stole him away. Could these chief priests have hoped that such a tale would gain credence? You say it is past belief, that a guard of Roman soldies would all sleep, a want of vigilance being punished with death.— So do I. I say it is so incredible, that I cannot believe, the chief priests would have given money to the soldiers to put it in circulation.

You all contend, that the disciples had no hope, or expectation, or suspicion, that Jesus would rise, notwithstanding he had told them during a very few days, previous to his crucifixion, on five diferent occasions, that he would be put to death and rise again.

How happened it that the chief priests should have been suspicious of an attempt at rosurrection? Could they have believed that there was a plan laid between Christ and his disciples that he should be crucified and they steal his body away, and thus found a new religion upon this piece of fraud. The supposition is absurd. These priests could not, therefore, have assigned his assertion as a reason why they wanted a guard. That could not have given them any suspicion of an attempt on the part of the disciples to steal his body away. It could have been no evidence to them of a conspiracy to practise a fraud on community. The notion that a man should agree to die, to enable a few friends to cajole the community, I repeat, is too absurd to be entertained for a moment. The chief priests therefore if they ever asked for a guard, (which I deny,) must have seen or learned something, or received some hint, that the disciples had this theft in contemplation, and must have assigned that as a reason to Pilate, when they asked for a guard, and not his assertion that he would rise. Having shown, that the conclusion the chief priests are said to have arrived at, was ridiculous and absurd, and therefore incredible, (to us,) let us see, if this alleged premise is true, viz: that Jesus did say he would rise. John, your best witness says nothing about it, directly, but he does say that, which indirectly contradicts it. He gives us to understand, that he and Peter required ocular demonstration before they would be convinced, that he had risen, and the reason he assigns why they were so hard of belief is, that they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.-Now if Jesus had, according to Matthew and the other two, been telling them almost daily, during the past week that he would rise the third day; John never would have given as a reason why they were so hard of belief, that they had not known the Scriptures, but that they had forgotten what Jesus told them.

You may answer, that the disciples did not believe him. It is manifest from this expression of John, that even after his crucifixion and before his resurrection, he believed Jesus to be the Messiah. He certainly must have had as much falth in what he said, as what David or any other prophet had

said about him. It is strange indeed, certainly improbable that John should have forgotten such a wonderful declaration so recently made, and so frequently repeated, and that too, by a being that he is supposed to have believed was divine; and wholly incredible that he should have given the reason that it is said he did, for his scepticism, if the declaration had been made and he not forgotten nor disbelieved it. In truth, his scepticism is irreconcilable with his remembrance and belief of this decclaration. Here is then a discrepancy between John and Matthew. And if John is to be believed, Jesus never said he would rise from the dead. The chief priests therefore could not have told this tale to Pilate.

These are not the strongest arguments against this tale of the guard.— And here I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

sus was,

You all aver, that

it is wonderful that the apostles should have gone forth into the world propogating a lie, knowing that they should therefor be exposed to insults, persecution and death. I shall hereafter show, that those apostles did not proclaim these facts to the world--did not go into all the nations—did not found churches-did not suffer persecutions and (admitting all these,) did not know that they would be exposed, &c. In further reply, I ask if it be possible that these guards who are said to have witnessed all those prodigies at the sepulchre and who therefore must have had knowledge that Jewhat he said he was, could have gone into the city, and for a few pieces of silver, agreed to deny, that Jesus rose from the dead, being fully assured that he had risen and that such denial would subject them to eternal damnation. I may be answered, that this guard were Pagans, and knew nothing about Jesus or his pretensions, his promises or his threats, and that the supposed him to be one of their heathen gods, all of whom they held in contempt. Give this answer all the weight you please. The same cannot be made as to the chief priests. They believed that he had risen (according to Matthew,) and was therefore no deceiver-they were acquainted

h his pretensions-were now convinced that he had power to lay down hlife and take it up again--that he was the vicegerent of God--that he had the eternal destinies of man at his disposal-that he had denounced an eternity of torment to those who should deny his pretensions. Can it be possible, that men thus convinced, would not only deny themselves, but h others to deny him? This is a question that every man can decide for himself. Argument is useless. Were I now to be fully convinced that an angel actually deposited the brass plates, where Joe Smith is said to have found them, and that Joe was divinely inspired to translate what had been inscribed thoreon by the finger of God, I would become a Mormonite instantly. The wealth of the Indies could not induce me to assert and bribe others to assert, that Joe was an impostor. It is idle to talk to me of preju

dices. Those of the chief priests were conquered--they believed; and no man ever yet believed as they are said to have done, who was active in denouncing Jesus. Those priests cannot be compared to the thousands of passive unconcerned believers of our country. The latter are not convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. They are only prepared not to deny it, but not prepared to affirm either way-many are hoping to be fully convinced of the fact, by some supernatural agent--others are putting off, to a more convenient season, the open confession and thorough obedience; but none could be found, who would pay me money to write this book, or who would write a similar one.

You cite the case of Judas against me. I reply that a most singular mode of answering an objection is to inform me that there are others much more formidable-to cite a case from which an argument of the same nature can be deduced, though of ten times the force. All men can judge of this. And can it be believed, for a moment, that a man who had heard another proclaim that he was a legate from the skies and saw him, in proof of his great pretensions, raise the dead, convert water into wine and cause fried fish and baked bread to grow five hundred fold; I say can it be believed that Judas, who had been convinced that Jesus was a being, whom the winds and the seas and all the elements obeyed, would have denied and betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver. I know it is said the devil entered into him. If these writers, by this expression, mean any thing more, than we mean by a malicious and wicked disposition, I answer as before, that they relate an incredible story, and fortify it by another unspeakably more incredible. If they mean nothing more, then the simple allegation is again before us, the truth or falsity of which we are to decide on.

