If it be said that Jesus, having tried the other plan, turned at length
to this; I answer, that the thing is said without evidence; against
evidence; that it was competent to the rest to have done the same, yet
that nothing of this sort was thought of by any.
CHAPTER VI.
One argument which has been much relied upon (but not more than its just
weight deserves) is the conformity of the facts occasionally mentioned
or referred to in Scripture with the state of things in those times, as
represented by foreign and independent accounts; which conformity
proves, that the writers of the New Testament possessed a species of
local knowledge which could belong only to an inhabitant of that country
and to one living in that age. This argument, if well made out by
examples, is very little short of proving the absolute genuineness of
the writings. It carries them up to the age of the reputed authors, to
an age in which it must have been difficult to impose upon the Christian
public forgeries in the names of those authors, and in which there is no
evidence that any forgeries were attempted.
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