Part 5

Suppose a man should tell you, that he was come from the dead, you would be apt to suspect his evidence. But what would you suspect? That he was not alive when you heard him, saw him, felt him, and conversed with him? You could not suspect this, without giving up all your senses and acting in this case as you act in no other. Here then you would question, whether the man had ever been dead? But would you say, that it is incapable of being made plain by human testimony, that this or that man died a year ago? It can't be said. Evidence in this case is admitted in all courts perpetually

Consider it the other way. Suppose you saw a man publicly executed, his body afterwards was wounded by the executioner, and carried and laid in the grave; that after this you should be told, that the man was come to life again; what would you suspect in this case? Not that the man had never been dead; for that you saw yourself: but you would suspect whether he was now alive. But would you say this case excluded all human testimony and that men could not possibly discern , whether one with whom they conversed familiarly was alive or no? Upon what ground could you say this? A man rising from the grave is an object of sense, and can give the same evidence of his being alive, as any other man in the world can give. So that a resurrection considered only as a fact to be proved by evidence, is a plain case; it requires no greater ability in the witnesses, than that they be able to distinguish between a man dead, and a man alive: a point in which I believe every man living thinks himself a judge.

I do allow that this case, and others of like nature, require more evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do. You may therefore require more evidence in these, than in other cases; but it is absurd to say, that such cases admit no evidence, when the things in question are manifestly objects of sense.

I allow further, that the Gentleman has rightly stated the difficulty upon the foot of common prejudice; and that it arises from hence, that such cases appear to be contrary to the course of nature. But I desire to consider what this course of nature is. Every man, from the lowest countryman to the highest philosopher frames to himself from his experience and observation, a notion of a course of nature; and is ready to say of everything reported to him that contradicts his experience, that it is contrary to nature. But will the Gentleman say, that everything is impossible or even improbable, that contradicts the notion which men frame to themselves of the course of nature? I think he will not say it. And if he will, he must say that water can never freeze; for it is absolutely inconsistent with the notion which men have of the course of nature, who live in the warm climates. And hence it appears, that when men talk of the course of nature, they really talk of their own prejudices and imaginations; and that sense and reason are not so much concerned in the case as the Gentleman imagines. For I ask, Is it from the evidence of sense, or the evidence of reason that people of warm climates think it contrary to nature, that water should grow solid, and become ice? As for sense, they see indeed that water with them is always liquid; but none of their senses tell them that it can never grow solid. As for reason, it can never so inform them; for right reason can never contradict the truth of things. Our senses then inform us rightly what the usual course of things is; but when we conclude that things cannot be otherwise, we outrun the information of our senses, and the conclusion stands upon prejudice, and not upon reason. And yet such conclusions form what is generally called the course of nature. And when men upon proper evidence and informations admit things contrary to this presupposed course of nature, they do not, as the Gentleman expresses it, quit their own sense and reason; but, in truth, they quit their own mistakes and prejudices.

In the case before us, the case of the resurrection, the great difficulty arises from the like prejudice. We all know by experience that all men die, and rise no more; therefore we conclude, that for a dead man to rise to life again, is contrary to the course of nature. And certainly it is contrary to the uniform and settled course of things. But if we argue from hence that it is contrary and repugnant to the real laws of nature and absolutely impossible on that account, we argue without any foundation to support us either from our senses or our reason. We cannot learn from our eyes, or feeling, or any other sense, that it is impossible for a dead body to live again; if we learn it at all, it must be from our reason; and yet what one maxim of reason is contradicted by the supposition of a resurrection? For my own part; when I consider how I live; that all animal motions necessary to my life are independent of my will; that my heart beats without my consent and without my direction; that digestion and nutrition are performed by methods to which I am not conscious; that my blood moves in a perpetual round, which is contrary to all known laws of motion: I cannot but think, that the preservation of my life, in every moment of it, is as great an act of power, as is necessary to raise a dead man to life. And whoever so far reflects upon his own being as to acknowledge that he owes it to a superior power, must needs think, that the same power which gave life to senseless matter at first, and set all the springs and movements a-going at the beginning, can restore life to dead body. For surely it is not a greater thing to give life to a body once dead, than to a body that never was alive.

