was attempted by Celsus. [Footnote 6: I have here expressed myself in strong terms, with a view to check my doubts and prevent their running wild.] "You will see by this, sir, in what light my argument views the apostles. It does not suppose 'that the apostles would enforce their moral doctrine with their pretentions to miraculous powers,' although they might with the 'testimony of the resurrection of Jesus,' but it supposes that their successors might contend that the apostles worked miracles, and many of them might believe that they did, just as the apostles believed in the resurrection, when no such thing as the resurrection or the miracles of the apostles ever existed in fact. This is what the argument supposes, and it is wholly predicated on the possibility of the apostles' being made to believe, some how or other, I do not pretend to say how, that Jesus had risen from the dead when no such thing had taken place. But, only believe in the resurrection, and there is no difficulty in believing in the miracles of Jesus or the miracles of his apostles. They are equally well attested, and no more improbable. Yea, if they were true, they were not _believed_, but absolutely _known_ to be true by the apostles. They knew it as well as they could know the truth of any object of sight. And the truth of what they knew being all which they needed in support of what they taught, I do not see, on this supposition, how they could have the occasion, or the motive, to state one thing falsely concerning it. No, nor could their followers have any occasion to add to their testimony, for nothing which they could add would be of any more weight than that which we may suppose was already in their possession. The two first chapters of Matthew and Luke (or all except the genealogy in Matthew, and the preface of Luke) the authenticity of which has been suspected by some of the learned, and I believe not without pretty good reasons, do not contain a single word in support of the resurrection; neither is the subject of them, as I now recollect, mentioned either by Christ or any of the apostles in any other part of the New Testament. And although the truth of those narratives is no more miraculous than the resurrection, yet I presume you would not contend that a belief of these, also, is absolutely necessary to the Christian faith. "With these observations, I shall once more, and probably for the last time quit my second proposition, and proceed to take notice of what you have written on my third.