in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely i

p in their accounts to the full extent of the proposition which we maintain. We have four histories of Jesus Christ. We have a history taking up the narrative from his death, and carrying on an account of the propagation of the religion, and of some of the most eminent persons engaged in it, for a space of nearly thirty years. We have, what some may think still more original, a collection of letters, written by certain principal agents in the business upon the business, and in the m

f the greatest importance to attend to the information or grounds of argument which are casually and undesignedly disclos

is now before us, to suggest some conclusions of

d in other parts of the Roman Empire. These points also are fully confirmed by Tacitus, who informs us that the religion, after a short check, broke out again in the country where it took its rise; that it not only spread throughout Judea, but had reached Rome, and that it had there great multitudes of converts: and all this within thirty years after its commencement. Now these facts afford a strong inference i

cution of his followers:- "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall

the word's sake, immediately they are offe

ught before kings and rulers for my name's sake:-and ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren, and kinsf

do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when th

t really spoke, and that the event corresponded with the prediction; or that they put the prediction into Christ's mouth, because at the time of writing the history, the event had turned out so to be: for, the only two remaining suppositions appear in the highest degree incredible; which are, either that Christ filled the minds of his followers wit

h exhortations to patience, and wi

or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these t

the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body;-knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus, and shall present us with you--For which cause we faint not; but, though our

liction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job,

t ye became companions of them that were so used; for ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring su

persecutions and tribulations that ye endure. Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment

lory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patien

o you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings.-Wherefore let them that suffer according to the

dangers which they were not exposed to, or underwent sufferings which they did not undergo? If these books belong to the age to which they lay claim, and in which age, whether genuine or spurious, they certainly did appear, this supposition cannot be maintained for a moment; because I think it impossible to believe that passages, which must be deemed not only unintelligible, b