THE NEW TESTAMENT.

I make this candour to consist in their putting down many passages, and
noticing many circumstances, which no writer whatever was likely to have
forged; and which no writer would have chosen to appear in his book who
had been careful to present the story in the most unexceptionable form,
or who had thought himself at liberty to carve and mould the particulars
of that story according to his choice, or according to his judgment of
the effect.

A strong and well-known example of the fairness of the evangelists
offers itself in their account of Christ's resurrection, namely, in
their unanimously stating that after he was risen he appeared to his
disciples alone. I do not mean that they have used the exclusive word
alone; but that all the instances which they have recorded of his
appearance are instances of appearance to his disciples; that their
reasonings upon it, and allusions to it, are confined to this
supposition; and that by one of them Peter is made to say, "Him God
raised up the third day, and showed him openly, not to all the people,
but to witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink
with him after he rose from the dead." (Acts x. 40, 41.) The most common
understanding must have perceived that the history of the resurrection
would have come with more advantage if they had related that Jesus
appeared, after he was risen, to his foes as well as his friends, to the
scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish council, and the Roman governor: or
even if they had asserted the public appearance of Christ in general
unqualified terms, without noticing, as they have done, the presence of
his disciples on each occasion, and noticing it in such a manner as to
lead their readers to suppose that none but disciples were present. They
could have represented in one way as well as the other. And if their
point had been to have their religion believed, whether true or false;
if they had fabricated the story ab initio; or if they had been disposed
either to have delivered their testimony as witnesses, or to have worked
up their materials and information as historians, in such a manner as to
render their narrative as specious and unobjectionable as they could; in
a word, if they had thought of anything but of the truth of the case, as
they understood and believed it; they would in their account of Christ's
several appearances after his resurrection, at least have omitted this
restriction. At this distan