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    Gospel is ascribed to a " determination to astound us with yet greater wonders" than the " standing miracle" of the pool of Betliesda . " This is the disciple which testifieth of these things ,

    and we know that his testimony is true ; and there are many other things which Jesus did , the which , if they should be written every one , / suppose that even the world itself could not

    contain the books that should be written . " What there is ' astounding" in the forms or hyperboles of Jewish speech , differing from those in modern usage , I profess myself too dull to perceive ; but on turning to the tolerably genuine epistles of Paul , 1 Thess . xi . 18 , I meet with a similar change of

    person : " Wherefore we would have come unto you , even / Paul , once and again . " One should have thought that the education of the poor fisherman , Zebedee's son , might excuse this offence against perspicuity ; but there is no satisfying this gentleman : at one time the writing is too refined to be that of John * and at another too

    unpolished . " The standing miracle of the pool of Bethesda , in so public a part of the

    city of Jerusalem , " we are assured , is " a most improbable fiction , " though not so great a wonder , it seems , as the change in the speaker from one personal pronoun to another . One of the

    iC enlightened unbelievers , " I trunk Chubby makes a great stir about this pool of Bethesda , and asks how the angel descended . Whether he came down swoop at once like a wild-duck into a pond . Whether he had any clothes on . Then comes the asserter

    of Genuine Christianity , and candidly blots out the story . Now , Sir , I would not blot a line of it . I shall not quarrel with a Jew , because he does not relate things as an Englishman or a Frenchman would relate them ; and I profess , that in this whole narrative I can discover no standing miracle at all . Not to dwell on the latitude of the

    term angel , in Jewish phraseology , which meant wind and flame as often as any thing else , I see nothing here but a popular tradition , which the historian unaffectedly tells , as it was believed by the people . Not to mince the matter , we have a doubt throwja on the resurrection of Lazarus , It is " improbable in a very

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    high degree . " Why , so is the resurrection of Jesus . It is c < r not noticed * by any other writer ; " but other of the evangelists contain circumstances not noticed by John . As the resurrection of Lazarus

    affords the only practical confirmation of the assurance , that € < the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God , " John v . 25 ; or , that " God will raise us up by Je 3 iis , " 2 Cor . iv . 14 , I am really unwilling to deliver it into the

    hands of the misbelieving illuminati . 1 suppose the writer picked up the objections dropt by Woolston ; but I defy him to point out a narrative better circumstantiated , or more plainly stamped with the simplicity of historic truth . If this fact could be authenticated to

    his conviction , Spinosa avowed his readiness to " break in pieces" his own system . If this fact must be given up , there is an end of the matter . There can be no reason for believing or disbelieving the resurrection of

    Jesus , independent of the testimony of martyrdom , which will not equally apply to the resurrection of Lazarus . If we are to let this go , we may as well loose the whole thing at once , and lie down and moulder in the dust with the

    beasts that perish . If the resurrection of Lazarus fall , that of Jesus will fall with it ; and be it noted , that in this evangelist we have the most credible and immediate witness to the latter fact ; he who records it was personall y present at the sepulchre , and ate with Christ at the sea of Tiberias , after he was risen from the dead .

    It is remarkable that this most important and affecting record , which the Unitarians are desired to surrender , with so little ceremony , contains an unanswerable refutation of the deity of Christ : " Father ! I thank thee

    that thou hast heard me . And I knew that thou hearest me always /* John xi . 41 , 42 . In John is contained the specific and unequivocal declaration , that " The Father Is tfce only true God , " and that " Jesus is the Christ whom he hatji sent / 9 xvii . 3 . In John we find Christ ' s designation of himself as € C a man who

    * See a reason suggested for this in Lindsey ' s Sermon on the Resurrection of Lazarus . " Ser . ix . L 1 & 6 ,

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    670 The Canonical Gospels the support of Unitarian Christianity .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1820, page 670, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2494/page/42/