In the next place must be considered the difficulties which the gentleman has laid before you, with regard to the nature of Christ's body after the resurrection. He has produced some passages which which, he thinks, imply, that the body was not a real natural body, but a mere phantom, or apparition: and thence concludes, that there being no real object of sense, there can be no evidence in the case.

Presumptions are of no weight against positive evidence; and every account of the resurrection assures us, that the body of Christ was seen, felt, and handled by many persons; who were called upon by Christ so to do, that they might be assured that he had flesh and bones, and was not a mere spectre, as they, in their first surprize, imagined him to be. It is impossible that they who give this account, should mean, by anything they report, to imply that he had no real body; it is certain, then, that when the Gentleman makes use of what they say to this purpose, he uses their sayings contrary to their meaning: for it is not pretended that they say, that Christ had not a real human body after the resurrection; nor is it pretended they had any such thought, except only upon the first surprize of seeing him, and before they had examined him with their eyes and hands. But something they have said, which the Gentleman, according to his notions of philosophy, thinks, implies that the body was not real. To clear this point, therefore, I must lay before you the passages referred to, and consider how justly the Gentleman reasons from them.

The first passage relates to Mary Magdalene, who, the first time she saw Christ, was going to embrace his feet, as the custom of the country was: Christ says to her, [John 20:17] Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and tell them, etc. Hence the gentleman concludes, that Christ's body was not such an one as would bear the touch. But how does he infer this? Is it from these words Touch me not? It cannot be: for thousands say it every day, without giving the least suspicion, that their bodies are not capable of being touched. The conclusion then must be built on those other words, For I have not yet ascended to my Father. but what have these words to do with the reality of his body? It might be real or not real, for anything that is here said. There is a difficulty in these words, and it may be hard to give the true sense of them; but there is no difficulty in seeing that they have no relation to the nature of Christ's body; for of his body nothing is said. The natural sense of the place as I collect, by comparing this passage with Matthew 28:9 is this. Mary Magdalene, upon seeing Jesus, fell at his feet, and laid hold of them and held them as if she meant never to let them go: Christ said to her, "Touch me not, or hang not about me now; you will have other opportunities of seeing me for I go not yet to my Father: lose no time then but go quickly with my message to my brethren." I am not concerned to support this particular interpretation of the passage; it is sufficient to my purpose, to show that the words cannot possibly relate to the nature of Christ's body one way or other.

The next passage relates to Christ's joining two of his disciples upon the road and conversing with them without being known by them: it grew dark, they pressed him to stay with them that night; he went in with them, broke bread, blessed it, and gave it them, and then they knew him; and immediately he disappeared.

The circumstance of disappearing, shall be considered under the next head, with other objections of the like kind. At present I shall only examine the other parts of this story, and inquire whether they afford any ground to conclude that the body of Christ was not a real one. Had this piece of history been related of any other person I think such suspicion could have risen. For what is there unnatural or uncommon in this account? Two men meet an acquaintance whom they thought dead: They converse with him for some time, without suspecting who he was; the very persuasion they were under that he was dead, contributed greatly to their not knowing him; besides, he appeared in a habit and form different from what he used when he conversed with them; appeared to them on a journey and walked with them side by side; in which situation no one of the company has a full view of another: afterwards, when they were at supper together, and lights brought in, they plainly discerned who he was. Upon this occasion, the Gentleman asks what sort of witnesses these are? eye-witnesses? No; before supper they were eye-witnesses, says the Gentleman, that the person whom they saw was not Christ: and then he demands a reason for our rejecting the evidence of their sense when they did not know Christ, and insisting on it when they did.

It is no uncommon thing for men to catch themselves and others by such notable acute questions, and to be led by the sprightliness of their imagination out of the road of truth and common sense. I beg leave to tell the Gentleman a short story, and then to ask him his own question. A certain Gentleman who had been some years abroad happened in his return to England through Paris to meet his own sister there. She was not expecting to see him there, nor he to see her, they conversed together with other company, at a publick house, for great part of a day, without knowing each other. At last the Lady began to shew great signs of disorder; her color came and went, and the eyes of the company were drawn toward her; and then she cried out, Oh my brother! and was hardly held from fainting. Suppose now this Lady were to depose upon oath in a court of justice that she saw her brother at Paris; I would ask the Gentleman, Whether he would object to the evidence, and say, that she was as good an eye-witness that her brother was not there, as that he was; and demand of the court, why they rejected the evidence of her senses when she did not know her brother, and were ready to believe it when she did. When the question is answered in this case, I desire only to have the benefit of it in the case now before you. But if you shall be of opinion, that there was some extraordinary power used on this occasion, and incline to think that the expression, their eyes were holden, imports as much; then the case will fall under the next article. In which

We are to consider Christ's vanishing out of sight; his coming in and going out when the doors were shut; and such like passages; which, as they fall under one consideration, so I shall speak to them together.

