These propositions cannot be predicated of any of those books which are
commonly called Apocryphal Books of the New Testament.
I do not know that the objection taken from apocryphal writings is at
present much relied upon by scholars. But there are many, who, hearing
that various Gospels existed in ancient times under the names of the
apostles, may have taken up a notion, that the selection of our present
Gospels from the rest was rather an arbitrary or accidental choice, than
founded in any clear and certain cause of preference. To these it may be
very useful to know the truth of the case. I observe, therefore:--
I. That, beside our Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, no Christian
history, claiming to be written by an apostle or apostolical man, is
quoted within three hundred years after the birth of Christ, by any
writer now extant or known; or, if quoted, is not quoted but with marks
of censure and rejection.
I have not advanced this assertion without inquiry; and I doubt not but
that the passages cited by Mr. Jones and Dr. Lardner, under the several
titles which the apocryphal books bear; or a reference to the places
where they are mentioned as collected in a very accurate table,
published in the year 1773, by the Rev. J. Atkinson, will make out the
truth of the proposition to the satisfaction of every fair and competent
judgment. If there be any book which may seem to form an exception to
the observation, it is a Hebrew Gospel, which was circulated under the
various titles of, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of
the Nazarenes, of the Ebionites, sometimes called of the Twelve, by some
ascribed to St Matthew. This Gospel is once, and only once, cited by
Clemeus Alexandrinus, who lived, the reader will remember, in the latter
part of the second century, and which same Clement quotes one or other
of our four Gospels in almost every page of his work. It is also twice
mentioned by Origen, A.D. 230; and both times with marks of diminution
and discredit. And this is the ground upon which the exception stands.
But what is still more material to observe is, that this Gospel, in the
main, agreed with our present Gospel of Saint Matthew. (In applying to
this Gospel what Jerome in the latter end of the fourth century has
mentioned of a Hebrew Gospel, I think it probable that we sometimes
confound it with a Hebrew copy of St. Matthew's Gospel, whether an
original or version, which was then extant.)
Now if, with this account of the apocryphal Gospels, we compare what we
have read concerning the canonical Scriptures in the preceding sections;
or even recollect that general but well-founded assertion of Dr.
Lardner, "That in the remaining works of Irenaeus, Clement of
Alexandria, and Tertullian, who all lived in the first two centuries,
there are more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New
Testament than of all the works of Cicero, by writers of all characters,
for several ages;" (Lardner, Cred. vol. xii. p. 53.) and if to this we
add that, notwithstanding the loss of many works of the primitive times
of Christianity, we have, within the above-mentioned period, the remains
of Christian writers who lived in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt,
the part of Africa that used the Latin tongue, in Crete, Greece, Italy,
and Gaul, in all which remains references are found to our evangelists;
I apprehend that we shall perceive a clear and broad line of division
between those writings and all others pretending to similar authority.
II. But beside certain histories which assumed the names of apostles,
and which were forgeries properly so called, there were some other
Christian writings, in the whole or in part of an historical nature,
which, though not forgeries, are denominated apocryphal, as being of
uncertain or of no authority.
Of this second class of writings, I have found only two which are
noticed by any author of the first three centuries without express terms
of condemnation: and these are, the one a book entitled the Preaching of
Peter, quoted repeatedly by Clemens Alexandrinus, A.D. 196; the other a
book entitled the Revelation of Peter, upon which the above-mentioned
Clemens Alexandrinus is said by Eusebius to have written notes; and
which is twice cited in a work still extant, ascribed to the same
author.
I conceive, therefore, that the proposition we have before advanced,
even after it hath been subjected to every exception of every kind that
can be alleged, separates, by a wide interval, our historical Scriptures
from all other writings which profess to give an account of the same
subject.
We may be permitted however to add,--
1. That there is no evidence that any spurious or apocryphal books
whatever existed in the first century of the Christian era, in which
century all our historical books are proved to have been extant. "There
are no quotations of any such books in the apostolical fathers, by whom
I mean Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, whose
writings reach from about the year of our Lord 70 to the year 108 (and
some of whom have quoted each and every one of our historical
Scriptures): I say this," adds Dr. Lardner, "because I think it has been
proved." (Lardner, Cred. vol. xii. p. 158.)
2. These apocryphal writings were not read in the churches of
Christians;
3. Were not admitted into their volume;
4. Do not appear in their catalogues;
5. Were not noticed by their adversaries;
6. Were not alleged by different parties, as of authority in their
controversies;
7. Were not the subjects, amongst them, of commentaries, versions,
collections, expositions.
Finally; beside the silence of three centuries, or evidence within that
time of their rejection, they were, with a consent nearly universal,
reprobated by Christian writers of succeeding ages.
Although it be made out by these observations that the books in question
never obtained any degree of credit and notoriety which can place them
in competition with our Scriptures; yet it appears from the writings of
the fourth century, that many such existed in that century, and in the
century preceding it. It may be difficult at this distance of time to
account for their origin.
Perhaps the most probable explication is, that they were in general
composed with a design of making a profit by the sale. Whatever treated
of the subject would find purchasers. It was an advantage taken of the
pious curiosity of unlearned Christians. With a view to the same
purpose, there were many of them adapted to the particular opinions of
particular sects, which would naturally promote their circulation
amongst the favourers of those opinions. After all, they were probably
much more obscure than we imagine. Except the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, there is none of which we hear more than the Gospel of the
Egyptians; yet there is good reason to believe that Clement, a presbyter
of Alexandria in Egypt, A.D. 184, and a man of almost universal
reading, had never seen it. (Jones, vol. i. p. 243.) A Gospel according
to Peter was another of the most ancient books of this kind; yet
Serapion, bishop of Antioch, A.D. 200, had not read it, when he heard of
such a book being in the hands of the Christians of Rhossus in Cillcia;
and speaks of obtaining a sight of this Gospel from some sectaries who
used it. (Lardner, Cred. vol. ii. p. 557.) Even of the Gospel of the
Hebrews, which confessedly stands at the head of the catalogue, Jerome,
at the end of the fourth century, was glad to procure a copy by the
favour of the Nazarenes of Berea. Nothing of this sort ever happened, or
could have happened, concerning our Gospels.
One thing is observable of all the apocryphal Christian writings, viz.
that they proceed upon the same fundamental history of Christ and his
apostles as that which is disclosed in our Scriptures. The mission of
Christ, his power of working miracles, his communication of that power
to the apostles, his passion, death, and resurrection, are assumed or
asserted by every one of them. The names under which some of them came
forth are the names of men of eminence in our histories. What these
books give are not contradictions, but unauthorised additions. The
principal facts are supposed, the principal agents the same; which shows
that these points were too much fixed to be altered or disputed.
If there be any book of this description which appears to have imposed
upon some considerable number of learned Christians, it is the Sibylline
oracles; but when we reflect upon the circumstances which facilitated
that imposture, we shall cease to wonder either at the attempt or its
success. It was at that time universally understood that such a
prophetic writing existed. Its contents were kept secret. This situation
afforded to some one a hint, as well as an opportunity, to give out a
writing under this name, favourable to the already established
persuasion of Christians, and which writing, by the aid and
recommendation of these circumstances, would in some degree, it is
probable, be received. Of the ancient forgery we know but little; what
is now produced could not, in my opinion, have imposed upon any one. It
is nothing else than the Gospel history woven into verse; perhaps was at
first rather a fiction than a forgery; an exercise of ingenuity, more
than an attempt to deceive.
CHAPTER X.
RECAPITULATION.
The reader will now be pleased to recollect, that the two points which
form the subject of our present discussion are, first, that the Founder
of Christianity, his associates, and immediate followers, passed their
lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings; secondly, that they did so in
attestation of the miraculous history recorded in our Scriptures, and
solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of that history.
The argument, by which these two propositions have been maintained by
us, stands thus:
No historical fact, I apprehend, is more certain, than that the original
propagators of Christianity voluntarily subjected themselves to lives of
fatigue, danger, and suffering, in the prosecution of their undertaking.
The nature of the undertaking; the character of the persons employed in
it; the opposition of their tenets to the fixed opinions and
expectations of the country in which they first advanced them; their
undissembled condemnation of the religion of all other countries; their
total want of power, authority, or force--render it in the highest
degree probable that this must have been the case. The probability is
increased by what we know of the fate of the Founder of the institution,
who was put to death for his attempt; and by what we also know of the
cruel treatment of the converts to the institution, within thirty years
after its commencement: both which points are attested by heathen
writers, and, being once admitted, leave it very incredible that the
primitive emissaries of the religion, who exercised their ministry,
first, amongst the people who had destroyed their Master, and,
afterwards, amongst those who persecuted their converts, should
themselves escape with impunity, or pursue their purpose in ease and
safety. This probability, thus sustained by foreign testimony, is
advanced, I think, to historical certainty, by the evidence of our own
books; by the accounts of a writer who was the companion of the persons
whose sufferings he relates; by the letters of the persons themselves by
predictions of persecutions ascribed to the Founder of the religion,
which predictions would not have been inserted in his history, much less
have been studiously dwelt upon, if they had not accorded with the
event, and which, even if falsely ascribed to him, could only have been
so ascribed, because the event suggested them; lastly, by incessant
exhortations to fortitude and patience, and by an earnestness,
repetition, and urgency upon the subject, which were unlikely to have
appeared if there had not been, at the time, some extraordinary call for
the exercise of these virtues.
It is made out also, I think, with sufficient evidence, that both the
teachers and converts of the religion, in consequence of their new
profession, took up a new course of life and behaviour.
The next great question is, what they did this FOR. That it was for a
miraculous story of some kind or other, is to my apprehension extremely
manifest; because, as to the fundamental article, the designation of the
person, viz. that this particular person, Jesus of Nazareth, ought to be
received as the Messiah, or as a messenger from God, they neither had,
nor could have, anything but miracles to stand upon. That the exertions
and sufferings of the apostles were for the story which we have now, is
proved by the consideration that this story is transmitted to us by two
of their own number, and by two others personally connected with them;
that the particularity of the narrative proves that the writers claimed
to possess circumstantial information, that from their situation they
had full opportunity of acquiring such information, that they certainly,
at least, knew what their colleagues, their companions, their masters
taught; that each of these books contains enough to prove the truth of
the religion; that if any one of them therefore be genuine, it is
sufficient; that the genuineness, however, of all of them is made out,
as well by the general arguments which evince the genuineness of the
most undisputed remains of antiquity, as also by peculiar and specific
proofs, viz. by citations from them in writings belonging to a period
immediately contiguous to that in which they were published; by the
distinguished regard paid by early Christians to the authority of these
books; (which regard was manifested by their collecting of them into a
volume, appropriating to that volume titles of peculiar respect,
translating them into various languages, digesting them into harmonies,
writing commentaries upon them, and, still more conspicuously, by the
reading of them in their public assemblies in all parts of the world)
by an universal agreement with respect to these books, whilst doubts
were entertained concerning some others; by contending sects appealing
to them; by the early adversaries of the religion not disputing their
genuineness, but, on the contrary, treating them as the depositaries of
the history upon which the religion was founded; by many formal
catalogues of these, as of certain and authoritative writings, published
in different and distant parts of the Christian world; lastly, by the
absence or defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to
any other histories of the same subject.
