the truth. They were too wise to submit, in so important a matter, to bare authority, or simple affirmation. Some of the proofs, indeed, which were presented to them, being transient facts, cannot be subjected to the test of our senses; but, if it can be shewn, that such facts actually took place, the impression made upon our minds, though it may not equal in vivacity the impression made upon theirs, will be sufficiently strong to produce full conviction. The disadvantage, which may be supposed to arise from our not having witnessed the facts, is compensated by a new species of evidence, which is the result of the progress of time, and the evolution of events; but which it was impossible, that those, to whom the sacred books were first presented, could enjoy. The intelligent reader will easily perceive, that I allude to the evidence of prophecy.

The natural order of the books requires, that I should, in the first place, bring arguments in support of the inspiration of the Old Testament. But though this method might, with propriety, be adopted, and, by proving the inspiration of the Jewish, we would pave the way for proving that of the christian scriptures; yet it will afterwards appear, that, by beginning with the New Testament, we shall more easily and effectually accomplish our purpose.

In favour of the inspiration of the New Testament, there are three proofs, which I shall illustrate in this, and the following chapter. The first is drawn from the credit, which the verbal testimony of the apostles concerning Jesus Christ, obtained in the world; the second, from the reception of their

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writings; and the third, from the contents of those writings.

I. The inspiration of the New Testament may be inferred from the credit which the testimony concerning Jesus Christ, emitted by the writers in the course of their public ministry obtained. The design of the present argument is to shew, from the reception of their testimony, that they were accredited, attested messengers from God; and, by a natural and obvious inference, to demonstrate the divine authority of their writings. Its force will be more fully perceived from the subsequent illustration.

The apostles were competent witnesses of those facts which they attested, and on which the christian religion is founded. Their testimony did not relate to certain abstract points, in forming a judgment of which, they might have been misled by the sophistry of others, or erred through their own inadvertence or incapacity; nor to events, which had happened before their birth, or in a distant region of the earth, and of which, therefore, they might have received false information. It respected facts which they had witnessed with their eyes, and with their ears. They had lived with Christ, during the whole time of his ministry; they had heard all his discourses, and seen all his wonderful works. The advantages which they enjoyed for ascertaining the truth of those things, which they published to others, are pointed out by one of them in the following words : "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and

shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the father, and was manifested unto us :) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."* In certain cases, we refuse to give credit, even to a person of unimpeachable integrity, because he hath not had sufficient opportunity to acquire a thorough acquaintance with his subject; but if any man be disposed to call in question the testimony of the apostles, his doubts must spring from some other source than a well-founded suspicion of partial, or inaccurate intelligence. What they saw and heard,

they were fully qualified to relate.

The honesty of the apostles, in the character of witnesses to the truth of the christian religion, is not less evident than their competency. If none of those motives, by which men are induced to bear false witness, can be conceived to have influenced them; and if no satisfactory reason can be assigned for their conduct, but a conviction of the truth, he must be highly uncandid and unreasonable, who suspects their veracity. They were not prompted by a spirit of ambition, to form a scheme of immortalizing their names, by introducing a system of faith, to be established on the ruins of every other religion. Such a scheme was not likely to occur to persons so mean and illiterate; and, though their views had been more aspiring than their condition warrants us to suppose, they would have been deterred from seriously thinking of it, by the obvious impossibility of carrying it into effect. They were not stimulated by avarice; for they, who had already forsaken all to follow their Master, could not hope to gain wealth in

* 1 John i. 1, 3.

exchange, by a religion which taught men to despise it, and which few of the rich were likely to embrace. It was not the love of ease which allured them to submit to labours which had no interruption, to persecution in every city, to the scorn of the world, to imprisonment and death. They cannot be conceived to have acted from a mere wish to impose upon mankind; because deceivers would not have contrived the purest, the most sublime, the most benevolent religion, which the world ever saw ; a religion, by which all falsehood and imposture are forbidden under the penalty of everlasting torments. In short, to whatever motive we attribute their conduct, no rational account of it can be given, till we resort to the supposition, that they were fully convinced of the truth of what they declared. In this case, we can conceive them to have renounced all temporal goods and to have exposed them selves to all temporal ills, from an ardent and generous desire to communicate to their fellow men the inestimable blessings of the gospel; supported under all their toils and sufferings, by the assurance of supernatural aid, and animated by the hope of a glorious recompense. But if their testimony was not true, their conduct is inexplicable, unless they were madmen or enthusiasts; and of either of these charges, the system which they taught, and the whole of their deportment afford an easy and complete refutation. Madmen could not have devised a religion so full of wisdom and order, in which duties grow so naturally out of principles, and the various parts so admirably harmonize. Enthusiasts could not have talked so rationally on subjects so much calculated, as several topics in the gospel are, to inflame the imagination;

nor have delivered a rule of life so well adapted to the circumstances of mankind, and so far removed from any thing excessive or overstrained; nor have displayed zeal tempered with so much prudence ; nor have acted, on many trying occasions, with such uniform dignity and unruffled composure.

Notwithstanding these considerations, however, which might have satisfied those, whom the apostles addressed, of their integrity, and are sufficient to put to silence the lying lips of infidelity, which brings against them a charge of imposture, I hesitate not to assert, that their testimony would not have been believed, if they had not exhibited such evidence as demonstrated, that they acted by a divine commission; and, by necessary consequence, may convince us, that their writings were inspired. Let us attend to some of the principal facts which they attested, and of the doctrines which they founded upon them. They taught, that Jesus Christ, a man born of an obscure mother, who had lived in poverty, and died an ignominious death, was the Son of the Most High God; that having risen from the dead, he had ascended to heaven, and was now constituted the Lord of angels and men; that to believe in him was the only way to obtain the favour of God, and the enjoyment of eternal life; that men of all nations were bound to forsake the religion of their fathers, and embrace his gospel; and that at the close of time, he would appear in the clouds of heaven, raise the dead from their graves, and judge all mankind, according to their works. It may be added, that on these doctrines they reared a system of moral precepts, which, however agreeable to right reason, must be acknowledged to be extreme