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not pass by. He says then, p. 6, Since this [Lazarus's re'surrection] is only mentioned by St. John, who wrote his gospels about sixty years, according to the best computation, after our Lord's ascension; here is too much room for 'cavil and question, whether this story be not entirely his 'invention.'

No wise and honest man ought to countenance cavil. It is sufficient that there be no just reason for doubt and question, as there is not here. If any man were now to write a history (never heard of before) of some person raised from the dead, about sixty years ago, in a town not far from one of the chief cities of Europe, and should mention time and place, and names of persons concerned, as St. John has done, he would find no credit with any one. Indeed the design is so foolish and extravagant, that no one will attempt it where there is a liberty of enquiry, as there certainly was in St. John's time, the friends of Chistianity being fewer than its opposers. But there is no reason to suppose, St. John first told this story now, sixty years after our Saviour's ascension. He had undoubtedly told it before an infinite number of times, in conversation, and in public discourses, before many people, when the fact might be inquired into, and easily known to be true or false. Eusebius, who took a great deal of pains to get the best information concerning the authority of all the books of the New Testament, informs us from the ancients. And when now Mark and Luke [he had spoken of Matthew before] had published their gos'pels, they say that John, who had hitherto all along preachb ed only by word of mouth, was induced to write,' &c.

From which we learn two things; first, that St. John had spent his time in preaching Jesus Christ, from the time of our Lord's ascension: secondly, that his gospel contains the substance of his preaching. For he wrote what he had hitherto taught only by word of mouth. Consequently he he had often told his hearers this story of Lazarus's resurrection, long before he wrote his gospel.

Soon after our author says, p. 7. The first writer of the 'life of a hero, to be sure makes mention of all the grand 'occurrences of it.-If a third or fourth biographer after 'him shall presume to add a more illustrious action of the 'hero's life, it will be rejected as fable and romance, though 'for no other reason than this, that the first writer must have

• Ηδη δε Μαρκου και Λουκα των κατ' αυτές ευαγγελιων την εκδοσιν πεποιημένων, Ιωάννην φασι, τον παντα χρονον αγραφω κεχρημενον κηρυγματι, τελος και επι την γραφήν έλθειν, τοιασδε χαριν αιτίας. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1.

3. c. 24.

been apprised of it, and would have inserted its story, if 'there had been any truth in it.'

How the lives of heroes are written, I do not know, not being read in legends and romances. But omissions are common in the lives of princes and other great men. Suetonius is allowed to be an excellent biographer, and was a very curious and inquisitive person. Yet no one doubts of the truth and credibility of several things omitted by him, concerning those emperors whose lives he has written. The three first evangelists have not related all the grand occurrences of Christ's life. They expressly say, they have omitted a great number of them. If they had professed to be particular, and to take great care to omit nothing, there had been some ground for this objection: but to make it now, a man must have first lost all modesty.

But it will be said: The objection is not, that the raising of Lazarus is another occurrence, or another grand occurrence omitted by the three former historians; but that Lazarus's resurrection is a most prodigious miracle, p. 4; ' a "huge and superlatively great miracle,' p. 7; the miracle of 'miracles,' ibid. a monstrously huge one,' (p. 11.) in comparison of the other; and especially of the first, which is an imperfect and disputable miracle in comparison of the other two,' p. 9.

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This indeed Mr. W. does say, and he is obliged to say it, however contradictory it may be to what he says at other times. For if the latter miracle related by the last writer be only somewhat greater, more considerable than the former, the argument is of no force. Let us therefore see what the evangelists say. According to St. Matthew, the first writer, Jairus's daughter was dead before Jesus came to the house, for the musicians were come to make lamentations for her. And according to St. John, Lazarus had been dead four days. He mentions no longer time. But according to Mr. W.'s representation of the resurrection of Lazarus, that it was a superlatively great miracle, a monstrously St. John says, ch. xi. 17. “When Jesus came he found that he had lain in the grave four days already." But, ver. 39. Martha says to Jesus: "Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days." Therefore the former four days were incomplete, and it was but the fourth day since his burial. Mr. Woolston therefore (to do him justice) is in the right, when he says, p. 30. If those four days are numbered according to the arithmetic of Jesus's three days in his grave, they are reducible to two days and three nights. So it is part of the day on which he was buried, then two whole days, and part of the day on which he was raised, and three nights. Thus, I suppose, if Lazarus died on the first day of the week, he was buried on the second, and raised on the fifth. He had been dead four days complete, or thereabouts; buried four days incomplete.

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huge one,' in comparison of the other; one would be apt to conclude, that Lazarus had been said by St. John to have been dead at least forty or fifty years, whereas he does not say half so many days. The difference as to time between that of the widow of Nain's son and Lazarus is still less; for he was not only dead, but carried forth to burial.

I argue therefore against Mr. W. thus: St. John's miracle exceeds in degree the other two but a small matter, therefore he did not invent and forge it. For if he had had a design of forging a miracle, from a sense of the insufficiency of the former, he would have made it prodigiously or vastly greater than these, which he has not done. The reader will judge, whether this be a confutation of this objection of Mr. W. or not.

