ought to have made the Jews quite unconcerned in the case of Jesus, and
secure as to the event of his own resurrection. He says very true,
supposing their care had been for themselves: but governors have
another care upon their hands, the care of their people; and 'tis not
enough for them to guard against being imposed on themselves, they must
be watchful to guard the multitude against frauds and deceits. The
chief priests were satisfied indeed of the fraud in the case of
Lazarus, yet they saw the people deceived by it; and for this reason,
and not for their own satisfaction, they used the caution in the case
of the resurrection of Jesus, which I before laid before you. In so
doing, they are well justified; and the inconsistency charged on the
other side, between their opinion of Jesus, and their fear of being
imposed on by his pretended resurrection, is fully answered.
The next observation relates to the seal of the sepulchre. The
Gentleman thinks the seal was used as a check upon the Roman soldiers.
But what reason had the Jews to suspect them? They were not disciples
of Jesus; they were servants of the Roman governor, and employed in the
service of the Jews: and I leave it to the court to judge, whether the
Jews set the seal to guard against their friends, or their enemies?
But if the seals were really used against the guards, then the breaking
of the seals is a proof that the guards were corrupted: and if so,
'tis easy to conceive how the body was removed.
As to the disciples, the Gentleman observes, that the part
allotted them in the management of the resurrection supposes an
unaccountable change in their character. It will not be long before
the Gentleman will have occasion for as great a change in their
character: for these weak men you will find soon employed in converting
the world, and sent to appear before Kings and Princes in the name of
their master; soon you will see them grow wise and powerful, and every
way qualified for their extensive and important business. The only
difference between me and the Gentleman on the other side will be found
to be this, that I date this change a little earlier than he does: A
small matter, surely, to determine the right of this controversy.
The last observation relates to King Agrippa's complaisance to
Paul, and Gamaliel's advice. I cannot answer for Agrippa's meaning:
but certainly he meant but little; and if this matter is to be tried by
his opinion, we know that he never did turn Christian. As for
Gamaliel, 'tis probable that he saw great numbers of the people engaged
zealously in favour of the apostles, and might think it prudent to pass
the matter over in silence, and not to come to extremities. This is a
common case in all governments: the multitude and their leaders often
escape punishment, not because they do not deserve it, but because it
is not, in some circumstances, prudent to exact it.
I pass over these things lightly, because the next article
contains the great, to us indeed, who live at this distance, the only
great question; for whatever reason the Jews had to believe the
resurrection, it is nothing to us, unless the story has been conveyed
to us upon such evidence as is sufficient to support the weight laid on
it.
My Lord, we are now to enter upon the last and main article of
this case; the nature of the evidence upon which the credit of the
resurrection stands. Before I inquire into the qualifications of the
particular witnesses whose words we are desired to take in this case, I
would ask, why this evidence, which manifestly relates to the most
essential point of Christianity, was not put beyond all exception?
Many of the miracles of Christ are said to be done in the streets, nay
even in the temple, under the observation of all the world; but the
like is not so much as pretended as to this; nay, we have it upon the
confession of Peter, the ringleader of the apostles, that Christ
appeared, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of
God. Why picking and culling of witnesses in this case more than in
any other? Does it not import some suspicion, raise some jealousy,
that this case would not bear the publick light?
I would ask more particularly, Why did not Jesus after his
resurrection appear openly to the chief priests and rulers of the Jews?
Since his commission related to them in an especial manner, why were
not his credentials laid before them? The resurrection is acknowledged
to be the chief proof of his mission, why then was it concealed from
those who were more than all others concerned in the event of his
mission? Suppose an ambassador from some foreign prince should come
into England, make his publick entry through the city, pay and receive
visits, and at last refuse to shew any letters of credence, or to wait
on the King, what would you think of him? Whatever you would think in
that case, you must think in this; for there is no difference between
them.
But we must take the evidence as it is. It was thought proper,
in this case, to have select chosen witnesses; and we must now consider
who they were, and what reason we have to take their word.
