nd listened to his wondrous voice.
If these means of knowing the truth were not enough to make their
evidence valid, then no opportunities could be sufficient.

Whoso allows its full force to the argument thus far will admit
that the testimony of the witnesses to the resurrection is
conclusive, unless he suspects that by some cause they were either
incapacitated to weigh evidence fairly, or were led wilfully to
stifle the truth and publish a falsehood. Very few persons have
ever been inclined to make this charge, that the apostles were
either wild enthusiasts of fancy, or crafty calculators of fraud;
and no one has ever been able to support the position even with
moderate plausibility. Granting, in the first place,
hypothetically, that the disciples were ever so great enthusiasts
in their general character and conduct, still, they could not have
been at all so in relation to the resurrection, because, before it
occurred, they had no belief, expectations, nor thoughts about it.
By their own frank confessions, they did not understand Christ's
predictions, nor the ancient supposed prophecies of that event.
And without a strong faith, a burning hopeful desire, or something
of the kind, for it to spring from, and rest on, and be nourished
by, evidently no enthusiasm could exist. Accordingly, we find that
previous to the third day after Christ's death they said nothing,
thought nothing, about a resurrection; but from that time, as by
an inspiration from heaven, they were roused to both words and
deeds. The sudden astonishing change here alluded to is to be
accounted for only by supposing that in the mean time they had
been brought to a belief that the resurrection had occurred. But,
secondly, it is to be noticed that these witnesses were not
enthusiasts on other subjects. No one could be the subject of such
an overweening enthusiasm as the hypothesis supposes, without
betraying it in his conduct, without being overmastered and led by
it as an insane man is by his mania. The very opposite of all this
was actually the case with the apostles. The Gospels are
unpretending, dispassionate narratives, without rhapsody,
adulation, or vanity. Their whole conduct disproves the charge of
fanaticism. Their appeals were addressed more to reason than to
feeling; their deeds were more courageous than rash. They avoided
tumult, insult, and danger whenever they could honorably do so;
but, when duty called, their noble intrepidity shrank not