as a single evidence; and its
different parts not as distinct attestations, but as different portions
only of the same. Yet in this conception of the subject we are certainly
mistaken; for the very discrepancies among the several documents which
form our volume prove, if all other proof were wanting, that in their
original composition they were separate, and most of them independent
productions.

If we dispose our ideas in a different order, the matter stands
thus:--Whilst the transaction was recent, and the original witnesses
were at hand to relate it; and whilst the apostles were busied in
preaching and travelling, in collecting disciples, in forming and
regulating societies of converts, in supporting themselves against
opposition; whilst they exercised their ministry under the harassings of
frequent persecutions, and in a state of almost continual alarm, it is
not probable that, in this engaged, anxious, and unsettled condition of
life, they would think immediately of writing histories for the
information of the public or of posterity.* But it is very probable,
that emergencies might draw from some of them occasional letters upon
the subject of their mission, to converts, or to societies of
converts, with which they were connected; or that they might address
written discourses and exhortations to the disciples of the institution
at large, which would be received and read with a respect proportioned
to the character of the writer. Accounts in the mean time would get
abroad of the extraordinary things that had been passing, written with
different degrees of information and correctness. The extension of the
Christian society, which could no longer be instructed: by a personal
intercourse with the apostles, and the possible circulation of imperfect
or erroneous narratives, would soon teach some amongst them the
expediency of sending forth authentic memoirs of the life and doctrine
of their Master. When accounts appeared authorised by the name, and
credit, and situation of the writers, recommended or recognised by the
apostles and first preachers of the religion, or found to coincide with
what the apostles and first preachers of the religion had taught, other
accounts would fall into disuse and neglect; whilst these, maintaining
their reputation (as, if genuine and well founded, they would do) under
the test of time, inquiry, and contradiction, might be expected to make
their way into the hands of Christians of all count