falsehood. The first Christians must have believed their story to be true; and it only remains to prove, that if they believed it to be true, it must be true indeed.

A voluntary martyrdom must be looked upon as the highest possible evidence which it is in the power of man to give of his sincerity. The martyrdom of Socrates has never been questioned, as an undeniable proof of the sincere devotion of his mind to the principles of that philosophy for which he suffered. The death of Archbishop Cranmer will be allowed by all to be a decisive evidence of his sincere rejection of what he conceived to be the errors of Popery, and his thorough conviction in the truth of the opposite system. When the council of Geneva burnt Servetus, no one will question the sincerity of the latter's belief, however much he may question the truth of it. Now, in all these cases, the proof goes no farther than to establish the sincerity of the martyr's belief. It goes but a little way, indeed, in establishing the justness of it. This is a different question. A man may be mistaken, though he be sincere. His errors, if they are not seen to be such, will exercise all the influence and authority of truth over him. Martyrs have bled on the opposite sides of the question. Nothing is more evident than the utter It is impossible, then, to rest on this cirdisgrace which was annexed by the world cumstance as an argument for the truth of at large to the profession of Christianity at either system; but the argument is always that period. Tacitus calls it "superstitio deemed incontrovertible, in as far as it goes exitiabilis," and accuses the Christians of to establish the sincerity of each of the parenmity to mankind. By Epictetus and ties, and that both died in the firm convicothers, their heroism is termed obstinacy,tion of the doctrines which they professed. and it was generally treated by the Roman governors as the infatuation of a miserable and despised people. There was none of that glory annexed to it which blazes around the martyrdom of a patriot or a philosopher. That constancy, which, in another case, would have made them, illustrious, was held to be a contemptible folly, which only exposed them to the derision and insolence of the multitude. A name and a reputation in the world might sustain the dying moments of Socrates or Regulus; but what earthly principles can account for the intrepidity of those poor and miserable outcasts, who consigned themselves to a vo

Now, the martyrdom of the first Christians stands distinguished from all other examples by this circumstance, that it not merely proves the sincerity of the martyr's belief, but it also proves that what he believed was true. In other cases of martyrdom, the sufferer, when he lays down his life, gives his testimony to the truth of an opinion. In the case of the Christians, when they laid down their lives, they gave their testimony to the truth of a fact of which they affirmed themselves to be the eye and the ear witnesses. The sincerity of both testimonies is unquestionable; but it is only in the latter case that the truth of the testi

mony follows as a necessary consequence | founding a new faith; but what glory did of its sincerity. An opinion comes under the latter propose to themselves from being the cognizance of the understanding, ever the dupes of an imposition so ruinous to liable, as we all know, to error and delusion. every earthly interest, and held in such A fact comes under the cognizance of the low and disgraceful estimation by the world senses, which have ever been esteemed as at large? Abandon the teachers of Chrisinfallible, when they give their testimony to tianity to every imputation which infidelity, such plain, and obvious, and palpable appear-on the rack for conjectures to give plausiances, as those which make up the evangelical story. We are still at liberty to question the philosophy of Socrates, or the orthodoxy of Cranmer and Servetus; but if we were told by a Christian teacher in the solemnity of his dying hour, and with the dreadful apparatus of martyrdom before him, that he saw Jesus after he had risen from the dead; that he conversed with him many days; that he put his hand into the print of his sides; and, in the ardour of his joyful conviction, exclaimed, "My Lord, and my God!" we should feel that there was no truth in the world, did this language and this testimony deceive us.