These are strong arguments to prove that the books actually proceeded
from the authors whose names they bear (and have always borne, for there
is not a particle of evidence to show that they ever went under any
other); but the strict genuineness of the books is perhaps more than is
necessary to the support of our proposition. For even supposing that, by
reason of the silence of antiquity, or the loss of records, we knew not
who were the writers of the four Gospels, yet the fact that they were
received as authentic accounts of the transaction upon which the
religion rested, and were received as such by Christians at or near the
age of the apostles, by those whom the apostles had taught, and by
societies which the apostles had founded; this fact, I say, connected
with the consideration that they are corroborative of each other's
testimony, and that they are further corroborated by another
contemporary history taking up the story where they had left it, and, in
a narrative built upon that story, accounting for the rise and
production of changes in the world, the effects of which subsist at this
day; connected, moreover, with the confirmation which they receive from
letters written by the apostles themselves, which both assume the same
general story, and, as often as occasions lead them to do so, allude to
particular parts of it; and connected also with the reflection, that if
the apostles delivered any different story it is lost; (the present and
no other being referred to by a series of Christian writers, down from
their age to our own; being like-wise recognised in a variety of
institutions, which prevailed early and universally, amongst the
disciples of the religion;) and that so great a change as the oblivion
of one story and the substitution of another, under such circumstances,
could not have taken place: this evidence would be deemed, I apprehend,
sufficient to prove concerning these books, that, whoever were the
authors of them, they exhibit the story which the apostles told, and for
which, consequently, they acted and they suffered.
If it be so, the religion must be true. These men could not be
deceivers. By only not bearing testimony, they might have avoided all
these sufferings, and have lived quietly. Would men in such
circumstances pretend to have seen what they never saw; assert facts
which they had no knowledge of; go about lying to teach virtue; and,
though not only convinced of Christ's being an impostor, but having seen
the success of his imposture in his crucifixion, yet persist in carrying
it on; and so persist, as to bring upon themselves for nothing, and with
a full knowledge of the consequence, enmity and hatred, danger and
death?
=========================================
OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.
PROPOSITION II.
CHAPTER I.
Our first proposition was, That there is satisfactory evidence that many
pretending to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed
their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undertaken
and undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and
solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts;
and that they also submitted, from the same motives, to new rules of
conduct.
Our second proposition, and which now remains to be treated of, is, That
there is NOT satisfactory evidence, that persons pretending to be
original witnesses of any other similar miracles have acted in the same
manner, in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely
in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts.
I enter upon this part of my argument, by declaring how far my belief in
miraculous accounts goes. If the reformers in the time of Wickliffe, or
of Luther; or those of England in the time of Henry the Eighth, or of
Queen Mary; or the founders of our religious sects since, such as were
Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Wesley in our times--had undergone the life of
toil and exertion, of danger and sufferings, which we know that many of
them did undergo, for a miraculous story; that is to say, if they had
founded their public ministry upon the allegation of miracles wrought
within their own knowledge, and upon narratives which could not be
resolved into delusion or mistake; and if it had appeared that their
conduct really had its origin in these accounts, I should have believed
them. Or, to borrow an instance which will be familiar to every one of
my readers, if the late Mr. Howard had undertaken his labours and
journeys in attestation, and in consequence of a clear and sensible
miracle, I should have believed him also. Or, to represent the same
thing under a third supposition; if Socrates had professed to perform
public miracles at Athens; if the friends of Socrates, Phaedo, Cebes,
Crito, and Simmias, together with Plato, and many of his followers,
relying upon the attestations which these miracles afforded to his
pretensions, had, at the hazard of their lives, and the certain expense
of their ease and tranquillity, gone about Greece, after his death, to
publish and propagate his doctrines: and if these things had come to our
knowledge, in the same way as that in which the life of Socrates is now
transmitted to us through the hands of his companions and disciples,
that is, by writings received without doubt as theirs, from the age in
which they were published to the present, I should have believed this
likewise. And my belief would, in each case, be much strengthened, if
the subject of the mission were of importance to the conduct and
happiness of human life; if it testified anything which it behoved
mankind to know from such authority; if the nature of what it delivered
required the sort of proof which it alleged; if the occasion was adequate
to the interposition, the end worthy of the means. In the last ease, my
faith would be much confirmed if the effects of the transaction
remained; more especially if a change had been wrought, at the time, in
the opinion and conduct of such numbers as to lay the foundation of an
institution, and of a system of doctrines, which had since overspread
the greatest part of the civilized world. I should have believed, I say,
the testimony in these cases; yet none of them do more than come up to
the apostolic history.
If any one choose to call assent to its evidence credulity, it is at
least incumbent upon him to produce examples in which the same evidence
hath turned out to be fallacious. And this contains the precise question
which we are now to agitate.
In stating the comparison between our evidence, and what our adversaries
may bring into competition with ours, we will divide the distinctions
which we wish to propose into two kinds,--those which relate to the
proof, and those which relate to the miracles. Under the former head we
may lay out of the case:--
I. Such accounts of supernatural events as are found only in histories
by some ages posterior to the transaction; and of which it is evident
that the historian could know little more than his reader. Ours is
contemporary history. This difference alone removes out of our way the
miraculous history of Pythagoras, who lived five hundred years before
the Christian era, written by Porphyry and Jamblicus, who lived three
hundred years after that era; the prodigies of Livy's history; the
fables of the heroic ages; the whole of the Greek and Roman, as well as
of the Gothic mythology; a great part of the legendary history of Popish
saints, the very best attested of which is extracted from the
certificates that are exhibited during the process of their
canonization, a ceremony which seldom takes place till a century after
their deaths. It applies also with considerable force to the miracles of
Apollonius Tyaneus, which are contained in a solitary history of his
life, published by Philostratus above a hundred years after his death;
and in which, whether Philostratus had any prior account to guide him,
depends upon his single unsupported assertion. Also to some of the
miracles of the third century, especially to one extraordinary instance,
the account of Gregory, bishop of Neocesarea, called Thaumaturgus,
delivered in the writings of Gregory of Nyssen, who lived one hundred
and thirty years after the subject of his panegyric.
The value of this circumstance is shown to have been accurately
exemplified in the history of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order of
Jesuits. (Douglas's Criterion of Miracles, p. 74.) His life, written by a
companion of his, and by one of the order, was published about fifteen
years after his death. In which life, the author, so far from ascribing
any miracles to Ignatius, industriously states the reasons why he was
not invested with any such power. The life was republished fifteen years
afterwards, with the addition of many circumstances which were the
fruit, the author says, of further inquiry, and of diligent examination;
but still with a total silence about miracles. When Ignatius had been
dead nearly sixty years, the Jesuits, conceiving a wish to have the
founder of their order placed in the Roman calendar, began, as it should
seem, for the first time, to attribute to him a catalogue of miracles
which could not then be distinctly disproved; and which there was, in
those who governed the church, a strong disposition to admit upon the
slenderest proofs.
II. We may lay out of the case accounts published in one country, of
what passed in a distant country, without any proof that such accounts
were known or received at home. In the case of Christianity, Judea,
which was the scene of the transaction, was the centre of the mission.
The story was published in the place in which it was acted. The church
of Christ was first planted at Jerusalem itself. With that church others
corresponded. From thence the primitive teachers of the institution went
forth; thither they assembled. The church of Jerusalem, and the several
churches of Judea, subsisted from the beginning, and for many ages;
received also the same books and the same accounts as other churches
did. (The succession of many eminent bishops of Jerusalem in the first
three centuries is distinctly preserved; as Alexander, A.D. 212, who
succeeded Narcissus, then 116 years old.)
This distinction disposes, amongst others, of the above-mentioned
miracles of Apollonius Tyaneus, most of which are related to have been
performed in India; no evidence remaining that either the miracles
ascribed to him, or the history of those miracles, were ever heard of in
India. Those of Francis Xavier, the Indian missionary, with many others
of the Romish breviary, are liable to the same objection, viz. that the
accounts of them were published at a vast distance from the supposed
scene of the wonders. (Douglas's Crit. p. 84.)
III. We lay out of the case transient rumours. Upon the first
publication of an extraordinary account, or even of an article of
ordinary intelligence, no one who is not personally acquainted with the
transaction can know whether it be true or false, because any man may
publish any story. It is in the future confirmation, or contradiction,
of the account; in its permanency, or its disappearance; its dying away
into silence, or its increasing in notoriety; its being followed up by
subsequent accounts, and being repeated in different and independent
accounts--that solid truth is distinguished from fugitive lies. This
distinction is altogether on the side of Christianity. The story did not
drop. On the contrary, it was succeeded by a train of action and events
dependent upon it. The accounts which we have in our hands were composed
after the first reports must have subsided. They were followed by a
train of writings upon the subject. The historical testimonies of the
transaction were many and various, and connected with letters,
discourses, controversies, apologies, successively produced by the same
transaction.
IV. We may lay out of the case what I call naked history. It has been
said, that if the prodigies of the Jewish history had been found only in
fragments of Manetho, or Berosus, we should have paid no regard to them:
and I am willing to admit this. If we knew nothing of the fact, but from
the fragment; if we possessed no proof that these accounts had been
credited and acted upon, from times, probably, as ancient as the
accounts themselves; if we had no visible effects connected with the
history, no subsequent or collateral testimony to confirm it; under
these circumstances I think that it would be undeserving of credit. But
this certainly is not our case. In appreciating the evidence of
Christianity, the books are to be combined with the institution; with
the prevalency of the religion at this day; with the time and place of
its origin, which are acknowledged points; with the circumstances of its
rise and progress, as collected from external history; with the fact of
our present books being received by the votaries of the institution from
the beginning; with that of other books coming after these, filled with
accounts of effects and consequences resulting from the transaction, or
referring to the transaction, or built upon it; lastly, with the
consideration of the number and variety of the books themselves, the
different writers from which they proceed, the different views with
which they were written, so disagreeing as to repel the suspicion of
confederacy, so agreeing as to show that they were founded in a common
original, i. e. in a story substantially the same. Whether this proof be
satisfactory or not, it is properly a cumulation of evidence, by no
means a naked or solitary record.
