And certainly it is contrary to the uniform and settled course of things. But if we argue from hence that it is contrary and repugnant to the real laws of nature and absolutely impossible on that account, we argue without any foundation to support us either from our senses or our reason. We cannot learn from our eyes, or feeling, or any other sense, that it is impossible for a dead body to live again; if we learn it at all, it must be from our reason; and yet what one maxim of reason is contradicted by the supposition of a resurrection? For my own part; when I consider how I live; that all animal motions necessary to my life are independent of my will; that my heart beats without my consent and without my direction; that digestion and nutrition are performed by methods to which I am not conscious; that my blood moves in a perpetual round, which is contrary to all known laws of motion: I cannot but think, that the preservation of my life, in every moment of it, is as great an act of power, as is necessary to raise a dead man to life. And whoever so far reflects upon his own being as to acknowledge that he owes it to a superior power, must needs think, that the same power which gave life to senseless matter at first, and set all the springs and movements a-going at the beginning, can restore life to dead body. For surely it is not a greater thing to give life to a body once dead, than to a body that never was alive.
In the next place must be considered the difficulties which the gentleman has laid before you, with regard to the nature of Christ's body after the resurrection. He has produced some passages which which, he thinks, imply, that the body was not a real natural body, but a mere phantom, or apparition: and thence concludes, that there being no real object of sense, there can be no evidence in the case.
Presumptions are of no weight against positive evidence; and every account of the resurrection assures us, that the body of Christ was seen, felt, and handled by many persons; who were called upon by Christ so to do, that they might be assured that he had flesh and bones, and was not a mere spectre, as they, in their first surprize, imagined him to be. It is impossible that they who give this account, should mean, by anything they report, to imply that he had no real body; it is certain, then, that when the Gentleman makes use of what they say to this purpose, he uses their sayings contrary to their meaning: for it is not pretended that they say, that Christ had not a real human body after the resurrection; nor is it pretended they had any such thought, except only upon the first surprize of seeing him, and before they had examined him with their eyes and hands. But something they have said, which the Gentleman, according to his notions of philosophy, thinks, implies that the body was not real. To clear this point, therefore, I must lay before you the passages referred to, and consider how justly the Gentleman reasons from them.
The first passage relates to Mary Magdalene, who, the first time she saw Christ, was going to embrace his feet, as the custom of the country was: Christ says to her, [John 20:17] Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and tell them, etc. Hence the gentleman concludes, that Christ's body was not such an one as would bear the touch. But how does he infer this? Is it from these words Touch me not? It cannot be: for thousands say it every day, without giving the least suspicion, that their bodies are not capable of being touched. The conclusion then must be built on those other words, For I have not yet ascended to my Father. but what have these words to do with the reality of his body? It might be real or not real, for anything that is here said. There is a difficulty in these words, and it may be hard to give the true sense of them; but there is no difficulty in seeing that they have no relation to the nature of Christ's body; for of his body nothing is said. The natural sense of the place as I collect, by comparing this passage with Matthew 28:9 is this. Mary Magdalene, upon seeing Jesus, fell at his feet, and laid hold of them and held them as if she meant never to let them go:
Christ said to her, "Touch me not, or hang not about me now; you will have other opportunities of seeing me for I go not yet to my Father: lose no time then but go quickly with my message to my brethren." I am not concerned to support this particular interpretation of the passage; it is sufficient to my purpose, to show that the words cannot possibly relate to the nature of Christ's body one way or other.
The next passage relates to Christ's joining two of his disciples upon the road and conversing with them without being known by them: it grew dark, they pressed him to stay with them that night; he went in with them, broke bread, blessed it, and gave it them, and then they knew him; and immediately he disappeared.
The circumstance of disappearing, shall be considered under the next head, with other objections of the like kind. At present I shall only examine the other parts of this story, and inquire whether they afford any ground to conclude that the body of Christ was not a real one. Had this piece of history been related of any other person I think such suspicion could have risen. For what is there unnatural or uncommon in this account? Two men meet an acquaintance whom they thought dead: They converse with him for some time, without suspecting who he was; the very persuasion they were under that he was dead, contributed greatly to their not knowing him; besides, he appeared in a habit and form different from what he used when he conversed with them; appeared to them on a journey and walked with them side by side; in which situation no one of the company has a full view of another: afterwards, when they were at supper together, and lights brought in, they plainly discerned who he was. Upon this occasion, the Gentleman asks what sort of witnesses these are? eye-witnesses? No; before supper they were eye-witnesses, says the Gentleman, that the person whom they saw was not Christ: and then he demands a reason for our rejecting the evidence of their sense when they did not know Christ, and insisting on it when they did.
It is no uncommon thing for men to catch themselves and others by such notable acute questions, and to be led by the sprightliness of their imagination out of the road of truth and common sense. I beg leave to tell the Gentleman a short story, and then to ask him his own question. A certain Gentleman who had been some years abroad happened in his return to England through Paris to meet his own sister there.
She was not expecting to see him there, nor he to see her, they conversed together with other company, at a publick house, for great part of a day, without knowing each other. At last the Lady began to shew great signs of disorder; her color came and went, and the eyes of the company were drawn toward her; and then she cried out, Oh my brother! and was hardly held from fainting. Suppose now this Lady were to depose upon oath in a court of justice that she saw her brother at Paris; I would ask the Gentleman, Whether he would object to the evidence, and say, that she was as good an eye-witness that her brother was not there, as that he was; and demand of the court, why they rejected the evidence of her senses when she did not know her brother, and were ready to believe it when she did. When the question is answered in this case, I desire only to have the benefit of it in the case now before you. But if you shall be of opinion, that there was some extraordinary power used on this occasion, and incline to think that the expression, their eyes were holden, imports as much; then the case will fall under the next article. In which