But it is necessary first to see what the Apostles affirm distinctly in their accounts of these facts; for I think more has been said for them, than ever they said, or intended to say for themselves. In one place [Luke 24:31] it is said, he vanished out of their sight. Which translation is corrected in the margin of our Bibles thus: He ceased to be seen of them. And the original imports no more. It is said in another place, that the disciples being together, and the doors shut, Jesus came and stood in the midst of them. How he came, is not said; much less is it said that he came through the door, or the keyhole; and for anything that is said to the contrary, he might come in at the door, though the disciples saw not the door open, nor him, till he was in the midst of them. But the Gentleman thinks these passages prove that the disciples saw no real body, but an apparition. I am afraid that the Gentleman, after all his contempt of apparitions, and the superstition on which they are founded, has fallen into the snare himself, and is arguing upon no better principles than the common notions which the vulgar have of apparitions. Why else does he imagine these passages to be inconsistent with the reality of Christ's body? Is there no way for a real body to disappear? Try the experiment now; do but put out the candles, we shall all disappear. If a man falls asleep in the day-time, all things disappear to him; his senses are all locked up; and yet all things about him continue to be real, and his senses continue perfect. As shutting out all rays of light would make all things disappear; so intercepting the rays of light from any particular body, would make that disappear. Perhaps something like this was the case; or perhaps something else, which we know not. But, be the case what it will, the Gentleman's conclusion is founded on no principle of true philosophy: for it does not follow that a body is not real because I lose sight of it suddenly. I shall be told, perhaps, that this way of accounting for the passages is as wonderful, and as much out of the common course of things, as the other. Perhaps it is so; and what then? Surely the Gentleman does not expect, that, in order to prove the reality of the greatest miracle that ever was, I should shew that there was nothing miraculous in it, but that everything happened according to the ordinary course of things. My only concern is, to shew, that these passages do not infer, that the body of Christ after the resurrection was no real body. I wonder the Gentleman did not carry his argument a little further, and prove, that Christ, before his death, had no real body; for we read, that when the multitude would have thrown him down a precipice, he went through the midst of them unseen. Now, nothing happened after his resurrection more unaccountable than this that happened before it; and if the argument be good at all, it will be good to prove, that there never was such a man as Jesus in the world. Perhaps the gentleman may think that this is a little too much to prove: and if he does, I hope he will quit the argument in one case as well as in the other; for difference there is none.

Hitherto we have been called upon to prove the reality of Christ's body, and that it was the same after the resurrection that was before: but the next objection complains, that the body was too much the same with that which was buried; for the Gentleman thinks that it had the same mortal wounds open and uncured of which he died. His observation is grounded upon the words which Christ uses to Thomas: [John 20:27] Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side. Is it here affirmed that Thomas did actually put his hand into his side, or so much as see his wounds fresh and bleeding? Nothing like it: but it is supposed from the words of Christ; for if he had no wounds, he would not have invited Thomas to probe them. Now, the meaning of Christ will best appear by an account of the occasion he had to use this speech. He had appeared to his disciples, in the absence of Thomas, and shewn them his hands and feet, which still had the marks of his crucifixion: the disciples report this to Thomas: he thought the thing impossible, and expressed his unbelief, as men are apt to do when they are positive, in a very extravagant manner: You talk, says he, of the prints of the nails in his hands and feet; for my part, says he, I'll never believe this thing, except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side. Now, in the first place, here is nothing said of open wounds; Thomas talks only of putting his finger into the print, that is, the scar of the nails, and thrusting his hand into his side. And, in common speech, to thrust an hand into any one's side does not signify to thrust it through the side into the bowels. Upon this interpretation of the words, which is a plain and natural one, the Gentleman's objection is quite gone. But suppose Thomas to mean what the Gentleman means; in that case the words of Christ are manifestly a severe reproach to him for his infidelity: Here, says Christ, are my hands and my side; take the satisfaction you require; thrust your fingers into my hands, your hand into my side; repeating to him his own words, and calling him to his own conditions; which, to a man beginning to see his extravagance, is of all rebukes the severest. Such forms of speech are used on many occasions, and are never understood to import that the thing proposed is proper, or always practicable. When the Grecian women reproached their sons with cowardice, and called to them as they were flying from the enemy, to come and hide themselves, like children as they were, in their mothers' wombs; he would be ridiculous who had asked the question, Whether the women really thought they could take their sons into their wombs again?