V. A mark of historical truth, although only a certain way, and to a
certain degree, is particularity in names, dates, places, circumstances,
and in the order of events preceding or following the transaction: of
which kind, for instance, is the particularity in the description of St.
Paul's voyage and shipwreck, in the 27th chapter of the Acts, which no
man, I think, can read without being convinced that the writer was
there; and also in the account of the cure and examination of the blind
man in the 9th chapter of St. John's Gospel, which bears every mark of
personal knowledge on the part of the historian. (Both these chapters
ought to be read for the sake of this very observation.) I do not deny
that fiction has often the particularity of truth; but then it is of
studied and elaborate fiction, or of a formal attempt to deceive, that
we observe this. Since, however, experience proves that particularity is
not confined to truth, I have stated that it is a proof of truth only to
a certain extent, i. e. it reduces the question to this, whether we can
depend or not upon the probity of the relater? which is a considerable
advance in our present argument; for an express attempt to deceive, in
which case alone particularity can appear without truth, is charged upon
the evangelists by few. If the historian acknowledge himself to have
received his intelligence from others, the particularity of the
narrative shows, prima facie, the accuracy of his inquiries, and the
fulness of his information. This remark belongs to St. Luke's history.
Of the particularity which we allege, many examples may be found in all
the Gospels. And it is very difficult to conceive that such numerous
particularities as are almost everywhere to be met with in the
Scriptures should be raised out of nothing, or be spun out of the
imagination without any fact to go upon.*
_________
* "There is always some truth where there are considerable
particularities related, and they always seem to bear some proportion to
one another. Thus, there is a great want of the particulars of time,
place, and persons in Manetho's account of the Egyptian Dynasties,
Etesias's of the Assyrian Kings, and those which the technical
chronologers have given of the ancient kingdoms of Greece; and,
agreeably thereto, the accounts have much fiction and falsehood, with
some truth: whereas Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, and
Caesar's of the War in Gaul, in both which the particulars of time,
place, and persons are mentioned, are universally esteemed true to a
great degree of exactness." Hartley, vol. ii. p. 109.
_________
It is to be remarked, however, that this particularity is only to be
looked for in direct history. It is not natural in references or
allusions, which yet, in other respects, often afford, as far as they
go, the most unsuspicious evidence.
VI. We lay out of the case such stories of supernatural events as
require, on the part of the hearer, nothing more than an otiose assent;
stories upon which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved,
nothing is to be done or changed in consequence of believing them. Such
stories are credited, if the careless assent that is given to them
deserve that name, more by the indolence of the hearer, than by his
judgment: or, though not much credited, are passed from one to another
without inquiry or resistance. To this case, and to this case alone,
belongs what is called the love of the marvellous. I have never known it
carry men further. Men do not suffer persecution from the love of the
marvellous. Of the indifferent nature we are speaking of are most vulgar
errors and popular superstition: most, for instance, of the current
reports of apparitions. Nothing depends upon their being true or false.
But not, surely, of this kind were the alleged miracles of Christ and
his apostles. They decided, if true, the most important question upon
which the human mind can fix its anxiety. They claimed to regulate the
opinions of mankind upon subjects in which they are not only deeply
concerned, but usually refractory and obstinate. Men could not be
utterly careless in such a case as this. If a Jew took up the story, he
found his darling partiality to his own nation and law wounded; if a
Gentile, he found his idolatry and polytheism reprobated and condemned.
Whoever entertained the account, whether Jew or Gentile, could not avoid
the following reflection:--"If these things be true, I must give up the
opinions and principles in which I have been brought up, the religion in
which my fathers lived and died." It is not conceivable that a man
should do this upon any idle report or frivolous account, or, indeed,
without being fully satisfied and convinced of the truth and credibility
of the narrative to which he trusted. But it did not stop at opinions.
They who believed Christianity acted upon it. Many made it the express
business of their lives to publish the intelligence. It was required of
those who admitted that intelligence to change forthwith their conduct
and their principles, to take up a different course of life, to part
with their habits and gratifications, and begin a new set of rules and
system of behaviour. The apostles, at least, were interested not to
sacrifice their ease, their fortunes, and their lives for an idle tale;
multitudes beside them were induced, by the same tale, to encounter
opposition, danger, and sufferings.
If it be said, that the mere promise of a future state would do all
this; I answer, that the mere promise of a future state, without any
evidence to give credit or assurance to it, would do nothing. A few
wandering fishermen talking of a resurrection of the dead could produce
no effect. If it be further said that men easily believe what they
anxiously desire; I again answer that in my opinion, the very contrary
of this is nearer to the truth. Anxiety of desire, earnestness of
expectation, the vastness of an event, rather causes men to disbelieve,
to doubt, to dread a fallacy, to distrust, and to examine. When our
Lord's resurrection was first reported to the apostles, they did not
believe, we are told, for joy. This was natural, and is agreeable to
experience.
VII. We have laid out of the case those accounts which require no more
than a simple assent; and we now also lay out of the case those which
come merely in affirmance of opinions already formed. This last
circumstance is of the utmost importance to notice well. It has long
been observed, that Popish miracles happen in Popish countries; that
they make no converts; which proves that stories are accepted when they
fall in with principles already fixed, with the public sentiments, or
with the sentiments of a party already engaged on the side the miracle
supports, which would not be attempted to be produced in the face of
enemies, in opposition to reigning tenets or favourite prejudices, or
when, if they be believed, the belief must draw men away from their
preconceived and habitual opinions, from their modes of life and rules
of action. In the former case, men may not only receive a miraculous
account, but may both act and suffer on the side, and, in the cause,
which the miracle supports, yet not act or suffer for the miracle, but
in pursuance of a prior persuasion. The miracle, like any other argument
which only confirms what was before believed, is admitted with little
examination. In the moral, as in the natural world, it is change which
requires a cause. Men are easily fortified in their old opinions, driven
from them with great difficulty. Now how does this apply to the
Christian history? The miracles there recorded were wrought in the midst
of enemies, under a government, a priesthood, and a magistracy decidedly
and vehemently adverse to them, and to the pretensions which they
supported. They were Protestant miracles in a Popish country; they were
Popish miracles in the midst of Protestants. They produced a change;
they established a society upon the spot, adhering to the belief of
them; they made converts; and those who were converted gave up to the
testimony their most fixed opinions and most favourite prejudices. They
who acted and suffered in the cause acted and suffered for the miracles:
for there was no anterior persuasion to induce them, no prior reverence,
prejudice, or partiality to take hold of Jesus had not one follower when
he set up his claim. His miracles gave birth to his sect. No part of
this description belongs to the ordinary evidence of Heathen or Popish
miracles. Even most of the miracles alleged to have been performed by
Christians, in the second and third century of its era, want this
confirmation. It constitutes indeed a line of partition between the
origin and the progress of Christianity. Frauds and fallacies might mix
themselves with the progress, which could not possibly take place in the
commencement of the religion; at least, according to any laws of human
conduct that we are acquainted with. What should suggest to the first
propagators of Christianity, especially to fishermen, tax-gatherers, and
husbandmen, such a thought as that of changing the religion of the
world; what could bear them through the difficulties in which the
attempt engaged them; what could procure any degree of success to the
attempt? are questions which apply, with great force, to the setting out
of the institution--with less, to every future stage of it.
To hear some men talk, one would suppose the setting up a religion by
miracles to be a thing of every day's experience: whereas the whole
current of history is against it. Hath any founder of a new sect amongst
Christians pretended to miraculous powers, and succeeded by his
pretensions? "Were these powers claimed or exercised by the founders of
the sects of the Waldenses and Albigenses? Did Wickliffe in England
pretend to it? Did Huss or Jerome in Bohemia? Did Luther in Germany,
Zuinglius in Switzerland, Calvin in France, or any of the reformers
advance this plea?" (Campbell on Miracles, p. 120, ed. 1766.) The French
prophets, in the beginning of the present century, (the eighteenth)
ventured to allege miraculous evidence, and immediately ruined their
cause by their temerity. "Concerning the religion of ancient Rome, of
Turkey, of Siam, of China, a single miracle cannot be named that was
ever offered as a test of any of those religions before their
establishment." (Adams on Mir. p. 75.)
We may add to what has been observed of the distinction which we are
considering, that, where miracles are alleged merely in affirmance of a
prior opinion, they who believe the doctrine may sometimes propagate a
belief of the miracles which they do not themselves entertain. This is
the case of what are called pious frauds; but it is a case, I apprehend,
which takes place solely in support of a persuasion already established.
At least it does not hold of the apostolical history. If the apostles
did not believe the miracles, they did not believe the religion; and
without this belief, where was the piety, what place was there for
anything which could bear the name or colour of piety, in publishing and
attesting miracles in its behalf? If it be said that many promote the
belief of revelation, and of any accounts which favour that belief,
because they think them, whether well or ill founded, of public and
political utility; I answer, that if a character exist which can with
less justice than another be ascribed to the founders of the Christian
religion, it is that of politicians, or of men capable of entertaining
political views. The truth is, that there is no assignable character
which will account for the conduct of the apostles, supposing their
story to be false. If bad men, what could have induced them to take such
pains to promote virtue? If good men, they would not have gone about the
country with a string of lies in their mouths.
In appreciating the credit of any miraculous story, these are
distinctions which relate to the evidence. There are other distinctions,
of great moment in the question, which relate to the miracles
themselves. Of which latter kind the following ought carefully to be
retained.
I. It is not necessary to admit as a miracle what can be resolved into a
false perception. Of this nature was the demon of Socrates; the visions
of Saint Anthony, and of many others; the vision which Lord Herbert of
Cherbury describes himself to have seen; Colonel Gardiner's vision, as
related in his life, written by Dr. Doddridge. All these may be
accounted for by a momentary insanity; for the characteristic symptom of
human madness is the rising up in the mind of images not distinguishable
by the patient from impressions upon the senses. (Batty on Lunacy.) The
cases, however, in which the possibility of this delusion exists are
divided from the cases in which it does not exist by many, and those not
obscure marks. They are, for the most part, cases of visions or voices.
The object is hardly ever touched. The vision submits not to be handled.
