the followers of the
religion; every book written by them from the age of its commencement to
the present time, in every part of the world in which it hath been
professed, and with every sect into which it hath been divided (and we
have letters and discourses written by contemporaries, by witnesses of
the transaction, by persons themselves bearing a share in it, and other
writings following that again regular succession), concur in
representing these facts in this manner. A religion which now possesses
the greatest part of the civilised world unquestionably sprang up at
Jerusalem at this time. Some account must be given of its origin; some
cause assigned for its rise. All the accounts of this origin, all the
explications of this cause, whether taken from the writings of the early
followers of the religion (in which, and in which perhaps alone, it
could he expected that they should he distinctly unfolded), or from
occasional notices in other writings of that or the adjoining age,
either expressly allege the facts above stated as the means by which the
religion was set up, or advert to its commencement in a manner which
agrees with the supposition of these facts being true, and which
testifies their operation and effects.

These prepositions alone lay a foundation for our faith; for they prove
the existence of a transaction which cannot even, in its most general
parts, be accounted for upon any reasonable supposition, except that of
the truth of the mission. But the particulars, the detail of the
miracles or miraculous pretences (for such there necessarily must have
been) upon which this unexampled transaction rested, and for which these
men acted and suffered as they did act and suffer, it is undoubtedly of
great importance to us to know. We have this detail from the
fountain-head, from the persons themselves; in accounts written by
eye-witnesses of the scene, by contemporaries and companions of those
who were so; not in one book but four, each containing enough for the
verification of the religion, all agreeing in the fundamental parts of
the history. We have the authenticity of these books established by more
and stronger proofs than belong to almost any other ancient book
whatever, and by proofs which widely distinguish them from any others
claiming a similar authority to theirs. If there were any good reason
for doubt concerning the names to which these books are ascribed (which
there is not, for they were never asc