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LECTURE XXVI.

CONCLUSION OF THE ENTIRE COURSE.

JOHN XX. 30, 31.

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

AFTER the statements made in the last Lecture, on the obligation of receiving the Christian Revelation, and the review there taken of the result of the argument from the internal evidences, nothing now remains for us but to retire back from this minute inspection, to such a comprehensive survey as may allow us to take in at once the distinct outlines of all the divisions of our subject, and observe how they severally harmonize, both in their various component parts and with each other; and then to conclude the whole of the great argument, by an address to the different classes of persons who may be supposed to be most interested.

But where shall we take our station to seize this point of view? After we have examined at so much length the different branches of the stream, and have paused at each examination to survey the scenes before

us, whither shall we ascend in order to catch the course and flow of the whole river?

Let us first view THE PROGRESS OF PROOF as it has been rolling down from its earliest rise, and been augmenting in its magnitude and force to the present hour. Let us then notice THE INCIDENTAL AND UNEXPECTED MANNER in which the flood has been increased. And, lastly, let us contemplate its actual volume, and THE POSITION IN WHICH WE NOW STAND as to the hopes of its visiting and fertilizing the whole earth.

I. Let us view the progress of proof AS IT HAS

BEEN ROLLING DOWN FROM ITS EARLIEST RISE TO THE PRESENT HOUR.

For observe how small and imperceptible is the first source of the stream. You scarcely distinguish its narrow thread. And yet trace its progress. It increases as it flows. In every advance the waters are augmented. From the original promise made to our first parents, to the present hour, the evidences of Revelation have been in progress. For six thousand years has our religion been before the world. The expulsion from Eden was accompanied by the first discovery of mercy. During the patriarchal age, when human life extended through centuries, truth was handed down by tradition, by the instituted sacrifices, and the consecration of the sabbath to religious worship. The call of Abraham, and the rite of circumcision, increase the means of knowledge to mankind. The Pentateuch is published, and consigns to a written record the history of primeval ages, and the doctrine of the fall and the promised recovery. The Mosaic miracles, the Mosaic redemption, the Mosaic Canaan, are proofs to a lost world of the true faith. Kings and prophets arise. The Jewish name and religion spread; and with them the evidences of Revelation.

The Babylonish captivity plants missionary prophets in the heart of the greatest Heathen monarchy. For seventy years the meek and courageous spirit of Daniel commends his God, his religion, his prophetic outlines of future mercy, to mankind. Before the birth of the Saviour himself, a fame pervades the world that some one, springing from the East, should govern the nations.

The apostles go forth and proclaim an universal religion. They carry the credentials with them, and attest the truth of the preceding dispensations of the Almighty, whilst they establish their own. The world is penetrated with the Christian evidences. Every nation is visited, warned, invited. During the lapse of three centuries, the miraculous propagation goes on, and becomes itself an additional proof to the following ages. The holy lives, and constancy unto martyrdom, of the apostles and their converts, silently provide further evidences. Constantine acknowledges the force of the rising religion, and Paganism is dethroned1 In the mean time, prophecy begins to unfold yet wider the roll of futurity, and each grand revolution in the fortunes of the church is found to have been foretold in her mystic pages. The character of the Messiah is more and more acknowledged. The dispersion and yet distinct preservation of the Jewish people, are a prophetic miracle. The persecutions of the Christian faith confirm the word of prophecy, and enlarge the proofs of its divine origin.

Apostacies arise in the east and west.2 Christianity seems to fade before the imposture of Mahomet, and the superstitions, tyranny, and idolatry of papal Rome. The spiritual church is driven into privacy; and she there discovers these very apostacies to have been largely delineated in the prophetic word; and she sees

1 A. D. 312.

2 At the commencement of the seventh century.

in the anti-christ, and the man of sin, and the apocalyptic visions, new evidences of the Christian faith.

With the revival of learning, the proofs of Revelation pour in with a fuller tide upon mankind, as an awakened curiosity and a widened sphere of observation open new channels. The Reformation springs forth and appeals to the divine records, collects fresh evidences, re-assumes truth, sweeps away the incumbrance of human tradition, exhibits Christianity to the faith and obedience of mankind. The lives and deaths of the Reformers, the effects of their doctrine, the accomplishment of the promised grace of Revelation in its operations upon the human heart, are appealed to, and place the evidences of Christianity in a new blaze of glory. What superstition and ignorance had wrought for ten centuries, is overthrown; and Christianity appears fresh, and vigorous, and sacred as at its first birth.

New opponents soon appear in the midst of Protestant Europe; or, rather, human corruption assumes a new form. Men arise who borrow from Christianity a purer creed as to the foundations of religion, and affect to be followers of natural light, and to believe in the being and government of God and a future judgment, but reject the claims of Christianity. Against the deist has the combat been since carried on; for Paganism has no defenders, and the corrupt religion of Rome admits the foundation of the Christian faith -and has occasioned a copious and masterly array of proofs for the conviction of every candid inquirer, and for the preservation of the young and unstable in the Christian church.

The tide has thus been swelling in each age, and is still rising; nor does there seem any other limits to the accumulation of Christian evidences, than those which exist as to the works of creation and providence.

3 The close of the fifteenth century.

You want no additional proofs there. The grand primary facts speak the glory of God. Yet each diligent and observant mind lights upon new phenomena, or combinations of phenomena, which confirm his previous belief. So it is in Christianity.

The evidences of Revelation have kept pace with the progress of the human mind under all circumstances, as well since the revival of learning as before. Its almighty Author has planted in it the seeds of endless development. Every branch of evidence belongs to a vast system of truth, fitted in different ways to the various understandings, characters, and stations of those to whom the gospel is offered. An argument is held out to every inquirer; to the scholar, who can make the whole of human learning tributary to his investigation; and the unlettered seeker after truth, who draws all his knowledge from his own heart and the sense of his own wants. The simplicity of the Bible in its evidences, conceals a depth of wisdom, a fund of principles, an extent of adaptation, which have only been more and more displayed as the progress of sound learning and just reasoning have given occasion for the examination. Every thing in human knowledge has fallen into its tide and aided its flow. Historical researches penetrate the most obscure recesses of past events, and pour their contributions into the Christian treasury. The studies of natural philosophy open new worlds of science, and prepare a wider bed for the divine religion.

4

The philosophy of mind at length admits all the foundations of our argument by confining itself to facts and experience, as her sister science has long

4

Verplank.

5 At this moment two instances occur to me: one in moral philosophy, the other in natural; which I cite merely as specimens. Mr. Locke's doctrine concerning the sources of ideas, has been generally admitted, though not without a secret suspicion that there must be something wrong in the phi