Mrs. Brennand, £10 0 Holbrook Gaskell, Esq. £5 00 Mr. S. Gaskell, www.l 0 0 William Smith, Esq. 2d Mrs. R. Smith, Halifax. James Braithwaite, James Whittaker, www 5 10 0 00 Mr. James Stansfeld,£10 0 | Mr. Brown, £ A Friend, Kendal. 10 6 Mrs. Greenhow,£ 10 6 www m 2 6 052255 690000 Bristol. Fellowship Fund, £10 0 0 Mr. Samuel Lang,~ Rev. John Rowe, Mrs. Acland, Mr. Thomas Fey, William Browne, 2d 1 0 0 000 W.Y. Sheppard,. ~ 10 11 J. B. Estlin, m. I 10 J. P. 1 0 0 R. Bright, 0 1 0 0 5 www 10 O 10 0 Robert Syle, 2d don ation, Arthur Palmer, Esq. 2d donation, www 1 Richard Bright, Esq. 1 12 Leeds. Mr. J. Hebblethwaite, £10 0 1 1 000 Mr. John Dennison, £ 5 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 Mr. Christopher Heaps, 10 0 10 0 5.0 H. Stansfeld,. 10 0 T. W. Tottie, l 0 0 CHRISTIAN PIONEER. No. 38. OCTOBER, 1829. Vol. IV. Questions to Atheists and Deists. (Concluded from page 10.) * 12. HAD not the author of Christianity powerful enemies, who exerted every possible effort to prevent the success of his ministry, who, after repeated attempts to apprehend him, having at last succeeded, condemned him to an exquisitely painful, and disgraceful death? Is not this fact attested by a Roman historian, as well as by the Evangelists? Is it not equally notorious, that his followers always affirmed that he had risen from the dead? Had not he himself predicted, that he should rise again on the third day after he was put to death? and was not this circumstance mentioned to the Roman governor? Why, then, were not proper means employed to secure the dead body of the professed prophet, and, after the time predicted for his resurrection, expose his body publicly, and thus unanswerably refute his pretensions? Can there exist a doubt in the mind of any reflecting person, that such was their determination? Yet it was not done. The body was not exposed. What, then, can we reasonably conclude, but that the uniform, unvarying, persevering testimony of the disciples, respecting his resurrection, was true? 13. If it be alleged that the author of the Christian religion, though crucified, might not have actually died, we would ask, Can it be conceived that those who were so anxious to put him to death, would have suffered him to be taken down from the cross, before he had expired? And farther, we would refer it to any scientific professor of medicine, whether, after his side had been pierced by a spear, and blood and water had issued from the wound, every spark of life must not have been utterly extinguished? But even if otherwise, could that imperceptible remnant have survived the mode of embalming practised Tacitus. among the Jews? How, also, when the body was interred in a new sepulchre, a great stone placed over its entrance, a seal set upon the stone, and the whole protected by a guard of soldiers, could the body have been clandestinely conveyed away? Who, under any circumstances, would have made such an attempt, except his immediate followers? And were not they, at that time, by far too pusillanimous? But even if they could by any means have obtained the body, and restored its suspended animation, how could he, on the third day after his crucifixion, have walked about as if his feet had not been pierced by the nails of the executioners? 14. In order to propagate the new religion in foreign countries, it was necessary that the persons employed in this undertaking, should be able to speak the languages of those countries. But these languages they had never learned. How was this defect to be remedied? They themselves tell us, that they were miraculously empowered to speak them, without the process of learning. Even the possibility of this circumstance, however, is sometimes denied. Admit it then to be false. Must they not, in that case, have known it to be so? Was it a matter in which they could possibly have been deceived? * 15. If the first promulgators of Christianity could not have been mistaken themselves, with respect to the facts of which they certified the truth, is there any imaginable reason to suspect that they endeavoured to impose a falsehood upon the world? 16. Could they expect (like impostors of every description) to obtain power, emolument, or fame, by such deception? 17. On the contrary, were they not warned from the very first, that they would be like sheep in the midst of wolves,+ delivered up to councils, scourged in the synagogues, and hated of all men? Did ever impostors commence their undertakings with such prospects as these? 18. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that it might have been their object merely to delude the world, without any sort of advantage to themselves, and that, with a view to prosecute this object, they might be willing to incur hatred, contempt, and persecution, how could a few illiterate Gallileans have succeeded in delineating a con sistent and uniform character, altogether different from, and far superior to, every other distinguished personage who ever before or since appeared among men? Is it, indeed, likely that such a character (if fictitious) could have been well delineated by men of the first talents and the most cultivated minds? How much less by uninstructed, uncultivated peasants? and that, too, in an age and country where nothing of the kind had ever been even attempted? 19. Is it at all probable, that either they or their master could have invented a set of doctrines more pure, rational, and consistent, than had ever been taught before by the most enlightened sages of antiquity, either in Judea or any other country? and a code of moral duties, in which nothing was omitted that could tend either to public welfare or to individual improvement; and in which nothing was enjoined, that was either prejudicial or useless; and which the more they have been scrutinized in every succeeding age, the more they have applauded, and by men the most competent to judge of their tendency? Could all this have been effected by men destitute of every intellectual advantage, in opposition to the prevailing prejudices of their countrymen, and the early bias of their own minds? 20. But even if they could possibly have succeeded thus far, and have done all this without an adequate motive, or without any assignable motive, all of which appear to be impossibilities, still, can it be conceived that a few obscure individuals, destitute of all the advantages of rank, authority, riches, learning, or extraordinary talents, should succeed in establishing a new religion, in opposition to the prevailing sentiments and habits of every country in which it was promulged, notwithstanding the efforts of every civil government to crush it in its commencement? 21. Among the first followers of Christ, however, there was one who was not illiterate. The Apostle Paul appears to have received a learned education, according to the times in which he lived, and like the generality of his countrymen, to have been violently prejudiced against the Christians. He himself tells us, that "he shut up many of them in prison;" that "when they were put to death, he gave his voice against them;" that "being exceedingly mad against them, he persecuted them even unto strange cities."* How, then, came he afterwards to unite with * Acts xxvi. |