narrative.* But we, said they, trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." When assembled together, it was with the "doors shut for fear of the Jews." But this state of doubt and dismay was soon changed into triumphant faith, and these very men became witnesses of the resurrection of their crucified Lord. By what means was this wondrous change achieved? here it is the question principally rests. Was their faith in this great article the impulse of enthusiasm, or founded on the certainty of truth? Let us attend to the progress of this change. Was it enthusiasm which moved them to reject the evidence of those women, who had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive, and who afterwards spoke to him in person ?§ Two of the apostles discovered that the body was missing, but as yet they "knew not the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead;" they retired wondering, not believing. Could enthusiasm have deceived them into a belief, that a dead body no longer occupied the sepulchre in which they had seen it lodged, and which they deliberately and minutely examined? How utterly impossible !¶ "He appeared to two separately, but neither believed they them." Was this extreme slowness of faith a mark of enthusiasm ? The very reverse; it proves that their minds were utterly void of every hope which might delude, and on their guard against every artifice that might deceive them. But was it enthusiasm, to admit the evidence of their senses, when they repeatedly saw, and felt, and spoke to their Lord restored to life, when he "** eat and drank before them," when he invited them-"behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;" when he called unto Thomas, who declared, except "I shall t† see in his hands the print of the nails, and thrust hand into his side, I will not believe;" when even this proof was my Luke xxiv. 21. + John xx. 19. || John xx. 1-19. Luke xxiv. 1-11. S Mark xvi. 11. Luke xxiv. 11. Mark xvi. 12, 13. Paley's Evidences, p. 485, Dublin edition. "The presence and the absence of the dead body are alike inconsistent with the hypothesis of enthusiasm; for if present, it must have cured their enthusiasm at once; if absent, fraud, not enthusiasm, must have carried it away. granted him, and extorted from the obstinacy of his scepticism, the exclamation of "my Lord, and my God!" when he performed miracles in their presence, when "for forty days together he frequently conversed with them, expounding the things which belong to the kingdom of God;" and finally, in the sight of all his apostles, ascended into heaven,* there to remain at the right hand of the Majesty † on high-was it enthusiasm to admit such evidence as this, which nothing but blindness or frenzy could reject? Yet the proofs they received did not rest here. Forty days after, they received the Spirit of God, descending with sensible signs, and resting upon them. "They were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting; and there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Now surely this communication of the Spirit of God, connected with the facts and the promises which prepared the apostles for its reception, and with the effects which testified its reality, stands on the clearest ground of certainty. Could enthusiasm persuade them to believe that they had suddenly acquired the knowledge of languages, which they had never learned? that they possessed the gift of healing, and exercised it upon multitudes? Still further, could enthusiasm persuade them, that by "prayer and laying on of hands" God enabled them to obtain for others,§ a portion of that supernatural knowledge and power which they themselves possessed; and all this not for a short time, but for the whole remaining period of their lives? How wholly incredible that in this they could be mistaken! In truth we must admit the testimony of the apostles to all the facts they relate, or deny it in all. All were inseparably connected, all were equally submitted to the examination of their senses, with this difference, that the miracles which determined them to maintain the divine authority of their crucified Lord, must have excited their attention more strongly than any other parts of his life, because in these they were most interested, not *Acts i. 3. + Luke xxiv. 51. SActs viii. 14-17. xix. 6. Acts i. 6-10. Acts ii. 1-4. to be misled; since error here involved them in the extremest persecution and distress. Can we then believe they were enthusiasts in asserting the miracles, the resurrection, the ascension of their Lord, when they were as fully judges of these events, and had the very same opportunities of observing them, as his life, his actions, and his death? What enthusiasm could so completely blind and subvert, not merely the reason, but every faculty, and every sense, of such a number of men, for such a length of time, that they should imagine that multitudes of diseased persons were instantaneously restored to health, who never were restored; that the lame were made to walk, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, and even the dead to rise to life; nay, imagine not only that all this was done, but that they were themselves the