the authors to whom the four Gospels are ascribed, that, if any one of
the four be genuine, it is sufficient for our purpose. The received
author of the first was an original apostle and emissary of the
religion. The received author of the second was an inhabitant of
Jerusalem, at the time, to whose house the apostles were wont to resort,
and himself an attendant upon one of the most eminent of that number.
The received author of the third was a stated companion and
fellow-traveller of the most active of all the teachers of the religion,
and, in the course of his travels, frequently in the society of the
original apostles. The received author of the fourth, as well as of the
first, was one of these apostles. No stronger evidence of the truth of a
history can arise from the situation of the historian than what is here
offered. The authors of all the histories lived at the time and upon the
spot. The authors of two of the histories were present at many of the
scenes which they describe; eye-witnesses of the facts, ear-witnesses of
the discourses; writing from personal knowledge and recollection; and,
what strengthens their testimony, writing upon a subject in which their
minds were deeply engaged, and in which, as they must have been very
frequently repeating the accounts to others, the passages of the history
would be kept continually alive in their memory. Whoever reads the
Gospels (and they ought to be read for this particular purpose) will
find in them not merely a general affirmation of miraculous powers, but
detailed circumstantial accounts of miracles, with specifications of
time, place, and persons; and these accounts many and various. In the
Gospels, therefore, which bear the names of Matthew and John, these
narratives, if they really proceeded from these men, must either be true
as far as the fidelity of human recollection is usually to be depended
upon, that is, must be true in substance and in their principal parts,
(which is sufficient for the purpose of proving a supernatural agency,)
or they must be wilful and mediated falsehoods. Yet the writers who