I pass over the excesses which followed the order of Pilate; as, the violence shown to Simon, the Cyrenian, who was made in some degree a sharer in the punishment, by being compelled to carry the cross; the injurious treatment which attended the victim to the place of the sacrifice, and even to the cross, where Jesus still prayed for his brethren and his executioners!
To the heathen themselves I would say—You, who have gloried in the death of Socrates, how much must you be struck with wonder at that of Jesus! Ye, censors of the Areopagus, how could you undertake to excuse the Synagogue, and justify the sentence of the Hall of Judgment? Philosophy herself has not hesitated to proclaim, and we may repeat with her—“Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a divinity.”
Footnotes
[1.]Cicero, Philip. II. § 43.[2.]Nov. Org. 1. 68. “Ut non alius fere sit aditus ad regnum hominus, quod fundatur in scientiis, quam ad regnum cœlorum, in quod, nisi sub persona infantis, intrare non datur.”[3.]Bishop Wilson's Evidences, p. 38.[4.]See Dr. Hopkins's Lowell Lectures, particularly Lect. 2. Bp. Wilson's Evidences of Christianity, Vol. i. pp. 45-61. Horne's Introduction, Vol. i. pp. 1-39. Mr. Horne having cited all the best English writers on this subject, it is sufficient to refer to his work alone.[5.]Hopkins's Lowell Lect., p. 48.[6.]It has been well remarked, that, if we regard man as in a state of innocence, we should naturally expect that God would hold communications with him; that if we regard him as guilty, and as having lost the knowledge and moral image of God, such a communication would be absolutely necessary, if man was to be restored.—Dr. Hopkins's Lowell Lect., p. 62.[7.]The argument here briefly sketched, is stated more at large, and with great clearness and force, in an essay entitled “The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,” pp. 13-107.[8.]See Professor Stuart's Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon, where this is abundantly proved.[9.]Per Tindal, Ch. Just., in the case of the Bishop of Meath v. the Marquis of Winchester, 3 Bing. N. C. 183, 200, 201. “It is when documents are found in other than their proper places of deposit,” observed the Chief Justice, “that the investigation commences, whether it was reasonable and natural, under the circumstances of the particular case, to expect that they should have been in the place where they are actually found; for it is obvious, that, which there can be only one place of deposit strictly and absolutely proper, there may be many and various, that are reasonable and probable, though differing in degree, some being more so, some less; and in these cases the proposition to be determined is, whether the actual custody is so reasonably and probably accounted for, that it impresses the mind with the conviction that the instrument found in such custody must be genuine.” See the cases cited in 1 Greenleaf on Evidence § 142. See also 1 Stark. on Evidence, pp. 332-335, 381-386. Croughton v. Blake, 12 Mees. & Welsb. 205, 208. Doe v. Phillips, 10 Jurist, p. 34. It is this defect, namely, that they do not come from the proper or natural repository, which shows the fabulous character of many pretended revelations, from the Gospel of the Infancy to the Book of Mormon.[10.]1 Greenleaf on Evid. § 34, 142, 570.[11.]Morewood v. Wood, 14 East, 329, n. Per Lord Kenyon. Weeks v. Sparke, 1 M. & S. 686; the Berkeley Peerage Case, 4 Campb. 416. Per Mansfield, Ch. J. See 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 128.[12.]1 Starkie on Evidence, pp. 195, 230; 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 483.[13.]The arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the Holy Scriptures are briefly, yet very fully stated, and almost all the writers of authority are referred to by Mr. Horne, in his Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i., passim. The same subject is discussed in a more popular manner in the Lectures of Bp. Wilson, and of Bp. Sumner of Chester, on the Evidences of Christianity; and, in America, the same question, as it relates to the Gospels, has been argued by Bp. M'Ilvaine, in his Lectures.