I have now gone through the objections which were necessarily to be removed before I could state the evidence in this case. I am sensible I have taken up too much of your time; but I have this to say in my excuse, That objections built on popular notions and prejudices, are easily conveyed to the mind in few words; and so conveyed, make strong impressions: but whoever answers the objections, must encounter all the notions to which they are allied, and to which they owe their strength; and it is well if with many words he can find admittance.

I come now to consider the evidence on which our belief of the resurrection stands. And here I am stopped again. A general exception is taken to the evidence, that it is imperfect, unfair; and a question is asked, Why did not Christ appear publickly to all the people, especially to the magistrates? Why were some witnesses culled and chosen out, and others excluded ? It may be sufficient perhaps to say, that where there are witnesses enow, no judge, no jury complains for want of more; and therefore, if the witnesses we have are sufficient, it is no objection that we have not others, and more. If three credible man attest a will, which are as many as the law requires, would any body ask, why all the town were not called to set their hands? But why were these witnesses culled and chosen out? Why? For this reason, that they might be good ones. Does not every wise men chuse proper witnesses to his deed and to his will? and does not a good choice of witnesses give strength to every deed? How comes it to pass, then, that the very thing which shuts out all suspicion in other cases should in this case only be of all others the most suspicious thing itself?

What reason there is to make any complaints on the behalf of the Jews, may be judged, in part, from what has already appeared. Christ suffered openly in their sight; and they were so well apprised of his prediction, that he should rise again, that they set a guard on his sepulchre; and from their guards they learned the truth. Every soldier was to them a witness of the resurrection of their own chusing. After this they had not one apostle,(which the Gentleman observes was the case of other people), but all the apostles, and many other witnesses with them, and in their power. The apostles testified the resurrection to them; not only to the people, but to the elders of Israel assembled in Senate: to support their evidence they were enabled to work, and did work miracles openly in the name of Christ. These people therefore have the least reason to complain; and had of all others the fullest evidence; and in some respects such as none but themselves could have, for they only were keepers of the sepulchre.I believe, if the gentleman was to chuse an evidence to his own satisfaction in a like case, he would desire no more, than to keep the sepulchre, with a sufficient number of guards.

But the argument goes further. It is said, that Jesus was sent with a special commission to the Jews; that he was their Messias; and as his resurrection was his main credential, he ought to have appeared publickly to the rulers of the Jews after his resurrection: that in doing otherwise, he acted like an ambassador pretending authority from his prince, but refusing to show his letters of credence.

I was afraid, when I suffered myself to be drawn into this argument, that I should be led into matters fitter to be decided by men of another profession, than by lawyers. But since there is no help now, I will lay before you what appears to me to be the natural and plain account of this matter; leaving it to others, who are better qualified, to give a fuller answer to the objection.