One sense does not confirm another. They are likewise almost always
cases of a solitary witness. It is in the highest degree improbable, and
I know not, indeed, whether it hath ever been the fact, that the same
derangement of the mental organs should seize different persons at the
same time; a derangement, I mean, so much the same, as to represent to
their imagination the same objects. Lastly, these are always cases of
momentary miracles; by which term I mean to denote miracles of which the
whole existence is of short duration, in contradistinction to miracles
which are attended with permanent effects. The appearance of a spectre,
the hearing of a supernatural sound, is a momentary miracle. The
sensible proof is gone when the apparition or sound is over. But if a
person born blind be restored to sight, a notorious cripple to the use
of his limbs, or a dead man to life, here is a permanent effect produced
by supernatural means. The change indeed was instantaneous, but the
proof continues. The subject of the miracle remains. The man cured or
restored is there: his former condition was known, and his present
condition may be examined. This can by no possibility be resolved into
false perception: and of this kind are by far the greater part of the
miracles recorded in the New Testament. When Lazarus was raised from the
dead, he did not merely move, and speak, and die again; or come out of
the grave, and vanish away. He returned to his home and family, and
there continued; for we find him some time afterwards in the same town,
sitting at table with Jesus and his sisters; visited by great multitudes
of the Jews as a subject of curiosity; giving, by his presence, so much
uneasiness to the Jewish rulers as to beget in them a design of
destroying him. (John xii. 1, 2, 9, 10.) No delusion can account for
this. The French prophets in England, some time since, gave out that one
of their teachers would come to life again; but their enthusiasm never
made them believe that they actually saw him alive. The blind man whose
restoration to sight at Jerusalem is recorded in the ninth chapter of
Saint John's Gospel did not quit the place or conceal himself from
inquiry. On the contrary, he was forthcoming, to answer the call, to
satisfy the scrutiny, and to sustain the browbeating of Christ's angry
and powerful enemies. When the cripple at the gate of the temple was
suddenly cured by Peter, (Acts iii. 2.) he did not immediately relapse
into his former lameness, or disappear out of the city; but boldly and
honestly produced himself along with the apostles, when they were
brought the next day before the Jewish council. (Acts iv. 14.) Here,
though the miracle was sudden, the proof was permanent. The lameness had
been notorious, the cure continued. This, therefore, could not be the
effect of any momentary delirium, either in the subject or in the
witnesses of the transaction. It is the same with the greatest number of
the Scripture miracles. There are other cases of a mixed nature, in
which, although the principal miracle be momentary, some circumstance
combined with it is permanent. Of this kind is the history of Saint
Paul's conversion. (Acts ix.) The sudden light and sound, the vision and
the voice upon the road to Damascus, were momentary: but Paul's
blindness for three days in consequence of what had happened; the
communication made to Ananias in another place, and by a vision
independent of the former; Ananias finding out Paul in consequence of
intelligence so received, and finding him in the condition described,
and Paul's recovery of his sight upon Ananias laying his hands upon him;
are circumstances which take the transaction, and the principal miracle
as included in it, entirely out of the case of momentary miracles, or of
such as may be accounted for by false perceptions. Exactly the same
thing may be observed of Peter's vision preparatory to the call of
Cornelius, and of its connexion with what was imparted in a distant
place to Cornelius himself, and with the message despatched by Cornelius
to Peter. The vision might be a dream; the message could not. Either
communication taken separately, might be a delusion; the concurrence of
the two was impossible to happen without a supernatural cause.
Beside the risk of delusion which attaches upon momentary miracles,
there is also much more room for imposture. The account cannot be
examined at the moment: and when that is also a moment of hurry and
confusion, it may not be difficult for men of influence to gain credit
to any story which they may wish to have believed. This is precisely the
case of one of the best attested of the miracles of Old Rome, the
appearance of Castor and Pollux in the battle fought by Posthumius with
the Latins at the lake Regillus. There is no doubt but that Posthumius,
after the battle, spread the report of such an appearance. No person
could deny it whilst it was said to last. No person, perhaps, had any
inclination to dispute it afterwards; or, if they had, could say with
positiveness what was or what was not seen by some or other of the army,
in the dismay and amidst the tumult of a battle.
In assigning false perceptions as the origin to which some miraculous
accounts may be referred, I have not mentioned claims to inspiration,
illuminations, secret notices or directions, internal sensations, or
consciousnesses of being acted upon by spiritual influences, good or
bad, because these, appealing to no external proof, however convincing
they may be to the persons themselves, form no part of what can be
accounted miraculous evidence. Their own credibility stands upon their
alliance with other miracles. The discussion, therefore, of all such
pretensions may be omitted.
II. It is not necessary to bring into the comparison what may be called
tentative miracles; that is, where, out of a great number of trials,
some succeed; and in the accounts of which, although the narrative of
the successful cases be alone preserved, and that of the unsuccessful
cases sunk, yet enough is stated to show that the cases produced are
only a few out of many in which the same means have been employed. This
observation bears with considerable force upon the ancient oracles and
auguries, in which a single coincidence of the event with the prediction
is talked of and magnified, whilst failures are forgotten, or
suppressed, or accounted for. It is also applicable to the cures wrought
by relics, and at the tombs of saints. The boasted efficacy of the
king's touch, upon which Mr. Hume lays some stress, falls under the same
description. Nothing is alleged concerning it which is not alleged of
various nostrums, namely, out of many thousands who have used them,
certified proofs of a few who have recovered after them. No solution of
this sort is applicable to the miracles of the Gospel. There is nothing
in the narrative which can induce, or even allow, us to believe, that
Christ attempted cures in many instances, and succeeded in a few; or
that he ever made the attempt in vain. He did not profess to heal
everywhere all that were sick; on the contrary, he told the Jews,
evidently meaning to represent his own case, that, "although many widows
were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land, yet
unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,
unto a woman that was a widow:" and that "many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed saving
Naaman the Syrian." (Luke iv. 25.) By which examples he gave them to
understand, that it was not the nature of a Divine interposition, or
necessary to its purpose, to be general; still less to answer every
challenge that might be made, which would teach men to put their faith
upon these experiments. Christ never pronounced the word, but the effect
followed.*
_________
*One, and only one, instance may be produced in which the disciples of
Christ do seem to have attempted a cure, and not to have been able to
perform it. The story is very ingenuously related by three of the
evangelists. (Matt. xvii. 14. Mark ix. 14. Luke ix. 33.) The patient was
afterwards healed by Christ himself; and the whole transaction seems to
have been intended, as it was well suited, to display the superiority of
Christ above all who performed miracles in his name, a distinction
which, during his presence in the world, it might be necessary to
inculcate by some such proof as this.
_________
It was not a thousand sick that received his benediction, and a few that
were benefited; a single paralytic is let down in his bed at Jesus's
feet, in the midst of a surrounding multitude; Jesus bid him walk, and
he did so. (Mark ii. 3.) A man with a withered hand is in the synagogue;
Jesus bid him stretch forth his hand in the presence of the assembly,
and it was "restored whole like the other." (Matt. xii. 10.) There was
nothing tentative in these cures; nothing that can be explained by the
power of accident.
We may observe, also, that many of the cures which Christ wrought, such
as that of a person blind from his birth; also many miracles besides
cures, as raising the dead, walking upon the sea, feeding a great
multitude with a few loaves and fishes, are of a nature which does not
in anywise admit of the supposition of a fortunate experiment.
III. We may dismiss from the question all accounts in which, allowing
the phenomenon to be real, the fact to be true, it still remains
doubtful whether a miracle were wrought. This is the case with the
ancient history of what is called the thundering legion, of the
extraordinary circumstances which obstructed the rebuilding of the
temple at Jerusalem by Julian; the circling of the flames and fragrant
smell at the martyrdom of Polycarp; the sudden shower that extinguished
the fire into which the Scriptures were thrown in the Diocletian
persecution; Constantine's dream; his inscribing in consequence of it
the cross upon his standard and the shields of his soldiers; his
victory, and the escape of the standard-bearer; perhaps, also, the
imagined appearance of the cross in the heavens, though this last
circumstance is very deficient in historical evidence. It is also the
case with the modern annual exhibition of the liquefaction of the blood
of Saint Januarius at Naples. It is a doubt, likewise, which ought to be
excluded by very special circumstances from those narratives which
relate to the supernatural cure of hypochondriacal and nervous
complaints, and of all diseases which are much affected by the
imagination. The miracles of the second and third century are, usually,
healing the sick and casting out evil spirits, miracles in which there
is room for some error and deception. We hear nothing of causing the
blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the lepers to be
cleansed. (Jortin's Remarks, vol. ii. p. 51.) There are also instances in
Christian writers of reputed miracles, which were natural operations,
though not known to be such at the time; as that of articulate speech
after the loss of a great part of the tongue.
IV. To the same head of objection, nearly, may also be referred accounts
in which the variation of a small circumstance may have transformed some
extraordinary appearance, or some critical coincidence of events, into a
miracle; stories, in a word, which may be resolved into exaggeration. The
miracles of the Gospel can by no possibility be explained away in this
manner. Total fiction will account for anything; but no stretch of
exaggeration that has any parallel in other histories, no force of fancy
upon real circumstances, could produce the narratives which we now have.
The feeding of the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes surpasses
all bounds of exaggeration. The raising of Lazarus, of the widow's son
at Nain, as well as many of the cures which Christ wrought, come not
within the compass of misrepresentation. I mean that it is impossible to
assign any position of circumstances however peculiar, any accidental
effects however extraordinary, any natural singularity, which could
supply an origin or foundation to these accounts.
Having thus enumerated several exceptions which may justly be taken to
relations of miracles, it is necessary, when we read the Scriptures, to
bear in our minds this general remark; that although there be miracles
recorded in the New Testament, which fall within some or other of the
exceptions here assigned, yet that they are united with others, to which
none of the same exceptions extend, and that their credibility stands
upon this union. Thus the visions and revelations which Saint Paul
asserts to have been imparted to him may not, in their separate
evidence, be distinguishable from the visions and revelations which many
others have alleged. But here is the difference. Saint Paul's
pretensions were attested by external miracles wrought by himself, and
by miracles wrought in the cause to which these visions relate; or, to
speak more properly, the same historical authority which informs us of
one informs us of the other. This is not ordinarily true of the visions
of enthusiasts, or even of the accounts in which they are contained.
Again, some of Christ's own miracles were momentary; as the
transfiguration, the appearance and voice from Heaven at his baptism, a
voice from the clouds on one occasion afterwards (John xii. 28), and
some others. It is not denied, that the distinction which we have
proposed concerning miracles of this species applies, in diminution of
the force of the evidence, as much to these instances as to others. But
this is the case not with all the miracles ascribed to Christ, nor with
the greatest part, nor with many. Whatever force therefore there may be
in the objection, we have numerous miracles which are free from it; and
even those to which it is applicable are little affected by it in their
credit, because there are few who, admitting the rest, will reject them.
