my Author with the address and abilities he has served Josephus *.

In a word, all we want of our adversaries is to have the fact acknowledged as Ammianus relates it. Its nature depends neither on his, nor on their, nor on our opinion of the matter, but on the nature of things. We think, indeed, that it speaks itself. But, for the sake of those who think otherwise, I propose, in the course of this examination, to shew, that it was an effect, which no power but that of the moral Governor of the universe was able to produce.

I proceed, then, in my subject; to which these cavils are only the prelude.

CHAP. III.

THE next objection to the fact arises from what, one would have hoped, should have been the chief support of it, THE TESTIMONY OF THE FATHERS. But their credit amongst fashionable letters is now so low, that if they do not dishonour the cause they appear in, it is all we are to expect from them, For, as a late writer † graciously allows us to believe every strange thing except a MIRACLE, So, to say the truth, we are apt enough to credit every strange relator of antiquity, so he be not a FATHER. And yet, it is very certain, the fathers were, at worst,

* See Mr. Forster's Discourse, intitled, "A Dissertation upon the account supposed to have been given of Jesus Christ by Josephus, &c. Oxon. MDCCXLIX."

+ In a book, intitled, "Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding," printed 1748, p. 199.

no

no more prejudiced in favour of Religion, than their Pagan neighbours were prejudiced against it. And whether these were philosophers, sophists, or statesmen, if we read their works, we shall find that very credulity, prejudice, false reasoning, and ill faith, which these objectors pretend has been discovered in some of the most celebrated of the fathers.

But what is it They have done, in the point in question, which proves so injurious to their own cause?" Why, it seems, they differ greatly from Ammianus, in their relation of this extraordinary fact; by adding many circumstances to his; some of which are utterly incredible."

Whether it were the Fathers, or their Cause, which render their accounts incredible, will be seen in due time. At present let me observe, it greatly eases their defence, that it cannot be fairly pretended, that the Christian writers contradict the relation of Ammianus, in any the least particular.

In the Second place, What I said before, of Marcellinus's substractions, I here repeat of the Fathers' additions; that they are so far from invalidating the fact, that they add greatly to its support. We have shewn Marcellinus to be an unwilling Evidence, who hath cautiously avoided saying more than was just necessary to save harmless his character of a faithful historian. It was natural then to expect he had studiously omitted such circumstances as made most for the honour of that cause to which he was neither a friend nor favourer.

Thirdly, Admitting it was as is pretended, that incredible things are to be found in their relations: this circumstance will scarce be deemed sufficient

to

to overthrow a well-attested fact, by any who consider that such as are best established have never been exempt from these injurious pollutions. The miracles of Christ and his apostles have not escaped the adulterations of heretics. And if this were sufficient to discredit truth, there is not a fact in civil history that would stand its ground. As to those who expect a certain innate virtue in Truth, of force to extrude all heterogeneous mixture, they expect a quality which was never yet found in it, nor, I fear, ever will. Nay, the more notorious a fact of this kind is, that is to say, the more eye-witnesses there are of it, the more subject it is to undesigned depravation; as there must be, amongst a large cloud of evidence, some men of heated fancies: and the greater the communication, and the frequenter the collision, of these warm heads, the more active and inflamed will be the creative faculty of the mind; which, in that state, we find, has always been the seminary of false circumstances of the prodigious kind.

But we should grant a great deal too much in allowing this to be the case here. Providence did not do its work by halves; nor was penurious in the grace so seasonably bestowed upon the suffering church. For, what, we have shewn, was performed in the sight of all men, we shall see, was faithfully commemorated by the most celebrated preachers and apologists of that age; and as soberly and carefully recorded by the best historians of the following. And if, travelling downwards in a blind and heavy road, it contracted some stains of the soil through which it passed, it was never so disfigured as to have those dirty features mistaken for its natural countenance, by any the least attentive observer.

The

The Christian Evidence for the fact are GREGORY NAZIANZEN, AMBROSE, and CHRYSOSTOM. These lived at the time it happened. The next age produced RUFINUS, SOCRATES, SOZOMEN, and THEODORET, whose testimony is perfectly consistent one with the other. In the last place are PHILOSTORGIUS, THEOPHANES, OROSIUS, NICEPHORUS, ZONARAS, and CEDRENUS, who, although distant and different in age, are so near allied in judgment, that they are here put together; not to add credit to the cause they serve; but, by separating them from their several contemporaries of a better paste and compound, to bear alone the shame of their proper folly or prevarication.

The original evidence, as we said, are Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Gregory Nazianzen. Of these, ! Ambrose lived far in the West; and having, as may be supposed, received only a general relation of the fact, he delivers it as generally. Have you not heard (says he, writing to the emperor Theodosius) how when Julian gave command to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, the workmen were destroyed by a FIRE sent from God?

In

*This is an epistle to the Emperor, written on a very singular occasion-A certain bishop had excited his flock to burn a Jewish synagogue: which being complained of to Theodosius, he ordered the offenders to be punished; and that the bishop should rebuild it at his own expence. The impiety of this sentence was so offensive to Ambrose, that, having reminded the Emperor of the fate of the Jewish Temple, he asks him, whether he does not expect the same dishonours should attend his command, which followed the attempt of Julian. "Non audisti, "Imperator, quia cum jussisset Julianus reparari Templum Hierosolymis, quod divino qui faciebant repagulum igne fla"grarunt? Non caves ne etiam nunc faciat? Adeo a te non "fuit jubendum ut Julianus hoc jusserit." Ep. xl. It was well

In which may be discerned the different fortune that naturally attends truth and falsehood. A fable, the further it goes, the more it gathers: for, like all untimely productions, coming out, at first, rude and unformed, it leaves room for charitable invention to give it shape; which, by general contribution, soon raises it to a bulk that looks considerable. Whereas the circumstances of a true story drop off, one after another, as it advances in its progress, till it becomes stript, and contracted to its essence: for there being precision in the testimony of the evidence, and conviction in the nature of the fact, men, on its first appearance, are less solicitous, as they have less need, to support it by its circumstances, than to convey it by its essentials.

Chrysostom, indeed, was in the neighbourhood of the place. But, speaking to an audience as well instructed in the affair as himself, though he had frequent occasion to put them in mind of so distinguishing

this miracle was performed by God, to do honour to himself: Had it been to do honour to the bishops of his church, we see how little they deserved it! Here is one who violates the civil peace, and invades the religious rights of his neighbour; and another who supports him in so doing, on the authority of the miracle at Jerusalem. In which they either foully prevaricate; or grossly mistake the purpose of God's interposition. They represent it as intended for an example to the magistrate to restrain the Jews from all excercise of their superstition; when it was evidently for no other purpose than to support the truth of the divine predictions concerning the ruin of a certain temple. Theodosius was to expect the fate of Julian. And why? Because he was supporting those very rights of nature which Julian then violated: For the attempt to rebuild the temple was but one of the many arts he employed to extirpate the Christian Faith by violence. But it has always been the trick, and has often proved the defeat, of Intolerance, to place their miserable Principle on such foundations as are found most of all to discredit it.