persons at whose word, and by whose agency these things were done? To believe that any degree of enthusiasm could delude men to fancy these things for a series of days and months and years, in the most public towns and places, surrounded by crowds of friends and enemies-to believe this is surely the enthusiasm of credulity; utterly inconsistent with all truth and soberness of mind. On this part of the argument it is, I trust, evinced, that the apostles were at first attached to their Lord, not by the blind impulse of enthusiasm, but the strong attraction of reason and evidence. That they every day were more firmly united to him by perpetually accumulated proofs of his stupendous power; and that they finally were conscious of becoming themselves the agents by whom he dispensed his mercies to mankind. When therefore they were commanded by the high priests not to speak at all, or preach in the name of Jesus"-well did they reply, not with the heat of enthusiasm, but the calm steadiness of conscious truth; "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye; we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." 66 But clear and irrefutable as the evidence of the apostles is, an objection has been advanced of our Lord's not appearing publicly to all the Jews; and Mr. Paine has renewed this objection as unanswerable. I wish therefore briefly to observe that the apostles were surely the best possible witnesses. They were perfectly familiar with him, and could not be deceived as to his identity; they sacrificed every temporal interest in confirming their testimony, and must have been sincere. Is it then reasonable that their testimony should be set aside as nugatory, because our Lord did not appear publicly to all the Jews; that is, that sufficient evidence should be rejected because we are not gratified with evidence of a quite different nature? But had our Lord appeared publicly, let us for a moment consider what would probably have been the effect. The Jews saw Lazarus publicly raised, yet they were not convinced; they were not influenced by our Lord's multiplied miracles, because he did not appear as a temporal Messiah. Had this disposition remained, either they would have rejected our Lord, though convinced of his resurrection, and their rejection would have been cited as evidence directly contradictory to that of the apostles; or if they received him, it would have been as a temporal Redeemer, and this would have been imputed to temporal motives, to the artifice of the rulers, and the national prejudices of the people favouring the views of a political deceiver. Or if we take a third supposition, and suppose the whole nation to have received Jesus in his true character of a spiritual Redeemer, yet here also their assent would be imputed to a national pride, flattered by being the authors of a universal religion. We would have no irrefutable proof of the reality of the miracles wrought by our Lord, and his apostles, because it would be supposed they had undergone no scrutiny, since all the spectators may have been friends. We would have no certainty that the prophecies were not altered to accommodate them to events which that nation, the principal depository of these predictions, universally wished to persuade mankind formed their accomplishment. And we should lose the chief proofs of the disinterestedness and steadiness of the apostles' testimony; for they would have had the whole body of the nation to support their pretensions to the high rank of divine teachers, and to guard them from the hazard of persecution, or console them by sharing their martyrdom as the glory of their race. How truly may we here apply what my learned friend already quoted has advanced on another similar argument. "When will the failure of every attempt at con triving a system of evidence, better adapted to the support of Christianity than that on which it rests, convince its adversaries that it derives its origin from more than human wisdom?"* • Vide Elrington's Sermons, p. 185. Vide on this subject, Randolph's Christian Faith a Rational Assent, from p. 173 to 178. The Trial of the Witnesses, p. 76 to 82. Sequel to the Trial p. 136. Macknight's Harmony, sect. 158. The Commentators on Acts x. 41, particularly Dodd's useful Compilation. If the reader wishes to consult more authors on this subject, he will find them enumerated in Doddridge's Lectures, part 6, prop. 108, Schol. 1. p. 471 of the 1st vol. of Doctor Kippis's edition. For answers to objections against the resurrection, from our Lord's seeming to appear or disappear suddenly, &c. as in Luke xxiv. 16-31, and 36. John xx. 17-19, and 26; consult West on the Resurrection, p. 140-147, 3d Dublin edition and the Commentators on these passages. To reconcile the apparent discrepancies in the accounts of the evangelists, concerning the resurrection, consult the Harmony of Dr. Benson, adopted and confirmed by Primate Newcome, in his Review of Difficulties concerning the resurrection. West, Lardner, Townson, and many others have written largely on this subject; let me add the name of a student of this University, Thomas Cranfield, A.B. who in 1795, published a sensible tract on this subject, |