fore, of any such story as this, discredits not in the least that incomparably stronger evidence which has been produced already for the Christian miracles. The falsehood of the weak affects not the strong. The objection to the evidence of the Christian miracles, which it has been in this chapter my sole business to consider, is that equal evidence may be produced in behalf of imposture. But if the evidence of, we may suppose, as strong a case as possible among all those which we may reasonably suspect of imposture, is shown to be wholly unequal, that objection is refuted at once.

I think it has been proved, therefore, as was proposed, both that the Christian miracles are clearly discriminated from all pretensions in which the thing done is not really a superhuman performance, and also that the evidence of their real performance is discriminated equally from all false affirmations of miracles which have not really been performed.

CHAPTER IV.

THAT THERE MAY BE REASONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE APPARENT IN THE NATURE OF THE RELIGION, AND OF THE SCRIPTURE COMPOSITIONS, WHY MORE OR STRONGER MIRACULOUS EVIDENCE WAS NOT AFFORDED; AND REASON TO DOUBT ALSO WHETHER ANY EVIDENCE OF TESTIMONY

COULD HAVE BEEN STRONGER THAN THAT WHICH WE POS

SESS.

IT has now been proved fully that the miracles of Scripture are a decisive evidence of its divine authority. In the detail of this proof there is, I apprehend, no void left unfilled, and I need not again recapitulate that very abundant accumulation of circumstances which gives to this conclusion an irresistible force. It may still be remarked, however, as a point for farther inquiry, whether, notwithstanding the great apparent strength of this evidence, we yet might not have expected that more should be given. The revelation, it has been urged, might have been written in the clouds. The birth of our Saviour, which was announced miraculously to the shepherds, might have been proclaimed unequivo

cally in the court of the Areopagus, or in the Roman Forum; as, indeed, it was feigned afterwards to have been declared to Augustus on his sending to consult the Oracle at Delphi. Our Saviour might have shewn himself after his resurrection to all the people, instead of only to his disciples; or if not to all the people, yet not to his friends only, but also to his enemies, to Annas and Caiaphas, to Herod, or Pilate, or to some of the more eminent of the Scribes and Pharisees. All this, for any thing we know, might have been done, and we are apt to imagine that it would have added considerably to the evidence, great as it is, which we now possess. There is some reason to think that the earthquake and the darkness, which took place at our Saviour's crucifixion, were recorded in public acts or registers sent by Pilate to the emperor Tiberius. Why then are not even these very acts preserved to us, with formal attestations of the facts recorded in them? How can

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Me puer Hebræus, divos Deus ipse gubernans

Cedere sede jubet, tristemque redire sub orcum.

we imagine that in a matter which concerns man's eternal salvation, the Deity, He to whom all things are easy, should not have given us, if the Scripture doctrines were truly his, the strongest evidence which the case admitted of being given?

To this it is to be answered, first, that to the Mosaic miracles this objection does not apply. Many of those miracles, if we admit them to be miraculous, and they are indeed in all respects not less strongly evidenced than the Christian, are miracles of so overwhelming a character that we can imagine none more striking or more august. The dividing the Red Sea, and God's speaking from Sinai, not to mention other instances, were miracles performed on the largest scale, and in the presence of most numerous and unimpeachable witnesses. And so also with regard to the miracles of the crucifixion. The earthquake, the darkness, the rending the veil of the temple, were all of them miracles the most impressive imaginable: and the early Christian writers dwell much on these events, more, as I apprehend, than they are dwelt on at present".

a Lardner, Vol. VII. 372-386.

To the question, in general, however, why we have not stronger evidence, it has been answered, and with the greatest justice possible, that it is not for man, either in his contemplation of nature, or in contemplating the works of divine revelation, to give scope to his fancy as to what might have been done, as to what evidence might have been given, but only to observe and to discuss what has been done, that evidence which, in fact, has been given. It has been justly observed, that the supposed defect in the evidence is completely analogous to what the objector must also admit to be an equal and a similar defect in natural religion. It has been shown also "that irresistible proof might probably restrain men's voluntary powers too much, might not answer the purpose of trial and probation, might call for no exercise of candour or humility, no previous desire to learn and obey the will of God; might leave no place for the admission of internal evidence, which ought, perhaps, to bear a considerable part in the proof of every revelation; might confound all characters, and all dispositions, might subvert, rather than promote the true purpose of the diPaley's Ev. Vol. II. Part III. Ch. vi.

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