artful could impose on people by pretending to have power from God to open the eyes of the blind, to heal all manner of diseases with a word, and to raise the dead from their graves? No, sir, if Jesus did not perform the miracles which he pretended to perform, there is no propriety in believing that any body was disposed to charge the Jews with cruelty for ridding community of such an impostor. But after all, even allowing your proposed method of accounting for the absence of the body, which by no means is half as probable a story as that reported by the Jews, as this does not account for the disciples' believing that Jesus had actually arose from the dead. What is to be done with this circumstance? Are we to suppose that as soon as the disciples found that the body was missing, they took it into their heads that he had actually arose from the dead without any further evidence? Well if they really believed it they could honestly state their belief to the people. You will remember that you have agreed that the apostles were honest men. But then the apostles go further, they assert that they were certified of the real resurrection of Jesus by many _infallible_ proofs, that they saw him, conversed with him, ate with him, heard his discourses in which he expounded the scriptures of the law, of the prophets, and of the psalms which respected his passion and resurrection. Will you allow these men to have been honest men, and still suppose that somebody stole the body of Jesus from the sepulchre? The boldness of the disciples in declaring the resurrection, their willingness to suffer all manner of persecutions for the name of Jesus, show plainly that they did believe in his resurrection. Here I refer you to my former arguments in which I have attempted to make it appear that the disciples could not have been deceived. But even allowing, that the body was stolen, and that the disciples were deceived, there is still, if possible, a greater difficulty to account for, viz. the success of the preaching of Jesus and him crucified. Here I wish, in a special manner, to call your attention. The four evangelists and the acts of the apostles were written in the life time of the disciples of Jesus; this, Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity, fully proves. He likewise proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they were written by the men whose names they bear. These historians then relate all the miracles recorded in the four gospels, and inform us that Jesus actually performed them. They give each of them an account of the crucifixion and resurrection of their divine master. They relate the things of which they were eye witnesses. But supposing they were deceived, which I humbly conceive, is not supposable, can we reasonably believe that these gospels in which such barefaced falsehoods were recorded would ever gain credit among a people whose religious education was to be all overthrown by coming into the belief of those writings?