It appears to me, by the accounts we have of Jesus, that he had two distinct offices: one, as the Messias particularly promised to the Jews; another, as he was to be the great high priest of the world. With respect to the first office, he is called [Heb. 3:1] the apostle of the Hebrews; the [Rom. 15:8] minister of the circumcision; and says himself, [Matt 15:24] I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Isreal. Accordingly, when he sent out his Apostles in his lifetime to preach, he expressly forbids them to go to the Gentiles or Samaritans; but go, [Matt. 10:6] says he, to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Christ continued in the discharge of this office during the time of his natural life, till he was finally rejected by the Jews. And it is observable, that the last time he spoke to the people according to St. Matthew's account, he solemnly took leave of them, and closed his commission. He had been long among them publishing glad tidings; but when all his preaching, all his miracles, had proved to be in vain, the last thing he did was, to denounce the woes they had brought on themselves. The 23d chapter of St. Matthew recites these woes; and at the end of them Christ takes this passionate leave of Jerusalem: "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." It is remarkable, that this passage, as recorded by St. Matthew and St. Luke, twice over, is determined, by the circumstances, to refer to the near approach of his own death, and the extreme hatred of the Jews to him: and therefore those words, Ye shall not see me henceforth, are to be dated from the time of his death, and manifestly point out the end of his particular mission to them. From the making this declaration, as it stands in St. Matthew, his discourses are to his disciples, and they chiefly relate to the miserable and wretched condition of the Jews, which was now decreed, and soon to be accomplished. Let me now ask, Whether, in this state of things, any farther credentials of Christ's commission to the Jews could be demanded or expected? He was rejected, his commission was determined, and with it the fate of the nation was determined also: what use then of more credentials? As to appearing to them after his resurrection, he could not do it consistently with his own prediction, Ye shall see me no more, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. The Jews were not in this disposition after the resurrection, nor are they in it yet. The resurrection was the foundation of Christ's new commission, which extended to all the world. Then it was he declared, that all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth. Then he gave a new commission to his disciples, not restrained to the house of Israel, but to go and teach all nations. This prerogative the Jews had under this commission, that the gospel was every-where first offered to them; but in no other terms than it was offered to the rest of the world. Since then this commission, of which the resurrection was the foundation, extended to all the world alike; what ground is there to demand special and particular evidence to the Jews? The Emperor and the Senate of Rome were a much more considerable part of the world, than the chief priests and the synagogue; why does not the Gentleman object then, that Christ did not shew himself to Tiberius and his senate? And since all men have an equal right in this case, Why may not the same demand be made for every country; nay, for every age? And then the Gentleman may bring the question nearer home; and ask, Why Christ did not appear in England in King George's reign? There is, to my apprehension, nothing more unreasonable, than to neglect and despise plain and sufficient evidence before us, and to sit down to imagine what kind of evidence would have pleased us; and then to make the want of such evidence an objection to the truth; which yet, if well considered, would be found to be well established.

The observation I have made upon the resurrection of Christ, naturally leads to another; which will help to account for the nature of the evidence we have in this great point. As the resurrection was the opening a new commission, in which all the world had an interest; so the concern naturally was, to have a proper evidence to establish this truth, and which should be of equal weight to all. This did not depend upon the satisfaction given to private persons, whether they were magistrates or not magistrates; but upon the conviction of those, whose office it was to be, to bear testimony to this truth in the world. In this sense the Apostles were chosen to be witnesses of the resurrection, because they were chosen to bear testimony to it in the world; and not because they only were admitted to see Christ after his resurrection: for the fact is otherwise. The gospel indeed, concerned to shew the evidence on which the faith of the world was to rest, is very particular in setting forth the ocular demonstration which the apostles had of the resurrection; and mentions others, who saw Christ after his resurrection, only accidentally, and as the thread of the history led to it. But yet it is certain, there were many others, who had this satisfaction, as well as the apostles. St. Luke tells us, that when Christ appeared to the eleven apostles, there were others with them [Luke 24:33]; who they were, or how many there were, he says not. But it appears in the Acts, when an apostle was to be chosen in the room of Judas; and the chief qualification required was, that he should be one capable of being a witness of the resurrection; that there were present an hundred and twenty so qualified [Acts 1. Compare vv. 15,21,22 together]. And Saint Paul says, that Christ after his rising was seen by 500 at once, many of whom were living when he appealed to their evidence. So that the Gentleman is mistaken, when he imagines that a few only were chosen to see Christ after he came from the grave. The truth of the case is, that, out of those who saw him, some were chosen to bear testimony to the world; and for that reason had the fullest demonstration of the truth, that they might be the better able to give satisfaction to others. And what was there in this conduct to complain of? what to raise any jealousy or suspicion?

As to the witnesses themselves, the first the Gentleman takes notice of, are the angels and the women. The mention of angels led naturally to apparitions: and the women were called poor silly women; and there is an end to their evidence. But to speak seriously: will the Gentleman pretend to prove, that there are no intelligent beings between God and man; or that they are not ministers of God; or that they were improperly employed in this great and wonderful work, the resurrection of Christ? Till some of these points are disproved we may be at rest; for the angels were ministers, and not witnesses of the resurrection. And it is not upon the credit of the poor silly women that we believe angels were concerned, but upon the report of those who wrote the gospels, who deliver it as a truth known to themselves, and not merely as a report taken from the women.

