V.

15. “I have now,” you say, “thrown together all which I had collected for the support of my argument;” (page 187;) after a lame recapitulation of which you add with an air of triumph and satisfaction: “I wish the Fathers the ablest advocates which Popery itself can afford; for Protestantism, I am sure, can supply none whom they would choose to retain in their cause; none who can defend them without contradicting their own profession and disgracing their own character; or produce any thing, but what deserves to he laughed at, rather than unanswered.” (Pages 188, 189.) Might; it not be well, Sir, not to be quite so sure yet? You may not always have the laugh on your side. You are not yet infallibly assured, but that even Protestantism may produce something worth an answer. There may be some Protestants, for aught you know, who have a few grains of common sense left, and may find a way to defend, at least the Ante-Nicene Fathers, without “disgracing their own character.” Even such an one as I have faintly attempted this, although I neither have, nor expect to have, any preferment, not even to be a Lambeth Chaplain; which if Dr. Middleton is not, it is not his own fault.

V.

1. The last thing you proposed was, “to refute some of the most plausible objections which have been hitherto made.” To what you have offered on this head, I must likewise attempt a short reply.

You say, “It is objected, First, that by the character I have given of the Fathers, the authority of the books of the New Testament, which were transmitted to us through their hands, will be rendered precarious and uncertain.” (Page 190.)

After a feint of confuting it, you frankly acknowledge the whole of this objection. “I may venture,” you say, “to declare, that if this objection be true, it cannot hurt my argument. For if it be natural and necessary, that the craft and credulity of witnesses should always detract from the credit of their testimony, then who can help it? And if this charge be proved on the Fathers, it must be admitted, how far so ever the consequences may reach.” (Page 192.)

“If it be proved!” Very true. If that charge against the Fathers were really and substantially proved, the authority of the New Testament would be at an end, so far as it depends on one kind of evidence. But that charge is not proved. Therefore even the traditional authority of the New Testament is as firm as ever.

2. “It is objected,” you say, “Secondly, that all suspicion of fraud in the case of the primitive miracles is excluded by that public appeal and challenge which the Christian apologists make to their enemies the Heathens, to come and see with their own eyes the reality of the facts which they attest.” (Page 193.)

You answer: “This objection has no real weight with any who are acquainted with the condition of the Christians in those days.” You then enlarge (as it seems, with a peculiar pleasure) on the general contempt and odium they lay under, from the first appearance of Christianity in the world, till it was established by the civil power. (Pages 194-196.) “In these circumstances, it cannot be imagined,” you say, “that men of figure and fortune would pay any attention to the apologies or writings of a sect so utterly despised.” (Page 197.) But, Sir, they were hated, as well as despised; and that by the great vulgar, as well as the small. And this very hatred would naturally prompt them to examine the ground of the challenges daily repeated by them they hated; were it only, that, by discovering the fraud, (which they wanted neither opportunity nor skill to do, had there been any,) they might have had a better pretense for throwing the Christians to the lions, than because the Nile did not, or the Tiber did, overflow.

3. You add: “Much less can we believe that the Emperor or Senate of Rome should take any notice of those apologies, or even know indeed that any such were addressed to them.” (Ibid.)

Why, Sir, by your account, you would make us believe, that all the Emperors and Senate together were as “senseless, stupid a race of blockheads and brutes,” as even the Christians themselves. But hold. You are going to prove it too: “For,” say you, “should the like case happen now, that any Methodist, Moravian, or French prophet,” (right skillfully put together,) “should publish an apology for his brethren, addressed to the King and Parliament; is it not wholly improbable, that the Government would pay any regard to it?” You should add, (to make the parallel complete,) “or know that any such was addressed to them.” No: I conceive the improbability supposed lies wholly on the other side. Whatever the Government of heathen Rome was, (which I presume you will not depreciate,) the Government of England is remarkable for tenderness to the very meanest subject. It is therefore not improbable in the least, that an address from some thousands of those subjects, how contemptible so ever they were generally esteemed, would not be totally disregarded by such a Government. But that they should “not know that any such had been addressed to them,” is not only improbable, but morally impossible.

If therefore it were possible for the Heathens to “have a worse opinion of the ancient Christians than we,” you say, “have of our modern fanatics,” still it is utterly incredible that the Roman Government should, not only “take no notice of their apologies,” but “not even know that any such were addressed to them.”

4. “But the publishing books was more expensive then than it is now; and therefore we cannot think the Christians of those days were able to provide such a number of them as was sufficient for the information of the public.” (Pages 198, 199.)

