But it is said that the Jews by their opposition deserved to be rejected; that the views of providence were changed; and that God no longer wished his chosen people should be converted. These answers are so many insults to the Divinity. How is it possible for men to withstand God? Is it not to deny the Divine Omnipotence to pretend that man can oppose its will? Man, it is asserted, is free; but must not a God who knew every thing, have foreseen that the Jews would abuse their liberty by resisting his will? In that case why send them his Son? Why make him suffer to no purpose an infamous and cruel death? Why not send him at once to creatures disposed to hear him, and render him homage? To pretend that the views of providence were changed, is it not to attack the divine immutability? Unless indeed it be said, that Deity had from all eternity resolved on this change; which, however, will not shelter that immutability.
Thus, in whatever point of view we contemplate the matter, it will remain a decided fact, that the resurrection of Jesus, far from being founded on solid proofs, unexceptionable testimony, and respectable authority, is obviously established on falsehood and knavery, which pervade every page of the discordant relations of those who have pretended to vouch it.
After having made their hero revive and show himself, we know not how often, to his trusty disciples, it was necessary in the end to make him disappear altogether--to send him back to heaven, in order to conclude the romance. But our story-tellers are not more in union on his disappearance than on other things. They agree neither as to the time nor the place of Jesus' ascension. Mark and Luke inform us, that Jesus after having shown himself to the eleven apostles while they were at table, and spoken to them, ascended into heaven. Luke adds, that he conducted them as far as Bethany; lifted up his hands and blessed them, and was afterwards carried up to heaven. Mark contradicts Luke, and makes Jesus ascend to heaven from Galilee: and as if he had seen what passed on high, places him on the right hand of God, who on this occasion yielded to him the place of honor. Matthew and John do not speak of this ascension. If we leave it to them, we must say, that Jesus is still on earth according to the first of these evangelists, his last words to his disciples gave them to understand, that he would "remain with them until the end of the world." To fix our ideas on this subject, Luke tells us, as we have seen, that Jesus ascended into heaven the very evening of the day of the resurrection. But he afterwards informs us, that Jesus tarried _forty days after his resurrection_ with his disciples. Faith only can extricate us from this embarrassment. John advances nothing in the matter; but leaves us in uncertainty as to the time which Jesus passed on earth after his resurrection. Some unbelievers on observing the romantic style of the gospel of this apostle, have concluded from the manner in which he finishes his history, that he meant to give free course to the fables which might afterwards be published about Jesus. He terminates his narrative with these words; "Jesus did also many other things, and if they should be written every one, I suppose, that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written:" and with this hyperbole, the well-beloved apostle finishes the Platonic romance which he made about his master.