IV. We may lay out of the case what I call naked history. It has been
said, that if the prodigies of the Jewish history had been found only in
fragments of Manetho, or Berosus, we should have paid no regard to them:
and I am willing to admit this. If we knew nothing of the fact, but from
the fragment; if we possessed no proof that these accounts had been
credited and acted upon, from times, probably, as ancient as the
accounts themselves; if we had no visible effects connected with the
history, no subsequent or collateral testimony to confirm it; under
these circumstances I think that it would be undeserving of credit. But
this certainly is not our case. In appreciating the evidence of
Christianity, the books are to be combined with the institution; with
the prevalency of the religion at this day; with the time and place of
its origin, which are acknowledged points; with the circumstances of its
rise and progress, as collected from external history; with the fact of
our present books being received by the votaries of the institution from
the beginning; with that of other books coming after these, filled with
accounts of effects and consequences resulting from the transaction, or
referring to the transaction, or built upon it; lastly, with the
consideration of the number and variety of the books themselves, the
different writers from which they proceed, the different views with
which they were written, so disagreeing as to repel the suspicion of
confederacy, so agreeing as to show that they were founded in a common
original, i.
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