e that we were witnesses of the miraculous works of a
personage of pretensions like our Lord's, should we think it
necessary or reasonable to resort to long courses of argument, or
indeed to any process of the understanding, except what was
requisite to establish the fact of the miracles? Should we, while he
was opening the eyes of the blind, and raising the dead from their
graves, feel it necessary to be deciphering prophecies, and
weighing these[fn 3] difficulties? Now we may transfer this case to
that of Christianity. The miracles of our Lord are either true or
false. The infidel if he maintain the latter must prove it; and if the
former can be made to appear, they are beyond all comparison
the most direct and convincing testimony that can be devised," p.
1, 2. of Mr. Everett's work.

To this statement I would reply--that I do not know what right Mr.
Everett has to call upon his opponent, to prove a negative. It was
his business to prove the affirmative of his question, and to show
that these miracles actually were performed, before he proceeded
to argue upon the strength of them. It is, I conceive, impossible to
demonstrate that miracles said to have been wrought 1800 years
ago, were not performed; but it is, I believe, quite possible to show
that there is no sufficient proof that they were. One of the reasons
given, in the 2d, ch. as I think, of the grounds of Christianity
examined, for throwing out of consideration the miracles recorded
in the New Testament in examining the question of the
Messiahship of Jesus, was, that the New Testament itself, was not
a sufficient proof that these miracles were actually wrought; and
this, with the reader's indulgence, I think I can plainly show.

Mr. Everett allows p. 450 of his work, what indeed he cannot deny,
that the four Gospels do sometimes contradict each other in their
narratives; and he refers with approbation, in a note to p. 458, to a
work of Lessing's, which he says, "ought to be read by every one
who is overfond of Harmonies." This work of Lessing's, if I
recollect right, maintains, that all hopes of harmonizing the
evangelists, of reconciling their contradictions, must be given up.
[See Lessings Sammliche, Schriften, ch. v. S. 150, as quoted by
Mr. Everett, p. 458.]

Now these contradictions, if they do exist, unquestionably argue
one of two things; either fraud, or want of accurate information in
their authors, as no man who wishes to be considered "compos
m