prophecy," can be applied, they could not themselves be a proof of any thing. But a completed prophecy is only a particular species of miracle; so that if miracles be no proof of a revelation, this also could answer no end, but to excite more attention. Miracles, however, did, in fact, not only excite attention, but actually enforced the belief of the divine missions of Moses and of Christ, long before any prophecies were known to be completed; and it was the satisfaction which the evidence of these miracles gave to those who saw them, that engaged the belief of those who did not see them.

In what other manner, and on what other principle, were so many converts made during the life of Christ, and till the destruction of Jerusalem, during all which time the prophecies in the Christian church were very inconsiderable? Were the Christians of those days, many of whom endured great hardships, and some of whom laid down their lives, for their profession of Christianity, (and many of them did not themselves see any miracle, but only heard the reports of others,) only in a state of attention and expectation, without any real belief in the divine mission of Christ, till they could see some prophecy completed? Nay, would the completion of any prophecy have produced a greater effect than did the certain belief, whether occasioned by the evidence of their own senses, or that of others, that Jesus wrought real miracles, and that he died, and rose from the dead? What other evidence of the divine mission of Christ, or of the truth of Christianity, was wanting to persons who really believed these facts?

Mr. Evanson may think that miracles were sufficient to convince those who themselves saw them; but that completed prophecy is necessary to the conviction of those who had no opportunity of seeing them. But if the evidence of sight was sufficient to convince the spectators that the miracles were real, a sufficient evidence that those spectators were convinced, that is, the evidence of testimony, can be all that is necessary to convince others; for this places them precisely in the situation of those who were the spectators. And if any person be so constituted, as to think that other men, of whose judgment and veracity he can have no doubt, were, from their own inspection and examination, satisfied with respect to the truth of any facts, without believing that they really took place, neither would he be convinced by the evidence of his own senses. Nothing can lead any man to suspend his assent in this case, but the persuasion

that, though all other persons might be imposed upon, he could not; which is what no man will presume to say of himself. The proof, therefore, that competent witnesses were satisfied of the reality of any fact, miraculous or otherwise, must be sufficient to convince others. And this it

has never failed to do.

Mr. Evanson seems to suppose that our belief of the miracles of Christ and the apostles depends upon the authenticity of the books of the New Testament which contain the account of them; and certainly all our knowledge of these facts is derived from those books. But still our faith doth not rest upon the testimony of the writers of those books, but upon that of those who first received the books, and who transmitted them to us as authentic, which they would not have done, if they had not known them to be deserving of credit.

It is not because four persons, though the most unexceptionable evidences, assert that Christ and his apostles wrought miracles, that we believe the facts. We believe them on the evidence of the thousands and tens of thousands, themselves well acquainted with the facts, by whom it cannot be denied that the contents of these books were credited. It is on the testimony of all the primitive Christians, and in some measure of the Heathen world also, that we believe in the miracles, the death, and resurrection of Christ, in consequence of which we are Christians.

The books called the Gospels were not the cause, but the effect, of the belief of Christianity in the first ages. For Christianity had been propagated with great success long before those books were written; nor had the publication of them any particular effect in adding to the number of Christian converts. Christians received the books because they knew beforehand that the contents of them were true; and they were at that time of no further use than to ascertain and fix the testimony of living witnesses, in order to its being transmitted without variation to succeeding ages. For what could have been the preaching of the Gospel originally, but a recital of the discourses and miracles of Christ, by those who were eye-witnesses of them, to those who were not? The Gospels, therefore, contain the substance of all their preaching.

While the eye-witnesses were living, there was little occasion for books; and accordingly no histories were written till about thirty years after the ascension of Christ, when the eye-witnesses were going off the stage, and consequently

when their testimony, without being secured by writing, could not have been known with certainty, or have been transmitted to future ages. This was the natural and the actual progress of things in the primitive times.

Since the belief of Christianity did not originally depend upon the authenticity of any books, the disproving their authenticity will not affect its credibility. The miracles of Christ and the apostles must have been true, or the belief of Christianity could not have been established in the circumstances in which it may be proved from history that it did actually gain ground. And unbelievers in Christianity prove nothing against it, unless they can prove that Christianity did not make the progress that it is said to have done, while the facts were recent, or that the circumstances in which it was propagated were materially different from what is commonly apprehended; as that the civil powers did not oppose its propagation, so that there was no persecution of Christians, nothing to lead its friends or its enemies to inquire. into the evidence of the facts while they were recent. But the history of those times is so well known, that this is clearly out of any man's power, and must be so to the end of time, while any history of the first and second centuries shall exist.

