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or not, the relation itself discovers the writer's | own opinion of those principles: and that alone possesses considerable authority. In the next chapter, we have a reflection of the evangelist, entirely suited to this state of the case: "but though he had done so many miracles before them, yet believed they not on him."* The evangelist does not mean to impute the defect of their belief to any doubt about the miracles; but to their not perceiving, what all now sufficiently perceive, and what they would have perceived, had not their understandings been governed by strong prejudices, the infallible attestation which the works of Jesus bore to the truth of his pretensions.

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The ninth chapter of Saint John's Gospel contains a very circumstantial account of the cure of a blind man a miracle submitted to all the scrutiny and examination which a sceptic could propose. If a modern unbeliever had drawn up the interrogatories, they could hardly have been more critical or searching. The account contains also a very curious conference between the Jewish rulers and the patient, in which the point for our present notice is their resistance of the force of the miracle, and of the conclusion to which it led, after they had failed in discrediting its evidence. "We know that God spake unto Moses; but as for this fellow, we know not whence he is." That was the answer which set their minds at rest. And by the help of much prejudice, and great unwillingness to yield, it might do so. In the mind of the poor man restored to sight, which was under no such bias, and felt no such reluctance, the miracle had its natural operation. "Herein," says he, "is a marvellous thing that ye know not from whence he is, yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know, that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard, that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing." We do not find that the Jewish rulers had any other reply to make to this defence, than that which authority is sometimes apt to make to argument, "Dost thou teach us?"

If it shall be inquired, how a turn of thought, so different from what prevails at present, should obtain currency with the ancient Jews; the answer is found in two opinions which are proved to have subsisted in that age and country. The one was, their expectation of a Messiah of a kind totally contrary to what the appearance of Jesus bespoke him to be; the other, their persuasion of the agency of demons in the production of supernatural effects. These opinions are not supposed by us for the purpose of argument, but are evidently recognised in Jewish writings, as well as in ours. And it ought moreover to be considered, that in these opinions the Jews of that age had been from their infancy brought up; that they were opinions, the grounds of which they had probably few of them inquired into, and of the truth of which they entertained no doubt. And I think that these two opinions conjointly afford an explanation of their conduct. The first put them upon seeking out some excuse to themselves for not receiving Jesus in the character in which he claimed to be received; and the second supplied them with just such an excuse as they wanted. Let

* Chap. xii. 37.

Jesus work what miracles he would, still the answer was in readiness, "that he wrought them by the assistance of Beelzebub." And to this answer no reply could be made, but that which our Saviour did make, by showing that the tendency of his mission was so adverse to the views with which this being was, by the objectors themselves, supposed to act, that it could not reasonably be supposed that he would assist in carrying it on. The power displayed in the miracles did not alone refute the Jewish solution, because the interposition of invisible agents being once admitted, it is impossible to ascertain the limits by which their efficiency is circumscribed. We of this day may be disposed, possibly, to think such opinions too absurd to have been ever seriously entertained. I am not bound to contend for the credibility of the opinions. They were at least as reasonable as the belief in witchcraft. They were opinions in which the Jews of that age had from their infancy been instructed; and those who cannot see enough in the force of this reason, to account for their conduct towards our Saviour, do not sufficiently consider how such opinions may sometimes become very general in a country, and with what pertinacity, when once become so, they are, for that reason alone, adhered to. In the suspense which these notions, and the prejudices resulting from them, might occasion, the candid and docile and humble minded would probably decide in Christ's favour; the proud and obstinate, together with the giddy and the thoughtless, almost universally against him.

This state of opinion discovers to us also the reason of what some choose to wonder at, why the Jews should reject miracles when they saw them, yet rely so much upon the tradition of them in their own history. It does not appear, that it had ever entered into the minds of those who lived in the time of Moses and the prophets, to ascribe their miracles to the supernatural agency of evil beings. The solution was not then invented. The authority of Moses and the prophets being established, and become the foundation of the national polity and religion, it was not probable that the later Jews, brought up in a reverence for that religion and the subjects of that polity, should apply to their history a reasoning which tended to overthrow the foundation of both.

