Prev | Current Page 271 | Next

Paley, William, 1743-1805

"Evidence of Christianity"

This can by no possibility be resolved into
false perception: and of this kind are by far the greater part of the
miracles recorded in the New Testament. When Lazarus was raised from the
dead, he did not merely move, and speak, and die again; or come out of
the grave, and vanish away. He returned to his home and family, and
there continued; for we find him some time afterwards in the same town,
sitting at table with Jesus and his sisters; visited by great multitudes
of the Jews as a subject of curiosity; giving, by his presence, so much
uneasiness to the Jewish rulers as to beget in them a design of
destroying him. (John xii. 1, 2, 9, 10.) No delusion can account for
this. The French prophets in England, some time since, gave out that one
of their teachers would come to life again; but their enthusiasm never
made them believe that they actually saw him alive. The blind man whose
restoration to sight at Jerusalem is recorded in the ninth chapter of
Saint John's Gospel did not quit the place or conceal himself from
inquiry. On the contrary, he was forthcoming, to answer the call, to
satisfy the scrutiny, and to sustain the browbeating of Christ's angry
and powerful enemies.


Pages:
259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283