Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our Saviour, and Defences of His Discourses

by Thomas Woolston

I need not make the Application of this Case and Story, which your Priests know how to do for me. To say here, that there's none would be so desperate to engage in such a Fraud, as is the supposed Case of Dr. Emms above, is a Mistake. Many Thousands for their Diversion would enterprise it; and the Stories of the Apparitions of Ghosts, which are almost all the Frauds of the Crafty to delude the Ignorant, do prove it. I my self would be forward to concert such an Intrigue, if it were but to put the Banter upon the Clergy, to ruffle their Tempers, and secretly to laugh at them. Nothing would deter me from it, but Fears of the Civil Magistrate, which was not the Danger of the Disciples of Jesus, because Pilate, for the Sake of Rule over the Jews, was a Countenancer of every Faction amongst them; and particularly[318] Tiberius, upon Pilate's Representation of the Matter, soon commanded that the Disciples of Jesus should not be molested, nor call'd into Question: So the Disciples stood to the Fraud, told the Story of Jesus risen so often, till they believed it themselves, and drew Multitudes into the Belief of it: Which Belief must have continued thro' all Generations to come, but for my Argument of Fraud, before urg'd and argued.

Here, Sir, before I conclude this Letter, I think it my Duty however to give you my Opinion of the Religion, that Jesus and his Disciples were for introducing into the World. Tho' I believe, what I have proved, his Resurrection, to be a Piece of Fraud, and his other Miracles to have been all Artifice; and tho' our Chief Priests and ancient Nation are justifiable in the Sentence, that was pass'd and executed upon Jesus; yet I must do him and his Disciples the Justice, to own, that the Doctrine they taught was, for the most Part of it, good, useful and popular, being no other than the Law and Religion of Nature, which, all Nations being wearied with their own Superstitions, and sick of the Burthen of their Priests, ran apace into. Accordingly one[319] of your ancient Fathers says, that they who lived according to the Law of Nature, were true Christians. And I must needs say, that if Christians, in Process of Time, had not sophisticated this primitive Religion of Jesus; if they had not built their systematical Divinity upon him, and brought strange Inventions of Men into his Worship; if, lastly, they had not again subjugated and entangled themselves with another and worse Yoke of Bondage, to an intolerable and tyrannical Priesthood of the Church, the World might have enjoy'd great Happiness under Jesus's Religion, even that Happiness which is now only to be expected upon a Disproof of his miraculous Resurrection, that has been the Foundation of a most confused Superstructure of wild Doctrines and Opinions: Or more truely speaking, That Happiness of the State of Nature, Religion and Liberty, which may be look'd for upon the coming of our Messiah, the allegorical Accomplisher of the Law and the Prophets; whose Advent, upon the Tradition of our Cabalists, will be towards the latter End of the Sixth grand Age of the Creation, to remove from our Faces and our Hearts the Veil of the Letter; and in the mean while I adhere to the umbratical Rites, Ceremonies and way of Worship, derived from our Forefathers.

Thus, Sir, have I finish'd my Letter on Jesus's Resurrection; and whether I have not said enough to justify our Jewish Disbelief of that Miracle, let your Chief Priests judge. I don't expect my Argument against it will be convincing of any of your Preachers. They have a potent Reason for their Faith, which we Jews can't come at; or I don't know but we might believe with them.

I trust you'll meet with no Molestation for the Publication of this Letter; neither do I think, it was any thing of mine, inserted in your Discourses, that at any time brought Trouble on you. It was your own Imprudence to rave, as you do, against Ecclesiasticks. What need had you to talk of the Mischiefs and Inconveniences of an Hireling Priesthood? What Occasion had you to call them Ecclesiastical Vermin, and to speak of the Happiness of Mankind upon their Extinction? These things are very provoking. And here's the true Source, in my Opinion, of all your Troubles!

