But it may be said that the disciples had motives of self-interest which induced them to frame and propagate the doctrine of Christ's resurrection. If this can be shown it must excite suspicion, if it does not amount to a valid objection. For it is not un common to see men advancing and obstinately maintaining the greatest absurdities and falsehoods, when they have an interest in doing so. Truth is then sacrificed to some supposed advantage. But amidst all the inconsistencies of human conduct we doubt if any man ever continued for any length of time to assert a falsehood, when it not only brought him no advantage but every possible inconvenience. A man who has told a lie once may persist in it for a while, for the sake of consistency, and to avoid the humiliation of confessing himself a liar. But let his interest lie on the other side ; let his false hood bring misery and contempt along with it, and he will soon be brought to his senses, and renounce an imposition so injurious to his own comfort.
Let us sec whether this reasoning does not apply in its full force to the circumstances of the apostles and all the first witnesses of Christ's resurrection. What possible object could they have in persisting in an account so very improbable, had they not known that it was a truth of the most momentous importance which they were bound to promulgate to the world? They soon found that it had no ten dency to promote their reputation, but rather to make them be laughed at as fools, as happened in the ease of the apostle Paul when he preached the doctrine of Christ's resurrection to the philosophers at Athens. People, however, can bear to be laughed at when they gain any thing by it. But what were the disciples to gain by proclaiming the resurrec tion of their master? Not wealth and pleasures, surely; for they preached up abstinence and morti fication: nor yet power and honours, for they knew, to use an expression employed by the most eminent among them, that they were counted " the off-scour ing of all things." Here, then, we may justly say, is a marvellous thing, that so many men should per sist in propagating a known falsehood without ob ject or end—without interest or motive, and that they should daily expose themselves to insult, to persecution, and to death, solely for the purpose of propagating an unprofitable lie. Could we suppose all this possible, no parallel could be found to it in the annals of human folly, which are sufficiently pregnant with absurd materials. Yet scarcely will we find one man, much less great numbers of men, who will choose to be gratuitously wicked, and per sist in a known falsehood, when it not only brings them no profit, but, on the contrary, subjects them to every conceivable disadvantage.
But we must be prepared for the other alternative, viz. that the first disciples were weak and enthusi astic men, and that they were themselves deceived, and became the dupes of their own delusions. Ancl
here, we will readily grant, that when once the mind is infected by any false doctrine or erroneous opinion, it is not easy to say to what lengths it may go in extravagance and folly. Ilence we have seen men suffering for opinions which all the world but themselves knew to be false or pernicious. This is conceding as much as the adversaries of Chris tianity can require. But it will he of no avail to them. For it must be observed that all the great points on which our religion rests, and particularly the doctrine of Christ's resurrection, are not mat ters of opinion: they are facts, with regard to which even an enthusiast could not be mistaken. No stretch of imagination could make twelve men, nay, five hundred men (for by this number was our Lord seen after his resurrection), no stretch of ima gination could make such a number believe that they saw Jesus alive, after he I d been crucified, that he conversed with them f.. for forty days, ancl- then ascended into heavy n in presence of them all. That there might be no room to suspect even the possibility of a mistake, he appeared to them on various occasions, and for a length of time, so as completely to satisfy the most scrupulous and incredulous among them, of the reality of an event so pleasing, but so unexpected. They do not dis guise the pleasure and surprise which they felt on receiving the first authentic intelligence of the re surrection. "They believed not, for joy ;" an ex pression struck from the mint of truth, and incapa ble of coming from the lips of a deceiver. They thought it was too good news to be true; and they felt that mixed sensation of joy, wonder, and incre dulity, which overwhelms a depressed or wounded spirit, on the announcement of great and unexpected good fortune.
The apostle Paul enumerates several, though not all, of the occasions on which Christ appeared after his resurrection. lie says that he was first " seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present; but some arc fallen asleep; after that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles; and last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of clue time." 1 Cor. xv. Now, were we even to ad mit the supposition of the infidel, that the lirst wit nesses of the resurrection were enthusiasts, this admission would only tend to strengthen the evi dence for the extraordinary fact; for an enthusiast is always an honest man; he may be deceived in a matter of opinion. but he has no wish to deceive others; and therefore when he attests, not the re veries of his fancy, but the objects which have come under the cognizance of his senses, he may be implicitly believed.