Nay, if they were not able to provide themselves food and raiment, they would be sure to provide a sufficient number of these; sufficient, at least, for the information of the Emperor and Senate, to whom these apologies were addressed. And how great a number, do you suppose, might suffice for them? How many hundred or thousand copies? I apprehend the Emperor would be content with one; and one more would be needful for the Senate. Now, I really believe the Christians of those days were able to provide both these copies; nay, and even two more; if it should have fallen out, that two or three Emperors were on the throne; even though we should suppose that in Tertullian’s time there were but forty thousand of them in all Rome.

5. However, you plunge on: “Since, then, the Christians were not able to bear the expense of copying them,” (whether the Heathens were disposed to buy them or no, is at present out of the question,) “there is great reason to believe, that their apologies, how gravely so ever addressed to Emperors and Senates, lay unknown for many years.” (Ibid.) There is no great reason to believe it from any thing you have advanced yet. You add: “Especially when the publishing of them was not only expensive, but so criminal also, as to expose them often to danger, and even to capital punishment.” In very deed, Sir, I am sometimes inclined to suspect that you are yourself related to certain ancient Fathers, (notwithstanding the learned quotations which adorn your margin,) who used to say, Graecum est: Non potest legi. f10 You lay me under an almost invincible temptation to think so upon this very occasion. For what could induce you, if you knew what he said, to place at the bottom of this very page a passage from one of those apologists, Justin Martyr, which so clearly confutes your own argument? The words are: “Although death be determined against those who teach, or even confess, the name of Christ, we both embrace and teach it everywhere. And if you also receive these words as enemies, you can do no more than kill us.” f11 Could danger then, or the fear of “capital punishment,” restrain those Christians from presenting these apologies? No; capital punishment was no terror to them, who daily offered themselves to the flames, till the very heathen butchers themselves were tired with slaughtering them.

There can therefore no shadow of doubt remain, with any cool and impartial man, but that these apologies were presented to the most eminent Heathens, to the Magistrates, the Senate, the Emperors. Nor, consequently, is there the least room to doubt of the truth of the facts therein asserted; seeing the apologists constantly desired their enemies “to come and see them with their own eyes;” — a hazard which those “crafty men” would never have run, had not the facts themselves been infallibly certain. This objection then stands against you in full force. For such a public appeal to their bitterest enemies must exclude all reasonable suspicion of fraud, in the case of the primitive miracles.

6. You tell us, it is objected, Thirdly, “that no suspicion of fraud can reasonably be entertained against those who exposed themselves, even to martyrdom, in confirmation of the truth of what they taught.” (Ibid.) In order to invalidate this objection, you assert, that some of the primitive Christians might expose themselves to martyrdom, out of mere obstinacy; others, from a desire of glory; others, from a fear of reproach; but the most of all, from the hope of a higher reward in heaven; especially, as they believed the end of the world was near, and that the Martyrs felt no pain in death. “All which topics,” you say, “when displayed with art, were sufficient to inflame the multitude to embrace any martyrdom.” (Pages 200-204, 208.)

This appears very plausible in speculation. But fact and experience will not answer. You are an eloquent man, and are able to display any topic you please with art enough. Yet if you was to try, with all that art and eloquence, to persuade by all these topics, not a whole multitude, but one simple, credulous ploughman, to go and be shot through the head; I am afraid, you would scarce prevail with him, after all, to embrace even that easy martyrdom. And it might be more difficult still to find a man who, either out of obstinacy, fear of shame, or desire of glory, would calmly and deliberately offer himself to be roasted alive in Smithfield.

7. Have you considered, Sir, how the case stood in our own country, scarce two hundred years ago? Not a multitude indeed, and yet not a few, of our own countrymen then expired in the flames. And it was not a general persuasion among them, that Martyrs feel no pain in death. That these have feeling, as well as other men, plainly appeared, in the case of Bishop Ridley, crying out, “I cannot burn, I cannot burn!” when his lower parts were consumed. Do you think the fear of shame, or the desire of praise, was the motive on which these acted? Or have you reason to believe it was mere obstinacy that hindered them from accepting deliverance? Sir, since “human nature has always been the same, so that our experience of what now passes in our own soul will be the best comment on what is delivered to us concerning others,” let me entreat you to make the case your own. You must not say, “I am not one of the ignorant vulgar: I am a man of sense and learning.” So were many of them; not inferior even to you, either in natural or acquired endowments. I ask, then, Would any of these motives suffice to induce you to burn at a stake? I beseech you, lay your hand on your heart, and answer between God and your own soul, what motive could incite you to walk into a fire, but an hope full of immortality. When you mention this motive, you speak to the point. And yet even with regard to this, both you and I should find, did it come to a trial, that the hope of a fool, or the hope of an hypocrite, would stand us in no stead. We should find, nothing else would sustain us in that hour, but a well-grounded confidence of a better resurrection; nothing less than the “steadfastly looking up to heaven, and beholding the glory which shall be revealed.”

