The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ | Page 5

or would you have the objections argued singly, and answered
separately by themselves?
Judge. I think this court may dispense with the strict forms of legal
proceeding; and therefore I leave this to the choice of the jury.

After the jury had consulted together, the foreman rose up,
The Foreman of the Jury. We desire to hear the objections argued and
answered separately. We shall be better able to form a judgement, by
hearing the answer while the objection is fresh in our minds.
Judge. Gentlemen, you hear the opinion of the jury. Go on.
Mr. A I am now to disclose to you a scene, of all others the most
surprising. "The resurrection has been long talked of, and, to the
amazement of everyone who can think freely, has been believed
through all ages of the church." This general and constant belief creates
in most minds a presumption that it was founded on good evidence. In
other cases the evidence supports the credit of the history; but here the
evidence itself is presumed only upon the credit which the story has
gained. I wish the books dispersed against Jesus by the ancient Jews
had not been lost; for they would have given us a clear insight into this
contrivance: but it is happy for us, that the very account given by the
pretended witnesses of this fact, is sufficient to destroy the credit of it.
The resurrection was not a thing contrived for its own sake. No! it was
undertaken to support great views, and for the sake of great
consequences that were to attend it. It will be necessary therefore to lay
before you those views, that you may be the better judge of this part of
the contrivance, when you have the whole scene before you.
The Jews were a weak superstitious people, and, as is common among
such people, gave great credit to some traditionary prophecies about
their own country. They had, besides, some old books among them,
which they esteemed to be writings of certain Prophets, who had
formerly lived among them, and whose memory they had in great
veneration. From such old books and traditions they formed many
extravagant expectations; and among the rest one was, that some time
or other a great victorious prince would rise among them, and subdue
all their enemies, and make them lords of the world. In Augustus's time
they were in a low state, reduced under the Roman yoke; and as they
never wanted a deliverer more, so the eagerness of this hope, as it
happens to weak minds, turned into a firm expectation that he would

soon come. This proved a temptation to some bold, and to some
cunning men, to personate the prince so much expected. And "nothing
is more natural and common to promote rebellions, than to ground
them on new prophecies, or new interpretations of old ones; prophecies
being suited to the vulgar superstition, and operating with the force of
religion." Accordingly, many such imposters rose, pretending to be the
victorious prince expected; and they, and the people who followed
them, perished in the folly of their attempt.
But Jesus, knowing that victories and triumphs are not things to be
counterfeited; that the people were not to be delivered from the Roman
yoke by sleight of hand; and having no hope of being able to cope with
the Emperor of Rome in good earnest, took another and more
successful method to carry on his design. He took upon him to be the
prince foretold in the ancient Prophets; but then he insisted that the true
sense of the prophecies had been mistaken; that they related not to the
kingdoms of this world, but to the kingdom of heaven; that the Messias
was not to be a conquering prince, but a suffering one; that he was not
to come with horses of war, and chariots of war, but was to be meek
and lowly, riding on an ass. By this means, he got the common and
necessary foundation for a new revelation, which is to be built and
founded on a precedent revelation.
To carry on this design, he made choice of twelve men of no fortunes
or education, and of such understandings, as gave no jealousy that they
would discover the plot. And, what is most wonderful, and shews their
ability, while the master was preaching the kingdom of heaven, these
poor men, not weaned from the prejudices of their country, expected
every day that he would declare himself a king, and were quarreling
who should be his first minister. This expectation had a good effect on
the service; for it kept them constant to their master.
I must observe further, that the Jews were under strange apprehensions
of supernatural powers: and as their own religion