he eve before this passover their great national festival, or on
the evening of the passover itself. They could not forget the time
and place of events, so affecting and important as the last
mentioned, and when we add to these considerations, that the
Gospels represent Jesus as saying, (John ch. xiv.;26.) that they
should be inspired by the Holy Spirit, which "should bring all things
to remembrance," the supposition that the real Matthew and John
could contradict each other in this manner, becomes quite
inadmissable.

In the account of the resurrection of Jesus, the most important fact
of Christianity, we also find several contradictions; for instance,
the Gospel called of Matthew says, that the first appearance of
Jesus to his disciples after his resurrection, was in Galillee, (See
Matt. ch.xxxviii. 7,) while the other evangelists assert, that his first
appearance to them after that event was at Jerusalem. See Mark
ch. xvi., Luke ch. xxiv. John ch.xx. The Gospel called of John
says, that he afterwards appeared to them in Galilee: but
according to that of Luke, the disciples did not go to Galilee to
meet Jesus; for that Gospel says, that Jesus expressly ordered
his disciples to tarry at Jerusalem, where they should receive the
effusion of the Holy Ghost, and that after giving that order he was
taken up to Heaven. See Luke ch. xxiv. 49, 50, also, the first ch. of
Acts. [fn 4]

This greatly invalidates the credibility of these accounts; for as
much as that the historical testimony in attestation of supernatural
events, ought, because such events are out of the common
course of nature, to be strong and unexceptionable.

He will observe too that these writers, supposed to have been the
inspired followers of Jesus Christ, have applied many passages of
the Old Testament as prophecies of Jesus, when it is most
certain, (and is at the present day allowed by Christian Biblical
Critics of the highest standing) from examining those passages in
their context in the Old Testament, that they are not prophecies of
Jesus; and that some of the passages cited are in fact no
prophecies at all, but are merely historical. Nor is this all, these
authors have cited as prophecies and proof texts, passages which
do not exist in the Old Testament. From which it seems to follow
that they must have forged those passages, or quoted them from
some Apocryphal book; which they believed to be inspired. If they
were capable of the first, they were