to the 4th of July, and it no longer commemorated the birth of a king, but the independence of a nation. Just so it was with baptism; previous to the day of pentecost divers washings obtained among the Jews, as divers rejoicings have long obtained among civilized nations, Then John baptized unto repentance; and the disciples of Jesus baptized because the kingdom of heaven was at hand; but when the day of pentecost was fully come and the dispensation of the Holy Ghost commenced, then for the first time were men baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and this bap tism has been practised from that day to this, as commemorative of that miraculous event; as the public rejoicings held by the citizens of the United States on the 4th of July of every year, are commemorative of the declaration of independence.

As there is no way to account for the celebration of American independence, except upon the ground that the history in relation to this matter is true; upon the same principle alone can we account for the existence and practice of baptism, the observance of the Lord's supper and the Christian sabbath. If the writings of the evangelists are rejected, how is the observance of the Christian ordinances to be accounted for? There must have been some reasons for these observances; Christians certainly did not begin and establish them for nothing. If the causes assigned in the New Testament be not the true causes, will the Infidel point them out? Mr. O. informs us that a few select or chosen ones, asserted that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, and they endeavored to give currency to the assertion, by some outward action. But if Jesus Christ did not die and rise again, who selected these men to make this assertion? And how did it come to pass that a statement of this nature, without the shadow of evidence to support it, was so firmly believed by those to whom it was made, that in the course of a few weeks from the commencement of the imposture, eight thousand Jews, and among them a great number of the priests, in the very city where Jesus Christ was said to have been crucified and rose again, and who had every opportunity to sift this matter to the bottom, became the dupes of the few who originated this falsehood? Is it to be supposed that these men believed without testimony? and that with all the superior advantages enjoyed by them, they had not sufficient sagacity to discover an imposture, which Mr. O. at this great distance of time has been enabled to expose to his followers! But what are his proofs? We have nothing but his bare assertion, and it is as easy to assert that the celebration of American independence is grounded upon a falsehood, as that the com

memorative ordinances of Christianity have no foundation in truth. But as he who denies that American independence was ever proclaimed, is bound by an appeal to the pages of history to sustain his allegation; so also, he who denies that the facts commemorated by the Christian institutions ever occurred, is bound to give his reasons, adduce his proofs, and explain the origin of the fraud. Mr. Olmsted has assigned his reasons for disbelieving the truth of the facts; and as has been seen, they consist in supposition, misapprehension, and misrepresentation: so that Mr. Leslie's argument remains invulnerable.

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SECTION I.

LET us now apply Mr. Leslie's criteria to a few of the miracles recorded in the Scriptures.

For example: could Moses have persuaded six hundred thousand men, that they had witnessed the plagues in Egypt? that they had passed through the Red sea, and beheld the whole host of Pharaoh. perish? Or could he have instituted the passover in commemoration of the destruction of the Egyptian first-born? Could he have persuaded them that during forty years they were sustained with food from heaven? That sometimes they were supplied with water from the flinty rock? That throughout their journey they beheld the cloud of the Lord on the tabernacle by day, and the fire by night? That during the forty years they were in the wilderness, their raiment waxed not old, neither did their feet swell? and that they passed over Jordan on dry ground, while the waters stood and rose up upon an heap, unless these things, however extraordinary, were facts? To all these Mr. Leslie's criteria apply, for: 1st. The facts were such as men's outward senses could judge of; therefore, if the whole Israelitish nations were not entirely destitute of eyes and ears, if they were not bereft of reason and sense, an imposition could not have been practised upon them.

2nd. They were performed publicly, in the presence of witnesses, who consisted of upwards of two millions of persons, and who remained collected in one camp for forty years; an assembly so great probably never before or since, remained collected in one body for so long a period.

3rd. Public monuments and actions were kept up in memory of them, to commemorate their deliverance when the first-born of Egypt

were destroyed. Moses changed the beginning of their year, to the month when this happened, and instituted the feast of the passover. To this was added the solemn consecration of the first-born of both man and beast to the Lord, with the following remarkable charge annexed:

"And it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? thou shalt say to him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage; and it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of beasts; therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix." *

In further commemoration of the destruction of the first-born of the Egyptians, the tribe of Levi was set apart; and beside the passover, the feast of tabernacles was instituted to perpetuate the deliverance of the Israelites, and their journeyings in the desert. † The feast of pentecost was appointed fifty days after the passover, ‡ in memory of the miraculous deliverance of the law from Mount Sinai, which took place fifty days after their departure from Egypt. The memory of their miraculous supply of food was perpetuated by the pot of manna, and their miraculous passage over Jordan, by the twelve stones set up by Joshua at Gilgal. So that in all these instances, we have also Mr. Leslie's fourth mark; for the commemorative monuments and actions were established or commenced at the time of the facts.

