EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY***
E-text prepared by Michael Madden
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY
by
WILLIAM PALEY, D.D.
A New Edition
London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street
1851
THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND
JAMES YORK, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF ELY
My LORD,
When, five years ago, an important station in the University of Cambridge awaited your Lordship's disposal, you were pleased to offer it to me. The circumstances under which this offer was made demand a public acknowledgment. I had never seen your Lordship; I possessed no connection which could possibly recommend me to your favour; I was known to you only by my endeavour, in common with many others, to discharge my duty as a tutor in the University; and by some very imperfect, but certainly well-intended, and, as you thought, useful publications since. In an age by no means wanting in examples of honourable patronage, although this deserve not to be mentioned in respect of the object of your Lordship's choice, it is inferior to none in the purity and disinterestedness of the motives which suggested it.
How the following work may be received, I pretend not to foretell. My first prayer concerning it is, that it may do good to any: my second hope, that it may assist, what it hath always been my earnest wish to promote, the religious part of an academical education. If in this latter view it might seem, in any degree, to excuse your Lordship's judgment of its author, I shall be gratified by the reflection that, to a kindness flowing from public principles, I have made the best public return in my power.
In the mean time, and in every event, I rejoice in the opportunity here afforded me of testifying the sense I entertain of your Lordship's conduct, and of a notice which I regard as the most flattering distinction of my life.
I am, MY LORD, With sentiments of gratitude and respect, Your Lordship's faithful And most obliged servant,
WILLIAM PALEY.
CONTENTS
Preparatory Considerations--Of the antecedent Credibility of Miracles.
PART 1.
OF THE DIRECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, AND WHEREIN IT IS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE EVIDENCE ALLEGED FOR OTHER MIRACLES.
Proposition stated
PROPOSITION 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 submitted, from the same Motives, to new Rules of Conduct.
CHAPTER I
Evidence of the Suffering of the first Propagators of Christianity, from the Nature of the Case.
CHAPTER II
Evidence of the Sufferings of the first Propagators of Christianity, from Profane Testimony.
CHAPTER III
Indirect Evidence of the Sufferings of the first Propagators of Christianity, from the Scriptures and other ancient Christian Writings.
CHAPTER IV
Direct Evidence of the same.
CHAPTER V