Tho' I have here shewn, that Christ is not risen, yet I have more Wit than to make the Inference of St. Paul, that their Preaching is vain. Their Oratory is still useful, if it be but to tickle the Ears and amuse the Understandings of the People about Doctrines they underhand not, whether true or false. And such an Order of Men, as are your Priesthood, are, by their Habit of long Robes, an Ornament to Society; and it is an Honour to the Country to have them well fed and clad. Had I Room for it, I could write a curious Encomium in Praise of them, and tell the World of what Use and Advantage they have been, in all Ages. O what Wars and Persecutions might have been rais'd in the World, but for their pacifick Tempers! How would Sin and Immorality have broke in upon Mankind, like a Deluge, but for the Goodness of their Lives, and the Excellency of their Precepts! How has the Increase and Multitude of their warm Sermons been the Ruin of Satan's hot and divided Kingdom of Darkness and Error! It's owing to their Pains and Labours, that every Age, for many past, has been improving in Virtue, till the present, which for Piety and good Morals is that perfection of Time, which is not to be meliorated but by the Restitution of the golden Age.

So could I enlarge in Praise of your Clergy; and so should you have done; and then you might have disputed, as you do, against any Doctrines, Miracles and Articles of Faith, without Molestation. Try, if you can't correct that fundamental Error, you have committed. Assert still, if you can, with Dr. Rogers, the Necessity of an establish'd Priesthood, well paid, for the Service of the King and the Country, under all Changes of Religion; which may be a Means to retrieve their Favour, and will beget in me a better Opinion of your Prudence, than at present is entertain'd by your Assured Friend N. N.

So ends the Letter of my Friend, the Jewish Rabbi, in which, to my Comfort, he has conform'd himself to the Rules of Sedateness, Decency and Sobriety of Argument, prescrib'd by the two great Bishops of London and St. David's. If the Weight and Solidity of his Argument don't grieve the Clergy, I am in no Pain for the Levity and Ludicrousness of it. And whether the Weight and Nature of his Argument against Jesus's Resurrection will at all startle and surprize them, I know not; but I profess for my self, that I might have study'd long enough for such an Argument against it, as this Rabbi, with his great grey Beard, has presently hit of. He told me beforehand, that his Thoughts on Jesus's Resurrection should be out of the common Road of thinking; and I must needs say, he has been as good as his Word, or no Man ever kept his Promise.

There are two Things very remarkable in his Argument: The one is, the Use and Design of sealing the Stone of Jesus's Sepulchre, which he lays great Stress on, to the Proof of Fraud in his Resurrection; and the other is, his Application of these Words, the last Error (or as he reads Deceit or Imposture) will be worse than the first or former, in which he makes the Chief Priests in their Speech to Pilate, to refer to Lazarus's Resurrection as the former known Imposture. If his Application be just and true, the Consequence is, that the Resurrections of Jesus and Lazarus are both Impostures. It grieves me to the Heart to think of this Consequence, which our Divines are to see to, and evade, if they can. No sooner did I read his Application of the foresaid Words, but I run to our Commentators for another and better Exposition of them: But alas! to my Sorrow, they made nothing of them, but a sort of a proverbial Expression, which the Chief Priests must have spoil'd and knock'd out of Joint. Being then under great Trouble for the Truth of Christianity, and the Certainty of these two grand Miracles, I refer the Matter to our Learned Clergy, desiring them to be as speedy as they can in another and more proper Interpretation of the foresaid Words, or Jews and Infidels will run away with them in the Rabbi's Sense, to the Confutation of our holy Religion.

I consider'd lately, that Easter drew nigh, when it was usual for our Divines in their Pulpits, to insist on the Proof of Jesus's Resurrection; and therefore I hasten'd the Publication of this Discourse, that they might have these two peculiar Texts, viz. of sealing the Stone of the Sepulchre, and of the last Error or Imposture will be worse than the first, to treat on. He that produces a Sermon or Sermons, wresting the foresaid Texts out of the Hands of my Rabbi, and putting another Sense on them, to the Credit of Jesus's and Lazarus's Resurrection,