I intend, therefore, in the first place to examine the value of the historical documents of the New Testament, and show that several of the epistles take rank as the highest form of historical documents, and present us with what is to all intents and purposes a large mass of contemporaneous evidence as to the primitive beliefs, and the original foundation of the Christian Church. In doing so I propose to treat them in the same manner as all other similar historical documents are treated. I shall then show that these documents afford a substantial testimony to all the great facts of Christianity, and especially to the existence of miraculous powers in the Church, and that the various Churches were from the very earliest period in possession of an oral account of the actions and teachings of Jesus Christ substantially the same as that which is now embodied in the Gospels; and that this oral Gospel was habitually used for the purposes of instruction. Further, that this oral Gospel was a substantial embodiment of the beliefs of the primitive followers of Jesus, and that the Church as a community was a body especially adapted for handing down correctly the account of the primitive beliefs respecting its origin, and that the peculiar position in which it was placed compelled it to do so. I shall further show on the evidence furnished by those epistles, the genuineness of which unbelievers do not dispute, that from the earliest commencement of Christianity the whole body of believers, without distinction of sect or party, believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a fact, and viewed it not only as the groundwork on which Christianity rested, but as the one sole and only reason for the existence of the Christian Church. I shall be able also to prove on the same evidence that a considerable number of the followers of Jesus were persuaded that they had seen him alive after his crucifixion, and that his appearance was an actual resurrection from the dead. The same writings prove to demonstration that this was the universal belief of the whole Christian community, and that the Church was established on its basis. These things being established as the basis for my reasonings, I shall proceed to prove that it is impossible that these beliefs of the Church could have owed their origin to any possible form of delusion; but that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an historical fact, and that no other supposition can give an adequate account of the phenomenon.