The first witness was an angel, or angels. They appeared like
men to some women who went early to the sepulchre. If they appeared
like men, upon what ground are we to take them for angels? The women
saw men, and therefore they can witness only to the seeing of men. But
I suppose it is the women's judgement, and not their evidence, that we
are to follow in this case. Here then we have a story of one
apparition to support the credit of another apparition: and the first
apparition hath not so much as the evidence of the women to support it,
but is grounded on their superstition, ignorance, and fear. Every
country can afford an hundred instances of this kind; and there is this
common to them all, that as learning and common sense prevail in any
country, they die away, and are no more heard of.
The next witnesses are the women themselves. The wisest men can
hardly guard themselves against the fears of superstition; poor silly
women therefore in this case must needs be unexceptionable witnesses,
and fit to be admitted into the number of the chosen witnesses to
attest this fact. One part of the account given of them is very
rational, that they were surprised and frightened beyond measure; and I
leave it to your Lordship and the court to judge, how well qualified
they were to give a just relation of what passed.
After this, Jesus appears to two of his disciples as they were
upon a journey; he joins them, and introduces a discourse about
himself; and spent much time, till it began to grow dark, in expounding
the prophecies relating to the death and resurrection of the Messias.
All this while, the disciples knew him not. But then going into an
house to lodge together, at supper he broke bread, and gave it to
them; immediately they knew him, immediately he vanished. Here then
are two witnesses more. But what will you call them? eye-witnesses?
Why their eyes were open, and they had their senses, when he reasoned
with them and they knew him not. So far therefore they are witnesses
that it was not he. Tell us therefore upon what account you reject the
evidence of their sense before the breaking of the bread, and insist
on it afterwards? And why did Jesus vanish as soon as known; which has
more of the air of an apparition, than of the appearance of a real man
restored to life?
Cleopas, who was one of these two disciples, finds out the
apostles, to make the report of what had passed to them. No sooner was
the story told, but Jesus appears among them. They were all frightened
and confounded, and thought they saw a spectre. He rebukes them for
infidelity, and their slowness in believing the prophecies of his
resurrection: and though he refused before to let the women touch him
(a circumstance which I ought not to have omitted); yet now he invites
the apostles to handle him, to examine his hands and feet, and search
the wounds of the cross. But what body was it they examined? The same
that came in when the doors were shut; the same that vanished from the
two disciples; the same that the women might not touch: in a word, a
body quite different from a human body, which we know cannot pass
through walls, or appear or disappear at pleasure. What then could
their hands or eyes inform them of in this case? Besides, is it
credible that God should raise a body imperfectly, with the very wounds
in it of which it died? Or, if the wounds were such as destroyed the
body before, how could a natural body subsist with them afterwards?
There are more appearances of Jesus recorded; but so much of the
same kind, so liable to the same difficulties and objections, that I
will not trouble your Lordship and the court with a distinct
enumeration of them. If the Gentleman on the other side finds any
advantage in any of them more than in these mentioned, I shall have an
opportunity to consider them in my reply.
It may seem surprising to you, perhaps, that a matter of this
moment was trusted upon such evidence as this: but it will be still
more surprising to consider that the several nations who received the
gospel, and submitted to the faith of this article, had not even this
evidence: for what people or nation had the evidence of the angels,
the women or even of all the apostles? So far from it, that every
country had its single apostle, and received the faith upon the credit
of his single evidence. We have followed our ancestors without
inquiry; and if you examine the thing to the bottom, our belief was
originally built upon the word of one man.
I shall trouble you, Sir, but with one observation more; which is
this: That although in common life we act in a thousand instances upon
the faith and credit of human testimony; yet the reason for so doing is
not the same in the case before us. In common affairs, where nothing
is asserted but what is probable, and possible, according to the usual
course of nature, a reasonable degree of evidence ought to determine
every man: for the very probability, or possibility of the thing, is
an support to the evidence; and in such cases we have no doubt but a
man's senses qualify him to be a witness. But when the thing testified
is contrary to the order of nature, and, at first sight at least,
impossible, what evidence can be sufficient to overturn the constant
evidence of nature, which she gives us in the uniform and regular
method of her operations? If a man tells me he has been in France, I
ought to give a reason for not believing him; but if he tells me he
comes from the grave what reason can he give why I should believe him?