The present state of things with respect to the belief of Christianity cannot be accounted for without supposing the state of it in the last century to have been such as all authentic history represents it. In like manner, going back through every century, we shall find that every one of them requires the preceding to have been what history informs us that it was, till we find that it could not possibly have had the spread that it evidently had in the times of Pliny and of Nero, unless such a narrative as that of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had been true, whether those particular books be authentic or not.

We have no reaeon, therefore, from a regard to Christianity, to be alarmed at any effect that Mr. Evanson's publication can have. Whatever we may think with respect to the authenticity of any particular books, all history is a standing and sufficient evidence of the truth of Christianity, and affords a firm foundation of our faith. I shall, therefore, proceed with perfect calmness to examine what Mr. Evanson has advanced against the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, and in favour of the preference that he is disposed to give to that of Luke, not as a believer

in Christianity against an unbeliever, but as one critic, if I may so call myself, against another; and I wish you to attend to my reasoning with the same dispassionate calmness with which I write.

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

Of the Authenticity of the Four Gospels in general.
DEAR SIR,

MR. EVANSON, without seeming to consider that the authenticity of his favourite Gospel of Luke, rests on the very same foundation with that of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, more than insinuates, that their authority

is very doubtful. "The whole weight," he says, "of the historical evidence in favour of the authenticity of the four Gospels, amounts to no more than this, that those books, in the main of their contents, were extant in the latter end of the second century, and were received by all the Christian writers whose works have been suffered to come down to us, as the writings of the several apostles and apostolic men whose names they bear. But besides the suspicious circumstance already mentioned, arising from the prophecies of the Gospel, this evidence is defective in such essential points, as render it wholly unsatisfactory, and insufficient to prove any matter of consequence, even in the ordinary courts of justice: for neither the competency nor veracity of the witnesses can be depended on."*

If this be the case, no regard is due to any of the Gospels, or to any of the books of the New Testament. But the circumstances of the Christian church, which received these books, and transmitted them to us, were such, as there cannot be a doubt with respect to the competency of their evidence, because they were published in the life-time of thousands, and myriads, who were as competent witnesses of the facts as the writers themselves; and there cannot be any question of their veracity, unless we suppose that they all combined to tell and to propagate a falsehood, to their own prejudice, and merely to impose upon all posterity; which would be a greater miracle, as being more contrary to what we know of human nature, than any thing recorded in those books.

* Dissonance, p. 13. (P.) Ed. 2, p. 20.

Mr. Evanson evidently argues upon the idea, that the writers who first mention the Gospels are the only witnesses of their authenticity; and he thinks they were too remote, and too prejudiced, to be depended upon. But besides that no motive can be imagined for such conduct, let them be supposed to have been ever so liable to prejudice, it was not in their power to impose upon the world with respect to these books. For though there were few writers between the time in which the Gospels were written, and Justin Martyr; and admitting, what there is no occasion to do, that all the intervening writers are spurious, it was only an interval of about seventy years, and in this there was no interruption of Christian churches. In all this time, the Scriptures of the New Testament, as well as those of the Old, were constantly and publicly read; so that the books which had been received as authentic, by those who were themselves judges of their authenticity, could not be unknown; and there never was any doubt with respect to any of the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the far greater part of the Epistles.

We find in Eusebius, that Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, who was acquainted with the daughters of that Philip who baptized the eunuch of the queen of Ethiopia, and who wrote, A. D. 116, only about fifty years after the writing of the Gospels, mentions the Gospel of Matthew, and in such a manner, as that it appears there was not then any dispute about it; so that there cannot be any reason to doubt, that the Gospel which bears his name, was the same that we now have, and as it was originally published.

As there had not, at that time, been any general persecution of Christians, it is probable that the originals of the books, which they held in the highest esteem, and especially the epistles of Paul to particular churches, were preserved till so many copies had been taken, and so many translations made of them, as would put it out of the power of fraud to impose upon the world with respect to them. The interest that all Christians certainly took in those books, would ensure this. As these books were, no doubt, then, as they are now, publicly read in all Christian churches,

Mr. Evanson replies, "The words of Papias, quoted by Eusebius, (Hist. Eccl. L. iii. C. xxxix.,) are, Matthew composed a writing of the oracles,' (meaning, without doubt, the doctrines of the Gospel,) in the Hebrew language; and every one interpreted them as he was able.'-Surely the utmost that can reasonably be inferred from it is, that Papias himself made no dispute about it." Letter, p. 22.