The irresistible reasoning of Mr. Leslie on the monument set up by Joshua at Gilgal, the reader has already seen. If a fictitious reason for the existence of a bare monument, of whose origin we are ignorant, cannot be imposed upon us; how much more impossible must it be to impose upon us in actions and observances which we celebrate in memory of particular events! and how impossible to persuade us, that we have always kept certain institutions in memory of events of which we have never heard! And if it be impossible for an imposition to be practised upon us, in things which have not all the marks which have been specified; how much more impossible would it be to impose upon us in that in which every one of them

meets!

All the marks of Mr. Leslie apply with peculiar force to the miracles of Jesus Christ, and of his apostles.

* Exod. xiii. 14, 15. + Lev. xxiii. 40.

Lev. xxiii. 15–21.

The number of miracles performed by Jesus Christ was very great. Those that are recorded are about forty in number. If we take into account the several instances in which we are told that great multitudes flocked to him, who were for the most part afflicted with diseases which human skill could not cure, and that he healed them all; and that he fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes, it is evident that the miracles he performed were beyond all number; and one of his biographers states that he performed a greater number than are in any way recorded. But their variety is no less striking than their number. It was the variety, no less than the number of the miracles performed by Moses in Egypt, that convinced the magicians they were done by the power of God. And the reason is obvious; for a variety of supernatural works, and each perfect in its kind, suggests to the mind the idea that they were produced by an all powerful, and perfect, designing agent. Jesus Christ cured, not only one kind of disease, but all, and the cures he effected were perfect. He not only cured all manner of diseases, but by a word he gave sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf. Thereby he made the maimed, (those who wanted a limb) perfect, those who shook with the palsy robust, the bowed double straight. Thereby he restored the insane and demoniacs to reason, and the dead to life. And the same mighty works were performed in his name by the apostles, and that too, without hesitation or diffidence; and every day, and every week, for years in succession, were they performed, and in the most public manner, in presence of friends and foes, thereby precluding all possibility of the practice of fraud. These circumstances, together with the effects produced upon the persons who were the subjects of them, account for the incontestible fact that their reality was never denied by those who witnessed them.

It is not so with the pretended miracles of impostors; such persons never have pretended to work many miracles, and they have uniformly confined themselves to one species of them; then, usually, they have either been performed in private, or the accounts of them were written many years after they were said to have been wrought. Livy records the performance of certain miracles, but then he does not pretend to have seen any of them, for they happened long before his time, and his relations are founded upon vague reports, while the consequences of these pretended miracles affected no one. The best authenticated heathen miracles are those which the emperor Vespa sian is said to have performed on a blind and a lame man, and recorded by Tacitus and Suetonius. The relation of them is as follows;

"Two men of low rank in Alexandria, one of them blind, the other lame in one of his hands, came both together to him, (Vespasian) in a humble manner, saying that they had been in a dream admonished by the god Serapis to apply to him for the cure of their disorders; which they were assured might be done for the one, if he would be pleased to anoint his eyes and face with his spittle, and for the other if he would vouchsafe to tread upon his hand. Vespasian, as is said, hesitated for a while. However, the physicians having been consulted, they gave their opinion that the organs of sight were not destroyed in the blind man, and that sight might be restored if obstacles were removed, and that the other's hand was only disjointed, and with proper remedies might be set right again. At length, moved by the flatteries of those about him, Vespasian performed what had been desired, and the effect was answerable; one of them presently recovered the use of his hand, and the other his sight." There is no reason to believe that any miracle was then wrought, but every reason to suspect that the whole was a contrivance between Vespasian and his friends and flatterers. No one would scrutinize these pretended miracles, for to have made remarks upon them would have brought down the vengeance of the emperor and his favorites. But Suetonius shows that the whole affair was a fraud, by acknowledging that somewhat was wanting to give dignity and authority to a new chosen emperor, who belonged to a family that was not renowned for its antiquity. How very different were those pretended miracles from those recorded in the New Testament. These were done by a mighty emperor, surrounded by his courtiers and soldiers, and tended to the honor of the tutelar god of the city; therefore they passed without examination. But those of Jesus Christ and his disciples, were performed by a few obscure individuals, in the midst of their enemies, and opposed by all the powers of the state.

The Roman Catholics profess to have worked miracles without number; but many of them are so absurd and ridiculous, that even a child would laugh at them. Some again are shockingly profane and impious. Many of them have been proved to have been impostures, and that by the acknowledgments of the persons employed in them. This being the case, no credit can be given to the rest; for when a person has been repeatedly convicted of falsehood no confidence can afterwards be placed in his statements. Besides, both the miracles asserted to have been wrought by the Roman Catholics, and the heathens, were performed in confirmation of a religion supported by the state, and embraced by the people; therefore, on this ground