If there be miracles of the New Testament which come within any of the
other heads into which we have distributed the objections, the same
remark must be repeated. And this is one way in which the unexampled
number and variety of the miracles ascribed to Christ strengthen the
credibility of Christianity. For it precludes any solution, or
conjecture about a solution, which imagination, or even which experience
might suggest, concerning some particular miracles, if considered
independently of others. The miracles of Christ were of various kinds,*
and performed in great varieties of situation, form, and manner; at
Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Jewish nation and religion; in
different parts of Judea and Galilee; in cities and villages; in
synagogues, in private houses; in the street, in highways; with
preparation, as in the case of Lazarus; by accident, as in the case of
the widow's son of Nain; when attended by multitudes, and when alone
with the patient; in the midst of his disciples, and in the presence of
his enemies; with the common people around him, and before Scribes and
Pharisees, and rulers of the synagogues.
_________
* Not only healing every species of disease, but turning water into wine
(John ii.); feeding multitudes with a few loaves and fishes (Matt. xiv.
15; Mark vi. 35; Luke ix. 12; John vi. 5); walking on the sea (Matt.
xiv. 25); calming a storm (Matt. viii. 26; Luke viii. 24); a celestial
voice at his baptism, and miraculous appearance (Matt. iii. 16;
afterwards John xii. 28); his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 18; Mark ix.
2; Luke ix. 28; 2 Peter i. 16, 17); raising the dead in three distinct
instances (Matt. ix. 18; Mark v. 22; Luke vii. 14; viii. 41; John xi.).
_________
I apprehend that, when we remove from the comparison the cases which are
fairly disposed of by the observations that have been stated, many cases
will not remain. To those which do remain, we apply this final
distinction; "that there is not satisfactory evidence that persons
pretending to be original witnesses of the miracles passed their lives
in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undertaken and
undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and
properly in consequence of their belief of the truth of those accounts."
CHAPTER II.
But they with whom we argue have undoubtedly a right to select their own
examples. The instances with which Mr. Hume has chosen to confront the
miracles of the New Testament, and which, therefore, we are entitled to
regard as the strongest which the history of the world could supply to
the inquiries of a very acute and learned adversary, are the three
following:
I. The cure of a blind and of a lame man of Alexandria, by the emperor
Vespasian, as related by Tacitus;
II. The restoration of the limb of an attendant in a Spanish church, as
told by Cardinal de Retz; and,
III. The cures said to be performed at the tomb of the abbe Paris in the
early part of the eighteenth century.
I. The narrative of Tacitus is delivered in these terms: "One of the
common people of Alexandria, known to be diseased in his eyes, by the
admonition of the god Serapis, whom that superstitious nation worship
above all other gods, prostrated himself before the emperor, earnestly
imploring from him a remedy for his blindness, and entreating that he
would deign to anoint with his spittle his cheeks and the balls of his
eyes. Another, diseased in his hand, requested, by the admonition of the
same god, that he might be touched by the foot of the emperor. Vespasian
at first derided and despised their application; afterwards, when they
continued to urge their petitions, he sometimes appeared to dread the
imputation of vanity; at other times, by the earnest supplication of the
patients, and the persuasion of his flatterers, to be induced to hope
for success. At length he commanded an inquiry to be made by the
physicians, whether such a blindness and debility were vincible by human
aid. The report of the physicians contained various points: that in the
one, the power of vision was not destroyed, but would return if the
obstacles were removed; that in the other, the diseased joints might be
restored, if a healing power were applied; that it was, perhaps,
agreeable to the gods to do this; that the emperor was elected by divine
assistance; lastly, that the credit of the success would be the
emperor's, the ridicule of the disappointment would fall upon the
patients. Vespasian believing that everything was in the power of his
fortune, and that nothing was any longer incredible, whilst the
multitude which stood by eagerly expected the event, with a countenance
expressive of joy, executed what he was desired to do. Immediately the
hand was restored to its use, and light returned to the blind man. They
who were present relate both these cures, even at this time, when there
is nothing to be gained by lying." (Tacit. Hist. lib. iv.)
Now, though Tacitus wrote this account twenty-seven years after the
miracle is said to have been performed, and wrote at Rome of what passed
at Alexandria, and wrote also from report; and although it does not
appear that he had examined the story or that he believed it, (but
rather the contrary,) yet I think his testimony sufficient to prove that
such a transaction took place: by which I mean, that the two men in
question did apply to Vespasian; that Vespasian did touch the diseased
in the manner related; and that a cure was reported to have followed the
operation. But the affair labours under a strong and just suspicion,
that the whole of it was a concerted imposture brought about by
collusion between the patients, the physician, and the emperor. This
solution is probable, because there was everything to suggest, and
everything to facilitate such a scheme. The miracle was calculated to
confer honour upon the emperor, and upon the god Serapis. It was
achieved in the midst of the emperor's flatterers and followers; in a
city and amongst a populace before-hand devoted to his interest, and to
the worship of the god: where it would have been treason and blasphemy
together to have contradicted the fame of the cure, or even to have
questioned it. And what is very observable in the account is, that the
report of the physicians is just such a report as would have been made
of a case in which no external marks of the disease existed, and which,
consequently, was capable of being easily counterfeited; viz. that in
the first of the patients the organs of vision were not destroyed, that
the weakness of the second was in his joints. The strongest circumstance
in Tacitus's narration is, that the first patient was "notus tabe
oculorum," remarked or notorious for the disease in his eyes. But this
was a circumstance which might have found its way into the story in its
progress from a distant country, and during an interval of thirty years;
or it might be true that the malady of the eyes was notorious, yet that
the nature and degree of the disease had never been ascertained; a case
by no means uncommon. The emperor's reserve was easily affected: or it
is possible he might not be in the secret. There does not seem to be
much weight in the observation of Tacitus, that they who were present
continued even then to relate the story when there was nothing to be
gained by the lie. It only proves that those who had told the story for
many years persisted in it. The state of mind of the witnesses and
spectators at the time is the point to be attended to. Still less is
there of pertinency in Mr. Hume's eulogium on the cautious and
penetrating genius of the historian; for it does not appear that the
historian believed it. The terms in which he speaks of Serapis, the
deity to whose interposition the miracle was attributed, scarcely suffer
us to suppose that Tacitus thought the miracle to be real: "by the
admonition of the god Serapis, whom that superstitious nation (dedita
superstitionibus gens) worship above all other gods." To have brought
this supposed miracle within the limits of comparison with the miracles
of Christ, it ought to have appeared that a person of a low and private
station, in the midst of enemies, with the whole power of the country
opposing him, with every one around him prejudiced or interested against
his claims and character, pretended to perform these cures, and required
the spectators, upon the strength of what they saw, to give up their
firmest hopes and opinions, and follow him through a life of trial and
danger; that many were so moved as to obey his call, at the expense both
of every notion in which they had been brought up, and of their ease,
safety, and reputation; and that by these beginnings a change was
produced in the world, the effects of which remain to this day: a case,
both in its circumstances and consequences, very unlike anything we find
in Tacitus's relation.
II. The story taken from the Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, which is the
second example alleged by Mr. Hume, is this: "In the church of Saragossa
in Spain, the canons showed me a man whose business it was to light the
lamps; telling me, that he had been several years at the gate with one
leg only. I saw him with two." (Liv. iv. A.D. 1654.)
It is stated by Mr. Hume, that the cardinal who relates this story did
not believe it; and it nowhere appears that he either examined the limb,
or asked the patient, or indeed any one, a single question about the
matter. An artificial leg, wrought with art, would be sufficient, in a
place where no such contrivance had ever before been heard of, to give
origin and currency to the report. The ecclesiastics of the place would,
it is probable, favour the story, inasmuch as it advanced the honour of
their image and church. And if they patronized it, no other person at
Saragossa, in the middle of the last century, would care to dispute it.
The story likewise coincided not less with the wishes and preconceptions
of the people than with the interests of their ecclesiastical rulers: so
that there was prejudice backed by authority, and both operating upon
extreme ignorance, to account for the success of the imposture. If, as I
have suggested, the contrivance of an artificial limb was then new, it
would not occur to the cardinal himself to suspect it; especially under
the carelessness of mind with which he heard the tale, and the little
inclination he felt to scrutinize or expose its fallacy.
III. The miracles related to have been wrought at the tomb of the abbe
Paris admit in general of this solution. The patients who frequented the
tomb were so affected by their devotion, their expectation, the place,
the solemnity, and, above all, by the sympathy of the surrounding
multitude, that many of them were thrown into violent convulsions, which
convulsions, in certain instances, produced a removal of disorder,
depending upon obstruction. We shall, at this day, have the less
difficulty in admitting the above account, because it is the very same
thing as hath lately been experienced in the operations of animal
magnetism: and the report of the French physicians upon that mysterious
remedy is very applicable to the present consideration, viz. that the
pretenders to the art, by working upon the imaginations of their
patients, were frequently able to produce convulsions; that convulsions
so produced are amongst the most powerful, but, at the same time, most
uncertain and unmanageable applications to the human frame which can be
employed.
Circumstances which indicate this explication, in the case of the
Parisian miracles, are the following:
1. They were tentative. Out of many thousand sick, infirm, and diseased
persons who resorted to the tomb, the professed history of the miracles
contains only nine cures.
2. The convulsions at the tomb are admitted.
3. The diseases were, for the most part, of that sort which depends upon
inaction and obstruction, as dropsies, palsies, and some tumours.
4. The cures were gradual; some patients attending many days, some several
weeks, and some several months.
5. The cures were many of them incomplete.
6. Others were temporary. (The reader will find these particulars
verified in the detail, by the accurate inquiries of the present bishop
of Sarum, in his Criterion of Miracles, p. 132, et seq.)
So that all the wonder we are called upon to account for is, that out of
an almost innumerable multitude which resorted to the tomb for the cure
of their complaints, and many of whom were there agitated by strong
convulsions, a very small proportion experienced a beneficial change in
their constitution, especially in the action of the nerves and glands.
Some of the cases alleged do not require that we should have recourse to
this solution. The first case in the catalogue is scarcely
distinguishable from the progress of a natural recovery. It was that of
a young man who laboured under an inflammation of one eye, and had lost
the sight of the other. The inflamed eye was relieved, but the blindness
of the other remained. The inflammation had before been abated by
medicine; and the young man, at the time of his attendance at the tomb,
was using a lotion of laudanum. And, what is a still more material part
of the case, the inflammation, after some interval, returned. Another
case was that of a young man who had lost his sight by the puncture of
an awl, and the discharge of the aqueous humour through the wound. The
sight, which had been gradually returning, was much improved during his
visit to the tomb, that is, probably in the same degree in which the
discharged humour was replaced by fresh secretions. And it is
observable, that these two are the only cases which, from their nature,
should seem unlikely to be affected by convulsions.
