40.) takes it for granted, that Simon Peter
was well known. His name had not been mentioned before. The evangelist's
noticing the prevailing misconstruction of a discourse, (John xxi. 24.)
which Christ held with the beloved disciple, proves that the characters
and the discourse were already public. And the observation which these
instances afford is of equal validity for the purpose of the present
argument, whoever were the authors of the histories.
These four circumstances:--first, the recognition of the account in its
principal parts by a series of succeeding writers; secondly, the total
absence of any account of the origin of the religion substantially
different from ours; thirdly, the early and extensive prevalence of
rites and institutions, which resulted from our account; fourthly, our
account bearing in its construction proof that it is an account of facts
which were known and believed at the time, are sufficient, I conceive,
to support an assurance, that the story which we have now is, in general,
the story which Christians had at the beginning. I say in general; by
which term I mean, that it is the same in its texture, and in its
principal facts.
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