[14.]See the case of the Slane Peerage, 5 Clark & Finelly's Rep., p. 24. See also the case of the Fitzwalter Peerage, 10 Clark & Finelly's Rep., p. 948.[15.]Matt. ix. 10; Mark ii. 14, 15; Luke v. 29.[16.]The authorities on this subject are collected in Horne's Introduction, vol. iv. pp. 234-238, part 2, chap. ii. sec. 2.[17.]See Horne's Introduction, vol. iv. p. 229-232.[18.]See Campbell on the Four Gospels, vol. iii. pp. 35, 36; Preface to St. Matthew's Gospel, § 22, 23.[19.]See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i. ch. vi. and vol. iii. ch. xvii. and authorities there cited. Cod. Theod. Lib. xi. tit. 1-28, with the notes of Gothofred. Gibbon treats particularly of the revenues of a later period than our Saviour's time; but the general course of proceeding, in the levy and collection of taxes, is not known to have been changed since the beginning of the empire.[20.]Acts xii. 12, 25; xiii. 5, 13; and xv. 36-41; 2 Tim. iv. 11; Phil. 24; Col. iv. 10; 1 Pet. v. 13.[21.]Horne's Introduction, vol. iv. pp. 252, 253.[22.]Mark vii. 2, 11; and ix. 43, and elsewhere.[23.]Mr. Norton has conclusively disposed of this objection, in his Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, vol. i. Additional Notes, see. 2, pp. cxv-cxxxii.[24.]Compare Mark x. 46, and xiv. 69, and iv. 35, and i. 35, and ix. 28, with Matthew's narrative of the same events.[25.]See Horne's Introd. vol. iv. pp 252-259.[26.]Acts xvi. 10, 11.[27.]Col. iv. 14. Luke, the beloved physician.[28.]Luke v. 12; Matt. viii. 2; Mark i. 40.[29.]Luke vi. 6; Matt. xii. 10; Mark iii. 1.[30.]Luke viii. 55; Matt. ix. 25; Mark v. 42.[31.]Luke vi. 19.[32.]Luke xxii. 44, 45, 51.[33.]See Horne's Introd. vol. iv. pp. 260-272, where references may be found to earlier writers.[34.]See Lardner's Works, 8vo. vol. vi. pp. 138, 139; 4to. vol. iii. pp. 203, 204; and other authors, cited in Horne's Introd. vol. iv. p. 267.[35.]2 Phillips on Evidence, p. 95, (9th edition.)[36.]When Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, in shooting at deer with a cross-bow, in Bramsil park, accidentally killed the keeper, King James I. by a letter dated Oct. 3, 1621, requested the Lord Keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and others, to inquire into the circumstances and consider the case and “the scandal that may have risen thereupon,” and to certify the King what it may amount to. Could there be any reasonable doubt of their report of the facts, thus ascertained? See Spelman's Posthumous Works, p. 121.[37.]The case of the ill-fated steamer President furnishes an example of this sort of inquiry. This vessel, it is well-known, sailed from New York for London in the month of March, 1841 having on board many passengers, some of whom were highly connected. The ship was soon overtaken by a storm, after which she was never heard of. A few months afterwards a solemn inquiry was instituted by three gentlemen of respectability, one of whom was a British admiral, another was agent for the underwriters at Lloyd's, and the other a government packet agent, concerning the time, circumstances and causes of that disaster; the result of which was communicated to the public, under their hands. This document received universal confidence, and no further inquiry was made.[38.]Mark i. 20.[39.]John xix. 26, 27.[40.]John xiii. 23.[41.]Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41.[42.]John xviii. 15, 16.[43.]Luke viii. 51; Matt. xvii. 1, and xxvi. 37.[44.]This account is abridged from Horne's Introd. vol. iv. pp. 286-288.[45.]Horne's Introd. vol. iv. p. 289, and authors there cited.[46.]See, among others, John i. 38, 41, and ii. 6, 13, and iv. 9, and xi. 55.[47.]See Horne's Introd. vol. iv. pp. 297, 298.[48.]See Gambier's Guide to the Study of Moral Evidence, p. 121.[49.]1 Stark. Evid. pp. 514, 577; 1 Greenl. on Evid. §§ 1, 2; Wills on Circumstantial Evid., p. 2; Whately's Logic, b. iv. ch. iii. § 1.[50.]See 1 Stark. Evid. pp. 16, 480, 521.