In one material respect I allow that the Parisian miracles were
different from those related by Tacitus, and from the Spanish miracle of
the cardinal de Retz. They had not, like them, all the power and all the
prejudice of the country on their side to begin with. They were alleged
by one party against another, by the Jansenists against the Jesuits.
These were of course opposed and examined by their adversaries. The
consequence of which examination was that many falsehoods were detected,
that with something really extraordinary much fraud appeared to be
mixed. And if some of the cases upon which designed misrepresentation
could not be charged were not at the time satisfactorily accounted for,
it was because the efficacy of strong spasmodic affections was not then
sufficiently known. Finally, the cause of Jansenism did not rise by the
miracles, but sunk, although the miracles had the anterior persuasion of
all the numerous adherents of that cause to set out with.
These, let us remember, are the strongest examples which the history of
ages supplies. In none of them was the miracle unequivocal; by none of
them were established prejudices and persuasions overthrown; of none of
them did the credit make its way, in opposition to authority and power;
by none of them were many induced to commit themselves, and that in
contradiction to prior opinions, to a life of mortification, danger, and
sufferings; none were called upon to attest them at the expense of their
fortunes and safety.*
_________
* It may be thought that the historian of the Parisian miracles, M.
Montgeron, forms an exception to this last assertion. He presented his
book (with a suspicion, as it should seem, of the danger of what he was
doing) to the king; and was shortly afterwards committed to prison; from
which he never came out. Had the miracles been unequivocal, and had M.
Montgeron been originally convinced by them, I should have allowed this
exception. It would have stood, I think, alone in the argument of our
adversaries. But, beside what has been observed of the dubious nature of
the miracles, the account which M. Montgeron has himself left of his
conversion shows both the state of his mind and that his persuasion was
not built upon external miracles.--"Scarcely had he entered the
churchyard when he was struck," he tells us, "with awe and reverence,
having never before heard prayers pronounced with so much ardour and
transport as he observed amongst the supplicants at the tomb. Upon this,
throwing himself on his knees, resting his elbows on the tombstone and
covering his face with his hands, he spake the following prayer. O thou,
by whose intercession so many miracles are said to be performed, if it
be true that a part of thee surviveth the grave, and that thou hast
influence with the Almighty, have pity on the darkness of my
understanding, and through his mercy obtain the removal of it." Having
prayed thus, "many thoughts," as he sayeth, "began to open themselves to
his mind; and so profound was his attention that he continued on his
knees four hours, not in the least disturbed by the vast crowd of
surrounding supplicants. During this time, all the arguments which he
ever heard or read in favour of Christianity occurred to him with so
much force, and seemed so strong and convincing, that he went home fully
satisfied of the truth of religion in general, and of the holiness and
power of that person who," as he supposed, "had engaged the Divine
Goodness to enlighten his understanding so suddenly." (Douglas's Crit of
Mir. p. 214.)
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PART II.
OF THE AUXILIARY EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER I.
PROPHECY.
Isaiah iii. 13; liii. "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently; he shall
be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonished at
thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than
the sons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut
their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they
see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who hath
believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he
shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry
ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it
were, our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to
his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from
judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out
of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he
stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in
his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in
his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to
grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see
his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall
be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with
the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession
for the transgressors."
These words are extant in a book purporting to contain the predictions
of a writer who lived seven centuries before the Christian era.
That material part of every argument from prophecy, namely, that the
words alleged were actually spoken or written before the fact to which
they are applied took place, or could by any natural means be foreseen,
is, in the present instance, incontestable. The record comes out of the
custody of adversaries. The Jews, as an ancient father well observed,
are our librarians. The passage is in their copies as well as in ours.
With many attempts to explain it away, none has ever been made by them
to discredit its authenticity.
And what adds to the force of the quotation is, that it is taken from a
writing declaredly prophetic; a writing professing to describe such
future transactions and changes in the world as were connected with the
fate and interests of the Jewish nation. It is not a passage in an
historical or devotional composition, which, because it turns out to be
applicable to some future events, or to some future situation of
affairs, is presumed to have been oracular. The words of Isaiah were
delivered by him in a prophetic character, with the solemnity belonging
to that character: and what he so delivered was all along understood by
the Jewish reader to refer to something that was to take place after the
time of the author. The public sentiments of the Jews concerning the
design of Isaiah's writings are set forth in the book of
Ecclesiasticus:* "He saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass
at the last, and he comforted them that mourned in Sion. He showed what
should come to pass for ever, and secret things or ever they came."
_________
* Chap. xlviii. ver. 24.
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It is also an advantage which this prophecy possesses, that it is
intermixed with no other subject. It is entire, separate, and
uninterruptedly directed to one scene of things.
The application of the prophecy to the evangelic history is plain and
appropriate. Here is no double sense; no figurative language but what is
sufficiently intelligible to every reader of every country. The
obscurities (by which I mean the expressions that require a knowledge of
local diction, and of local allusion) are few, and not of great
importance. Nor have I found that varieties of reading, or a different
construing of the original, produce any material alteration in the sense
of the prophecy. Compare the common translation with that of Bishop
Lowth, and the difference is not considerable. So far as they do differ,
Bishop Lowth's corrections, which are the faithful result of an accurate
examination, bring the description nearer to the New Testament history
than it was before. In the fourth verse of the fifty-third chapter, what
our bible renders "stricken" he translates "judicially stricken:" and in
the eighth verse, the clause "he was taken from prison and from
judgment," the bishop gives "by an oppressive judgment he was taken
off." The next words to these, "who shall declare his generation?" are
much cleared up in their meaning by the bishop's version; "his manner of
life who would declare?" i. e. who would stand forth in his defence? The
former part of the ninth verse, "and he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death," which inverts the circumstances of
Christ's passion, the bishop brings out in an order perfectly agreeable
to the event; "and his grave was appointed with the wicked, but with the
rich man was his tomb." The words in the eleventh verse, "by his
knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many," are, in the bishop's
version, "by the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify
many."
It is natural to inquire what turn the Jews themselves give to this
prophecy.* There is good proof that the ancient Rabbins explained it of
their expected Messiah:+ but their modern expositors concur, I think, in
representing it as a description of the calamitous state, and intended
restoration, of the Jewish people, who are here, as they say, exhibited
under the character of a single person. I have not discovered that their
exposition rests upon any critical arguments, or upon these in any other
than in a very minute degree.
_________
* "Vaticinium hoc Esaiae est carnificina Rabbinorum, de quo aliqui
Judaei mihi confessi sunt, Rabbinos suos ex propheticis scripturis
facile se extricare potuisse, modo; Esaias tacuisset." Hulse, Theol.
Jud. P. 318, quoted by Poole, in loc.
+ Hulse, Theol. Jud. p. 430.
_________
The clause in the ninth verse, which we render "for the transgression of
my people was he stricken," and in the margin, "was the stroke upon
him," the Jews read "for the transgression of my people was the stroke
upon them." And what they allege in support of the alteration amounts
only to this, that the Hebrew pronoun is capable of a plural as well as
of a singular signification; that is to say, is capable of their
construction as well as ours.* And this is all the variation contended
for; the rest of the prophecy they read as we do. The probability,
therefore, of their exposition is a subject of which we are as capable
of judging as themselves. This judgment is open indeed to the good sense
of every attentive reader. The application which the Jews contend for
appears to me to labour under insuperable difficulties; in particular,
it may be demanded of them to explain in whose name or person, if the
Jewish people he the sufferer, does the prophet speak, when he says, "He
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; but he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of
our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Again, the
description in the seventh verse, "he was oppressed and he was
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not
his mouth," quadrates with no part of the Jewish history with which we
are acquainted. The mention of the "grave" and the "tomb," in the ninth
verse, is not very applicable to the fortunes of a nation; and still
less so is the conclusion of the prophecy in the twelfth verse, which
expressly represents the sufferings as voluntary, and the sufferer as
interceding for the offenders; "because he hath poured out his soul unto
death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin
of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."
_________
* Bishop Lowth adopts in this place the reading of the seventy, which
gives smitten to death, "for the transgression of my people was he
smitten to death." The addition of the words "to death" makes an end of
the Jewish interpretation of the clause. And the authority upon which
this reading (though not given by the present Hebrew text) is adopted,
Dr. Kennicot has set forth by an argument not only so cogent, but so
clear and popular, that I beg leave to transcribe the substance of it
into this note:--"Origen, after having quoted at large this prophecy
concerning the Messiah, tells us that, having once made use of this
passage, in a dispute against some that were accounted wise amongst the
Jews, one of them replied that the words did not mean one man, but one
people, the Jews, who were smitten of God, and dispersed among the
Gentiles for their conversion; that he then urged many parts of this
prophecy to show the absurdity of this interpretation, and that he
seemed to press them the hardest by this sentence,--'for the
transgression of my people was he smitten to death.'" Now as Origen, the
author of the Hexapla, must have understood Hebrew, we cannot suppose
that he would have urged this last text as so decisive, if the Greek
version had not agreed here with the Hebrew text; nor that these wise
Jews would have been at all distressed by this quotation, unless the
Hebrew text had read agreeably to the words "to death," on which the
argument principally depended; for by quoting it immediately, they would
have triumphed over him, and reprobated his Greek version. This,
whenever they could do it was their constant practice in their disputes
with the Christians. Origen himself, who laboriously compared the Hebrew
text with the Septuagint, has recorded the necessity of arguing with the
Jews from such passages only as were in the Septuagint agreeable to the
Hebrew. Wherefore, as Origen had carefully compared the Greek version of
the Septuagint with the Hebrew text; and as he puzzled and confounded
the learned Jews, by urging upon them the reading "to death" in this
place; it seems almost impossible not to conclude, both from Origen's
argument and the silence of his Jewish adversaries, that the Hebrew text
at that time actually had the word agreeably to the version of the
seventy. Lowth's Isaiah, p. 242.
_________
There are other prophecies of the Old Testament, interpreted by
Christians to relate to the Gospel history, which are deserving both of
great regard and of a very attentive consideration: but I content myself
with stating the above, as well because I think it the clearest and the
strongest of all, as because most of the rest, in order that their value
might be represented with any tolerable degree of fidelity, require a
discussion unsuitable to the limits and nature of this work. The reader
will find them disposed in order, and distinctly explained, in Bishop
Chandler's treatise on the subject; and he will bear in mind, what has
been often, and, I think, truly, urged by the advocates of Christianity,
that there is no other eminent person to the history of whose life so
many circumstances can be made to apply. They who object that much has
been done by the power of chance, the ingenuity of accommodation, and
the industry of research, ought to try whether the same, or anything
like it, could be done, if Mahomet, or any other person, were proposed
as the subject of Jewish prophecy.
