God forbid, that I should have the same sense with Infidels, of this Matter; but to be just to their Suggestions and Imaginations here, I must needs say, there are some other unhappy Circumstances, presently to be consider'd, in this Story, which, if they are not emblematical, make it the most notorious Cheat and Imposture that ever was put upon Mankind. In the mean Time, from what is here argued, it is plain, that Lazarus was not so long dead and buried, as that there is no Room to doubt of the Miracle of his Resurrection.
Now whether these Arguments against these three Miracles, drawn from the Shortness of the Time, in which these Persons lay for dead, have any Force in them, let our Divines consider. If nothing of all this is in their Opinion affecting of the Credit of the Miracles; yet they must allow, that Jesus, if he could raise the dead, might have made Choice of other Instances of Persons, more unquestionably dead, who had lain longer in their Graves, and were in a visible State of Putrefaction. And if this grand Miracle of raising the dead was to be wrought by Jesus for the Manifestation of his Glory, and in Testimony of his Authority; he should have exercised his Power on some such Persons, nominated by the Magistrates of this or that City, who with the People should be present at the miraculous Operation, beholding the putrified Bodies, (without a Napkin before their Faces) and how they were suddenly enliven'd and invigorated with new Flesh, after the Similitude of their pristine Form, when in Health and full Strength. Because that Jesus rais'd not some such Persons to Life, I must take the Stories of the three Miracles before us to be but typical of more mysterious Works; or believe them for the Arguments above to be downright Cheats and Fables. And what is enough to induce a modern Divine to this Opinion. Is
5. The Consideration, that none of these rais'd Persons did or could, after the Return of their Souls to their Bodies, tell any Tales of their separate Existence otherwise the Evangelists had not been silent in this main Point, which is of the Essence of Christianity. Are not our Divines here reduced to an unhappy Dilemma, either to deny the separate Existence of the Soul, or the precedent Deaths of these rais'd Persons? As Christians, We profess to believe both, which seemingly are incompatiable; or the Evangelists had made such a Relation, as their return'd Souls had given of the other World. Was any Person, in this Age, to be rais'd to Life, that had been any time dead; the first Thing that his Friends and Acquaintance would enquire of him, would be to know, where his Soul had been; in what Company; and how it had fared with him; and Historians would certainly record his Narrative. The same Curiosity could not but possess People of old, when these Miracles were wrought; and if the rais'd Persons had told any Stories of their separate Existance, the Evangelists no less unquestionally would have reported them, in as much as such a Report would have been, not only a Confirmation of that Doctrine; which is of the Essence of our Religion; but an absolute Confutation of the Sadducees and Sceptists of that Age, and of the Materialists of this. But this their Silence in this Case is of bad Consequence, either to the Doctrine of the Soul's Existence in Separation from the Body, or to these Miracles themselves, since we must hereupon almost necessarily hold, that these rais'd Persons were not at all dead, or that their Souls dy'd with them.
The Author of a Sermon, ascrib'd to St. Augustin tells us[291] that Lazarus after his Resurrection made a large Report of Hell, where he had been: But as this is a mere Fiction of that Author, without the least Authority from Scripture; so I presume it will be accounted a Blunder in him, to suppose the Soul of Lazarus, the Friend and beloved of Jesus, was in Hell. The Soul of Jesus indeed, for Reasons best known to himself, upon his Death, descended into Hell, when some think he should rather have gone, with the penitent Thief, into Paradise. But the Thoughts, that any of Jesus's Friends should go to Hell, I suppose will not be born with; or what will become of the Preachers of this Age, who would be accounted Men or that Denomination. And if Lazarus's Soul had been in Paradise, it was hardly a good Work in Jesus to recall it, for thirty Years afterwards, to the Miseries and Troubles of this wicked World. I wish therefore our Divines could determine, where Lazarus's Soul was for the four Days of his Burial; because I can't possibly conceive any thing else, than that he was not really dead, or that his Soul dy'd with him, or went to a bad place, otherwise after his Resurrection he had never absconded for fear of the Jews, as if he was unwilling to die again, and return to the Place from whence he came.
But however it was with the Souls of these rais'd Persons before their Re-union to their Bodies, here is another Difficulty and Objection against these Miracles; and how will our Divines get over it? Perhaps they may say, that tho' these rais'd Persons were before really dead; yet their Souls were not as yet gone to their Places prepared of God for them, but continued hovering about their Bodies, like the Flame about the Snuff of a Candle, with desires
——iterumq; reverti
Corpora——
to be again rejoin'd to them. And withall my Heart let this Answer pass, if our Divines and Infidels can so agree upon it. As for my own Opinion, it is this, that these Miracles of Jesus are Parables, and that it was beside the Purpose of the Parable, and of the Evangelists to say any thing of the Place and State of the Soul upon its Separation from the Body; otherwise the Letter of their Stories is manifestly obnoxious to the Objection above, or the Deaths of these pretended rais'd Persons, upon Christian Principles, are questionable. But
6. And lastly, Let us consider the intrinsick Absurdities and Incredibilities of the several Stories of these three Miracles. And such Absurdities shall we find in them, that, if they had been intended as Testimonies of Jesus's divine Power, had never been inserted in their Narratives.
As to Jairus's Daughter, and her Resurrection from the dead, St. Hilary[292] hints, that there was no such Person as Jairus whose Name was fictitious, and coin'd with a spiritual Signification for the Use of the Parable; and he gives this Reason, and a good Reason it is, why he thought so, because it is elsewhere[293] intimated in the Gospel, that none of the Rulers of the Synagogues confessedly believed on Jesus. Is not here then a stumbling-Block at the Threshold of the Letter of this Story? But why did Jesus say, this Girl was but in a Sleep? If he was going to work a Miracle in her Resuscitation, he should not have call'd Death, Sleep; but if others had been of a contrary Opinion, he should first have convinced them of the Certainty of her Death, before he did the great Work on her. And why did he charge the Parents of the Girl not to speak of the Miracle? If he meant it as Testimony of his divine Power, he should rather have exhorted them, in justice to himself to publish it, and make it well known. And why, as St. Ambrose[294] puts the Question, did he turn the People out of the House, before he would raise her? The more Witnesses are present at a Miracle, the better it is attested, and the more readily believed by others; and who should be present at the Miracle rather than those who were incredulous of Jesus's divine Power? Are not all these Circumstances, so many Absurdities, which, if they are not to be accounted for in the Mystery, are so far destructive of the Letter, as that it is Nonsense and Folly in our Divines to talk of a Miracle here, against Jesus's express Word and Prohibition to the contrary.