.

The next great question is, what they did this FOR. That it was for a
miraculous story of some kind or other, is to my apprehension extremely
manifest; because, as to the fundamental article, the designation of the
person, viz. that this particular person, Jesus of Nazareth, ought to be
received as the Messiah, or as a messenger from God, they neither had,
nor could have, anything but miracles to stand upon. That the exertions
and sufferings of the apostles were for the story which we have now, is
proved by the consideration that this story is transmitted to us by two
of their own number, and by two others personally connected with them;
that the particularity of the narrative proves that the writers claimed
to possess circumstantial information, that from their situation they
had full opportunity of acquiring such information, that they certainly,
at least, knew what their colleagues, their companions, their masters
taught; that each of these books contains enough to prove the truth of
the religion; that if any one of them therefore be genuine, it is
sufficient; that the genuineness, however, of all of them is made out,
as well by the general arguments which evince the genuineness of the
most undisputed remains of antiquity, as also by peculiar and specific
proofs, viz. by citations from them in writings belonging to a period
immediately contiguous to that in which they were published; by the
distinguished regard paid by early Christians to the authority of these
books; (which regard was manifested by their collecting of them into a
volume, appropriating to that volume titles of peculiar respect,
translating them into various languages, digesting them into harmonies,
writing commentaries upon them, and, still more conspicuously, by the
reading of them in their public assemblies in all parts of the world)
by an universal agreement with respect to these books, whilst doubts
were entertained concerning some others; by contending sects appealing
to them; by the early adversaries of the religion not disputing their
genuineness, but, on the contrary, treating them as the depositaries of
the history upon which the religion was founded; by many formal
catalogues of these, as of certain and authoritative writings, published
in different and distant parts of the Christian world; lastly, by the
absence or defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to
any other histories of the same subject.

These are strong a