Evanson excepts the Gospel of Luke only from the charge of spuriousness:  though he says that it is grossly corrupted, and interpolated.  From these corruptions and interpolations, he endeavours to purify it; in which attempt wo think he has had very indifferent success.  In short, his work has proved, (what he did not himself contemplate) that the providence of the God of truth has taken care, that so many absurdities and contradictions, should be contained in these books of the New Testament which were written to establish a mistake, as must I conceive, satisfy any man, who has them once pointed out to him, that the doctrine of those books is not, and cannot be from God.

But it may be still asked, “how did this notion of the resurrection of Jesus become current?” “How can you account for the apostles believing such a thing?” We answer sincerely—­we cannot absolutely ascertain.  The Jews of that age have left no documents upon this business.  The origin of the Christian religion is so extremely obscure, that Josephus takes no notice of it at all, (for the passage relating to Christian affairs now found in Josephus are notorious interpolations.) And it is evident from the Chronological, and other mistakes about Jesus, in the Talmud, that the curiosity of the learned Jews had never been interested by Christianity, till so long after Jesus, that the memory of him, and his, was almost entirely lost among that nation.  And it appears from the last chapter of the Acts, that when Paul was received by the Jews at Rome, he had not been considered by the Jews of Jerusalem as of sufficient importance, as to cause them to warn their brethren of the Dispersion concerning him; for these Jews tell Paul, on his enquiring, that they had not received any letters concerning him from Jerusalem.  So that we can offer nothing but conjecture, to solve the difficulty.

It has been said by some, (and it is by no means an hypothesis destitute of plausibility) that Jesus was indeed crucified, but did not actually die on the cross.  It is evident that Pilate was extremely desirous to save his life; and is it impossible that the Roman soldiers, who crucified him, had secret orders?  Consider the ciscumstances.  He was crucified at our nine in the morning, and was taken from the cross at about three in the afternoon.  Now, crucifixion is not a death which kills men in six hours, and men have been known to have lived fastened to the cross for more than two days.  Consider, besides, that when the soldiers gave the coup de grace to the two robbers, that they did not break the legs of Jews.  This, the author of the Gospel according to John says, they did, in order to fulfill a prophecy; but I leave it to my reader, whether it is not more likely that they did so in order to fulfill secret orders?  But to make up for that omission, the author adds, that they pierced Jesus with a spear.  Now, besides that this is not mentioned by the other Evangelists, the very manner in which this circumstance