But for the women what shall I say? Silly as they were, I hope at least they had eyes and ears, and could tell what they heard and saw. In this case they tell no more. They report that the body was not in the sepulchre; but so far from reporting the resurrection; that they did not believe it, and were very anxious to find to what place the body was removed. Further they were not employed. For, I think, the Gentleman in another part observes rightly, that they were not sent to bear testimony to any people. But suppose them to be witnesses; suppose them to be improper ones; yet the evidence of the men surely is not the worse, because some wonen happened to see the same thing which they saw. And if men only must be admitted, of them we have enow to establish this truth.

I will not spend your time in enumerating these witnesses, or in setting forth the demonstration they had of the truth which they report. These things are well known. If you question their sincerity, they lived miserably, and died miserably, for the sake of this truth. And what greater evidence of sincerity can man give or require? And what is still more, they were not deceived in their expectation of being ill treated; for he who employed them, told them beforehand that the world would hate them, and treat them with contempt and cruelty.

But, leaving these weighty and well known circumstances to your own reflexion, I beg leave to lay before you another evidence, passed over in silence by the Gentleman on the other side. He took notice, that a resurrection was so extraordinary a thing, that no human evidence could support it. I am not sure that he is not in the right. If twenty men were to come into England with such a report from a distant country, perhaps they might not find twenty more here to believe their story. And I rather think the Gentleman may be in the right, because in the present case I see clearly, that the credit of the resurrection of Christ was not trusted to mere human evidence. To what evidence it was trusted, we find by his own declaration: The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. And ye also (speaking to his apostles) shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning [John 15:26,27]. And therefore, though the apostles had conversed with him forty days after his resurrection, and had received his commission to go teach all nations; yet he expressly forbids them entering upon the work, till they should receive powers from above [Acts 1:14] And St. Peter explains the evidence of the resurrection in this manner: We (the apostles) are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them who obey him [Acts 5:32].

Now, what were the powers received by the apostles? Where they not the powers of wisdom and courage, by which they were enabled to appear before rulers and princes in the name of Christ; the power of miracles, even of raising the dead to life; by which they convinced the world, that God was with them in what they said and did? With respect to this evidence, St. John says, If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. [I John 5:9] Add to this, that the apostles had a power to communicate these gifts to believers. Can you wonder that men believed the reality of those powers of which they were partakers, and became conscious to themselves? With respect to these communicated powers, I suppose, St. John speaks, when he says, He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: [I John 5:10] appealing, not to an inward testimony of the Spirit, in the sense of some modern enthusiasts; but to the powers of the Spirit, which believers received, and which were seen in the effects that followed.

It was objected, That the apostles separated themselves to the work of the ministry, and one went into one country, another to another; and, consequently, that the belief of the resurrection was originally received every where upon the testimony of one witness. I will not examine this fact. Suppose it to be so. But did this one witness go alone, when he was attended with the powers of heaven? Was not every blind man restored to sight, and every lame man to his feet, a new witness to the truth reported by the first? Besides, when the people of different countries came to compare notes, and found that they had all received the same account of Christ and of his doctrine; then surely the evidence of these distant witnesses thus united, became stronger than if they had told their story together: for twelve men separately examined form a much stronger proof for the truth of any fact, than twelve men agreeing together in one story.

If the same thing were to happen in our own time: if one or two were to come into England, and report that a man was raised from the dead; and, in consequence of it, teach nothing but that we ought to love God and our neighbors: if, to confirm their report, they should, before our eyes, cure the blind, the deaf, the lame, and even raise the dead to life: if, endued with all these powers, they should live in poverty and distress, and patiently submit to all that scorn, contempt, and malice could contrive to distress them; and at last sacrifice even their lives in justification of the truth of their report: if upon inquiry we should find, that all the countries in Europe had received the same account, supported by the same miraculous powers, attested in like manner by the sufferings, and confirmed by the blood of the witnesses: I would fain know what any reasonable man would do in this case? Would he despise such evidence? I think he would not. And whoever thinks otherwise, must say, that a resurrection, though in its own nature possible, is yet such a thing, in which we ought not to believe either God or man.