صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Now it ought to be obferved, that the argument which is built upon these examples, extends both to the authenticity of the books and to the truth of the narrative: for it is improbable, that the forger of a hiftory in the name of another fhould have inferted fuch paffages into it: and it is improbable alfo, that the perfons whofe names the books bear fhould have fabricated fuch paffages; or even have allowed them a place in their work, if they had not believed them to express the truth.

The following obfervation, therefore, of Dr. Lardner, the most candid of all advocates, and the moft cautious of all enquirers, feems to be well-founded:-"Chriftians are induced to believe the writers of the gospel, by obferving the evidences of piety and probity that appear in their writings, in which there is no deceit or artifice, or cunning, or defign." "No remarks," as Dr. Beattie hath properly faid, "are thrown in to anticipate objections; nothing of that caution, which never fails to distinguish the testimony

7

teftimony of those who are confcious of impofture; no endeavour to reconcile the reader's mind to what may be extraordinary in the narrative.'

I beg leave to cite alfo another author, who has well expreffed the reflection which the examples now brought forward were intended to fuggeft. "It doth not appear that ever it came into the mind of these writers, to confider how this or the other action would appear to mankind, or what objections might be raised upon them. But, without at all attending to this, they lay the facts before you, at no pains to think whether they would appear credible or not. the reader will not believe their teftimony, there is no help for it: they tell the truth, and attend to nothing elfe. Surely this looks like fincerity, and that they published nothing to the world but what they believed themselves."

* Duchal, p. 97, 98.

If

[blocks in formation]

As no improper fupplement to this chapter, I crave a place here for obferving the extreme naturalness of fome of the things related in the New Teftament.

Mark ix. 23. "Jesus faid unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are poffible to him that believeth. And ftraightway the father of the child cried out, and faid with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." The ftruggle in the father's heart, between folicitude for the prefervation of his child, and a kind of involuntary diftruft of Chrift's power to heal him, is here expreffed with an air of reality, which could hardly be counterfeited.

Again, (Mat. xxi. 9.) the eagerness of the people to introduce Chrift into Jerufalem, and their demand, a fhort time afterwards, of his crucifixion, when he did not turn out what they expected him to be, fo far from affording matter of objection, represents popular favour in exact agreement

with

with nature and with experience, as the flux and reflux of a wave.

The Rulers and Pharifees rejecting Christ, whilft many of the common people received him, was the effect which, in the then ftate of Jewish prejudices, I fhould have expected. And the reafon with which they who rejected Chrift's miffion kept themfelves in countenance, and with which also they answered the arguments of those who favoured it, is precisely the reason which fuch men ufually give:-" Have any of the Scribes or Pharifees believed on him?" John vii. 48.

In our Lord's converfation at the well, (John iv. 29.) Chrift had surprised the Samaritan woman with an allufion to a single particular in her domeftic fituation, "Thou haft had five husbands, and he, whom thou now haft, is not thy husband." The woman, foon after this, ran back to the city, and called out to her neighbours, "Come, fec a man which told me all things that ever I did."

H 3

[ocr errors]

I did." This exaggeration appears to me very natural; especially in the hurried ftate of fpirits into which the woman may be fuppofed to have been thrown.

The lawyer's fubtlety in running a diftinction upon the word neighbour, in the precept "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyfelf," was no lefs natural than our Saviour's answer was decifive and fatisfactory. (Luke x. 29.) The lawyer of the New Teftament, it must be obferved, was a Jew

ifh divine.

The behaviour of Gallio, Acts xviii. 12-17, and of Feftus, xxv. 18, 19, havę been obferved upon already.

The confiftency of St. Paul's character throughout the whole of his history, (viz, the warmth and activity of his zeal, first againft, and then for Chriftianity) carries with it very much of the appearance of truth,

There

« السابقةمتابعة »