"that work iniquity." And again, "If any man "fhall fay unto you, Lo, here is Chrift, or there, "believe it not. For there fhall arife many false 66 Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great 66 figns and wonders, infomuch that, if it were 65 poffible, they fhall deceive the very elect. Be"hold I have told you before."-The objection of Celfus would undoubtedly have had fome weight, if Jefus had abfolutely ordered his disciples to be upon their guard against those who pretended to work miracles, and had not added any other thing, But, feeing that he ordered his followers to be fo particularly upon their guard only against those who declared themfelves to be the Chrift; which was not the cafe of thofe impoftors who fupported themselves by the ordinary arts; and that it would be in his name that they would caft out devils, and do many wonderful works, although they were otherwife workers of iniquity; this is not at all the mark of magic or illufions; on the contrary, it banishes every fufpicion thereof in Jefus Chrift, and in his difciples, and powerfully proves their divine authority; which must have been very great indeed, when not only the Apostles and their followers, but also that wicked and diforderly perfons should be able to do great miracles through the name of Jefus Chrift. If Celfus and his friends had well confidered this argument, they would have omitted it entirely; because it makes much against them; especially as they put it in the mouth Matth. vii. 23. and xxiv. 23, 24, 25.

of

of a Jew, who regarded the miracles of Mofes as the effects of the power of God; but declares thofe of Jesus Christ, the truth of which he never attempts to deny, to be worked by the power of magic, and to have nothing divine in them: thereby imitating the Egyptians, who declared that all the miracles that Mofes did in Egypt, were done by the power of magic, although they confefs that their magicians could not ftand before him. However, if we may judge by the fuccefs, we cannot avoid faying, in favour of Mofes, that he was guided by the power of the Divinity, without which he could not have drawn the Ifraelites out of Egypt, and established them in the land of Canaan; especially as he had to do with an obftinate and rebellious people, who were defirous to adopt all the idolatry and wickednefs of the neighbouring nations. Jefus Chrift likewife, who came into the world to declare the will of his heavenly Father to mankind, which they could not discover clearly by the lights of nature, had to combat against all the idolatrous customs of the Gentiles, the obstinacy and hypocrify of the Jews, and the imaginary systems of the different fects of philofophers, which had been many centuries a forming, and which were become like a second nature among those people refpectively. If, therefore, Mofes was obliged to work miracles to make known his Divine miffion, not only to the leaders of the Ifraelitish nation, but alfo to the people in general; why fhould this Jew think it strange,

that

that Jefus Chrift fhould do the fame, or even greater miracles, before a people who were accuftomed to demand fuch figns? As he would prove himself to be greater than Mofes or any of the prophets, before those people, who only judged of men and things from what they at the inftant appeared to be, it was abfolutely neceffary that he fhould do greater works than ever were done before upon earth.

Celfus's Jew proceeds, in the next place, to ask the Chriftians, What was it then that perfuaded you to embrace Christianity? Was it because that this deceiver foretold you, that, being dead, he would rife again? And then he tells them, That he was ready to believe, as they did, that Jefus bad foretold this thing; but that there were many other impoftors who made ufe of artifices of this nature, to establish their credit in the world, and to gain by the credulity of the fimple: which was the cafe of Zamolxis, the flave of Pythagoras among the Scythians; of Pythagoras bimself in Italy; and of great numbers of others, whofe history is extant in Greece. But it is a question, whether there ever was a perfon, who, being really dead, rofe again with the fame body. You pretend that all the hiftories related by the Greeks and others reSpetting these things, are only fables, and not to be believed; but do you imagine that the catastrophe which is laid open in your history, has more the appearance of truth, notwithstanding all the imaginary circumftances with which you have enriched it; by the cries which your crucified God made, when he was dying; by your earthquakes;

quakes; and by your darknesses? You say that he rofe again after his death, when he could not help himself during his life; and that he fhewed the marks of his punishment upon his body. But who faw them? If we may believe your history, a mad-woman, and fome other perfon of the fame cabal: who perhaps fubftituled a dream for the reality; or who, having his imagination ftruck with the idea of the refurrection, formed himself the object of his illufion, upon the plan of bis own defires, as it has happened to a great number of other perfons; or, which is the most probable, who would furprize mankind by this supposed miracle, and give other cheats the idea of doing the fame thing.

This is another of Celfus's arguments, which has been copied, and illuftrated, by fome of our modern philofophers, and made a principal pillar to fupport the fpacious fabric of their reasoning against the doctrine of Jefus Chrift; although it will be no difficult matter to make it appear to be false and absurd upon the face of it.—In the first place, Celfus puts a number of Greek fables, and the Epicurean doctrine respecting the refurrection of the body, in the mouth of a Jew, whofe religion taught him not to believe one word thereof; and then he makes the Jew ask the Chriftians, whether there was ever an example of a person, who, being really dead, rofe again with the fame body? when he must have known that the Jew, by reading the hiftory of their prophets, would have found two examples of this nature; the one, of Elijah raifing the fon of the

2

widow

widow of Zarephath*;-and the other of Elifha's raifing the fon of the Shunammite +.-How abfurd therefore muft Celfus have been, to have made a Jew demand a queftion of this nature; and to be fo well acquainted with the Grecian fables; of which, by his education, he ought to have fuppofed him to have been entirely ignorant ?

This Jew begins his argument with giving into the belief of the Chriftians, that Jefus did actually foretel that he would rife again from the dead; and then proceeds to prove, that this was all a cheat, and calculated to impofe upon mankind: and, to give an air of truth to his argument, he fays, that Jefus only appeared, after his death, to a mad-woman, and to another of the fame cabal. The evidence of the mad-woman he counted for nothing, and attempts to invalidate the teftimony of the other, by obferving, that it was only an imaginary phantom that he faw, which was formed upon the plan of his defires; or that he was one of those cheats, who publish stories of this kind, to impofe upon the credulity of the fimple. This is the force of the argument, which, if it had been made by Celfus himself, and been founded upon facts, would undoubtedly have had fome weight. But befides the absurdity of it, which I have already pointed out, I will proceed to fhew, that it was founded upon falfe facts.

1 Kings xvii.

† 2 Kings iv.

Celfus