These prepositions alone lay a foundation for our faith; for they prove
the existence of a transaction which cannot even, in its most general
parts, be accounted for upon any reasonable supposition, except that of
the truth of the mission. But the particulars, the detail of the
miracles or miraculous pretences (for such there necessarily must have
been) upon which this unexampled transaction rested, and for which these
men acted and suffered as they did act and suffer, it is undoubtedly of
great importance to us to know. We have this detail from the
fountain-head, from the persons themselves; in accounts written by
eye-witnesses of the scene, by contemporaries and companions of those
who were so; not in one book but four, each containing enough for the
verification of the religion, all agreeing in the fundamental parts of
the history. We have the authenticity of these books established by more
and stronger proofs than belong to almost any other ancient book
whatever, and by proofs which widely distinguish them from any others
claiming a similar authority to theirs. If there were any good reason
for doubt concerning the names to which these books are ascribed (which
there is not, for they were never ascribed to any other, and we have
evidence not long after their publication of their bearing the names
which they now bear); their antiquity, of which there is no question,
their reputation and authority amongst the early disciples of the
religion, of which there is as little, form a valid proof that they
must, in the main at least, have agreed with what the first teachers of
the religion delivered.
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