[51.]This subject has been treated by Dr. Chalmers, in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, chapter iii. The following extract from his observations will not be unacceptable to the reader. “In other cases, when we compare the narratives of contemporary historians, it is not expected that all the circumstances alluded to by one will be taken notice of by the rest; and it often happens that an event or a custom is admitted upon the faith of a single historian; and the silence of all other writers is not suffered to attach suspicion or discredit to his testimony. It is an allowed principle, that a scrupulous resemblance betwixt two histories is very far from necessary to their being held consistent with one another. And what is more, it sometimes happens that, with contemporary historians, there may be an apparent contradiction, and the credit of both parties remain as entire and unsuspicious as before. Posterity is, in these cases, disposed to make the most liberal allowances. Instead of calling it a contradiction, they often call it a difficulty. They are sensible that, in many instances a seeming variety of statement has, upon a more extensive knowledge of ancient history, admitted of a perfect reconciliation. Instead, then, of referring the difficulty in question to the inaccuracy or bad faith of any of the parties, they, with more justness and more modesty, refer it to their own ignorance, and to that obscurity which necessarily hangs over the history of every remote age. These principles are suffered to have great influence in every secular investigation; but so soon as, instead of a secular, it becomes a sacred investigation, every ordinary principle is abandoned, and the suspicion annexed to the teachers of religion is carried to the dereliction of all that candour and liberality with which every other document of antiquity is judged of and appreciated. How does it happen that the authority of Josephus should be acquiesced in as a first principle, while every step, in the narrative of the evangelists, must have foreign testimony to confirm and support it? How comes it, that the silence of Josephus should be construed into an impeachment of the testimony of the evangelists, while it is never admitted, for a single moment, that the silence of the evangelists can impart the slightest blemish to the testimony of Josephus? How comes it, that the supposition of two Philips in one family should throw a damp of scepticism over the Gospel narrative, while the only circumstance which renders that supposition necessary is the single testimony of Josephus; in which very testimony it is necessarily implied that there are two Herods in that same family? How comes it, that the evangelists, with as much internal, and a vast deal more of external evidence in their favour, should be made to stand before Josephus, like so many prisoners at the bar of justice? In any other case, we are convinced that this would be looked upon as rough handling. But we are not sorry for it. It has given more triumph and confidence to the argument. And it is no small addition to our faith, that its first teachers have survived an examination, which, in point of rigour and severity, we believe to be quite unexampled in the annals of criticism.” See Chalmers's Evidences, pp. 72-74.[52.]See 1 Stark. Evid. pp. 480, 545.[53.]If the witnesses could be supposed to have been biassed, this would destroy their testimony to matters of fact; it would only detract from the weight of their judgment in matters of opinion. The rule of law on this subject has been thus stated by Dr. Lushington: “When you examine the testimony of witnesses nearly connected with the parties, and there is nothing very peculiar tending to destroy their credit, when they depose to mere facts, their testimony is to be believed; when they depose as to matter of opinion, it is to be received with suspicion.” Dillon v. Dillon, 3 Curteis's Eccl. Rep. pp. 96, 102.[54.]This subject has been so fully treated by Dr. Paley, in his view of the Evidences of Christianity, Part I., Prop. I., that is it unnecessary to pursue it farther in this place.[55.]1 Stark. Evid., pp. 483, 548.[56.]Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, c. v. b. 1. Part 3, p. 125. Whately's Rhetoric, Part 1. ch. 2. § 4. 