fea, it shall be done; all things whatsoever ye fhall ask in prayer, believing, it fhall be done*." It appears to me very improbable that these words fhould have been put into Christ's mouth, if he had not actually spoken them. The term " faith," as here ufed, is perhaps rightly interpreted of confidence in that internal notice, by which the apostles were admonished of their power to perform any particular miracle. And this expofition renders the fense of the text more easy. But the words, undoubtedly, in their obvious conftruction, carry with them a difficulty, which no writer would have brought upon himself officiously.

Luke ix. 59.

"And he faid unto an

other, Follow me; but he faid, Lord, fuffer

me, firft, to go and bury my

father. Jefus

faid unto him, Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of Godt" This anfwer, though very ex

See alfo xvii. 20. Luke xvii. 6.

See alfo Mat. viii. 21.

preffive

preffive of the tranfcendent importance of religious concerns, was apparently harsh and repulfive; and such as would not have been made for Chrift, if he had not really used it. At least, fome other inftance would have been chofen.

The following paffage, I, for the fame reason, think impoffible to have been the production of artifice, or of a cold forgery:

"But I fay unto you, that whofoever is angry with his brother, without a cause, fhall be in danger of the judgement? and whofoever fhall fay to his brother, Raca, fhall be in danger of the council; but whofoever shall say, Thou fool, fhall be in danger of hell-fire (Gehennæ)." Mat. v. 22. It is emphatic, cogent, and well calculated for the purpose of impreffion; but is inconfiftent with the fuppofition of art or warinefs on the part of the relator.

The fhort reply of our Lord to Mary Magdalen after his refurrection (John xx. 16, 17.) "Touch me not, for I am not

66

yet afcended unto my Father," in my opi nion, must have been founded in a reference or allufion to fome prior conversation, for the want of knowing which, his meaning is hidden from us. This very obfcurity, however, is a proof of genuineness. No one would have forged fuch an answer.

John vi. The whole of the conversation, recorded in this chapter, is, in the highest degree, unlikely to be fabricated, especially the part of our Saviour's reply between the fiftieth and the fifty-eighth verfe. I need only put down the firft fentence.

"I am

the living bread which came down from heaven if any man eat of this bread, he fhall live for ever; and the bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Without calling in question the expofitions that have been given of this passage, we may be permitted to say, that it labours under an obscurity, in which it is impoffible to believe that any one, who made speeches for the perfons of his narrative, would have voluntarily in

volved them. That this difcourfe was obfqure even at the time, is confeffed by the writer who has preferved it, when he tells us at the conclufion, that many of our Lord's difciples, when they had heard this, faid, "This is a hard faying, who can bear it ?"

Chrift's taking of a young child, and placing it in the midft of his contentious difciples (Mat. xviii. 2.), though as deci five a proof, as any could be, of the benignity of his temper, and very expreffive of the character of the religion which he wished to inculcate, was not by any means an obvious thought. Nor am I acquainted with any thing in any ancient writing which refembles it.

The account of the inftitution of the Eucharift bears ftrong internal marks of genuineness. If it had been feigned, it would have been more full. It would have come nearer to the actual mode of celebrating the rite, as that mode obtained very

early

early in Chriftian churches: and it would have been more formal than it is. In the forged piece called the Apoftolic Constitutions, the apostles are made to enjoin many parts of the ritual which was in ufe in the second and third centuries, with as much particularity as a modern rubric could have done. Whereas, in the hiftory of the Lord's fupper, as we read it in St. Matthew's gofpel, there is not so much as the command to repeat it. This, furely, looks like undefignedness. I think also that the difficulty arifing from the conciseness of Chrift's expreffion, "This is my body," would have been avoided in a made-up ftory. I allow that the explication of these words, given by Protestants, is fatisfactory; but it is deduced from a diligent comparison of the words in question with forms of expreffion ufed in fcripture, and especially by Christ, upon other occafions. No writer would arbitrarily and unneceffarily have thus caft in his reader's way a difficulty, which, to fay the least, it required research and erudition to clear up.

VOL. II.

H

Now