As a last resort you may say, that Matthew does not give us to understand that the chief priests did believe. He means to say, they hired the soldiers to tell a lie. They must have believed, then, its opposite true, namely, that the soldiers did not sleep--that the disciples did not st him away. If they had believed the soldiers did sieep, they would have bribed them to say so, and promised to save them harmless, but would have complained of them to Pilate and had them put to death. This wod have been better proof of their sleeping, than any confession of theirs, d connivance at their guilt. How absurd to suppose that the chief priests Je could have hoped that such a tale could have gained credence as that a guard of sixty or one hundred men were all asleep at one time.

.

You also rely upon your commemorative institutions, baptism and the lord's supper. Commemorative of what? The first you say is commemorative of the burial and resurrection of Jesus, and the other of his death.

I will state the argument of Mr. Leslie in full. He lays down four rules as follows.

1st. That the matter of fact be such, as that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears may be judges of it.

“2d. That it be done publicly in the face of the world.

"3d. That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions to be performed.

"4th. That such monuments and such actions or observances be instituted and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done.

He

He sometimes calls these rules marks, and his position is, that any fact, (alleged fact,) that has all four, cannot be false, though many may be true, that have them not. He then undertakes to bring the facts of the gospel within his rules, in other words to show that they have all the marks. alleges, that these facts have the two first marks. What he means by the expression "Done publicly in the face of the world," I know not. If he means out of doors, then, these facts have the two first;-but if he means, in the presence of a whole people or in such a manner that a whole nation must necessarily be conusant of them; such as the passage of the Red Sea by the whole Israelitish nation, or the war of our revolution; then, these gospel facts have not the two first marks. And I allege and will show in the sequel, that his mark, or rather his argument founded upon it, is good for nothing, unless he means "in the face of a whole people, &c." I admitted, that if there had been a feast kept, in commemmoration of the passage of the Red Sea, from the time it is said to have happened, it would have been almost demonstration, that such passage was effected, in the manner related. The murdering of the first born of Egypt could not have been witnessed by the people, nor is it pretended it was; besides it was done

the night time. So, it is not pretended, that any of Christ's miracles ere witnessed, or could have been witnessed, by a whole people. Mr. Lesdoes not pretend that there were any monuments of stone or marble used to commemmorate any of these miracles; but that there were cerdin outward actions to be performed, such as baptism and eating the lord's supper. Actions to be performed by whom and how many? The rule and the argument built upon it, to be of any force, must mean that they were to be performed by a whole people, and to commence at the very time, the matter of fact was said to be done.

None of the gospel facts have these marks. The people of Judea did not all eat the lord's supper and meet together the first day of the week, to celebrate even the death of Christ or a thousandth part of them, at the time these matters of fact are said to have happened. You frequently bring up the anniversary of our independence, and treat it as if it was an

analagous case. Is it I ask? The people, the whole people of this great country, were all conusant of the fact of their being declared free on the fourth of July 1776; and from that day to this, this whole people of this whole country have celebrated that great event on that day in every year-a day, which they never celebrated for any thing before. Are the two cases alike? Some few persons, say one hundred and twenty, did not first assert the fact of our independence, and celebrate a day in commemoration of it, and finally persuade others to believe the fact and join in such celebration. The nature of the fact was such that they could not. The cases then are not analagous. If it had been alleged that Jesus had ascended into the air, in face of the world, and in the face of day, and shewed himself to all Judea, so that every individual there could have seen him and heard him declare audibly, "abolish the Sabbath, keep holy the first day of the week in commemoration of my resurrection;" and if the whole Jewish people had from that day, kept the first day of the week holy, and eaten the supper, in commemoration of this event and had also abolished the Sabbath, then you might have said, you had a case similar to the declaation and celebration of our independence. But what is your case? Your great miracle, without which all the rest are nothing, and which, you say, baptism was instituted to celebrate, was not witnessed or alleged to have been witnessed by all the people, but by a very few select or chosen onesthose few, who asserted the fact and endeavored to give currency to the assertion, by instituting some outward action. They are a small and despised party at first, they persevere and gain proselytes, cach proselyte adopts the ceremonies of his predecessors, and thus it happened, that after one or rwo centuries a very small portion, of every civilized people, except the very people, among whom and for whom these great feats were done, performed a certain outward action (immersion in water,) in celebration as was the said of a burial and resurrection. Strange to tell, the same burial and re urrection are now commemorated by sprinkling a small quantity of wa on the face, by the greater part of this small portion.

To show more clearly the fallacy of this great argument of Leslie's, and that the gospel facts have but his first mark, viz: the allegation that they were sensible facts; let us suppose some man now to appear among us, who was born long before Jesus is said to have lived, let us suppose him to have been a great traveller and to have visited Judea, some three or four years previous to the commencement of Christ's ministry;--and again, a few days after the great day of Pentecost. Let his journal read as follows: "Visited Judea-its inhabitauts Jews, Romans, Grecians, &c., all devoted tenaciously to their respective religions." Some fifty or sixty pages after this,