I will add farther: The miracle on Lazarus exceeds that on Jairus's daughter in but one circumstance, which is, that he had lain dead a little longer. In several other respects the miracle on Jairus's daughter is superior to that on Lazarus; for Lazarus was a friend, but Jairus was a stranger and a ruler of a synagogue; and the miracle on his daughter was performed in the most public part of our Lord's ministry. St. John therefore did not invent the story of Lazarus from a sense of the insufficiency of the former: for if he had invented, he would have related not only a history of a person dead much longer than the other, (as I showed just now,) but the person to be the subject of his miracle would have been a stranger, and a Rabbi, a ruler, or a nobleman, or some other person of figure: and he would have placed it, in all likelihood, in the most public part of Christ's ministry. What I say here appears to me to be of the highest degree of probability: that if St. John had contrived a miracle, because he judged the former not sufficient, he would not have taken a friend of Jesus for the subject of it; and he would have related it with several other different circumstances.

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One quotation more from our author, before we leave this article. Supposing John (who was then above a hundred, and in his dotage) had not reported this miracle of Lazarus; but that Clement, (joining it with his incredible story of the resurrection of a phoenix,) or Ignatius, or Polycarp, ' or the author of the apostolical constitutions had related it; 'would not your christian critics have been at work to expose it?' it?' p. 12.

This argument is proposed with great airs of assurance, but I cannot see the force of it. As to Clement's story of the phoenix, we have nothing to do with it here, that I know

of; it not being a christian miracle, but an old heathen story told by many authors, though with somewhat differ ent circumstances. If Clement, Ignatius, or Polycarp had given the history of a miracle of Jesus, written in a credible manner with proper circumstances, I make no doubt but a due regard would be had to their authority, in proportion to their nearness to the time of Jesus.

As for John's being above a hundred, when he wrote hist gospel; it shows us he was thirty years of age or more, when Jesus lived here on earth; and therefore was arrived at years of discretion, and was able to judge of things. That he was in his dotage, there is no proof. His gospel is not the work of a man in his dotage. Let Mr. W. show me any where out of the Bible, so fine, and yet so simple, so natural a narration of a matter of fact, as that of the cure of the man blind from his birth, contained in the ninth chapter of St. John's gospel: let him show me any where else such a prayer, as that recorded in his seventeenth chapter: let him show me such discourses, so affectionate, so moving, so every way excellent, as those in his fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters: I say, let him show me any where else such things as these, not written by any man in his dotage, but in the prime of life, and the full vigour of his wit and understanding.

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SECTION II.

ANSWER TO MR. WOOLSTON'S SECOND OBJECTION.

'I PASS,' says Mr. W. p. 15, to a second observation. -What became of these three persons after their resur"rection? How long did they live afterwards? And of 'what use and advantage were their restored lives to the 'church or to mankind? The evangelical and ecclesiastical history is entirely silent as to these questions, which is enough to make us suspect their stories to be merely romantic or parabolical; and there were no such persons 'raised from the dead, or we must have heard somewhat ' of their station and conversation in the world afterwards.' If I may speak my mind freely: this, and all that follows under this observation, is mere idle and impertinent harangue. I have so good an opinion of the generality of mankind, as to suppose them wiser than to be capable of being moved by it, to admit any doubt of the truth of these histories.

We are not concerned to know, what became of those

persons whom Jesus cured or restored to life. A miracle on the body does not mend the dispositions of the mind. Some of those whom our Saviour healed were ungrateful. Of the ten lepers who were all cleansed as they were going to show themselves to the priests, according to our Lord's direction, there was but one" that returned to give glory to God," Luke xvii. 12. Others there were, who published every where the things that God had done for them. Some of these the evangelists have mentioned. But were they or ecclesiastical writers after them obliged to write the lives of all whom Jesus and his apostles healed?

For the truth of these miracles we have the testimony of the evangelists, honest and credible men. Their testimony is confirmed by the event. The gospel of Christ had not had the mighty progress in the hands of the apostles, which it had, if these things had not been true. What they did, who were the subjects of these works, we do not need to know particularly. But the event, or the great progress of the gospel in a short time, renders it highly probable, that many of these persons by modest and humble acknowledgments of the benefits they had received, by satisfying inquisitive persons, and by other means, according to their several stations, helped forward the work of the apostles and others engaged in spreading the doctrine of Christ.

Our author, speaking of Lazarus, who is said by Epiphanes, (though without any certainty,) to have lived thirty years after he was raised, asks, p. 16, How did he spend his time all that while? Was it to the honour of Jesus, to ⚫ the service of the church, and propagation of the gospel.

Why very probably, so long as he lived, he spoke, upon all proper occasions, of this miracle wrought on himself, and of the other miracles performed by Jesus upon others and exhorted men, suitably to his station and circumstances, to believe on him as the Messiah. But it is most probable, that our Saviour did not give him a special commission, like that of the apostles, to go preach the gospel. I believe our Lord had a greater regard to the decorum of things, or, if you please, to the rules of modesty and prudence. There was nothing better, than for Lazarus to stay at home, to be ready to answer inquirers, who might come to Bethany to know the truth of the fact reported concerning him. Abroad the testimony of others was more worth than his own. And St. John's short account of his

• Quin et illud inter traditiones reperimus, triginta tum annos natum fuisse Lazarum, cum a morte excitatus est; atque idem ille postea triginta aliis annis vixit. In Hæres. lxvi. sect. 34. Note 15. of Mr. W.'s fifth Disc. p. 16.