end of the second century. And the soundness of his
Judgment, and his capability to distinguish the genuine Gospels
from among a hundred apocryphal ones, and above all his regard
for truth, may be judged of from these proofs given by himself. He
asserts upon his own knowledge, "I know it," says he--"that the
corpse of a dead Christian, at the first breath of the prayer made by
the priest, on occasion of its own funeral, removed its hands from
its sides, into the usual posture of a supplicant; and when the
service was ended, restored them again to their former situation."
(Tertul. de anima c. 51.) And he relates as a fact, which he, and all
the orthodox of his time credited, that--"the body of another
Christian already interred moved itself to one side of the grave to
make room for another corpse which was going to be laid by it."
And it is on the testimony of such men as these, that the
authenticity of the gospels entirely depends as to external
evidence; for these are all the witnesses that can be produced as
speaking of them, who lived within two hundred years after Jesus:
Three men, (for Justin cannot be reckoned as a witness in favour of
the gospels.) Three men, who are all of them evidently credulous,
and two of whom are certainly *****.

To convince a thinking man that histories recording such very
extraordinary, ill supported, improbable facts as are contained in
the gospels are divine, or even really written by the men to whom
they are ascribed, and are not either some of the many spurious
productions with which (as we learn from Irenoeus) that early age
abounded, calculated to astonish the credulous, and superstitious,
or else writings of authors who were themselves infected with the
grossest superstitious credulity; of what use can it be to adduce the
testimony of the very few writers, of the same, or next succeeding
age, when the very reading of their works shews him that they
themselves were tainted with that same superstitious credulity, of
which are accused the real authors of the New Testament?

It is an obvious rule in the admission of evidence in any cause
whatsoever, that the more important the matter to be determined
by it is, the more unsullied and unexceptionable ought the
characters of the witnesses to be. And when no court of Justice, in
determining a question of fraud to the amount of six pence, will
admit the' testimony of witnesses who are themselves notoriously
convicted of the same offenc