difference do you expect between truth and false. hood: what distinction

Judge. Gentlemen, you forget that you are in a court, and are falling into dialogue. Courts don't allow of chit chat. Look ye, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus is before the court, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and others. You must take it as it is; you can neither make it better nor worse. These witnesses are accused of giving false evidence. Come to the point; and let us hear what you have to offer to prove the accusation.

Mr. B. Is it your meaning, sir, that the objections should be stated and argued all together, and that the answer should be to the whole at once? or would you have the objections argued singly, and answered separately by themselves?

Judge. I think this court may dispense with the strict forms of legal proceedings, and therefore I leave this to the choice of the jury.

After the jury had consulted together, the foreman rose up.

The foreman of the jury. We desire to hear the objections argued and answered separately. We shall be better able to form a judgment, by hearing the answer while the objection is fresh in our minds. Judge. Gentlemen, you hear the opinion of the jury. Go on.

Mr. A. I am now to disclose to you a scene, of all others the most surprising. "The resurrec

tion has been long talked of, and, to the amazement of every one who can think freely, has been believed through all ages of the church." This general and constant belief creates in most minds a presumption that it was founded on good evidence. In other cases the evidence supports the credit of the history; but here the evidence itself is presumed only upon the credit which the story has gained. † I wish the books dispersed against Jesus by the ancient Jews had not been lost, for they would have given us a clear insight into this contrivance; but it is happy for us, that the very account given by the pretended witnessess of this fact is sufficient to destroy the credit of it.

The resurrection was not a thing contrived for its own sake, no! It was undertaken to support great views, and for the sake of great consequences that were to attend it. It will be necessary therefore to lay before you those views, that you may the better judge of this part of the contrivance, when you have the whole scene before you.

The Jews were a weak, superstitious people, and, as is common among such people, gave great credit to some traditionary prophecies about their own country. They had, besides, some old books among them, which they esteemed to be writings of certain prophets, who had formerly lived among them, and † Ibid. p. 4

Sixth Discourse, p. 17.

whose memory they had in great veneration. From such old books and traditions they formed many extravagant expectations; and among the rest one was, that some time or other a great, victorious prince would rise among them, and subdue all their enemies, and make them lords of the world. * In Augustus's time they were in a low state, reduced under the Roman yoke; and, as they never wanted a deliverer more, so the eagerness of this hope, as it happens to weak minds, turned into a firm expectation that he would soon come. This proved a temptation to some bold, and to some cunning men to personate the prince so much expected; and +"nothing is more natural and common to promote rebellions, than to ground them on new prophecies, or new interpretations of old ones: Prophecies being suited to the vulgar superstition, and operating with the force of religion." Accordingly, many such impostors rose, pretending to be the victorious prince expected; and they, and the people who followed them, perished in the folly of their attempt.

But Jesus, knowing that victories and triumphs are not things to be counterfeited; that the people were not to be delivered from the Roman yoke by slight of hand; and having no hope of being able to cope with the emperor of Rome in good earnest, took another and more successful method to carry on his design. He took upon him to be the prince foretold in the ancient prophets; but then he insist*Scheme of Literal Prophecy, p. 26. ↑ Ibid. p. 27.

ed, that the true sense of the prophecies had been mistaken; that they related not to the kingdoms of this world, but to the kingdom of heaven; that the Messias was not to be a conquering Prince, but a suffering one; that he was not to come with his horses of war, and chariots of war, but was to be meek, and lowly, and riding on an ass. By this means he got the common and necessary foundation for a new revelation, which is to be built and founded on a precedent revelation.*

To carry on this design, he made choice of twelve men of no fortunes or education, and of such understandings as gave no jealousy that they would discover the plot. And what is most wonderful, and shews their ability, whilst the master was preaching the kingdom of heaven, these poor men, not weaned from the prejudices of their country, expected every day that he would declare himself a king, and were quarrelling who would be his first minister. This expectation had a good effect on the service, for it kept them constant to their master.

I must observe farther, that the Jews were under strange apprehensions of supernatural powers; and, as their own religion was founded on the belief of certain miracles said to be wrought by their lawgiver Moses, so were they ever running after wonders and miracles, and ready to take up with any stories of this kind. Now, as something extraordinary was

*See Discourse of the Grounds, &c. ch. ix.

necessary to support the pretensions of Jesus, he dexterously laid hold on this weakness of the people, and set up to be a wonder-worker. His disciples were well qualified to receive this impression; they saw, or thought they saw, many strange things, and were able to spread the fame and report of them abroad.

This conduct had the desired success. The whole country was alarmed, and full of the news of a great Prophet's being come among them. They were too full of their own imagination to attend to the notion of a kingdom of heaven here was one mighty in deed and in word; and they concluded he was the very Prince their nation expected. Accordingly they once attempted to set him up for a king; and at another time attended him in triumph to Jerusalem. This natural consequence opens the natural design of the attempt. If things had gone on successfully to the end, it is probable the kingdom of heaven would have been changed into a kingdom of this world. The design indeed failed, by the impatience and overhastiness of the multitude, which alarmed not only the chief of the Jews, but the Roman governor also.

The case being come to this point, and Jesus seeing that he could not escape being put to death, he declared that the ancient prophets had foretold, that the Messias should die upon a cross, and that he should rise again on the third day. Here was the foundation laid for the continuing this plot, which otherwise had died with its author. This was his