II. The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument,. or any evidence whatever, viz. contempt prior to examination. The state of religion amongst the Greeks and Romans, had a natural tendency to induce this disposition. Dionysius Halicarnassensis remarks, that there were six hundred different kinds of religions or sacred rites exercised at Rome.* The superior classes of the community treated them all as fables. Can we wonder then, that Christianity was included in the number, without inquiry into its separate merits, or the particular grounds of its pretensions? It might be either true or false for any thing they knew about it. The religion had nothing in its character which immediately engaged their notice. It mixed with no politics. It produced no fine writers. It contained no curious speculations. When it did reach their knowledge, I doubt not

Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist. vol. i. P. 371.

Yet Christianity was still making its way and, amidst so many impediments to its progress, so much difficulty in procuring audience and attention, its actual success is more to be wondered at, than that it should not have universally conquered scorn and indifference, fixed the levity of a voluptuous age, or, through a cloud of adverse prejudications, opened for itself a passage to the hearts and understandings of the scholars of the age.

but that it appeared to them a very strange system, illiterate; which prejudice is known to be as ob--so unphilosophical,-dealing so little in argu-stinate as any prejudice whatever. ment and discussion, in such arguments however and discussions as they were accustomed to entertain. What is said of Jesus Christ, of his nature, office, and ministry, would be, in the highest degree, alien from the conceptions of their theology. The Redeemer and the destined Judge of the human race, a poor young man, executed at Jerusalem with two thieves upon a cross! Still more would the language in which the Christian doctrine was delivered, be dissonant and barbarous to their ears. What knew they of grace, of redemption, of justification, of the blood of Christ shed for the sins of men, of reconcilement, of mediation? Christianity was made up of points they had never thought of; of terms which they had never heard.

And the cause, which is here assigned for the rejection of Christianity by men of rank and learning among the Heathens, namely, a strong antecedent contempt, accounts also for their silence concerning it. If they had rejected it upon examination, they would have written about it; they would have given their reasons. Whereas, what men repudiate upon the strength of some prefixed persuasion, or from a settled contempt of the subject, of the persons who propose it, or of the manner in which it is proposed, they do not naturally write books about, or notice much in what they write upon other subjects.

It was presented also to the imagination of the learned Heathen under additional disadvantage, by reason of its real, and still more of its nominal, connexion with Judaism. It shared in the obloquy and ridicule with which that people and their religion were treated by the Greeks and Romans. They regarded Jehovah himself, only as the idol of the Jewish nation, and what was related of him, as The letters of the Younger Pliny furnish an of a piece with what was told of the tutelar example of the silence, and let us, in some meadeities of other countries: nay, the Jews were in sure, into the cause of it. From his celebrated a particular manner ridiculed for being a credu- correspondence with Trajan, we know that the lous race; so that whatever reports of a miraculous Christian religion prevailed in a very considerable nature came out of that country, were looked degree in the province over which he presided; upon by the heathen world as false and frivolous. that it had excited his attention; that he had inWhen they heard of Christianity, they heard of quired into the matter, just so much as a Roman it as a quarrel amongst this people, about some magistrate might be expected to inquire, viz. articles of their own superstition. Despising, whether the religion contained any opinions dantherefore, as they did, the whole system, it was gerous to government; but that of its doctrines, not probable that they would enter, with any de- its evidences, or its books, he had not taken the gree of seriousness or attention, into the detail of trouble to inform himself with any degree of care its disputes, or the merits of either side. How or correctness. But although Pliny had viewed little they knew, and with what carelessness they Christianity in a nearer position than most of his judged, of these matters, appears, I think, pretty learned countrymen saw it in; yet he had regardplainly from an example of no less weight than thated the whole with such negligence and disdain of Tacitus, who, in a grave and professed discourse upon the history of the Jews, states, that they worshipped the effigy of an ass.* The passage is a proof, how prone the learned men of those times were, and upon how little evidence, to heap together stories which might increase the contempt and odium in which that people was holden. The same foolish charge is also confidently repeated by Plutarch. +

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(farther than as it seemed to concern his administration,) that, in more than two hundred and forty letters of his which have come down to us, the subject is never once again mentioned. If, out of this number, the two letters between him and Trajan had been lost; with what confidence would the obscurity of the Christian religion have been argued from Pliny's silence about it, and with how little truth!