In the case before us, since the body raised from the grave differed
from common natural bodies, as we have before seen; how can I be
assured that the apostles' senses qualified them to judge at all of
this body; whether it was the same, or not the same which was buried?
They handled the body, which yet could pass through doors and walls;
they saw it, and sometimes knew it, at other times knew it not. In a
word, it seems to be a case exempt from human evidence. Men have
limited senses, and a limited reason: when they act within their
limits, we may give credit to them; but when they talk of things
removed beyond the reach of their senses and reason, we must quit our
own, if we believe theirs.
Mr. B. My Lord, in answering the objections under this head I
shall find myself obliged to change the order in which the gentleman
thought proper to place them. He began with complaining, that Christ
did not appear publickly to the Jews after his resurrection, and
especially to the chief priests and rulers; and seemed to argue, as if
such evidence would have put the matter in question out of all doubt:
but he concluded with an observation to prove that no evidence in this
case can be sufficient; that a resurrection is thing in nature
impossible, at least impossible to be proved to the satisfaction of a
rational inquirer. If this be the case, why does he require more
evidence, since none can be sufficient? Or to what purpose is it to
vindicate the particular evidence of the resurrection of Christ, so
long as this general prejudice, that a resurrection is incapable of
being proved, remains unremoved? I am under a necessity therefore to
consider this observation in the first place, that it might lie as a
dead weight upon all I have to offer in support of the evidence of
Christ's resurrection.
The gentleman allows it to be reasonable in many cases to act
upon the testimony and credit of others; but he thinks this should be
confined to such cases, where the thing testified is probable,
possible, and according to the usual course of nature. The Gentleman
does not, I suppose, pretend to know the extent of all natural
possibilities, much less will he suppose them to be generally known;
and therefore his meaning must be, that the testimony of witnesses is
to be received only in cases which appear to us to be possible. In any
other sense we can have no dispute; for mere impossibilities, which can
never exist, can never be proved. Taking the observation therefore in
this sense, the proposition is this: That the testimony of others ought
not to be admitted, but in such matters as appear probable, or at least
possible to our conceptions. For instance: A man who lives in a warm
climate, and never saw ice, ought upon no evidence to believe, that
rivers freeze, and grow hard, in cold countries; for this is
improbable, contrary to the usual course of nature, and impossible
according to his notion of things. And yet we all know, that this is a
plain manifest case discernible by the senses of men; of which
therefore they are qualified to be good witnesses. An hundred such
instances might be named; but 'tis needless: for surely nothing is
more apparently absurd than to make one man's ability in discerning and
his veracity in reporting plain facts, depend upon the skill or
ignorance of the hearer. And what has the Gentleman said upon this
occasion against the resurrection, more than any man who never saw ice
might say against an hundred honest witnesses, who assert that water
turns to ice in cold climates?
Yet it is very true, that men do not so easily believe, upon
testimony of others, things which to them seem improbable or
impossible; but the reason is not, because the thing itself admits no
evidence, but because the hearer's preconceived opinion outweighs the
credit of the reporter and makes his veracity to be called in question.
For instance it is natural for a stone to roll down hill, it is
unnatural for it to roll up hill: but a stone moving uphill is as much
the object of sense as a stone moving downhill; and all men in their
senses are as capable of seeing and judging and reporting the fact in
one case, as in the other. Should a man then tell you, that he saw a
stone go uphill of its own accord, you might question his veracity; but
you could not say the thing admitted no evidence, because it was
contrary to the law and usual course of nature; for the law of nature
formed to yourself from your own experience and reasoning is quite
independent of the matter of fact which the man testifies: and
whenever you see facts yourself, which contradict your notions of the
law of nature, you admit the facts, because you believe yourself; when
you do not admit like facts upon the evidence of others, it is because
you do not believe them, and not because the facts in their own nature
exclude all evidence.
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.