The excellent Pascal has observed, as many | others have done before and after him, that the evangelists, by differing in some things from each other, have afforded us a proof of their not having written in concert, and that such difference is so far an argument in their favor. The observation is sensible and just. Not so the inference drawn by the objectors, page 35, that therefore "contradiction in evidence is a mark of truth." For Mr. Pascal did not allow, or suppose, any more than we do, that the evangelists, when rightly understood and explained, really contradicted each other. His words, as cited by themselves, are, "les foiblesses les plus APPARENTES sont de forces, &c. This is a piece of coin from the mint of Ferney, ar bears strongly impressed upon it the image and superscription of the coiner. Page 35. "When Christ was baptized by John, the heavens were opened, and a voice was heard, declaring his divine origin; such a prodigy must have awakened the attention of all Judea; yet we find the historians totally silent." What historians? A pagan historian would not concern himself with the report of a Jewish prodigy; nor would a Jewish historian have related a circumstance favorable to Christianity, unless he had himself become a Christian. But would any writer of common sense have hazarded the relation of such a fact, as having happened in the presence of a multitude of witnesses, if it never had so happened? Page 35. "It is strange that the horrid massacre of the children by the command of Herod, should be totally unnoticed by Josephus." It was too nearly related to the birth of the wonderful child which occasioned it, and concerning which Josephus thought that questions might be asked. For otherwise, is it not equally strange, that he should be totally silent concerning the life and death of Christ, and the appearance of a new religion which had extended itself to Rome, and attracted the notice of the historians there? Yet, if the celebrated passage be an interpolation (as these gentlemen deem it to be,) of such events has Josephus said nothing, though falling within a period, the transactions of which are by him minutely and exactly related. But though Josephus was silent, and had good reasons for being so, it evidently appears from the often cited passage of Macrobius, that Herod's slaughter of the infants in Judea was a thing well known in his time, and was not contested by heathens.* We may "Inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes Rex Judæorum intra bimatum jussit occidi."-Macrob. add, as in the case above, that St. Matthew must have been out of his senses to have told such a story as this, had it been otherwise than true; nor is there anything in the character of Herod that renders it improbable. Quite the contrary. As to the sneers upon interpolations and pious frauds, in page 36, I am sorry occasion has ever been given for them. We want no such aids. Magna est veritas, et prævalebit. I only wish that our adversaries, in their representation of the Scriptures and Christianity, were never guilty of frauds which are not quite so pious. "Our The purport, in few words, of all the parade and flourish, page 37, is this. Lord and St. Paul foretold the end of the world, as an event that should happen in their time. It did not so happen; therefore they were under a mistake and delusion." Our Lord, Luke xxi. in that figurative and majestic style well understood by those who understand the language of Scripture, describes the destruction of the Jewish polity and system. The terms may and do apply to the end of the world, for this obvious reason, that the two events are in many instances parallel and analogous. His own declaration shows plainly of which he was primarily and immediately speaking; "This generation shall not pass away, till all these things are fulfilled :" and the figures are those usually employed, in like cases, by the prophets of old. The charge against St. Paul is founded solely on his use of the first person; 1 Thess. iv. 17. "We who are alive and remain, shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air." But how common is it for us, when speaking of a society, an army, a nation, to which we belong, to say, we went, or came, or did such a thing, or shall do so and so; though we ourselves neither had, nor shall have any personal concern in the matter; though the event happened before we were born, or is to happen after our decease? Thus in the Old Testament, Psal. lxvi. 6. "They went through the waterthere did we rejoice." Hos. xii. 4. cob found God in Bethel; there he spake with us." By the terms "we who are alive," the apostle means, doubtless, those of us Christians who shall then be alive. In another place, 2 Cor. iv. 14, he says, know that he who raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also." He could not be. lieve contradictory propositions, that he "Ja "We Saturnal. lib. ii. cap. 4. See at large on this subject Lardner's Credibility, Part I. b. ii. chap. 11, and Findlay against Voltaire, p. 541. should die, and that he should not die. But what is decisive upon the point, in the second epistle to the same Thessalonians, written only a few months after the first, he most earnestly admonishes them not to be deceived, as if by anything that had fallen from him, either in speech or writing, they were to imagine "the day of God was at hand;" since the grand apostasy, and other events, which required much intervening time for their accomplishment, were first to take place in the world. See 2 Thess. ii. 2, 3. Nay, he reminds them, verse 5, that he told them as much, "while he was yet with them;" that is, before either epistle was written. Page 41. "How came it to pass that Christ should curse a fig-tree for being without fruit in March; or be ignorant that it was not the season for figs?" 1st. It is certain, in fact, that one sort of figs were ripe at that time of the year, namely, at the passover. stone at the door of the sepulchre, does not relate to what immediately precedes it, and must be considered parenthetically, but to the remote member-They said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? (and when they looked, they saw the stone rolled away)—for it was very great. I cannot help here observing, once more, that, when in any writer we meet with absurdities so glaring and palpable as this and others imputed to the evangelists, it is but doing him common justice, whoever he be, to take it for granted that, by some means or other, we misapprehend his meaning; and mere candor should induce us, instead of cavilling and squabbling, gladly to accept of any fair and equitable interpretation of his words, that may serve to clear them of such supposed absurdity, and to set him right in our opinion. Page 41. Our Saviour is scoffed at, for having affirmed, "that wheat does not produce fruit, except it die." A grain of corn, when laid in the earth, swells, putrifies, suffers a dissolution of its parts, shoots its fibres, and disappears. This is a death and resurrection sufficient to answer all the purposes for which the illustration is adduced by our Lord and St. Paul. Page 42. "John the Baptist being asked if he were Elias, answered, I am not; but Jesus affirms the contrary." He was Elias in spirit and in power; but he was not the personal Elias, or Elijah, whom the people erroneously expected, and the priests meant, when they asked him, Page 43. "Out of forty Gospels we receive four as canonical-Why do we receive them, and not the rest?" 2dly. By the season of figs my be meant the season of gathering figs, as in Matt. xxi. 34. "When the time, or "season of fruit drew near," that is plainly, the time for gathering the fruit, "the Lord of the vineyard sent his servants to receive the fruit." If therefore one sort of figs was ripe about that time of the year, and yet the time for gathering them was not fully come, Christ might with reason expect to find firuit on the tree. In construing the passage thus interpreted, as Mr. MacKnight observes, the latter clause might be joined with the words he came if haply he might find anything thereon, and the intermediate words thrown into a parenthesis, thus: He" Art thou Elias?" came if haply he might find anything thereon (and when he came to it he found nothing but leaves) for the time of figs-of gathering figs-was not yet. "That this is the true construction," adds Mr. MacKnight, "is plain, because the evangelist is not giving the reason why there were no figs on the tree, but the reason why Jesus expected to find some on it." He tells us, the season for gathering figs was not yet come, to show that none had been taken off the tree; and consequently, that having its whole produce upon it, there was nothing improper in Christ's expecting fruit on it then. Whereas, if we shall think the reason why he did not find any figs was, that the time of them was not come, we must acknowledge, that the tree was cursed very improperly for having none. This interpretation makes a trajection necessary, but there is one of the same kind in Mark, xvi. 3, 4. Where the clause, for it was very great, namely, the ** For the best reasons in the world, assigned at large by Dr. Lardner in his Credibility, &c. a work which these gentlemen should answer, or for ever hold their peace upon this subject. The true Gospels are shown by proper evidence to have been written, and by the persons whose naines they bear. It matters not how many others were written, if upon their appearance, after due examination, they were found to be. spurious, and rejected as such. Page 43. "The primitive Christians are complained of, for "preventing the arguments against their religion from being exposed to view." I hope there is no ground for any such complaint now. There is no argument yet See the review of his work in the twelfth volume. devised against Christianity, we may pre- that age," "all mankind" besides could have sume, which has not been proposed in pub-received it only upon testimony; and they lic; and there is none, we may affirm, which has not received its answer. The few remaining pages of this pamphlet are spent in enumerating some particulars in the history of our Lord's passion and resurrection, which are differently related by the four evangelists. But how many times have these objections been considered, and replied to? Have the infidels the modesty or the conscience to expect, that we are to draw up a new harmony of the Gospels, as often as any one of them shall think proper to ask a few old questions over again? If any Christian find himself perplexed by difficulties of this sort, let him carefully peruse the Gospels as they lie in MacKnight's Harmony and Commentary, and weigh well the solutions of such difficulties, with which that book will furnish him. enjoy now, upon testimony, more and better evidence for the resurrection of Christ, than ever was produced for any one transaction that has happened from Adam to the present hour. The descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost; the propagation of the Gospel by instruments otherwise totally inadequate to the work; the conversion of so many thousand Jews; the destruction of Jerusalem; and the establishment of the Christian church, in opposition to the efforts of the whole Roman empireall these considerations, added to the original positive evidence for the fact, and the futility and absurdity of the arguments then and since employed