Thomas Sherlock - The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Consider now how the objection stands. The council for Woolston tells you, that it is common for men to die for false opinions; and he tells you nothing but the truth. But even in those cases their suffering is an evidence of their sincerity; and it would be very hard to charge men who die for the doctrine they profess, with insincerity in the profession. Mistaken they may be; but every mistaken man is not a cheat. Now, if you will allow the suffering of the apostles to prove their sincerity, which you cannot well disallow; and consider that they died for the truth of a matter of fact which they had seen themselves, you will perceive how strong the evidence is in this case. In doctrines, and matters of opinion, men mistake perpetually; and it is no reason for me to take up with another man's opinion, because I am persuaded he is sincere in it. But when a man reports to me an uncommon fact, yet such an one as in its own nature is a plain object of sense; if I believe him not, it is not because I suspect his eyes, or his sense of feeling, but merely because I suspect his sincerity: for if I was to see the same thing myself, I should believe myself; and therefore my suspicion does not arise from the inability of human senses to judge in the case, but from a doubt of the sincerity of the reporter. In such cases, therefore, there wants nothing to be proved, but only the sincerity of the reporter: and since voluntary sufferings for the truth, is at least a proof of sincerity; the sufferings of the apostles for the truth of the resurrection, is a full and unexceptionable proof.

The council for Woolston was sensible of this difference; and therefore he added, that there are many instances of men's suffering and dying in an obstinate denial of the truth of facts plainly proved.

This observation is also true. I remember a story of a man who endured with great constancy all the tortures of the rack, denying the fact with which he was charged. When he was asked afterwards, how he could hold out against all the tortures? He answered, I had painted a gallows upon the toe of my shoe, and when the rack stretched me, I looked on the gallows, and bore the pain, to save my life. This man denied a plain fact, under great torture; but you see a reason for it. In other cases, when criminals persist in denying their crimes, they often do it, and there is a reason to suspect they do it always, in hopes of a pardon or reprieve. But what are these instances to the present purpose? All these men suffer against their will, and for their crimes; and their obstinacy is built on the hope of escaping, by moving the compassion of the government. Can the Gentleman give any instances of persons who died willingly in attestation of a false fact? We have had in England some weak enough to die for the Pope's supremacy; but do you think a man could be found to die in proof of the Pope's being actually on the throne of England?

Now, the apostles died in asserting the truth of Christ's resurrection. It was always in their power to quit their evidence and save their lives. Even their bitterest enemies, the Jews, required no more of them than to be silent. [Acts 4:17, 5:28] Others have denied facts, or asserted facts, in hopes of saving their lives, when they were under sentence of death: but these men attested a fact at the expence of their lives, which they might have saved by denying the truth. So that between criminals dying, and denying plain facts, and the apostles dying for their testimony, there is this material difference: criminals deny the truth in hopes of saving their lives; the apostles willingly parted with their lives, rather than deny the truth.

We are come now to the last, and indeed the most weighty consideration.

The council for the apostles having in the course of the argument allowed, that more evidence is required to support the credit of the resurrection, it being a very extraordinary event, than is necessary in common cases, in the latter part of his defence sets forth the extraordinary evidence upon which this fact stands. That is, the evidence of the Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and power, which was given to the apostles, to enable them to confirm their testimony by signs and wonders, and mighty works. This part of the argument was well argued by the Gentleman, and I need not repeat all he said.

The council for Woolston, in his reply, made two objections to this evidence.

The first was this: That the resurrection having all along been pleaded to be a matter of fact, and an object of sense, to recur to miracles for the proof of it, is to take it out of its proper evidence, the evidence of sense; and to rest it upon a proof which cannot be applied to it: for seeing one miracle, he says, is no evidence that another miracle was wrought before it; as healing a sick man, is no evidence that a dead man was raised to life.

To clear this difficulty, you must consider by what train of reasoning miracles come to be proofs in any case. A miracle of itself proves nothing, unless this only, that there is a cause equal to the producing the effect we see. Suppose you should see a man raise one from the dead, and he should go away and say nothing to you, you would not find that any fact, or any proposition, was proved or disproved by this miracle. But should he declare to you, in the name of him, by whose power the miracle was wrought, that image-worship was unlawful, you would then be possessed of a proof against image-worship. But how?

Not because the miracle proves anything as to the point itself, but because the man's declaration is authorised by him who wrought the miracle in confirmation of his doctrine; and therefore miracles are directly a proof of the authority of persons, and not of the truth of things.

To apply this to the present case: If the apostles had wrought miracles, and said nothing of the resurrection, the miracles would have proved nothing about the resurrection one way or another. But when as eye-witnesses they attested the truth of the resurrection, and wrought miracles to confirm their authority; the miracles did not directly prove the resurrection; but they confirmed and established beyond all suspicion the proper evidence, the evidence of eye-witnesses. So that here is no change of the evidence from proper to improper; the fact still rests upon the evidence of sense, confirmed and strengthened by the authority of the Spirit. If a witness calls in his neighbors to attest his veracity, they prove nothing as to the fact in question, but only confirm the evidence of the witness. The case here is the same; though between the authorities brought in confirmation of the evidence, there is no comparison.

The second objection was, That this evidence, however good it may be in its kind, is yet nothing to us. It was well, the Gentleman says, for those who had it; but what is that to us, who have it not?

To adjust this difficulty, I must observe to you, that the evidence now under consideration, was not a private evidence of the Spirit, or any inward light, like to that which the Quakers in our time pretend to; but an evidence appearing in the manifest and visible works of the Spirit: and this evidence was capable of being transmitted, and actually has been transmitted to us upon unquestionable authority. And to allow the evidence to have been good in the first ages, and not in this, seems to be to be a contradiction to the rules of reasoning: for if we see enough to judge that the first ages had reason to believe, we must needs see at the same time, that it is reasonable for us also to believe. As the present question only relates to the nature of the evidence, it was not necessary to produce from history the instances to shew in how plentiful a manner this evidence was granted to the church.

Whoever wants this satisfaction, may easily have it.

Gentlemen of the jury, I have laid before you the substance of what has been said on both sides. You are now to consider of it, and to give your verdict.