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 distinct histories, the genuineness of any one of which is perfectly sufficient.

If, therefore, we must be considered as encountering the risk of error in assigning the authors of our books, we are entitled to the advantage of so many separate probabilities.  And although it should appear that some of the evangelists had seen and used each other’s works, this discovery, whist it subtracts indeed from their characters as testimonies strictly independent, diminishes, I conceive, little either their separate authority, (by which I mean the authority of any one that is genuine,) or their mutual confirmation.  For, let the most disadvantageous supposition possible be made concerning them; let it