to invalidate it, form such a moral demonstration in its favorthe only demonstration we can have, in cases of this kind-that there must be something very wrong indeed in the head, or the heart, of him who, at this time of day, sets himself to deny and blaspheme upon the truth of it every thing that is dear to me, in this life, and that which is to come. Page 47. It is asked, whether God expects that we should "show our faith and reliance on him by making a sacrifice of our reason, and believing, not by an act of the understanding, but of the will?" These gentlemen tell us in plain terms, page 46, that the event of "Christ's resurrection bears every mark of a forgery;" it. With joy and pleasure I desire to risk and speak of the apostles as "men engaged in the attempt of forming a sect or party," that is, as men who had projected a plan (and thought themselves able to execute it) of persuading the world that their master was risen from the dead, when he was not risen; and of propagating over the earth a new religion, upon the strength of that persuasion. We can know no more of the apostles than the Gospel history, with great simplicity and evident sincerity, informs us. Let any man duly consider their characters and qualifications as there described; let him then stand forth, lay his hand upon his heart, and say, that he can possibly bring himself, for a single moment, to believe they could ever have entertained the thought of projecting and executing such a plan. I should be glad to see that man. I would subscribe handsomely towards erecting a statue to his memory. For, take him either as a fool or a knave, he is at the top of his profession. But if no such plan by such persons were or could be concerted, then the evidence of the apostles and disciples (to five hundred of whom Christ appeared at once, and among whom he walked in and out for forty days together) is as good and valid for the fact of the resurrection, as for any other fact concerning his life or his death. Nor is it true, that "God chose to deprive all mankind of the proper evidence of the resurrection, because the Jews of that age were sinners." Whatever evidence it had pleased God to vouchsafe to "the Jews of How necessary, in many cases, the concurrence of the will is towards the production of faith, daily experience may convince us. We see men rejecting the strongest evidence, when opposed by interest, prejudice, and passion; and accepting the slightest, The best arguwhich falls in with them. ments in the world avail nothing on one side, when pride, pleasure, and profit are engaged on the other. Hope of what is deemed good, and fear of what is deemed evil, will find means to elude the force of all the syllogisms which the most skilful disciple of Aristotle can frame. "This man," said the rulers of the Jews, "doeth many miracles." knowledge and receive him, therefore, as a man sent from God. "No: we will apprehend and crucify him." For what reason? "Because if we let him alone, all men will believe in him; and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation"-But he has raised Lazarus from the dead-" Why then, we will put Lazarus to death again." What can be done with such people as these? Or what effect would the appearance of Christ among them after his resurrection have produced, but that of provoking fresh blasphemies, and fresh insults? Ac And thus you see, dear Sir, we are come round to the point from whence we set out. Assent to proper evidence is an act of the highest reason. Such evidence for revelation, once established, is not to be set aside, or invalidated, by any difficulties, supposed or real, which may occur in the matter of that revelation. Malice and ignorance will always find room for objections, and they will never believe, who have no mind to believe. The infidels, therefore, have not ground for the surmise, that we want to "deprive them of God's best gift." We wish only to teach them the right use of it. Reason is not "the first and only revelation from God;" for it is properly speaking, no revelation at all, Man, at his creation, was not left so much as a single day to reason. It is the eye, not the light. It can with certainty know nothing concerning the things of another world, but by information from thence. To this truth the writings of the best and wisest among the heathen philosophers bear a testimony irrefragable and insurmountable. It is the faculty which enables us upon proper evidence to receive, and after due study to understand, such information. And blessed is he who, at the return of his Lord to judgment, shall be found to have so employed it. The production which has thus passed under our consideration, from the low and illiberal manner in which it is penned, has been by many accounted to be beneath notice. But nothing is beneath notice, which is calculated to deceive and seduce the ignorant and unwary, among whom, though even now scarce known in the shops, this pamphlet has been privately spread and recommended, as a chef d'œuvre. And though the execution be coarse and mean, the objections, in substance, are such as continually occur in writings of a much higher class, which make part of the furniture of every circulating library through Great Britain, from whence they pass into the hands of our idle young people of fashion, while under the discipline of the friseur, in the metropolis, or at the watering places. The answers published by Nonnotte, Bergier, and others, to the books of Toltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Boulanvilliers, &c., &c., have been much called for, and done eminent service, upon the continent: and it is humbly hoped the foregoing strictures may not be without their use here in England. |