relation in the Acts of the Apostles. How could a writer in his senses attempt to pass it upon his readers, had it not been notorious that such things had actually occurred? The lapse of thirty years could not have so obliterated every recollection of that feast, or so swept the world of surviving witnesses, as to prevent the certainty that wherever this book should circulate, it would meet with persons capable of remembering or of ascertaining whether these things were so. Had not the fact of the apostles having spoken in the presence of thousands in various tongues been undeniable, witnesses innumerable would have arisen against the book that related it. Had no such event occurred, the Acts of the Apostles could have gone into no part of the world without finding those who would stand up and declare that they were at the feast referred to, and saw nothing and heard nothing of the marvellous things declared by its author. I say, therefore, the fact that the gospel history was received, loved, and read everywhere among Christians-that it has outlived all the withering of time, and all the weapons of enemies-that Jews could not gainsay it, nor heathens resist it-that eighteen centuries of scrutiny and trial have only added new assurance to its truth, is one which reduces the supposition of imposture to a perfect and ridiculous absurdity. Therefore was it not in the power of such modern infidels as Hobbes and Chub and Bolingbroke to deny the point in question. The last, not to quote from the others, speaking of John and Matthew, acknowledges that "they recorded the doctrines of

Christ in the very words in which he taught them; and they were careful to mention the several occasions on which he delivered them to his disciples or others. If therefore Plato and Xenophon tell us, with a good deal of certainty, what Socrates taught, these two evangelists seem to tell us, with much more, what the Saviour taught and commanded them to teach."

Here, I think, we may safely leave the question of credibility. So conclusive and certain have seemed to my mind the several consecutive arguments to which you have listened, that instead of feeling at each step as if any candid hearer would wait for additional proof, I have felt not unfrequently as if I were tiring your attention with an unnecessary accumulation. Why this heaping of argument upon argument, one may say, when from the very outset of the question, from the certain authenticity of the gospels, united with their internal evidence, we have a proof of credibility with which any rational mind should be perfectly satisfied? We acknowledge the reasonableness of the inquiry. If the history under consideration related to the life of Alexander the Great and his generals, instead of that of the meek and lowly Jesus and his apostles, who would think it necessary to go into all this detail of evidence to establish its truth? That it contained no internal marks of dishonestythat it was uncontradicted by contemporaneous writers and by other histories of the same times-that it had been received ever since as a true account, would be considered an ample warrant of its historical cor

rectness. Few, if any profane histories, can produce more positive proof of credibility than this. But try them by the scale on which the gospel history is measured; require them to present one half of the weight of evidence which infidels demand and Christians bring, in support of the sacred narrative, and you must exclude them from all claim to the confidence of their readers. We might speak of the unfairness of requiring so much more in proof of a history, merely because its character is sacred, and its facts are connected with religion. Whether the consequences deducible from an alleged fact be in the region of science, of morals, or of religion, is a question which has no connection with that of the amount of evidence necessary to its proof. Whether an evangelist be worthy of dependence when he relates the works of Jesus, is a question of testimony to be determined by the same degree of proof that should satisfy us as to the accuracy and honesty of any other writer, on any other subject of history. But we have no disposition to complain that so much has been demanded in evidence of the gospel narrative. It has only served to quicken the investigations of the friends of truth, and to exhibit with a more impressive assurance those great events on which all that is precious in a Christian's faith is founded. It has showed not only how amply, but how wonderfully the God of truth and grace has made the anchor of our hope to be sure and steadfast. It teaches how, in the hands of divine Wisdom, the wrath of man is made subsidiary to the praise of God-how the fiery darts of the

wicked are not only broken against the shield of faith, but made the means of increasing the light by which the Christian is guided, and often of carrying back confusion into the ranks of the enemy. It should lead the believer to adore with admiring gratitude the goodness of Him who, for the sake of those that love him, causes all the schemes and assaults of unbelievers to work together for good, making it more and more manifest, by the defeat of every new attack, that this is "the true light"—"the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Had we time, or were it needful to enter upon a particular view of the authenticity and credibility of the Old Testament volume, this would be the place for the argument; but we have room only to advert to it. The connection between the truth of the Christian Scriptures and that of the Jewish is so obvious and essential; the dispensation of Christ so continually assumes the divine authority of that of Moses, and is so evidently built on its foundations; the writings of the apostles so frequently quote and refer to the law and the prophets, as authentic, credible, and inspired Scriptures; the argument for the books of the Old Testament is so parallel in its mode and means to that for the books of the New; and the cavils of sceptics in relation to the former are so similar in objection, principle, and reasoning, to those with which they assail the latter, that in having established the authenticity and credibility of the one, we may be fairly said to have equally established, in

outline, the character of the other.

Certain we are,

that a man who is intelligently convinced of the authenticity and credibility of the New Testament, will not halt between two opinions as to the writings of Moses and the prophets, but will read them as assuredly the writings of those whose names they bear, and as deserving, in relation to all matters of fact, the character of credible Scriptures.