It is observable, that all these considerations The name and character which Tacitus has are of a nature to operate with the greatest force given to Christianity, "exitiabilis superstitio," (a upon the highest ranks; upon men of education, pernicious superstition,) and by which two words and that order of the public from which writers he disposes of the whole question of the merits or are principally taken: I may add also, upon the demerits of the religion, afford a strong proof how philosophical as well as the libertine character; little he knew, or concerned himself to know, upon the Antonines or Julian, not less than upon about the matter. I apprehend that I shall not Nero or Domitian; and more particularly, upon be contradicted, when I take upon me to assert, that large and polished class of men, who acqui- that no unbeliever of the present age would apply esced in the general persuasion, that all they had this epithet to the Christianity of the New Tes to do was to practice the duties of morality, and tament, or not allow that it was entirely unmerited. to worship the deity more patrio; a habit of think-Read the instructions given by a great teacher of ing, liberal as it may appear, which shuts the door against every argument for a new religion. The considerations above-mentioned, would acquire also strength from the prejudice which men of rank and learning universally entertain against any thing that originates with the vulgar and

Tacit. Hist. lib. v. c. 2.
Sympos. lib. iv. quæst. 5.

the religion, to those very Roman converts of whom Tacitus speaks; and given also a very few years before the time of which he is speaking; and which are not, let it be observed, a collection of fine sayings brought together from different parts of a large work, but stand in one entire passage of a public letter, without the intermixture of a single thought which is frivolous or exceptionable: -"Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which

Upon the words of Tacitus we may build the following observations :—

is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another, but that they were wont to meet together on a with brotherly love; in honour preferring one stated day before it was light, and sing among another: not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; themselves a hymn to Christ as a God, and to bind serving the Lord: rejoicing in hope; patient in themselves by an oath, not to the commission of tribulation; continuing instant in prayer: distri- any wickedness, but, not to be guilty of theft, robbuting to the necessity of saints; given to hospita-bery, or adultery; never to falsify their word, nor lity. Bless them which persecute you; bless, and to deny a pledge committed to them, when called curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and upon to return it. weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one towards another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord: therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him: if he thirst, give him drink: for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

First; That we are well warranted in calling the view under which the learned men of that age beheld Christianity, an obscure and distant view. Had Tacitus known more of Christianity, of its precepts, duties, constitution, or design, however he had discredited the story, he would have respected the principle. He would have described the religion differently, though he had rejected it. It has been satisfactorily shown, that the "superstition" of the Christians consisted in worshipping a person unknown to the Roman calendar; and that the "perniciousness," with which they were reproached, was nothing else but their opposition to the established polytheism; and this view of the matter was just such a one as might be expected to occur to a mind, which held the sect in too much contempt to concern itself about the grounds and reasons of their conduct.

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be, are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist, shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou | then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is Secondly; We may from hence remark, how good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for little reliance can be placed upon the most acute he is the minister of God to thee for good. But judgments, in subjects which they are pleased to if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he despise; and which, of course, they from the first beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the mi- consider as unworthy to be inquired into. Had nister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon not Christianity survived to tell its own story, it him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs must have gone down to posterity as a "pernibe subject, not only for wrath, but also for con- cious superstition;" and that upon the credit of science' sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute Tacitus's account, much, I doubt not, strengthenalso for they are God's ministers, attending con- ed by the name of the writer, and the reputation tinually upon this very thing. Render therefore of his sagacity. to all their dues: tribute, to whom tribute is due; custom, to whom custom; fear, to whom fear; honour, to whom honour.