1 Stark. Evid., p. 487.[57.]See the Quarterly Review, vol. xxviii. p. 465. These narrators were, the Duchess D'Angoulême herself, the two Messrs. De Bouillè, the Duc De Choiseul, his servant, James Brissac, Messrs. De Damas and Deslons, two of the officers commanding detachments on the road, Messrs. De Moustier and Valori, the garde du corps who accompanied the king, and finally M. de Fontanges, archbishop of Toulouse, who though not himself a party to the transaction, is supposed to have written from the information of the queen. An earlier instance of similar discrepancy is mentioned by Sully. After the battle of Aumale, in which Henry IV. was wounded, when the officers were around the king's bed, conversing upon the events of the day, there were not two who agreed in the recital of the most particular circumstances of the action. D'Aubigné, a contemporary writer, does not even mention the king's wound, though it was the only one he ever received in his life. See Memoirs of Sully, vol. i. p. 245. If we treated these narratives as sceptics would have us treat these of the sacred writers, what evidence should we have of any battle at Aumale, or of any flight to Varennes?[58.]Far greater discrepancies can be found in the different reports of the same case, given by the reporters of legal judgments than are shown among the evangelists; and yet we do not consider them as detracting from the credit of the reporters, to whom we still resort with confidence, as to good authority. Some of these discrepancies seem utterly irreconcilable. Thus, in a case, 45 Edw. III. 19, where the question was upon a gift of lands to J. de C. with Joan, the sister of the donor, and to their heirs, Fitzherbert (tit. Tail, 14) says it was adjudged fee simple, and not frankmarriage; Statham (tit. Tail) says it was adjudged a gift in frankmarriage; while Brook (tit. Frankmarriage) says it was not decided. (Vid. 10 Co. 118.) Others are irreconcilable, until the aid of a third reporter is invoked. Thus, in the case of Cooper v. Franklin, Croke says it was not decided, but adjourned; (Cro. Jac. 100); Godbolt says it was decided in a certain way, which he mentions; (Godb. 269); Moor also reports it as decided, but gives a different account of the question raised; (Moor, 848); while Bulstrode gives a still different report of the judgment of the court, which he says was delivered by Croke himself. But by his account it further appears, that the case was previously twice argued; and thus it at length results that the other reporters relate only what fell from the court on each of the previous occasions. Other similar examples may be found in 1 Dougl. 6, n. compared with 5 East, 475, n. in the case of Galbraith v. Neville; and in that of Stoughton v. Reynolds, reported by Fortescue, Strange, and in Cases temp. Hardwicke. (See 3 Barnw. & Ald. 247, 248.) Indeed, the books abound in such instances. Other discrepancies are found in the names of the same litigating parties, as differently given by reporters; such as, Putt v. Roster, (2 Mod. 318); Foot v. Rastall, (Skin. 49), and Putt v. Royston, (2 Show. 211); also, Hosdell v. Harris, (2 Keb. 462); Hodson v. Harwich, (Ib. 533), and Hodsden v. Harridge, (2 Saund. 64), and a multitude of others, which are universally admitted to mean the same cases, even when they are not precisely within the rule of idem sonans. These diversities, it is well known, have never detracted in the slightest degree from the estimation in which the reporters are all deservedly held, as authors of merit, enjoying, to this day, the confidence of the profession. Admitting now, for the sake of argument, (what is not conceded in fact,) that diversities equally great exist among the sacred writers; how can we consistently, and as lawyers, raise any serious objection against them on that account, or treat them in any manner different from that which we observe towards our own reporters?[59.]
Mr. Hume's argument is thus refuted by Lord Brougham. “Here are two answers, to which the doctrine proposed by Mr. Hume is exposed, and either appears sufficient to shake it.