II. A second head of argument from prophecy is founded upon our Lord's
predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, recorded by three
out of the four evangelists.
Luke xxi. 5-25. "And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned
with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye
behold, the days will come in which there shall not be left one stone
upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And they asked him, saying,
Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when
these things shall come to pass? And he said, Take heed that ye be not
deceived; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the
time draweth near; go ye not therefore after them. But when ye shall
hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must
first come to pass; but the end is not by-and-by. Then said he unto
them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and
great earth-quakes shall be in divers places, and famines and
pestilences; and fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from
heaven. But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and
persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons,
being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. And it shall
turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to
meditate before what ye shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and
wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor
resist. And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and
kinsfolk, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to
death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But there
shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your
souls. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know
that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea
flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart
out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For
these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be
fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give
suck in those days: for there shall be great distress in the land, and
wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword,
and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be
trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled."
In terms nearly similar, this discourse is related in the twenty-fourth
chapter of Matthew and the thirteenth of Mark. The prospect of the same
evils drew from our Saviour, on another occasion, the following
affecting expressions of concern, which are preserved by St. Luke (xix.
41--44): "And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over
it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine
eyes. For the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round and keep thee in on every
side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within
thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because
thou knowest not the time of thy visitation"--These passages are direct
and explicit predictions. References to the same event, some plain, some
parabolical, or otherwise figurative, are found in divers other
discourses of our Lord. (Matt. xxi. 33-46; xxii. 1-7. Mark xii. 1-12.
Luke xiii. 1-9; xx. 9-20; xxi. 5-13.)
The general agreement of the description with the event, viz. with the
ruin of the Jewish nation, and the capture of Jerusalem under Vespasian,
thirty-six years after Christ's death, is most evident; and the
accordancy in various articles of detail and circumstances has been
shown by many learned writers. It is also an advantage to the inquiry,
and to the argument built upon it, that we have received a copious
account of the transaction from Josephus, a Jewish and contemporary
historian. This part of the case is perfectly free from doubt. The only
question which, in my opinion, can be raised upon the subject is,
whether the prophecy was really delivered before the event? I shall
apply, therefore, my observations to this point solely.
1. The judgment of antiquity, though varying in the precise year of the
publication of the three Gospels, concurs in assigning them a date prior
to the destruction of Jerusalem. (Lardner, vol. xiii.)
2. This judgment is confirmed by a strong probability arising from the
course of human life. The destruction of Jerusalem took place in the
seventieth year after the birth of Christ. The three evangelists, one of
whom was his immediate companion, and the other two associated with his
companions, were, it is probable, not much younger than he was. They
must, consequently, have been far advanced in life when Jerusalem was
taken; and no reason has been given why they should defer writing their
histories so long.
3. (Le Clerc, Diss. III. de Quat. Evang. num. vii. p. 541.) If the
evangelists, at the time of writing the Gospels, had known of the
destruction of Jerusalem, by which catastrophe the prophecies were
plainly fulfilled, it is most probable that, in recording the
predictions, they would have dropped some word or other about the
completion; in like manner as Luke, after relating the denunciation of a
dearth by Agabus, adds, "which came to pass in the days of Claudius
Caesar;" (Acts xi. 28.) whereas the prophecies are given distinctly in
one chapter of each of the first three Gospels, and referred to in
several different passages of each, and in none of all these places does
there appear the smallest intimation that the things spoken of had come
to pass. I do admit that it would have been the part of an impostor, who
wished his readers to believe that this book was written before the
event, when in truth it was written after it, to have suppressed any
such intimation carefully. But this was not the character of the authors
of the Gospel. Cunning was no quality of theirs. Of all writers in the
world, they thought the least of providing against objections. Moreover,
there is no clause in any one of them that makes a profession of their
having written prior to the Jewish wars, which a fraudulent purpose
would have led them to pretend. They have done neither one thing nor the
other; they have neither inserted any words which might signify to the
reader that their accounts were written before the destruction of
Jerusalem, which a sophist would have done; nor have they dropped a hint
of the completion of the prophecies recorded by them, which an
undesigning writer, writing after the event, could hardly, on some or
other of the many occasions that presented themselves, have missed of
doing.
4. The admonitions* which Christ is represented to have given to his
followers to save themselves by flight are not easily accounted for on
the supposition of the prophecy being fabricated after the event. Either
the Christians, when the siege approached, did make their escape from
Jerusalem, or they did not: if they did, they must have had the prophecy
amongst them: if they did not know of any such prediction at the time of
the siege, if they did not take notice of any such warning, it was an
improbable fiction, in a writer publishing his work near to that time
(which, on any, even the lowest and most disadvantageous supposition,
was the case with the gospels now in our hands), and addressing his work
to Jews and to Jewish converts (which Matthew certainly did), to state
that the followers of Christ had received admonition of which they made
no use when the occasion arrived, and of which experience then recent
proved that those who were most concerned to know and regard them were
ignorant or negligent. Even if the prophecies came to the hands of the
evangelists through no better vehicle than tradition, it must have been
by a tradition which subsisted prior to the event. And to suppose that
without any authority whatever, without so much as even any tradition to
guide them, they had forged these passages, is to impute to them a
degree of fraud and imposture from every appearance of which their
compositions are as far removed as possible.
_________
* "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the
desolation thereof is nigh; then let them which are in Judea flee to the
mountains; then let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and
let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto."--Luke xxi. 20,
21.
"When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then let them which
be in Judea flee unto the mountains; let him which is on the house-top
not come down to take anything out of his house; neither let him which
is in the field return back to take his clothes."--Matt. xiv. 18.
_________
5. I think that, if the prophecies had been composed after the event,
there would have been more specification. The names or descriptions of
the enemy, the general, the emperor, would have been found in them. The
designation of the time would have been more determinate. And I am
fortified in this opinion by observing that the counterfeited prophecies
of the Sibylline oracles, of the twelve patriarchs, and, I am inclined
to believe, most others of the kind, are mere transcripts of the
history, moulded into a prophetic form.
It is objected that the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem is
mixed or connected with expressions which relate to the final judgment
of the world; and so connected as to lead an ordinary reader to expect
that these two events would not be far distant from each other. To which
I answer, that the objection does not concern our present argument. If
our Saviour actually foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, it is
sufficient; even although we should allow that the narration of the
prophecy had combined what had been said by him on kindred subjects,
without accurately preserving the order, or always noticing the
transition of the discourse.
CHAPTER II.
THE MORALITY OF THE GOSPEL.
Is stating the morality of the Gospel as an argument of its truth, I am
willing to admit two points; first, that the teaching of morality was
not the primary design of the mission; secondly, that morality, neither
in the Gospel, nor in any other book, can be a subject, properly
speaking, of discovery.
If I were to describe in a very few words the scope of Christianity as a
revelation,* I should say that it was to influence the conduct of human
life, by establishing the proof of a future state of reward and
punishment,--"to bring life and immortality to light." The direct
object, therefore, of the design is, to supply motives, and not rules;
sanctions, and not precepts. And these were what mankind stood most in
need of. The members of civilised society can, in all ordinary cases,
judge tolerably well how they ought to act: but without a future state,
or, which is the same thing, without credited evidence of that state,
they want a motive to their duty; they want at least strength of motive
sufficient to bear up against the force of passion, and the temptation
of present advantage. Their rules want authority. The most important
service that can be rendered to human life, and that consequently which
one might expect beforehand would be the great end and office of a
revelation from God, is to convey to the world authorised assurances of
the reality of a future existence. And although in doing this, or by the
ministry of the same person by whom this is done, moral precepts or
examples, or illustrations of moral precepts, may be occasionally given
and be highly valuable, yet still they do not form the original purpose
of the mission.
_________
* Great and inestimably beneficial effects may accrue from the mission
of Christ, and especially from his death, which do not belong to
Christianity as a revelation: that is, they might have existed, and they
might have been accomplished, though we had never, in this life, been
made acquainted with them. These effects may be very extensive; they may
be interesting even to other orders of intelligent beings. I think it is
a general opinion, and one to which I have long come, that the
beneficial effects of Christ's death extend to the whole human species.
It was the redemption of the world. "He is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world;" 1 John ii. 2.
Probably the future happiness, perhaps the future existence of the
species, and more gracious terms of acceptance extended to all, might
depend upon it or be procured by it. Now these effects, whatever they
be, do not belong to Christianity as a revelation; because they exist
with respect to those to whom it is not revealed.
_________
Secondly; morality, neither in the Gospel nor in any other book, can be
a subject of discovery, properly so called. By which proposition I mean
that there cannot, in morality, be anything similar to what are called
discoveries in natural philosophy, in the arts of life, and in some
sciences; as the system of the universe, the circulation of the blood,
the polarity of the magnet, the laws of gravitation, alphabetical
writing, decimal arithmetic, and some other things of the same sort;
facts, or proofs, or contrivances, before totally unknown and unthought
of. Whoever, therefore, expects in reading the New Testament to be
struck with discoveries in morals in the manner in which his mind was
affected when he first came to the knowledge of the discoveries above
mentioned: or rather in the manner in which the world was affected by
them, when they were first published; expects what, as I apprehend, the
nature of the subject renders it impossible that he should meet with.
And the foundation of my opinion is this, that the qualities of actions
depend entirely upon their effects, which effects must all along have
been the subject of human experience.
When it is once settled, no matter upon what principle, that to do good
is virtue, the rest is calculation. But since the calculation cannot be
instituted concerning each particular action, we establish intermediate
rules; by which proceeding, the business of morality is much
facilitated, for then it is concerning our rules alone that we need
inquire, whether in their tendency they be beneficial; concerning our
actions, we have only to ask whether they be agreeable to the rules. We
refer actions to rules, and rules to public happiness. Now, in the
formation of these rules, there is no place for discovery, properly so
called, but there is ample room for the exercise of wisdom, judgment,
and prudence.
As I wish to deliver argument rather than panegyric, I shall treat of
the morality of the Gospel in subjection to these observations. And
after all, I think it such a morality as, considering from whom it came,
is most extraordinary; and such as, without allowing some degree of
reality to the character and pretensions of the religion, it is
difficult to account for: or, to place the argument a little lower in
the scale, it is such a morality as completely repels the supposition of
its being the tradition of a barbarous age or of a barbarous people, of
the religion being founded in folly, or of its being the production of
craft; and it repels also, in a great degree, the supposition of its
having been the effusion of an enthusiastic mind.
The division under which the subject may be most conveniently treated is
that of the things taught, and the manner of teaching.
Under the first head, I should willingly, if the limits and nature of my
work admitted of it, transcribe into this chapter the whole of what has
been said upon the morality of the Gospel by the author of The Internal
Evidence of Christianity; because it perfectly agrees with my own
opinion, and because it is impossible to say the same things so well.