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Thirdly; That this contempt prior to examination, is an intellectual vice, from which the greatest faculties of mind are not free. I know not, indeed, whether men of the greatest faculties of mind, are not the most subject to it. Such men feel themselves seated upon an eminence. Looking down from their height upon the follies of mankind, they behold contending tenets wasting their idle strength upon one another, with the common disdain of the absurdity of them all. This habit of thought, however comfortable to the mind which entertains it, or however natural to great parts, is extremely dangerous; and more apt, than almost any other disposition, to produce hasty and contemptuous, and, by consequence, erroneous judgments, both of persons and opinions.

"And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us there- Fourthly; We need not be surprised at many fore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put writers of that age not mentioning Christianity at on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as all; when they who did mention it, appear to in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in have entirely misconceived its nature and chachambering and wantonness, not in strife and en-racter; and in consequence of this misconception, vying."*

Read this, and then think of "exitiabilis superstitio!!"-Or if we be not allowed, in contending with heathen authorities, to produce our books against theirs, we may at least be permitted to confront theirs with one another. Of this " pernicious superstition," what could Pliny find to blame, when he was led, by his office, to institute something like an examination into the conduct and principles of the sect? He discovered nothing,

Romans xii. 9; xiii. 13.

to have regarded it with negligence and contempt.

To the knowledge of the greatest part of the learned Heathens, the facts of the Christian history could only come by report. The books, probably, they never looked into. The settled habit of their minds was, and long had been, an indiscriminate rejection of all reports of the kind. With these sweeping conclusions, truth hath no chance, It depends upon distinction. If they would not inquire, how should they be convinced? It might be founded in truth, though they, who made no search, might not discover it.

"Men of rank and fortune, of wit and abilities. are often found, even in Christian countries, to be surprisingly ignorant of religion, and of every thing that relates to it. Such were many of the Heathens. Their thoughts were all fixed upon other things; upon reputation and glory, upon wealth and power, upon luxury and pleasure, upon business or learning. They thought, and they had reason to think, that the religion of their country was fable and forgery, a heap of inconsistent lies; which inclined them to suppose that other religions were no better. Hence it came to pass, that when the apostles preached the Gospel, and wrought miracles in confirmation of a doctrine every way worthy of God, many Gentiles knew little or nothing of it, and would not take the least pains to inform themselves about it. This appears plainly from ancient history."* I think it by no means unreasonable to suppose, that the Heathen public, especially that part which is made up of men of rank and education, were divided into two classes; those who despised Christianity beforehand, and those who received it. In correspondency with which division of character, the writers of that age would also be of two classes; those who were silent about Christianity, and those who were Christians. "A good man, who attended sufficiently to the Christian affairs, would become a Christian; after which his testimony ceased to be Pagan, and became Christian."+ I must also add, that I think it sufficiently proved, that the notion of magic was resorted to by the Heathen adversaries of Christianity, in like manner as that of diabolical agency had before been by the Jews. Justin Martyr alleges this as his reason for arguing from prophecy, rather than from miracles. Origen imputes this evasion to Celsus; Jerome to Porphyry; and Lactantius to the Heathen in general. The several passages, which contain these testimonies, will be produced in the next chapter. It being difficult however to ascertain in what degree this notion prevailed, especially amongst the superior ranks of the Heathen communities, another, and I think an adequate, cause has been assigned for their infidelity. It is probable, that in many cases the two causes would operate together.

CHAPTER V.

That the Christian Miracles are not recited, or appealed to, by early Christian Writers themselves, so fully or frequently as might have been expected.

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I SHALL Consider this objection, first, as it plies to the letters of the apostles, preserved in the New Testament; and secondly, as it applies to the remaining writings of other early Christians. The epistles of the apostles are either hortatory or argumentative. So far as they were occupied in delivering lessons of duty, rules of public order, admonitions against certain prevailing corruptions, against vice, or any particular species of it, or in fortifying and encouraging the constancy of the disciples under the trials to which they were exposed, there appears to be no place or occasion for more of these references than we actually find.

