But not to enter into the merits of this cause, which has in it too many circumstances for your present consideration; let us take the case to be as the Gentleman states it, that the cheat in the case of Lazarus was detected; what consequence is to be expected? In all other cases, impostors, once discovered, grow odious and contemptible, and quite incapable of doing further mischief; so little are they regarded, that even when they tell the truth, they are neglected. Was it so in this case? No, says the Gentleman; the Jews were the more careful that Christ should not cheat them in his own resurrection. Surely this is a most singular case. When the people thought him a Prophet, the chief priests sought to kill him, and thought his death would put an end to his pretensions: when they and the people had discovered him to be a cheat, then they thought him not safe, even when he was dead, but were afraid he should prove a true Prophet, and, according to his own prediction, rise again. A needless, a preposterous fear!
In the next place, the Gentleman tells us how proper the care was that the chief priests took. I agree perfectly with him. Human policy could not invent a more proper method to guard against and prevent all fraud. They delivered the sepulchre, with the dead body in it, to a company of Roman soldiers, who had orders from their officer to watch the sepulchre. Their care went further still; they sealed the door of the sepulchre.
Upon this occasion, the Gentleman has explained the use of seals when applied to such purposes. They imply, he says, a covenant, that the things sealed up shall remain in the condition they are till the parties to the sealing agree to open them. I see no reason to enter into the learning about seals: let it be as the Gentleman has opened it; what then?
Why then, it seems, the apostles and chief priests were in a covenant that there should be no resurrection, at least no opening of the door, till they met together at an appointed time to view and unseal the door.
Your Lordship and the court will now consider the probability of this supposition. When Christ was seized and carried to his trial, his disciples fled, out of a just apprehension that they should, if apprehended, be sacrificed with their master. Peter indeed followed him; but his courage soon failed, and it is well known in what manner he denied him. After the death of Christ, his disciples were so far from being ready to engage for his resurrection, or to enter into terms and agreements for the manner in which it should be done, that they themselves did not believe it ever would be; they gave over all hopes and thoughts of it; and far from entering into engagements with the chief priests, their whole concern was, to keep themselves concealed from them. This is a well known case, and I will not trouble you with particular authorities to prove this truth. Can any man now in his right senses think, that the disciples under these circumstances entered into this covenant with the Jews? I believe the Gentleman don't think it, and for that reason says, that seals so used import a covenant without a special agreement. Be it so; and it must then be allowed, that the apostles were no more concerned in these seals, than every other man in the country, and no more answerable for them; for the covenant reached to every body as well as to them, since they were under no special contract.
But I beg pardon for spending your time unnecessarily, when the simple plain account of this matter will best answer all these jealousies and suspicions. The Jews, it is plain, were exceedingly solicitous about this event; for this reason they obtained a guard from Pilate; and when they had, they were still suspicious lest their guards should deceive them, and enter into combination against them.
To secure this point, they sealed the door, and required of the guards to deliver up the sepulchre to them sealed as it was. This is the natural and true account of the matter. Do but consider it in a parallel case. Suppose a prince should set a guard at the door of his treasury, and the officer who placed the guard should seal the door, and say to the soldiers, You shall be answerable for the seal if I find it broken: would not all the world understand the seal to be fixed to guard against the soldiers, who might, though employed to keep off others, be ready enough to pilfer themselves? This is in all such cases but a necessary care; you may place guards, and when you do all is in their power: Et quis custodes custodiat ipsos?
But it seems, that, notwithstanding all this care, the seals were broken, and the body gone. If you complain of this, Sir, demand satisfaction of your guards; they only are responsible for it: the disciples had no more to do in it than you or I.
The guards, the Gentleman says, have confessed the truth, and owned that they were asleep, and that the disciples in the mean time stole away the body. I wish the guards were in court, I would ask them, how they came to be so punctual in relating what happened when they were asleep? what induced them to believe that the body was stolen at all? what, that it was stolen by the disciples; since by their own confession they were asleep and say nothing, saw no body?
But since they are not to be had, I would desire to ask the Gentleman the same questions; and whether he has any authorities in point, to shew, that ever any man was admitted as an evidence in any court, to prove a fact which happened when he was asleep? I see the Gentleman is uneasy; I'll press the matter no further.
As this story has no evidence to support it, so neither has it any probability. The Gentleman has given you the character of the disciples; that they were weak, ignorant men, full of the popular prejudices and superstitions of their country,which stuck close to them notwithstanding their long acquaintance with their master. The apostles are not much wronged in this account; and is it likely that such men should engage in so desperate design, as to steal away the body, in opposition to the combined power of the Jews and Romans?
What could tempt them to it? What good could the dead body do them?
Or if it could have done them any, what hope had they to succeed in their attempt? A dead body is not to be removed by sleight of hand; it requires many hands to move it: besides, the great stone at the mouth of the sepulchre was to be removed; which could not be done silently, or by men walking on tip-toes to prevent discovery: so that if the guards had really been asleep, yet there was no encouragement to go on this enterprise; for it is hardly possible to suppose, but that rolling away the stone, moving the body, the hurry and confusion of carrying it off, must awaken them.
But supposing the thing was practicable, yet the attempt was such as the disciples consistently with their own notions could not undertake. The Gentleman says, they continued all their master's lifetime to expect to see him a temporal prince; and a friend of the Gentleman's has observed, what is equally true, that they had the same expectation after his death. Consider now their case. Their master was dead; and they are to contrive to steal away his body. For what?
Did they expect to make a King of the dead body, if they could get it into their power? Or did they think, if they had it, they could raise it to life again? If they trusted so far to their master's prediction, as to expect his resurrection, (which I think is evident they did not), could they yet think the resurrection depended on their having the dead body? It is in all views absurd. But the Gentleman supposes, that they meant to carry on the design for themselves, in the master's, if they could but have persuaded the people to believe him risen from the dead. But he does not consider, that by this supposition he strips the disciples of every part of their character at once, and presents to us a new set of men, in every respect different from the former. The former disciples were weak, plain men; but these are bold, hardy, cunning, and contriving: the former were full of the superstitions of their country, and expected a prince from the authority of their Prophets; but these were despisers of the Prophets, and of the notions of their countrymen, and are designing to turn these fables to their own advantage; for it cannot be supposed that they believed the Prophets, and at the same time thought to accomplish or defeat them by so manifest a cheat, to which they themselves at least were conscious.