bility to its system, can desire, how shall we explain the concurrence of its disciples? There may be a glory in leading, but we see no glory in being led. If Christianity were false, and Paul had the effrontery to appeal to his five hundred living witnesses, whom he alleges to have seen Christ after his resurrection, the submissive acquiescence of his disciples remains a very inexplicable circumstance. The same Paul, in his epistles to the Corinthians, tells them that some of them had the gift of healing, and the power of working miracles; and that the signs of an apostle had been wrought among them in wonders and If Christianity be not true, then the first mighty deeds. A man aspiring to the glory Christians must have been mistaken as to of an accredited teacher, would never have the subject of their testimony. This suppo- committed himself on a subject, where his sition is destroyed by the nature of the sub-falsehood could have been so readily exject. It was not testimony to a doctrine posed. And in the veneration with which which might deceive the understanding. It we know his epistles to have been preserved was something more than testimony to a by the church of Corinth, we have not dream, or a trance, or a midnight fancy, merely the testimony of their writer to the which might deceive the imagination. It truth of the Christian miracles, but the teswas testimony to a multitude, and a succes- timony of a whole people, who had no insion of palpable facts, which could never terest in being deceived. have deceived the senses, and which pre- Had Christianity been false, the reputaclude all possibility of mistake, even though tion of its first teachers lay at the mercy of it had been the testimony only of one indi- every individual among the numerous providual. But when, in addition to this, we selytes which they had gained to their sysconsider, that it is the testimony, not of one tem. It may not be competent for an unbut of many individuals; that it is a story lettered peasant to detect the absurdity of a repeated in a variety of forms, but substan- doctrine; but he can at all times lift his tially the same; that it is the concurring testimony against a fact, said to have haptestimony of different eye-witnesses, or the pened in his presence, and under the obcompanions of eye-witnesses-we may, af-servation of his senses. Now it so happens, ter this, take refuge in the idea of falsehood that in a number of the epistles, there are and collusion; but it is not to be admitted, allusions to, or express intimations of, the that these eight different writers of the miracles that had been wrought in the difNew Testament, could have all blundered ferent churches to which these epistles are the matter with such method, and such addressed. How comes it, if it be all a fauniformity. brication, that it was never exposed? We We know, that, in spite of the magnitude know, that some of the disciples were of their sufferings, there are infidels, who, driven, by the terrors of persecuting viodriven from the first part of the alternative, lence, to resign their profession. How have recurred to the second, and have af- should it happen, that none of them ever firmed, that the glory of establishing a new attempted to vindicate their apostacy, by religion, induced the first Christians to as- laying open the artifice and insincerity of sert, and to persist in asserting, what they their Christian teachers? We may be sure knew to be a falsehood. But (though we that such a testimony would have been should be anticipating the last branch of the highly acceptable to the existing authorities argument) they forget, that we have the of that period. The Jews would have concurrence of two parties to the truth of made the most of it; and the vigilant and Christianity, and that it is the conduct only discerning officers of the Roman governof one of the parties, which can be account- ment would not have failed to turn it to aced for by the supposition in question. The count. The mystery would have been extwo parties are the teachers and the taught. posed and laid open, and the curiosity of The former may aspire to the glory of latter ages would have been satisfied as to

the wonderful and unaccountable steps by ated, by martyrdom, the guilt which they which a religion could make such head in felt they had incurred by their dereliction the world, though it rested its whole autho- of the truth. This furnishes a strong exrity on facts, the falsehood of which was ample of the power of conviction, and accessible to all who were at the trouble to when we join with it, that it is conviction inquire about them. But no! We hear of in the integrity of those teachers who apno such testimony from the apostates of pealed to miracles which had been wrought that period. We read of some, who, ago-among them, it appears to us a testimony nized at the reflection of their treachery, in favour of our religion which is altogether returned to their first profession, and expi-irresistible.

CHAPTER V.

On the Testimony of Subsequent Witnesses.

IV. BUT this brings us to the last division | were either agents or eye-witnesses of the of the argument, viz. that the leading facts transactions recorded, who could not be in the history of the Gospel are corroborated by the testimony of others.

deceived, who had no interest, and no glory to gain by supporting a falsehood, and who, by their sufferings in the cause of what they professed to be their belief, gave the highest evidence that human nature can give of sincerity.

of his testimony to its truth. A third historian perhaps goes over the same ground, and lends another confirmation to the history. And it is thus, by collecting all the lights which are thinly scattered over the tract of ages and of centuries, that we obtain all the evidence which can be got, and all the evidence that is generally wished for.

The evidence we have already brought forward for the antiquity of the New Testament, and the veneration in which it was held from the earliest ages of the church, is an implied testimony of all the Christians In this circumstance, it may be perceivof that period to the truth of the Gospel his- ed how much the evidence for Christianity tory. By proving the authenticity of St. goes beyond all ordinary historical eviPaul's Epistles to the Corinthians, we not dence. A profane historian relates a semerely establish his testimony to the truthries of events which happen in a particuof the Christian miracles,-we establish the lar age; and we count it well, if it be his additional testimony of the whole church own age, and if the history which he gives of Corinth, who would never have respect-us be the testimony of a contemporary aued these Epistles, if Paul had ventured thor. Another historian succeeds him at upon a falsehood so open to detection, as the distance of years, and, by repeating the the assertion, that miracles were wrought same story, gives the additional evidence among them, which not a single individual ever witnessed. By proving the authenticity of the New Testament at large, we secure, not merely that argument, which is founded on the testimony and concurrence of its different writers, but also the testimony of those immense multitudes, who, in distant countries, submitted to the New Testament as the rule of their faith. The testimony of the teachers, whether we take into consideration the subject of that testimony, or the circumstances under which it was delivered, is of itself a stronger argument for the truth of the Gospel history, than can be alleged for the truth of any other history, which has been transmitted down to us from ancient times. The concurrence of the taught carries along with it a host of additional testimonies, which gives an evidence to the evangelical story, that is altogether unexampled. On a point of ordinary history, the testimony of Tacitus is held decisive, because it is not contradicted. The history of the New Testament is not only not contradicted, but confirmed by the strongest possible expressions which men can give of their acquiescence in its truth; by thousands who