* Jortin's Disc. on the Christ. Rel. p. 66. ed. 4th. † Hartley, Obs. p. 119.

So far as the epistles are argumentative, the nature of the argument which they handle accounts for the infrequency of these allusions. These epistles were not written to prove the truth of Christianity. The subject under consideration was not that which the miracles decided, the reality of our Lord's mission; but it was that which the miracles did not decide, the nature of his person or power, the design of his advent, its effects, and of those effects the value, kind, and extent. Still I maintain, that miraculous evidence lies at the bottom of the argument. For nothing could be so preposterous as for the disciples of Jesus to dispute amongst themselves, or with others, concerning his office or character, unless they be lieved that he had shown, by supernatural proofs, that there was something extraordinary in both. Miraculous evidence, therefore, forming not the texture of these arguments, but the ground and substratum, if it be occasionally discerned, if it be incidentally appealed to, it is exactly so much as ought to take place, supposing the history to be true.

As a farther answer to the objection, that the apostolic epistles do not contain so frequent, or such direct and circumstantial recitals of miracles as might be expected, I would add, that the apostolic epistles resemble in this respect the apostolic speeches; which speeches are given by a writer who distinctly records numerous miracles wrought by these apostles themselves, and by the Founder of the institution in their presence: that it is unwarrantable to contend, that the omission, or infrequency, of such recitals in the speeches of the apostles, negatives the existence of the miracles, when the speeches are given in immediate conjunction with the history of those miracles: and that a conclusion which cannot be inferred from the speeches, without contradicting the whole tenor of the book which contains them, cannot be inferred from letters, which, in this. respect, are similar only to the speeches.

To prove the similitude which we allege, it may be remarked, that although in Saint Luke's Gospel the apostle Peter is represented to have been present at many decisive miracles wrought by Christ; and although the second part of the same history ascribes other decisive miracles to Peter himself, particularly the cure of the lame man at the gate of the temple, (Acts iii. 1,) the death of Ananias and Sapphira, (Acts v. 1,) the cure of Eneas, (Acts ix. 34,) the resurrection of Dorcas; (Acts ix. 40,) yet out of six speeches of Peter, preserved in the Acts, I know but two in which reference is made to the miracles wrought by Christ, and only one in which he refers to miraculous powers possessed by himself. In his speech upon the day of Pentecost, Peter addressed his audience with great solemnity, thus: "Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know,"* &c. In his speech upon the conversion of Cornelius, he delivers his testimony to the miracles performed by Christ, in these words: "we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem."+ But in this latter speech, no allusion appears to the miracles wrought by himself, notwithstanding that the

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those parts of the Christian dispensation in which the author perceived a resemblance. The epistle of Clement was written for the sole purpose of quieting certain dissensions that had arisen amongst the members of the church of Corinth, and of reviving in their minds that temper and spirit of which their predecessors in the Gospel had left them an example. The work of Hermas is a vision: quotes neither the Old Testament nor the New; and merely falls now and then into the language, and the mode of speech, which the author had read in our Gospels. The epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius had for their principal ob

they addressed. Yet, under all these circumstances of disadvantage, the great points of the Christian history are fully recognised. This hath been shown in its proper place.*