8. “But heretics,” you say, “have been Martyrs.” I will answer more particularly, when you specify who and when. It may suffice to say now, whoso ever he be, that, rather than he will offend God, calmly and deliberately chooses to suffer death, I cannot lightly speak evil of him. But Cyprian says, “Some who had suffered tortures for Christ, yet afterwards fell into gross, open sin.” It may be so; but it is nothing to the question. It does not prove, in the least, what you brought it to prove; namely, “that bad men have endured martyrdom.” Do not evade, Sir, and say, “Yes, torments are a kind of martyrdom.” True; but not the martyrdom of which we speak.

9. You salve all at last, by declaring gravely, “It is not my design to detract in any manner from the just praise of those primitive Martyrs who sustained the cause of Christ at the expense of their lives.” (Page 112.) No. Who could ever suppose it was? Who could imagine it was your design to detract from the just praise of Justin, Irenaeus, or Cyprian? You only designed to show what their just praise was; namely, the praise of pickpockets, of common cheats and impostors. We understand your meaning, therefore, when you add, “It is reasonable to believe, that they were the best sort of Christians, and the chief ornaments of the Church, in their several ages.” (Page 213.)

10. You conclude: “My view is to show that their martyrdom does not add any weight to their testimony.” Whether it does or no, “it gives the strongest proof” (as you yourself affirm) “of the sincerity of their faith;” and consequently proves that “no suspicion of fraud can reasonably be entertained against them.” (Ibid.) But this (which you seem to have quite forgot) was the whole of the objection; and, consequently, this as well as both the former objections remain in their full force.

11. “It has been objected,” Fourthly, you say, that you “destroy the faith and credit of all history.” (Page 114.) But this objection, you affirm, “when seriously considered, will appear to have no sense at all in it.” (Page 215.) That we will try. And one passage, home to the point, is as good as a thousand. Now, Sir, be pleased to look back. In your Preface, page 9, l read these words: “The credibility of facts lies open to the trial of our reason and senses. But the credibility of witnesses depends on a variety of principles wholly concealed from us. And though, in many cases, it may reasonably be presumed, yet in none can it certainly be known.” If this be as you assert, (I repeat it again,) then farewell the credit of all history. Sir, this is not the cant of zealots: You must not escape so: It is plain, sober reason. If the credibility of witnesses, of all witnesses, (for you make no distinction,) depends, as you peremptorily affirm, on a variety of principles wholly concealed from us, and, consequently, though it may be presumed in many cases, yet can be certainly known in none; then it is plain, all history, sacred or profane, is utterly precarious and uncertain. Then I may indeed presume, but I cannot certainly know, that Julius Caesar was killed in the Senate-house; then I cannot certainly know that there was an Emperor in Germany, called Charles the Fifth; that Leo the Tenth ever sat in the See of Rome, or Lewis the Fourteenth on the throne of France. Now, let any man of common understanding, judge, whether this objection has any sense in it, or no.

12. Under this same head, you fall again upon the case of witchcraft, and say, “There is not in all history any one miraculous act so authentically attested as the existence of witches. All Christian” (yea, and all heathen) “nations whatso ever have consented in the belief of them. Now, to deny the reality of facts so solemnly attested, and so universally believed, seem to give the lie to the sense and experience of all Christendom; to the wisest and best of every nation, and to public monuments subsisting to our own times.” (Page 221.)

What obliges you, then, to deny it? You answer: “The incredibility of the thing.” (Page 223.) O Sir, never strain at the incredibility of this, after you have swallowed an hundred people talking without tongues!

13. What you aim at in this also is plain, as well as in your account of the Abbe de Paris. The point of your argument is, “If you cannot believe these, then you ought not to believe the Bible: The incredibility of the things related ought to overrule all testimony whatso ever.”

Your argument, at length, would run thus: —

“If things be incredible in themselves, then this incredibility ought to overrule all testimony concerning them.

“But the gospel miracles are incredible in themselves.” Sir, that proposition I deny. You have not proved it yet. You have only now and then, as it were by the by, made any attempt to prove it. And till this is done, you have done nothing, with all the pother that you have made.

14. You reserve the home stroke for the last: “There is hardly a miracle said to be wrought in the primitive times, but what is said to be performed in our days. But all these modern pretensions we ascribe to their true