Supposing it to
be sufficiently proved, that the religion now professed among us owed
its original to the preaching and ministry of a number of men, who,
about eighteen centuries ago, set forth in the world a new system of
religious opinions, founded upon certain extraordinary things which they
related of a wonderful person who had appeared in Judea; suppose it to
be also sufficiently proved, that, in the course and prosecution of
their ministry, these men had subjected themselves to extreme hardships,
fatigue, and peril; but suppose the accounts which they published had
not been committed to writing till some ages after their times, or at
least that no histories but what had been composed some ages afterwards
had reached our hands; we should have said, and with reason, that we
were willing to believe these under the circumstances in which they
delivered their testimony, but that we did not, at this day, know with
sufficient evidence what their testimony was. Had we received the
particulars of it from any of their own number, from any of those who
lived and conversed with them, from any of their hearers, or even from
any of their contemporaries, we should have had something to rely upon.
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