xtreme hardships,
fatigue, and peril; but suppose the accounts which they published had
not been committed to writing till some ages after their times, or at
least that no histories but what had been composed some ages afterwards
had reached our hands; we should have said, and with reason, that we
were willing to believe these under the circumstances in which they
delivered their testimony, but that we did not, at this day, know with
sufficient evidence what their testimony was. Had we received the
particulars of it from any of their own number, from any of those who
lived and conversed with them, from any of their hearers, or even from
any of their contemporaries, we should have had something to rely upon.
Now, if our books be genuine, we have all these. We have the very
species of information which, as it appears to me, our imagination would
have carved out for us, if it had been wanting.

But I have said that if any one of the four Gospels be genuine, we have
not only direct historical testimony to the point we contend for, but
testimony which, so far as that point is concerned, cannot reasonably be
rejected. If the first Gospel was really written by Matthew, we have the
narrative of one of the number, from which to judge what were the
miracles, and the kind of miracles, which the apostles attributed to
Jesus. Although, for argument's sake, and only for argument's sake, we
should allow that this Gospel had been erroneously ascribed to Matthew;
yet, if the Gospel of St. John be genuine, the observation holds with no
less strength. Again, although the Gospels both of Matthew and John
could be supposed to be spurious, yet, if the Gospel of Saint Luke were
truly the composition of that person, or of any person, be his name what
it might, who was actually in the situation in which the author of that
Gospel professes himself to have been, or if the Gospel which bear the
name of Mark really proceeded from him; we still, even upon the lowest
supposition, possess the accounts of one writer at least, who was not
only contemporary with the apostles, but associated with them in their
ministry; which authority seems sufficient, when the question is simply
what it was which these apostles advanced.

I think it material to have this well noticed. The New Testament
contains a great number of distinct writings, the genuineness of any one
of which is almost sufficient to prove the truth of the religion: it
contains, however, four dis