Now, there is room for a thousand presumptions, which, if admitted, would overturn the whole of this evidence. For any thing we know, the first historians may have had some interest in disguising the truth, or substituting in its place a falsehood, and a fabrication. True, it has not been contradicted, but they form a very small number of men, who feel strongly or particularly interested in a question of history. The literary and speculative men of that age may have perhaps been engaged in other pursuits, or their testimonies may have perished in the wreck of centuries. The second historian may have been so far removed in point of time from the events of his narratives, that he can furnish us, not with an independent, but with a derived testimony. He may have copied his ac

count from the original historian, and the the Christian miracles? There is nothing falsehood have come down to us in the like this in common history, the formashape of an authentic and well-attested his-tion of a society, which can only be extory. Presumptions may be multiplied with-plained by the history of the Gospel, and out end; yet in spite of them, there is a where the conduct of every individual furnatural confidence in the veracity of man,nishes a distinct pledge and evidence of its which disposes us to as firm a belief in truth. And to have a full view of the argumany of the facts of ancient history, as in ment, we must reflect, that it is not one, but the occurrences of the present day. many societies, scattered over the different The history of the Gospel, however, countries of the world; that the principle stands distinguished from all other history upon which each society was formed, was by the uninterrupted nature of its testimony, the divine authority of Christ and his aposwhich carries down its evidence, without a tles, resting upon the recorded miracles of chasm, from its earliest promulgation to the the New Testament; that these miracles present day. We do not speak of the su- were wrought with a publicity, and at a perior weight and splendour of its evidences, nearness of time, which rendered them acat the first publication of that history, as be- cessible to the inquiries of all, for upwards ing supported, not merely by the testimony of half a century; that nothing but the of one, but by the concurrence of several power of conviction could have induced the independent witnesses. We do not speak people of that age to embrace a religion so of its subsequent writers, who follow one disgraced and so persecuted; that every another in a far closer and more crowded temptation was held out for its disciples train, than there is any other example of in to abandon it; and that though some of the history or literature of the world. We them, overpowered by the terrors of punspeak of the strong though unwritten testi-ishment, were driven to apostacy, yet not mony of its numerous proselytes, who, in one of them has left us a testimony which the very fact of their proselytism, give the can impeach the miracles of Christianity, or strongest possible confirmation to the Gos- the integrity of its first teachers. pel, and fill up every chasm in the recorded evidence of past times.

It may be observed, that in pursuing the line of continuity from the days of the apostles, the written testimonies for the truth of the Christian miracles follow one another in closer succession, than we have any other example of in ancient history. But what gives such peculiar and unprecedented evidence to the history of the Gospel is, that in the concurrence of the multitudes who embraced it, and in the existence of those numerous churches and societies of men who espoused the profession of the Christian faith, we cannot but perceive, that every small interval of time between the written testimonies of authors is filled up by materials so strong and so firmly cemented, as to present us with an unbroken chain of evidence, carrying as much authority along with it, as if it had been a diurnal record, commencing from the days of the apostles, and authenticated through its whole progress by the testimony of thousands.

In the written testimonies for the truth of the Christian religion, Barnabas comes next in order to the first promulgators of the evangelical story. He was a contemporary of the apostles, and writes a very few years after the publication of the pieces which make up the New Testament. Clement follows, who was a fellow-labourer of Paul, and writes an epistle in the name of the church of Rome, to the church of Corinth. The written testimonies follow one another with a closeness and a rapidity of which there is no example; but what we insist on at present, is the unwritten and implied testimony of the people who composed these two churches. There can be no fact better established, than that these two churches were planted in the days of the apostles, and that the Epistles which were respectively addressed to them, were held in the utmost authority and veneration. There is no doubt, that the leading facts of Every convert to the Christian faith in the Gospel history were familiar to them; those days, gives one additional testimony that it was in the power of many individu- to the truth of the Gospel history. Is he a als amongst them to verify these facts, Gentile? The sincerity of his testimony is either by their own personal observation, or approved by the persecutions, the sufferby an actual conversation with eye-witness-ings, the danger, and often the certainty of es; and that in particular, it was in the martyrdom, which the profession of Chrispower of almost every individual in the tianity incurred. Is he a Jew? The sinchurch of Corinth, either to verify the miracles which St. Paul alludes to, in his epistle to that church, or to detect and expose the imposition, had there been no foundation for such an allusion. What do we see in all this, but the strongest possible testimony of a whole people to the truth of

cerity of his testimony is approved by all these evidences, and in addition to them by this well known fact, that the faith and doctrine of Christianity were in the highest degree repugnant to the wishes and prejudices of that people. It ought never to be forgotten, that in as far as Jews are concerned