“First—Our belief in the uniformity of the laws of nature rests not altogether upon our own experience. We believe no man ever was raised from the dead,—not merely because we ourselves never saw it, for indeed that would be a very limited ground of deduction; and our belief was fixed on the subject long before we had any considerable experience,—fixed chiefly by authority,—that is, by deference to other men's experience. We found our confident belief in this negative position partly, perhaps chiefly, upon the testimony of others; and at all events, our belief that in times before our own the same position held good, must of necessity be drawn from our trusting relations of other men—that is, it depends upon the evidence of testimony. If, then, the existence of the law of nature is proved, in great part at least, by such evidence, can we wholly reject the like evidence when it comes to prove an exception to the rule—a deviation from the law? The more numerous are the cases of the law being kept—the more rare those of its being broken—the more scrupulous certainly ought we to be in admitting the proofs of the breach. But that testimony is capable of making good the proof there seems no doubt. In truth, the degree of excellence and of strength to which testimony may arise seems almost indefinite. There is hardly any cogency which it is not capable by possible supposition of attaining. The endless multiplication of witnesses,—the unbounded variety of their habits of thinking, their prejudices, their interests,—afford the means of conceiving the force of their testimony, augmented ad infinitum, because these circumstances afford the means of diminishing indefinitely the chances of their being mistaken, all misled, or all combining to deceive us. Let any man try to calculate the chances of a thousand persons who come from different quarters, and never saw each other before, and who all vary in their habits, stations, opinions, interests,—being mistaken or combining to deceive us, when they give the same account of an event as having happened before their eyes,—these chances are many hundreds of thousands to one. And yet we can conceive them multiplied indefinitely; for one hundred thousand such witnesses may in all like manner bear the same testimony; and they may all tell us their story within twenty-four hours after the transaction, and in the next parish. And yet, according to Mr. Hume's argument, we are bound to disbelieve them all, because they speak to a thing contrary to our own experience, and to the accounts which other witnesses had formerly given us of the law of nature, and which our forefathers had handed down to us as derived from witnesses who lived in the old time before them. It is unnecessary to add that no testimony of the witnesses, whom we are supposing to concur in their relation, contradicts any testimony of our own senses. If it did, the argument would resemble Archbishop Tillotson's upon the Real Presence, and our disbelief would be at once warranted.
“Secondly—This leads us to the next objection to which Mr. Hume's argument is liable, and which we have in part anticipated while illustrating the first. He requires us to withhold our belief in circumstances which would force every man of common understanding to lend his assent, and to act upon the supposition of the story told being true. For, suppose either such numbers of various witnesses as we have spoken of; or, what is perhaps stronger, suppose a miracle reported to us, first by a number of relators, and then by three or four of the very soundest judges and most incorruptibly honest men we know,—men noted for their difficult belief of wonders, and, above all, steady unbelievers in miracles, without any bias in favour of religion, but rather accustomed to doubt, if not disbelieve,—most people would lend an easy belief to any miracles thus vouched. But let us add this circumstance, that a friend on his death-bed had been attended by us, and that we had told him a fact known only to ourselves,—something that we had secretly done the very moment before we told it to the dying man, and which to no other being we had ever revealed,—and that the credible witnesses we are supposing, informed us that the deceased appeared to them, conversed with them, remained with them a day or two, accompanying them, and to avouch the fact of his reappearance on this earth, communicated to them the secret of which we had made him the sole depository the moment before his death;—according to Mr. Hume, we are bound rather to believe, not only that those credible witnesses deceive us, or that those sound and unprejudiced men were themselves deceived, and fancied things without real existence, but further, that they all hit by chance upon the discovery of a real secret, known only to ourselves and the dead man. Mr. Hume's argument requires us to believe this as the lesser improbability of the two—as less unlikely than the rising of one from the dead; and yet every one must feel convinced, that were he placed in the situation we have been figuring, he would not only lend his belief to the relation, but if the relators accompanied it with a special warning from the deceased person to avoid a certain contemplated act, he would, acting upon the belief of their story, take the warning, and avoid doing the forbidden deed. Mr. Hume's argument makes no exception. This is its scope; and whether he chooses to push it thus far or no, all miracles are of necessity denied by it, without the least regard to the kind or the quantity of the proof on which they are rested; and the testimony which we have supposed, accompanied by the test or check we have supposed, would fall within the grasp of the argument just as much and as clearly as any other miracle avouched by more ordinary combinations of evidence.
“The use of Mr. Hume's argument is this, and it is an important and a valuable one. It teaches us to sift closely and rigorously the evidence for miraculous events. It bids us remember that the probabilities are always, and must always be incomparably greater against, than for, the truth of these relations, because it is always far more likely that the testimony should be mistaken or false, than that the general laws of nature should be suspended. Further than this the doctrine cannot in soundness of reason be carried. It does not go the length of proving that those general laws cannot, by the force of human testimony, be shown to have been, in a particular instance, and with a particular purpose, suspended.” See his Discourse of Natural Theology, Note 5, p. 210-214. (Ed. 1835.)