This acute observer of human nature, and, as I believe, sincere convert
to Christianity, appears to me to have made out satisfactorily the two
following positions, viz.--
I. That the Gospel omits some qualifies which have usually engaged the
praises and admiration of mankind, but which, in reality, and in their
general effects, have been Prejudicial to human happiness.
II. That the Gospel has brought forward some virtues which possess the
highest intrinsic value, but which have commonly been overlooked and
contemned.
The first of these propositions he exemplifies in the instances of
friendship, patriotism, active courage; in the sense in which these
qualities are usually understood, and in the conduct which they often
produce.
The second, in the instances of passive courage or endurance of
sufferings, patience under affronts and injuries, humility,
irresistance, placability.
The truth is, there are two opposite descriptions of character under
which mankind may generally be classed. The one possesses rigour,
firmness, resolution; is daring and active, quick in its sensibilities,
jealous of its fame, eager in its attachments, inflexible in its
purpose, violent in its resentments.
The other meek, yielding, complying, forgiving; not prompt to act, but
willing to suffer; silent and gentle under rudeness and insult, suing
for reconciliation where others would demand satisfaction, giving way to
the pushes of impudence, conceding and indulgent to the prejudices, the
wrong-headedness, the intractability of those with whom it has to deal.
The former of these characters is, and ever hath been, the favourite of
the world. It is the character of great men. There is a dignity in it
which universally commands respect.
The latter is poor-spirited, tame, and abject. Yet so it hath happened,
that with the Founder of Christianity this latter is the subject of his
commendation, his precepts, his example; and that the former is so in no
part of its composition. This, and nothing else, is the character
designed in the following remarkable passages: "Resist not evil: but
whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other
also; and if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat,
let him have thy cloak also: and whosoever shall compel thee to go a
mile, go with him twain: love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you and persecute you." This certainly is not commonplace morality. It
is very original. It shows at least (and it is for this purpose we
produce it) that no two things can be more different than the Heroic and
the Christian characters.
Now the author to whom I refer has not only marked this difference more
strongly than any preceding writer, but has proved, in contradiction to
first impressions, to popular opinion, to the encomiums of orators and
poets, and even to the suffrages of historians and moralists, that the
latter character possesses the most of true worth, both as being most
difficult either to be acquired or sustained, and as contributing most
to the happiness and tranquillity of social life. The state of his
argument is as follows:
I. If this disposition were universal, the case is clear; the world
would be a society of friends. Whereas, if the other disposition were
universal, it would produce a scene of universal contention. The world
could not hold a generation of such men.
II. If, what is the fact, the disposition be partial; if a few be
actuated by it, amongst a multitude who are not; in whatever degree it
does prevail, in the same proportion it prevents, allays, and terminates
quarrels, the great disturbers of human happiness, and the great sources
of human misery, so far as man's happiness and misery depend upon man.
Without this disposition enmities must not only be frequent, but, once
begun, must be eternal: for, each retaliation being a fresh injury, and
consequently requiring a fresh satisfaction, no period can be assigned
to the reciprocation of affronts, and to the progress of hatred, but
that which closes the lives, or at least the intercourse, of the parties.
I would only add to these observations, that although the former of the
two characters above described may be occasionally useful; although,
perhaps, a great general, or a great statesman, may be formed by it, and
these may be instruments of important benefits to mankind, yet is this
nothing more than what is true of many qualities which are acknowledged
to be vicious. Envy is a quality of this sort: I know not a stronger
stimulus to exertion; many a scholar, many an artist, many a soldier,
has been produced by it; nevertheless, since in its general effects it
is noxious, it is properly condemned, certainly is not praised, by sober
moralists.
It was a portion of the same character as that we are defending, or
rather of his love of the same character, which our Saviour displayed in
his repeated correction of the ambition of his disciples; his frequent
admonitions that greatness with them was to consist in humility; his
censure of that love of distinction and greediness of superiority which
the chief persons amongst his countrymen were wont, on all occasions,
great and little, to betray. "They (the Scribes and Pharisees) love the
uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and
greetings in the markets, and to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi. But be
not ye called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren: and call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your
father, which is in heaven; neither be ye called master, for one is your
Master, even Christ; but he that is greatest among you shall be your
servant; and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that
shall humble himself shall be exalted." (Matt. xxiii. 6. See also Mark
xii. 39; Luke xx. 46; xiv. 7.) I make no further remark upon these
passages (because they are, in truth, only a repetition of the doctrine,
different expressions of the principle, which we have already stated),
except that some of the passages, especially our Lord's advice to the
guests at an entertainment, (Luke iv. 7.) seem to extend the rule to
what we call manners; which was both regular in point of consistency,
and not so much beneath the dignity of our Lord's mission as may at
first sight be supposed, for bad manners are bad morals.
It is sufficiently apparent that the precepts we have tired, or rather
the disposition which these precepts inculcate, relate to personal
conduct from personal motives; to cases in which men act from impulse,
for themselves and from themselves. When it comes to be considered what
is necessary to be done for the sake of the public, and out of a regard
to the general welfare (which consideration, for the most part, ought
exclusively to govern the duties of men in public stations), it comes to
a case to which the rules do not belong. This distinction is plain; and
if it were less so the consequence would not be much felt: for it is
very seldom that in time intercourse of private life men act with public
views. The personal motives from which they do act the rule regulates.
The preference of time patient to the heroic cheer, which we have here
noticed, and which the reader will find explained at large in the work
to which we have referred him, is a peculiarity in the Christian
institution, which I propose as an argument of wisdom, very much beyond
the situation and natural character of the person who delivered it.
II. A second argument, drawn from the morality of the New Testament, is
the stress which is laid by our Saviour upon the regulation of the
thoughts; and I place this consideration next to the other because they
are connected. The other related to the malicious passions; this to the
voluptuous. Together, they comprehend the whole character.
"Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications," &c. "These are the things which defile a man." (Matt. xv.
19.)
"Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the
outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of
extortion and excess.--Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and
of all uncleanness; even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity" (Matt. xxiii. 25, 27)
And more particularly that strong expression, (Matt. v. 28.) "Whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her
already in his heart."
There can be no doubt with any reflecting mind but that the propensities
of our nature must be subject to regulation; but the question is, where
the check ought to be placed, upon the thought, or only upon the action?
In this question our Saviour, in the texts here quoted, has pronounced a
decisive judgment. He makes the control of thought essential. Internal
purity with him is everything. Now I contend that this is the only
discipline which can succeed; in other words, that a moral system which
prohibits actions, but leaves the thoughts at liberty, will be
ineffectual, and is therefore unwise. I know not how to go about the
proof of a point which depends upon experience, and upon a knowledge of
the human constitution, better than by citing the judgment of persons
who appear to have given great attention to the subject, and to be well
qualified to form a true opinion about it. Boerhaave, speaking of this
very declaration of our Saviour, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and
understanding it, as we do, to contain an injunction to lay the check
upon the thoughts, was wont to say that "our Saviour knew mankind better
than Socrates." Hailer, who has recorded this saying of Boerhaave, adds
to it the following remarks of his own:--(Letters to his Daughter.) "It
did not escape the observation of our Saviour that the rejection of
any evil thoughts was the best defence against vice: for when a
debauched person fills his imagination with impure pictures, the
licentious ideas which he recalls fail not to stimulate his desires with
a degree of violence which he cannot resist. This will be followed by
gratification, unless some external obstacle should prevent him from the
commission of a sin which he had internally resolved on." "Every moment
of time," says our author, "that is spent in meditations upon sin
increases the power of the dangerous object which has possessed our
imagination." I suppose these reflections will be generally assented to.
III. Thirdly, had a teacher of morality been asked concerning a general
principle of conduct, and for a short rule of life; and had he
instructed the person who consulted him, "constantly to refer his
actions to what he believed to be the will of his Creator, and
constantly to have in view not his own interest and gratification alone,
but the happiness and comfort of those about him," he would have been
thought, I doubt not, in any age of the world, and in any, even the most
improved state of morals, to have delivered a judicious answer; because,
by the first direction, he suggested the only motive which acts steadily
and uniformly, in sight and out of sight, in familiar occurrences and
under pressing temptations; and in the second he corrected what of all
tendencies in the human character stands most in need of correction,
selfishness, or a contempt of other men's conveniency and satisfaction.
In estimating the value of a moral rule, we are to have regard not only
to the particular duty, but the general spirit; not only to what it
directs us to do, but to the character which a compliance with its
direction is likely to form in us. So, in the present instance, the rule
here recited will never fail to make him who obeys it considerate not only
of the rights, but of the feelings of other men, bodily and mental, in
great matters and in small; of the ease, the accommodation, the
self-complacency of all with whom he has any concern, especially of all
who are in his power, or dependent upon his will.
Now what, in the most applauded philosopher of the most enlightened age
of the world, would have been deemed worthy of his wisdom, and of his
character, to say, our Saviour hath said, and upon just such an occasion
as that which we have feigned.
"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting
him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; this is the first
and great commandment: and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself: on these two commandments hang all the law and
the prophets." (Matt. xxii. 35-40.)
The second precept occurs in St. Matthew (xix. 16), on another occasion
similar to this; and both of them, on a third similar occasion, in Luke
(x. 27). In these two latter instances the question proposed was, "What
shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
Upon all these occasions I consider the words of our Saviour as
expressing precisely the same thing as what I have put into the mouth of
the moral philosopher. Nor do I think that it detracts much from the
merit of the answer, that these precepts are extant in the Mosaic code:
for his laying his finger, if I may so say, upon these precepts; his
drawing them out from the rest of that voluminous institution; his
stating of them, not simply amongst the number, but as the greatest and
the sum of all the others; in a word, his proposing of them to his
hearers for their rule and principle, was our Saviour's own.
And what our Saviour had said upon the subject appears to me to have
fixed the sentiment amongst his followers.
Saint Paul has it expressly, "If there be any other commandment, it is
briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself;" (Rom. xiii. 9.) and again, "For all the law is fulfilled in
one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Gal.
v. 14.)
Saint John, in like manner, "This commandment have we from him, that he
who loveth God love his brother also." (1 John iv. 21.)
Saint Peter, not very differently: "Seeing that ye have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, unto unfeigned love of
the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently."
(I Peter i, 22.)
And it is so well known as to require no citations to verify it, that
this love, or charity, or, in other words, regard to the welfare of
others, runs in various forms through all the preceptive parts of the
apostolic writings. It is the theme of all their exhortations, that with
which their morality begins and ends, from which all their details and
enumerations set out, and into which they return.