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portion is said to have been demonstrated by certain miracles. When asked on what the authority of the whole rests now, we reply THE SELF SAME MIRACLES AS THEN. The primitive teacher had to produce his gift of miracles; we have to prove that this gift was fairly displayed. The evidence of the miracles alone differs. The contemporary of a prophet or apostle was satisfied of the reality of the miracle by the exercise of his bodily senses; we must arrive at the same conclusion by the testimony of history. Our first step will therefore be, to show that we have sure grounds for asserting that these miracles have been actually wrought, precisely as related in our Scriptures; and the second, to deduce from their truth the divine authority of the doctrines they were intended to substantiate. The first point will be conveniently embraced under two propositions,

I. That the story we possess is the same story Chris, tians have had from the beginning.

II. That that story is true.

These two propositions will complete the first division of our argument. The second will lead us to discuss the subject of miracles, (and prophecy,) more at large, and their use in giving the stamp of divine authority to our faith,

There is a general argument that will comprise both the propositions of our first part; and on which I shall bestow a separate chapter, before entering on the subject of historical evidence. Its object will be to show, independently of all testimony, that this story must be true, because their is no assignable age in which it can have been invented, We shall then pursue the argument from testimony, taking these propositions successively under consideration. And while confining ourselves to this line of reasoning, the proof that the story we have now, is the same that Christians have had from the beginning, must depend solely and entirely on external evidence; that is, on the testimony of others, irrespective of any considerations arising from the internal marks of veracity the story itself may furnish, When we come further to elicit the truth of the story, we shall find our inquiry will not only lead us to the examination of outward and direct historical testimony; but a mass of circumstantial evidence will arise from the comparison of many incidents involved in the story with independent, indifferent, and often adverse authorities; and of its several

portions with each other. This kind of evidence always carries with it the greatest weight; and, when skilfully handled, is universally looked on as an infallible test of truth. It will therefore stand us in great stead; its absence in any case is to say the least suspicious; but when we find an accumulating preponderance of it crowding on our attention, and absolutely nothing to detract from the presumption it affords of truth, no impartial judge can hesitate to pronounce a favourable sentence. Whether such be the

case with the subject before us the reader must hereafter judge; an Advocate may not anticipate a verdict, however convinced of the soundness of the cause he pleads.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL PROOF OF THE IDENTITY AND TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN STORY.

Four rules for testing the truth of matters of fact.-Impossibility of forgery in the age to which a history belongs secured by the two first.-Examples.-The New Testament a contemporary and circumstantial narrative of public events.—It could not, therefore, have been invented in the age assigned to its story.-Nor in any subsequent age.-Illustrations of the two last rules.-Their application to Christianity;-in its sabbaths;-its clergy;-its sacraments. These rules not satisfied in other systems.— Concluding remarks.

The argument of the present chapter, as has been intimated, is purely general, and will be conducted on the principles set forth in four simple rules, that have been laid down to test the truth of matters of fact in general; and which I shall at once set down. They are:-

(1.) That the matters of fact be such that men's outward senses may be judges of them.

(2.) That they be done publicly in the face of the world.

(3.) That public monuments be kept, and outward acts performed, in memory of these facts.

(4.) That these be instituted and commence from the time the matters of fact were done.

The first two of these make it impossible to impose on men at the time when the facts are said to have happened; and the others will be found to extend the impossibility to every subsequent age. It must not, however, be understoood, that we consider no fact worthy of credit that has not all the marks, for, in reality, they meet in very few. What

we assert is, that, where all meet, the matter of fact in question cannot be false; and the converse of this will likewise hold good, that they cannot meet in any thing untrue. The ensuing remarks will be found to bear successively on each pair of these rules, and their application to the events recorded in the New Testament.

I shall hereafter take occasion to set before my reader the difficulties that lay in the way of a literary forgery, and the multiplicity of points on which it encounters the risk of exposure, even when availing itself of the adventitious obscurity flung around it by the lapse of ages. He will however at once see the impracticability of imposing on the world a history, representing itself as a record of passing or recent events, or a collection of letters perpetually alluding to such events, unless those events were real. For example, no one could, in the present year, pass off as true, a diary, purporting to contain a detail of the principal public occurrences of the year 1844, in London, in Calcutta, or Madras; or a series of letters founded on these occurrences, and continually alluding to them; these occurrences having never been witnessed or heard of by those living at the places during the time. Nor will the imposture be a whit more easy, if we imagine the diary to belong to the year 1840; 1835; or 1830. We may go back further yet, and allow an interval of thirty, forty, or even fifty years; for many thousands are still enjoying the full possession of their bodily and mental faculties, who at the most distant of these periods, had attained to man's estate and were fully competent to understand and judge of what was passing around them. We might perhaps safely extend this period, with reference even to events of no very extraordinary character, provided they were at the time of tolerable notoriety; but in the case of more engrossing objects of interest, it may obviously be much prolonged. There are still living many officers, and doubtless many more soldiers, who served at the seige of Seringapatam in 1799; and the two sieges of Bhurtpore în 1805, & 1826. It is needless to say that no man or boy old enough to serve in any capacity whatever at either of these heart stirring scenes, could ever so far forget what actually occurred as to be persuaded of the truth of any thing substantially clashing with what he himself then saw. could not for instance, be persuaded that General Lake com

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manded at Seringapatam; or General Harris at Bhurtpore; or that the British army was driven away from the former place; or succeeded, at the first siege, in storming the latter; or that either of these places were surrendered without a struggle. Still less could any writer now prevail on the British army to receive as authentic the accounts of these sieges, had they never happened at all. Those who have access to the public records of government, the men and officers still living, whose names are mixed up with the published narratives; the inhabitants of the localities where the events are said to have occurred; the whole British army; the whole of British India, nay, the whole civilized world, would surely forthwith unite to strangle the audacious imposture in its very birth. It will then, I think, be conceded that no serious attempt at forgery would ever be made, or if made, could ever succeed, in the age in which the facts involved in it are stated to have occurred; provided only they be of such a nature that, if true, they must have been notorious to all. It remains therefore only to examine whether the events recorded in the New Testament are of such a nature; and if so, it will follow that the story, if invented, could not have been invented in the age to which it purports to belong.

The books of the New Testament themselves profess to be contemporary with the events they relate. Thus one writer announces himself as "the disciple which testifieth of these things," (John xxi. 24.); and another, while he disclaims the authority of an eye witness, tells us that he was indebted for his information to those, who "from the beginning were eye witnesses and ministers of the word." (Luke i. 1-4.) And the Epistles from their nature must have been contemporary. The very name of a letter necessarily involves this idea; beside that those in our collection perpetually appeal to events as fresh in the recollection of those addressed, (1 Cor. i. 14-16, xv. 2. 2 Cor. xi. 9. xii. 12. Phil. iv. 15, 16.); and allude to past and passing incidents, and speak of future purposes, in a manner just such as we should expect in a correspondence carried on at the time. But this is immaterial to our present argument: we are now only concerned to show that they could not have been invented at the time assigned to the transactions they record; and this depends solely on the character of those transactions. It may assist us, however, to