The Difficulties of Infidelity

through the medium of an eminent accomplished prophecy) in regard to the Levitical Dispensation in particular: I shall now proceed, the way having been thus cleared, to note the difficulties, which equally wait upon it in regard to the facts and circumstances and character of the Christian Dispensation. I. The fact of the bare existence of Christianity in the world at this present moment is obviously certain and indisputable : the sole question, therefore, between the believer and the unbeliever is, how it started into existence, and what are its pretensions to be received as a divine revelation. 1. Now the account of its origin and early progress is contained in four parallel histories and in a subsequent narrative attached to them, all which documents are still extant. These are found to correspond with the testimonies of the pagan writers Tacitus and Suetonius: and they are so repeatedly cited and referred to by an immense body of ecclesiastical writers, that we cannot reasonably doubt either their high antiquity or their general historical veracity in the relation of facts and circumstances. I say general: because, for the present, I am willing to throw out of the discussion all those claims to the performance of miracles, which they so repeatedly put forth. Hence, when I assert that wo cannot reasonably doubt their general historical veracity in the relation of facts and circumstances, I mean only to assert: that they give an accurate account of the ...