Now it ought to be observed that the argument which is built upon these examples extends both to the authenticity of the books, and to the truth of the narrative; for it is improbable that the forger of a history in the name of another should have inserted such passages into it:  and it is improbable, also, that the persons whose names the books hear should have fabricated such passages; or even have allowed them a place in their work, if they had not believed them to express the truth.

The following observation, therefore, of Dr. Lardner, the most candid of all advocates, and the most cautious of all inquirers, seems to be well founded:—­“Christians are induced to believe the writers of the Gospel by observing the evidences of piety and probity that appear in their writings, in which there is no deceit, or artifice, or cunning, or design.”  “No remarks,” as Dr. Beattie hath properly said, “are thrown in to anticipate objections; nothing of that caution which never fails to distinguish the testimony of those who are conscious of imposture; no endeavour to reconcile the reader’s mind to what may be extraordinary in the narrative.”

I beg leave to cite also another author, (Duchal, pp. 97, 98.) who has well expressed the reflection which the examples now brought forward were intended to suggest.  “It doth not appear that ever it came into the mind of these writers to consider how this or the other action would appear to mankind, or what objections might be raised upon them.  But without at all attending to this, they lay the facts before you, at no pains to think whether they would appear credible or not.  If the reader will not believe their testimony, there is no help for it:  they tell the truth and attend to nothing else.  Surely this looks like sincerity, and that they published nothing to the world but that they believed themselves.”

As no improper supplement to this chapter, I crave a place here for observing the extreme naturalness of some of the things related in the New Testament.

Mark ix. 23.  “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”  This struggle in the father’s heart, between solicitude for the preservation of his child, and a kind of involuntary distrust of Christ’s power to heal him, is here expressed with an air of reality which could hardly be counterfeited.

Again (Matt. xxi. 9), the eagerness of the people to introduce Christ into Jerusalem, and their demand, a short time afterwards, of his crucifixion, when he did not turn out what they expected him to be, so far from affording matter of objection, represents popular favour in exact agreement with nature and with experience, as the flux and reflux of a wave.

The rulers and Pharisees rejecting Christ, whilst many of the common people received him, was the effect which, in the then state of Jewish prejudices, I should have expected.  And the reason with which they who rejected Christ’s mission kept themselves in countenance, and with which also they answered the arguments of those who favoured it, is precisely the reason which such men usually give:—­“Have any of the Scribes or Pharisees believed on him?” (John vii. 48.)