that none of them reach the strength or circumstances of the Christian
evidence. In these, however, consists the weight of his objection; in
the principle itself, I am persuaded, there is none.





PART I.

OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WHEREIN IT IS
DISTINGUISHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES.

The two propositions which I shall endeavour to establish are these:

I. That there is satisfactory evidence that many professing to be
original witnesses of the Christian miracles passed their lives in
labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily undergone in attestation
of the accounts which they delivered, and solely in consequence of their
belief of those accounts; and that they also submitted, from the same
motives, to new rules of conduct.

2. That there is not satisfactory evidence that persons professing to be
original witnesses of other miracles, in their nature as certain as
these are, have ever acted in the same manner, in attestation of the
accounts which they delivered, and properly in consequence of their
belief of those accounts.

The first of these prepositions, as it forms the argument will stand at
the head of the following nine chapters.