(See Powell's Discourse, disc. xv. P. 245.)
In viewing the detail of miracles recorded in these books, we find every
supposition negatived by which they can be resolved into fraud or
delusion. They were not secret, nor momentary, nor tentative, nor
ambiguous; nor performed under the sanction of authority, with the
spectators on their side, or in affirmance of tenets and practices
already established. We find also the evidence alleged for them, and
which evidence was by great numbers received, different from that upon
which other miraculous accounts rest. It was contemporary, it was
published upon the spot, it continued; it involved interests and
questions of the greatest magnitude; it contradicted the most fixed
persuasions and prejudices of the persons to whom it was addressed; it
required from those who accepted it, not a simple, indolent assent, but
a change, from thenceforward, of principles and conduct, a submission to
consequences the most serious and the most deterring, to loss and
danger, to insult, outrage, and persecution. How such a story should be
false, or, if false, how under such circumstances it should make its
way, I think impossible to be explained; yet such the Christian story
was, such were the circumstances under which it came forth, and in
opposition to such difficulties did it prevail.
Pages:
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615