miracles above enumerated all preceded the time in which it was delivered. In his speech upon the election of Matthias,* no distinct reference is made to any of the miracles of Christ's history, except his resurrection. The same also may be observed of his speech upon the cure of the lame man at the gate of the temple: the same in his speech before the Sanhedrim; ‡ the same in his second apology in the presence of that assembly. Stephen's long speech contains no reference what ever to miracles, though it be expressly related of him, in the book which preserves the speech, and almost immediately before the speech, "that he did great wonders and miracles among the peo-ject the order and discipline of the churches which ple."'s Again, although miracles be expressly attributed to Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, first generally, as at Iconium, (Acts xiv. 3,) during the whole tour through the Upper Asia, (xiv. 27; xv. 12,) at Ephesus: (xix. 11, 12:) secondly, in There is, however, another class of writers, to specific instances, as the blindness of Elymas at whom the answer above given, viz. the unsuitaPaphos, the cure of the cripple at Lystra, of bleness of any such appeals or references as the the Pythoness at Philippi,** the miraculous liber-objection demands, to the subjects of which the ation from prison in the same city, the restoration of Eutychus, the predictions of his shipwreck,§§ the viper at Melita, the cure of Publius's father,¶¶ at all which miracles, except the first two, the historian himself was present: notwithstanding, I say, this positive ascription of miracles to Saint Paul, yet in the speeches delivered by him, and given as delivered by him, in the same book in which the miracles are related, and the miraculous powers asserted, the appeals to his own miracles, or indeed to any miracles at all, are rare and incidental. In his speech at Antioch in Pisidia,*** there is no allusion but to the resurrection. In his discourse at Miletus,+++ none to any miracle; none in his speech before Felix; ‡‡‡ none in his speech before Festus; §§§ except to Christ's resurrection, and his own conversion.

Agreeably hereunto, in thirteen letters ascribed to Saint Paul, we have incessant references to Christ's resurrection, frequent references to his own conversion, three indubitable references to the miracles which he wrought; four other references to the same, less direct, yet highly probable; ¶¶¶ but more copious or circumstantial recitals we have not. The consent, therefore, between Saint Paul's speeches and letters, is in this respect sufficiently exact: and the reason in both is the same; namely, that the miraculous history was all along presupposed, and that the question, which occupied the speaker's and the writer's thoughts, was this: whether, allowing the history of Jesus to be true, he was, upon the strength of it, to be received as the promised Messiah; and, if he was, what were the consequences, what was the object and benefit of his mission?

writings treated, does not apply; and that is, the
class of ancient apologists, whose declared design
it was to defend Christianity, and to give the rea-
sons of their adherence to it.
It is necessary,
therefore, to inquire how the matter of the objec
tion stands in these.

The most ancient apologist, of whose works we have the smallest knowledge, is Quadratus. Quadratus lived about seventy years after the ascension, and presented his apology to the emperor Adrian. From a passage of this work, preserved in Eusebius, it appears that the author did directly and formally appeal to the miracles of Christ, and in terms as express and confident as we could desire. The passage (which has been once already stated) is as follows: "The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, for they were real; both they that were healed, and they that were raised from the dead, were seen, not only when they were healed, or raised, but for a long time afterward: not only whilst he dwelled on this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good while after it; insomuch as that some of them have reached to our times." Nothing can be more rational or satisfactory than this.

Justin Martyr, the next of the Christian apologists whose work is not lost, and who followed Quadratus at the distance of about thirty years, has touched upon passages of Christ's history in so many places, that a tolerably complete account of Christ's life might be collected out of his works. In the following quotation, he asserts the performance of miracles by Christ in words as strong and positive as the language possesses: "Christ healed those who from their birth were blind, and deaf, The general observation which has been made and lame; causing by his word, one to leap, anupon the apostolic writings, namely, that the sub- other to hear, and a third to see: and having raised ject of which they treated, did not lead them to the dead, and caused them to live, he, by his any direct recital of the Christian history, belongs works, excited attention, and induced the men of also to the writings of the apostolic fathers. The that age to know him. Who, however, seeing epistle of Barnabas is, in its subject and general these things done, said that it was a magical ap composition, much like the epistle to the He-pearance, and dared to call him a magician, and a brews; an allegorical application of divers passages deceiver of the people." of the Jewish history, of their law and ritual, to

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In his first apology, Justin expressly assigns the reason for his having recourse to the argument from prophecy, rather than alleging the miracles of the Christian history: which reason was, that

* See pages 297, 298, &c. † Euseb. Hist. J. iv. c. 3.
Just. Dial. p. 258. ed. Thirlby.
Apolog. prim. p. 48. ed. Thirlby.

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